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Thursday, September 17th, 2009
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I'm going to state the obvious: I don't post much on LJ these days. If you want to keep up with me on the internet, I post a lot more often on Facebook. I do, however, still read my LJ friends page. I may not read it every day because of this silly "school" thing that's cutting into my valuable internet time, but I do read it.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
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We're all moved into the new apartment as of Saturday night, and we're checked out of the old one as of Sunday afternoon. The move went smoothly and the people who helped us were awesome. Even the weather was perfect for moving - cool and cloudy, but not raining. Now we're in the long and painful process of unpacking. The bathroom is unpacked but we can't find the shower curtain hooks; we're using skirt hangers to hold up the shower curtain! The kitchen and living room might be unpacked today if the stars align, the dining room should be done by the end of the week, and the bedrooms will probably take a little longer. The craft area looks like it's going to be the home of the boxes that don't get unpacked for a year, but we're going to take our best shot in 2 weeks when Wendy and I are both in town for the weekend. Meanwhile, I'm starting school tomorrow, which I feel totally unprepared for. It makes me very glad that we were able to move in early because otherwise we would have been homeless last night and we'd be moving in today!
I should get going - the apartment manager is stopping by sometime after 8:00, and a bathrobe and slippers probably isn't sufficient clothing.
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Wendy introduced me to Brennan's yesterday. The shopping experience is like this: First, they give you tons of free samples. Then, you try to calculate how much fruit you can eat before it goes bad, and load that amount into your cart. Then, you cheerfully give them all your money and go home with bags full of awesome*. (I think maybe we need to include proximity to Brennan's as an extra expense of living in the area we're looking at for our next apartment.) We bought produce and cheese. I would definitely buy produce there again, although there are some things (apples, for instance) that I would buy elsewhere to get a better price. As for the cheese, some of my favorite varieties are way too expensive there, but we tried the samples and found some new favorites within budget.
*Yes, I am excited about produce. This is sort of a new thing for me.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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These are the compounds we made in lab this semester. Inorganic chemistry is so pretty.
All of these are nickel complexes. The first vial and the last vial contain almost exactly the same chemical; the only difference is that the mint green sample was air dried, and the rose pink sample was heat dried to drive off water. We also made a red nickel complex which is not in this picture.
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
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I totally just impulse shopped a 500-level chemistry course. (How many people get to say that?) The resulting fall class schedule makes me look like I'm going to be a senior, for real, finally. Which I am - my advisor has confirmed that, barring some unforeseen disaster, I'm going to graduate in May 2010. Yay, progress! Now I just need to find a research group for this summer... and, you know, decide what happens after I graduate.
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Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
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I find it discouraging that the Writing Center offers workshops on "Thrusdays".
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
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In today's lab, the class had an hour and a half to characterize the compounds we made before break. Most of the class didn't get everything done, but I failed to get any data whatsoever. My lab partner was unexpectedly absent. The only good luck I had all day was that the samples were all in my drawer, not his (although it turned out not to make much difference). The sample I was supposed to filter and recrystallize got contaminated with moisture and turned into the compound I was trying to filter out. I couldn't get UV-visible spectra because my samples mysteriously failed to dissolve. I couldn't get magnetic susceptibility data because the sample tubes were missing. I tried to get at least a couple of FTIR spectra; I got as far as making one pellet and putting it in the spectrometer, at which point the software did strange and terrible things that the TAs couldn't fix. This marked the transition from "bad" to "comically bad".
Update: Well, shit. While I was writing this, I got an email from my lab partner saying he dropped the course. I don't blame him, but it sure is inconvenient for me.
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Thursday, March 19th, 2009
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Thursday, March 12th, 2009
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A family friend in Milwaukee has developed severe asthma and needs to find a new home for a very sweet cat, about 5 years old. She is not willing to abandon the cat at the Humane Society. We don't know how the cat reacts to other animals or small children, so a home without either of these would be ideal. Do you know anyone who might want to adopt this cat?
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Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
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I think that sometimes waiting until the last minute is my way of giving myself permission to just get it done and not have to write the perfect paper. I should keep reminding myself to give myself permission not to be perfect to begin with.
I'm still getting used to the hair.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Sunday, February 8th, 2009
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Sunday, February 1st, 2009
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This is me not having an anxiety attack over my lab report, because it's finished. Exciting, in a not-exciting-but-that's-a-good-thing sort of way.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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I wouldn't even have known the Superbowl was tonight if I hadn't talked to my dad earlier... and I forgot all about it again until I saw the "Superbowl or Puppy Bowl" writer's block question on LJ. I know, I'm strange. My plans for tonight consist mostly of writing my lab report... although I also found time to develop a new respect for Gerry's housekeeping. 3 people make an awful lot of laundry to carry up and down 2 flights of stairs. Seriously.
In random news, I like oranges now. I used to hate the texture, and now I don't, and I have no idea what changed. If you don't count the fruits I only like when they're perfectly vine/tree-ripened, and if you don't count juices, this increases the number of fruits I like by 25%. I'm hoping this is the start of a trend.
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Sunday, January 25th, 2009
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My lab report ate my weekend. On the bright side, I started in time to get it done on Sunday night, and it's due Tuesday afternoon. I am firmly resolved to get my lab reports done by Sunday night every week - in time to get a good night's sleep on Sunday night, even. It removes "approaching deadline" anxiety from the situation. It's part of my strategy for getting through a class that seems specially designed to give me, personally, massive anxiety attacks at the very thought of any aspect of the course.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
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Monday, January 19th, 2009
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We just got home this afternoon. We're all as pale as we were when we left because the weather was cool and rainy, but we still had a great time, and I can't complain too much to people who've just been dealing with below zero temperatures. In the next few weeks, we're going to try to make some of the amazing food we tried on vacation. Tomorrow I start school, which feels a little hectic because the things I would normally do to prepare for the start of the semester didn't happen.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Monday, December 15th, 2008
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Finals are over. They're curved, so I won't know how I did until all the grades are in. But they're over, and to make my day even better, I have chicken soup that my mom sent home with us yesterday. She never used to make chicken soup until about a year ago, but it's really good. She says the secret ingredient is lots of chicken. Next up: finishing the holiday shopping.
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Thursday, December 11th, 2008
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This has been a profoundly irritating day.
For one thing, both my car and Wendy's car have been towed to the next lot over, resulting in extra fees added to our rent. Our apartment complex has an inconvenient and somewhat vague snow removal policy. Last year's manager dealt with it by placing notices in all the apartment doors on the day of a large snowfall, telling us when they planned to plow. If somebody still managed to fuck up, they got a nastygram when the rest of the lot was plowed, and if the car wasn't moved after that, it got towed. This year's policy is supposedly the same, but it isn't being enforced the same way. The only notice of impending snow removal was posted at the building exit, but not far enough in advance to be seen before it was too late, and cars were towed immediately. The towed cars filled a row of the adjacent lot. The new manager informed me over the phone that she isn't required to give any notice, and that she's doing me a favor by not having my car towed off-premises.
I also had my first final exam today. No, it's not finals week yet. The analytical chemistry professor decided to have the final exam 5 days earlier than the scheduled exam time, for reasons best known to him. He also blew off the last week of class. Laziest professor ever, seriously. This was one of only 2 exams, each worth half my lecture grade - so no pressure or anything. I don't think I did very well. It was mostly memorization and I memorized the wrong things. It's a curved class, so I won't have even a guess about a letter grade until whenever all the exams are graded.
Sometimes the only constructive thing to do about a bad day is go to sleep early, with the happy knowledge that the bad day will be over by the time you're conscious again. My body does not comply.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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