I don't remember when I wrote this. Sometime last week, possibly. In any case, I want to close the document on my computer, so here we are:

Things I can’t wait to be able to do again:
+ drive
+ sing
+ make cookies
+ eat at home

So I am just sitting around, checking on my oxidation every once in a while. It has now been 90 minutes, which means that I am halfway there IF the purple color remains until the end. Needless to say I’m pretty terrified that I’ll go check on it and it will be brown, and I’ll have to add more permanganate and start the whole three hour incubationary period thing again. At least the temperature’s been controlled.

I have found that I am not a huge fan of peer review. I think part of this is that I do not trust my peers to do an adequate job of reviewing my work. Maybe this is a bad attitude, but I can't help but think that these people have never written scientific papers before. I'll admit, though, that since I did only take about three hours to write my lit review, it is not perfect. It's satisfactory.

The problem is that my research focus is primarily the synthesis of the MOF, but the end game is the MOF is to be used for xenon-krypton separation. So I essentially have two separate but intertwined goals, and it makes the lit review a bit difficult. I outlined it and wrote it in, bring together the aspects of MOFs, narrowing to gas separations and then breaking off for a page and a half or so on noble gas separations, then back to my specific focus.

I’m trying to figure out how to retool the very beginning of the paper to give it a better feel for the entire point without collapsing the structure of my paper, which stands up quite well on its own. It has direction; I just didn’t explicitly state the direction in my first paragraph. I should probably try to do that, but instead I am going to print out my paper and take it to the workshop this afternoon.

Hooray, I figured out how to print! Here in lab! Fo’ free! I love free printing. I love free anything. One becomes hypersensitive about free stuff when one’s money is flowing out from one’s bank account like water. Too bad I am SERIOUSLY craving pizza tonight. Mmmm. Pizza. Hopefully after this seminar I have in 25 minutes I can get an NMR, finish some stuff up and go get some food.

This is the problem with spending money. I only spend it on food, but I love food too much to give it up.

Hahahaha you know what’s bad? When you come back to your computer because you have a couple of minutes to kill while something or other is going on, and your browser consists of two pages of Bejeweled Blitz. It’s an addiction. And the funny thing is that it’s really what I do when I have to kill time, because there’s only so many times I can check my email when I’m not getting any new mail.

Currently I am filtering some of my oxidation product(s). It is actually pretty funny. For some reason, the crystals are sort of gloopy and I can build little towers out of them on the sintered glass, and then I have to wait for some of the water to be sucked out (the tower shrinks) and then I add some more and make the little hill into a mountain. It’s way more fun than yesterday, when I accidentally covered the entire surface of the funnel and had to wait half an hour for two milliliters to drain through the now clogged frit.

My stuff is drying. Ugh, the days are so long when I have nothing to do. I don’t even know what I hope the NMR says. Well, I hope the NMR says COMPLETE OXIDATION but as I know that that won’t be the case, I should prep myself for disappointment and lots more permanganate.

Tonight I really feel like going to Flat Top Grill. We went there the very first night that we went out to eat. It’s build-it-yourself stir fry and I am so excited, but it might rain in which case I am not quite so excited, but I still want stir fry. I am planning on getting the unlimited option, not because I plan to eat five bowls of stir fry but because I will probably be able to eat at least two and if I can eat two, it’s only an additional two or three dollars for the unlimited option. It would be a really good place for David. He could eat a lot, and being able to make it himself would make him one happy camper.

Seriously, I need to stop thinking about food when I’m at work. It’s not a good habit, because then I start to get hungry and then I get miserable. Although let’s face it: I only have three hours left today and I am pretty psyched to… well, to do nothing, I guess.