Becoming a crystallographer

I've been measuring crystals all this week and it looks like I'll have tons to measure next week too. Today I suddenly noticed that it's getting to be fun since I'm now more able to do things by myself. Mounting the crystal and measuring the unit cell are seeming more and more familiar. Collecting and then processing the actual data are getting there. I'm still not that excited about filling the liquid nitrogen since it just seems sort of scary with the liquid being like really cold and thus dangerous. But it's getting there. Soon I might not worry about it so much or become really lazy about measuring when the tanks have to be filled.

It's fun having work at work though right now I'm just waiting for one measurement to end. I would have had this dataset to solve but it ended up being really bad since the crystal was bad. Not worth solving really. I'll have to try and find a better and bigger crystal. But tomorrow I should have tons to do with me stopping these experiments and measuring crystals. I hope I get some proper results.

The weekend is coming up. I'm in need of sleep again. Actually tomorrow is the Christmas party of the chemistry department. I hope it will be fun. I haven't really been in a party mood lately but that's just a lack of partying I think. I'm just thinking about getting a good night's sleep and the Christmas party is sort of getting in the way of that. Weird way of thinking, I know. But at least there should be good food and some wine and if it turns out to be boring I can just go home. It's not such a big deal anyways. I'm not in the mood to get disasterously drunk and make a fool of myself. Not that that's something I've ever done anyways. It just seems like that's what is expected at Christmas parties. I don't like drinking when it is the expected thing to do. It just feels forced and I'm really not into peer pressure.