A harrowing gym session this morning made an “interesting” start to the day. Anyone who says they enjoy lifting heavy stuff over their head at 8am is quite frankly a liar.
The previously mentioned mesylation (see yesterday) was unsurprisingly somewhat of a write-off so I had another crack at it. Two hours, 0 oC, wash with acid, wash with base, dry and remove solvent. To my absolute horror, I think it’s only gone and worked. The other two reactions I had running as well also appear to have not failed. For about the last two months, I can think of maybe two occasions where things have gone as planned and this is one to add to the list. I have a horrible knack of changing tact completely if something doesn’t work first time and consequently I have done a massive variety of chemistry in the last year or so (MSc and now PhD) but haven’t actually really got anywhere with the original topic I am supposed to be working on. Anyway, that’s a story for another day.
All in all, today I haven’t had to clean anything, two reactions have worked, two more are currently stirring overnight and I’m now going to eat something I made last night (at home rather than in the lab, I hasten to add) and so a night of pure vegetation awaits. It is days like this that make a PhD seem like a valid use of my time, which is nice. There just might be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, or is it some bastard with a torch bringing me more work? Only time will tell.
I love days that actually work...when you get chemistry that doesnt hate you, you just need to run with it as fast as you can!
ReplyDeleteI was pretty bloody excited yesterday because I had my first statistically significant result in 9 months. Cue brief ecstasy followed by long depression over realisation that the last 9 months have been a total waste of time.
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