It feels like Thursday
Dec. 6th, 2005 17:13![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillIt isn't. Still, with two exams finished and done, I'm feeling much lighter.
I managed to get the lab report delayed until Monday with a tale about my Sunday lost to a spider bite... I think Tish is getting used to my "tale of woe" extremely indirect way of begging for an extension. She hates it (she much prefers the direct approach of "can I get the deadline extended for ...") but she knows now that I don't do demands, however polite. I think it helps that I don't do it very often. So now I have until Monday to get the report typed up. That I can do, even with studying for the bio final.
That ochem exam whupped me pretty bad.. I think I got a B, though. We'll see. The first pass was not promising, when I had to skip half the problems on the first two pages. Yikes. I think I cleaned it up on the second pass. At least I nailed the last question, which was a synthesis problem for 8 points.
Tish told me the other day that if I'm only a couple of points from an A, she'll edge me over the top; I missed some points on a worksheet, but I had to hand it in early because it was due on the day I worked the election. Since she's big on "civic duty", and I didn't get the extra half-day on it everyone else did (that might, actually, have let me take a crack at the synthesis problem I missed) she'll give me the benefit of the doubt. It is looking like it's going to be close. I need to pop in and have her run the numbers.
I have one piece of advice for those taking chemistry: Never throw anything out until you have to. That goes double for products you've made, rather than reactants or raw materials. It goes triple for products which have an equilibrium reaction involved... I was cleaning my glassware today, took a look at my pear flask, and blinked. That was the flask that I had been trying to synthesize Gentian Violet in, the purple dye and old-fashioned antibiotic solution. It's made by a notoriously fussy Grignard reaction, so when exactly one person out of the half of the class doing Gentian Violet managed to get a proper solution, it wasn't surprising. I fussed around and got something resembling dilute black ink, not the stunning blue-purple liquid that I should have had... but I left most of the muddy-brown substance in my flask to clean up later. There it sat for two or three weeks.
When I picked it up today, I peered at it, put a drop on a paper towel, and finally dipped a paper towel in it. Hmm. I diluted it down a little, filtered it to get rid of some crystals, and sure enough, it was gorgeous. I snuck into the instrument room and took the proper readings on it, so now I won't have to use Tristan's. His is a shocking blue-violet, while mine is a healthy shade of deep purple, but the line made by visible spectroscopy made me very happy. (I suspect the difference is just pH, since it also acts as an indicator.)
That Grignard reaction, by the way, has about three or four equilibrium reactions battling it out after all is said and done. I had corrected the pH as best I could when I was messing with it, then I just left it alone, and apparently it Did The Right Thing over the next couple of weeks. Yay!
Chemistry is so much more fun when it works. :)
In other news, most of my energy is back; I'm thinking about slipping into the hot tub to ease up my wreck of a back (cleaning glassware didn't help that), but I'm a little wary of increasing blood flow to the bite area. Most of the swelling is gone, it's only a little warm, and it's starting to turn dark and itch... I think the toxin is pretty well done with, so I may risk it.
With some of the deadline pressure off, I'm thinking about goofing off with a video before dinner. Then, on to Beer's Law plots and calculating my Gentian Violet yield for Thursday. Woohoo!
I managed to get the lab report delayed until Monday with a tale about my Sunday lost to a spider bite... I think Tish is getting used to my "tale of woe" extremely indirect way of begging for an extension. She hates it (she much prefers the direct approach of "can I get the deadline extended for ...") but she knows now that I don't do demands, however polite. I think it helps that I don't do it very often. So now I have until Monday to get the report typed up. That I can do, even with studying for the bio final.
That ochem exam whupped me pretty bad.. I think I got a B, though. We'll see. The first pass was not promising, when I had to skip half the problems on the first two pages. Yikes. I think I cleaned it up on the second pass. At least I nailed the last question, which was a synthesis problem for 8 points.
Tish told me the other day that if I'm only a couple of points from an A, she'll edge me over the top; I missed some points on a worksheet, but I had to hand it in early because it was due on the day I worked the election. Since she's big on "civic duty", and I didn't get the extra half-day on it everyone else did (that might, actually, have let me take a crack at the synthesis problem I missed) she'll give me the benefit of the doubt. It is looking like it's going to be close. I need to pop in and have her run the numbers.
I have one piece of advice for those taking chemistry: Never throw anything out until you have to. That goes double for products you've made, rather than reactants or raw materials. It goes triple for products which have an equilibrium reaction involved... I was cleaning my glassware today, took a look at my pear flask, and blinked. That was the flask that I had been trying to synthesize Gentian Violet in, the purple dye and old-fashioned antibiotic solution. It's made by a notoriously fussy Grignard reaction, so when exactly one person out of the half of the class doing Gentian Violet managed to get a proper solution, it wasn't surprising. I fussed around and got something resembling dilute black ink, not the stunning blue-purple liquid that I should have had... but I left most of the muddy-brown substance in my flask to clean up later. There it sat for two or three weeks.
When I picked it up today, I peered at it, put a drop on a paper towel, and finally dipped a paper towel in it. Hmm. I diluted it down a little, filtered it to get rid of some crystals, and sure enough, it was gorgeous. I snuck into the instrument room and took the proper readings on it, so now I won't have to use Tristan's. His is a shocking blue-violet, while mine is a healthy shade of deep purple, but the line made by visible spectroscopy made me very happy. (I suspect the difference is just pH, since it also acts as an indicator.)
That Grignard reaction, by the way, has about three or four equilibrium reactions battling it out after all is said and done. I had corrected the pH as best I could when I was messing with it, then I just left it alone, and apparently it Did The Right Thing over the next couple of weeks. Yay!
Chemistry is so much more fun when it works. :)
In other news, most of my energy is back; I'm thinking about slipping into the hot tub to ease up my wreck of a back (cleaning glassware didn't help that), but I'm a little wary of increasing blood flow to the bite area. Most of the swelling is gone, it's only a little warm, and it's starting to turn dark and itch... I think the toxin is pretty well done with, so I may risk it.
With some of the deadline pressure off, I'm thinking about goofing off with a video before dinner. Then, on to Beer's Law plots and calculating my Gentian Violet yield for Thursday. Woohoo!
