I take an overly cautious approach the first time I do something.  And I try to build in room for error, like I'll put a tub under in case the contents spill over for reactive stuff, or have a wet towel handy when working with gasses.

You just have to read a lot of forum threads.  You'll be able to see all the mistakes that people made and avoid them. 

There's a site called "Not Voodoo" about Organic Chemistry that is entertaining and informative and pragmatic. 

This is the Always and Never page
http://chem.chem.rochester.edu/~nvd/tipsall.html

This is the rookie mistakes page - leave a few of your own behind in the poll

http://chem.chem.rochester.edu/nvdcgi/rm-main.cgi

And here's the proverbs page;
http://chem.chem.rochester.edu/nvdcgi/proverbs.cgi

A day in the library can save a week in the hospital
Just because you found it in literature doesn't mean it's correct
The more you learn, the dumber you feel

Salat

The problem with quizzes is that it makes someone else responsible for determining what you should know.  You think you've passed a test and therefore know everything you need to know about a particular subject so you don't look for any more information.  Something unexpected happens and then you blame whoever set the test up because it didn't include everything you need to know.

If you're doing a reaction you should be looking at msds for all the substances you are working with - problem is like the govt saying "all drugs are bad"  a lot of msds will say to use full regalia for every freakin' thing including water.  So you discount that source of information.  But if you look further and find out that the big chemistry houses that cater to scientist have better quality msds then you will know what hazards you are working with. 

So what is needed is the ability to find and bullshit test information.  That and a healthy respect for chemistry.  There was a thread over at sciencemadness called crispy kritters or something - I got a quick look at a man's face that had been completely burned away and it haunted me.  I'm real careful where I put my head. 

Salat

If anyone seriously wants to learn chemistry, then passing a test doesn't mean everything works like you might think. The greatest moments in chemistry are associated with "what the fuck" / "why did that happen" type occasions. Anyone who thinks learning everything can be done with a simple quiz, is self-evidently a cook not a chemist.

Any experience with military masks? I imagine they are designed to be quite comprehensive in what they protect against, they have to be, if they don't want troops getting gassed like a bunch of ethnics being cleansed.

Tsathoggua needs a new mask...only problem is, it will cost a fortune in filters, what with having different ones rated for different gases/fumes, such as having to have an acid gas filter, and more than one backup of these, likewise a fair few organic vapor cartridges, at least one each for H2S, phosgene, phosphine/arsine and a few for basic gases like NH3.

A mil-spec full face mask would be real nice, avoids fumes getting in the eyes, molten sodium flying up your nose during electrolysis (no fucking rat fuck shit, it happened, and jesus H, it bloody hurt when it did, Tsathoggua was wearing eye protection, of course, and gloves, heavy coat and jeans to protect against splashes of molten NaOH, but a blob of molten sodium had to go off like a firecracker and blast itself right up into his nose, didn't it? Nobody ever warned anybody I know of, or he knows of, about wearing NOSE protection.

And then some. It burnt a crater in his nasal septum, that stayed there for quite some time.

Think a coke habit is bad for your nose? coke is for pussywhipped little bitches, real men snort lines of molten sodium and follow it up with fused NaOH!

Pretty bloody much.

Clear your sinuses out better than mexico's entire annual import quota of pseudoephedrine, that will.....