today i so goddamm suay and lucky

LAB is dreadful. 1st hiccup happened when i started to reflux mixture. Due to lack of fore-foresight- i actually preheated some water beforehand for use, but, but but what i did not see is that the lousy waterbath thing could not heat the water contained within the metal bowl that effectively through the many layers of metal atoms so-i used some room temperature water in that metal bowl placed on the heater for refluxing the mixture which was in a round flask connected to a condenser. Then i saw a horrifying thing- the mixture is dripping within the condenser, but the condenser is empty! god! quickly, i filled the condenser with tap water-whew- when i saw another horrfying thing- the mixture has stopped bubbling! which means it has stoppped reacting wad de hell! When its jus 20 min into reacting???! Then i saw why- the rm temp water cooled the mixture so much that the reaction stopped-shit!

k, i quickly heated up the bowl of water and the mixture started to bubble, much to my relief. But then, the earlier mishap had sort of stunted its progress- the color looked a bit weird, and there were too many metal turnings in the mixture for good.

so, the color was wrong, and too much unreacted stuff inside- TA advised me to wait a bit to c how. Then no improvement, so continued adding the next reagent- this time the color was wad was expected, so all well. happy was i, sailing through extraction of the desired stuff, and then it was time to evaporate the excess solvent.

second bad streak came crashing down upon my nerves- how much can one tolerate??- to evaporate, u have to connect the glass tubing of ur flask of stuff to the glass tubing of the machine using a clip-on. Saw a crack on the clip, but couldnt find any better, so heck. Then u switch on a button the rotates the glass part of the machine so that ur flask rotates too, and by a combi of pressure and rotation, the solvent gets off the mixture by turnin into gas. btw, the flask is partially submerged in warm water. Hell, the clip came loose while i was looking at the buttons. Imagine my shock when i turned back to a tub of yellow slabs floating on water, the flask tumbling merrily, happy to eject the foul contents. o my, almost fainted. wad am i to do? wow, i was amazed by myself- i went to look for a TA, who directed me to Another TA, AND i managed to explain wad happened TWice with stuttering or raising my voice... woohoo.

ok, the second girl TA was zai- she calmly-not her solution mah-gave me instructions- go take a beaker to save up the bits floatind around, then re-extract, but first go take a beaker, go now, i wait here- and helping me save the mess and all the while answering queries and solving problems of other students as well. Really impressed by her- best i've seen so far, and she SMILEs! not chao bin or wad.

And true to her word and belief, she din leave me desolated, and i DID get Some crystals, tho a bit low in yield-oh come on, so many mishaps, v gd liao- and there was sthg she said which i found quite philosophical-把它们盛上来；别慌，全都在眼前。she was referring to the mess in the tub in reply to my shock that my product was all in the DIRty water-yes, it might be a bit tricky, but its salvageable as its all in the tub still, within sight. How true that is for many things- the people u depend on most but take for granted, opportunities that sneak in unnoticed, lofty things that u dream off but are nv contented with wad u have.