Yes, I will regret this post by oh... Tuesday or so
One of my insecurities has always been my severe lack of hobbies. One of my least favorite questions is, "What do you do for fun?" Well, it's finally paying off. My non-existent outside-interests are going to make staying at lab all my waking hours a cinch. Why should I come home? All I'm going to do is browse the internet for hours and go to sleep. I need structure in my life. And at least eight or so people in the world might care about the research I'll do; this is in contrast to the zero people who care about my internet and sleep addiction. However, now I have to consider finding a cheaper place, because it's not worth $790 to merely have a place to sleep and eat dinner.
While my time may not be an issue, the professor gets back this weekend, and all my brainstorming is going to have to amount to something. All the grad students have been extremely helpful, but of course everyone's had a different idea on the path I should take toward making my molecule (someone's even suggested an entirely new molecule to synthesize). A lot of routes have literature references that get me close to the product, but nothing that's a home-run yet. I figure I can just present all the possibilities to the prof when he gets back and brainstorm with him.
I have no idea what to expect when he gets back. There's a good possibility I will regret everything I just said and long to simply sleep all day.
I've been to all my classes now. One is very boring and one seems like it'll be useful but stressful at the same time. I really need to work on my listening skills though. In my boring NMR class, I passed notes to a friend the entire time and fought audible laughter for ten minutes after drawing an inappropriate picture that had to do with probes, receivers and amplifiers. In my organic reactions class I probably caught half the things he said. My impression is I'm going to have to learn all these mechanisms at some point in my graduate career, but I don't know how I'm going to do it. Right now I don't understand how all the grad students know so many random mechanisms off the top of their heads, but I guess that's what being in lab all day everyday for years will do to someone.
One thing that I will be upset about missing is the Olympics. In fact, grad school is going to ruin *two* Winter Olympic games for me! Ugh. I should have deferred a year...
While my time may not be an issue, the professor gets back this weekend, and all my brainstorming is going to have to amount to something. All the grad students have been extremely helpful, but of course everyone's had a different idea on the path I should take toward making my molecule (someone's even suggested an entirely new molecule to synthesize). A lot of routes have literature references that get me close to the product, but nothing that's a home-run yet. I figure I can just present all the possibilities to the prof when he gets back and brainstorm with him.
I have no idea what to expect when he gets back. There's a good possibility I will regret everything I just said and long to simply sleep all day.
I've been to all my classes now. One is very boring and one seems like it'll be useful but stressful at the same time. I really need to work on my listening skills though. In my boring NMR class, I passed notes to a friend the entire time and fought audible laughter for ten minutes after drawing an inappropriate picture that had to do with probes, receivers and amplifiers. In my organic reactions class I probably caught half the things he said. My impression is I'm going to have to learn all these mechanisms at some point in my graduate career, but I don't know how I'm going to do it. Right now I don't understand how all the grad students know so many random mechanisms off the top of their heads, but I guess that's what being in lab all day everyday for years will do to someone.
One thing that I will be upset about missing is the Olympics. In fact, grad school is going to ruin *two* Winter Olympic games for me! Ugh. I should have deferred a year...