God

I'm no longer a publicly spiritual person, but that doesn't mean I don't believe in God anymore.

I do. I really do. I've seen too many amazing things not to.

And I honestly believe that sometimes when you're stuck on something, or feeling alone, he pushes somebody around you to do something that makes you feel better about it.

Sometimes I feel alone in the fact that I left the church and instead chose to take my own path. I know there are many many others who have, but every situation you go through always seems like it's unique to you.

But someone e-mailed me the other day, telling me the story of her journey to happiness, and it was remarkably similar to mine.

I forget sometimes, but little things like this are like God poking me and saying "See? I AM here, and I'm taking care of you, dummy!"

I'm Falling Apart

What a week!

I mentioned last week that my back had been hurting me. I just woke up one morning and there it was, pain in all its glory. I suspected I slept crooked on my neck or something like that, took some ibuprofen, slapped a heating pad on it, and assumed it would go away in a few days.

Nope.

It totally tricked me. It felt like it was going to be all better by the weekend; it was hurting less and less each day. But then I woke up Saturday morning and COULD NOT MOVE. It took me ten minutes (filled with crying and much swearing) just to sit up out of bed, and it hurt SO BADLY. It's never hurt this badly before in my life. I have absolutely no freaking clue why it did this. I got up (well, Scott got me up) and took some pain meds (well, Scott got me pain meds) and took a hot bath (well, Scott got me into a hot bath)...can you see the trend? I haven't been that helpless since I had my surgery last November.

Anyway, it hurt so badly that I decided to go to the doctor (well, Scott took me to the doctor). Scott and I are alike in that we always insist the other person go see the doctor when something is wrong, but we never go unless the other really pushes it, so you can imagine how much pain I was in when I was the one insisting on going to InstaCare.

We went in as soon as it opened, and the doctor gave me prescriptions for Flexeril (muscle relaxant) and Lorotab. I then spent all day Saturday and Sunday stoned off my ass, mostly sleeping it off. My back was starting to loosen up and I was thinking I would be ok to go in to work on Monday, but NO. LIFE ISN'T THAT NICE TO ME.

Once again, I woke up Monday morning to PAIN! and the PAIN! was worse. Suck. So I had to call in sick, which I hated...but it turns out it was the perfect day to call in sick because there was such a tiny workload that day (only 3 samples; the usual load is 15 to 20) (but I still hate missing work). Scott (angel) found a chiropractor who could see me that morning, so I took my meds again and we went in. The doctor took x-rays, did some testing on my spine, manipulated my back, gave me some electrotherapy, and had me come in the next day for more.

I went in Tuesday, got adjusted and therapy again, and we took a look at my x-rays. The chiropractor says that four of my vertebrae are starting to degenerate and that I need to start corrective therapy immediately. This apparently involves like 30 visits, and thousands of dollars (my insurance doesn't cover chiropractic)...I'm not sure I want to do this. I can see what he was pointing out on the x-rays, but I'm not entirely convinced it's as bad as he's saying it is.

Anyway, the pain at this point hadn't changed in intensity, but it had moved from the middle of my back, right between my shoulder blades, up to my neck. I continued to take meds as much as I could (can't go to work stoned...or drive, for that matter, so I had to go without sometimes), and Wednesday afternoon I scheduled an hour-long massage. It was heavenly. I had the masseuse concentrate on my neck, upper back, and shoulders. She used firm pressure, so it hurt a bit while she was working on me, but my muscles felt more relaxed afterward, so the little bit of discomfort was worth it. I went home, took more meds, and went to sleep early.

I woke up Thursday morning and still had a little bit of pain, that had migrated again into my left shoulder, but overall it was getting better. After work I went to the chiropractor again, and he gave me some instructions for stretches, adjusted me again, and did more therapy.

Now here's my thing: I'm not sure how much of this "spinal degeneration" is real and how much is exaggeration on the chiropractor's part to drum up his business. Since my insurance doesn't cover this, the office charges a flat rate of $55 per visit if you pay that day, in cash. That's not awful by itself, but when you look at the amount of visits he recommended...yeah. I might as well just buy myself a new spine.

So, I asked for my x-rays, and they're going to digitize them and have them ready for me to take by next Tuesday. I'm going to take them in to another doctor and get a second opinion. Personally, I think I just wrenched my back particularly badly, and my spine is probably totally normal. If, when I get a second opinion, it looks like this guy is telling the truth, then I will decide what I can afford to do. If he's not, I'll probably be turned off chiropractors forever. Either way it goes, I'm going to do the stretches and try to exercise more to keep all of me, not just my spine, healthy.

I'm falling apart. Bit by bit.

Twister!

Once upon a time Mim and I got a call from Kwiddens, who had been involved in a drug bust at church camp, and the other girls were being evil and mean to her, so she wanted to come home. Mim and I checked the weather report, and there were lots of tornadoes that night (it ended up being 63 in the county over the duration of the storm), but it looked like the storm was moving in the opposite direction we would need to drive, so we started driving to go get her. Unfortunately, I've never gotten the hang of north, south, east, west...I can find them easily here in Utah Valley because the mountains are always east, and always visible, so no problem. South Dakota, however, is quite flat, and mostly made of cornfields, so Mim and I got our directions wrong and when we started driving, we were driving into the storm, not away from it. Oops.

The storm was getting increasingly violent as we drove, and at one point, we were like, "Wow, I think that is a tornado!" and it was heading straight for us. We had to stop driving, because the car was starting to get lifted off the road a bit. We pulled over and waited and watched. Mim and I LOVE storms. When we lived in Oklahoma we got them all the time and the siren would be wailing and we would still be out on our front porch going "Oooooooooooh!" until the very very last minute, then make a mad dash for the bathroom, which was the only room in the house with no windows.

Needless to say, we were quite aware of the danger we were in, but we were also really excited about getting to see a storm like this up close! As we were pulled over we saw a huge funnel approaching us from the left. There was a semi parked on the other side of the interstate, and when it hit the semi it TIPPED IT OVER. Kaboom. So we looked at each other, and we were like, "We are so going to die! But what an awesome way to go!" because we're idiots. The funnel kept coming toward us, and finally encased us in our car. You would not believe the noise. It was deafening, and there was absolutely no visibility inside the funnel; it was pitch black. We, of course, were still having a blast...the car was rocking back and forth and almost tipped, but we had pulled down a little deeper into the ditch at the side of the road, so we were a bit more sheltered than the semi had been.

Then, the eye. The eye was the complete opposite of the rest of the funnel. You wouldn't believe how noisy it was out there, but you also wouldn't believe the dead silence in the eye of the storm. It was still pretty dark, but there was the most amazing lightning. Inside the funnel, the lightning looked neon green, and was in these pulsing balls...it's so hard to describe, but it was the coolest thing I have ever seen ever.

The rest of the funnel came and went, and we just sat there, totally amazed by what had just happened to us. We couldn't believe we were even alive. We decided we should probably go home and Kwiddens would have to stay at camp another day.

Conclusion: we have guardian angels. Or something. Because DUDE, it tipped over a semi, and not us. We win!

The Evolution Of Newb

When Kwiddens started high school, and I was in my senior year, we sorta...started our own language. It isn't completely different from English, but it's completely confusing if you're not used to it.

I don't remember exactly how it started, but I know it involved my senior year boyfriend, Dan. Dan and Kwiddens and I would hang out in the orchestra room before school every morning, and we would get to talking, and we were being really goofy, and in high school almost nobody is politically correct, and so we were...talking like...retarded people...I feel awful confessing that, because I realize now how mean that is! But the whole point is, we would talk in this language and we called it "Weetawd". See? I'm a horrible person, and I'm going to hell.

So at some point we did realize that it was horribly rude and awful, etc. So, we decided to call it something else, and the name changed to "Doobie". Because we had called annoying idiot people doobies and it was just hilarious at the time.

Now, a quick aside:

One summer, about a year later, Kwiddens went to Girl's Camp (church camp) and while she was there, she caught a group of girls GETTING HIGH AT CHURCH CAMP. And it wasn't just pot, either; there was some harder stuff there. Anyway, Kwiddens went and told a camp counselor, who called the police, and they came and the girls got in trouble. You would think the rest of the girls, the ones who were following the rules and actually wanted camp to be a spiritual experience, would be proud of Kwiddens for standing up for her beliefs and doing the right thing, but they were so horribly mean to her that she called for us to come pick her up. Unfortunately, we couldn't, since that was the night there were 63 tornadoes in our county...driving wasn't such a good idea. We tried, and got stuck in a funnel, which was SO COOL, and we thought we were going to die, and when we were out we decided that wasn't a good night for driving, so Kwiddens was stuck there. I'll write more about being inside a tornado some other time.

The whole experience shook her so much that calling it "Doobie" was now out of the question, since of course the word is drug-related. We decided to call it "Newb" instead, because Dan was always saying "Look at those newbs!"...I think that came from some kind of internet slang.

Anyway. So that's how Newb started. Here are some of the grammatical rules:

Firstly, and most importantly, Kristen turnes into Kwiddens, but if you say Kwitten you are using the worst swear word in the language.

When speaking Newb, one adds n's to words that don't actually have n's in them. Examples are "nansty" (nasty) (although this has its own word, which is just nast, used as a noun) and "int" (it), etc. One has to be careful, though, because if you add an n to the word "cut" bad things happen, so that's the exception.

Th's are turned into f's. Examples are "fink" (think), "bafroom" (bathroom) (which is now BF for short) and "birfday" (birthday).

Singular words are pluralized. "I hans to use the bafrooms."

Pronouns and verb tenses are mixed up. Think Gollum + Dobby. We also add in "precious", as a tribute to LotR.

If you're just starting to use Newb, the best thing to do is study Homestar Runner (the guy with the star on his shirt). That's how everything ends up being pronounced. Intonation is the most important part of Newb.

There are a few specific phrases that we use often. One is calling someone "Little Chicken". This is because once, when Kwiddens was working at DQ, she was putting chicken strips into the fryer and she was talking to them, like "It's ok, little chickens, it'll be over soon" and things like that, just to be silly. It totally stuck.

We're sisters, and friends, so we call each other "sista fwend". We also call loved ones "Stupid", "Dummy", "Idiot", etc., and that is like saying "I love you!" in Newb.

There is a little confusion when you pronounce the words cows, cars, and calls. They all sound exactly the same, so you have to use context to figure out what's going on.

South Dakota is "Souf Kadoda".

Anywaaaaaym (anyway)...

The most amazing thing is, once Kwiddens and I started using Newb on a regular basis, Mim joined in, and it became something special we three did. It bugged Dad to no end, and that was an added bonus. Mim became Mim when we were watching The Sword In The Stone and decided it would be fun to call her Mim instead of Mom. When Scott and I started seriously dating and he noticed me and Kwiddens talking like this, he joined in, and is now fluent.

Whatchoo fink?

Pretty amusing?

You KNOWIT.

Text Time 8

This Text Time is brought to you by the English language, Kwiddens, and a little bit of chemistry.

Kwiddens: Crisises. Ugh.

Me: What crisis???

Kwiddens: Somebody said crisises instead of crises.

Me: Oh ok. I thought you were saying crisis in newb*. Lol

Kwiddens: Lol no thank goodness.

Kwiddens:

Facepalm.

Kwiddens: "Give me an oxen." What???

Me: Explain...

Kwiddens: One is an ox. Many are oxen. This guy was saying he'd rather have an oxen than a burro.

Me: I know ox vs. oxen, I was just wondering who said it. Mim says you should either slap him or kick him then run away!

Kwiddens: He's a veteran...

Me: Ok, no kicking.

Kwiddens: A verbal slap?

Me: No. Thank him for defending our country, then stick a bar of soap in his mouth.

Kwiddens:
Comma splice.
Me: That is so gross.
Kwiddens: It was in an ad! In National Geographic!
Me: I would expect more from them.
Kwiddens: For real.

Kwiddens: What do you call a lumpy bumpy church?

Kwiddens: The Cystine chapel.

*Definition of "newb" to follow

Just Some Thoughts On A Friday

I got a haircut the other day, and the stylist gave me the longest, most relaxing scalp massage ever. I double tipped her.

I hate nearly all reality TV. But I LOVE Pawn Stars. Chumlee's freaking hilarious.

My neck has been all weird for the last few days. I think I slept on it wrong and now it hurts to move around. Then, my lower back started hurting. I think my nerves are pinched. It's getting better though.

I read Fermat's Enigma by Simon Singh. Oh wait, I didn't read it, I devoured it in two days. It made me want to be a mathematician.

We have all these yellow patches on our lawn. We've watered it enough, as there are lush green patches as well. So we had the lawn guys come over and they took a look, and we have grubs. $40 got us some insecticide, and now we're supposed to water lots and lots until the lawn grows back. I hope it works. We usually have the best-kept lawn on our street.

I had my company's summer party today. Scott met me there after we were both done with work early for the day. There was tasty food, and we got to just sit and relax and get paid for it. It did get boring after a while, though. I don't actually know and talk to very many people in my company at all: the lab people I see every day, and the couple people I bring paperwork to in the mornings, and that's it. So I sat by the people I know and we were getting bored...and then they started drawing for prizes! And guess who won a home theater system? Yes, that's right. Surround sound speakers and a new DVD player. I win. We have them hooked up now and we're watching Aliens. Subwoofer. Oh yes. Buster's not sure what to make of it, though.

Scott turned 26 this past Tuesday. Em's birthday was the same day, so last weekend we all met up for dinner. It's so rare that Kwiddens, Isaac, Nyah, Em, Jorg, Mim, Scott and I ALL get together. We're all so busy and we have schedules that don't mesh very well, plus we all live at least an hour away from each other. Then, yesterday, Kwiddens and Isaac had some things to take care of at Hill AFB, so she stopped by and I got to hold the baby. I can't believe how big she's getting. She can almost hold herself up!

I want...ice cream.

And that's about it.

MS Trouble

So...you know how my mercury analyzer wasn't working? Well, I have a method on the MS to run mercury. It isn't as good, but it works well enough so I had a way to run my samples. Unfortunately, before I could get the DMA fixed, the MS decided not to play nice anymore.

When I start the instrument up in the morning I do what's called tuning. I put a special solution into the machine and I check the counts per second (cps) of two masses, and if they are above 500, I am good to go and I go ahead and get to work.

Usually if the cps is too low, it means something's dirty, so as it was getting lower and lower last week, every day I would try cleaning a new part or replacing new tubing. But every day the counts just kept going down...frustrating. Finally they were down around 200 (no good!) so I decided to dig a little deeper and clean the lenses. I did, and when I reinstalled them, the counts had dropped even lower-down to 50! So, yeah. Not working. For one thing, it turned out that I had put the lenses back together wrong, even after I took a picture of how they were oriented so I would make sure I got it right:


At least I figured out why the lenses weren't working...thank goodness for instruction manuals!
Nerdy aside: The reason these lenses are cool is that they aren't glass or crystal lenses like you normally think of lenses. They're made of metal and they focus magnetically. COOL.
So last Monday morning I called Agilent and told them what was going on, and they treated me like a moron as usual, but the technician suspected that the cones were bad, so I should replace them...but I had pulled them out earlier and examined them and they looked totally fine to me, so I insisted that that wasn't the problem. We argued a bit and in the end we decided that they should send a technician out to take a look. They said they would put in my request and have the local office call me to set up an appointment. So I waited. And waited.

Now, it's frustrating because Milestone, the company that services our DMA, always calls me back within an hour, and so they totally spoil me, and then when I have to wait ALL DAY for someone to call me back it makes me a bit grumpy. I called them again and asked to make sure the service request went through, and they were rude to me and said that they would call me...so I kept waiting.

Finally in the morning, when my boss got in, I asked him if he could use a little of his managerial influence to get them to speed the process up a bit. He decided to skip the main office and just e-mail Terry, the dude who usually comes to fix the MS, and who is also very good about checking his e-mail often. But once he e-mailed him...we waited.

Finally, at about 3:00, he e-mailed back to say...

...he was in JAPAN. And he must have been insane, because he was checking his e-mail at 5 a.m.

Fabulous.

So I had to keep waiting for the Agilent local office to call me. I have a sneaking suspicion that Terry got ahold of them and made them call me, because I got their call about half an hour after we got that e-mail.

At this point, Dennis (nice guy) called me and we talked all about all the things the isntrument was doing, and he kept saying that the cones were most likely the culprit, so of course I was all like, "I don't think so, because I looked at them and they totally looked fine". But he insisted on sending me new cones instead of coming out to take a look himself, and what do you know, replacing the cones fixed the problem, and so here are my pretty shiny new ones:


And I feel like an idiot because apparently I don't know how to tell if the cones go bad, and that was the problem all along. Suck.
The people over at Agilent are probably like, "This girl is sooooo dumb!", and that's why they talk to me like I'm an idiot when I call them.

Chewy

Sorry the picture is so small, but I had to share it, because my dog totally looks like Chewbacca.
I've been feeling un-bloggy lately, so that's all you get.

What If...?

A few posts ago I asked what I should write about, and Scott asked:

"If you were not married how do you think your life would differ from how it is now?"

It made me start thinking about my life's path...

I'm happy where I am. Interestingly enough, though, if several years ago, like at the beginning of college, I had been able to see into the future, to see what my life is now, I don't think I would have thought it was going in the right direction, that is, the direction that would make me happiest.

My freshman year one of my chemistry professors had us all write down some goals we had for his class, the year, college, and life in general. I was only half joking when I said, "Graduate from BYU without getting married!" For those of you that aren't in the know, BYU's students tend to get married a lot more than students at other campuses. My thoughts? They really, really want to move past making out, and they're not allowed to unless they're married (not only will they get kicked out of BYU, but they'll go to hell as well). Just a theory.* Anyway, having observed nothing but bad marriages my whole life, I didn't want any part of it. Why would I want to bind myself to someone, just to have them ruin my life? And why would I want to marry someone just to make babies? I just didn't want it. So I dated, because dating's fun, and let's face it, so is making out.

I never thought I would meet someone like Scott. I never even thought someone like Scott could exist. The dating pool at BYU seemed severely limited. I found guys who were good people but had different ideas and values than I did, but nobody was ever good enough. Everyone was too...vanilla. I tried dating a lot of people, but it just didn't stick. It didn't help that guys generally don't like to date girls who are smarter than they are, so a lot of the guys who I would have liked to date weren't even remotely interested in me if they knew that I was a chemistry major.

So marriage wasn't even in my plans.

Academically, I was never quite sure where I would go. My plan was basically to get my degree, and sometime my senior year decide whether I wanted to go to grad school, medical school, or just find a job. Two things basically made this decision for me: figuring out I was bipolar and falling in love with Scott. Figuring out I was bipolar, and FINALLY understanding why I was so sick all the time, made me realize that further schooling just wasn't wise unless it were the only thing I were doing. It wouldn't have been the only thing, either, because I wanted to be with Scott, and I didn't want to half-ass my marriage. I wanted to be there 100%, and I knew that if I continued school, things would just get too busy for us to be working on our marriage constantly, like we are now. It looks like that turned out pretty well, don't you think?

So...back to the original question. If I weren't married, I probably wouldn't have met anyone that I could have married, so I would have continued school. If I had chosen grad school, I probably would have tried to stay at BYU, since I absolutely adored the chemistry department there. I loved the classes, the professors, my jobs, just everything about that building made me feel more like myself than any other place I had been before. If I had stayed there, I would have had to keep going to church to stay enrolled...I'm honestly not sure how that would have gone. For all I know I might have just decided it wasn't worth it and transferred to another university. In that case, it would probably have been a college somewhere in the midwest, since that still felt like home at the time.

If I had chosen medical school, I have absolutely no idea where I would have gone or what I would have specialized in, but I would still be there today, and so I would probably be too busy to do much of anything else.

Either way, I would still be in school.

My life is now something I never thought it would be, but let me tell you, this marriage thing is awesome.

As long as you have the right person.

Which I do.



*Just FYI, I have nothing but respect for the students at BYU who actually follow the Honor Code. I certainly didn't.

Hg Trouble

So Friday (July 30) I was running my DMA (mercury analyzer) when BAM. It just stopped working with no warning. I tried to start it back up again and it was like, "No, you suck, therefore I'm taking the rest of the day off." So I did a shutdown and restart of both the instrument and the computer, and tried again...nope. I e-mailed Johan, my service technician, and he e-mailed me back right away, which was AWESOME because it was 4:30 on a Friday where he was and I had assumed he was going to leave my e-mail until Monday. Anyway, he said he would have someone give me a call and give me some things to try to get it working again.

Arshad called me almost immediately (Milestone, you're building up major brownie points here) and gave me a shortcut so I could get some samples run (a temporary fix), and then he was going to e-mail me instructions to clean the cuvette.

So the temporary fix was so easy...as soon as I had the service password. I got in, unchecked a box, and went on my merry way. He had me run five samples of dilute acid and then five blanks, and at that point we would see if the cuvette were clean or not. I was done with everything else at this point, so I just set the instrument to run these ten samples over the weekend.

I came back in on Monday (August 2) and the voltage was back to where it should have been, so I re-calibrated and started running some samples. I got several done before it decided not to read any more (but at least it was still running at this point). So when I came in Tuesday morning, I started taking it apart to clean the cuvette. Let me tell you, it wasn't easy. I had to call Arshad again to try to figure out why I couldn't get the cuvette out to clean it, and doing things like this over the phone is always hard, and apparently it's harder if you have the new model of the instrument and he's trying to give instructions for the old instrument. But, we got it all sorted, and I got the whole thing put back together again.

Next I loaded up standard samples and began a calibration...and it started being a jerk again. After lots of e-mails back and forth between me and two different people at Milestone, we came to the conclusion that I needed a new catalyst tube...so I ordered one. And waited. When I ordered one, they had said it would be here by Monday (August 9) at the latest, but then, after they had already shipped it, they sent me tracking information that said I wouldn't get it until Tuesday. Jerks.

I did get it Tuesday, but not until 11:00, so I had a lot to do in a few short hours. When I install a new catalyst, I need to run a reconditioning procedure (80 minutes) and a stability test (40 minutes, but this time it took HOURS because it wouldn't work the way it was supposed to...) and a calibration (64 minutes). Needless to say, after I had been here 9 hours I said "Screw this!" and went home, letting the calibration finish overnight.

I got here this morning and ran a QC and it was perfect (I can hear the heavenly choir singing) and so I am so happy today I can't even tell you. Too bad my other instrument is now broken. I'll tell you that story another day.

Now here's the super fun part: This time, it's actually my fault. I very rarely make any mistakes at work, so when I do I'm really hard on myself. This, however, isn't me just being hard on myself. This is me costing the company like $700 for new parts. I ran a sample of fish oil, and I put too much in there, and I should have known better. When it combusted, it not only covered the cuvette with nast, it also fractured the end cap on the catalyst. I should have put less in there. I'm furious with myself.

Brown Thumb

When we moved into our house there was a little bed in the corner of the back yard where a few rose bushes were planted. They were very ugly rose bushes, so eventually we got around to taking them out. We were left with a bare corner, and we hadn't decided what to do with it, so we just left it there. It became overgrown by weeds. Then, one day I was at Home Depot and I saw a bag of wildflower seeds, and I thought "What a great idea!", so I bought them and came home and planted them in the corner and then waited.

This is what I got:





Do you see any flowers there? Yeah, me neither. Just weeds.

So Scott and I weeded the corner and decided to try something else.

We went to Home Depot and bougth several potted plants that were suited for our climate:

And then we came home and planted them. They looked pretty good!

We watered them and said nice things to them and took very good care of them, but apparently I suck at growing plants because this is what we have now:

At least one kind of plant is still alive...

Chemistry Can Also Be Ridiculous

And, some more!

• 10:15 am Saturday: My reaction tipped over :(! Nooooo...
• I rotovaped (is that a word?)
• I added bromine to phenol in DMSO. What a smelly mess. I am sick of all of it. Solid into NMR tube (maybe it worked)...nope.
• Mixture #6 smells like dead cats
• I QUIT the column. I have a better idea!
• Solid unknown is water soluble! Yay! It's also basic to pH paper...ooh.
• Smells nice.
• Smells terrible.
• WOW. This is harder than it looks, let me tell you.
• One last conclusion: Vigreux columns are expensive. Don't break one.
• Refraction=really cool
• Title: Nasty Dynamics Lab
• Eight a.m....yuck.
• File names: "StrongBadIsAwesome", StrongSad", "AnnaSilly", "ErikTheWeird", "LifeIsSilly", "SweaterSong", TenOnEverything", "KirkTheJerk"
• Starting some crap over again
• Refocused MUCH BETTER NOT GARBAGE

So, anyway...this is probably why I am not a research chemist. I am incapable of being serious.

Chemistry Can Be Funny

I was looking through some old lab notebooks from college, and I was noticing that I logged my experiments with...flair. I thought it would be amusing to share with you some of the gems I wrote in there! Keep in mind that this is exactly like I wrote it originally in the lab books...smiley faces, exclamation points, and all.

• My percent yield is going to be dismal. A few crystals are forming, but for the most part it isn't working out so well. Nothing came out when I hirsched it! :( Starting over...
• The reaction mixture is a nice color this time.
• I removed the aqueous layer. For some reason this layer was on the bottom...weird.
• I keep washing and washing and washing with methylene chloride...
• I have product! Plenty of product!
• I know my product was pretty darn pure because my melting point was great!
• It looked white. Really white.
• Meso-stilbene dibromide! :)
• Lo and behold, it decomposed!
• It looked pure. No weird colors, etc. The end!
• 0.023 g product. DISMAL.
• (A messed up reaction mechanism) This is what I get for writing in pen...The REAL one: (the right reaction mechanism) I win!
• My alternate procedure yielded brown junk. I suspect failure...
• I made diphenylacetylene! Here's how I know:...It tastes like diphenylacetylene (just kidding!)
• I could have recrystallized it, but I am lazy.

I'll post more later!

Help Please

I'm gonna take a leaf out of Kim's book and ask...what sorts of things do you all want to know about me? What are some things you think I should post about?

I'm a little bit stuck at the moment, but I've made myself a goal: at least 20 posts a month.

Stupid writer's block.

Nyah's Blessing

Nyah had her baby blessing this past Sunday (for you non-Mormons out there, that's a blessing each baby receives at about 6 weeks, blessing the baby with a good life, health, happiness, etc.), so I had to go to church again...and I'm glad I left right after the blessing because according to Kwiddens, it was a really weird meeting after that.

Anyway, so after church was over everyone met up at Kwiddens's house for a luncheon, and I got some pictures. Nyah was being a little brat though and kept looking away and rolling over and I only got two good shots of her in her blessing gown, so here's one:


The dress was Nyah's grandma's (on Isaac's side), so it was really old and fragile, so once pictures were taken the dress went back into storage for safe keeping, and Nyah got to hang out in her onesie for the rest of the party. Mim was holding her and it was a perfect photo opportunity, but, once again, Nyah was being fussy and wouldn't look at the camera, and that was taking Mim's attention away from the camera, so this is all I got:

Even fussy, she's still cute.

R.I.P.

Rest in peace, my pretty pink socks. You lasted a long time, with frequent use and lots of love, and you will be missed.

Giant holes in the heels...a product of the washing machine...even the delicate cycle was too much, they were so worn out.

Meme: Because I Can

1. How much would you have to be paid to eat a human cadaver's finger?

I don't think so. Just...no.

2. Describe the worst physical fight you've ever been in.

When Kwiddens and I lived in Idaho (I think) she pushed me down and walked all over me and gave me a black eye and a bloody nose. I don't think I fought back though.

3. Name one song that if you never heard it ever again, you'd be thrilled.

That "According To You" song is so obnoxious and repetitive I wish they would just stop playing it a million times a day.

4. Describe the "drunkest" situation you've ever been.

Ok, this one is interesting...one time in high school my friend had a birthday, so we all went to this restaurant and had dinner, and I ordered drinks but specified that I was underage so DON'T ADD ALCOHOL PLEASE and what do you know, they actually did put alcohol in it (by accident, I assume)(I hope), and I was so sleepy I just went home and slept very soundly all night. Then I woke up and had to go to church in the morning and OH BOY did I have a headache.

5. What's your biggest regret?

I have so many that it would make me sad and angry at myself to try to single one out so I'm just not going to think about it. For now. Because I'll probably obsess over it sometime soon.