It really grinds my gears when I am looking for data to verify that the compound that I have made, purified, and stuck in a vial and the compound is reported, but the data is somehow just missing from the paper. I can forgive this in the instance where the compound is an observed byproduct (as is sort of the case for me, although I could work with it if it turns out to be this particular byproduct), but in the case where the paper specifically details making compounds of this type and then leaves out the data, well...
I guess in some ways it is a typical Monday. I overslept a bit, which is hard to stress about even when my boss isn't across the globe (or in Hawaii? no one knows.) because the environment is relaxed in the best kind of way. Get in when you get in, leave when you're done, be productive in the in-between.
I have been having trouble with the in-between lately, though. Been a lot of one step forward, three back and - oops, lost again, time to try to check the map, only... oh, someone's spilled coffee on the map and it's torn here and where am I, anyway? I'm not sure what the next step forward is these days, so I feel like I've been making some lateral movement.
The funny thing is that when something works, I'm not going to know what to do then, either. It will be nice to have the boss back in New England whenever that happens. Lately group meetings have even devolved to group lunch and video games. I guess that's what he gets for scheduling them on a Friday afternoon and then not Skyping in.
In a way, it's kind of nice because it's group bonding time. We still make up slides and send them to the boss, but presenting on a four-week rotation is the worst kind of time interval. Not often enough to feel good about running a couple of successful reactions, a la weekly subgroup, and not sparsely enough to have a good chunk of data to present. I understand that in theory it will motivate us to get more done in four weeks, but I do just think that four weeks is a bad time frame for this kind of thing.
There are just little things to look forward to, now. A barbecue at Kate's apartment over BMS weekend, living out the rest of summer, potential beach days... name it what you will. The summer has gone so very quickly, and as usual, leaves most of us scrambling, wondering where the time went and how we can possibly be XX% of the way through a PhD and what we have to show for our time here so far.
I will probably teach next semester, and as much as I hate grading, I kind of like teaching. It's nice to have something to break up the day, and it's actually surprisingly nice to go stand in front of a room of students and know what I'm talking about. A nice break from the everyday perplexity of science.
I have been thinking a lot about reading lately, because I miss powering through a good novel. Maybe I'll go sniffing around after lightly used books on Amazon and see if I can't build up a little paperback library to escape to after hours. I did buy the last Eragon novel a few months ago but am having trouble getting psyched up to read it because I really need to reread the previous three before I read it. The things I do to attain closure. Not exactly a labor of love.
You know, I am not sure I have that many things to say today and this has been very complain-y, so I'm going to sign off. :-)
