MY FAVOURITE THINGS
From the Musical "The Sound of
Music"
Original Words and Music by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II
Radicals and SN2 substitutions,
Kc expressions and buffer solutions,
Haworth projections of pyranose rings -
These are a few of my favourite things!
Manganate (VII) that looks like Ribena,
Models of membranes made out of pipe-cleaners,
Programmes on CHIME about haemoglobin -
These are a few of my favourite things!
Weird fruity smells from esterification,
Reflux condensers and redox titrations,
Dichromate (VI) when it’s oxidising -
These are a few of my favourite things!
Standard electrodes, cell statements, salt bridges,
Benzene in petrol, CFCs in fridges,
NMR spectra and nuclear spin -
These are a few of my favourite things!
Born-Haber cycles and mole calculations,
Rate laws and stoichiometric equations,
Maxwell and Boltzmann and Hess and Pauling -
These are a few of my favourite things!
Transfers of protons in acids and bases,
Eluants, solvent fronts, stationary phases,
Lock-and-key models and chymotrypsin -
These are a few of my favourite things!
Beta-D-glucose and glycine and valine,
Loud orange azo dyes and phenolphthalein,
Complexes with transition metals in -
These are a few of my favourite things!
Bright-coloured flame tests of alkali metals,
Aldehydes, ketones and hemiacetals,
Enzyme cofactors and B vitamins -
These are a few of my favourite things!
Teflon and Terylene and polystyrene,
DNA helices, guanine and thymine,
Islets of Langerhans and insulin -
These are a few of my favourite things!
Ether and NaBH4 reductions,
Van der Waal’s forces and semi-conduction,
Bending vibrations when bonds stretch like springs -
These are a few of my favourite things!
Stereochemical isomerism,
Kinetics, catalysts, and mechanisms,
Metal hydroxides precipitating -
These are a few of my favourite things!
© Aimee Hartnell, March 2000