Lundi matin...

            I spent the weekend with some of my family for the first time since at least Christmas, and a lot longer in some cases. Some “hilarious” quips about how I’m “still a student” and how I don’t have a “real” job were met with the usual disdain from myself because as everyone who has done a PhD knows, you a definitely no longer a student and you get out precisely what you put in. Personally, I’m of the opinion that if I am being paid, then I probably should spend a fairly high proportion of the working week, you know, working. I may not get taxed on my pay, but it’s not like I earn a fortune. Anyway, enough of my ranting and on to my Monday.

Lab Mishaps No. 2 - The t-BuLi incident

            Following a Saturday of doing very little whatsoever, I thought I would write a new lab mishap. This is one of my favourites partly because it is mildly cretinous and partly because of who did it. A colleague of mine, who I won’t name, while he is an excellent chemist, is prone to fairly regular bouts of stupidity. Just to put into perspective what I mean, this is a man who on a work trip to France last year uttered the immortal phrase “Wasn’t Joan of Arc one of Henry VIII’s eight wives?” I won’t go into how many things are wrong with this sentence, suffice to say it is completely ridiculous.

End of the Week...

        Everyone was in high spirits this morning. The sun was out, and more importantly we had all been paid. My two overnight reactions had changed colour and a quick sniff test (don't kid yourselves, everyone does it) showed a distinct change in smell. Who needs NMR when more important things like sight and smell can be used far more quickly?!

A Bright Spot

            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. 

A Day of Chores

I arrived this morning to the sight of a large bald man sitting in my fumehood with a screwdriver. My hopes of getting some work done today shot straight out of the window at that point.

A Minor Mistake a.k.a The Day I Spent The Afternoon Sulking

Unfortunately, nothing too much to write about today other than a minor mishap on my part this morning. I arrived with all the good intentions in the world about half 9 following a decent early morning session in the gym.

The Joys of Demonstrating

            And so begins a new week in the lab. I walk in this morning and remember with horror that it’s fumehood maintenance week and that I’ve got to clear out all the crap from the back of my (somewhat messy) hood. The day has not started well.

           

Lab Mishaps No. 1 - The Methyl Grignard Incident

As I sit here on a Sunday night pondering what tomorrow will bring for me in the lab, I can’t help but remember one fateful morning about a year ago. I was making a precursor to a range of catalysts I’ve been trying and working on about 20 g scale. It was a Kumada coupling reaction of an aryl triflate and a Grignard reagent:

Music in the lab

Progress has been somewhat slow this week due to a complete lack of motivation on my part. The “coming back to work after Christmas” blues has apparently skipped a few weeks and come back with a vengeance now. Oh dear.

Well hello there...

So here I am, I’ve finally bitten the bullet and started a blog on my life as a PhD student. My new year’s resolution of going to the gym and not eating too much crap has robbed me of one of my favourite pastimes and replaced it with a thrice weekly morning sweat-fest. As such, I seem to have a fair bit of spare time on my hands which I can only assume that was spent eating Doritos and other such delectable snacks before this somewhat hasty resolution was made. Anyway, that is beside the point.