Student contest

One of our winning entries....

Ode to Tenure

Brian Kendall and Mike Keiderling
Evanston Township High School, Evanston, IL

Hi. We are juniors and we wrote this song last year for a chemistry project. It got a perfect score so we thought it must be good. Many people we know found it quite funny so we hope you enjoy it. We like music and science!!!!! We are also both the children of college professors!

Ode To Tenure (Original)

One day when working in my lab
I was working with hydrocarbons
I was bubbling methane through butane
ughhxhqhg that was really dumb
There was a nasty problem with the Bunsen burner
giving my beaker a jab
The result got me C02 and water
And significantly less of a lab

Refrain:

I just can't avoid it
It keeps happening to me
My equipment won't survive
My experimenting
Whatever I make
keeps reacting with oxygen
Everything I do
will result in combustion!

After that, I got more equipment
With university funds
That same day, I made salts ( scary voice: Potassium nitrate! )
and I made tons
In the meantime, I had unlabled beakers
Which happened to be sulfer and carbon
Before remembering what gun powder was
I got a lot of combustion

Refrain

Confused elephant says: This line isn't really in the song!

The third time it happened was a lot stinkier
When I was trying to cook a snack
I was reheating some cake on a bunson burner,
left the room, and forgot to come back
When I came back in, the first thing I observed
Was the fresh pine smell had gone
What was left, with the water and C02
was a big smoking pile of carbon

All this got everyone really mad
And it continued all throughout the year
The university board was ready to kick me out
But it's a good thing Iíve got tenure
Itís clear to me now to avoid combustion
Itís a battle that I'll never win
Which is why I'm trying to get a grant
To work with nitro glycerin

OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! REJECTED!!

Refrain x2

Crash