Soap is repulsive...

When mixed with water and pepper anyway...
So, what I'm basically saying is that soap spreads on the surface of the water due to the fact that it has both polar and nonpolar poles. This pushes the pepper to the edges. Observe below:

BEHOLD!
So yeah soap is repulsive to pepper. When it's just water and soap, the soap gently floats to the bottom of the cup and then mixes in of sorts.

The yellow tint around the edges is the soap.

Three Questions: The Sequel of the sequel of the sequel of the sequel to the Nth power

What have I done or learned lately? *Inhales deeply for long exposition* ....I got nothin. I could say I learned I'm horrible at taking tests, and that I love Celtic music, but I kind of knew that before. I have been working with the theater on stuff for the Beauty and the Beast musical (performances are in Mid-March, more details on the way) but, being cast as the wardrobe, I just stand there and recite lines with my arms at uncomfortable angles. Honestly, I can hardly even walk in the darn costume. Oh and I'm too tall for it, which means I crouch over more than the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

What am I going to do? Go to the library sometime in the near future and return books. Teach myself how to play the bagpipes and figure skate simultaneously. Take over the world. Finish test corrections and do online Government assignments. And hopefully not spontaneously combust.

Have a nice day everybody!

GRAS: Generally Regarded as Satirical

I kid, I kid. GRAS stands for "Generally Regarded as Safe."

On an absolutely unrelated note which will in no way connect to anything later, there are seven basic food dyes: FD&C Blue No. 1 & 2 (Brilliant Blue FCF and Indigotine), FD&C Green No. 3 (Fast Green FCF), FD&C Red No. 40 & 3 (Allura Red AC and Erythrosine), FD&C Yellow No. 5 & 6 (Tartazine and Sunset Yellow FCF), and Chanel No. 05 (Aubazine).

GRAS standards classify food dyes as: "...any dye, pigment, or other substance that can impart color to a food, drug, or cosmetic or to the human body." (http://www.fda.gov/ForIndustry/ColorAdditives/RegulatoryProcessHistoricalPerspectives/#) It is regulated by individual regulations for each dye. Products that don't comply are subject to enforcement action (recalls, legal actions, etc.), even for only a small amount. The seven food dyes mentioned before (which still don't pertain to anything) are okay-ed by the FDA  for use in "Foods generally." (http://www.fda.gov/ForIndustry/ColorAdditives/RegulatoryProcessHistoricalPerspectives/#) The history of dyes is a rich one, dating back to ancient Rome when dyes for clothing and cosmetics were collected from various plants and, in the case of Tyrian purple (named for the city of Tyre where it was first recorded), shellfish. The celts around the same time period again used plants for war paint and fabric dye. The ancient chinese used vibrant silks as a status symbol, but the poor were mostly stuck with browns and greens, in any culture. Dyes were then used in clothing and cosmetics constantly. In 1856, William Henry Perkin discovered the first synthetic dye, and orange color he called mauve (otherwise known as aniline). (http://www.straw.com/sig/dyehist.html) Federal oversight of dyes began in the 1880s, and in 1960 the Color Additives Amendments, later known as GRAS, were put in place. These stated that dyes would be put on a provinional list and only placed on a permanant list when scientifically deemed safe dor human use or comsumption. (http://www.fda.gov/ForIndustry/ColorAdditives/RegulatoryProcessHistoricalPerspectives/#) The GRAS regulations pertain to food as they are responsible for what goes into an average American's meal.

FD&C Blue No. 2 from www.chm.bris.ac.uk

 

FD&C Blue No. 1 from medicinescomplete.com

FD&C Green No. 3 from wikipedia

FD&C Red No. 40, also from wikipedia

FD&C Red No. 3, again from wikipedia

FD&C Yellow No. 5... from (all together now,) wikipedia

FD&C Yellow No. 6, from thearubigin.blogspot.com for a change.

Chanel No. 5 from smithandbrandon.wordpress.com because I could.
Also Aubazine is a convent where Coco Chanel lived in her teenage years with nuns.

Combined 3 questions lab... so... 6 questions lab?

10/4/13:

• What did we do this week?

• What did we learn?

• What are we going to do?

This week was the week of redox reactions, and we also covered titrations (if memory serves). I learned ...about redox reactions. Really, nothing much stands out about that week but homecoming, and I only remember that because I forgot to wear a fancy hat that Tuesday.

11/1/13:
Three questions about the past few weeks. 
Well, theater has been sucking what little life I have left, between Fright Fest, Nora's Lost, and Farmington one act festival (state champs yay sleepy time now). Reading Crime and Punishment in AP Lit has been interesting, if a little hard to follow occasionally. French is... french. C'est bien, mais ca n'est pas facile ("It's good, but it isn't easy" for the non-polyglots out there). The Common Application for colleges has been kicking my glutes every which way, and I still fail to see how the year my mom graduated is relevant. 
What have I learned recently? Arabic, I suppose. And chemistry stuff, but that bit's obvious. I've been a bit too busy to retain anything lately, but one-act is over, so that should tone down a bit. Theoretically.
What do I plan to do now? Catch up on my rest when I'm not in my French class (desolee, Madame). Still working on balancing life and school, especially in the creative area. I haven't heard the click of keyboard as I type out cheesy stories at one A.M. enough lately. I miss posting cringe-worthy fanfiction on the internet. [insert overly dramatized sigh here].

Really Late Sticky Situation Lab

Yeah this was due last Friday. I swear I will smack my forehead with some form of heavy book later. Right now I need all my brain cells to do this blog. So, without further ado, A Sticky Situation, The Blog.

• Review the definition and process of solubility and solvation

• What are intermolecular forces?

• What role do these forces play in solvation? 

• Why is the phrase "like dissolves like" employed to explain differences in solubility?

Solubility: Basically how easily something breaks down and is absorbed into another substance.
Solvation: The ionic attraction of molecules (while in a solvent) to other molecules.
Intermolecular forces are the forces of attraction and repulsion betwixt molecules, as indicated by the "inter-" in the name. 
IMFs affect solvation because they decide the strength between molecules, similar to how they affect the boiling point of various chemicals.
"Like dissolves like" is used to explain differences in solubility because, to be brief, solutions will dissolve solutions with similar structures. 

Three Questions

What tasks have you completed recently?
The AP Chem class did a Molar Volume of a Gas lab on Thursday. Due to circumstances, I had to wait until lunch to do the lab, but I did manage to finish both the lab and my food, so I consider it a success.

What have you learned recently?
I have learned Avogadro's Law (P1 times V1 over T1 equals P2 times V2 over T2) and Combined Gas Law (P times V over T equals k). I also remembered the meaning of STP (Standard Temperature Pressure, or 0 degrees Celsius and 1 atm).

What are you planning on doing next?
I am planning on finishing up the lab report's last few questions and then doing the other online homework. Then I move on to English and an essay on Oedipus. Yay.

Actively Determining Activities

In the lab of determining an activity series, we basically observed how different metals reacted with each other. Magnesium was the most reactive, (Four out of four reactions), followed by Zinc (Three out of four reactions), with Iron and Copper duking it out for third (Both got one out of four) and Silver coming in last by a nose (None out of four).
The reactions observed were all redox reactions. This means the reactants exchanged electrons, like so:

Zn (s) + Cu (2+, aq) 

This means Zinc is solid, and Copper has a two positive charge and is aqueous, for those of us who don't speak chemistry. It turns into this:

Zn (2+, aq) + Cu (s)

The Zinc is now aqueous, with a two positive charge, and the Copper is now solid.