Regular classes ended yesterday. It's a relief to have survived another semester, even though this was (by far) not such a rough one for me. Everyone has been pretty tired lately; I spent the whole month of November feeling like I was running flat out and couldn't sleep enough at night. Thanksgiving Break was just a week ago and it already feels like ancient history.
Anyway, I taught the last General Chemistry classes yesterday. It was unsatisfactory because almost none of the students were paying attention. They are good people, but they are also exhausted. Also I had the last quiz at the end of class so that reduced the time available for content, as it always does on Fridays. Our semester is two days shorter this year and I really missed those days. It meant I was still introducing new content yesterday instead of finishing the class with the YouTube videos about amazing materials like I've done the past ten or so years. The content is my favorite stuff - crystalline solids - which is why I didn't just chuck it out, but I doubt any of the students appreciated it.
After that I went to the last Quantitative Analysis lab. No lab work, just cleaning up and checking out, and I only had two students in the class this fall. It was pretty calm, in contrast to some of the past years I remember. They turned in lab reports and lab notebooks and we were done by about 5:30. I had time to eat a snack and sit quietly in my office for a few minutes before I went to the General Chemistry review session.
Every year I offer this review session and it's usually on the last Friday night, which I know is a tough time for students, but that's how it usually works out because of my schedule. I had eight students come and they had a bunch of questions. I said I would stay an hour or until they ran out of questions, and we were there almost two hours. When they ran out of content, I got questions about my graduate school days and where I went to undergrad and stuff like that. That was nice; our students are generally nice people.
Today I was in my office all day (although I slept later than normal just because it was so comfortable to be in the warm bed with no urgent responsibilities). I graded the small stack of lab reports and the general chemistry quiz, and I got the CourseConnect grades updated. I took several short breaks to work on the Math Advent Calendar, and surprised myself by solving three puzzles. I still haven't figured out the one I was stuck on Thursday, and there's no guarantee that my three solutions are even correct (my puzzle partner J was off-line today), but I feel happier that maybe I'm not completely dumb, after all.
Next week is final exams. I have three, so that's six hours of sitting quietly in classrooms with students. I usually read books during exams, since I have difficulty knitting while watching exams, and I can't just do nothing. All of my exams are standardized and machine-graded, so that doesn't add much to my work. The senior research proposals are another story. I looked at them today: one is 19 pages long and the other is 29 pages, so they will take a while to read and score.
Saturday, December 7, 2019
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Week 6 Blues
This is week six of the semester (or six-and-a-half, since this fall we started on a Wednesday instead of Monday...but don't get me started on that). I am feeling pretty bad, actually. For the past few days I've found myself having trouble with my feelings and my motivation. Everything seems pointless. I feel mechanical in class, like I remember how to teach but I'm just in costume for an hour (tell this joke here, point out this fact there). I don't look forward to going to class. It seems like none of the students understand anything and none of them care, either way. I'm cold all day and all I want to do is go home, and when I get home I feel like I should at least do something I enjoy so I knit a little or read a little or go for a walk in the park, and maybe it helps a bit. Hanging over me is the thought that tomorrow will be just the same awful and if I go to bed it will just come sooner but I can't not go to bed. Thank Bob I'm able to sleep, at least until 4 or 5 in the morning. The only thing I can imagine making this worse is having the insomnia I had last winter-spring.
The emotion I feel most often, other than that hopelessness, is anger. I'm angry that I'm being asked to do things I don't care about. I'm angry that nothing makes any difference. I'm angry about specific things and things in general.
That cursed book chapter is still not finished. I wrote it. I submitted it in July. I argued with the editors about copyright for three weeks. (The editor insisted that one of my figures - that I made myself - was taken from a textbook and I should get permission to use it.) I received reviews. I gritted my teeth and revised the chapter accordingly. I resubmitted that version in September. This week the editor sends me a list of other things she wants me to do: add a reference, redo the copyright form a different way than she told me in August, confirm something else. I never want to look at it again. It makes me angry that every time I think I'm "done," it just keeps coming back. I never want to work on a project with this publisher again.
I was asked to be on a task force last week. The message only contained the name of the task force and the question would I do it? Least-favorite admin (LFA) was cc'd, so I assumed LFA would be chairing the task force. I asked for clarification on the parameters (such as: how long was the commitment? how frequent would we meet? how many people?) and the original person answered that it was for two years of monthly meetings. Well, that sounds like a long time to me. And I've been on lots of task forces and other groups who do a ton of work that ends up going nowhere, or gets half-assed because the college doesn't want to invest the money necessary. I don't need that. I also don't need any more meetings with LFA. So I said no. I did talk it over with my department and one of the guys (H) said he might be interested, so in my email declining to serve I mentioned H as a possibility. The original person thanked me for my answer and for suggesting H. Within five minutes, LFA wrote "oh, but H is already doing these two other things, will he have time for this too?" I sense that the other things I'm already doing did not merit similar concern for my time and I'm doubly glad I turned this down, but it makes me angry that my time is not considered valuable.
The emotion I feel most often, other than that hopelessness, is anger. I'm angry that I'm being asked to do things I don't care about. I'm angry that nothing makes any difference. I'm angry about specific things and things in general.
That cursed book chapter is still not finished. I wrote it. I submitted it in July. I argued with the editors about copyright for three weeks. (The editor insisted that one of my figures - that I made myself - was taken from a textbook and I should get permission to use it.) I received reviews. I gritted my teeth and revised the chapter accordingly. I resubmitted that version in September. This week the editor sends me a list of other things she wants me to do: add a reference, redo the copyright form a different way than she told me in August, confirm something else. I never want to look at it again. It makes me angry that every time I think I'm "done," it just keeps coming back. I never want to work on a project with this publisher again.
I was asked to be on a task force last week. The message only contained the name of the task force and the question would I do it? Least-favorite admin (LFA) was cc'd, so I assumed LFA would be chairing the task force. I asked for clarification on the parameters (such as: how long was the commitment? how frequent would we meet? how many people?) and the original person answered that it was for two years of monthly meetings. Well, that sounds like a long time to me. And I've been on lots of task forces and other groups who do a ton of work that ends up going nowhere, or gets half-assed because the college doesn't want to invest the money necessary. I don't need that. I also don't need any more meetings with LFA. So I said no. I did talk it over with my department and one of the guys (H) said he might be interested, so in my email declining to serve I mentioned H as a possibility. The original person thanked me for my answer and for suggesting H. Within five minutes, LFA wrote "oh, but H is already doing these two other things, will he have time for this too?" I sense that the other things I'm already doing did not merit similar concern for my time and I'm doubly glad I turned this down, but it makes me angry that my time is not considered valuable.
Saturday, August 3, 2019
Back After a Long Absence
Where to start? It was a big year, full of drama, and I just didn't find the time to post anything.
This summer, I had three or four big projects. The most stressful was certainly packing and moving (and unpacking) all the labs to the new building. I spent at least three weeks on that, full time, starting during spring final exams. I had a summer undergraduate researcher to mentor and supervise for ten weeks, in addition to coordinating both of the research programs as I usually do. I attended a conference and wrote a book chapter. It was not a relaxing break. I worked a lot, and feel productive, but the things I did were not always the things I wanted to prioritize.
For the first time since we hired the two newest faculty in my department (2012), I had the summer undergraduate research grant. My student, B, was pretty awesome. He just finished his first year at college, was recognized as a bright, motivated student which definitely came through during the application process. Although I only had three applicants this time, and that was disappointing, B was the only one who seemed genuinely interested in the project. Nevertheless, he is not planning to major in chemistry and is considering medical school. His academic advisor told me B was thinking of transferring to another college because he was feeling under-challenged here; hopefully the research experience helped him decide to stay.
Our project was to synthesize an ionic liquid crystal in the series I have previously worked with, this time containing samarium instead of a first-row transition metal. I vaguely thought the samarium might make the compound fluorescent, but that wasn't the main idea. I wanted something not too complicated (related to what I'd already done) but still new, and we had to have simple analyses both because of the scheduled move to the new building and B's relative inexperience. We planned to do melting points, maybe some polarized light microscopy at different temperatures if the heated microscope stage I had commissioned arrived and worked, atomic absorption spectroscopy to determine the samarium content, gravimetric analysis of chloride, and combustion analysis for carbon and hydrogen. B spent the first two or three weeks reading the literature and compiling an annotated bibliography, then we did attempt synthesis. The product was a boring white color, but very soapy or fatty in texture. It seemed to melt at room temperature so we struggled to get the methanol solvent out of it. We couldn't use vacuum filtration because the solid would not stay on the filter. Finally, I suggested "freezing" it in the refrigerator then pouring off the liquid methanol that formed a layer on top of the solid. B repeated this several times until he had a constant mass and then we pronounced it done, although it probably had methanol and possibly unreacted ligand mixed in.
The next step was to work on the elemental composition. B started with the gravimetric analysis, because the procedure was exactly the same as in his spring chemistry lab: react the dissolved chloride ions with silver nitrate and filter off the solid silver chloride product which is then weighed. We used the new house vacuum system, which is brilliant, but one of the three filtering crucibles took more than a week to complete the filtration. The results of the three trials had poor precision, so we started another set of three trials with a different set of filtering crucibles. The first two of these are still in progress after two weeks, so it seems unlikely that they'll be any better. I can't tell if I chose three "bad" crucibles from the supply (the movers mixed up our carefully segregated "good" and "bad" supplies), or if the sticky, fatty nature of the compound is gunking them up. Additionally, B added about four times as much water as he should have when making these solutions, so the volume of solution that needs to be filtered is almost ridiculous.
Originally, we had planned to use atomic absorption to determine the samarium, but the AA is still not operational because there is no exhaust system installed. This was noted on May 1 during a walk through with the lab designer, just before we took possession, and has still not been fixed. So, B and I fell back on complexometric titration using EDTA. I found a sketchy paper in an Indian journal from the 1980's and we used that as the base for our analysis. B had also done this type of titration in the spring, and it seemed to work but the results were a much lower percentage of samarium than expected. Could be the method, could be the analyst, and could also be the truth.
So I'm not sure if anything B did this summer is reportable. He's working on the poster and the final report now, and we'll present at the usual venues this coming year. I hope to attend CERM with him in May, but I can't point to a single experiment we did that was successful. I'm embarrassed by this and I feel guilty, as if I should have done more myself or maybe I should have taught B better. I don't want to present a "science fair" poster (as I've heard certain professional chemistry disparage some of the work that is presented at conferences) and be ridiculed. Also, B is only a sophomore now, and he has a 19-year-old's critical thinking skills, but he does have more than the usual level of self-confidence. This combination seems to make him say inappropriate things about his work. I keep telling myself that this is how he will learn, and he can't be much different from students I've worked with in the past who all turned out okay.
This summer, I had three or four big projects. The most stressful was certainly packing and moving (and unpacking) all the labs to the new building. I spent at least three weeks on that, full time, starting during spring final exams. I had a summer undergraduate researcher to mentor and supervise for ten weeks, in addition to coordinating both of the research programs as I usually do. I attended a conference and wrote a book chapter. It was not a relaxing break. I worked a lot, and feel productive, but the things I did were not always the things I wanted to prioritize.
For the first time since we hired the two newest faculty in my department (2012), I had the summer undergraduate research grant. My student, B, was pretty awesome. He just finished his first year at college, was recognized as a bright, motivated student which definitely came through during the application process. Although I only had three applicants this time, and that was disappointing, B was the only one who seemed genuinely interested in the project. Nevertheless, he is not planning to major in chemistry and is considering medical school. His academic advisor told me B was thinking of transferring to another college because he was feeling under-challenged here; hopefully the research experience helped him decide to stay.
Our project was to synthesize an ionic liquid crystal in the series I have previously worked with, this time containing samarium instead of a first-row transition metal. I vaguely thought the samarium might make the compound fluorescent, but that wasn't the main idea. I wanted something not too complicated (related to what I'd already done) but still new, and we had to have simple analyses both because of the scheduled move to the new building and B's relative inexperience. We planned to do melting points, maybe some polarized light microscopy at different temperatures if the heated microscope stage I had commissioned arrived and worked, atomic absorption spectroscopy to determine the samarium content, gravimetric analysis of chloride, and combustion analysis for carbon and hydrogen. B spent the first two or three weeks reading the literature and compiling an annotated bibliography, then we did attempt synthesis. The product was a boring white color, but very soapy or fatty in texture. It seemed to melt at room temperature so we struggled to get the methanol solvent out of it. We couldn't use vacuum filtration because the solid would not stay on the filter. Finally, I suggested "freezing" it in the refrigerator then pouring off the liquid methanol that formed a layer on top of the solid. B repeated this several times until he had a constant mass and then we pronounced it done, although it probably had methanol and possibly unreacted ligand mixed in.
The next step was to work on the elemental composition. B started with the gravimetric analysis, because the procedure was exactly the same as in his spring chemistry lab: react the dissolved chloride ions with silver nitrate and filter off the solid silver chloride product which is then weighed. We used the new house vacuum system, which is brilliant, but one of the three filtering crucibles took more than a week to complete the filtration. The results of the three trials had poor precision, so we started another set of three trials with a different set of filtering crucibles. The first two of these are still in progress after two weeks, so it seems unlikely that they'll be any better. I can't tell if I chose three "bad" crucibles from the supply (the movers mixed up our carefully segregated "good" and "bad" supplies), or if the sticky, fatty nature of the compound is gunking them up. Additionally, B added about four times as much water as he should have when making these solutions, so the volume of solution that needs to be filtered is almost ridiculous.
Originally, we had planned to use atomic absorption to determine the samarium, but the AA is still not operational because there is no exhaust system installed. This was noted on May 1 during a walk through with the lab designer, just before we took possession, and has still not been fixed. So, B and I fell back on complexometric titration using EDTA. I found a sketchy paper in an Indian journal from the 1980's and we used that as the base for our analysis. B had also done this type of titration in the spring, and it seemed to work but the results were a much lower percentage of samarium than expected. Could be the method, could be the analyst, and could also be the truth.
The combustion analysis haunted me all summer. I've never done one and while in theory it's simple, 19th century chemistry, actually performing it turned out to be difficult. First we had to figure out the apparatus. I had the U-tubes and borrowed a big glass tube for the reaction chamber. We connected the parts with short pieces of Tygon tubing. I spent about a week trying to figure out how to connect the compressed oxygen cylinder to the big tube, and finally gave up. Instead, we used the decomposition of potassium chlorate (with manganese dioxide catalyst) from an old general chemistry experiment to produce oxygen gas in situ. I had B scale this up slowly to be sure it wouldn't explode or anything before we added any of our product. At last, we did three trials with the compound and they were pretty spectacular to watch. About a minute of heating, during which nothing seemed to happen but oxygen bubbles were produced, then about ten seconds of intense fire as the compound burned, then it's over. Again, results were very low for both carbon and hydrogen. I think it's because the absorbents were solids and the combustion gases passed through them too quickly. As a back up, I sent a sample to a contract lab for instrumental combustion analysis, and those results were closer to our calculated amounts, though still low.
So I'm not sure if anything B did this summer is reportable. He's working on the poster and the final report now, and we'll present at the usual venues this coming year. I hope to attend CERM with him in May, but I can't point to a single experiment we did that was successful. I'm embarrassed by this and I feel guilty, as if I should have done more myself or maybe I should have taught B better. I don't want to present a "science fair" poster (as I've heard certain professional chemistry disparage some of the work that is presented at conferences) and be ridiculed. Also, B is only a sophomore now, and he has a 19-year-old's critical thinking skills, but he does have more than the usual level of self-confidence. This combination seems to make him say inappropriate things about his work. I keep telling myself that this is how he will learn, and he can't be much different from students I've worked with in the past who all turned out okay.
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