403: Listen to the song of the paper cranes... (Cranesong)
( Apr. 26th, 2010 09:00 pm)
I feel more productive having spent the past two hours manually pitting (formerly frozen) cherries in order to make them storeable at room temperature than I have at my current job, at any point in the entire time I've worked there. I need to be doing something different for a living.

In the mean time, here there be experiments. Both jars of cherries got two heaping soup-spoons of vanilla sugar. One was filled (to cover the cherries, plus a bit) with gin, the other with rum. I may add more sugar later. The eventual destination of the preserved cherries is likely to be a bowl of icecream.
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Today it became clear that my employer expects me to both tell the future and read her mind. If I could do that I wouldn't need to work a student job, because I'd be able to gamble for a living.

Employerprof is going on vacation for the next two or three weeks. I hope to be able to send my letter of resignation before she gets back.
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403: A rack of test tubes with the caption "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate". (Solution or precipitate)
( Dec. 10th, 2009 11:10 pm)
Presentation for Intro to Chaos went well, including a live demonstration of our system. No final in that class; I'm assured of at least an A-. The other classes proceed apace. I wish they didn't all happen in the morning, this year. Two left, Friday and Monday.

I work Friday afternoon, and then my employer will be out of town for two or three weeks. In November, I was only able to work for two of the four weeks, because Employerprof was fighting for time on exotic equipment in California. While I understand that she has to take it when it's available, I need more regular employment than this.

My doctor referred me to a cardiologist this week. He was evidently hearing odd things when he listened to my heart, since he made a point of ruling out the other symptoms of pericarditis (which is supposed to make a sound like squeaky leather as the heart rubs against the pericardium). EKG results came back with a few abnormalities which have ambiguous interpretations. In someone of my age and gender, they could be perfectly ordinary. But there's also a small chance that they indicate a problem that could cause me to drop dead without warning. I forsee more tests in my future.

And now? Sleep. I get up TDE for tomorrow's final.
A colleague of my summer research professor asked him to recommend an undergrad to her, since her previous assistant had graduated last spring. He sent me, and I was hired on the spot, which I was not at all expecting. There's some administrative hoops to jump through, but I start next Thursday.

The new subject area is astrochemistry. One of the things I'll be working on is extracting miniscule amounts of amino acids from the interior of meteorites. The chemistry isn't very complicated (prof. described it as "kitchen chemistry"), but since the masses involved are so small I expect it to need exacting precision. Good thing I'll be working in the afternoon, when I'm awake.

To sum up: YAY!
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