First day at school

Didn't do much on Sat, didn't even leave my apt to get my mail. A couple friends were going to the movies but I passed on that. One, I was pretty much in my jammies (ok so I'd been in said jammies all day ;) and was planning on having a long evening bath. Plus wasn't crazy about the movie and also I'm broke. And I've found that if I stay out of the mall, I don't spend money. Funny that. The truth is that I just didn't feel like being out around people. So I opened my windows and curtains and enjoyed the sunshine from my living room during the day. Finished 2 books, one so-so and the other pretty good. And watched tv.

Sun much to my surprise I actually got out of bed and went to the gym. Totally unheard of for me. I always plan to maybe get there sometime on the weekend but normally just don't. We didn't have choir this weekend so it was a perfect opportunity to go before Mass. So I went and worked out and felt pretty good about it. Was a couple min late to church but it was fine.

I wanted to go to the gym Sun b/c I would had my rest day on Sat and since class was starting Mon I didn't think I'd feel like going after that. So it's good now b/c I exercised yesterday, so I was able to come straight home...no guilt.

The class was a little boring especially near the end. He read stuff off of powerpoint slides (word for word in most cases), a few of them he gave a little more info that what was on said slides.
I'm always bored by lecturers at seminars/classes where they read everything exactly as they are on the slides. Not a summary of the slides but word for word. I feel like I could have saved some time by just reading the slides in my own time. I could read it much faster on my own. If little or no additional information is given, what's the point? I think my main problem is that I'm a note-taker. I good lecturer to me gives little asides here and there, tying stuff together, this I can write down...the connections. But I sense that this class is going to be one where I'll just have to memorize stupid mechanisms and other crap. I get numbers. They make sense to me. Calculations made sense to me. That's why I have problems with this class and had problems with a couple other organic chem classes in college. I could see the point in the numbers, the calculation, the formulas all seemed to lead somewhere. I could work out most problems in other chem classes from basic principles. Organic chem does not really deal with numbers. NO formulas, few calculations. Just stupid facts. Facts that don't make a lot of sense to me and facts that I don't care to commit to memory. I'm not really surprised that the class is mostly about memorizing facts, it's just boring, is all.

I had a hard time paying attention during the last 30min. Maybe b/c it's the first class and he was giving examples of work we were going to cover during the class. Maybe it'll get better. No term paper but we have to bring in current scientific journal articles on selected topics and hand them in. What I don't quite understand is how exactly he's going to determine if/how much we've learned. No tests/quizzes. Just seems way too subjective to me. We do have to give 10min presentations (powerpoint slides included) on a particular topic. Is he basing our grade on that? The literature articles we have to hand in (we have 5 or 6) have to have been published in the last 12 months - this does make it a little more challenging b/c it means I will have to look for new stuff (can't use ones I have already used during the course of my job-will have to search the literature :P. Plus he said that it had to be an interesting article, something showcasing an exciting aspect of a particular class of compounds. I think I'm in the wrong field b/c I would be lying if I said that I've ever come across a chemistry journal article that I could describe as exciting. Interesting? Maybe. Mostly I just go straight to the experimental section which gives details for reactions similar to ones I have to do. Most of the biological data is Greek to me anyway.

So I just don't know. I am trying to keep an open mind even though it may seem that way (about paragraphs) I just don't care about the why behind the reactions. I don't care. That's my real problem right there. I just want to get my work done. I learn new reactions as I go along and it mostly depends on the customer - the targets we make. The way I make them depends mostly on my supervisors. I'm a pair of hands. Sometimes it seems like they think a monkey could do it. Sometimes I feel like a monkey could do it. Most of the time I'm ok with this. Even if I did more or tried to do more, I'm the only BS chemist in my group. BS=Bottom of the food chain. Even if I made a good suggestion, it's only good if someone else with a PhD makes it, even if its the same thing I suggested - it's only valid if they say it. After stuff like this happens several times, you do one of 2 things. You 1)leave and do something else or 2)you suck it up and accept it or are bitter and complain all the time about it. In either case you do your job as well as you can and keep most of your suggestions to yourself. I've accepted it and am only a little bitter. Some of this may seem defeatist. And maybe it is but it's the view from my eyes. Someday, I'm going to find a job that I can do that I'm really motivated to go to. One where I feel like I truly make a difference, am more than just a pair of hands. Someday. For the moment this is all I'm trained to do. So it's what I'm doing for now.

That was much longer than I planned...guess I had more to say about all this than I realized.