| Current mood: |  contemplative |
| Current music: | Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata, 1st Movement |
Declaration of the 5.5-day work week
[Piak] Muahahahae, finally killed a mosquito in my ops room. As promised I’ll squash it into a pulp with much vengeance… I hate them. Always disturb my sleep until I have to put all-round defence, i.e. mosquito light, electric mosquito mat and sometimes anti-mozzie baby lotion.
Anyway, it is officially the term break but then again, it is of not much difference to me, apart from the smaller lunch crowd and less crowded buses. I still work as per norm. Only thing now is that I have gladly declared that Saturdays are now a half working day. In fact I’ve already been working for the past two Saturdays. Work can only be finished when time approaches infinity and I had decided to take a step forward towards the infinitum. Main reason is that I effective will lose every whole of Wed till the end of the semester, due to TA duties in the teaching lab. To further erode whatever time I’ve left, I still have to handle coursework, which I deem as relatively disruptive to research work. Darn, still have 2 more Level 5000 modules to clear… And now our dearest department has increased the frequency of lectures to twice a week, from the previous once a week. One lecture would be 1800-2000h and the other 2000-2200h. Tmd, dunno whose “smart” idea… Think we got so much time. Talk about the classic “taking one step forward and two steps backwards”. You can quote me for this.
World class institution? BS lah. The top only interested in ranking, which is mainly from the research field and so you can guess how much concern there is on “education”… Yes, I’m referring to the classic learning pathway. You can ask any student for their opinion for the “quality” of education they’re getting here… No surprise that not many are interested to pursue a further degree, much less to do it here. For those who wish to carry on like me, we just got to make do with whatever limited facilities and equipment we have here. That aside, as in the end I still agreed to sign on the line to come back here for a least another 4 years (hopefully 3 more years left to go). Why here and not overseas? Simply due to the relative speed in attaining the qualifications and minimal administrative adjustments. Biggest drawback is that a local PhD is not recognised for an academic position here, so need some post-doc (preferably overseas or industrial experience) before I can return as an acad. If you were to ask me, though I am content with what I have now, I still prefer to get out asap.
So… 5.5 days will be the way to go. Effectively on a “divide and conquer” (i.e. hantum / whack all the way) tactic now, to try to squeeze out whatever possible results I can hopefully get along the way. Though I’m mentally prepared to face multiple stonewalls (which I already been facing for the past year!), pray that at least one path would lead to the Promised Land. Also I don’t wish to increase to a complete 6-day working week… (Currently highly unlikely as the canteens only operate half day on Saturdays. Will only work as far as my stomach would bring me.) Still there are some labs which operate on a 7-day basis. Hiaz, is it really worth to sacrifice so much? There’s more to life. Ironically I’m still a self declared workaholic, that for working hours, work is above everything else, including personal time. It is no wonder they call PhD “Permanent Head Damage”. Running, swimming, etc. are the few things that keep my mind sane.
Okay, enough of preaching. Time to get back to reality.
I have been concentrating on the Sb(III) system, as it currently shows the most promise. However one thing’s for sure, nice things don’t last. Just like previously the beautiful bright red a-Se was thermally unstable and would eventually convert back to grey t-Se. Similarly, my current target is Sb2S3, which is effectively grey. I was a little excited when I managed to control the reaction to obtain orange Sb2S3. However though aesthetically attractive, it is of little use to me as it is amorphous and cannot be characterised on the PXRD. I haven’t done the SEM yet but I doubt the morphology would be of anything interesting. The grey crystalline Sb2S3 looks more promising, with the hollow microtubes and radial clusters. Well, pray that I can eventually achieve some form of control for them…
 ![[SEM] JR6202A - Sb2S3 microtubes and radial clusters](http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs268.snc1/9518_144442082372_712502372_3206095_7790133_a.jpg)
(Left)
Orange: JR6204A - Amorphous Sb2S3
Black: JR6203C - Crystalline Sb2S3 microtubes
(Right)
[SEM]
JR6202A - Sb2S3 microtubes and radial clusters
That aside, I just realised that I made a blunder for the previous few reactions. Apparently I used 10x less amount of dodecanethiol (ddT) than intended. On the other hand, those results obtained can serve as additional data entries. Only thing is that I need to repeat all the reactions again, using the correct amount this time! “Mama lemon” indeed… Alright, it would be a busy day tomorrow as I aim to complete another series of back-to-back reactions. Did 3 pairs of back-to-back reaction last Thurs and it was really exhausting… Sianz, to make matters worse, I still have to handle my coursework’s project work… Aragh… Tmd.
Music of the day:
Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata – 1st Movement, played by Wilhelm Kempff.
And that as I say, is that. En Garde!!
22 2127h
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