10:05 pm Wednesday 1st December 1999

Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed! Wooossshhhhhh….
Oh yeah, I am the Queen of Chemistry! I am the doyen of the fume-cupboard and the hi guru of the Rotavap! Woo-ha! *pumps arms in air* Oh yeah baby, I am a compound making machine!!! *g*
Sorry, Just had to get that little tirade off my chest. ;) Today was compounds number 19 and 20. Ah… the target has been reached with 11 days left to go before the dead-line. The reactions weren't too hard in themselves, and the new triturating under petrol worked quite well. I also experimented twice with ADAM today, and got a yield of ~16 mg and 13 mg. The 13 mg I put on for a second reaction which is stirring away contentedly in the lab at the moment. If it were to work (fingers crossed) I would be "over-the-moon" type happy.
I obviously don't want to make this diary an account of what I did in the lab each day, but there isn't too much else happening in my life at the moment so you'll have to deal with it. ;)
Went and saw the doctor today because the eye junk thing had come back. His instructions as always were to stay on what I was on. Thankfully some of the normal eye-drops seemed to work Ok.
Hmmm… what else. Sent an email to the coastal Peta suggesting we might be able to catch the inland Peta whilst she was temporarily in the country. I have yet to send an email to inland Peta suggesting we all do coffee, but will later. Her lap-top apparently blew up, and so I don't know if she can read any of her email.
Went back over to the lab at 9:30 pm and set up another 13C NMR and booked another one (under C*****'s name) for tomorrow. Thankfully for me it is a quiet time of year. C***** came in and made me jump, he had come back to turn some reactions off. Today had gotten up to 30 again, and I noticed that it isn't until about 4:30 pm that the lab gets it's hottest. I'm not sure why the delay, but I guess it's a matter of heat transfer through the roof or something like that… Who knows, I might spoil myself by washing my hair tonight, how's that for a special treat! (insert humorous sarcasm here)

1:00 am - Washed my hair, sent another long email to Peta and here I am. The good John's showers are locked up for summer, and I'm forced to use the "plastic capsules of death". For those not in the know, there are two types of shower here. Concrete showers affectionately called "Austwicz" or "The gas chambers" and the annoying plastic ones. In the plastic enclosed showers, the shower head doesn't move, and the thing must have been designed for midgets.
Imagine standing on a telephone book and trying to wash your hair at the same time. Move your elbows too much and you'll be either chilled or scalded. You can't lean forward or bend over for fear or smacking your head on one of the hand-rails or other protuberances. I don't know how the heck I'm going to be able to shave in there... *sigh*
Tomorrow I'm hoping to take things easy. My ADAM derivative won't be ready for a while I think and so it will probably just be more fiddling around doing very little and trying to beat the heat.
Hmmm… there was something I had to remember to write down but now I've forgotten. Oh that's right, it's Soba's birthday tomorrow, must find card ASAP.
Okkie, time to regenerate that serotonin…