I (REALLY) Heart Chemistry

You may have seen the Instagram photo of my new BeEr glasses.  They were a present from Santa this year.  He apparently gets my dorky side and also understands my love of beer.  With these glasses I can fulfill both my need to look like a geek as well as my need for beer.

If you are new to the blog, you can see my favorite song about the science of beer here. 
Or you can check out my creative science nerdiness here and here.

This brings me to yesterday when I was sitting with a group of med students, one named Timothy and one named Coy.  I remarked that you could spell both of their names using the periodic table of elements.  Timothy is Ti (Titanium) Mo (Molybdenum) Th (Thorium) and Y (Yttrium).  Coy is spelled quite simply using Carbon, Oxygen and Yttrium.  They said that that had never dawned on them.  I said that it was because I taught Chemistry that my mind immediately can think of all those symbols and makes the connections to names when I meet people.  Coy looked at me and said, "I have taught Chemistry for the last 6 years and it has never once occurred to me that I could spell my name with those three elements."

Maybe I am the only one...