The Half Decent Pharmaceutical Chemistry Blog

Although the name of the exam wasn't 'Analytical chemistry' but 'Drugs analysis', anyway, it was the last time I had to deal with analytical chemistry, which, as I said, isn't my favourite subject.

The professor is also the head of the degree course of Industrial Pharmacy, so, after the exam (in a sort of post-match chat), I had the opportunity to share with her my ideas for improving the course.
In a nutshell, the answer was that, as I obviously already knew, most of the students would hate my 'improved' course.

Well, to tell you the truth, I don't care. I'm not interested in improving anything: the most important thing is to graduate as soon as possible (18 months, more or less, left) and go away (but that's a different story).

Time for some serious email writing before going out for my usual, after-exam, tour de Pubs.

Seeya!

Yesterday, I had a lovely dinner with my cousin: on that occasion, I couldn't avoid showing off the new layout of my blog. Unfortunately, I realised something you, my beloved but this time not so efficient readers, never told me.

The blog looked brilliant on my old, crappy PC, only because I use a pathetic 1024 X whatever resolution. My cousin's new, German laptop, on the other hand, showed me my beloved PharmaKrush 2.0 with a bigger resolution (1200 X 800) and with Firefox.

So, I could realise the test was all on the left with a huge,yellow band on the right. I've now edited the .ccs file (this means this is the version 2.1 of PharmaKrush), with the help of a friend of mine, who has a much better computer than me (yup: I CANNOT increase my resolution...).

Thank you, Dan!

However, the issue of the right size has played a central role, today.

This morning, for example, while I was at the university, I received a book I had bought on Amazon.co.uk.
Thing is, though, the book was sent from the UK to Switzerland, where, with Teutonic efficiency, was carefully put in this enormous bag (closed as it was full of precious things).

Actually inside there was only ONE important item, a book of molecular biology, which, as you can see, doesn't need such a huge bag, that, in case you were interested, I'm going to use as rubbish bag (but I hope no one will take it as a form of disrespect towards Switzerland, home of Pharmaceutical Chemistry!)



Last but not least, after my Pharmacology exam, I said to myself it was time to buy something satisfactory, so I bought an iPod Nano.



Yes, it's Red, so I helped Africa too...well, a drop in the sea.

This model has 4GB (actually 3.67...), which means you have help me even more  to fully utilize this (quite) massive space, telling me your favourite songs, albums...

Yes, here it is: the biggest, most important and toughest exam a student of industrial pharmacy has to face!

A few hours ago, I finished to brilliantly describe the wonderful properties of niacin and now it's time to take a rest.

If you are interested, I'll tell you that during the (oral) exam I was asked to talk about: what drugs you use in case of tuberculosis (including some information about mycobacterium tuberculosis), how doctors handle chloroquine resistance, antiemetics (including a brief description of the sites on which you can act) and niacin.

Another thing I've to point out is that I'm far from the end of all the exams and the beginning of the graduation thesis.
Until September, I'll be a (proper) undergraduate student who has to do exams.

Because pharmacology will always be a central theme for the rest of my life, don't think I'll stop to write endlessly about drugs.

However, maybe more chemistry is going to be featured in my posts...

Tonight, surprisingly, I am NOT going to go the pub and get drunk: this exam, I must admit, was pretty tough to prepare. This means, I'll spend Tuesday and Wednesday at the pub, but tonight I'll definitely sleep.

I'm sorry, but my 23-years-old body seems to need rest after two months of Red-Bull for studying through the night and waking up at 7 am, on any (bloody) given day.

So, take care and see you tomorrow (before the pub, of course).

Last week, I announced I would have begun to talk more about myself. Today, actually, I need your help, my beloved readers, for something rather personal.

Here's the problem. This is my MP3 player: it's not an iPod and (to answer your question), I don't want you to buy me a new one.

Up to 1 GB of music can be stored in it. Moreover, it's also a radio and can serve as a normal pen drive.

It's cheap and brilliant and is everything I look for in a music player.

Now, however, there is a big problem: my MP3 files have become boring.
After a year, during which I haven't added very much to my playlist (which is, of course, bigger than the gigabyte I can place in the player), I'm at the point where you constantly change track, in the hopeless quest for something you didn't remember you uploaded.

Right now, the only things I can, sometimes, bare to listen, without feeling the need to change track, are: Charlotte Gainsburg's latest album, the Who's "Tommy", the Interpol, The Strokes' latest album and Oasis' "Familiar to Millions" (which, sadly, has been their last good album).

But, little by little, they, too, have become annoying.

Unfortunately, these days I'm studying for the exam of pharmacology, so, I don't have much time to think about new stuff that deserves to be stored in my player.

So, I'm basically asking YOU to tell me what, in your opinion, can't miss in the MP3 player of a (proper pharmaceutical) chemist.

Either songs or entire albums.

In particular, what you think to be the best choice for when I cycle to only place where you can study in the night, in this sleepy town (namely, at the local university hospital) and back.



As I do rather often in this period (including yesterday and tonight).

 

Since I was a first-year student, the home page on every browser I've used has been that of my degree course. The only reason why I chose it is, simply, because otherwise I'd never feel the need to visit it.

So, by putting it right at the beginning, I'm somehow forced to take a look at it and check whether there is any (usually bad) news. I should convince myself this is completely useless, since important things are often published on the site a week after everybody  already knows about it (indirectly: thanks to other students or some post in some department).

This morning, however, I checked my inbox but, before this, I suddenly realised there was something new in the starting page. Something unexpected, totally meaningless and frankly ugly: hands.

There is, in fact, only a small picture on the page. Until yesterday, lovely, colourful test tubes (filled by some robotic device). It was fine: perfectly aseptic and so wierd that it could equally suit everyone's (different) idea of industrial pharmacy.

Oddly, someone must have thought it was time, after, at least, four years, to put living beings on the page and point out that industrial pharmacy is ONLY a matter of loading samples and carrying out HPLCs.

Here are the two pictures.

As I said, recently, I'm in the middle of my last analytical chem lab and that very machine has now a certain importance in my usual afternoon. I mean, the small room with the (ready for this?) two HPLCs (for 50 students) is the place for lots of chats (and queuing).

And because the professor is also the supremo of the whole degree course, it looks like analytical chemists have taken full control and want to show it to the other departments.

Of course, I couldn't care less about it, but I do complain: the picture is appalling and, given that they wanted a person on the main page, why didn't they take a picture of students, say, performing liquid-liquid extraction?

Why those hands? And who those female hands belong to? The said professor? A PhD student? A student?