Odors Good & Bad

It's only been a couple weeks, and the semester is already kicking my butt. Clearly I wasn't thinking when I registered for 5 classes, all of which have online components. However, I haven't fallen behind yet. I'm even able to get all my homework done during the week so I can have fun and relax on the weekends. Anyways, it's still been a good semester so far. I had a fun chem lab today, minus the first half of the lab that stunk like rotten cheese. We messed around with hydrocarbons today. We were creating esters, which usually have pleasant odors. They are created by combining foul/rotten smelling carboxylic acids and sour smelling alcohols. We had to "waft" the odor of all the substances and record the descriptions. After smelling only 2, I had a headache. The worst was rotten cheese. I have never smelt something so bad before! Luckily, the lab started to smell a little bit better after the reactions took place. The esters smelled fruity. There was banana, pineapple, pear, orange, wintergreen, and brandy. Yes, one of the odors we created was that of brandy. My dad was pretty proud of me when I told him that I recognized the odor with thanks to him. My chem teacher got a kick out of it too.

On a different note, my health class has me keeping daily food and physical activity logs. I'm hoping to be eating healthier and being more physically active by the end of the semester. I've done one weekly log of each so far. I'm not consuming too many more calories than what's recommended for me, but recording is definitely making me think about what I eat. It's crazy to see how many calories are in some foods. It's making me more aware of what I'm eating, which is a good thing. I'm already down 1 pound too! After all the shoveling I did this morning, I wouldn't be surprised if I lost another pound. We'll find out tomorrow during my weekly weigh-in.