The good news? My Suzuki coupling, even with deadish (orange rather than yellow) catalyst, was 91.4% yield. I can’t remember the last time I did something with a yield that high. It makes me feel vaguely competent. NMR confirms that I did a good thing.

The bad news? We have no idea which oxidation conditions to use. Do you know how tedious it is to search the literature for methods of oxidizing aromatic methyls to carboxylic acids? Pretty darn tedious. And there are a lot of ridiculous methods out there.

So I have a long oxidation prep to look forward to. Ordinarily I really would be looking forward to the prospect of having something simmering away for hours, affording m the excuse of passive productivity. However, life does not always work that way, and this program insists on pulling me out of my research to go to a number of seminars: writing, communication, field trips to Argonne…

I dunno. I need an attitude check about things in the program that are not straight research.

I have actually finished my literature review. It is not as long or as complete as I might like it to be, but it is eight pages of MOF-y goodness and I am slowly picking my way through the rest of the articles that I downloaded to my “potentials for lit review” folder. I am developing an extensive folder system in the Northwestern sector of my documents.

If only real-life organization was as simple as digital organization. I would be set.

Last night we went out for coffee and dessert. Because we were a party of five and neglected to ask for separate checks, we were assigned a gratuity, which was actually pretty annoying. Serves me right for forgetting. Also, that was some EXPENSIVE coffee and dessert. Forget this, from now on it is ONE or the OTHER. That will teach me to be indulgent.

I have this fear, not that I’m gaining weight, exactly, but that I’m gaining pudge underneath my chin. Bahahaha it’s pretty ridiculous actually because I have always feared that particular portion of my body for no real discernable reason. I think I will skip going out for dinner tonight. I will have almonds and carrots and broccoli and milk and orange juice, and maybe a granola bar, and I will embrace my hunger pains and also the joy of not spending money.

I can’t wait for more catalyst to come in. It’s always very heartening to have a reaction that works as beautifully as this one did. Let’s do it again! AND PUMP IT UP. TWICE THE SCALE, BB. 20 TIMES THE SCALE OF THE ORIGINAL.

I could get used to bucket chemistry. The chemistry itself is less frustrating. The workup is an enormous pain, but you can’t win ‘em all. The REALLY wonderful news is that I can actually watch tv tonight because I finished my lit review. Gotta reward myself, and I’ve had altogether too much dessert lately, so I think I’mma cut back a little.

Anyway we’re having a mini peer review session tonight, coordinated by Vic. I think it’s a good idea. I also think it’s a LITTLE silly because if we have any control over who reviews our papers in the seminar tomorrow, we’re gonna be handing them to each other rather than to people we don’t know.

I’m ready to see some familiar faces this coming weekend. I mean, the faces here are familiar now, but every once in a while I just want to be by myself because this kind of intense enthusiasm for EVERYTHING (often faux, I’m afraid) is getting to me and sometimes I want to be alone but I don’t want to alienate myself. I just have to make it another five and a half weeks. It would be nice to make some MOFs before I leave. That’s all I really want; to complete the synthesis and leave behind a nice pile of that baby.

I need to repaint my toenails. And I need to do that BEFORE leaving because there is no way I’m getting my nail polish stuff home on the plane. I guess they’re not a big fan of acetone. Something about flammable and also bombs, I hear.

I’ll tell you what’s frustrating: what’s frustrating is that the internet connection in the dorm is perfect for everything I need except Skype, and for some reason when I’m on Skype the internet just does not want my Skype connection to be successful. Whateva.

Plans? Plans for what? The rest of my life? Tonight? This weekend?

I know what I’m doing tonight and what I’m doing this weekend, not so much what I’m doing with the rest of my life. And now I’m sitting here, taking careful notes so that my lit review becomes a matter of piecing together facts that I’ve already written down instead of a whole entire project of a paper. I’ve learned to write in steps.

I keep moving my product in and out of the freezer. It’s fascinating me, because I move it in and it crystallizes, out and it melts. The freezing point of toluene is something ridiculous like -97°C, and I know the freezer is not that cold because I can touch the vials that I am pulling out of it with my bare hands, so it’s not toluene. Hexanes don’t freeze either, so it’s not hexanes. My product shows up beautifully by TLC… so why won’t it stay crystallized?

When I see Brad again, I’ll pose the question. $10 says we just go get an NMR and see what’s up.

Earlier, I sneezed quite violently. It felt sort of good when the aftershocks had worn off. Right now I am eating my granola bar. I have learned a trick to eating. If I let myself get as hungry as I can stand while knowing I have food with me, when I finally eat the food it will taste exceptionally delicious. Hence I am eating the BEST GRANOLA BAR OF MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE.

I just ate a chunk of MK’s sourdough bread. It was very nice, and appropriately sour. I had sourdough at the Cheesecake Factory on Saturday night (free bread, hooray!) and also rye-with-oats. Both were delicious, but the sourdough was not particularly sour.

I’m thirsty.

Currently I’m rotavapping as much DCM as possible off of my product. Then we’ll put it on a Schlenk line overnight, which means that at some point I will be totally free to sit down and concentrate on my paper. And, of course, when I have that freedom I will certainly not be eager to make use of it. I’m contrary (how does my garden grow?).

Sometimes when I’m writing, I look back at what I wrote and it doesn’t really feel like me who wrote it. I like to say that I write the way I speak but I don’t. I think I write the way I think, so to a lesser extent I write the way I speak. If that makes sense. It feels so weird to think that the summer is halfway over (at least). I feel like I’m in stasis, living here in a dormitory in Evanston, doing my own laundry, spending my own money, occasionally keeping my room clean and getting huge monthly checks (thanks, NSF!).

I have a lot to say, but when I go to say it, it’s just not there. I finally got warm after bundling up in my green ESF hoodie and sitting in my office with my hands resting on my warm laptop. It is freezing in here, and way colder in actual lab. I should go check on my rotavapping material. I have a bit of rotavapping phobia: I’m afraid it’s going to bump or evaporate while I’m gone, even though Omar has informed me that he would be very surprised if the product boiled over about 230°C.

I don’t recall that I was this cautious about boiling points when I worked for FX. I’m beginning to think that I wasn’t, because as an organic chemist I had a fairly good idea of how much I could heat something. I didn’t have this sort of mystical fear of all things organic (they blow away like dust in the wind!).

Oh man oh man oh man! It is 5:17. That means that I can leave now, if I want to. I want to. I should make sure that my product is supposed to stay on the Schlenk line tonight, and then I’m out of here. To write my paper. I’ll probably actually write most of it tonight, unlike the times I said I’d do it over the weekend and didn’t. Deadlines are the best motivation, but they must be looming to be effective.

Out!

You Are an ISTJ (Introvert, Sensor, Thinker, Judger)

ISTJs represent between 11 and 14% of the U.S. population

Meticulous and thorough, ISTJs are known for their exceptional ability to notice and remember details and facts with extreme accuracy. With ISTJs, their word is their bond and they are often described as serious, focused, down-to-earth and supremely reliable people who offer a consistently realistic and practical perspective. Characteristically quiet and hardworking, ISTJs have great practical judgment and can cite accurate evidence to support their views and apply their past experience to their present decisions.

ISTJs typically communicate in a style that is clear, direct, and businesslike. They highly value common sense and knowledge from first-hand experience, and find comfort in their daily routine and familiar ways of doing things.

Interesting. It's kind of odd that the questions I answered for this result were very difficult for me. Instead of trying to analyze my personality, the quiz (or whatever it was) actually presented me with each category, gave me some attributes of each, and said "pick one." I wasn't particularly confident for any of them, because I saw my characteristics spread across both columns. I tried to pick the column that outweighed the other.

It's interesting, I guess. I actually wonder more than a little bit about whether or not I'm an introvert. One of the things that always sways me to the introvert side is a statement something like this: "If you've spent two or three hours socializing with people, you like to be able to be alone for a while and recharge your batteries." I think this kind of defines me. I like people. I like to be around people I'm familiar with. I like to develop comfortable relationships and I like to talk to people.

At the end of the day, though, I'm all exhausted and I just want to sit around and do nothing. Sometimes sitting around and doing nothing is actually all it's cracked up to be (or possibly more than that, depending on what it's all cracked up to be).

We have apple-scented hand soap in the bathroom right now. I like that we just reuse the old hand soap dispensers; it's labeled lavender or milk-and-honey or something, and currently the dispenser is filled with lime green soap. It's very pretty - and obviously not lavender or milk-and-honey. I like the way it smells.

Schubert sleeps like it's his job, I'm telling you. He's passed out on the ground just outside my room, but if I called his name he'd whip his little head up, look at me, somehow convey his immense distaste for my disruption of his nap, and put his head back down with a little sigh. Every time I see him as I'm walking around the house, I say hi to him. "Hey, boo," usually.

So I finished my synthesis. I should feel relieved, but I'm mostly freaking out about it. I mailed the sample yesterday like FX told me to and I'm very nervous about that tiny little vial making it all the way to North Carolina. I brought him the tracking number - the guy at the Physical Plant printed out the label for me - and he looked at it and said, "It didn't ship overnight? Why not?" and looked at me over the top of his glasses.

I fear disappointing other people like it's my job, and that look was like a fist to my stomach. Sucking in a breath, I looked at him and asked, "You wanted it sent overnight?"

"It doesn't matter now. It's already been shipped," he said, and turned away - into his office - with the label in his hand. I'm sure by this point I had gone through the full range of shades between white and bright red and I'm not sure which end I started on and which I ended on, but by the time I re-entered the lab, Adam looked at me and said, "What, the boss wasn't in his office?"

"Yeah," I said faintly, "He was."

"Oh," said Adam, "You looked like you hadn't been able to find him."

Actually, I'm sure I still looked rather shell-shocked at this point and I was beating myself up for not having told the guy to ship it overnight. I looked at Adam and wound up telling him what had just transpired. "But he never TOLD me to ship it overnight," I said, "I didn't know!" Which was true. I spent a summer working at Sonnet, and I took care of all of the shipping there - we never shipped overnight/express unless we had to because it was so much more expensive.

"Well," said Adam, "It's just North Carolina, right?"

"Yeah," I said, miserably.

"It'll be there in two days. Maybe it'll get there tomorrow. It's not like you were shipping it overseas."

This made me feel mildly better, and I headed over to the other side of the lab to attack the cleaning again, fueled by my red-hot desire to make FX see that I was competent. In retrospect, this was, of course, wholly unnecessary, but there's no reasoning with me when I think I've messed up.

FX came back through the lab later; I think he actually knew that I was upset with myself. He looked at the lab, with its electrical devices all put into cupboards, its chemicals squirreled away into drawers and refrigerators, its naked benchtops and its fume hoods still damp where I had scrubbed away eighteen years of gunk with a 10"x4" scrubbie and glass cleaner, and he said, "Well. It looks fantastic."

Later, I was able to laugh at this ("fantastic like Pad Thai!") but at the moment I was suffused with this incredible, glowing relief that was screaming "HE DOESN'T HATE ME!"

I'm so insecure sometimes.

As I was packing up to leave (there's nothing more for me to do in that lab, really, so I was cleaning up my desk and things), Adam had come over and was perched on the desk opposite, watching. We had some conversation about what he was going to do without me, and then I made some throwaway comment about how it felt really sad to be taking my spec book home.

"Just leave it, then," said Adam. "It's YOUR desk."

"But I can't," I said, "Because what about Kun?" (That's pronounced "Quinn", apparently... this led to a great deal of confusion between first Adam and me and then between Justine and me.)

Adam wrinkled up his whole face and then laughed. "Kun is NOT going to have this desk. He's gonna be with me. SOMEBODY'S gonna have to babysit him."

This was another of those things that I felt great relief after hearing. I guess you could say it was a weird day.

Yesterday I wore my red flats. I wore them for a sort of stupid reason, and I regretted it enormously at about 2:30, when my feet were really hurting. I also managed to hook one (the left one) on a garbage can WHILE talking to FX, which is why I can't walk and talk at the same time.

I trip-hopped, managing both to stay upright AND to extract the bar from the garbage can from my shoe while on one foot. Then I looked at FX, there was an awkward silence that maybe spanned two seconds, and I said, "Well, darn." And laughed. It diffused the situation (although he wouldn't have said anything anyway - it's sort of an unwritten code between us, because I didn't say anything when he whacked the back of his head on the hood a few months ago).

Anyway, my feet are still sore. Not because of the trash can. Because of the shoes.

It's weird that finally today I feel like I can write. I feel like I've had terrible writer's block for ages, and I've wanted to get this stuff down for a while.

On Tuesday, when we got the OFFICIAL-official final NMR, FX had Dave pull up the extracted spectrum against the synthetic (mine). "Well, look at that, Shannon!" he sort of trumpeted. I've been trying to figure out why this was so jarring to me. I think it's because he doesn't use my name unless we're introducing ourselves.

You know, like "Hi, Shannon, how are you?"

Anyway, yeah.

I filtered out my P-2-nickel catalyst by running that solution through filter-aid in a pipette... later on, I looked at it and the black nickel-boride-whatever it is (I should know! I should know! I wrote a paper on it for Dr. D!) looked like it had actually sort of melted itself to the filter-aid.

After a few moments of fascination, I threw it away. I threw away a lot of stuff yesterday. A LOT OF STUFF. I also cleaned up the shelves above the sink, because something that had been chock-full of some salt had exploded and there were little salt-sculptures of chalk-white crystals all over the shelf. There was also a salt-cicle, which I pointed out before dropping it in the sink, where it dissolved in the running water and disappeared down the drain.

There was broken glass in that drain. I think that broken glass is what caused the little cuts in my fingers. They almost look like paper cuts, or like I slipped with a razor blade while stripping labels off bottles. Nevertheless, they don't hurt, they're just annoying and I probably jabbed my fingers into the glass while I was trying to get something or other to go down the sink. I cleaned it out, though, eventually.

My life is so weird, I swear. Actually, it's not that weird and it's even a little bit comfortable - except that my fingernails are getting way too long. But since they aren't actually flaking or chipping (a miracle!) and I haven't played piano in three years,I kind of like to let them grow. I'll let them go until my hands look alien to me and then I'll shop them down to a comfortable length, where I can type with the pads of my fingers and not worry about the clicking of my fingernails on the keys.

Real fingernails should NEVER feel like fake fingernails.

I feel that this entry has been particularly apropos, because I actually talked about things that happened in the lab (even if they didn't happen to actually be CHEMISTRY-chemistry, if you know what I mean).

Tonight I feel sad. I'm not sure why, exactly, I feel sad. I could understand if I was just stressed (I'm that, too), but I'm sad.

Tonight we had roasted chicken and tabouleh and hummus and sweet potatoes and brown rice for dinner. I made the tabouleh. It wasn't difficult: it comes with directions on the box, and Mom was in the kitchen the whole time making other portions of the meal. And I was sitting there at dinner, thinking to myself about how tabouleh tastes like summer (it's the cucumbers, I think, and the lemon), and then I just thought about how healthy the meal was and I felt quite satisfied with myself.

I could live off of tabouleh. For a while, anyway, until I got sick of it and wondered what on earth I was thinking when I decided I could live off of it.

I think I'm sad because I'm seeing the end and suddenly I'm thinking about all of the things that I have to do before the end gets here, and I'm totally overwhelmed. And when I get overwhelmed like this, I kind of just want to curl up into a ball and cry and maybe cease to exist, just a little bit.

I'm terrified of my own future.

Okay so I need to shower and clean my room and study for biochem and pick a topic for inorganic and do all of my grading (ugh, lots of it this week).

However, it is KILLING me that I can't buy Mika's new single until May 3. MAY 3?! I mean by May 3, the semester is OVER! Man, this is kind of lame. At least I'll be able to get it before finals.

I mean, I guess I could find somewhere to download it but I'm so scared to just download it. I feel like I'll get a virus or something. I downloaded itunes to see if I could get it through itunes but I can't; I can only buy the whole soundtrack and I definitely don't want the whole soundtrack OR to pay $12 for one song.

What I really need to do it get it and then play it on repeat for three hours until I'm ready to move on. I can't do that here because I get so distracted because I love the music video and I know it's playing in the background, and I want to go watch him strut his stuff on the roof. Awesome.

Mmmm it is already 11:30 and I need to shower but at least I've cleaned my room a bit (made my bed, folded my clothes). Then I got distracted, as usual, and I really need to eliminate these distractions. Maybe I need to convince myself I'm going to fail biochem if I don't start studying.

I AM GOING TO FAIL BIOCHEM IF I DON'T START STUDYING.

Well, lame, it's not working at all. I guess I'd better head out and get some things done, though, so... biochem, here I come? Or maybe I'll grade quizzes. Yay.

Mmmm. The dogs are making much too much noise tonight, so I have placed the bowl that I warmed up my sloppy joe innards in on the kitchen floor. Now, except for the scraping of the bowl against the floor, they are quiet.

I'm home alone for a few hours tonight and I didn't think it would feel good... but it does. It's quiet and dark outside, but not really cold. I'm wearing my "the doctor is in" House t-shirt that Steph got me for Christmas, I believe it was, last year.

I'm going to feel terrible if she got it for me for my birthday.

The organic kids are taking their second exam tonight, and they were pretty nervous. I was kind of exhausted, though, and wound up taking today to run a column to get the fraction of the products from the last reaction that I actually want. Unfortunately, I still have about seven times as much material as can be put on the column, and overloading would be very bad... so I get to run seven more columns. Oh well, it shouldn't take me more than a week. Blah!

Today was a weird kind of day, with lots of visitors and some productivity in between. Adam was in, and he's a bit of a social creature. Ed was there all day, and he ran my TLC plates for me as I column-chromatographed. Kyle came up to talk about Tuesday's gen chem lab, and Bob was also up, I think for lack of anything else to do as his analytical lab was canceled. FX visited as Ed, Adam, and Kyle were all in the lab and it was a bit of a party. I'm starting to feel like I have a research group, which is kind of funny because I don't, not really, but there's a sort of camaraderie.

We graffiti-ed up the glass panels of the unused fume hoods with mechanisms - actually quite apropos - and just were generally pretty pleased with things. I ran David from Setnor to LHS in record time to get him to the show he's playing, and then came home, where I proceeded to eat more carbs than anyone should ever be allowed to eat: two sloppy joes and a generous slice of that "Hershey's special dark" chocolate cake and frosting. Mmmmm, cake from scratch.

And now I'm sitting here and looking at the milk container and thinking that I ought probably to put it away, only I'm moderately comfortable and anyway, the spark of productivity is a dangerous thing.

The other day we (oh, I think it was me, Bob, Donaghy and Katie) were looking at the posters along the wall of the first floor of Baker and we started cracking up about the banana bag. It's very difficult to explain the banana bag, because I'm not altogether sure WHAT it DOES, but it's supposed to be a sleeping bag derivative? It's all yellow and peely. Innovative. Anyway, as we walked away, still laughing uproariously, we ran into Dr. Driscoll... who proceeded to say, "What, ya laughing at the banana bag?"

Yeah, he knows what's up! Haha, hilarious, seriously!

The really excellent news is that Mika has a new single that somehow goes with a new movie...? I'm not really sure how that works, but maybe it will be over the end credits or something. Anyway, when it comes out (May 2, I believe?) I am TOTALLY GOING TO BUY IT.



Here's the deal with Mika. He has not become any more commercial than when he started. His sound has evolved a bit, sure, but he is still lovely and off-beat and just odd.

This song makes me feel sort of empowered. Because, really, it's not a happy song. It's a chip-on-your-shoulder song. It says something about the choice or lack thereof of... anything? And it's just sort of intense. We don't have to conform, which is something that he has always refused to do.

It doesn't hurt that Mika is beautiful. I mean, beautiful. His jawline is to die for (I would die for that jawline. well, maybe not literally). Also, the heartbreaking way he picks himself up off of the ground in that video and the way he just spits out "better" on the end of "we could make it better" - it's so bitter and wrenching and sort of desperate.

We believe we could make it better? We could make it better in a perfect world? I don't know, but there's something about the entire feel of the song. It's all in-your-face and we're-just-fine and then the bit right around 2:25 when he's standing on the roof all cleaned up and confident and suddenly the whole song changes and he's someone else.

He's not letting anyone else define him? Take back your identity!

And then it's full of campy poses but you know what? I don't care because he's just full of energy and life and it's like the song is just bursting out of him because he can't bear to act anymore because he's just himself! And that's something I have always loved about him is that he seems to throw off reserve to just say HERE I AM AND I LOVE WHAT I DO AND I BELIEVE WHAT I SAY and I just hope someday I'm as happy with myself as he seems to be.

The chorus is so bitter, too, especially the way he sort of manages to just slather the phrase "we're not cool" with a ridiculous amount of disdain. WHO NEEDS IT? We're the young, the strong, and the resilient. We don't need you to accept us, because we're free, we're not bound by what you think we are. And our knees are bloody because you shove us down into the grit, but we can run with it because WE ARE BETTER THAN THAT AND WE CAN TURN THE WORLD UPSIDE-DOWN.

I think it might be a matter of self-confidence. Like I believe in myself but not in a STAND ON THE ROOF AND SHOUT IT kind of way. It's just inspiring.

And yes, I know it's just a music video but it sort of says something to me? At least the bits that are Mika and not the lame movie trailer bits. I wish the whole thing was Mika. I liked "Rain" too, for the same reason: it's not a happy song, but any means, but it's a song that says "I'm unhappy and I admit it but it is not going to ruin my life in fact it is going to push me towards being bigger than that BUT FIRST I AM GOING TO PITY PARTY IT UP BB".

Okay maybe not. But still. There's something refreshing about Mika. Something that DJ hates, but something refreshing still.

I think I have a love-hate relationship with Regina Spektor. In some ways she reminds me of Mika because she is off-the-walls, a bit. She has a lovely voice. It's just that sometimes I think that some of her songs - not all of them, mind you, I love several - are cryptic just for the sake of cultivating the pseudo-intellectualism of many of her fans. And I'm all for pseudo-intellectualism, believe you me, but there's a juxtaposition between Regina's riddles and Mika's candor (is that the word I want? I'm looking for the "candid" noun) that throws everything into sharp relief.

I'M IN A MIKA MOOD.

I have way too much homework for this. Oh, what the heck, we'll give it one more go.

I can't believe I owe Moon Library a whole dollar because I turned in the biochemistry textbook half an hour late one night. This is very frustrating to me. I get charged $0.25 a day at the Liverpool Public Library and I can turn it in a whole day late.

What the heck, man.

I also still don't know what to take next semester, and I need to figure it out but I also have a billion other things to do. I guess I'm just stressed out. I'm unhappy lately, you know? Like there's this big weight hanging over me and I can't figure out how to make it go away.

I'm also short-tempered. I was in a pretty awesome mood on Thursday; I had all of these nice stories that I meant to write down, but I can't do them justice if I write them down while I feel down. But rest assured, good things happened.

I don't know. I guess I'll go get some work done, because if I get some work done, I can go to bed and the earlier I can go to bed, the earlier I can try to wake up on the right side of the bed! I'm pretty exhausted, and I didn't even go to bed very late last night - pretty much midnight on the dot. And I got some good sleep.

So maybe I'll try to go to bed earlier tonight? Who knows, though. I'm not usually very excellent at going to bed early. I have to TA tomorrow, so I have to finish grading and take another look at the prelab lecture, and I have to figure out what classes I'm taking next semester (ugh, my stomach just turned again - I gotta find Caluwe), and I have to do some differential equations to prep for the quiz we'll have tomorrow morning.

Life just moves too fast, you know?