How is it Friday already??? 

This has been one of those weeks that I just couldn't wait to get through, but at the same time, went waaaaaaaay to fast given the amount of work I was hoping to get done. Ugh.

Can we also just pause and wonder what the HELL happened to September, too???  Siiiigh....

There isn't really anything exciting to report - just working like crazy!  I'm aiming to submit a paper by the end of the month so that has been a priority for sure.  But so has getting some experiments up and running.  The membrane modeling work is also a priority.  Basically everything is a priority... which makes it all incredibly overwhelming.

But!  Win for the day: I successfully built a roxithromycin molecule in MOE - correct chiralities and everything!!!

...what do you mean you don't understand why that's exciting?

Ok, back to work!!  Just a few more hours and then I can celebrate this beautiful, autumn weather by snuggling up with a movie and some knitting! :)

Seriously??  How did we get to this already??

It's hard to believe that the summer is over already, the campus is full of undergrads again, and the calendar is already packed...  

It's a little overwhelming sometimes to think about this as being my ninth year at RPI, but it's also kind of rewarding to look back at all of the experiences and everything i've done!  

And the major upside?  THIS IS THE LAST YEAR!

Probably.... Hopefully?

Ok, well... the PLAN is for it to be the last year!  And I'm going to do whatever possible to stick to it!  As wonderful as it has all been, I'm definitely ready for the next chapter and the next round of adventures...

So the game plan from here?  Work like CRAZY (while still maintaining dance and horseback riding to prevent burn-out).

And then I will still be TA-ing again (Strength of Materials, of course!  Fifth semester in a row, woot!) so I'm sure that will keep me pretty busy, too. 

Although, with the first day of classes under our belt, I'm already dreading this scene:

And I still can't believe my summer is over already!!!! I wasn't done with it yet!  

I actually do have a few posts I need to get up though... A few craft projects that need to be documented and a few stories that could probably use telling.  But I must confess - I spent 5 days in Cape Cod (WOOO!!!) and ended up not taking a single photo (ugh.....)  Please don't hate me?  I'm kicking myself enough already!  
Ok, back to work.  More to come soon!  (As soon as possible, anyway!)  

Well.... time to start writing I suppose! 

I don't know if it's because it's summertime, or if it's all this rain, if I'm just tired and overwhelmed... All I know is, I'm suffering from severe lack of motivation :(

While I'm procrastinating for one more night, I thought I might share one of my favorite Ph.D.-related antics...

(The following images/text is all taken from: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/)

The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D...

Imagine a circle that contains all of human knowledge:

By the time you finish elementary school, you know a little:

By the time you finish high school, you know a bit more:

With a bachelor's degree, you gain a specialty:

A master's degree deepens that specialty:

Reading research papers takes you to the edge of human knowledge:

Once you're at the boundary, you focus:

You push at the boundary for a few years:

Until one day, the boundary gives way:

And, that dent you've made is called a Ph.D.:

Of course, the world looks different to you now:

So, don't forget the bigger picture:

Keep pushing.

Pretty good, eh?  I'm not sure if it's encouraging or discouraging, to be honest... Probably a little of both?  It's a little discouraging to know that there's a pretty good chance I won't make a giant impact on the overall knowledge of the human race.  But at the same time, it will be just as big for anyone else looking at it from my perspective - in my field and specialty.  And if the Mouse and the Lion (you know... the one who pulled the thorn from his paw) taught us anything, it's that something very small can actually have a huge impact on the chain of events that follow.  So that's a little encouraging, after all!  Not to mention, it's nice to know that no matter what, I can't let my Ph.D. be my entire world - there is so much more beyond that, too.

Um... I mean... NO WAY Dr. Advisors and Funding Agencies!!! RESEARCH IS LIFE!!!!!

(Whew... that was a close one.... ok, back to work....)

In the beginning of April, Mom and I took a little trip down to New Orleans, Louisiana! 

Neither of us had ever been before so we were both super excited!  (Unfortunately, Dad couldn't make it because of work...)  

What was the occasion?  My abstract was accepted and so I was off to present my research at the ACS (American Chemical Society) National Conference!!  Double super-exciting!! :)

(Side note:  I'm the worst tourist ever and didn't bring a nicer camera with me.. So I spent the entire weekend taking snapshots with my phone... #thankyoudroid) 

As soon as we got there?  Out to lunch of course!!  We went to the Oceana Grill for some yummy seafood.  And alligator, too of course!! It was actually delicious - we tried it fried and cajun style.  The street view from the restaurant was super cute, too.  And we had beautiful weather the entire weekend!

And then we spent a little time wandering around...

And our wandering quickly bee-lined for Cafe du Monde so we could get ourselves some beignets!  

It was absolutely packed but they were well worth it!  Sooooo much powdered sugar...

Ok, back to walking...

Donkey carriages! 

LOVED this street art.... totally regret that I didn't get one...

For our first night, we had a delicious dinner out at the Palace Cafe - complete with doo-wop serenading! 

Yeah... Dessert was totally worth it...

We started off the next morning with a ride on the famous Streetcars!  We hopped on and went down to the Garden District, well... and then pretty much got right back on and came back... but still a fun ride!

Ahh, what an amazing line up!!! Wish the conference was just a few weeks later...

And we ended up making it back to the French Market and then finally the Cafe du Monde for our daily beignets.  We found a nice bench in the sun where I could sit for a little bit and work on my presentation slides.

This was one of my favorite areas to people watch... There was just so much going on!  Plus street art... have I mentioned how much I love street artists?

Jazzy wedding parade!!! SO FUN!  Complete with big feather hats, and everything :)

A lot of places had gas lighting for outside by the doors - Absolutely in love with the look... (they left them running 24-7 though... not sure how I feel about that... but still cute!)

Speaking of lighting, Mom was pretty crazy about the antique chandelier stores, too.  We stopped to peek in the windows every single time we walked by :)

For dinner, we went to the Court of Two Sisters - it was absolutely delicious (I have yet to eat something on this trip that I didn't like...)  We sat outside on the back patio - it was beautiful with all of the lights, grape arbors and the fountain!

Strawberries foster over vanilla ice cream?  YUM!

More gas lanterns on the walk home!

We're still on crunch time to finish my slides and "rehearse" my presentation... Hello late night, early morning!  But it went just fine!  Mom went with me and we watched the other presentations in my session - all about PPCPs in the environment!!  (Oh... right... PPCP = Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products...) I was toward the end of the morning session and I ran out of time to go as in depth as I wanted but all-in-all it went great and everyone seemed pretty interested in our work!

We were basically starved after and I wanted to catch one more of the afternoon presentations so we decided to have lunch at the convention center - which was HUGE by the way!  Holy Cow!  Oh, and of course snap some photos :)  Here's Mom by the conference poster!

And I just couldn't pass up VooDoo chips... 

We also went through the Expo a little to try and pick up some swag from the visiting companies.  

Let me tell you - scientists are WAYYYY more stingy than engineers!  Getting swag was like pulling teeth!  Plus you ended up tricked into surveys and questionares about videos and product shpeels they forced you to sit through... crazy!  (Everyone knows engineers be THROWING swag at you...) :P

With the rest of the beautiful afternoon to ourselves, I was ready to rip out of my suit, throw on a summer skirt, and hit the town for a little sun.  We decided to check out the riverfront (turns out there wasn't much new to see... by the time we were waiting for our fourth streetcar, we hadn't actually traveled anywhere...) and then ended up deciding on going back to the garden district to actually walk around a little more.  We saw a lot of beautiful houses - we never made it far enough to see Toulane (which Dad says is where the shopping, etc. is) but it was still pretty and made for a nice walk...

Best climbing tree EVER!!

For our last night, Mom and I went out to dinner at GW Fins - ummm AMAZING.  Everything we ate was absolutely delicious (although apparently I'm terrible at taking photos of food... whoops...)

And then it was time to head back to the hotel so we could pack up and fly out the next morning.  :( 

What a wonderful trip though!!!