All thumbs and lasers lately

Today has been a strange day.  I woke up and went to Geochemistry, where in a start-the-morning quiz I somehow forgot how to explain that when an atom is unstable it undergoes decay.  This "foreign" word apparently escapes me at nine in the morning, where I was grasping at straws before Dr. R gave me the elusive phrase I'd been struggling for.  Then in an intense fit of overcompensation I try to educate my optical mineralogy TA when she forgets that the temperatures in stars ionize any atoms within them.  Needless to say, my shoe tastes like rubber and cloth when I put it (and my foot) in my mouth.

Heading out from that class I got started on my undergrad research.  Essentially I am the third person attempting to use LIBS analysis to differentiate between different crude oils.  I prepped some samples, taking extra care to get a feel for the materials I was working with after a long break from them, and put them in a plastic bag to walk them over to the LIBS lab in another building.  After getting everything all set up I wasted a good hour or so tweaking every setting I could remember to try and get a signal beyond the Na and Ar spikes I somehow managed to receive.  Then an older undergrad researcher and classmate (my predecessor on this project) came in to work on his project and showed me that I didn't un-kink the fiber optic cables running my light to the spectrometer.  Feeling like a first class fool I thanked him and he generously gave me the LIBS start up walk-through he wrote (with screenshots!) and the macro I need to process the data into an understandable Excel format.  We talked a bit more, sharing that we have doubts about the oil project specifically and LIBS analysis in general due to flaky equipment, which really improved my mood.  It's good to know that people have your back even when you didn't know they were there.

After that I had awkward talk with my undergrad research adviser.  I think she's been under a lot of stress from preparing the new hall the department will move into, but I'd picked up on her negative energy and naturally (for me) taken it personally.  I think I finally get where she's coming from now that we've shared more than some passing words, but she had me worried for a while.  I think we have reached a stage in our association where I've passed the curious undergrad level in her eyes and so she has become more a patron to me.  I hope this is the case, and I am excited to keep working and learning in Optical.

Essentially, I'm saying that this week needs to end as soon as possible but the future looks brighter than I've seen it in a long while.