A Worm to Remember.

My first dissection in Bio lab this week. It was the earthworm (Annelida) and I would've done it in grade 11 biology had I not gone off to do something I couldn't remember....... reichiru missed it too... was it some math contest?
I find that I muchly prefer live earthworms than dead ones. I haven't touched a live earthworm in years- I wonder why.. maybe I've started spending less time in the garden?- and so it was nostalgic to watch my worm feel its way around on my palm. I used to pick earthworms up from sidewalks or pavements and search for grass patches to deposit them on, because I was scared they'd get run over, or squished, or dried by the sun, or get so uncomfortable trying to find their way on the gritty concrete.
Anyways, I had to put my earthworm back in the container of dirt because it was time to dissect a dead one. And ugh it was so creepy! I approached a plastic rectangular tub with "Dirty Pipettes" scribbled on it, but inside was a bunch of long, pale, and perfectly straight worms floating in what looked like water, but it smelled so bad! How do they get the worms to be so straight?! Like pipecleaners! And I had to reach into the liquid with gloves on, and pick one out. It felt rubbery and it was still straight (it could bend naturally, like Twizzlers, though)..... anyways, it still smelled bad throughout the whole dissection.\
There're a few more dissections coming up, ending with a rat for the last bio lab of this term. I'm not quite sure what I feel about that right now..... I mean, I've touched and seen many dead rats and mice in various states, and I've even cut them up, along with quails aplenty. Damn, volunteering at OWL really desensitized me to them...

On another note, I'm glad for high school Bio 11 and 12... The first 10 lectures, which was what the midterm was on, was practically Bio 11 all over again. Almost everything on these lectures was covered in high school. Protists, bacteria, fungi, plants (algae, ferns, gymnosperms, angiosperms), plant life cycles, transport, and structure, evolution...... What do the people at UBC learn in first year bio, I wonder?