Back in the Lab...

...for the last time ever. This makes me oddly sad. I think I'll save my "emo-reflective" post for until I get home and have nothing better to do, however.

At least my report is done and submitted (for one week)! Not that my supervisor has even glanced at it yet...this gives me more time to hope that he'll like my report. (It has colourful lines in it...?) Sadly, I can't even buy bribes for him because the city in which I resided in has NO decent chocolate! ! !! !!!

My supervisor also needs to complete the student evaluation form. Darn, I forgot to buy red pens for the entire lab! (Everybody in the lab - except me, naturally - provides input on my evaluation.) On the serious side, I really want to receive some constructive criticism - haven't gotten any in my last work term, except "don't work so hard" (which, as long as one can work safely, is kind of silly). On the lighter side, all my coworkers have made threats about writing weird things on my evaluation, and well, they are certainly weird enough to do it. I want to see those too.

The student evaluation form has some pretty stupid questions though, like those related to "goal setting" and "reflection" (I mean, how is the supervisor supposed to know whether the student has set goals and followed through them? Especially when those goals aren't necessarily strictly work-related?).

Actually, I know of one constructive criticism that is very difficult for me to follow: don't break so much glassware! (Eep.) I think I destroyed several watch glasses, one Erlenmeyer flask, a few beakers of various sizes, one 100 mL volumetric flask, and three quartz cuvettes (the first got cracked overnight while getting dried, probably from falling sideways from an upside-down position; the second had so much colloidal sulfur sticking to it that nothing* in the lab - including aqua regia which doesn't dissolve sulfur anyway - can get the sulfur out; the third slipped and fell to a dramatic death one meter below the counter). Of course, I also killed more Pasteur pipettes than I can count, but at least those are designed with short lifespans in mind. It's a good thing that the ICP torch is plastic, and that I don't usually touch it.

On a tangential vein, despite being April Fool's day, fortunately nothing untoward happened to me personally today. Rather the contrary in fact...I got free breakfast from the company, for no reason. Warm and slightly soggy hash browns, with plenty of grease to reinforce my arteries. Mmm.

My coworkers did pull pranks upon each other, but those were retaliations from earlier pranks. It was kind of fun to watch them, actually. (Tell me where it is! I don't know where it is. Yes you do. No I don't. *repeat, with minor variations*)

*Well. Strictly speaking, the lab has HF, which, if added to some oxidizer, can probably take out the sulfur. But it'll kill the quartz too, and it's not really safe to use HF in the lab because we don't really have the equipment for it.

[Edited]
I forgot to add "ICP nebulizer" (more accurately, that little glass thing connecting the nebulizer to the spray chamber) and "Leco combustion tube" to the list of broken glassware. Maybe this is a sign that I should study theoretical chemistry instead of experimental areas.