One of those days

It's been one of those days.

A day where every piece of glassware that touches your hands either breaks or gets knocked over.

A day where your product either doesn't seem to want to be UV or KMnO4 active, so you really can't see via TLC whether it's there (i.e. time to use more stains but I hate doing TLC's because I'm not all spot happy yet).

A day where every other TLC plate falls in the solvent.

A day where there are a bajillion people lined up to use the NMR.

A day where too much sand comes out when you tip the jar.

A day where solvent just doesn't want to stay in its container. Any solvent. And all of them.

A day where you splash water everywhere when washing dishes.

A day where you forget to put your products (one of which probably isn't a product) on High-Vac, wash your hands, and then realize as you're about to pack up that you have to do that.

Sigh.

A day where I just want to give up, go home, snuggle in bed with the fluffy blankets, and play Castaway 2.

Luckily, Vicki brought cupcakes. :]

Day 2

Project status: unknown.

Today's endeavors: fail.

Tomorrow: Rally and try a harsher way to cleave a peptide that's not actually a peptide.

Later: eat free food. NOM.

First Daily Vlog?!?

Kelsey and I are starting a daily vlog blog. Yes.

This Side of Orange

For once, I feel...

...different.

For my past 20 birthdays, I have felt the same as I did the year before, a year older, yet, not really. Even in Greece, the first birthday I've had apart from my family ever, it was underwhelming to turn 20. That may have been because I was in Greece, and really, everything was underwhelming compared to that.

This year, maybe it's the amount of shopping I have done for myself, the number of pairs of shoes I have bought, the amount of makeup I have accumulated, the number of things I have purchased for other people, the amount of money I have saved and spent over the past year that makes me feel like I've grown up a little...a lot even. It seems silly, writing it down, because so many of these things are material things, and isn't change supposed to come from within? Aren't I supposed to feel different because inside, I've become more in tune with myself as a person, not because I've bought a lot of stuff?

Yet, maybe it's because I do have all this stuff that I feel like something has shifted. For as long as I can remember, I have felt that nothing I had was ever really mine. That seems silly because who else is going to wear my pointe shoes or care about the condition of my stuffed animals? What else is plastic wrap supposed to be used for other than wrapping stuff up? For whose benefit is it if the chocolate is never eaten? But I liked things to stay the same. *SENTIMENTALIST ALERT* I wanted things to be new. If I ate the pretty chocolate, or took the doll out of the box, it would be ruined. I wouldn't have it anymore.

It's taken me awhile to see that I can't keep holding on to things hoping they won't change, that money is meant for transactions, that chocolate is meant for eating, that people are meant to evolve. Maybe that's why I feel different, because I have let go.

Of course, it's not just those material things. I spent a lot of time with my mom and we are closer than ever. I am more open now, with all of my friends. I am in a happy and healthy relationship. I have been evolving. It's just taken me some time to get my legs and crawl out of the ocean. And (being as it that I can't really swim) I really like it on land.

By the way, I would totally be this lizard.