Hello everyone! My name is Giada Amundson and I am doing organic chemistry at Scripps. I have been here for 3 weeks now, and 4 weeks to go. Almost halfway done already!
Monday, June 26
I started today by making a larger batch of the same solution, since we got a good product on Friday. So I set up the same reaction on a larger scale, and it has to stir overnight again. Then I helped Skylar with his own work for a little bit, measuring out chemicals, stirring them, and mixing them together. After lunch, we started recrystallizing the small amount of product we got on Friday. We got good looking crystals, and so we collected them all, and then I started making a new procedure for a Wittig reaction that I am going to start tomorrow. A Wittig reaction is the next reaction I start once I have my product. This will get me a different product because I will be mixing my product from Friday with a new chemical.
Tuesday, June 27
Today was very busy. We got to the lab and I started to cool and filter the big batch of product that we made yesterday. We then started recrystallizing the product once it was a solid. We got really big and good looking crystals. We also used this product to start the Wittig reaction that I wrote yesterday. It is pretty simple compounds that I am adding, but you have to be very precise in this reaction or it will fail. If we get a good product from this one, we can do another reaction from that, and another from that. So I set up the Wittig reaction, making sure to be very precise. I also set up another reaction of my main product. I need a lot of this product over the rest of my time here. So I am just doing the same scale that I made yesterday.
crystals forming in flask
Wednesday, June 28
I started finishing the labs from yesterday. I took an NMR of my product, and we got a good yielding product. We tested the other solution that we started on Monday using a NMR yield. We got a very high yield. We had our weekly group meeting today instead of Friday because a couple chemists from Merck, a pharmaceutical company, came to see our lab. I got to present the research I’m doing at the meeting, and they asked me some questions and complimented my work. After the meeting, I made, yet again, another batch of my main product, which I let this stir overnight.
Thursday, June 29
We got a super good looking product, and the yield was also very high on this as well. We started recrystallizing the product, and let that sit while we were at the Engle Lab 8th year anniversary party. The whole lab went to Del Mar, and we all ate really good food and got to know each other better. There are some people in the lab that work only at night too, so I got to meet some faces that I haven’t seen in the lab yet before. It was really fun and nice to talk to some of the other people in the lab that I don’t normally get to interact with. We were there for a lot of the day, and when we got back, we finished recrystallizing the product from this morning.
engle lab anniversary
Friday, June 30
At the lab today, I started finishing the recrystallization process of the product we got yesterday. We got a very good amount of the product with a great yield. From that, we did another Wittig reaction to get the next product we want from this product. We also checked our other reaction and started recrystallizing it after lunch. I need a lot of this product for my next 4 weeks in the lab. This means I am going to make some more product for a few more days next week. Then we had a potential PhD student show our lab his research. His research was similar to our lab’s work, and he did a great job of presenting his research. After the meeting, I finished my biweekly report. I had a lot of good things happen this week, so I worked for the rest of the day on that.
After work, we went and got shakes, and went swimming at the beach after the sunset, and it was so fun. The ocean at night feels like a completely different place.
me, lily, and natalie at the beach
Saturday and Sunday, July 1 and 2
On Saturday, we went to the beach and just relaxed there. Then we went and got Chick-fil-a and watched the sunset. We went night swimming again and had a fire after we got home. On Sunday, we are just having a chill day at the house, and ordered in Din Tai Fung. We are going to watch the sunset again tonight.
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