had a relatively uneventful day. i busted my ass at work, learned a new computer program. autocad, its a design program. i really want to pirate a copy to my home computer but that would inevitably mean that i could bring my work home with me and i really don't want to end up doing that (more so than i already do).

there is no holiday weekend in my future. i have to work all day tomorrow. many things to get accomplished. my prof will be out of town for a month, Australia for a conference. so i have to kick some serious research ass while he is gone. i have not had any success with my project so far. i just have keep trying. keep changing one parameter of the synthesis process at a time. the project works in theory so i don't understand why i haven't been able to make it work yet. so not only is my prof relying on this research but the navy is too, that is who our grant is under. we are trying to do things that have never been done before. so when we actually accomplish the tasks we set out to do, we will have to throw one big hoopla of a party, because my work this summer will be publishable and i'll be able to present it at the dreaded conference in november. it just means i will be putting in long hours, six or seven days a week. i'm still not used to the idea that graduate students never get any time off. we are slaves to our research and slaves to our profs. i must have been crazy to think that this is really what i wanted out of the next five years of my life. the one bright side of working in the lab on the weekend is the fact that the building will be deserted so i can blast the radio while i work...