July 1

This morning I didn’t have a ton to work on, but I did get everything in my hood in order, and one of my reactions finished up. Barbara and I went over the protocols that I have written of reactions that I have done since coming here. I was kind of dreading it, because the last time I did so many things wrong, but it was good, because apparently I have learned some things since coming here. During the course of our looking it over, Barbara just burst out laughing, after reading one of my sentences. It was for a reaction that had not run to completion because the ingredients that I used had been compromised by either air or moisture before I used them (not my fault), so the reaction had been scrapped after the first part. Apparently, instead of writing, “the reaction mixture went to waste” I had written, “the reaction mixture walked to the waste container.” I’m learning more and more that gehen is a false cognate for to go. It implies more of walking when used by itself, which was how I had used it of course. I also got a laugh when instead of saying that I was ready, I said a famous line that a German soccer player had once said. I am glad that people can not only understand me, but find my mistakes hilarious. If only I could be intentionally funny in German. I did a special little project for Dirk today, which was more little that special, but no matter, I still did something that he would have had to do, but trusted me with. We tested the solubility of a salt that comes up in production as a side product, in a variety of solvents (with the intention of using it to clean the equipment in the plant). Tomorrow I will write an official protocol of it that they can use later. I’m also doing a little project with Barbara, which I prepared for today at the end. The happiest part of the day though, was getting a confirmation e-mail for the DALMAC 5-day U.P. tour. I talked a bit with Nathan today, who got me registered (thank you again). That will be a lot of fun, and a whirlwind way to end the summer. I think we start biking maybe either the day after I get back or the next. After work I went to the bookstore here, and after looking through quite a few of them, settled on a German-English translation book. It has so many more words, and is actually current (zum Beispiel, no Hitler Jugend abbreviation in it). It was probably worth buying, so I don’t look up words that haven’t been used in 50+ years. I took another inadvertent nap today. It was hot, so I think I was listening to a podcast, then just fell asleep. What a life‼ So to avoid complete laziness I ran tonight, and strangely found that one of my toes was bleeding profusely. It is that dratted toe that bleeds when I cross-country ski, which is strange, because I wasn’t skiing (at least not that I know of). I only realized it after I kept on seeing these little red smudges all over my tile floor, which hadn’t been there before. Anyway, mystery solved. Good night.