My oh my, what a VERY BAD DAY!

Ok, so because today was such a bad day, I need to let off some steam and this is the only way I could think of at this point because I am stuck at a computer. So, my advice, don't read the rest of this.

So, this morning starts up with me waking up late and thus not getting my homework done that is due the rest of this week (which will be really busy). Sheesh! I barely had time to get to work. When I got to work, I first tried to print off the lab handout for today's lab class, but hotmail barfed at me and refused to download that lab. So I gave up on that and hoped that the lab would be easy enough to understand/do when class started. I then started work at 8:00 am (remember that start time).

I first worked with my coworker on debugging our code and attempting to find out why our simulation doesn't follow the theory correctly. Around 10:30 our boss told us that we are presenting our new findings at a group meeting today at 3. Considering my findings were basically that nothing worked, I had to show all the different ways it didn't work and prove that it didn't. So, I get writing a power point presentation containing all of my wrong data. I completely skip devotional and I constantly got interrupted by my coworker needing help in debugging. When 12:00 rolls around, I realize that I am not nearly ready, but I have my lab class from 12:00 to 3:00 and 3:00 is when I have to present. So, I ran to the lab and explain to my lab partners the situation and look at their copy of the lab report and we decided that I didn't have to be there today.

So, I go back to work and try to do more of my presentation while constantly having to stop and help my coworker debug. Finally 3:00 rolls around and I finally get the last batch of data recorded, but do not have time to analyze it. So I save it and run to the meeting. At the meeting, we ended up staying till 5, and I didn’t even have time to show my ‘lack-of’ findings. At the end when we were leaving our boss tells me and my coworker that he wants us to each present our findings at the Spring Research Conference, which has a proposal deadline of tomorrow afternoon. So, tonight I get to write that and check it with the boss sometime tomorrow even though I really don’t want to present at this Conference cause I really hate talking in front of people. At 5:00 my coworker and I headed back to do more debugging and finally called it quits at 6:00 (note: that means we were working for basically 10 hours straight, )

Now that my brain is shot, I get to start my normal school stuff. First on the list is to begin studying for and then take a test which finishes tonight. So I do that and when coming out of the testing center I was pretty confident that I did ok. Apparently, I was wrong. I ended up getting a 60% on a very easy test. So, now that I am drained, my brain is fried, and I am down right angry, I finally go home and eat some lunch, which I had neglected to bring to school with me. After lunch, I vegged for an hour trying to relax a little. I finally had the motivation to get up and I am now at the computer lab trying to study for my next midterm, as well as write this proposal thingy, write up a lab report, and finish my part of a group programming project for another class. I can’t do any of this the next day cause I have class from 10 to 7 the next day and a 3 hour test afterwards (which I haven’t studied for). BAH! When will the torture end!

I will say this, the highlight of my day was to come home to find that trueblat had finally sent me back my bus pass (thanks!) and my parents sent me a Valentine ’s Day card. (And my roommates had gotten a ton of chocolate in the mail!) Anyways, I better get back to that proposal before the computer lab closes on me. Sorry for the long venting.

update on GC-MS

Ok, I told myself that I would never write another blog like the last one because that was just pathetic. But, I am going against that because it has been finally declared that all GC's in any form hate the group of students that I am working with (including myself). Meaning, I need to vent.

So, on Tuesday, when we first got there the Helium tank used to pump the solutions through the column had run dry, so we had to wait to get a new one for about an hour. Finally, we tried to run a solution of various molecules through. The data we got in return was a ton of junk that didn't resemble anything that we had injected. We decided that that is probably because the last group didn't get rid of all their solution from the column before leaving, or that it was caused by the loss of a constant stream of Helium. So, we ran the column hot for a bit to get rid of everything in it. We then tried injecting several different times on the column and we weren't getting any data whatsoever. So, we gave up and left. The guy in charge of that instrument came in and tried to fix it the next day.

On Thursday, we come back to finish the lab. The guy in charge told us that apparently the column literally broke in half so nothing was getting through. Also, the interface between the GC and MS was broken, and everything inside was contaminated because of the Helium running dry. Well, he said he fixed everything and that we should be good today. So we injected once with too much solution so the data that came back was pretty sketchy. We then injected a second time, but forgot to turn on the program used to run the machine, so that data was bad. After that we tried injecting several times but nothing was going in, and after trying the syringe would always plug up and not suck anything into it. We went through about 3 syringes and still couldn't figure out what was going on. Nothing was getting onto the column, thus no data. Finally, we gave up for the rest of the day after we finally realized that what was happening was the septum used to prevent contamination of the column was falling apart and so bits of it would go into the syringe and plugging it up. BAH!

Well, after you combine this with the problems we had with the GC that we tried doing labs on about a month ago, the teachers and TA's have declared that we are cursed when it comes to GCs. (last time when working with the plain GC the helium also went dry, the septum was bad, the column was barely functional, the pump stopped working, the ink ran out on the only piece of equipment that we can get our data from). Thank goodness this is the last GC we are working with, but in a few weeks we will be working with the HPLC which is similar enough to the GC that we are dreading when that lab comes.

Well, sorry for the random technical terms. I didn't try very hard to explain this in English cause that takes time that I don't have and I am too ticked to try to use English terms.

waiting -> boredom -> GC-MS?

Well, I'm sitting here waiting for the GC-MS (an instrument used to analyze compounds) to finish off a single injection which will take 35 minutes. I was going to play games on the computer, but that ability has been disabled by the computer system people in the Chemistry building. So, I am going to do the next best thing: blog. So, considering I have nothing insightful to talk about and my mind is completely focused (yea right ;-) on GC-MS, I am going to talk about that.

For starters, GC stands for Gas Chromatography. Gas chromatography is a technique used to separate various molecules from each other based on some of their physical and chemical characteristics. For example, if you have a mixture of really big molecules and really small ones you can separate them based on size. If you have some molecules that are polar and others that are not, you can separate based on that. Etc. The solution containing the various molecules is injected onto a column, which is a really long, thin piece of tubing. In the column is some sort of stationary phase that remains there all the time. This stationary phase is what determines which molecules slow down when moving through the column, and which ones move really quickly through it. The mobile phase is generally some sort of gas, like Helium that is just pumped through the column.

Now, for a normal GC, there would be some sort of detector at the end of the column that records how much material is going through the column. This detector typically doesn't know what is coming off of the column, it just records the amount that is coming off. For this lab that we are doing, the detector is a Mass Spectrometer. A mass spectrometer first ionizes the molecules flowing through. Molecules are typically very stable and don't carry a charge, but when bombarded with electrons or other particles, something happens such like electrons being emitted and the molecules become charged. Now using the molecule's individual weight and charge, a mass spectrometer will analyze what sort of ionized molecules it has by using transducers and electric or magnetic fields. These characteristics are typically lumped together as one variable called the mass to charge ratio (m/z).

The mass spectrometer used in this experiment is an ion trap. For an ion trap, ionized molecules are ejected into the middle of a ring that has a radio frequency voltage moving through it. The ionized molecules react to this ring by circulating in a stable orbit. As the radio frequency across the ring is changed, certain ions have more stabilized orbits, and other ions' orbits destabilize. When an orbit becomes destabilized, the ion leaves the ring and hits a transducer, which detects how many times it gets hit. So, based on the times the transducer was hit at a certain moment (intensity) and the radio frequency across the ring that caused those ions to leave, a graph of these values is created, but with the radio frequency replaced with the mass to charge ratio associated with the appropriate radio frequencies. Using this graph, or spectrum, a user can identify the mass of the main group of molecules that came out of the column at that time.

So, by using a GC-MS, you are able to identify the molecules that are in your solution that you injected. Well, I hope this was understandable to any who read it.