Deep breaths.

Deep breaths and to-do lists may well become the theme of the semester. It's just that I have so much to do in a set amount of time. At least tomorrow is Saturday, which means that I will get sleep. I hesitate to say what else I will accomplish tomorrow, for fear of jinxing myself.

Suffice it to say that I hope that the terror of impending deadlines will kick my butt into action. The dates are just so inconvenient.

I went to a seminar today. Apparently the chemical ecology class was also given credit for going to the seminar (it was on sex pheromones), so it was absolutely packed. I mean standing room only. Dave came - maybe because the topic was so FX-y that he felt he ought - and there was still a seat next to me because I had draped my coat over it, so I indicated the seat and he came and sat next to me.

I didn't see FX come in but I certainly saw him at the end, so I'm not sure how exactly he did that. Nevertheless.

I think I like inorganic chemistry. It does not seem quite so anti-organic... Dr. D makes a big point out of being anti-organic but she's not. Not really. Anyway, it's hard to say NOW because I have only actually had two classes, but it seems sort of general-chemistry-esque (it will stop being that way soon, I'm sure) so far and that recalls Hem and, well, I miss her. I miss her a lot.

I'm cold. It's cold in my house. It's pretty much cold everywhere, which makes me kind of miserable. I'll tell you where it isn't cold, is on the third floor of Carnegie. It's like they're trying to smoke me out, whoever 'they' are. With heat, not smoke. Reminds me of the pchem 1 exam I took when the room felt like a sauna and I had trouble concentrating on the problems because I pretty much had sweat dripping down my back. And also my front. It was terrible.

BLAH. I don't feel like doing anything. I wish I was Schubert. He takes his napping very seriously. He has been napping all night. Mostly he naps, eats, and asks to go out. When he asks to go out, it's very annoying and he does it about three hundred times even if he's just been out so I usually yell at him. Good thing he loves me anyway. What a good dog.

Okay I would write down what I need to do but it is so OVERWHELMING that I will try to do the big thing tomorrow. Then it will no longer be overwhelming.

I feel overwhelmed. Forget it. I'm going to watch an episode of LOST if I can remember which one I'm on.

Don't you hate it when someone tells you something that you really should have heard from someone else? And then you realize that the someone else would not have told you because that someone else is actually holding it back - specifically - from you, and everything's just shot all to pieces.

So I'm all eaten up about this. I shouldn't be, should I? But when you compromise everything you believe in, it's another matter entirely. It kind of hurts sometimes to realize that maybe your MORALS actually keep a good friend from confiding in you - and really, if you can't talk to me about it, what does that mean?

Does that mean you're turning your back on what you used to claim to be? Does it mean that you've allowed yourself to fall away from that? Are you looking down on me now as someone backwards and old-fashioned? Or is it that you're scared of how I'd react? Does it mean that you're ashamed to admit to me what's going on?

I'm just so confused, I guess. It really sucks to be confused like this right when I'm trying to get my feet planted firmly underneath me before the semester goes off in a whirlwind of papers and lab time and timesheets and exams. It sucks even more than this to be confused about what I'm supposed to be feeling about everything. I guess if I hadn't heard that it was specifically being held from me, I probably wouldn't feel the same way.

It's the fact that it's held up like a badge of honor to everyone else, and then, as an afterthought, a quick instruction to not tell me. I mean. What?

Sometimes I think that college has actually contributed an amount of drama quite comparable to my drama load from high school. Generally I try to avoid drama. I hate cattiness -- but I am not the instigator, which is why I'm going to let this eat me up for weeks and weeks and potentially longer than that instead of staging a big confrontation and getting lots of people dragged into a maelstrom of my passive-aggressive nature with the passive bit gone missing.

I suppose I should talk about chemistry a little bit, in keeping with the details of the blog. Or something. I'm pretty tired and I had actually kind of planned to be in bed by now but whatever. That's the way my life goes.

I'm kind of excited for inorganic tomorrow. It's novel. I don't bump into much that feels simultaneously new and exciting and old and familiar.

one of us won't last the night
between you and me it's no surprise
there's two of us, both can't be right
neither will move till it's over
I'm the center of attention
and the wall's inside my head
and no one will ever know it
if I keep my mouth shut tight

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 :)

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.

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.

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.

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.