In some sort of backwards way, I've been meaning to write some things down for ages. I haven't kept a proper journal since probably my first semester at ESF, and I think someday I'm going to regret that. Every once in a while I think of it and decide to commit some thoughts to text; it's funny, though, that I don't necessarily have any sort of guarantee that this journal will hang around.
I have a headache so either this will be quick or it will not be quick, but it will probably be a lot quicker than I'd intended when I start out.
College has done a lot of things for me. I think it restored some of the confidence I needed to have in myself that high school beat out of me, and I think that it's giving me the challenge that I need to keep myself moving - I try to schedule myself so that I can keep myself busy. It affirms that I'm doing a good job and that I'm capable.
I think my love language is words of affirmation. There's nothing like acknowledgment to spur me onward. Well, that and the fear of failure.
My semester came to a halt in a whirlwind of papers and weekend meetings at school and exams, even. I dashed around until the end, making sure that everything was going the way I wanted it to be going and suddenly - like losing the ground underneath my feet - the semester was over and I catapulted into a study marathon the likes of which I hope to never repeat ... but of course, inevitably, I will.
Three memory-intensive finals in two days, and it was like taking my first breath all semester. I felt amazing walking out of my biochemistry final - more so because he didn't manage to stump me in his questions - and I reactivated my facebook and smiled and let muscles that were probably tense since August 31st relax.
What's somewhat odd - in a funny way - is the thought that in my five completed semesters of college now, the only one that I didn't receive a grade from FX was the second semester of my freshman year. I love him to pieces, absolutely, maybe even more than I expected to. I can't remember now. I know I loved the chemistry first because organic is just kind of elegant and esoteric and lovely and then some, you know? And the experimental portion of it is just so much more hands-on than anything else. And I knew that he was an organic chemist and as I passed through his courses I got a better idea of what it was that he actually does... and I thought, hey, why not? I need to do something this summer!
I love him.
Yesterday (I guess technically it's not yesterday anymore, but two days ago), I went in to high school with Laura to tie-dye. It was kind of a nice day when you ignore the fact that I got up so that we could leave by 7:10am or so - a far cry earlier than what I'd been doing during the semester. I headed in, Hemler gave me a hug and a waffle, which I loaded up with strawberries and whipped cream, Laura was there to talk to... I met Mom and Dad for Synergy and sat through the concert, which was mostly nice.
Heading back to Hemler's room had worried me, but it turned out that I didn't need to worry. I walked right past the "lunch nazi" who was stopping kids walking through. She must have mistaken me for a teacher. When Laura got back from her second round of Synergy performances, we tie-dyed five shirts and six pairs of socks.
I even made it up to the second floor to say hi to KP. She was working with some kids after school, and I just stood in the doorway until she looked up and saw me, standing there and waving with my orange-and-blue dyed hand. Breaking off in the middle of a sentence, she - always theatrical - jumped up and ran across the room to give me a hug and I swear she knocked the wind right out of me when she got there.
"Sorry," she said, not looking sorry at all, "I belly-bumped you." Pregnancy appears to agree with her.
I did indeed mean to write more about my semester but at this point I really just want to wash my face and get some sleep. Schubert appears to agree, but then again, he may just be passed out on the bed.
Merry Christmas :)
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
You know what's funny is that sometimes I have no idea what the purpose of my life is.
I gotta get back to my devotions. I think I'm starving myself in my walk and I feel like even if I don't become less confused or more confident or, you know, suddenly gain insight as to what I should do with my life in the next two years - the next two years, can you believe that? Two years from now I'll be in grad school. But anyway the point is that I'll feel so much less alone. I know this because I've experienced it before.
Somehow things don't seem so unattainable at the same time as they seem completely impossible. It's daunting, to feel like I should be able to do things and yet not know if I'm capable of pulling them off. Or, you know, whatever.
This weekend has been really amazing because it's given me some time to sit back and breathe, and somehow I'm right back to feeling stressed out because I think of the time I let myself take off and then I think of the things that I really ought to get done before the semester ramps up for this final crunch, and it's just overwhelming.
I think sometimes that life is supposed to be overwhelming. It's just supposed to be this big huge thing that stares you in the face and threatens to pound you into the ground, and you succeed if you can stare it right back down. So you know what, life? You can't beat me. Not this semester, not next semester, not when I'm a stressed out graduate student grading undergrad papers and sobbing over experiments that don't work. Because even when they don't work and I lose sleep over it and undergrads hound me for their papers back, I'm not going to give up.
The thing is that I've put too much into everything to give up. And miraculously, I've never stopped loving chemistry, not once along the way. I'm looking forward to a 15 credit semester come spring, with no labs for courses and afternoons to hand to FX so that I can continue this project. This project that was supposed to be completed quickly.
I guess that's what happens when it takes a couple of months to get in on the job and then instead of having 40 hours in the lab per week, I've got about six that I can squeeze out of my overly busy schedule. No, as much as I enjoy some few select things about this semester, I am not going to be sorry to see it go. At least, not as sorry as I usually am. I have this goofy thing about the passage of time. I have a hard time dealing.
So it's Saturday night, almost Sunday morning and I'm reclining on my bed in just the way I shouldn't because Mom thinks it's what put my back out -- I was in excruciating pain all week a week ago and couldn't lift my bag or anything and even a visit to Anna the chiropractor was not the miracle fix that it usually is -- but it is so darn comfortable. And Schubert is making little sleepy sighs down at the foot of my bed and I wrote up my genetics lab today - just a small victory, but it's something.
Also I finally found the Windows sidebar after some help from Steph, so I have the weather and a little daisy clock and sticky notes and this goofy slide-y puzzle, and also a to-do list gadget that I downloaded because I live and die by to-do lists but I still need to figure that out. Also, Pandora is quietly playing me classical music because I have been so darn antsy lately. It's playing Schubert now... too bad the Schu can't appreciate the irony. Or the coincidence? I've never been quite sure when it's appropriate to use the term "irony".
I don't feel bad, though. I feel like most people don't know when it's appropriate to use the term "irony" and an overwhelming majority of us say "well, that's ironic" when what we really mean is "what a coincidence", but we want to sound intellectual and not like that little seven-year-old grinning with missing teeth and crying "What a co-ink-ee-dink!"
Hahahaha I love it. I'm boycotting growing up. I plan to be that seven-year-old forever, although I want to keep all of my teeth and I never say co-ink-i-dink.
I gotta get back to my devotions. I think I'm starving myself in my walk and I feel like even if I don't become less confused or more confident or, you know, suddenly gain insight as to what I should do with my life in the next two years - the next two years, can you believe that? Two years from now I'll be in grad school. But anyway the point is that I'll feel so much less alone. I know this because I've experienced it before.
Somehow things don't seem so unattainable at the same time as they seem completely impossible. It's daunting, to feel like I should be able to do things and yet not know if I'm capable of pulling them off. Or, you know, whatever.
This weekend has been really amazing because it's given me some time to sit back and breathe, and somehow I'm right back to feeling stressed out because I think of the time I let myself take off and then I think of the things that I really ought to get done before the semester ramps up for this final crunch, and it's just overwhelming.
I think sometimes that life is supposed to be overwhelming. It's just supposed to be this big huge thing that stares you in the face and threatens to pound you into the ground, and you succeed if you can stare it right back down. So you know what, life? You can't beat me. Not this semester, not next semester, not when I'm a stressed out graduate student grading undergrad papers and sobbing over experiments that don't work. Because even when they don't work and I lose sleep over it and undergrads hound me for their papers back, I'm not going to give up.
The thing is that I've put too much into everything to give up. And miraculously, I've never stopped loving chemistry, not once along the way. I'm looking forward to a 15 credit semester come spring, with no labs for courses and afternoons to hand to FX so that I can continue this project. This project that was supposed to be completed quickly.
I guess that's what happens when it takes a couple of months to get in on the job and then instead of having 40 hours in the lab per week, I've got about six that I can squeeze out of my overly busy schedule. No, as much as I enjoy some few select things about this semester, I am not going to be sorry to see it go. At least, not as sorry as I usually am. I have this goofy thing about the passage of time. I have a hard time dealing.
So it's Saturday night, almost Sunday morning and I'm reclining on my bed in just the way I shouldn't because Mom thinks it's what put my back out -- I was in excruciating pain all week a week ago and couldn't lift my bag or anything and even a visit to Anna the chiropractor was not the miracle fix that it usually is -- but it is so darn comfortable. And Schubert is making little sleepy sighs down at the foot of my bed and I wrote up my genetics lab today - just a small victory, but it's something.
Also I finally found the Windows sidebar after some help from Steph, so I have the weather and a little daisy clock and sticky notes and this goofy slide-y puzzle, and also a to-do list gadget that I downloaded because I live and die by to-do lists but I still need to figure that out. Also, Pandora is quietly playing me classical music because I have been so darn antsy lately. It's playing Schubert now... too bad the Schu can't appreciate the irony. Or the coincidence? I've never been quite sure when it's appropriate to use the term "irony".
I don't feel bad, though. I feel like most people don't know when it's appropriate to use the term "irony" and an overwhelming majority of us say "well, that's ironic" when what we really mean is "what a coincidence", but we want to sound intellectual and not like that little seven-year-old grinning with missing teeth and crying "What a co-ink-ee-dink!"
Hahahaha I love it. I'm boycotting growing up. I plan to be that seven-year-old forever, although I want to keep all of my teeth and I never say co-ink-i-dink.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Isn't it funny how songs speak to us? I mean, not funny, exactly, and not wholly unexpected either but somehow I feel so odd tonight.
I'm almost done with my fifth semester of college. It's been my most frustrating semester yet. I think it's going all right, and completely unexpectedly, I'm actually finding that my favorite course is microbiology. I'm spending some time visiting Caluwe and reacquainting myself with him, and I'm trying to keep my head above water for the rest of the semester, which... I mean, there's a week and a half left until Thanksgiving which totally floors me.
Whenever I sing the opening lines to "Touches You", I pretend I'm singing to Castello.
"you think you're better
that you're better than me
you blow me off as history
to avoid conversation
you're ignoring me"
I hate being ignored. I also have suddenly lost my drive to write which may or may not be a good thing. I'm tired this week. This semester is exhausting me.
I'm almost done with my fifth semester of college. It's been my most frustrating semester yet. I think it's going all right, and completely unexpectedly, I'm actually finding that my favorite course is microbiology. I'm spending some time visiting Caluwe and reacquainting myself with him, and I'm trying to keep my head above water for the rest of the semester, which... I mean, there's a week and a half left until Thanksgiving which totally floors me.
Whenever I sing the opening lines to "Touches You", I pretend I'm singing to Castello.
"you think you're better
that you're better than me
you blow me off as history
to avoid conversation
you're ignoring me"
I hate being ignored. I also have suddenly lost my drive to write which may or may not be a good thing. I'm tired this week. This semester is exhausting me.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Tenth Post
He's back!! He's back he's back he's back!!
I am still making negative progress. Well, actually, I suppose negative progress would imply that I've found that I've done something wrong and I have to retool everything. No, I have no had to retrace any steps yet, so I guess I'm making no progress rather than negative progress. And when you put it like that, it sounds positively - well, positive!
Anyway, he seems just as puzzled as I am, which is nice in a way because it means that I'm not a complete idiot. Unfortunately, because of Dave's shifting alliances (I don't know if they're alliances or if they're shifting, but it certainly makes the whole situation sound slightly more exciting), we can't do many of the diagnostic tests that we'd like to do. Things like NMR at all, and more specifically, quantitative C-13, MS, possibly IR but really that's not Dave's domain.
Well anyway, this morning FX came in to visit me and he sat down and said, rather theatrically (for him... you see, for anyone else I'm sure it would have been relatively deadpan but I'm getting used to the way FX communicates), "I have finally returned." Then he wanted to see my NMR which, of course, was somewhat unhelpful.
Then I vacuum-pumped my sample and found that it was two-thirds less than its initial weight. That's always quite disheartening.
My teeth hurt again today. I'm not sure what sets them off, but it does make eating quite a painful ordeal.
Hahahaha okay so FX told me at least three hours ago that he'd be back in an hour. Whatever. I got the GC up and running finally - the pigheadedness triumphs again! - and I pulled another paper for lactonization and I think he might like this one better. They're just all under such dilute conditions.
So I'm sitting here, whiling away the time by reading and trying to actually select useful bits of information from the articles that I managed to find. It's kind of peaceful - and he knows as well as I do that we're pretty dead-ended right now. I could always do the second alkylation again, but he hasn't told me to and besides, the glassware isn't in the oven.
I'm listening to Regina Spektor because Gaby burned me a CD, and my favorite song is called "Human of the Year", not particularly because of the lyrics but because of the melody and the way it changes and somehow, at the same time, doesn't change at all and the way her voice soars through it and then suddenly ebbs away. There's something about her voice that grabs me.
I always feel like there's a sort of sarcastic, maybe even mysogynistic undertone to her songs that I never fully understand. Sometimes I wonder if artists or authors or directors or anyone in charge of any sort of media do that on purpose - bury something too deeply to really be anything but aware of it. Kind of like that huge rock in the ground that you spend days trying to dig out when you're a little kid but you never get any farther than deep grooves in the dirt that always come back to the stone.
But that's an unnecessary metaphor. All I'm saying is that I feel like there's something there that I'm not getting, which usually frustrates me but I think I've come to a place in my life - not necessarily a pivotal place - where I can sometimes just let things go because it's easier. In little tiny ways, like not knowing the layered meanings to Regina Spektor's bizarre lyrics.
Wow. Today has been the most bizarre day ever. FX is back, Dave is being semi-difficult because his instruments are all set up for solids, Chatterjee just cornered me in the hallway to ask me if I thought that if he told kids that he was dropping one of his exams (he only gives three!), it would be more fair (fairer?) than last year. Personally, I thought he was perfectly fair if a little lenient LAST year, so... I guess fair's fair. Abrams cornered me earlier to ask if I'd thought about being an undergrad TA for general chemistry lab.
FX actually asked me what classes I'm taking this semester! I don't know why it surprised me so much. I guess I was not expecting him to be so... small-talk-y. Maybe he still feels like he's on vacation. He just seems more approachable lately (not that I ever shy away from approaching, but you know what I mean) and it's nice. I like it. I missed him a lot and now that he's here I feel so relaxed even though I have only seven more days in the lab and who knows what's going to be accomplished by August 28?
I recently decided to let all of my fingernails grow out. I've been doing quite well about not biting them for quite a long time, but I left the fingernails on my pinkies to be bitten. It was kind of weird I guess to bit only those two nails, but for some reason it worked. Anyway, I decided not to bite my pinky nails - a conscious decision.
They've grown out a couple of millimeters, probably, and they look so funny to me! My hands don't look like my hands to me anymore. I guess that's really weird, as far as weird goes, but those two nails are changing the aesthetics of my entire (two) hand(s)! Because I do, you know, have two of them.
In any case, the day is done.
I am still making negative progress. Well, actually, I suppose negative progress would imply that I've found that I've done something wrong and I have to retool everything. No, I have no had to retrace any steps yet, so I guess I'm making no progress rather than negative progress. And when you put it like that, it sounds positively - well, positive!
Anyway, he seems just as puzzled as I am, which is nice in a way because it means that I'm not a complete idiot. Unfortunately, because of Dave's shifting alliances (I don't know if they're alliances or if they're shifting, but it certainly makes the whole situation sound slightly more exciting), we can't do many of the diagnostic tests that we'd like to do. Things like NMR at all, and more specifically, quantitative C-13, MS, possibly IR but really that's not Dave's domain.
Well anyway, this morning FX came in to visit me and he sat down and said, rather theatrically (for him... you see, for anyone else I'm sure it would have been relatively deadpan but I'm getting used to the way FX communicates), "I have finally returned." Then he wanted to see my NMR which, of course, was somewhat unhelpful.
Then I vacuum-pumped my sample and found that it was two-thirds less than its initial weight. That's always quite disheartening.
My teeth hurt again today. I'm not sure what sets them off, but it does make eating quite a painful ordeal.
Hahahaha okay so FX told me at least three hours ago that he'd be back in an hour. Whatever. I got the GC up and running finally - the pigheadedness triumphs again! - and I pulled another paper for lactonization and I think he might like this one better. They're just all under such dilute conditions.
So I'm sitting here, whiling away the time by reading and trying to actually select useful bits of information from the articles that I managed to find. It's kind of peaceful - and he knows as well as I do that we're pretty dead-ended right now. I could always do the second alkylation again, but he hasn't told me to and besides, the glassware isn't in the oven.
I'm listening to Regina Spektor because Gaby burned me a CD, and my favorite song is called "Human of the Year", not particularly because of the lyrics but because of the melody and the way it changes and somehow, at the same time, doesn't change at all and the way her voice soars through it and then suddenly ebbs away. There's something about her voice that grabs me.
I always feel like there's a sort of sarcastic, maybe even mysogynistic undertone to her songs that I never fully understand. Sometimes I wonder if artists or authors or directors or anyone in charge of any sort of media do that on purpose - bury something too deeply to really be anything but aware of it. Kind of like that huge rock in the ground that you spend days trying to dig out when you're a little kid but you never get any farther than deep grooves in the dirt that always come back to the stone.
But that's an unnecessary metaphor. All I'm saying is that I feel like there's something there that I'm not getting, which usually frustrates me but I think I've come to a place in my life - not necessarily a pivotal place - where I can sometimes just let things go because it's easier. In little tiny ways, like not knowing the layered meanings to Regina Spektor's bizarre lyrics.
Wow. Today has been the most bizarre day ever. FX is back, Dave is being semi-difficult because his instruments are all set up for solids, Chatterjee just cornered me in the hallway to ask me if I thought that if he told kids that he was dropping one of his exams (he only gives three!), it would be more fair (fairer?) than last year. Personally, I thought he was perfectly fair if a little lenient LAST year, so... I guess fair's fair. Abrams cornered me earlier to ask if I'd thought about being an undergrad TA for general chemistry lab.
FX actually asked me what classes I'm taking this semester! I don't know why it surprised me so much. I guess I was not expecting him to be so... small-talk-y. Maybe he still feels like he's on vacation. He just seems more approachable lately (not that I ever shy away from approaching, but you know what I mean) and it's nice. I like it. I missed him a lot and now that he's here I feel so relaxed even though I have only seven more days in the lab and who knows what's going to be accomplished by August 28?
I recently decided to let all of my fingernails grow out. I've been doing quite well about not biting them for quite a long time, but I left the fingernails on my pinkies to be bitten. It was kind of weird I guess to bit only those two nails, but for some reason it worked. Anyway, I decided not to bite my pinky nails - a conscious decision.
They've grown out a couple of millimeters, probably, and they look so funny to me! My hands don't look like my hands to me anymore. I guess that's really weird, as far as weird goes, but those two nails are changing the aesthetics of my entire (two) hand(s)! Because I do, you know, have two of them.
In any case, the day is done.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Ninth Post
I realize it has been a very long time since I have updated, oh loyal readers mine. I apologize. I suppose I have been tired and busy, busy and tired, and also I have been having SYTYCD parties. Luckily for you, the season finale for SYTYCD is tonight from 8:00-10:00, and after that I will be SYTYCD-free for approximately three weeks. That is a total guess. I have no idea when the fall season starts because I always fast-forward through Cat Deeley’s plugs.
Besides the fact that SYTYCD is ending and that I have been doing chemistry, I suppose there’s not all that much to be said about my life. Oh, right, except for the fact that FX has taken himself off to France for two weeks and left me here in the lab to fend for myself. “Treat it like independent research,” he says, trying to sound reassuring. I thought I would humor him; I didn’t point out that I’ve never done independent research before.
In any case, I’ll admit that he is good about emailing me back every night. He even answers my questions, as long as I format them like this:
Questions:
1. This is a question?
2. This is another question?
The question marks are rather perfunctory, because clearly, what I have written is a statement rather than a question, but if it is a question, it needs to be punctuated by a question mark. Hey, if you think about it, I’ve just handed you a catch-22! If it is a question, it is asking something and needs a question mark. However, it is clearly not a question because it doesn’t demand anything from anyone. The clear conclusion is just that I’m lying to you, and doing a pretty bad job of it.
Anyway, he answers the questions like that. He actually goes back into the body of my email and inserts his answers after the questions, like we did on little homework sheets back in high school and middle school and, oh, I suppose once in a while in college, too.
Dave Kiemle is quite put out with FX (“Fran”, he calls him, as in “How is chemistry going without Fran?” or “I need to send a nasty little email to Fran”) because Chris brought in a gypsy moth pheromone for some purpose that required that Dave work with it. Dave got mobbed by gypsy moths. It’s basically impossible to wash off a pheromone, so Dave has to live with being mobbed by gypsy moths for another couple of months or so. If I was Dave, I would be pretty unhappy, too.
It is halfway through Thursday right now, and lest you think I am not doing anything (that was what happened yesterday, due to circumstances nearly entirely out of my control – mainly that FX is 5 hours ahead of me), I am running mad distillations. That’s mad as in quantity, not emotion. In any case, I’ve kept relatively busy for four hours, which is more than I can say for yesterday.
Justine is quite pleased that FX is not here, because he scares her for some reason, and unfortunately, he seems to always pick the times when she has decided to pay me a visit to, well, pay me a visit. Now my lab can be a sort of refuge for her, because she knows that FX is not going to randomly drop by. Brendan doesn’t scare her because he’s friends with Jeremy, who is in her lab.
I really miss FX a lot, though. It’s kind of embarrassing to admit that, but I wish he’d come back so that he could conclusively tell me something, or offer me solid advice, rather than “use your judgment”. I don’t know. I guess I miss him coming in and jumping out of my skin – not because he’s here, but because the door slams JUST that loudly. I am not kidding you in the least here. It is an extremely loud door.
One of the nice things about this lab is that it is on the third floor, which is not only where Justine works, but is also all yellow. The second floor is turquoise, the fourth floor is salmon. But here, everything is kind of sunny yellow, which tends to bolster the spirits unless they’re lagging quite spectacularly, in which case it seems to be laughing at your misfortune.
Bad news of the day: the left channel of my earbuds has cut out entirely. This is extremely unfortunate. I feel like I’m the only person in the entire world who has this much trouble with earbuds. Maybe there’s something wrong with my ears. My ears break earbuds. Lame.
Anyway, here I am, waiting for my distillations to run and dreading having to run a column tomorrow for the products of the cleavage reaction – because that’s inevitably what is going to happen. It is going to make me fully appreciate flash filtration, I’m sure of that. There is no WAY I am doing a gravity column. I will think on my feet. I will make something happen. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I’ll do it.
I just keep reminding myself that the experience of having to improvise (only to a degree, you understand) and of being relatively unsupervised in the lab is going to have really awesome aftereffects down the road, because I keep getting ridiculously stressed out. I think, instead of stressing, I’m just going to not think about it. That tends to work pretty well for me. Nonconfrontationalism ought to be my middle name, but it’s much too long, and besides, Microsoft Word is protesting its status as a valid word.
Hahahaha!! I just found a substance in Aldrich that costs more than platinum oxide: 2’,3’-dideoxyinosine, which is a nucleotide antagonist and just so happens to cost $31 for ONE MILLIGRAM. How do you even package one mg? Awesome. I want a copy of this book.
Besides the fact that SYTYCD is ending and that I have been doing chemistry, I suppose there’s not all that much to be said about my life. Oh, right, except for the fact that FX has taken himself off to France for two weeks and left me here in the lab to fend for myself. “Treat it like independent research,” he says, trying to sound reassuring. I thought I would humor him; I didn’t point out that I’ve never done independent research before.
In any case, I’ll admit that he is good about emailing me back every night. He even answers my questions, as long as I format them like this:
Questions:
1. This is a question?
2. This is another question?
The question marks are rather perfunctory, because clearly, what I have written is a statement rather than a question, but if it is a question, it needs to be punctuated by a question mark. Hey, if you think about it, I’ve just handed you a catch-22! If it is a question, it is asking something and needs a question mark. However, it is clearly not a question because it doesn’t demand anything from anyone. The clear conclusion is just that I’m lying to you, and doing a pretty bad job of it.
Anyway, he answers the questions like that. He actually goes back into the body of my email and inserts his answers after the questions, like we did on little homework sheets back in high school and middle school and, oh, I suppose once in a while in college, too.
Dave Kiemle is quite put out with FX (“Fran”, he calls him, as in “How is chemistry going without Fran?” or “I need to send a nasty little email to Fran”) because Chris brought in a gypsy moth pheromone for some purpose that required that Dave work with it. Dave got mobbed by gypsy moths. It’s basically impossible to wash off a pheromone, so Dave has to live with being mobbed by gypsy moths for another couple of months or so. If I was Dave, I would be pretty unhappy, too.
It is halfway through Thursday right now, and lest you think I am not doing anything (that was what happened yesterday, due to circumstances nearly entirely out of my control – mainly that FX is 5 hours ahead of me), I am running mad distillations. That’s mad as in quantity, not emotion. In any case, I’ve kept relatively busy for four hours, which is more than I can say for yesterday.
Justine is quite pleased that FX is not here, because he scares her for some reason, and unfortunately, he seems to always pick the times when she has decided to pay me a visit to, well, pay me a visit. Now my lab can be a sort of refuge for her, because she knows that FX is not going to randomly drop by. Brendan doesn’t scare her because he’s friends with Jeremy, who is in her lab.
I really miss FX a lot, though. It’s kind of embarrassing to admit that, but I wish he’d come back so that he could conclusively tell me something, or offer me solid advice, rather than “use your judgment”. I don’t know. I guess I miss him coming in and jumping out of my skin – not because he’s here, but because the door slams JUST that loudly. I am not kidding you in the least here. It is an extremely loud door.
One of the nice things about this lab is that it is on the third floor, which is not only where Justine works, but is also all yellow. The second floor is turquoise, the fourth floor is salmon. But here, everything is kind of sunny yellow, which tends to bolster the spirits unless they’re lagging quite spectacularly, in which case it seems to be laughing at your misfortune.
Bad news of the day: the left channel of my earbuds has cut out entirely. This is extremely unfortunate. I feel like I’m the only person in the entire world who has this much trouble with earbuds. Maybe there’s something wrong with my ears. My ears break earbuds. Lame.
Anyway, here I am, waiting for my distillations to run and dreading having to run a column tomorrow for the products of the cleavage reaction – because that’s inevitably what is going to happen. It is going to make me fully appreciate flash filtration, I’m sure of that. There is no WAY I am doing a gravity column. I will think on my feet. I will make something happen. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I’ll do it.
I just keep reminding myself that the experience of having to improvise (only to a degree, you understand) and of being relatively unsupervised in the lab is going to have really awesome aftereffects down the road, because I keep getting ridiculously stressed out. I think, instead of stressing, I’m just going to not think about it. That tends to work pretty well for me. Nonconfrontationalism ought to be my middle name, but it’s much too long, and besides, Microsoft Word is protesting its status as a valid word.
Hahahaha!! I just found a substance in Aldrich that costs more than platinum oxide: 2’,3’-dideoxyinosine, which is a nucleotide antagonist and just so happens to cost $31 for ONE MILLIGRAM. How do you even package one mg? Awesome. I want a copy of this book.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Eighth Post
Today is slightly more difficult than yesterday. It’s all in a different way, see, because I’m still sitting around while my reaction runs itself.
No, today I have hit a couple of obstacles.
The first was easy enough, albeit frustrating. We thought we had an unopened bottle of butyllithium. We don’t. So I went downstairs and ordered a new (unopened) bottle of butyllithium. Luckily, I’m only going to have to wait probably two days for it (counting today, and possibly part of Thursday?).
Now I’ve been asked to find conditions to separate this photochemically oxidized product from the solvent, which is toluene. Well, okay. I can look those up. So far, I have a set of general conditions that give me guidelines, and a reference that I can’t get but that FX possibly has. So that’s marked off the list.
The last instruction I have is to locate platinum oxide. If I can’t locate it, we’ll have to order it. I’m not sure what we’re using it for. I know it’s used for hydrogenation; I’m just not sure what we’re hydrogenating. So I went down to Gitsov’s lab, only it’s locked and I don’t really want to bang on the door. Not right now. Maybe later, after FX and I reconvene.
But I really want to find some, see, because it’s platinum. Let me try to explain: for 250mg (that’s like a quarter of a paper clip), Aldrich charges $50.50. That’s some pricey stuff. So I’m really hoping I can find it, because in the meantime, I’m not really doing much. I crunched some numbers, I found some conditions… I have to ask FX what constitutes a needle valve… or I could google it. Hey, sometimes I have good ideas!
I googled it, and I’m still not sure where to find it in here. I can’t even remember if I’ve seen it before. Oh well… I guess I’ll just ask him when I see him again. Hopefully I see him again.
So I just went and banged on Gitsov’s lab door, only the student in there has got ear buds in, so she can’t hear me. Since I didn’t want to disturb the entire floor, I guess I can put off that particular adventure a few more minutes. I don’t really know where to check for platinum oxide.
Okay. I gained entrance to Gitsov’s lab, and there was no platinum oxide to be found. I should check Giner’s lab… ugh.
All right, definitely just went up to Giner’s lab, and there was no one there. I decided against just letting myself in, and now I’m back here, waiting the remaining 27 minutes for this reaction to end and then I can make up a sample and run it on the GC. Then I’ll have absolutely nothing to do, which will be… almost no different from right now, because right now I’m being faintly productive by running the reaction. Even though I’m not doing anything.
Okay so a lot has happened now, I guess. Timing between paragraph breaks varies greatly. My reaction has finished, I ran it on the GC, the results mean nothing to me, and whatever they mean to FX has not yet been imparted to me. I began distilling off the toluene under a vacuum. Oh, and I ran into Giner, who has platinum oxide and is loathe to part with it. FX said he’d take care of it. Hahahahahahaha.
So now I’m distilling, which is rather like running the photochemical reaction because I’m not actually doing anything, but it is slightly more hands-on in that I have a little needle valve that I’m supposed to open if I see any bumping. There has not been any bumping, but it is a quarter to four and I still have something like 750ml to distill down. So… who knows. But if I don’t finish today, it’s not a big deal I guess because I can just finish tomorrow. FX has to go to the vet anyway. With his dog, of course.
Oops. Well, I forgot to post this when I got home, but I still have half an hour of today left. I’m out, then. Gotta shower, let the dogs out, and scoop up eight hours of sleep before heading out again.
No, today I have hit a couple of obstacles.
The first was easy enough, albeit frustrating. We thought we had an unopened bottle of butyllithium. We don’t. So I went downstairs and ordered a new (unopened) bottle of butyllithium. Luckily, I’m only going to have to wait probably two days for it (counting today, and possibly part of Thursday?).
Now I’ve been asked to find conditions to separate this photochemically oxidized product from the solvent, which is toluene. Well, okay. I can look those up. So far, I have a set of general conditions that give me guidelines, and a reference that I can’t get but that FX possibly has. So that’s marked off the list.
The last instruction I have is to locate platinum oxide. If I can’t locate it, we’ll have to order it. I’m not sure what we’re using it for. I know it’s used for hydrogenation; I’m just not sure what we’re hydrogenating. So I went down to Gitsov’s lab, only it’s locked and I don’t really want to bang on the door. Not right now. Maybe later, after FX and I reconvene.
But I really want to find some, see, because it’s platinum. Let me try to explain: for 250mg (that’s like a quarter of a paper clip), Aldrich charges $50.50. That’s some pricey stuff. So I’m really hoping I can find it, because in the meantime, I’m not really doing much. I crunched some numbers, I found some conditions… I have to ask FX what constitutes a needle valve… or I could google it. Hey, sometimes I have good ideas!
I googled it, and I’m still not sure where to find it in here. I can’t even remember if I’ve seen it before. Oh well… I guess I’ll just ask him when I see him again. Hopefully I see him again.
So I just went and banged on Gitsov’s lab door, only the student in there has got ear buds in, so she can’t hear me. Since I didn’t want to disturb the entire floor, I guess I can put off that particular adventure a few more minutes. I don’t really know where to check for platinum oxide.
Okay. I gained entrance to Gitsov’s lab, and there was no platinum oxide to be found. I should check Giner’s lab… ugh.
All right, definitely just went up to Giner’s lab, and there was no one there. I decided against just letting myself in, and now I’m back here, waiting the remaining 27 minutes for this reaction to end and then I can make up a sample and run it on the GC. Then I’ll have absolutely nothing to do, which will be… almost no different from right now, because right now I’m being faintly productive by running the reaction. Even though I’m not doing anything.
Okay so a lot has happened now, I guess. Timing between paragraph breaks varies greatly. My reaction has finished, I ran it on the GC, the results mean nothing to me, and whatever they mean to FX has not yet been imparted to me. I began distilling off the toluene under a vacuum. Oh, and I ran into Giner, who has platinum oxide and is loathe to part with it. FX said he’d take care of it. Hahahahahahaha.
So now I’m distilling, which is rather like running the photochemical reaction because I’m not actually doing anything, but it is slightly more hands-on in that I have a little needle valve that I’m supposed to open if I see any bumping. There has not been any bumping, but it is a quarter to four and I still have something like 750ml to distill down. So… who knows. But if I don’t finish today, it’s not a big deal I guess because I can just finish tomorrow. FX has to go to the vet anyway. With his dog, of course.
Oops. Well, I forgot to post this when I got home, but I still have half an hour of today left. I’m out, then. Gotta shower, let the dogs out, and scoop up eight hours of sleep before heading out again.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Seventh Post
I’m sitting at my desk – MY desk! in a lab! – and trying to read a paper. Only, I guess I’m not really trying that hard right now because I’m clearly writing this.
Wow, seriously, the internet is so frustrating up here. I guess I’m not well-versed in patience with computers anymore because I’ve finally trashed that old ThinkPad from high school and bought this new laptop, which runs like a dream (although, one could extrapolate that any new laptop would run like a dream when compared with the old laptop). But I thought I’d look up a paper, almost just for the heck of it, and I can’t get onto SciFinder because I need an internet connection.
I brought raspberries today, in a little Tupperware container, and in general, I just feel quite pleased with myself. I was getting a little stressed at the end of last week, but I haven’t broken the GC and I even know how to use it now, so basically I just get done whatever FX tells me to do, and when I’m not doing that, I’m trying to restore some order to this long-abandoned lab. Or possibly I’m blogging. Oops.
FX has gone for a run, he told me, and I’m to read this paper and get a GC and set up the UV lamp and get an NMR. So far I’ve done almost three of the four things… I haven’t finished the paper, and I hate to go downstairs and fiddle with the NMR if I can’t find Kiemle. I should get back on the paper. The NMR is not necessarily of the utmost importance, but if he asks for it, I try to get it done. Usually that technique works pretty well. Maybe I’ll run back downstairs and see if I can find Kiemle (or, you know, even get into the ICP lab and the NMR… sub-lab?).
I finished reading the paper, and it told me absolutely nothing, because its starting point was our desired ending point. You can’t always get what you want? But I’m going to ask FX if he happens to have a different article from the same journal, listed in the references. Hopefully the answer will be yes, and even more hopefully the paper will actually help with whatever it is I’m supposed to be finding. Actually, I’m really not sure why exactly I’m looking for this particular paper. I’ll have to look back at the old one and figure out what hole was there that he wanted filled.
I ran back down to the NMR lab just now… and had absolutely no luck whatsoever. I think it’s locked, maybe, or else I’m an idiot, because I couldn’t open the door. It would push partway in, and then something caught, I think, and I didn’t really force it. So I guess I’ll have to wait on that. I should run a GC on the toluene, then, because at least I’ll have something to show FX upon his return. I’m not really in a hurry. Today is very relaxed. I’m going to check… maybe today in the afternoon? But definitely tomorrow morning, to see if my chemicals are in for step 2. Which, by the way, I’m terrified of doing because this is a procedure that I’ve honestly never even come close to attempting, and it involves many dangerous things. Hey, maybe it’ll be fun. Acid doesn’t scare me anymore (disclaimer: that does not mean I’m not careful. I don’t like the idea of acid burns).
Okay, the toluene is now officially on the GC… so I have about half an hour to wait until it gets done. Today I at least remembered my mp3 player, which I did not remember on Friday, but I forgot my headphones so it doesn’t do me as much good as it could. I do, however, have it for the car, which we really shouldn’t discount.
Oh ho! My chemicals are in! Of course, I still have no idea how to do the next step of the procedure, but I will probably be doing it, oh, tomorrow.
Hahahaha okay I’m typing in gloves now. They’re pretty cute. They’re purple. I’m running samples on the GC and also a photochemical reaction that I knew nothing about until possibly Friday, mostly today. Of course, these things that I’m running are running themselves, in essence, so I’m just sitting around for another hour and fifteen minutes, occasionally changing whatever’s running on the GC.
It always gets difficult when I run things on the GC and I have more than one thing to run. Time management is of the essence, or something. But I think it’ll be okay… as long as this next sample I’m running actually shows what I need it to show. For the GC, I basically want a 0.1% solution, or 1 gram per liter. My original has 2 grams per liter, so I do a 2:1 dilution in the GC solvent (pentane). This means that the toluene peak is going to be huge, but it should also mean that I get a “regular” sized ionone peak. Here’s hoping.
FX is so cute sometimes. Today he informed me that beta-ionone is actually the smell of violets and was the original perfume in Elizabethan times. Then he was helping me set up the photochemical reactor (which consists of a couple of really cool glass pieces and a UV lamp and tons of aluminum foil) and he went to turn on the UV lamp to see if it worked. Prior to this, he had informed me that this lamp embodies the “don’t look directly at the sun” thing about three hundred times over. It will photolyze my retinas. Since I like my retinas, I’m being pretty careful. So he goes to turn it on, hesitates, looks at me and goes, “Don’t look… turn around.” He informed me when I could turn back around. For some reason I thought that was pretty adorable.
Then, when the whole reaction was actually set up and ready to go (I taped foil all over the glass paneling that covers the hood), he let me know that we could tell that the UV lamp was on and working because we could see a little glow around the edges of the tin foil. “You should be okay,” he says, “as long as you don’t sit here and stare at it.” The best part is that he really was not even joking at all. I can’t help it. I think it’s hysterical.
So anyway, my sample is off of the GC now and it’s cooling down so that I can insert my next sample; it should be ready in ten minutes or so. I’m praying that this one works, because if it doesn’t, I’m screwed. Because I… well, I guess I could always just make up some more starting solution. I have a ton of toluene and of beta-ionone, and this actually doesn’t smell (well, I guess the toluene does, so that’s not strictly true). But I won’t really have time to run it again. FX wants me to call him around 5 or so. It’ll probably be a little later… 5:15 or 5:30, because it will take a couple of minutes to prepare the sample. I don’t mind staying a little lateish. It’s nice to have a whole lab to myself. It’s nicer than last summer!
I just put my corrected dilution onto the GC, and here’s me praying my brains out (my soul out?) that it works, because I don’t have any more of the original sample. But, like I said, no real reason to freak out. Except that I’m supposed to call FX. But other than that. Oh man. I guess you could say I’m a little antsy about this, but I have to find something else to occupy myself with because sitting there, glued to the GC is not going to do wonderful things for my nerves. And sitting here, talking about how I’m avoiding it for that reason is kind of circumnavigating the entire point, because it’s stressing me out. And I was doing so well with not stressing today, too.
My chemicals came from Aldrich today! Christina texted me and told me some packages were here, so I moseyed on down and took a look, and they were, indeed, mine. So that was pretty exciting. I have some chemicals. They’re sitting on the counter, because FX says that I don’t need to refrigerate them overnight. I wonder if that means I’m going to be using them tomorrow? Because we really haven’t discussed what’s happening tomorrow in any detail, except that the hood that I would be using is currently filled with deadly, blinding UV light. It sounds way more exciting than it actually is, I promise. I’m actually in absolutely no danger at all, and I’m sitting here with Rhapsody on shuffle, which is only minutely less cool than having my mp3 player on shuffle. But I guess since Brendan is usually in Donaghy’s lab these days, it’s basically the same as keeping my music to myself.
Ugh I’m so nervous about this sample on the GC. The numbers work. I just have to keep telling myself that. The numbers work. THE NUMBERS WORK. Ugh. I have to stop thinking about it but I don’t really know what to do instead. I just peeked. It looks very toluene-y. I haven’t seen any beta-ionone come out yet, so I’m not really sure… but it’s not time for it to come out quite yet, anyway. Also I’m nervous to call FX, because I am weird. And hate phones.
MAHAHAHAHAH YES. I may be going completely insane and laughing maniacally, but my solution worked. Eat it, you old GC (I’m laughing again now, because that’s kind of what the GC does, after all). I can make you work by sheer pigheadedness, and then laugh about it afterwards! And anyway, I wasn’t all that sane to begin with.
Okay, seriously? If EvergreenX asks me for information in order to connect one more time and doesn’t connect, I’m going to… well, there’s actually not much I can threaten. I don’t know where exactly to go to find a router to smash, or at least reboot. AUGH. STOP. It’s the most obnoxious bubble. I just print-screened it so that I can embed it in this entry, if I remember to. Hopefully that is, indeed, the case. Mahahaha. I’m still chuckling about my victory.
Heh heh. This was always here. Of course I didn't forget.
Made up that last sample, stopped the irradiation, it’s in the GC… I’m almost done. Woohoo!
DONE AND HOME. WHADDUP.
Wow, seriously, the internet is so frustrating up here. I guess I’m not well-versed in patience with computers anymore because I’ve finally trashed that old ThinkPad from high school and bought this new laptop, which runs like a dream (although, one could extrapolate that any new laptop would run like a dream when compared with the old laptop). But I thought I’d look up a paper, almost just for the heck of it, and I can’t get onto SciFinder because I need an internet connection.
I brought raspberries today, in a little Tupperware container, and in general, I just feel quite pleased with myself. I was getting a little stressed at the end of last week, but I haven’t broken the GC and I even know how to use it now, so basically I just get done whatever FX tells me to do, and when I’m not doing that, I’m trying to restore some order to this long-abandoned lab. Or possibly I’m blogging. Oops.
FX has gone for a run, he told me, and I’m to read this paper and get a GC and set up the UV lamp and get an NMR. So far I’ve done almost three of the four things… I haven’t finished the paper, and I hate to go downstairs and fiddle with the NMR if I can’t find Kiemle. I should get back on the paper. The NMR is not necessarily of the utmost importance, but if he asks for it, I try to get it done. Usually that technique works pretty well. Maybe I’ll run back downstairs and see if I can find Kiemle (or, you know, even get into the ICP lab and the NMR… sub-lab?).
I finished reading the paper, and it told me absolutely nothing, because its starting point was our desired ending point. You can’t always get what you want? But I’m going to ask FX if he happens to have a different article from the same journal, listed in the references. Hopefully the answer will be yes, and even more hopefully the paper will actually help with whatever it is I’m supposed to be finding. Actually, I’m really not sure why exactly I’m looking for this particular paper. I’ll have to look back at the old one and figure out what hole was there that he wanted filled.
I ran back down to the NMR lab just now… and had absolutely no luck whatsoever. I think it’s locked, maybe, or else I’m an idiot, because I couldn’t open the door. It would push partway in, and then something caught, I think, and I didn’t really force it. So I guess I’ll have to wait on that. I should run a GC on the toluene, then, because at least I’ll have something to show FX upon his return. I’m not really in a hurry. Today is very relaxed. I’m going to check… maybe today in the afternoon? But definitely tomorrow morning, to see if my chemicals are in for step 2. Which, by the way, I’m terrified of doing because this is a procedure that I’ve honestly never even come close to attempting, and it involves many dangerous things. Hey, maybe it’ll be fun. Acid doesn’t scare me anymore (disclaimer: that does not mean I’m not careful. I don’t like the idea of acid burns).
Okay, the toluene is now officially on the GC… so I have about half an hour to wait until it gets done. Today I at least remembered my mp3 player, which I did not remember on Friday, but I forgot my headphones so it doesn’t do me as much good as it could. I do, however, have it for the car, which we really shouldn’t discount.
Oh ho! My chemicals are in! Of course, I still have no idea how to do the next step of the procedure, but I will probably be doing it, oh, tomorrow.
Hahahaha okay I’m typing in gloves now. They’re pretty cute. They’re purple. I’m running samples on the GC and also a photochemical reaction that I knew nothing about until possibly Friday, mostly today. Of course, these things that I’m running are running themselves, in essence, so I’m just sitting around for another hour and fifteen minutes, occasionally changing whatever’s running on the GC.
It always gets difficult when I run things on the GC and I have more than one thing to run. Time management is of the essence, or something. But I think it’ll be okay… as long as this next sample I’m running actually shows what I need it to show. For the GC, I basically want a 0.1% solution, or 1 gram per liter. My original has 2 grams per liter, so I do a 2:1 dilution in the GC solvent (pentane). This means that the toluene peak is going to be huge, but it should also mean that I get a “regular” sized ionone peak. Here’s hoping.
FX is so cute sometimes. Today he informed me that beta-ionone is actually the smell of violets and was the original perfume in Elizabethan times. Then he was helping me set up the photochemical reactor (which consists of a couple of really cool glass pieces and a UV lamp and tons of aluminum foil) and he went to turn on the UV lamp to see if it worked. Prior to this, he had informed me that this lamp embodies the “don’t look directly at the sun” thing about three hundred times over. It will photolyze my retinas. Since I like my retinas, I’m being pretty careful. So he goes to turn it on, hesitates, looks at me and goes, “Don’t look… turn around.” He informed me when I could turn back around. For some reason I thought that was pretty adorable.
Then, when the whole reaction was actually set up and ready to go (I taped foil all over the glass paneling that covers the hood), he let me know that we could tell that the UV lamp was on and working because we could see a little glow around the edges of the tin foil. “You should be okay,” he says, “as long as you don’t sit here and stare at it.” The best part is that he really was not even joking at all. I can’t help it. I think it’s hysterical.
So anyway, my sample is off of the GC now and it’s cooling down so that I can insert my next sample; it should be ready in ten minutes or so. I’m praying that this one works, because if it doesn’t, I’m screwed. Because I… well, I guess I could always just make up some more starting solution. I have a ton of toluene and of beta-ionone, and this actually doesn’t smell (well, I guess the toluene does, so that’s not strictly true). But I won’t really have time to run it again. FX wants me to call him around 5 or so. It’ll probably be a little later… 5:15 or 5:30, because it will take a couple of minutes to prepare the sample. I don’t mind staying a little lateish. It’s nice to have a whole lab to myself. It’s nicer than last summer!
I just put my corrected dilution onto the GC, and here’s me praying my brains out (my soul out?) that it works, because I don’t have any more of the original sample. But, like I said, no real reason to freak out. Except that I’m supposed to call FX. But other than that. Oh man. I guess you could say I’m a little antsy about this, but I have to find something else to occupy myself with because sitting there, glued to the GC is not going to do wonderful things for my nerves. And sitting here, talking about how I’m avoiding it for that reason is kind of circumnavigating the entire point, because it’s stressing me out. And I was doing so well with not stressing today, too.
My chemicals came from Aldrich today! Christina texted me and told me some packages were here, so I moseyed on down and took a look, and they were, indeed, mine. So that was pretty exciting. I have some chemicals. They’re sitting on the counter, because FX says that I don’t need to refrigerate them overnight. I wonder if that means I’m going to be using them tomorrow? Because we really haven’t discussed what’s happening tomorrow in any detail, except that the hood that I would be using is currently filled with deadly, blinding UV light. It sounds way more exciting than it actually is, I promise. I’m actually in absolutely no danger at all, and I’m sitting here with Rhapsody on shuffle, which is only minutely less cool than having my mp3 player on shuffle. But I guess since Brendan is usually in Donaghy’s lab these days, it’s basically the same as keeping my music to myself.
Ugh I’m so nervous about this sample on the GC. The numbers work. I just have to keep telling myself that. The numbers work. THE NUMBERS WORK. Ugh. I have to stop thinking about it but I don’t really know what to do instead. I just peeked. It looks very toluene-y. I haven’t seen any beta-ionone come out yet, so I’m not really sure… but it’s not time for it to come out quite yet, anyway. Also I’m nervous to call FX, because I am weird. And hate phones.
MAHAHAHAHAH YES. I may be going completely insane and laughing maniacally, but my solution worked. Eat it, you old GC (I’m laughing again now, because that’s kind of what the GC does, after all). I can make you work by sheer pigheadedness, and then laugh about it afterwards! And anyway, I wasn’t all that sane to begin with.
Okay, seriously? If EvergreenX asks me for information in order to connect one more time and doesn’t connect, I’m going to… well, there’s actually not much I can threaten. I don’t know where exactly to go to find a router to smash, or at least reboot. AUGH. STOP. It’s the most obnoxious bubble. I just print-screened it so that I can embed it in this entry, if I remember to. Hopefully that is, indeed, the case. Mahahaha. I’m still chuckling about my victory.
Heh heh. This was always here. Of course I didn't forget.
Made up that last sample, stopped the irradiation, it’s in the GC… I’m almost done. Woohoo!
DONE AND HOME. WHADDUP.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Sixth Post
Now, I promise, the novelty hasn't worn off. It's just that I started actually working on Monday and I've been so exhausted this past week that I don't have the energy or the brainpower when I come home to do much of anything but lie around and watch TV (whether actually via a television or via the internet is of little concern).
So today I'm sitting in the lab, and I would never be so flippant as to actually blog when I was supposed to be doing work. No, believe it or not, I am doing work as I type. It's akin to making ice, really, this "running samples on the GC" business. Basically I inject the sample and then wait half an hour. Since I haven't got much else to actually DO today, I'm running samples on the GC. And also blogging. What a deal.
FX came in to talk to me a minute ago. I love when he does that, hahaha... he just comes and sits down and launches into some sort of talk or other and I just kind of keep up. Sometimes I hang on for dear life, but I was okay just now. Although now I have to run the pheromone that I ran yesterday again, because the NMR looked so good. The GC did not. So... I guess here we go, amirite?! If everything goes off sort of without a hitch, I'm hoping that I can leave by a little after 4:00 or at least quarter to 5:00, because I'm going with Mom and Laura to pick up Jon from camp. And we need all three cars tonight (not including my reverse commute home).
I guess today did end up going kind of fast. Funny how that happens... even on slow days, the day goes fast. Part of that is stress, because this job is worlds apart from last summer's job. Last summer I was doing a job that was not difficult, and in general, I had an awful lot of supervision and "here's how you do this". Here, I'm expected to have a fairly good working knowledge of an awful lot of things. It's almost like if I've been told once, I shouldn't have to be told again. So I'm doing pretty well, I think, but you know...
Anyway, the very exciting discovery of today (besides that I didn't break the GC) is that I can get SciFinder on my laptop as long as I'm on campus!! This means that I don't have to make it to the library before closing time (which, on Fridays, is noon). I just have to jockey for a license with everyone else in the building. But hey, I'd be doing that whether I was at Moon or sitting right here. Speaking of sitting right here, it's freezing in here. Justine was saying the other day that she didn't think they were using the air conditioning.
Well, let me just tell YOU, the airconditioning is undebatably on today. I had to go down to my car to grab my hoodie, that's how cold it is. And it's not even cold outside at all. It's very warm. It's very nice. It's even sunny! So hey, how about that. I can't wait to go walk outside in the sun and drive home even though I left my mp3 player in its charging base / speakers this morning so I can't have Mika. And I really want Mika. Boo. I guess Journey will have to suffice. Or I could do the Bon Jovi thing again.
So here's hoping that I just have to do two more samples (two more including the one that I injected five minutes or so ago). Then I could definitely leave on time... but I should probably get all of the papers that I had printed today kind of in order, so I'm not insane later when I'm trying to figure out what the heck is going on. But, uck, I just checked the tetradecane sample that I put on the column and it came out basically at the same place as the decane, which doesn't seem right at all. It should have come out a lot later.
Well, whatever, I guess. I can always run them again on Monday if he wants me to. He might not even remember about them. I mean, they're just for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not the GC is actually working. I want to run this moth pheromone already! And then I'm all done for today. I feel sort of accomplished, because I finished the week and didn't drop dead from sheer exhaustion.
So today I'm sitting in the lab, and I would never be so flippant as to actually blog when I was supposed to be doing work. No, believe it or not, I am doing work as I type. It's akin to making ice, really, this "running samples on the GC" business. Basically I inject the sample and then wait half an hour. Since I haven't got much else to actually DO today, I'm running samples on the GC. And also blogging. What a deal.
FX came in to talk to me a minute ago. I love when he does that, hahaha... he just comes and sits down and launches into some sort of talk or other and I just kind of keep up. Sometimes I hang on for dear life, but I was okay just now. Although now I have to run the pheromone that I ran yesterday again, because the NMR looked so good. The GC did not. So... I guess here we go, amirite?! If everything goes off sort of without a hitch, I'm hoping that I can leave by a little after 4:00 or at least quarter to 5:00, because I'm going with Mom and Laura to pick up Jon from camp. And we need all three cars tonight (not including my reverse commute home).
I guess today did end up going kind of fast. Funny how that happens... even on slow days, the day goes fast. Part of that is stress, because this job is worlds apart from last summer's job. Last summer I was doing a job that was not difficult, and in general, I had an awful lot of supervision and "here's how you do this". Here, I'm expected to have a fairly good working knowledge of an awful lot of things. It's almost like if I've been told once, I shouldn't have to be told again. So I'm doing pretty well, I think, but you know...
Anyway, the very exciting discovery of today (besides that I didn't break the GC) is that I can get SciFinder on my laptop as long as I'm on campus!! This means that I don't have to make it to the library before closing time (which, on Fridays, is noon). I just have to jockey for a license with everyone else in the building. But hey, I'd be doing that whether I was at Moon or sitting right here. Speaking of sitting right here, it's freezing in here. Justine was saying the other day that she didn't think they were using the air conditioning.
Well, let me just tell YOU, the airconditioning is undebatably on today. I had to go down to my car to grab my hoodie, that's how cold it is. And it's not even cold outside at all. It's very warm. It's very nice. It's even sunny! So hey, how about that. I can't wait to go walk outside in the sun and drive home even though I left my mp3 player in its charging base / speakers this morning so I can't have Mika. And I really want Mika. Boo. I guess Journey will have to suffice. Or I could do the Bon Jovi thing again.
So here's hoping that I just have to do two more samples (two more including the one that I injected five minutes or so ago). Then I could definitely leave on time... but I should probably get all of the papers that I had printed today kind of in order, so I'm not insane later when I'm trying to figure out what the heck is going on. But, uck, I just checked the tetradecane sample that I put on the column and it came out basically at the same place as the decane, which doesn't seem right at all. It should have come out a lot later.
Well, whatever, I guess. I can always run them again on Monday if he wants me to. He might not even remember about them. I mean, they're just for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not the GC is actually working. I want to run this moth pheromone already! And then I'm all done for today. I feel sort of accomplished, because I finished the week and didn't drop dead from sheer exhaustion.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Fifth Post
Why hello, new blog of mine! The novelty still hasn't worn off - even though I failed to blog yesterday. Let me try to think of notable things that happened yesterday.
Well, I went to the dentist. And not just any dentist... a shiny, brand-new dentist! Because I had garnered the illustrious title "brand-new patient" for myself, this first visit was rather costly. They like their x-rays. The good news, though, is that I don't have any cavities, so I don't (or, rather, my parents don't) have to hand out any more money for another six months. My next appointment is January 5, 2010, at 2:50pm. I can't believe we're already scheduling events for 2010. I feel so old. I saw a little kid wearing a "Class of 2015" t-shirt the other day. I wanted to push him down.
Except I didn't, because that would be quite irresponsible of me, especially as someone who claims to love little kids. Then again, I work with 3 year olds in Sunday school (most of them are 4 by now, and we're getting ready for a new crop in August... the 3 year olds are not nearly so functional in the beginning of the year as they are by the end) -- but they never wear "Class of 2023" shirts. Oh, ICK. Excuse me while I go puke and feel ancient.
Anyway, I approved of this dentist. I just felt like everyone was friendlier than they were at the old dentist; I mean, of course they have to be, because I'm new, but still. And I just felt more comfortable, probably because the dentist was not the father of my former best friend. It's not that we ever fought, we just drifted. We started drifting even before we graduated. I don't think she even signed my senior year yearbook... and somehow, I don't even care.
The dentist actually asked me if I ate sugar. I was kind of floored by that. No one has ever told me that my teeth are THAT clean. I mean, really. So I said, "Uh, well, I eat sugar, just... in moderation." Because I am always ever so eloquent.
I came home, I'm pretty sure I sat around a lot, I vaguely remember driving somewhere but maybe that was just the dentist. I beat Sra Pento at Typing Maniac again because I am just that competitive, and she actually acknowledged her defeat and then I felt horrible about it. So, while I'm not exactly hoping she beats my score, I want her to reclaim her own competitive streak. Type! Type!
I watched SYTYCD with Laura. We were pleased. I don't understand why the general feeling for Caitlin seems to be vehement dislike. I actually like her quite a lot, myself. I thought she danced that weird alien thing really well, and I don't understand people who say she can't hold a character throughout the piece or whatever.
I mean, I'd like to see Melissa, who has had three routines heavily based on classical training - you know, ballet/jazz training - in jazz, pas de deux, contemporary, and samba... which is like Latin JUST this side of ballet. When Melissa impresses me with something like Samba/Cha-Cha/West Coast Swing/Hip-hop, MAYBE I'll reconsider my first impression of her.
I think that, although I didn't particularly like Vitolio (he came off as really entitled, to me), he was kind of sabotaged by the memory of less-than-dynamic dances with Asuka, and the same went for Karla, although I liked her okay. I'd have been fine with any of the boys going home, really... because Kupono just doesn't impress me, ever. And Phillip has had hip-hop for 50% of his dances? What is that? Slam the kid with contemporary so Jeanine can shine in her own element instead of in his!
Anyway, enough of that. Laura and I were punchy last night... I told that stupid story about heading into the boys' bathroom at my own highschool again, about six months after I'd graduated.
You know, the one where my bladder was about ready to explode so I slipped out just as the applause for the last song in the concert began, and slipped into the bathroom without bothering to read the signs. Of course, when it was so much more spacious than I remembered it being - because of the urinals mounted on the walls rather than the space filled with stalls - I completely panicked. I couldn't decide whether to just enter one of the stalls and go and possibly hide there until EVERYONE was gone, or whether to try to make my escape quickly.
I finally decided to just leave, after kind of false-starting in either direction twenty times, and I listened at the door, praying that most people were still in the auditorium, applauding or talking or something. I exited, took a deep breath, and looked up... to see Mr. Avellino, the executive principal, staring at me very distastefully. "WHAT were you doing in there?" he asked.
I brushed a lock of hair dampened with panic-sweat out of my flushed face, grinned weakly at him, and attempted to infuse my reply with all the brightness I could muster: "I was just asking myself the same thing."
He was not amused. "I asked you a question. What were you doing in there?"
Good night, I honestly have never wanted the ground to swallow me as much as I did in that moment, praying that he didn't recognize me as the All-State flutist, or the National Merit Scholar, or the girl he'd handed some awards to at the ceremony the year earlier and been photographed with several times. I looked at him sheepishly and said, "Well, I accidently went into the wrong bathroom."
He was still staring at me with that general air of disgust, and I basically ran for it, excusing myself with a mutter that could have really been anything. I realized later that he had thought that I had been engaging in unsavory activities with a member of the opposite sex in that bathroom. And then I was even more mortified than I had been when I'd actually been standing there facing him down.
So I told that story again... and cried with laughter. It's nice when you can laugh things off, even if it ends up just coming with time.
I think today I'm going to Salsaritas for lunch -- hooray!! I've been craving that goofy taco pizza for probably a month and a half now. It's been a long time since I've been there. Jon has to sell an ad for marching band or something to them, and it's a good excuse to go. Jon's a very convincing salesman. Other than that, I plan to read all day because I have so much lame fiction to catch up on!
Well, I went to the dentist. And not just any dentist... a shiny, brand-new dentist! Because I had garnered the illustrious title "brand-new patient" for myself, this first visit was rather costly. They like their x-rays. The good news, though, is that I don't have any cavities, so I don't (or, rather, my parents don't) have to hand out any more money for another six months. My next appointment is January 5, 2010, at 2:50pm. I can't believe we're already scheduling events for 2010. I feel so old. I saw a little kid wearing a "Class of 2015" t-shirt the other day. I wanted to push him down.
Except I didn't, because that would be quite irresponsible of me, especially as someone who claims to love little kids. Then again, I work with 3 year olds in Sunday school (most of them are 4 by now, and we're getting ready for a new crop in August... the 3 year olds are not nearly so functional in the beginning of the year as they are by the end) -- but they never wear "Class of 2023" shirts. Oh, ICK. Excuse me while I go puke and feel ancient.
Anyway, I approved of this dentist. I just felt like everyone was friendlier than they were at the old dentist; I mean, of course they have to be, because I'm new, but still. And I just felt more comfortable, probably because the dentist was not the father of my former best friend. It's not that we ever fought, we just drifted. We started drifting even before we graduated. I don't think she even signed my senior year yearbook... and somehow, I don't even care.
The dentist actually asked me if I ate sugar. I was kind of floored by that. No one has ever told me that my teeth are THAT clean. I mean, really. So I said, "Uh, well, I eat sugar, just... in moderation." Because I am always ever so eloquent.
I came home, I'm pretty sure I sat around a lot, I vaguely remember driving somewhere but maybe that was just the dentist. I beat Sra Pento at Typing Maniac again because I am just that competitive, and she actually acknowledged her defeat and then I felt horrible about it. So, while I'm not exactly hoping she beats my score, I want her to reclaim her own competitive streak. Type! Type!
I watched SYTYCD with Laura. We were pleased. I don't understand why the general feeling for Caitlin seems to be vehement dislike. I actually like her quite a lot, myself. I thought she danced that weird alien thing really well, and I don't understand people who say she can't hold a character throughout the piece or whatever.
I mean, I'd like to see Melissa, who has had three routines heavily based on classical training - you know, ballet/jazz training - in jazz, pas de deux, contemporary, and samba... which is like Latin JUST this side of ballet. When Melissa impresses me with something like Samba/Cha-Cha/West Coast Swing/Hip-hop, MAYBE I'll reconsider my first impression of her.
I think that, although I didn't particularly like Vitolio (he came off as really entitled, to me), he was kind of sabotaged by the memory of less-than-dynamic dances with Asuka, and the same went for Karla, although I liked her okay. I'd have been fine with any of the boys going home, really... because Kupono just doesn't impress me, ever. And Phillip has had hip-hop for 50% of his dances? What is that? Slam the kid with contemporary so Jeanine can shine in her own element instead of in his!
Anyway, enough of that. Laura and I were punchy last night... I told that stupid story about heading into the boys' bathroom at my own highschool again, about six months after I'd graduated.
You know, the one where my bladder was about ready to explode so I slipped out just as the applause for the last song in the concert began, and slipped into the bathroom without bothering to read the signs. Of course, when it was so much more spacious than I remembered it being - because of the urinals mounted on the walls rather than the space filled with stalls - I completely panicked. I couldn't decide whether to just enter one of the stalls and go and possibly hide there until EVERYONE was gone, or whether to try to make my escape quickly.
I finally decided to just leave, after kind of false-starting in either direction twenty times, and I listened at the door, praying that most people were still in the auditorium, applauding or talking or something. I exited, took a deep breath, and looked up... to see Mr. Avellino, the executive principal, staring at me very distastefully. "WHAT were you doing in there?" he asked.
I brushed a lock of hair dampened with panic-sweat out of my flushed face, grinned weakly at him, and attempted to infuse my reply with all the brightness I could muster: "I was just asking myself the same thing."
He was not amused. "I asked you a question. What were you doing in there?"
Good night, I honestly have never wanted the ground to swallow me as much as I did in that moment, praying that he didn't recognize me as the All-State flutist, or the National Merit Scholar, or the girl he'd handed some awards to at the ceremony the year earlier and been photographed with several times. I looked at him sheepishly and said, "Well, I accidently went into the wrong bathroom."
He was still staring at me with that general air of disgust, and I basically ran for it, excusing myself with a mutter that could have really been anything. I realized later that he had thought that I had been engaging in unsavory activities with a member of the opposite sex in that bathroom. And then I was even more mortified than I had been when I'd actually been standing there facing him down.
So I told that story again... and cried with laughter. It's nice when you can laugh things off, even if it ends up just coming with time.
I think today I'm going to Salsaritas for lunch -- hooray!! I've been craving that goofy taco pizza for probably a month and a half now. It's been a long time since I've been there. Jon has to sell an ad for marching band or something to them, and it's a good excuse to go. Jon's a very convincing salesman. Other than that, I plan to read all day because I have so much lame fiction to catch up on!
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Fourth Post
I would like to know why this blogger thing - it is called blogger, right? I'm new to this one - thinks I have posted four posts. That probably looks quite inept to you, doesn't it, my dear reader, because the header for this entry is (paramount in its originality...) "Fourth Post", so you say, "Well, Shannon, that's probably because you have posted four times! See? I refer you to your title!"
I'm sure after I post this, blogger will think I've posted five times. For some reason, this is incredibly irritating to me. Come on, blogger. Simple math.
Before I get to the next point, I'll have you know that I've been playing "Typing Maniac" on facebook like an addict. Facebook is nice in that it has lame addicting game knock offs that the internet tells you to download for $6.99 a month. Bejeweled has its knockoff, which means I have been delivered from that particular monthly fee. Hooray! I never intended to actually pay it, anyway. I'm very picky about where I stick my debit card number. Anyway probably the reason I'm so intent on playing the stupid game is that Senora Pento keeps one-upping my high score, but it gets so darn hard towards the 200,000 mark. I beat her score by probably something like 500 points, which is not much. But I beat it! I am victorious!
... I wonder how long it'll take her to top me again.
Anyway. Facebook informs me that because I was born between October 19 and October 25, I am (at?) "The Cusp of Drama and Criticism". That doesn't sound very friendly. Anyway, being born in a particular week seems awfully arbitrary. What about my projected birth date? November 6? I was born two weeks early; should that indicate to me that I was very dramatic even in the womb?
I'm sure after I post this, blogger will think I've posted five times. For some reason, this is incredibly irritating to me. Come on, blogger. Simple math.
Before I get to the next point, I'll have you know that I've been playing "Typing Maniac" on facebook like an addict. Facebook is nice in that it has lame addicting game knock offs that the internet tells you to download for $6.99 a month. Bejeweled has its knockoff, which means I have been delivered from that particular monthly fee. Hooray! I never intended to actually pay it, anyway. I'm very picky about where I stick my debit card number. Anyway probably the reason I'm so intent on playing the stupid game is that Senora Pento keeps one-upping my high score, but it gets so darn hard towards the 200,000 mark. I beat her score by probably something like 500 points, which is not much. But I beat it! I am victorious!
... I wonder how long it'll take her to top me again.
Anyway. Facebook informs me that because I was born between October 19 and October 25, I am (at?) "The Cusp of Drama and Criticism". That doesn't sound very friendly. Anyway, being born in a particular week seems awfully arbitrary. What about my projected birth date? November 6? I was born two weeks early; should that indicate to me that I was very dramatic even in the womb?
Mahahaha. Anyway, this is what it says about me. "You have a BIG personality and sometimes can prove to be too much for anyone to handle. You are charismatic, intellectual and have well thought out highly developed plans. You usually have something to say on every subject. You are both intellectual and emotional. You care perceptive and insightful. You tend to be overly critical and feel infallible. You also have a wild and unpredictable side, dramatic and impulsive. You have had many love affairs and broken many hearts, you are sensuous and passionate. Strengths: Sensuous – Charismatic – Artistic Weaknesses: Overcritical – Addictive – Rigid "
Hey, look at that, I'm sensuous and passionate! I suppose this is not the time to mention that I, uh, have never gone on a date? So I've probably left many hearts unscathed.
Sorry about all of the facebook in this post. My virtual life is probably not very interesting to you. So here's my day! I woke up at 7:45am with my alarm, turned over and glared at it, and brought my right hand down on the snooze button rather forcefully, which granted me another 9 minutes. At 7:54, I looked blearily at the clock and decided NOT to repeat the part of yesterday morning when I woke up at 8:16, which was one minute past the time I wanted to leave.
I got up, washed my face and threw on my "lab clothes", which consisted of my American Idol t-shirt with the rhinestone electric guitar, the pair of jeans that actually requires a belt, and sneakers. I discovered later that I had meant to throw that particular pair of jeans in the wash after the last time I wore them because I had dropped strawberries on them. I chalked the pink splotch up to creative license and headed off to school. Facing my fears, I took 81 (actually, taking the back roads would probably be faster right now. Maybe I'll try that next time) and played Journey because I was playing Journey when the accident happened.
Made it to school, parked, walked up umpteen sets of stairs, and headed inside... only to find FX heading in from the other direction! So we met in the middle and took the elevator up together. I informed him that I was expecting a phone call, and he informed me that he needed to make a phone call. I sat outside of his office on the blue couch thing - those are actually exceedingly comfortable - and waited until he was done. Unfortunately, about 15 minutes into our meeting, I finally got my call, so I headed back out to the couch and gave my statement to our insurance company.
I headed back in, we talked over the beginning of the scheme again, and then he explained something unrelated to me, where I have to evaporate the methanol solvent from a diterpene and then add deuterated solvent and evaporate again, then make up to about half a milliliter of deuterated solvent. This, to me, even though there's actually not much at all involved, is incredibly frightening because we have only been sent 45 micrograms and I guess we're doing structure elucidation? Sweet. Wow. I'm terrified.
I ran into Dave Kiemle, he called my macrolide "the pacman" (Justine calls it "the kiwi" as in the bird, not the fruit) and we were sort of reintroduced. I took my paperwork down to HR, I filled out some more paperwork, I handed it back and I headed back up to see FX, who told me that I could come back in on Monday ("if you want") at 9:00am. Woohoo! He also showed me my official desk - which is currently occupied by a little ancient mass spectrometer - and then went through all of his refrigerators in the lab for propargyl alcohol. Unsuccessful. Oh well.
So I left, headed to the library, attempted to use SciFinder, got frustrated, and eventually headed home. Where I have been all day since. Except for when I drove to Fairmount for my Bible study with Christina and Maggie, and I bought the carrot juice Bolthouse drink. I don't know what I expected it to taste like. It tastes like carrots. I don't really like it.
And then I picked Jon up from karate and headed down to check out where I'm going for my dentist appointment tomorrow. I'm changing dentists. I have a feeling I'm still not going to love going to the dentist. Ugh. Dentists. Lame.
Well, I'd better go watch SYTYCD with Laura before she not-so-spontaneously combusts.
Sorry about all of the facebook in this post. My virtual life is probably not very interesting to you. So here's my day! I woke up at 7:45am with my alarm, turned over and glared at it, and brought my right hand down on the snooze button rather forcefully, which granted me another 9 minutes. At 7:54, I looked blearily at the clock and decided NOT to repeat the part of yesterday morning when I woke up at 8:16, which was one minute past the time I wanted to leave.
I got up, washed my face and threw on my "lab clothes", which consisted of my American Idol t-shirt with the rhinestone electric guitar, the pair of jeans that actually requires a belt, and sneakers. I discovered later that I had meant to throw that particular pair of jeans in the wash after the last time I wore them because I had dropped strawberries on them. I chalked the pink splotch up to creative license and headed off to school. Facing my fears, I took 81 (actually, taking the back roads would probably be faster right now. Maybe I'll try that next time) and played Journey because I was playing Journey when the accident happened.
Made it to school, parked, walked up umpteen sets of stairs, and headed inside... only to find FX heading in from the other direction! So we met in the middle and took the elevator up together. I informed him that I was expecting a phone call, and he informed me that he needed to make a phone call. I sat outside of his office on the blue couch thing - those are actually exceedingly comfortable - and waited until he was done. Unfortunately, about 15 minutes into our meeting, I finally got my call, so I headed back out to the couch and gave my statement to our insurance company.
I headed back in, we talked over the beginning of the scheme again, and then he explained something unrelated to me, where I have to evaporate the methanol solvent from a diterpene and then add deuterated solvent and evaporate again, then make up to about half a milliliter of deuterated solvent. This, to me, even though there's actually not much at all involved, is incredibly frightening because we have only been sent 45 micrograms and I guess we're doing structure elucidation? Sweet. Wow. I'm terrified.
I ran into Dave Kiemle, he called my macrolide "the pacman" (Justine calls it "the kiwi" as in the bird, not the fruit) and we were sort of reintroduced. I took my paperwork down to HR, I filled out some more paperwork, I handed it back and I headed back up to see FX, who told me that I could come back in on Monday ("if you want") at 9:00am. Woohoo! He also showed me my official desk - which is currently occupied by a little ancient mass spectrometer - and then went through all of his refrigerators in the lab for propargyl alcohol. Unsuccessful. Oh well.
So I left, headed to the library, attempted to use SciFinder, got frustrated, and eventually headed home. Where I have been all day since. Except for when I drove to Fairmount for my Bible study with Christina and Maggie, and I bought the carrot juice Bolthouse drink. I don't know what I expected it to taste like. It tastes like carrots. I don't really like it.
And then I picked Jon up from karate and headed down to check out where I'm going for my dentist appointment tomorrow. I'm changing dentists. I have a feeling I'm still not going to love going to the dentist. Ugh. Dentists. Lame.
Well, I'd better go watch SYTYCD with Laura before she not-so-spontaneously combusts.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Third Post
Well, I got in my first car accident today. I don't actually want to talk about it, but there it is, hanging like a very, very dark raincloud that insists on pelting me with golf-ball sized hail and icy rain to match. I hadn't hoped to have my first accident before I'd completed 20 years on the earth. I certainly hadn't hoped to be the cause of my first accident. Yes, that's right, I rear-ended someone on 81 this morning. Dear, sweet, stop-and-go, construction-filled 81.
I'm absolutely sick to my stomach over it. Not to mention that this accident caused me to miss Caiping's capstone seminar before her dissertation over her Ph.D. thesis. Which was, naturally, my only reason to get up before at least 10:00am this morning, as my meeting with FX was at 1:30.
Justine went. We'd been going to go together, but that clearly didn't work out. Later, after I'd sat in my car in the ESF Standart parking lot and sobbed for half an hour or forty-five minutes, she came out and gave me a hug and talked to me about the drama at the seminar and the drama in her lab. That calmed me down a bit... I think she frantically launched into stories because I was still teetering on the verge of tears and she didn't want to push me over the edge.
So I went up to her lab with her because at some point I was going to have to leave my car and come up onto campus, unless I wanted to sit there and mope for another three and a half hours. I walked around and watched what she was doing and talked to her and Margaret... and then Boyer came in and was really cruising for a meltdown as he demanded to know where some samples were, and Margaret and Justine told him they weren't sure because they hadn't worked with the samples. It was very tense. At one point he looked directly at me when he was asking a question and I'm pretty sure he thought I was working for him. So as soon as his back was turned, I made my escape. I didn't want a ridiculously tall, ridiculously angry chemist to eat me. Not today.
So I went down to the stockroom and found Christina, who was willing to give me several hugs, and then I briefly helped her with inventory. At one point some girl came in and asked "Can I just go through to the dry ice room?"
Christina said, "Yes you may," and the girl thanked her and said something about how she hadn't known if it was okay. Christina then said, "Oh, but be careful that the dog doesn't get you." She immediately afterwards cried, "No, I'm kidding! I'm just kidding!" She looked at me and turned progressively redder until we heard the door click shut, and then she laughed harder than I possibly have ever seen her laugh in my life. Apparently the girl actually thought she was serious about the dog. Hahahahahahaa, I got a good laugh out of that too, which was nice because laughs have been few and far between today.
Then we went to Marshall Street and ordered our usuals from Syrajuice. It was nice, they were nice, lunch was nice, and somehow we made it there just before it rained and left just after it rained. That was, I think, incredibly lucky.
I made it back well in time for my meeting with FX, wherein I filled out some paperwork (we had to make a pilgrimage to the secretary to get it, but we did) and was told to look some things up (I'm trying! Gosh darn it!) and come back tomorrow at 9:00am dressed in lab clothes. "Whatever you think they are," he says, "I'm not too picky."
Then I headed to Sci/Tech to pick up a book to discover that it is closed all this week, headed back to Moon and spent 45 minutes trying to log into SciFinder, and then finally broke into SciFinder and found exactly one article that might be helpful after searching for another 45 minutes. All in all... quite a day.
I'm hoping to catch up with Davey tonight. We'll see. Things are complicated since the accident.
I made it back well in time for my meeting with FX, wherein I filled out some paperwork (we had to make a pilgrimage to the secretary to get it, but we did) and was told to look some things up (I'm trying! Gosh darn it!) and come back tomorrow at 9:00am dressed in lab clothes. "Whatever you think they are," he says, "I'm not too picky."
Then I headed to Sci/Tech to pick up a book to discover that it is closed all this week, headed back to Moon and spent 45 minutes trying to log into SciFinder, and then finally broke into SciFinder and found exactly one article that might be helpful after searching for another 45 minutes. All in all... quite a day.
I'm hoping to catch up with Davey tonight. We'll see. Things are complicated since the accident.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Second Post
Grandma and Grandpa left a few minutes ago. Even though it was only three days, it takes a while to adjust. Grandma made DJ a lovely quilt, but I still like the one she made for me better. Mine is awesome. If I ever get batteries for my camera again, maybe I'll take pictures of it and put them up. Because, for real, it's awesome, and I also have a pretty good camera that never gets used.
Finally heard from FX. I shouldn't say "finally" - I emailed him last Tuesday, and he emailed back Wednesday saying he would email Thursday. He didn't, so I emailed again last night, and he emailed back this morning and informed me that he was out of town at the end of last week. Judging by his promise to email me back on Thursday, I'm going to assume he was really busy on Thursday and just didn't get to it, and then he was out of town on Friday. Or maybe he was just taking vacation, because his daughter is the same age as DJ, and DJ graduated Saturday.
I'd forgotten how boring the graduation ceremony was. Dan gave a good speech, but most of everything else I just found utterly yawn-inducing. I texted Steph and KTSR throughout the entire ceremony, because I could see them sitting across the auditorium (do you call the War Memorial an auditorium? beats me). KTSR's phone died eventually, and mine threatened to expire, but we made it.
Anyway, I'm going in to see FX tomorrow at 1:30. He says the account is set up, so I will be able to fill out some paperwork and get myself onto payroll! Once on payroll, I'm allowed to start working in the lab, so I'll be able to get two months or so of research. That's not bad - better than last summer, and now that I feel like some progress is being made, I feel slightly less on edge.
I got up this morning to go out to breakfast with Grandma and Grandpa. Dad, DJ, and I headed out to the Gardenview diner, and it was pretty nice. It was my first time eating there, so I wasn't quite sure what to order. I guess next time I'd probably get something like eggs and bacon, or maybe an omelette, because they don't have the Belgian waffles with fresh strawberries that I like to get for breakfasts. I ordered pancakes with strawberries, but the strawberries weren't fresh. No worries, I'm not really complaining - it was good! And I'm still full.
I think I'm still feeling out this blog. I haven't decided yet what sort of a tone I want to cultivate. I don't think I'll do much complaining... there's enough negativity on my LJ, although I have to admit that even there I think I have a good balance of emotions. Anyway, I know that right now I'm updating this daily, but bear in mind that it's only the second day and - hopefully! - I'll be working soon. Maybe not full-time in terms of hours, but FX told me to treat it like a salaried position (translation: "I don't mind if you claim 40 hours every week") and my mind's going to be involved, which is a nice change from last summer.
Anyway, I've already devised the scheme, and FX says we basically get into specifics as we go along, so I shouldn't (?) worry about huge particulars yet. I'm glad that he's going to help me through this part, because this is the part we didn't cover in ochem III: the practical part, where we talk about isolations and separations. Extractions, distillations, chromatography... I'm not as solid on that as I am on the theory of specific reactions and conditions.
Well, I have an awful lot of recreational reading to get through before I transform into a working woman! Chick / child lit, here I come!
Finally heard from FX. I shouldn't say "finally" - I emailed him last Tuesday, and he emailed back Wednesday saying he would email Thursday. He didn't, so I emailed again last night, and he emailed back this morning and informed me that he was out of town at the end of last week. Judging by his promise to email me back on Thursday, I'm going to assume he was really busy on Thursday and just didn't get to it, and then he was out of town on Friday. Or maybe he was just taking vacation, because his daughter is the same age as DJ, and DJ graduated Saturday.
I'd forgotten how boring the graduation ceremony was. Dan gave a good speech, but most of everything else I just found utterly yawn-inducing. I texted Steph and KTSR throughout the entire ceremony, because I could see them sitting across the auditorium (do you call the War Memorial an auditorium? beats me). KTSR's phone died eventually, and mine threatened to expire, but we made it.
Anyway, I'm going in to see FX tomorrow at 1:30. He says the account is set up, so I will be able to fill out some paperwork and get myself onto payroll! Once on payroll, I'm allowed to start working in the lab, so I'll be able to get two months or so of research. That's not bad - better than last summer, and now that I feel like some progress is being made, I feel slightly less on edge.
I got up this morning to go out to breakfast with Grandma and Grandpa. Dad, DJ, and I headed out to the Gardenview diner, and it was pretty nice. It was my first time eating there, so I wasn't quite sure what to order. I guess next time I'd probably get something like eggs and bacon, or maybe an omelette, because they don't have the Belgian waffles with fresh strawberries that I like to get for breakfasts. I ordered pancakes with strawberries, but the strawberries weren't fresh. No worries, I'm not really complaining - it was good! And I'm still full.
I think I'm still feeling out this blog. I haven't decided yet what sort of a tone I want to cultivate. I don't think I'll do much complaining... there's enough negativity on my LJ, although I have to admit that even there I think I have a good balance of emotions. Anyway, I know that right now I'm updating this daily, but bear in mind that it's only the second day and - hopefully! - I'll be working soon. Maybe not full-time in terms of hours, but FX told me to treat it like a salaried position (translation: "I don't mind if you claim 40 hours every week") and my mind's going to be involved, which is a nice change from last summer.
Anyway, I've already devised the scheme, and FX says we basically get into specifics as we go along, so I shouldn't (?) worry about huge particulars yet. I'm glad that he's going to help me through this part, because this is the part we didn't cover in ochem III: the practical part, where we talk about isolations and separations. Extractions, distillations, chromatography... I'm not as solid on that as I am on the theory of specific reactions and conditions.
Well, I have an awful lot of recreational reading to get through before I transform into a working woman! Chick / child lit, here I come!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
First Post
Hahaha! Oh, hey, would you look at this! I have a brand-new blog that I created for the sole purpose of following my mother's Bible study. Then, of course, I forgot to follow her Bible study, but I went to go comment on a blog post of hers in reply to another comment, wherein I was told to stop biting my cuticles (and I do - it's part of my evolving manners: I used to bite my nails, and now I've switched to cuticles). Having left my two-word comment, I capriciously decided to click on my own name (which happens to show up as "shannon" and the lack of capitalization just kills me, but I guess it must be my own fault) and I discovered that I have a blog named "aldolcondensation". Well, that is just too good to pass up.
So here I am, randomly writing in a blog that, if I'm lucky, no one will ever find, and we'll treat it like Livejournal except not, because on LJ I write to an audience consisting of Dave and Christina, although most of the entries are - not for posterity, which I used to think meant something about "for the sake of having it" but which actually means for future generations, which Davey was so kind as to inform me when I made a redundant comment without realizing it was redundant - for my own memory. I waste a lot of time reading old blog posts.
Well anyway, I might as well talk about aldol condensations just in case anyone is worrying about why I would choose to call my blog "aldolcondensation". It's fairly arbitrary, actually, beyond the fact that I wanted an organic chemistry term. I've used aldehyde before, but I wanted a reaction, not a functional group, so that was out. By that same logic, I wasn't going to use "Methyl-X", which I have facetiously claimed as my alter-ego (a superhero! the thrill! the joy!) or any element or compound names (although I do believe I contemplated "norbornane" and "buckminsterfullerene").
Finally I settled on aldol condensations, probably mostly because I tutor organic chemistry during the fall and spring semesters, and those particular reactions are at the end of the spring semester. However, the mechanism is somewhat involved, really cool, and I can do it in my sleep. The coolest thing about it is that it proceeds to the same product (assuming only one possible alpha-hydrogen position which is, I'll admit, quite the restriction) whether the reaction is under acidic or basic conditions.
Chemistry is so cool!
Okay. So, currently I have a lot of meaningless projects for the rest of this summer to occupy the time I do not spend getting in touch with FX, meeting with FX, or (hopefully soon!) working in the lab with FX. He is my professor and also my employer this summer; I'm doing a project in organic synthesis and natural products. It's new, it's challenging, it's exciting, and it stresses me out.
I went to Wal-Mart with Laura this afternoon because VBS is this coming week and she wants crazy socks to wear as a gimmick for the first grade kids she's going to be working with. While we were there, we had to do some exploring because nothing is where it used to be, but I don't really mind. I guess that's weird, but it makes me feel like I feel when I'm really cleaning my room, not just shuffling papers into folders and organizing stacks of books, but when I'm totally reorganizing. Maybe I like the new organization better; maybe I just feel like change like that is good. Anyway, we went and I picked up some new Trident. It's strawberry flavored. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it yet.
The whole family (including Grandma and Grandpa Carpenter) went up to Cato (I think it's Cato hahahahahahahaha) to see our land. We wound up visiting with the Hills who will be our next-door neighbors if we move anytime in the next fifty years, and then we went to the B'ville Diner, which was awesome. It would have been even better if the fan hadn't been immediately below a light, so the lights flickered the whole time we were eating. That was okay as long as I wasn't trying to read something. So basically it was okay when I wasn't looking at the menu.
I've had shingles for a week now, but it's starting to go away, which is a huge blessing. When I went to see my pediatrician (who is married to FX), she brought up the summer programs that I applied to and asked what I was doing this summer. I kind of stared at her for a minute, then said, "Um, actually, I'm... working with your husband." That threw her off a little. That was awesome. Hopefully FX didn't get into too much trouble over that.
Well, I can't think of too much more to write right now. It's been a long time since I've managed two blogs at once. Even my LJ only gets updated 5-15 times a month. I guess that's not terrible. Since I don't really anticipate any avid readers, I don't suppose it matters.
Woohoo! Signing off!
So here I am, randomly writing in a blog that, if I'm lucky, no one will ever find, and we'll treat it like Livejournal except not, because on LJ I write to an audience consisting of Dave and Christina, although most of the entries are - not for posterity, which I used to think meant something about "for the sake of having it" but which actually means for future generations, which Davey was so kind as to inform me when I made a redundant comment without realizing it was redundant - for my own memory. I waste a lot of time reading old blog posts.
Well anyway, I might as well talk about aldol condensations just in case anyone is worrying about why I would choose to call my blog "aldolcondensation". It's fairly arbitrary, actually, beyond the fact that I wanted an organic chemistry term. I've used aldehyde before, but I wanted a reaction, not a functional group, so that was out. By that same logic, I wasn't going to use "Methyl-X", which I have facetiously claimed as my alter-ego (a superhero! the thrill! the joy!) or any element or compound names (although I do believe I contemplated "norbornane" and "buckminsterfullerene").
Finally I settled on aldol condensations, probably mostly because I tutor organic chemistry during the fall and spring semesters, and those particular reactions are at the end of the spring semester. However, the mechanism is somewhat involved, really cool, and I can do it in my sleep. The coolest thing about it is that it proceeds to the same product (assuming only one possible alpha-hydrogen position which is, I'll admit, quite the restriction) whether the reaction is under acidic or basic conditions.
Chemistry is so cool!
Okay. So, currently I have a lot of meaningless projects for the rest of this summer to occupy the time I do not spend getting in touch with FX, meeting with FX, or (hopefully soon!) working in the lab with FX. He is my professor and also my employer this summer; I'm doing a project in organic synthesis and natural products. It's new, it's challenging, it's exciting, and it stresses me out.
I went to Wal-Mart with Laura this afternoon because VBS is this coming week and she wants crazy socks to wear as a gimmick for the first grade kids she's going to be working with. While we were there, we had to do some exploring because nothing is where it used to be, but I don't really mind. I guess that's weird, but it makes me feel like I feel when I'm really cleaning my room, not just shuffling papers into folders and organizing stacks of books, but when I'm totally reorganizing. Maybe I like the new organization better; maybe I just feel like change like that is good. Anyway, we went and I picked up some new Trident. It's strawberry flavored. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it yet.
The whole family (including Grandma and Grandpa Carpenter) went up to Cato (I think it's Cato hahahahahahahaha) to see our land. We wound up visiting with the Hills who will be our next-door neighbors if we move anytime in the next fifty years, and then we went to the B'ville Diner, which was awesome. It would have been even better if the fan hadn't been immediately below a light, so the lights flickered the whole time we were eating. That was okay as long as I wasn't trying to read something. So basically it was okay when I wasn't looking at the menu.
I've had shingles for a week now, but it's starting to go away, which is a huge blessing. When I went to see my pediatrician (who is married to FX), she brought up the summer programs that I applied to and asked what I was doing this summer. I kind of stared at her for a minute, then said, "Um, actually, I'm... working with your husband." That threw her off a little. That was awesome. Hopefully FX didn't get into too much trouble over that.
Well, I can't think of too much more to write right now. It's been a long time since I've managed two blogs at once. Even my LJ only gets updated 5-15 times a month. I guess that's not terrible. Since I don't really anticipate any avid readers, I don't suppose it matters.
Woohoo! Signing off!
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