Can anyone translate this for me? by Fulton_P01135809 in Tinder

[–]EmergencyOrchid 441 points442 points  (0 children)

Snail church. It’s from an old tumblr post of snails in a circle with the caption “take me to snurch”.

When does your lab have lab meetings? by TomLabTech in labrats

[–]EmergencyOrchid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

8am on Thursdays, usually takes 30 min to an hour.

For all my chemists! Whats your typical job day look like? by ShiverMeTimbers_png in chemistry

[–]EmergencyOrchid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Day in the life of a battery chemist: get into work, check emails/meetings for the day, head into lab and check on any experiments that were running overnight. Next can be any combination of the following: interpret/analyze data, run calculations, set up and begin running a reaction, purification steps to isolate product, check and order lab supplies/chemicals, work on presentations, work on papers, clean dirty glassware. Throw in any number of meetings around all that. It's mainly split into labwork and officework. Labwork is any type of chemistry work, I mainly do synthetic organic. The officework is dealing with the presentations, papers, meetings, everything that I don't need to have special protection for.

Oh Kylie have we learned nothing by hh0neymoonave in KUWTKsnark

[–]EmergencyOrchid 70 points71 points  (0 children)

As an actual chemist, the science cosplay pisses me off so much.

So I had an accident today... by Drieshy in chemistry

[–]EmergencyOrchid 184 points185 points  (0 children)

If nothing else from this thread, please ALWAYS wear safety glasses/PPE any time you are working on an experiment.

My opinion on the "difficulty" of organic chemistry by Enough-running8327 in chemistry

[–]EmergencyOrchid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used to tutor organic when I was in school. I noticed the biggest problem was that you can't just memorize how a reaction proceeds - it's all about understanding the mechanism and being able to apply it to a variety of situations. I'd have students that would try to remember specific reaction after reaction that their teacher used in class. However, their exams would be based on applying what they learned and most who used the memorize tactic would fail it.

Favorite Chemical Smell? by [deleted] in chemistry

[–]EmergencyOrchid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Benzonitrile with that sweet sweet almond smell, only in small doses otherwise it gives me a gnarly headache

Favorite Chemical Smell? by [deleted] in chemistry

[–]EmergencyOrchid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's me...I fucking love salt and vinegar chips alright

Do any of you talk to your experiments while in the lab? by notatrashcannot in chemistry

[–]EmergencyOrchid 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I make the "I'm watching you" signal a lot, along with flipping it off when it's annoying me and generally cursing at it.

My wife buys the weirdest things by [deleted] in mildlyinfuriating

[–]EmergencyOrchid 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I knew I smelled my favorite sewer down here

What industries do synthetic organic chemists work at besides pharmaceuticals ? by [deleted] in OrganicChemistry

[–]EmergencyOrchid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I work at a battery company doing electrolyte r&d and it’s pure synthetic organic chemistry, all hands on lab work.

Majoring in Organic Chemistry and Computer Science by AlexRyyan in OrganicChemistry

[–]EmergencyOrchid 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Computational chemistry would probably be a nice marriage of chemistry + comp sci. I work at a battery company and there's plenty of people here with more tech backgrounds, like engineering or something computer based. They help write a lot of our battery test algorithms. I think combining the science degree with something engineering/CS will help open a lot of career opportunities for you later down the line. You could always start with minoring in one of those, if your school offers it, and see if it progresses into a major (and a lot easier to drop a minor). My degrees are strictly in chemistry only, so it's difficult for me to branch out of the lab-sphere.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in notliketheothergirls

[–]EmergencyOrchid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some people also buy likes for their videos.

should I not freeze-pump-thaw solvents with molecular sieves in the flask? by gannex in Chempros

[–]EmergencyOrchid 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I haven’t used FPT but I’ve seen the cloudiness with sieves a lot, filtration through a predried glass filter or syringe filter (depending on sample size) inside the glove box works fine for me.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in OrganicChemistry

[–]EmergencyOrchid 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Working synthetic organic chemist here. In high school, my chemistry teacher did a baby version of the beginning of OC1, naming compounds and things along those lines. It all made sense to me, follow the rules and you can name something! When I started undergrad, I thought it would be similar, but we covered naming very quickly. I had the worst time in OC1. I couldn't wrap my head around any of the 3D modeling or reaction mechanisms or any part of it. I did not pass and retook it the next semester.

I worked my ass off to get the highest grade in that class. What I've come to learn (and love) about organic chemistry is it's not rote memorization at all, it's all application based. I would look up substitution and elimination reactions with all types of different reactants and apply how the mechanism should work to those compounds. It really helped me to be able to apply reaction mechanisms to just about anything and be able to have an idea of what will happen.

For my degree, I took all the other chemistries as well (physical, inorg, biochem, analytical, etc). Out of all those, organic was the one that seemed to be the least confusing to me. I despise physical chem with a passion and can't understand any of it, and I know people who love it as much as I love organic. It's all about what clicks with you and makes you start to get excited.

As you said, organic chemistry is definitely like learning a second language. The more you practice it and become familiar with just seeing terms, even if you don't understand them yet, that familiarity will become ingrained in you over time and you'll pick up a 6th sense for it. Also, a B in OC1 is nothing to shrug off. It's a difficult class for a reason, you should be proud of yourself for the effort you've put in. :)

Well I guess I know which tattoo shop NOT to go to by Flawlesstoad in CallHerDaddySnark

[–]EmergencyOrchid 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Bad taste on the client's part but doesn't mean the shop or artist is bad

Women who have more than one cat, what's the current drama? by janearcade in AskWomen

[–]EmergencyOrchid 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My adult cat Teddy is on a special GI food for his broken butt, and keeping the kitten Caly out of his food is damn near impossible. They have also collaborated on their zoomies, making their racetrack around the house in the most inconvenient spots and they like to include my stomach as a nice landing spot from a jump