Syntheticness

That time has come in grad school where everything seems to be really starting at the same time. At my school, the beginning of the second semester marks the point when you officially join a research group. This also means people start picking research projects and move into their new labs/offices. The 4th/5th year students see the light at the end of the tunnel. We haven’t even really entered it yet. Its strange to think that in a few weeks, next years crop of new students will be on campus for visitation weekend.

I am working on the same chemistry that I began during my summer rotation, as I decided to join the group that hosted me during that time. In addition to that project, I am also trying my hands at some basic tasks related to other projects. I am particularly interested in an idea my advisor described a few weeks ago, and I may end up moving over to do that once I get my current project squared away.

Its going to be my first real view of what grad school is really all about this semester. Weekly group meetings, subgroups, friday arrow pushing “class”, saturday problem sets, more cumes, classes (I added on x-ray crystallography for the fun of it), teaching, and grading. Lets not forget research - that one thing that will actually matter in the end. Time to start packing lunch!!

One of my worst talents is balancing my outside life with my school life. It’s usually an all or nothing situation. Especially with chemistry - I tend to put all of my energy into it, and totally neglect every other aspect of my life (family, friends, eating, and so on).

This is really just a big excuse for not updating the blog. Im going to try to write more often, and I hope that I can do that.

My spare time has been spent grading, reading, studying, and starting a Cigar collection with all of the excess cash they hand us in grad school.

We’ve had a few great seminar speakers at school, and I want to do a quick review on their research in the next few days.

The first week “orientation” for 1st years pretty much wrapped up today. I am amazed that they scheduled everything to span an entire week, as most of us had ridiculous amounts of downtime.

I was happy to learn that I was assigned to TA the organic lab, rather than gen chem. My schedule looks pretty nice. While the gen chem TA’s are off getting their orientation stuff done tomorrow, myself and a few of the other organic TA’s are splitting town. Were doing a short 2 day backpacking expedition, where we will rendezvous with some of the gen chem TA’s half way through at a nearby road. Continuing on, we will reach a three lake area, fish/camp/reach maximum capacity of our tents, and return back to civilization. This will be my first backpacking trip, and im pretty excited. My brand spankin new Osprey 50 is packed full of dehydrated food, tent, bag, poncho, knives and water.

I have high hopes for this weekend. Many amazing pictures will soon follow, along with the karma retributions of having this much fun. I’m sure we will all pay dearly in our 2, 3, 4th..,nth year of grad school, never to see the mountains, sky, or sunlight again.

Need to go to sleep now. Ive had a combined 3 hours out of the last 24 and its wearing me down.

I was perusing a recent issue of Details magazine, and happened upon a little nugget of a website called “Jesus of the Week“. This website features snapshots of creepy Jesus shrines, dolls, statues and of course the Jesus vans of the world. But the fun doesn’t stop here. For all you lego nerds like me out there, you have to check out the Lego/Jesus scenes that this guy Rev. Smith designs.

For example:

If you’re like me, just the mere thought of crazy oldschool old testament scenes rendered in multicolored Lego Bricks makes you grab a box of Franzia and settle in for some giddy late night religious fun - made from Leggo’s. Check the site out for yourself.

Genesis 25:26
Isaac was sixty years old at the time of their birth.

Yes!

Right now, there is a meteor shower I am missing.

There is a pretty small group of first year grad students stupid enough to blow our final summer vacation doing research. On the weekends however, we use our time wisely.

Between dueling piano bars, hookah lounges, and pot-luck feasts we like to get outside and see the amazing surroundings now before the real grad-school-never-get-outside-again-fest begins.

Here are some memorable moments from last weekend…..

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So in my resting hours, I like to practice my mechanisms. I know, it is strange. Here is a problem I came across that made me think.

“Upon heating, thermolysis of 1 results in loss of N2 to form intermediate X, which undergoes further reorganization to form intermediate Y and finally tautomerization to 2. Identify intermediates X and Y and provide a mechanism for the transformation from 1 to 2.”

Now, I immediately recognized this as some type of curtius type rearrangement. The curtius rearrangement involves a similar loss of N2 from an acyl azide to form a resonance stabilized isocyanate. Here is an excellent review on the subject of the azides, including the curtius rearrangement.

Once you understand the formation of the isocyanate, it isn’t very hard to see the cyclization reaction that ensues here to form the 7 memebered lactam. Isocyanates in general are good starting materials for reaction with amines or alcohols to form the corresponding amides and esters.

Here is the mechanism spoiler: