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.

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!

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!