Thinking that my GP is a slippery bugger to try and contact or get appointments with (he seems to be by far the most in-demand GP there is at the practice, and is by far the most reasonable and has the best bedside manner and least git-ish-ness potential, and the most decent human being out of the lot, owns the practice, but its like trying to grab a teflon-greased electric eel when you want to get a hold of him. Little fucker is a veritable Houdini. Good IF you can catch him, but its easier said than done. )
And not a small measure of personal pride on the reaction scheme and sequences for a lab project I chose for myself, that will involve quite a lot of hard work, but at the same time, keeps the number of steps from start point to end point to a minimum (three steps not counting workup) where the actual initial precursor is taken into consideration, but, depending on whether or not I can buy, or whether I must make and purify some carbon disulfide to use as a solvent quite a lot of actual work that needs to be done to perform one of those steps (generally with a reaction involving more than 'mix A with B, out drops C and you are done after a quick wash' every step lowers the yield of your target end product), as well as the preparation of a somewhat neglected and unusual phosphorus based reagent, that I'll need to make from scratch. And possibly, although it depends on how much I have left compared with how much will be needed, I might have to make my own diethyl ether, to top up the supplies I have since I am running a bit low. Unless I can do the same thing in diisopropyl ether, a mix of diisopropyl and diethyl ether, or use THF. Which means more work and both a flask of searing hot, concentrated sulfuric acid, and predrying some ethanol, or else preparing some ethyl iodide or ethyl bromide and wasting the iodine or bromine used for it and also sacrificing (irreversibly, unlike the halogen which can be recovered) some sodium metal to perform a williamson ether synthesis using primary alkyl halide and alkoxide, although its much cheaper to predry ethyl alcohol and drip it from an addition-funnel into a flask containing some concentrated sulfuric acid heated to about 120-125 'C distilling off the diethyl ether produced via dehydration-condensation of the alcohol by the hot sulfuric as its formed to avoid side reactions and condensing it from the vapor.
Gods...I think I know what its like to be a housewife. You start with one job and it turns into ten before you get to kick your shoes off and loaf around on the comfy sofa in front of star trek on the box (well, make that an autistic housewife, complete with literally, pointed, vulcan-like ears:autism:) and a cold beer in hand.
Or come to think of it, a crate of cold ones. Cold enough to freeze liquid nitrogen solid
Right now, I'm making do with a glass of cold elderflower and rose essence cordial. Although I wouldn't say no, at this particular moment in time, to a nip of vodka thrown in, I haven't got any in the house, I'd have to spend MORE effort MAKING ethanol via hydrobromic acid cleavage of diethyl ether, when I NEED the damn ether for something in the first place as part of my work..and I'm waiting for an important phonecall so can't go out and buy a couple of those little miniature spirit shot bottles.
Yep...this has to be what a housewife feels like most of the time she hasn't got a glass of wine in her hand and a purring cat on her lap. Or alternatively being fucked. Ideally not by the cat or neck of a wine bottle, or both.
Either that, or somewhere along the lines, Zeus got my birth certificate mixed up with Herakles and had Hermes deliver an entirely buggered up email to the three fates. Or just has it in for me on a personal level for something I'm pretty sure I either didn't do, or if I did I don't know what it was.
