Uniblog 7: End of Term 2

On Friday, I headed to uni for the last time in five weeks. Obviously, those aren't five weeks to go abroad or discuss a niche suburb in Hertfordshire, they're to revise for upcoming exams. But I have no uni in that time regardless, and for some reason, that makes me feel kinda sad.

I say "for some reason" because I've just had a ten week long term, including a week of exams, which have been somewhat gruelling from start to finish. I've not even had that many labs - just two - but they were still way more intensive than any I did back in sixth form. All the post-lab work especially could get tiring, and I've not even had the worst of it yet. I can only imagine how bad second and third year will be, based on the amount of work we've had so far.

Imperial campus

But even so, I think I prefer uni to no uni. That might be because Imperial's altered my brain chemistry to an irreversible, workaholic state. I've had no reading weeks, in fact I don't think they exist in most courses here. That's fewer "half-terms", which means I've been studying or doing lab work for ten weeks straight. Obviously taking a break at the end of it will feel a bit strange.

But I don't even think it's that...I just think I like uni a lot. It's way more fun! There's something about going to an area to be with people who share your interests, at least in a minor way. I might be over-generalising here, but it felt like most people who did chemistry at sixth form did it as either an additional STEM subject, or for medicine. Now, on a chemistry degree; no surprise, everyone's doing it because they like chemistry. Or they did - the term's been a long one, after all.

Another thing, though, is I genuinely feel like I'm a completely different person to who I was in the first term. Yeah, I know that's because I'm used to uni now, obviously that was going to happen. But even so, I've stopped thinking of the years as years. Instead, each term is something different, again because each term is so bloody long. And yeah, if I think of uni like that, then of course it will be a bit sad to retreat to my house to study for five weeks. 

But some highlights from this term included:

• Synthesising an ester, yes really. 

Say hello to, ahem, 2-methoxy-4-propylphenyl 4-(trifluoromethyl)cyclohexane-1 carboxylate. That name's long, so I'll call it MPTFC for the rest of this post.

MPTFC with loads of leftover hexane looks like a pale yellow oil.

It's easy synthesising MPTFC - not sure why you'd want to, there's literally no benefit to doing so - all you need is some dihydroeugenol and 4-trifluoromethylcyclohexanecarboxylic acid, heat them under reflux with some other chemicals, then perform an aqueous/organic workup on the resultant ester so you get a (hopefully pure) ester in the end!

MPTFC without the hexane is a boring white solid.

Was the actual synthesis any good? Well, my yield was 30%, and the melting point range was about 10℃ (for comparison, a pure product should have a range of 1℃), so maybe not. But hey - I made an ester! But most importantly, it's an ester that might have never been synthesised before. I'd claim that, despite the inevitable stress of having to analyse a horrible NMR spectrum, it was fun enough for me to not completely lose my mind over.

• The sci-fi conference

I probably don't sound like a sci-fi obsessed person, and I'm not. But I'm technically in the uni's sci-fi and fantasy society, and I ended up going to their annual conference, Picocon. It was enjoyable - you got to listen to authors talk about their work! And maybe that sounds boring on the surface, but it was interesting nonetheless to hear their views on how accurate the physics should be in a sci-fi novel, or about writing compelling characters, or their views on wormholes. All those things apply to me, as a bidding writer, so it was worth sticking around and having a nice time listen to them talk. Although I'm not convinced my attempt at convincing everyone the Circle line was irrelevant in the following Turkey Talks (where you get to ramble about something and people pay to stop/encourage you to talk more) was as successful.  

• Repotting my plant

At the start of the year, I said I wanted to be involved with the botanical society more. And I went to an event to repot some houseplants. You might remember my hypoestes, which is getting along very well as of lately. It's now in a turquoise plant pot, much larger now and more suiting for its size, whilst somehow still fitting on my windowsill.   

The hypoestes in its new home

You might also remember the smaller plant I had. Well it died. But in the event, I was able to get another one - and I can confirm this time it's a mother of thousands plant. It looks much the same, but I'm going to take greater care, I promise. It would be sad if I had two plant deaths at my hands.

• I'm not entirely sure, actually.

I think one thing I've enjoyed is just being with people, really, and learning chemistry, I suppose. Nothing else springs to mind aside from that. And maybe that's a good thing - if I could only name like a few things that were notably good, and the rest seemed mediocre, couldn't that prove I'm not enjoying uni much? I don't think I should be chasing photographable memories anyways, rather it's good enough to quietly enjoy myself.

Onto term 3, I guess. No more lectures, just labs. Maybe they'll be just as fun, hopefully even better.  

The slow walk home from South Ken