A Pastiche of Minor Things

Today's a special day for me. Supposedly. It ended up being mostly ordinary, anyway.

First, despite the fact that nobody outside my family (and facebook) remembered/knew about today (no surprises there), I got that stupid song stuck in my head. All day. Playing Rachmaninoff helps, to a limited extent.

Second, I went to my project supervisor's (computer) lab really early for the first time ever, to work (I usually work at the less conspicuous undergraduate computer labs). No Matlab. Darn. My supervisor was there anyway. Darn! At least he's really nice about my lack of progress *cough* - stupid code still don't want to work despite constant tweaking, and I don't know why. The sad thing is, the end result is really quite straightforward and looks like it should take five minutes to code, not five weeks and still stuck.

Third, thermodynamics was terrible. By now, that goes without saying. I really don't like it when professors make grand sweeping claims without proving it. Especially in classical thermodynamics, when there's enough math such that one can't just say "experiment says so". Hmm, midterm on Friday. I should start studying. The fact that I think the Gibb's Equations and Maxwell Relations are really cute (yes, they are!) should be a motivating factor.

Fourth, there was biochemistry. I can't tell you what transpired during the class because I wasn't particularly paying attention. Something about non-Michaelis-Menten enzyme kinetics. Counting down the days until that course is out of my life...

Fifth, along with getting my work report back (which has marker's comments scribbled all over), apparently I will be receiving (a small amount of) free money from the school. Yay, money! (Not that they won't be getting it back in the form of tuition, of course.) This will be given to me at some hoity-toity luncheon at some distant time. While formal events are not exactly enjoyable, I guess the free food helps.

Sixth, there was analytical lecture. The only unfortunate thing about the lecture is that the professor managed to get me a little interested in bioanalytical chemistry (the lecture was on capillary electrophoresis). Ooh, micelles - based on the appropriate partition coefficients, they allow the separation of otherwise neutral (hydrophobic) substances; that's pretty brilliant. On the other hand...electrophoresis, biochemistry, erk. Also mildly interesting: I asked the professor for references of certain diagrams she put up on her overheads, and she told me to look in a book that she wrote. So I did. I don't know, I think that's pretty cool, for the professor to lecture about something she actually wrote a book on. Even if it involves biomolecules.

Lastly, there was inorganic tutorial, where the professor went through the midterm and everything seems obvious in retrospect.

I should also take this post to thank my inorganic professor, who yesterday unwittingly gave me the best gift I have ever received - encouragement, good advice, and insight as to his teaching philosophy. Thank you so much, professor! I'd give him a hug except that'll just freak both of us out; let's just stick to more conventional protocols.

Also: apparently undergraduate chemistry classes at yonder snooty Ivy Leagues are freaky - if the class has a failing average now, wait until the professor teaches twice as fast.