"It's the best I can do"

There's nothing like ABBA to keep oneself going through a long evening at work :)

This week has been incredibly productive. My adviser is on vacation and while he's gone, his two undergrad research assistants are mine! I'm putting them to good use, trust me! Last week I speed-trained them on all the procedures in the clean lab (I think I mentioned this briefly last week), and this week they've been fantastic keeping the lab running. They come in in the morning and start processing the day's samples and go through the protocol as the day wears on, in addition to doing all the "support activities", such as washing labware, making acid, preparing tomorrow's samples, neutralizing acid etc. When they leave work I continue the sample protocol, seeing the samples to a finish which results in them being reduced to ~ half a milligram of a metal called Strontium. That half a milligram is later analyzed in a mass spectrometer, to give us the isotopic composition of the material (i.e. a very very very very precise weighing of the atoms of the metal). Lots of fun, sem sagt!