Today bio society/ biosoc/ RSBS did dissections. The first was a frog(actually, i don't know if it was a toad, the skin was kind of rough). My group, by chance, got a female frog which was heavily pregnant with eggs. There were many instances when i felt that i did the frog wrong. When we first started, we were supposed to open the mouth. The frog's mouth then proceeded to pulsate, as though the organism were still alive. I really hope it wasn't because i don't think it would be very pleasent to cut it up(messily) and disembowel it, etc while it was still alive. Ouch. It was supposed to be dead after chloroform, though. I pray that it was really dead because it weighs heavily on my conscience. It feels as though i did the poor creature wrong.
After flipping the frog on its backside, every time we tried to cut its skin the frog's abdomen tensed.
Then i accidentally cut a major artery at the left side of the frog and blood welled out and pooled beneath the skin.
Then another senior (J2) accidentally ruptured the blood vessel supplying blood to the eggs. There were many black-and-white eggs and i feel really, really heartless for depriving so many lives from being lived. (*sobs*)
Then we dug around in the frog's innards, pulling out the many loops of small intestine, the brownish coloured colon, which was somehow inflated to an almost gross extent (supposed to be 2mm, but it looked more like 1cm to me), the gallbladder(i think), the beating heart. And after the sheep's eye dissection we tried cracking the frog's skull to see the brain and attached nervous system but the bone refused to budge. Hence someone slipped a scissorblade in, and snipped. Some red liquid came out. I suspect it contained a portion of the brain. And in the end, we didn't manage to see the brain.
Finally, after the sheep's eye dissection, which involved snipping away alot of fats, we disposed of the frog in the rubbish bin. I saw it sticking out behind a black plastic bag, and i turned away quickly and said sorry under my breath. I guess i can see why the ethical debate over religion and science is such a hot topic. But in the end, i suppose that both can be melded together. Scientists can have religion too, even though i don't. i simply feel that the way we mutilated the frog was just too cruel and we did it a disservice. Once again, i hope the frog doesn't blame it against me (even though it can't exactly convey it's displeasure to me, if it was).
When i came home i once more walked past the latest condominuim being developed. The stench was as usual unbearable, that of oil mixed with car exhaust and concrete dust and other odours drifting from the construction site. And i reminiscenced. It wasn't that long ago when what the new condo is standing on used to be a beautiful windy grassy field with a very large, very old banyan tree in the middle; and before that, a bus terminal, or so my parents say to me. It's just so sad when you see the trees being converted to a concrete jungle at breakneck speed, the old being forsaken for the new. Of course, change does occur, and must occur in order for further development of the country, but at times we need to conserve such spaces to serve as a link back to our younger days, or Singapore's younger days.
Sometimes, i just feel so weary, an old head on a young body, as though the world was spinning really quickly and i couldn't catch up. The hardest part is when you are like me, having a less-than-optimal memory. Once the grassy field vanished from my sight, i have now conveniently forgot how the plot of land used to look like. When you try to leave the old for the new, sometimes you can't catch up and whatever you had originally is rendered void.
This will become a pressing problem in future, when the younger generation who have never, ever touched their original culture take over from the ageing citizens who are currently holding the fort now for jobs that younger people do not want to be in, such as operation of the ferries from Pulau Ubin to mainland Singapore.
After flipping the frog on its backside, every time we tried to cut its skin the frog's abdomen tensed.
Then i accidentally cut a major artery at the left side of the frog and blood welled out and pooled beneath the skin.
Then another senior (J2) accidentally ruptured the blood vessel supplying blood to the eggs. There were many black-and-white eggs and i feel really, really heartless for depriving so many lives from being lived. (*sobs*)
Then we dug around in the frog's innards, pulling out the many loops of small intestine, the brownish coloured colon, which was somehow inflated to an almost gross extent (supposed to be 2mm, but it looked more like 1cm to me), the gallbladder(i think), the beating heart. And after the sheep's eye dissection we tried cracking the frog's skull to see the brain and attached nervous system but the bone refused to budge. Hence someone slipped a scissorblade in, and snipped. Some red liquid came out. I suspect it contained a portion of the brain. And in the end, we didn't manage to see the brain.
Finally, after the sheep's eye dissection, which involved snipping away alot of fats, we disposed of the frog in the rubbish bin. I saw it sticking out behind a black plastic bag, and i turned away quickly and said sorry under my breath. I guess i can see why the ethical debate over religion and science is such a hot topic. But in the end, i suppose that both can be melded together. Scientists can have religion too, even though i don't. i simply feel that the way we mutilated the frog was just too cruel and we did it a disservice. Once again, i hope the frog doesn't blame it against me (even though it can't exactly convey it's displeasure to me, if it was).
When i came home i once more walked past the latest condominuim being developed. The stench was as usual unbearable, that of oil mixed with car exhaust and concrete dust and other odours drifting from the construction site. And i reminiscenced. It wasn't that long ago when what the new condo is standing on used to be a beautiful windy grassy field with a very large, very old banyan tree in the middle; and before that, a bus terminal, or so my parents say to me. It's just so sad when you see the trees being converted to a concrete jungle at breakneck speed, the old being forsaken for the new. Of course, change does occur, and must occur in order for further development of the country, but at times we need to conserve such spaces to serve as a link back to our younger days, or Singapore's younger days.
Sometimes, i just feel so weary, an old head on a young body, as though the world was spinning really quickly and i couldn't catch up. The hardest part is when you are like me, having a less-than-optimal memory. Once the grassy field vanished from my sight, i have now conveniently forgot how the plot of land used to look like. When you try to leave the old for the new, sometimes you can't catch up and whatever you had originally is rendered void.
This will become a pressing problem in future, when the younger generation who have never, ever touched their original culture take over from the ageing citizens who are currently holding the fort now for jobs that younger people do not want to be in, such as operation of the ferries from Pulau Ubin to mainland Singapore.
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