Today is Not My Day

Today is not a good day.

I've had (I hope) my last two interviews of the term, one of which is also the worst interview I've ever had. And I had to miss inorganic to go, too! (and they were covering group theory, *sigh*)

It's easier to talk about the second interview first. It's an in-person interview for a more-or-less routine analytical position. Basically, it consists of a "verbal obstacle course" whereby the interviewer fires questions at me. Because the position is on something somewhat outside my field, I can't answer all the questions as confidently as I should, but overall it was fine. I liked the fact that they had an IC, though.

The first interview, though, was very bad. Phone interview for a research position. The interviewer and I had alot of issues trying to understand each other. The interviewer also can't seem to figure out that I give a little background information as context before answering the question, and am not trying to dodge the question. In the end I just answered yes/no to his questions, which is not conducive to explanations. Of course, there were some "epic fails" that were entirely my fault, also. They did have some cool gadgetry (electron microscopes, GC-MS, fluorescence spectrophotometer, and the like), but there's no way the interviewer will offer me this job, and no way I will take it even if the offer was extended.

Another problem is that I keep forgetting I have analytical tutorial. Which means I've skipped quizzes that I shouldn't have. Dammit! Must remember to go to tutorial! (I've now scribbled numerous notes and stuck them all over my desk; I hope this will help me remember for next week...)

Thirdly, I have my real analysis midterm 2* today. It was alright, I guess. I am sure one of my solutions is wrong because it didn't use a stated condition, but we'll see what happens. At least I remembered Baire's Theorem (for open sets) and its proof, which happened to be the first problem on the exam. Oh well, what will be, will be.

Lastly, I didn't do as well on my differential equations midterm as I've hoped. Three marks off: one is a completely idiotic mistake (copied the answer wrong, imagine that!), while the other two involves a stupid graphing problem, and I can't do curve sketching properly (with Euler's method and suchlike) for the life of me.

To come: organic lab (Fischer esterification, which has failed for me every single time I've done it), analytical midterm (which might actually be fun), organic midterm (eep!), and possibly getting back my first thermodynamics midterm so I can start studying for the second one (which is next week). Also, I'll be able to see which employers have officially rejected me after the interview, late this week. Woo.

On the bright side, I'll be using a GC sometime this week! Whee, GC! I wonder what the detector is, though. Guess I'll find out.

[edited]
As if to top everything off, I just found out that one of the jobs I wanted (and I think might get an offer for) got cancelled - the employer isn't going to hire anybody. That makes me sad.

[follow-up]
Thermodynamics midterm was ok, I guess. I didn't expect them to solve a particular problem that way. Oh well. And I totally forgot about biochemistry midterm, which will be back soon, also (meh, biochemistry).

[Thursday]
Biochemistry midterm came back; it was not particularly good. Then again, it's biochemistry. Analytical midterm was surprisingly easy; I don't think I can say that about organic midterm tomorrow (eep). Oh, and the GC has a FID detector (analysing for organics, not surprisingly). It was kind of cute - manual injection!

*Remark: for such an exam, a graphing calculator is completely forbidden, and completely useless; this is fine by me because graphing calculators are evil, expensive creatures whose main actual uses are 1) AP Calculus BC exams and 2) playing Tetris.