It feels almost like a marriage...

First you spend all this time trying to get to know this person (oh, I mean you read all his papers, or at least the short ones), you talk to them, get to know them more personally, go home and meet their family (yes, I know group meetings are nothing like home, but ... focus here ok?) and then you decide if you want to get hitched. Keeping in mind that you are going to be together for eternity (ok, so only five, six, seven years... but who is counting), for better or for worse, or for worse and worse...

It is important to know how well he is going to treat you. And of course how much money he has. Yes, his money is important. I mean how else you can buy all the big toys you need to play with and food (you know ingredients for reactions). Sure, you go telling me that love (the project, his reputation, etc) is all that counts. Wait till you have to go out and earn your keep two years down the line. The man I "married” made me go out into the wild two years in a row (note the connection between my students and the wild) Have I mentioned how much I love grants running out ?(Hey, Selly, don't be bitter. TAing is not so bad...)

But I deviate. Good luck choosing your advisor (for those who were too involved or confused in my convoluted analogy to realize).

On the issue of theories of mine...

I am told that chemical reactions are like having and raising a baby. First there is all the fun and activities to start out. Then there is this really loonnngggg wait till the baby gets here or the reaction goes to completion whichever you can relate better to here. In that time you pretty much do nothing but sit around and twiddle your thumbs. Of course I am sure my dear advisors would much rather prefer that I sit behind my desk and studiously catch up on my reading on my project and literature and such from scholarly journals (but what is the fun in that). Instead I am updating my blog. Naughty, naughty me.

All of today has been me sitting around waiting for my DSC to go. It is too bad I am about a 20minute walk from my own lab. It would have been great if I could go back and forth, that way I could also get something else done. But there is really no point since in the time it takes to get to my lab, I will have to put in a new sample or do something of the sort.

Ok, back to theories. So finally the baby arrives. Usually in the first few days (hours) they require a lot of work and attention (think working up reaction, purification, columns, crystallization). As they grow, you need to be careful with them. Too much attention and they get spoilt, too little and they go really bad (ask me about my little explosion, my hood is still greasy from the oil spill).

Ok, so my point is that I am bored to death in lab. My eyes are beginning to glaze over from reading these articles. HELP!!!

Explosion!

Random blog filler aka old journal entry

Today, I am going to be talking to you about explosions. I will start by introducing the general concepts of explosion, comment briefly on why they happen and focus the rest of my talk on why they shouldn't happen (at least not to me)...

Think loud boooommmmm. Think of everyone close by gasping. Think of that weird feeling you get when you know that that noise must be coming from your hood and no one else's. After all, who else in that module has anything explosive?

Or another scenario: You have the beaker tipped over the flask, and you are just pouring, and then you think OH NO! But in this case, you hand is swifter than your mind. Note that this is not normally the case.

Yet another scenario: Of course not! That never really happens. I mean, who are they kidding? Or at the very least, how big of a fire can a little drop (or piece, or crystal...) cause? You know the writers of general chem. books like to exaggerate.

OK, now let me speak from experience. First: if you think that booom is from your hood, you are probably wrong. It is really from mine. Second: Pirahna and acetone (anything organic actually) is a really bad idea. And finally, Butyl lithium (and BBr₃, and a whole host of others), will really catch fire when exposed to air (think spill) and a paper towel is not what you want to wipe that spill with, no matter how close they lie and how tempting they look!

So how do explosions happen? Let me list a few: 1. Reactions in closed tubes. My problem here is that it worked great the first time. So why not the second time? All the grease I am still having to clean up, after so many months tell me that I obviously did something wrong. Moral of story: If the reaction can be run in an open system, go for that.

2. Some things just don't like each other. Just like some girls just don't like guys or vice versa (but I deviate here). Spontaneous reactions really do exist. Every so often, ΔH and ΔS are just right and even the temperature too. Did I mention that explosions are exothermic reactions? Ok, so it is obvious...

3. Curiosity can literally kill the cat. I mean it. Really, if all the text books say it is a bad thing, it probably is...

Dear People Not in Graduate School

*This list includes my family, my friends, my enemies (I hope I don’t have too many), my former classmates, my former students, people I go to church with, random people off the street, and everyone else in-between

-Please don’t ask me when I am going to be done. I know how long I have been here. And it does depress me to think about it. And even when you do, please don’t sound like for whatever reason, I like being here so much and I don’t want to leave. Trust me; I am ready to leave this place (specifically grad school). In fact, I have been ready for a while. I am still here because the forces that be (namely results and advisor), are scheming to keep me here. Don’t worry; as soon as I know when, I will be the one to tell you. In the mean time, pray that I do finish what I have to do so that I can get out soon (and I mange to keep my sanity).

-Please don’t ask me what I do. Especially if you don’t speak ____ (insert my field of study). I know I have tried to explain to you. And I really tried hard. But unfortunately, I work in a tiny part of the most obscure area of my field of study. It is a PhD after all, not something real, like say, an MBA. Whenever I try to explain what I do, knowing that you really lack a lot of the vocabulary I could use (no offence to you - and yes, your talks about bonds or hedge funds or credit analysis make my eyes glaze over too), I end up over simplifying. And then I know you go away thinking I do something I really don’t do.
And please, please, please, if you are one of the few people (besides my advisor) who understand what I do, please don’t ask me why I am doing what I am doing or what I want to do with it. I know the responses: my advisor wants me to or we wrote a grant for that or something of the sort is probably not going to satisfy you. I wish I could change the world with my research. Unfortunately at this time, I don’t think it would happen. In the meantime, I can only hope that the other 6 people (ok, maybe a couple of hundred) in my area will care that I did what I do.

-Work and school are the same for me. So when you ask me how work is going and I tell you, I am really also telling you how school is too. Don’t ask me again how school is going. And no, I don’t have a “real” job. Lucky me, I get paid to go to school. But at this point, I would take a real job any day.
And when I complain about always being broke, don’t tell me to get a “real” job. First of all, my visa doesn’t allow me to work. And even if it did, I don’t have the time to. I barely have enough hours in the day as it is. The only appropriate response when I whine about not being able to take that trip I want to take is probably, “It will be OK. Someday soon you will have a real job.” Usually, all I want is the sympathy and the reassurance, and nothing more.

-I am not married. Neither am I getting married anytime soon. In fact, I am not even seeing anyone at the moment. I know, I am also surprised myself that I haven’t found anyone. (p.s. Thanks for your vote of confidence. I love you for that.) Fortunately for me, in my area of expertise, the odds are good but unfortunately, the goods are also odd. The subset of high odds and eligible goods is very small. But that line is really only an excuse. I know that I probably haven’t tried really hard. But what you don’t get is that I don’t really care, that much. Sorry mum, unfortunately, getting married and making babies is low on my list of priories right now. I know; my priorities are pretty screwed up.

Dear people not in grad school, I love you. Without your amazing support, I probably wouldn’t be able to do this. And that is what keeps me from telling you off when you ask me any of the above questions.

Random Quote

Because I don't have time for a real post:

I guess I have just gotten really good at sugar coating turd.

The big guy himself.

On making level B journal results sound like a level A journal results.

Random quote 2

Is caesium poisonous? I think I spilt some in my mouth.

Another frustrated colleague.

How you accidentally spill a chemical in your mouth, I do not know. Good thing it wasn't really ceasium, and he didn't really spill. I love the guys I work with. Most days.