Alarm beep. Wake up. Morning routine. Walk to breakfast. Walk to lab. Rinse and repeat, 6 days a week(hey that rhymes!). It would be hypocritical for me to say days have never felt so long yet so short at the same time. Luckily, today is our first Saturday at SWOSU, which means after our 8 am-12 pm lab and lunch, we are free to do whatever we want! A lot of us planned to catch up on some much-needed sleep.
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Anyway, the first thing I had at 8 am this morning was… lab! My lab mates and I split into three different tasks: Q12N4 (my task) had to prepare our product through a filter for mass spectrometry.
After I took my mass spec, my duties were basically done. However, my lab member Joyan (Q14N4) did not enjoy her chromatography (which she repeated for most of the lab, performing the same steps over and over just to get a small product remaining after rotovapping). My other lab mate, Michael (Q13N4), was busy with multiple characterizations such as NMR and IR. By the end of the lab, we were all practically starving for lunch and craving a break from the long week. Needless to say, we enjoyed our non-dining-hall-fried food.
What did we do after lunch? No rest. Psets. Our lovely professor assigned us 2 psets to complete due Monday and Tuesday, on top of an ethics essay and weekly reflection. Yep. No rest. Let’s check in with some of the participants:
Yep… Speed running a semester’s worth of organic chemistry also hasn’t been a pleasant experience (at least for me). After dinner, I was on the GRIND. From 8 pm to nearly 12 am I locked myself in my dorm just so my college friend could tutor me organic chemistry from Zoom. (Shout out to Lucas, my absolute goat)
Don’t get me wrong though, I absolutely love it here at SSP. Learning everything, making sense of complicated chair drawings, and most importantly being in an environment of such a fond group has made every struggle worth it. Though it has only been a week, I am amazed at how quickly everyone has gotten comfortable with each other. Shared laughs, stories, diverse backgrounds, and pset struggles have brought us closer together. I feel so lucky to be learning, learning from each and every participant, and growing with everyone here, constantly in awe of what each person brings to the cohort. Without each unique individual, the first-ever SSP synthchem wouldn’t feel this special. I absolutely cannot wait to see how the next few weeks unfold.
Drawn by yours truly,
– Wei R.
