Wellington evidently has a cafe culture, and it's great to be a part of it, though admitedly, I'm no fan of coffee. I like my occassional mocha's but I'm a long way from being a purist! Nonetheless, it's exciting to be making coffee in my church's cafe. I can actually make proper coffee now- latte, flat white, short/long black, mocha, cappa and all that. It's exciting! I'm not sure I appreciate the smell of coffee that sticks to me after, but it's still fun to be able to make it.

Right, that's my Sunday-highlight, besides driving my flatmate's manual car to the market, church and New World.

On to my next project- Brain cancer.

sqrewloose

Maybe I got the blog bug again.

It's 2am and all I have is the singing rain and Jack Johnson to accompany as I plough through paper after paper to prepare for my presentation on brain cancer. It's fun... I think this is the first time I'm truly feeling that this is fun! I've spent most of the first 6 mnths of Honours trying to convince myself that this is fun, and really, there's nothing else that I would rather be doing. Alright, right now, I can think of 101 other things I rather be doing now, main one being to crawl into bed and be put to sleep by the rhythm of the rain... but on the grand scheme of things, I do like this course. Only now am I able to be a little less stressed about looming deadlines. Only now, I'm beginning to feel more confident and know that all will be just fine. Only now, am I able to detach myself from expectations from all corners, that paralyses me. 

Right, I really ought to decide on a paper and get cracking!

Oh bring on this week!

Other than Honours, which practically takes up my whole life, this is what I have been up to. Funny how it good and easy, but reality hits home when the rubber meets the road. 8 people living in one flat- and intentionally building a community, you must be crazy to think it will be easy. Nonetheless, unless we go through the goldsmith's fire, how can we be made precious as gold?

Cutting off the rough edges is good... but it hurts too.

See also this: TSCF

sqrewloose

It's so frustrating that I'm so tired all the time. I'm just sooo sleepy I can't even stay awake at my comp!

I have been getting an average of 6 hours of sleep, and I managed to get full sleep on Sat.. but... somehow I'm still tired! Gone were those days when my brain starts functioning from 10pm onwards and I can stay up till the wee hours of the night. I can't do it anymore, and it's frustrating.. this is the last lap.. I need to write up. Has it got to do with my motivation- that evokes a physiological response- brain wanting to sleep?

Argghhhh... I need to stay awake.. What am I going to do? Maybe I need to take one day off. THe last time I actually had a proper break was Easter at taranaki.. that seemed so long ago. I have somehow managed to work through the midsem break... and at the moment, uni is on holiday.. but not me, nor many other Honours students.

Maybe the lab is just sapping all the energy out of me. I spend most of my day there, and oddly enough, eventhough its non-strenous work... I always come home from the lab at 7pm (or later) so knackered and all I want to do is sleep. In my efforts to get some work done, I drift between spurts of motivation and spurts off IdontcareanymoreIneedtosleepI'llgetupat6amtoworkthenextday. But it almost never works- I dont rise early enough.

Ahhhhhhhhhh.....

sqrewloose

I managed to couple a mock lipid to my galactose sugar!!!!!! Whheeeee!! 

Alright.. So my project is all about coupling reactions- basically, I construct sugar building blocks that are differentially functionalised, and then couple them together. Coupling reactions are very sensitive to water especially, and also a little effy and highly affected by the promoter system. I've tried the reaction about 7 times now, and at the sixth time it kind of worked- but there were lots of by-products! And now, the 7th one, it seems that the desired target is actually a major product!

Don't think anyone will ever understand how hard it is to carry out coupling reactions... And I've been so used to them not working- that whenever I see my TLC/NMR spectrum I just assume it didnt work! Cynical? Not really.. Pessimistic.. maybe!

Am I on my way to making an adjuvant for anti-cancer immunotherapy? Only God knows!