Today was a rather average day. I woke up at 8:45 am and actually made it to breakfast. I must have looked pretty festy with my blood-shot eyes, but at least there was food.
Made it to the lab first, and re-started my reaction from yesterday. It went reasonably well it seemed. I got the orange cake by about 11:00 am. The next step was a little exciting, since I had to neutralize the excess acid, and that resulted in a heap of bubbles which made the material swell up like a mousse. By about 12:15 pm I had reached the de-protecting step and it went the expected pale blue colour when I added the acid. It's actually a very colorful reaction, it goes in sequence, Emerald-green, brown-yellow, orange, canary yellow and then pale blue. Rather pretty I thought… al least until I got back after lunch with Szusza to find it was mostly starting material… Arrrggghhhh… Oh God, I don't know what the problem is. I'll use fresher Chromium Tri-oxide tomorrow, and I'll allow it to stir for much longer, and again I'll cross my fingers. All this for a starting material which may not even work… *sigh
So I had lunch with Szusza today which was good. As usual Garema Place was swarming with public servants, so we went to a new place for coffee and lunch. We were both in a pretty bad state, my hay-fever and flu versus Szusza phlegmy chest infection. But it was good, we had a fair bit to chat about. We were there for about an hour or so, and then we had to go. I got back to the lab just as Red called, I went over to Union square and she gave me the Spring-Out poster which was cool. Then I went back to the lab and got my disappointing NMR spectra. That was about 4:00 pm. At that point I was feeling pretty miserable due to my illnesses and so I went into town for a shopping expedition. Bought groceries and came back to the lab again, picked up my milk and went home. Sports Dinner was on tonight, but I hadn't put my name down and was therefore not allowed in. That wasn't a real problem, I just went and played some Red Alert. It was pretty boring. About 9:00 pm I went up to chat with Susan and Jules and Anthony who was there as well. They had been out to dinner for Paul's birthday which I was a little miffed about, but I'll get over it. So we had chats and after that Jules, and I went up to Anthony's room to watch Dilbert. It was pretty funny, but kind of ruined by all the ads they put in. Then I came down here and now I'm on ICQ to Michelle.
Susan asked when people should start referring to me as Steph. I guess anytime my friends do it is fine by me, and in fact it gives me a big moral boost when they do. :) But officially I think I may go up in early November and get it done officially. That way I can have my new sets of ID ready for any leasing agreement and I can also visit Michelle when she is recovering, and I can go to Drag Bag and get myself a gaff finally.
I've got a few emails which I need to respond to, but I think they can wait for the moment. I fully expect to be woken up tonight by the John's people coming back pissed from Civic.
1:00 am - Just finished chatting to Michelle, I also sent an email to Mack after a very long delay. I've now going to bed… zzzzz…