Chapter 17 Lab 1: Taking Out the Trash and Conducting Experiments
morning.
It might sound a bit inhumane, but without your roommate's noise, you finally got a good night's sleep.
After whimpering in bed for a while, you rub your eyes and decide to get up.
You have a lab class tomorrow, which is going to be a big challenge for you.
Besides language, there's also professional knowledge. Even if you don't think about all the possible rules, just the various strange and wonderful instruments in the laboratory are enough to keep you busy studying for a while.
You open the door, and the air outside is getting colder every day. The temperature difference between indoors and outdoors makes you shiver, and then you happen to run into your new roommate who is coming out of the kitchen.
When your eyes met, she was clearly taken aback. After looking you up and down a few times, she realized what was going on.
Seeing her reaction, you realized even more that she was indeed an experienced veteran. Since she wasn't planning to talk to you any longer, you decided not to bother her.
After washing up, you were about to go to the kitchen to boil potatoes when a stench hit you. You looked helplessly at the public trash can and covered your nose.
Even though the temperature is so low and you haven't produced much food waste, your previous female and male roommates still left behind a full bucket of now fermented and smelly wet garbage.
The absence of insects is the last bit of kindness that winter in Germany gives you.
Lifting the lid of the trash can, you're truly amazed that these two people can actually keep everything.
A whole head of lettuce, with the discarded root taking up most of its volume; the wilted tomatoes and cucumbers you saw in the refrigerator are now lying in the trash can, soaking wet; the various cheeses the two of them bought by the box are covered in green mold and gleam with an eerie light.
It's no exaggeration to say that people from mainland China love to waste food. But to say they don't appreciate food is wrong, considering they're still eating bread that's been expired for days.
Sigh, anyway, judging by the looks of it, you'll have to clean up this mess.
You carefully gather the trash bag together, but before you can even lift it up, it rips and tears.
?
How disgusting!
You angrily open the little green book to see if you're the only one who's having this bad luck, until you find a bunch of people complaining about how easily biodegradable garbage bags for kitchen waste break, and you finally feel a little better.
A blogger sharing his life said that many Chinese people refuse plastic in order to uphold environmental protection, and even do not use plastic bags. They either use compost bins to deal with wet waste, or they dump the garbage directly into the garbage can, and when it is full, they take the can with them to the large wet waste bins provided by the municipality and wait for the garbage truck to process it.
Since that's the case, you stopped worrying about whether to try to get the sticky trash into a new garbage bag, pinched your nose, put on rubber gloves, and carried the bucket downstairs.
The large trash cans belonging to your building are hidden in the garden downstairs. Whether it's the landlord's personal taste or a requirement for community beautification, the trash cans are locked in iron cages that only residents can open. The cages are decorated with fake vines, so you really can't tell that there are trash cans inside unless you look closely.
There are four large trash cans in total: yellow for plastic waste, blue for paper waste, black for other waste, and brown for wet waste.
You remembered it perfectly, but even so, you still carefully read through the trash can classification labels posted next to you, just to avoid making a mistake.
Your height is average in the Flower Kingdom, and not short here either, but it's still a bit difficult to lift a household trash can and dump trash into a large trash can that's only up to your chest.
Just as I was busy adjusting the angle, a rustling sound came from behind me.
It comes from that brown trash can with its lid wide open right in front of you.
Before you could even look closely, the trash in your hand had already flowed out with a whoosh, and at the same time you heard a barely audible "click".
The once ordinary trash can suddenly seemed to come alive; its surface began to wriggle, as if something was about to emerge from its cocoon.
With the mindset of quickly emptying the trash and leaving, until you have no more weight in your hands, you throw the household trash can aside and dodge to the side to see what's going on.
A thin crack slowly appeared on the side of the trash can, like a huge, twisted smile. From the crack, a pale face slowly emerged.
His face was so pale it was almost transparent, and the bulging veins beneath his skin were faintly visible.
This is a typical Chinese face you've never seen before, yet inexplicably feel like you see it everywhere, except the eyes are disproportionately large, pitch black, and devoid of any light. Thin, cicada-wing-like lips are slightly parted, revealing a row of neat, smoky yellow teeth.
Your legs feel weak, but you know you haven't done anything wrong, and this anomaly may not be targeting you.
Even in the worst-case scenario, you wouldn't want to miss any opportunity to gather information, since you might have to take out the trash more than once in the future.
You stand there, and that face stares straight at you, neither speaking nor blinking. Its gaze is cold and scrutinizing, as if judging your every move. You stare back without flinching.
Just then, more creaking sounds came from the other three large trash cans, and three other strange faces, regardless of age or gender, that looked alike peeked out from different cracks.
They all stared at you, and you noticed that they were all wearing identical suits except for the color of the lapel badges, like some kind of uniform.
Suddenly, the three who had peeked out from behind stopped looking at you and focused their attention on the first one. The first one then turned around, leaned against the edge of the large trash can, bent over, and began rummaging through the trash can for something.
Wait, no way?
You suddenly realize they are checking if your garbage sorting is correct.
The little fear you felt to begin with now turned into a ridiculous sense of absurdity. You almost burst out laughing, but the moment you cracked a smile, they immediately turned their serious, sour faces and stared at you sideways.
The laughter turned into a low sob in your throat, and you cleared your throat.
Finally, as the first "person" gave you a thumbs up for your garbage sorting, the other "people" began to slowly back away.
They slowly retreated into the crack, like scare stickers being taken back from a gift box. The surface of the trash can became smooth again, as if nothing had happened.
LOL.
Shaking your head, you go back into the building. The uniform of the local municipal inspector that you just found on your phone screen flashes briefly before you turn it off.
Boil the potatoes until cooked, then dip them in salt and swallow them whole, skin and all, to start your day of studying.
As usual, we'll learn the linguistics first, followed by tomorrow's lab class.
You seem to be studying applied chemistry now, and the books you borrowed from the library are confusing to you, while the lesson plans sent by professors from the school system are much easier to understand.
The course is called Daily Cosmetics Manufacturing, and what we'll be doing tomorrow is basically making essential oil soap.
You thought of that boy in the supermarket back then. It's unbelievable, why are Chinese people so obsessed with soap?
Memorize the vocabulary from the course repeatedly, and then memorize the entire lesson plan. Go to sleep and get plenty of rest.
the next day.
Make sure you wear warm clothes that allow for easy movement, in case something goes wrong and you need to be able to escape easily.
Goggles, white coat, ballpoint pen.
All the equipment mentioned online and listed in the course instructions has been prepared.
You headed to school with a bit of trepidation.
Universities in this country are divided into two types: one is specialized universities that offer fewer majors, while the one you are attending is the other type—a comprehensive theoretical university.
This university has a long history, with colleges scattered throughout the city, and the laboratory you are going to is in an old building that is nearly a hundred years old.
The building's imposing exterior, aside from the newly constructed survival tunnel on the outermost layer, reveals poor lighting and ventilation inside. Even if you're a humanities student, you can't help but wonder if this building is really suitable for conducting chemistry experiments.
Once you find your classroom, you'll see a group of students waiting outside the lab. They've all changed their clothes and are chatting in small groups.
There were about 20 people, including you, who were from out of town, making a total of 8 people. Judging from their appearance and demeanor, they should all be from China.
Perhaps due to the unique nature of the situation, both novices and veterans will likely have to work together to conduct experiments. And most people would prefer to be with their own people rather than be grouped with locals.
So everyone huddled together cautiously, not saying a word (mainly because they couldn't), but just being together seemed to give them a greater sense of security.
At 9 o'clock, the teaching assistant, who looked to be about the same age as you, arrived on time.
The students swarmed into the classroom, especially the locals, pushing all the outsiders to the back.
Once inside the lab-convertible classroom, they surrounded the teaching assistants who were standing in front of the blackboard. Apart from a few tall boys, the girls, who were outsiders, could only see the edge of the blackboard.
To be honest, you thought this kind of crowded situation only happened in a densely populated country like Korea. It seems that human nature is the same everywhere.
Whatever, most people here can't understand the teaching assistant's lecture anyway. Instead of wasting time pretending to listen, I might as well review the lesson plan a few more times.
Your phone vibrated; someone had sent a video to everyone via Bluetooth.
Upon clicking, I found it was a teaching video for the same subject on a water pipe website.
That's clever of you; I really hadn't thought of preparing like this before. Mainly, you genuinely believed that these kinds of educational resources weren't available for free here, so naturally you didn't consider this a possibility.
After everyone looked up at each other, exchanged knowing smiles, hid their phones in their books, and began to study on their own, no one knew who had shared the video.
The Indian teacher in the video explained things very thoroughly, and also clearly demonstrated the precautions for the chemical instruments needed. You felt much more confident, and just then, the teaching assistant's explanation seemed to have ended.
She started calling out everyone's names, about to divide everyone into groups.
As the students whose names were called left one by one, you realized that the teaching assistant seemed to be dividing the students into groups according to their race.
Besides the eight of you foreign visitors, there are actually three local Asians here, but they were all saved for last and grouped with you.
You're in the last group, which is a mixed blessing. There are three people in your group. Besides you, the other two are local Asians.
After bumping fists, you followed your two serious chemistry student teammates to your team's small table.
In fact, they seemed certain from the beginning that they couldn't communicate with you, so even if they were friendly, they wouldn't actually talk to you or assign you any tasks. They would just move the equipment around, disassemble and reassemble it, and handle the chemicals on their own.
You followed them somewhat helplessly, feeling a little uneasy.
You've really learned the experiment, but you just can't seem to get involved. So just ignore it and keep busy with your hands; basically, you're moving the beaker to the left and the test tube rack to the right.
Even though you're busy doing nothing, at least you look like you're getting things done.
It was almost noon, and the soap was bubbling in the heater when your two teammates finally spoke to you for the first time, asking if you wanted to go eat.
You felt it wasn't safe to leave like this, especially since you hadn't contributed much to the experiment. So you slowly expressed, "I'll stay here and watch. You guys go eat. It's okay."
The two women exchanged a glance and patted you on the shoulder: "This will take a while to heat up, it's okay, let's go eat together."
One of the boys pointed to a local in another group who seemed to be on good terms with him and said with a smile, "This is my brother... he helped us... let's go eat..."
He said a lot, but that's what you understood directly. The meaning seems clear, but you still take out your phone and ask him to say it again to be sure of his meaning.
He gave a smile that was hard to decipher, took your phone, and typed in the translator: "He'll be watching. Let's hurry up and go eat."
"Oki." You nodded.
You remember the lab rules said that someone must stay behind to monitor the reaction during the experiment. Since someone else is watching, there shouldn't be any mistakes, right?
Besides, you're in the same group as these two locals from Yazhou. If anything goes wrong, everyone will be punished together. Why would they want to harm you?
Your stomach rumbled at just the right moment. You followed them to the cafeteria.
The cafeteria here didn't exceed your expectations at all.
Let alone the university cafeterias in the flower country, where there are five, six, seven or eight cafeterias on a campus, and each cafeteria has one, two or three floors. Here, there is just a simple hall with a few windows offering a few dishes.
Of course, there is also a self-service vegetable selection area. At first glance, you'll see that it's basically a vegetable meeting and a snack gathering.
After queuing up to get a serving of sauerkraut pork chop and potato balls, you also picked up some salad and a small dessert. Like paying at a supermarket, you and your two teammates found a corner to sit down and start eating.
Before you could even cut a piece of meat and put it in your mouth, you heard a series of satisfied sighs around you. Looking at the two elegant women in front of you, they also seemed to be enjoying their meal very much.
Is it really that delicious?
You eagerly put the food into your mouth.
Well.
If you haven't tasted a proper German restaurant at the foot of the Zugspitze, you might think German cuisine is just some kind of bland, tasteless mess. But now, all you want to say to these students is:
Eat something good, you Chinese.
It was so salty and tasteless that the potato balls were just choking bits. Better to get it over with quickly than suffer for a long time, you swallowed the food as fast as you could, got up first, and went to put the plate back in the recycling area.
However, you did not go back to your seat to wait for your two teammates.
In the lab, the male teammate's so-called best friend, upon seeing his teammate return, silently switched places with her.
And you are sneaking in through the back door.
I just happened to take over the management of your group's instruments.
I didn't know until I came back that the magnetic heating stirrer had been turned off by someone at some point, and the beaker was full of flocculent precipitate.
With a mocking smile, you follow the tutorial and get everything set up.
Snap!
An old woman stormed in.
But the moment I saw you, my anger froze on my face.
"Are you here?" she asked.
“They’re eating. I’m watching the equipment,” you said slowly, pronouncing each word perfectly.
"Good. Well done." The old woman laughed heartily, pretending to check on your group's experimental progress, and patted you on the back with seemingly affectionate words.
You also put on a humble and obedient act, as if you were ready to learn.
Only you know how much cold sweat you broke out in!
This old lady is clearly the professor from the library.
A note from the author:
----------------------
Good afternoon! Tiger just got back from Europark, I thought it was a lot of fun, hehe. If you're going to study in Europe, don't miss it!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
