another weekend of work

I put in a long day yesterday. On a normal Friday, I would have left right after the department colloquium. Leaving early on Fridays has become a habit because I need a few hours to decompress at the end of the week before spending almost the entire weekend in the lab at work. I busted ass at work yesterday because I wanted to take this weekend off. It would have been only the second weekend since the beginning of the semester that I have taken off. Unfortunately, I kept making mistakes that delayed the progress of my work. What should have taken 3 hours, turned into four hours yesterday and half a day's worth of work that I have to do today. Needless to say, yesterday was a big learning experience day for me. I ended up educating myself as to exactly what not to do in this new synthesis process that I am starting. I would have stayed until midnight last night just to finish everything if I hadn't made dinner plans with my new friend Natalie. Natalie is my new ally in the physics department. She works in a materials lab a few doors down from my own. She also works with lab-full of men. Her parents are visiting from Minnesota this week and she wanted them to meet me so we made late dinner plans for last night. It was a lot of fun, I am glad I got to meet them, but once I left the lab yesterday, I knew I wouldn't be going back to finish anything last night. It is now midday on Saturday and I have to get into the lab ASAP and finish my work. The sooner I can get my work done, the sooner I can study for my quantum midterm on Monday morning.