I am a really lousy cook. I am not handy; I'm fairly certain my relatives laugh at me behind my back. And I did high school chemistry lots of years earlier. In short, a background which promise pain when studying organic chemistry.

I was so stressed in the lab, that when a small fire started between me and the exit (a student used a poor way of evaporating she'd learned in a previous course), I just thought "Ah, the fire extinguisher is by the exit with the other students, someone else can stop the fire, I'm too busy.". Luckily, someone did. (This fire was a minor scandal; could have really damaged the accident statistics.)

That said, the organic chemistry and lab work was incredibly fun and giving. It really surprised me that I loved the subject.

You needed protective covering, built interesting stuff, used vacuum to evaporate, boiled stuff in oil baths to get much higher than water temperature. You could read the "things I won't work with" blog ( http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with... ) and shudder at the FOOF formula.

Much more fun than biochemistry lab. Much more fun than sitting on a chair in front of a screen.

If I hadn't been sick (unknown food allergies and bacteria infection in a tooth, both of which made me tired), I might be a chemist today. I got through the course but had to quit later.

Edit: I might add -- my present back problems from sitting in front of a screen for decades might force me to an unpleasant/dangerous operation in ten years.

Edit 2: Half the reason I liked Org Chem was probably that the subject had to do with reality, it was such fun after just studying/working with totally abstract concepts my whole life.