New team! It's nice to be around people capable of mutual respect. Having background in chemistry is like a physics super-power at times, and vice versa. Being a theorist with first-hand experience in metaloorganics synthesis is apparently on par with being a Jedi. Finding a polite, accepted by peers and seniors alike, way of saying "this is pretty much a secondment on top of my research, just because I can make the beakers dance doesn't mean I'll be pulling double shifts as a lab tech" is 10 times better than being a Jedi. Also, it's probably the only time when Thank you for arguing and similar worked instead of somehow even more aggrivating people into interpreting everything I say in the worst possible way and making me think "is this all bullshit or am I somehow THAT mindnumbingly bad with people?" Dunno which is a bigger step. It's a lot of fun, though I also have a whole bunch to catch up on. There's a lot of bad stuff happening in Poland, so it's a great change of pace for once. And, hell, working in a chemistry lab is great if you're not working with assholes who think you're worth less than an automated dripper. After I took the second opinion, I switched my psychiatrist. It's rare for me to 'click' with anyone, having such one person as a doctor is already hard to overstate.
Ok, so this new job sounds pretty cool... but I know nothing about metaloorganics. So I looked it up, and ... still don't understand the application of these substances. What are you working on in the lab? And why? I'd like to know more about what you are doing, and how it is practically applied.
Simplified/ELI15 ahead. Chemists: don't hate on me. This project is about modeling a 'designer catalyst' that'll be enantioselective for specific synthesis. What's that? If you have a chiral compound (left or right-handed molecules with a mirror symmetry), unless we're talking about evolved mechanisms, when you synthesize it in the lab, it'll be a racemic mixture, 50:50 of left and right-handed enantiomers. Metaloorganics are great candidates for preferentially skewing a reaction towards one enantiomer over another, but their applications are much broader than that. Grignard reagent being one of the oldest flagship fussy ones. Seriously, after working with it a few times, I think it breaks down if you even mention water around it. As to specific applications, though, I'm very lucky to be in a fairly basic research-focused environment. There's something on the funding application, I'm sure, and it is a fertile ground for pharmacological applications, but we kinda get to play around and look for commonalities in the mechanism. My job is part lab, part wrangling the math for simulations. Apart from carbon-metal bonds, it has almost nothing to do with my cuprate superconductor stuff. Both are fun, tho!
First day of classes!! My morning class was cancelled already, so only the afternoon one. I've met a bunch of cool people so far during orientation. Excited and anxious for the first day of classes. I unfortunately have a class and a lab online. Trying to change those, but they're both closed right now. I did email the professor for one of them asking for permission. She responded super quickly saying reach out to the advisors but she'd be happy to have me if possible. Dishwasher leaks sometimes. Not every time, so I think it's based on how it's loaded. Washer/dryer arrived broken, Couch didn't fit up the stairs so now I need to find a smaller one. Ikea was sold out of everything I wanted except for the rug and they were back-ordered by months. Previous tenants left a nice armoire, but my TV is too big for it so it sticks out awkwardly. Pretty sure my air mattress/couch has a slow leak. Moving down has been an exercise of Murphy's Law. So it only makes sense the classes will be full and I'll be stuck with those online for a semester. I sent a cold email to the guy who wrote a super awesome book on his work eradicating Smallpox in West Africa and did some other cool stuff, like being the 10th director of the CDC. Maybe all the shit I've dealt with during moving down will yield enough negative karma I need some good karma to return to neutral and I'll hear from him or have some luck with the in-person classes. Hopefully I didn't use all my built-up karma to get into grad school and now I'm just deeply in karma debt to the universe. Also people from the US South -- does it ever get cold and/or not humid? This shit is brutal.
Ha! It did start cooling down ever so slightly. Humidity had gone for like a week or two but it's back now. It's awful. I'm going to be suffering like this until January? That's brutal. What a dumb swamp jungle Atlanta is why did the south ever get settled we should have just let it be.
Don’t worry, it’s only awful when you’re outside. I’m quite a bit lower in latitude, but I remember temperatures reaching 90 in December a little over a decade ago. Most of the summertime is spent indoors unless you’re running (early morning, late night) or at the beach. Spring/Fall are prime times to do outdoor activities. For better or worse, northerners generally acclimate by the next year (sometimes two, depends how cognizant ((shocked)) they are). The native Americans thought the southern lands were well and good far before the Spanish got here in the 1500s. Most everyone else since has had the same thought as you if they didn’t grow up here. I will say though… taking a flight from dry states (Texas) back to Florida is a shock getting off the plane. Easy to forget how much water is in the air. Basically mer-people around these parts.
life update: i'm on the spectrum i graduated from uni i've been doing voice training with a speech therapist and i no longer sound as much like a man i found some antidepressants that work alhamdulillah i moved into a 1bd 1bth apartment with my boyfriend and it's a hell of a lot nicer than where we used to live i started writing again and have made incredible progress on the third complete overhaul/revision of a conlanging project i've been working on for like 4 years at this point, it's finally coming together like how i envision it in my head, and despite it being the least important thing i could possibly be doing with my time, it's also the thing i feel the most proud of and that brings me the most happiness day to day - being able to find happiness in something creative more than once in a while is new to me i wrote a tanka a while ago that i thought was kinda cute and it's a good summary of what's going on right now in my life crust: packages, tissues, dirty laundry piled up, wet hair in the sink outside winter turns to spring tomorrow i clean my room
My next door neighbor is a 16-year old girl who I really like. She's a good kid. Good head on her shoulders. Smart. Engaged. And just a great kid, all around. They have three pets; two super cool cats and a 10-year old pitbull who is a big love, and just thinks the the world of me. Neighbor kid has fallen IN LOVE with my new dog, Moxie. So while we did our big rugby event for three days, she came over and played with Moxie, fed her, tired her out, etc. In exchange, I'm taking her and her mom out for ice cream. It was a good trial run. Yesterday our dogs started playing in (and destroying) my newly planted front yard, so I brought both dogs into my back yard to play and goof off. Neighbor kid eventually came over to hang with the dogs, too, and we wound up having a conversation for over an hour. I, a 52-year old dude, sat and chatted with a 16-year old girl for over an hour. She's taking her last two years of High School at the local Community College, where she will graduate from both High School and College - with an AA degree - in two years. I wonder what kind of world she will be graduating into? What will work look like then? She's a good kid. I hope she is equipped for the coming world... I don't feel a lot of positivity about the future, but I sure feel good about her chances in it. UPDATE: Got to chat with her mom while we were side-by-side watering our gardens, and she told me that her daughter has social anxiety and has a hard time chatting with people! ... except me ... that felt really nice. I'm glad she's comfortable talking with me.
that is fantastic my man. there's a place in teenagers' lives that cannot be filled by parents. It will be filled by others. When you can fill in that place as a good person, it leaves little room for others who may also try to fill that place. I am so glad for her that she has you as that person. I count myself fortunate to have had a couple of great people like you when I was a teenager. It truly saved my life and created so many opportunities. Thanks for being an awesome neighbor and person.she told me that her daughter has social anxiety and has a hard time chatting with people! ... except me
Thanks, Steve. I'm winging it here... never had kids, and at this stage in my life I won't be having any, so I've known/seen "other people's kids" my whole life. Watching the neighbor grow up over the last decade, I've seen her go from noisy child to thoughtful young woman, but always at arm's length. I mean... what am I going to talk to a 7-year old about? But yesterday we were just able to chat and hang out and talk about whatever came to mind. I also got to watch her interact with two "dangerous" dogs, and control them with proper technique and a firm hand. (a Pitbull and an Anatolian Shepherd that tops 100 pounds now) She needs some help learning to drive a stick shift, and her mom is a white-knuckle passenger... so I might be able to help out there somehow. It's up to her. I've let her know I'm here to help, if she wants it, but she's going to have to ask for it. And yeah... it's all about being a good neighbor. She's the only kid on our small street of 8 houses, and COVID has her basically locked down with her Mom, Aunt, Grandmother, and their tenant who is a senior woman, too. She's got a lot of estrogen in her circle! Good kid. Hope the best for her.
and I'm realizing I may be coming off preachy or like you now have some obligation... I don't mean to sound that way at all. Just being the cool person you are and her knowing you're a person to talk to is all that matters. You know all of this. I think I just get giddy and grateful on behalf of her future self at the prospect of having a dude like you as a neighbor.
On Monday evening, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's 4 Corners program showed the first instalment in a two part series on the influence of the Murdoch family on the Trump presidency. Now it transpires that Fox News is trying to block the ABC from running the story. I therefore recommend you all watch it (Australian-hosted video, so may require a VPN).