Well, another few weeks have past and little has been done on the actual writing front. Now this isn't to say that work has not been done. My dad and stepmother had a 10 year anniversary party on Dec 4th. It was mainly a way for them to bring my father's family together which do not meet much anymore. It was a good meal of chicken and beef prepared ( Read more... )

Today I have been working to try and solve what is going on with my raman spectra. At first I thought it may have been the laser, so I tried placing the new laser in and it still seemed to have an effect. So, finally it was suggested to me to try moving the xy stage of the sample around and see if it flattened out and my signal would come through. ( Read more... )

So, I have been struggling to push through what hopefully will be my last summer ever as a graduate student. I hope that after all this I get the degree. It seems to be such an impossible task to complete this dissertation. I cannot even begin writing. I cannot even organize myself to get it written. I have been working on a Windows computer at ( Read more... )

I am busy working on a presentation for this coming Monday. It is very stressful. I feel like I know nothing about research and science. It is frustrating and tiring. My best days are when I get to lead the discussions.

Last night, after Bible study, I went back to the lab and decided to do some work. I replaced a fuse that was dead on the laser I am brining back to life. It was under 50 mW but now I have it up to 150 mW. I will try and replace the rest later. I left lab after midnight. This morning the folks decided to go to the mountains. I was invited but I had ( Read more... )

I haven't done my taxes yet. But I shall this week, because, well, I suppose I have to or else the tax man shall cometh. I have a solid week ahead. I need to finish up some work on a report of part of my research for my boss. I also need to prepare for the discussion this week. I worked yesterday on the report and graded the quizzes. I don't really ( Read more... )

So, I had to make a poster for this Saturday, as we are having a Poster session for some prospective Graduate students. I had to have it done by yesterday and that only gave me around 5 days to make it. I was told by some friends that it came out pretty well for having only had 5 days to work on it. Well, it is finished. This week was the last week ( Read more... )

So, I received an e-mail last week that said that my advisor said I was willing to give a poster at the Prospective Graduate Students event this coming weekend. It caught me off guard because he never said anything to me, but it turns out that he never said anything specific but he said it would be a useful exercise and since this is the main ( Read more... )

Research is so frustrating. I thought I liked chemistry; however, after having spent almost 6 years in this Ph. D. program, I have discovered that I liked teaching chemistry, not the actual research. I supposed I shouldn't say that exactly. I do enjoy solving the problems at times. But it can get real annoying because I feel like a timer is ticking ( Read more... )

So, these last couple of days I have been staying home, trying to get some rest because I have a chest cold and phlem in my lungs. I went to the doctors but they didn't give me any antibiotics. They gave me an inhaler for my lungs and recommended taking Mucinex to loosen the phlem. So, I stayed home today and yesterday. I hoped to work on school ( Read more... )