Reactions that fail to yield are annoying at best, frustratingly awful at worst. Getting used to a new environment, new practices, new science, exciting at times, frustrating at others, especially when you can’t run your own samples on the NMR without six hours worth of training. Not getting your first paycheck because they forgot to put you in the database usually means that it’s time to call home.
Yet despite all of those little nuisances, everything here is pretty good. Two reactions are currently stirring their little room-temperature hearts out. The neighborhood is great, lots of space to walk and bike. Expenses aren’t out of hand and electricity is dirt cheap. The people I work with are excellent and I wouldn’t have given up this opportunity for the world.
Houston has an energy to it, you can feel it on the street, in the air and in the people you run into. Despite the hot weather, unpredictable thunderstorms and awful traffic, this place isn’t too bad and I quite like it.
For now this is home, and for now this is the lab I work in, we’ll see what happens as time rolls on. It’s still raining and there’s something interesting spinning up in the tropics, perhaps we’ll be getting more rain towards the end of the month?
