When you encounter difficulties and contradictions, do not try to break them; bend them with gentleness and time.
–St. Francis de Sales

Yes, well, my contradictions and difficulties could cost me points on my orgo lab grade. boo. So you’ve heard me gripe about the orgo lab before, how we have to identify some unknowns, a hydrocarbon, an amine, and a carbonyl. So the hydrocarbon we just had to say, yup, this is a hydrocarbon, and that’s it. The other two I have narrowed down to two choices, and supposedly the extra spectral data we got last week was supposed to definitively identify one compound. Well. Sort of. I *think* I know what I’ve got, but I have (heh) contradictory evidence that says, no, really you don’t. Bugger. And I still have to write this paper, whether I have the right answer or not. House of cards, if there ever was one. All balancing on the hope that I choose the right set of data to believe.
At least I have the really cool Making of Kingdom of Heaven to keep me happy. Reading it while the soundtrack is playing is just too good for words. Better than orgo lab, anyway. (and in case you were wondering…the orgo test went…okay. Better than the last test, which was almost an utter bomb, but if I did better then most of the class probably did better. Guess we’ll see.)