Discouraging.

Nothing went the way I expected it to this week. It was very discouraging. People keep saying, that's research. Well, that's not helpful.

Monday: Spent the whole day analyzing data from Friday and figuring out what the next step in the process will be. Unfortunately, when I figured out what the next step was around 2pm and went to crack some gold coated silicon, there was no more. Whoever used the last bit forgot to tell anyone else. (And this set the tone for the rest of my week.)

Tuesday: We had to sputter more gold onto the silicon. I was going to watch this process and literally sit there for 4 hours staring at a giant, cylindrical, silver vat, but the only one that Brian (the equipment manager, for lack of knowing his actual title) only trusted Chris to sputter the gold. Well, Chris told Dr. Berron and Jacob that he would help him move an arrayer from one of the medical buildings to FPAT 751. So, guess what I got to do. It was actually quite entertaining. Jacob and Dr. Berron enjoy cracking jokes. But we arrived at the arrayer and these ladies who run the machine told us we were crazy if we thought four skinny people could move all this equipment and that we needed big burly men. They didn't quite understand that this was happening whether she thought so or not. But I think Dr. Berron significantly underestimated the amount of stuff that comes with an arrayer. You have the actual machine which is a giant box that took up most of the trunk space in Dr. Berron's SUV. With that comes a computer (circa 1990's with the giant monitor and tower), a dehumidifier (and not a fun elephant shaped one), and a grey box half the size of the actual arrayer (no clue what it's job is). But that's not all, there is also a scanner that has its own computer (yes, again giant circa 1990's) and accessories. And the whole system requires four 4 gallons jugs for water and waste, etc.
That took until around noon. Then it was almost time for the CeNSE tour with Jenn and Dan. Went to that and saw some very interesting things on the SEM. Very cool.

When that was over, I reported back to my lab to start doing some research. I figured they had to be done sputtering by now. Nope. Little did I know, they have to sit over night. Awesome. Two days of researching down the drain.

Wednesday: Finally got to performed the next step in my research. Repeat and extended time trials of stamping the Mercaptoundecanoic Acid with analysis via contact angle and FTIR. Unfortunately, the contact angles were not repeating what I obtained last week for the contact angles. And whenever your data is not reproducible, you have to figure out why. I talked with 5 people. No one has any idea. I had 15 samples today instead of 24, so FTIR was only 3 hours. But, before you can do FTIR, you must plasma clean your control chip. I had to wait an hour to use the plasma cleaner. So that was fun. Ended up leaving the lab around 5:30-6.

That night a bunch of people (grad students and REU students) went to Pazzo's. It was a ridiculously amount of fun and just what I needed after the last three days.

Thursday: Analyzed my FTIR data. Repeated the timed stamping process for the other three solutions to determine if they are reproducible or not. Again did FTIR for three hours. FTIR and I are becoming quite good friends. I also went over to Dr. Trinkle's lab to make new PDMS stamps. Because while these stamps are supposed to be reusable and durable, perhaps the problem is that the stamps are getting old and not adsorbing the thiols as well as we need them to. It's a 1-2 hour process to make the stamps and at least 3 hours of curring. It would have been 6 if I waited for the curring to finish, so I put them in the over for overnight. Went back to the lab and read some papers that did not help solve my problems.

That night we went to the Lexington Legend's game which was also a lot of fun. So far this week, the days were frustrating, but the nights were stress relieving, so I guess that's good. 

Friday: Got the new stamps out of the oven early in the morning and took them back to Dr. Berron's lab to repeat the timed stamping of all four solutions with fresh stamps. It took all morning to stamp the solutions and measure the contact angles. Then we had IGERT lunch. And then I did FTIR until 5ish on my 12 samples.

That night Nathaniel's band was playing at JDI and it was Jenn's birthday (or close to it) so we all went out to support them. The band was excellent! and it was fun being with everyone. But I honestly just wanted to go to bed. Once we left and I got in my bed though, I was wide awake. Typical.

Saturday: It was UK day at King's Island so we all went. The day started out terrible and then was literally a rollercoaster. We got stuck in construction traffic so our 2 hour drive turned into a three hour drive. We got lunch with a bunch of UK alumni. We got in line for our first ride at 1 o'clock. This did not bode well for the rest of the day. It took two hours to get on the ride. Although, standing in line for hours upon end allowed us all to bond and had it's entertaining moments. We went on 3 more rides as a group and by this time it was 6ish. A group wanted to do the Congo River Falls or whatever where you get soaked and there were some of us that had absolutely no desire to get drenched when the sun was going down and we had a couple of hours to dry. I have been to King's Island more times than I can count. I have been on that ride before. My step sister ruined phone on that ride. But no one wanted to listen to me about how everything gets drenched. So they went on that despite my advice and 6 of us went on The Beast. Which is the rollercoaster that KI is known for. So I had to take them on that one. It was about a 30 minute wait for a 5 minute roller coaster. How many coasters do you know that lasts 5 minutes? Not many which is why I emphasized the importance of needing to ride this one in KI. We rode that and went to ride another when it started sprinkling. We had waited in line for about 15 minutes, when they told us they were permanently shutting down the ride because of lighting. Awesome. We walked back to the main gate. Called everyone and it took abut half an hour for all of us to get together. People were being snotty and nasty and I was tired of a couple of them. So I just wanted to leave and not have to deal with certain people anymore. I am not really a people person. So I can only take certain doses of people at a time, and sometimes it just gets to be too much. Luckily, the four people that got in my car, were not people that I wanted to pummel across the parking lot.

By the end of the day, I was exhausted and frustrated and had to drive two hours home. But we needed to eat dinner still. We were passing my home town on the way back, so I took them all to my favorite Chinese restaurant (which they agreed was grade A Chinese food) and then on a tour of my town. Only one of them had ever been in a firehouse before, so I took them inside and took their pictures on the fire truck. I have to say, this was the highlight of the day. They didn't stop smiling the whole time. It was awesome. And since I was literally a mile from my house, we stopped at my house so I could see my family and they met them. My mom told me that she was glad to get to meet some of the people that I was spending my days with. I gave them a driving tour of my school's campus (which is tiny and took all of two minutes) and then we were back on the road for another hour to Lexington. I can honestly say that the last four hours of that car ride were what made everything worth it. I have a new appreciation for these people and their ability to make me laugh. In any other situation, all of us would probably never naturally gravitate towards each other. But this is just the perfect storm of nerdiness and close quarters that make us all friends right when we need them.