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...in a really long week.
I forgot to mention that yesterday's interview went quite well. I don't want to do computer stuff as a career (that makes it less fun), but can do so well when I have to. They say they're planning to have a decision on that one by Friday, so I should know by Monday or Tuesday whether I got the job.
Today, though. Started with a lit search in the attempt to show that the reaction I'm tinkering with can be done in a fraction of the time that my predecessor used for his writeup. The end of this search was in the science library - where it turned out that the most promising article was on a reel of microfilm that had disappeared years ago, and the paper copy of the journal was MIA. I suspect it's been mislaid somewhere; it can't be checked out, and there's not generally much call for Nature articles from 1946.
So I went, empty-handed, to talk with the professor. Fortunately it turned out that there was a notebook from the first student to do the reaction, which indeed shows it working just fine at half the time, and at warmer temperatures. It also happened that I got a nice set of NMRs back, proving that I'd made the correct thing all these past weeks, despite the orange fluffy crystals looking nothing like the brown-to-beige chunky ones made by my predecessors. And that was nice.
I set up another run of the reaction, this time following the original procedure. Initial results are promising. There's a solid where before I'd gotten a red-brown sludge (which I'm still trying to squeeze all the product from, argh). It's chilling in the 'fridge until tomorrow.
Then, research group meeting. We were informed that the health and safety inspection would be tomorrow (Friday), at 10:00. This meant substantial cleaning for everyone. ASAP.
I got home at about 23:00, ate dinner, and will probably be going to sleep Real Soon Now.
I forgot to mention that yesterday's interview went quite well. I don't want to do computer stuff as a career (that makes it less fun), but can do so well when I have to. They say they're planning to have a decision on that one by Friday, so I should know by Monday or Tuesday whether I got the job.
Today, though. Started with a lit search in the attempt to show that the reaction I'm tinkering with can be done in a fraction of the time that my predecessor used for his writeup. The end of this search was in the science library - where it turned out that the most promising article was on a reel of microfilm that had disappeared years ago, and the paper copy of the journal was MIA. I suspect it's been mislaid somewhere; it can't be checked out, and there's not generally much call for Nature articles from 1946.
So I went, empty-handed, to talk with the professor. Fortunately it turned out that there was a notebook from the first student to do the reaction, which indeed shows it working just fine at half the time, and at warmer temperatures. It also happened that I got a nice set of NMRs back, proving that I'd made the correct thing all these past weeks, despite the orange fluffy crystals looking nothing like the brown-to-beige chunky ones made by my predecessors. And that was nice.
I set up another run of the reaction, this time following the original procedure. Initial results are promising. There's a solid where before I'd gotten a red-brown sludge (which I'm still trying to squeeze all the product from, argh). It's chilling in the 'fridge until tomorrow.
Then, research group meeting. We were informed that the health and safety inspection would be tomorrow (Friday), at 10:00. This meant substantial cleaning for everyone. ASAP.
I got home at about 23:00, ate dinner, and will probably be going to sleep Real Soon Now.
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