@Hanzell

@Hanzell 20 September 2024

Hello read worldddd OwO I think I'll try being active around here again after much thinking last night. I do have so many drawings I've made and so much of my inktober missed. would be a shame if i couldn't share them to the world

@Hanzell 19 September 2024

I can't believe my account is still alove and kicking OwO it tempts me to want to start writing here again just to keep me busier

@Hanzell 22 November 2022

Artsy but still lazy Heyyooo~~~ Back again because I was sick and I don't like not doing anything, but I also lack the brain cells to write anything too deep recently. idk I think the cold weather is making me lazier to think, which is why I end up just drawing since I don't need much brain power there XD I think, the most brain power I need to use for drawing is with figuring out if the proportions are right or not. So for this week.. I've only made 2 drawings so far ;;w;; adn I'm working on a 3rd one too This is the first one I did, it's traditional and one of the prompts I skippied in inktober. This is day 25: tempting. And I really had to make those lips plump and tempting because who could resist kisseable lips? Also, it's apparently hard to draw a bit of NSFW stuff in the lab, even when my lab elders approve of me drawing there. IDK they might think of me differently yeeeetttt that still doesn't stop me from drawing anything NSFW XD soo I guess they'll have to deal with this for a very long time. here's the progression UwU and I made use of the colored pens the lab elders got for me. They said it's to make sure I behave when we don't have samples because I ask a little bit too much and they seemed to have figured out that I stop asking when I have something I want or need to draw. Materials: rainbow pen UwU Duration: 2 hours because sometimes the pens clog up and I have to make them ink again The lab elders also allowed me to bring my tablet to work in case I wanted to do digital art too and I appreciated them for that small gesture UwU I have been working on digi again since it's already November plus I finally found a compatible stylus with my tablet ;;w;; blending on digital has finally improved and I am happy! This is the end result of my first trial run with the stylus. It held out strong and it helped me blend this nice and smoothly UwU It's also from the splinterlands fan art weekly contest OwO she's the spirit of the forest adn I have been planning to draw her for a while now. It didn't come out as realistic as I'd hope she would be, but it's a good start since that digital art break was really long and I really thought I forgot how to blend colors digitally XD Here is the art progression UwU I'm happy my progress this time ran smoothly UwU Software used: Medibang paint Duration: 4 hours. 4 Long hours but it was definitely worth it UwU This is the one I'm working on now: I still have lots to do on this one, actually. I've only managed to do the body. I still have to do... the rest of her... But yeah! this is for the artpark revival campaign UwU since I'm comfortable with the artpark gang, i stopped caring if it was a bit nsfw because i seem to have established that kind of bond with them XD plus I'm back to red XD and I really missed this. hopefully soon, I can post more art than this, but I'm sick so this is all I can share for now

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@Hanzell 15 November 2022

Instrumental analysis of Sulfur Hi hiiii~ The last time I wrote for STEMGeeks, I talked about sulfur, and I still plan to talk about it since sulfur has a wider method variety than most elements do in the periodic table. So as I've mentioned before, sulfur has an abundance of 11% both on earth and in space, and as abundant as it is, it's also one of the most widely used material and can cross all types of industries. From healthcare, life science, pharmaceutics, cosmetics, testing, agriculture... everything! If you were to ask why, it's simply because Sulfur compounds are among the more stable nonmetals in the periodic table next to phosphorus. The non-metal reactivity series goes something like this: (most reactive) Flourine -> Chlorine -> Oxygen -> Bromine -> Iodine -> Sulfur -> Phosphorus (least reactive) This is attributed by their electronegativity, the types of bonds they form with themselves, and with other metals, then also the bond strength they can possess with that much electronegative charge, whether as a diatomic atom or as a molecule. This ingenious stability also explains why it's so adaptable, but that's a different series of nerd rambles XD I was trying to write about how we tested them in the lab!!!! So testing XD For testing Sulfur, there's actually so many ways to go about it. Just as there are as many ways for people to process it. For today's writing, I would like to start off with traditional chemistry methods. The ones that don't use any instruments of sorts since this was how they determined sulfur in the olden days. Though these methods are still adapted today, but they're only advised if the sulfur content is expected to be high. This is one limit to classical chhemistry, and it's the fact that it can't measure on a smaller scale. Of course there are instruments now that are so sensitive they can reach the femto scale, but that's for the next blog. So first up you have titration! I know people know about titration, and the fact that there are sooooo many different types of titrations as there are chemicals. Fortunately, sulfur belongs to the more simpler and primitive kind, which is the **strong acid-strong base titration.** A neutralization process, so to speak. I'm not sure if I'll provide a much longer explanation of this eventually, but essentially, what you titrate here is sulfur solutions. Either those already in liquid form or the ultra pure kind of substances that readily dissolve when you dilute with water (since sulfur dilutes in water quite easily). So fro this kind of titration, you have sulfuric acid as your sample, then you have your sodium hydroxide as your titrant. And I know you see that pink solution meme in other science communities all the time. That;s basically what the end point for this titration is. source: https://i.redd.it/d7ew5xtohte61 On an industrial scale though, this applies to analytical pharmacology. Because I took this subject as a technical elective and they titrated so many sulfa-drugs that it was insane. And I have no idea which is crazier, the fact that there's this many sulfa drugs or the fact that we manually had to grind blankets and blankets of drugs at a time. IDK but those drugs were bought by us so it was sooooo heavy on the wallet ;;w;; the only good thing I got from that was the pharmacology unit then acknowledgement of being a good analyst because I could get a 97-100% recovery rate of all the analysis I did in that class ;;w;; Food-wise, I know sulfur is also titrated in food through **iodometric titration.** source: http://www2.csudh.edu/oliver/demos/hh-cubr/hh-cubr.htm The sulfur analysis I know that makes use of this method (and ones I've actually tried) would be for the determination of sulfide in preserved fruits, juices and a few wines adn liquor. I haven't really read up on what other industrial applications it has, but these are my personal experiences as someone that went lab hoping at some point in my career. There's also gravimetric sulfur determination. This one... this one was the biggest pain in the ass analysis I have ever experienced next to iron titration. I swear, aside from the heat exposure you constantly have to experience, it's so tedious to constant weight everything!!! So when you do this kind of analysis, the critical points would be your crucible, the kind of filter paper you use, your digestion process, the crystalization process then your temperatures. I cannot stress enough how delicate this analysis is because there are so many interferences that could mess up your analysis. Since your only data here would be just weights, you really have to make sure the weight of the crucibles you'll be using are at a weight, because that small difference is the literally life and death of the analysis. And the fact that you can end up spending an entire day just on constant weighing. Although on an industrial scale, they just account for the initial weight of the crucible, but it's still a pain because of how time consuming it is just to assure that your crucible weight is true. I really hated this part. So here's one example of a crucible you can use for this analysis. This one is just a regular ceramic crucible, but on an industrial scale, we use a gooche crucible or a glass-sintered crucible because it already has a porous bottom that makes filtering easier Next to consider is the digestion process and the crystalization/nucleation process. So you digest your sample so that your solution becomes acidic. Your crysatals will not form if it's not acidic. Also, this step will melt off most of the stuff you don't want as an interference to your analysis, as well as to leach out the sulfur. If you fail at this step too then expect an extremely high weight and an extremely positive error. This is why sometimes, after digestion you'll have to filter the soultion a couple of times just to get a good result. I reacll that whenever I handled organic fertilizers, I always had to do 2 filtration set ups because the dang organic matter really gets in the way. When you're sure that the digested solution you have has cleared up, then you can start nucleation by adding Barium Chloride. This is the only crystalization agent I've ever come across, but I know some industries use a different salt that can form a sulfate. I believe they still use this because the crystalization process for barium sulfate is much faster compared to other metals salts The reaction proceeds like this: BaCl2 + SO4^(-2) ---> BaSO4 this image makes a comeback XD but this is the only pic I apparently have of the end result of this analysis Usually you wait for a day... or a week before you can see a good amount of crystals in your solution. The amount of waiting time this analysis has is really really annoying, I swear! But once you've filtered off the crystals, dried the crystals in the crucible of your choice, the computation is pretty much basic. So industrial applications. First and foremost, this can still apply to pharma, yes. But But then, you can see this in metal purification, in the fertilizer production industry, in environmental samples, in water samples, especially if those are volcanic ores, I think water near volcanic openings undergo titration because water collection and air sample collection both arrive in the lab as liquid. Food rarely has gravimetric sulfur analysis since sulfur consumption does cause chronic illnesses. This is apparently as far as my brain can go XD on my next blog, I really hope I can tackle intrumental analysis and combustion chemistry since a lot of labs I've been to have been using combustion chemistry for sulfur determination too. Disclaimer: All information written here are based on my laboratory experiences and on readings from "Quantitative Chemical Analysis by Daniel Harris" This man saved my booty back in my undergrad years and I will forever worship his book ;;w;;

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@Hanzell 13 November 2022

Medusa Hi Hiiiii look who's back XD I lack the consistency to be everywhere anymore ;;n;; Why is it so hard to keep up being active online. Oh well ;;-;; Over the weekends, I initially planned to do a bunch of stuff like cleaning, drafting, doing a bunch of food prep for the week. It was a way to catch up on my crypto activity too, apparently fate had other plans XD I was originally working on 2 pieces. One was this medusa piece then the other was for the 3emoji challenge in art park. I started with the medusa piece, but knowing me... once I start something... I do tend to finish it, especially if the progression goes smoothly. So for this weekend, I present to you my take on medusa Materials: Black liquid ink, rainbow pen, green and orange markers Duration: 3.5 hours Progression shots: Medusa is a character of greek mythology. A mythical creature in a sense since she was turned to a gorgon with a head of snakes. While exploring the lore though, I found a lot of alterations done on her story. In some works, she was a priestess of the Goddess Athena. And at some point Poseidon tried to pursue her but was rejected in order to protect her chastity as a priestess. And in turn, he raped medusa in the temple of Athena. Out of the need to protect Medusa from any more attacks, she then turned her into a gorgon that she's most remembered for. While in other literature, medusa was raped as a way to get back at athena for besting him in a competition of the gods. So same thing, it was an act of protection in this context. There were also other literary pieces that tell of how Athena was actually jealous of Medusa's lustrous locks and that she was just waiting for any form of oppurtunity to rid medusa of her beautiful hair. In the end, they all kind of with medusa turning into a Gorgon. All for reasons that aren't really justifiable. It seems that in all those lores, Medusa was portrayed as the victim because she is. And I feel bad for her in all of this. But in my attempt to draw her, I tried to capture that icy-cold gaze that could turn anyone to stone. It is the essence of her character after all. And despite the head of snakes, I still think she retained her beauty. Anyways, the reason why I went with medusa this week was because I started dating someone seriously again ^w^ and we were talking about mythology for a while. And she was one of our topics. Though we lingered a little longer with the story of Hades and Persephone because I find it beautiful. And there's so many aspects to their romance that just made it all the more beautiful. And it was sort of like us so idk, we just lingered on the idea for a while before we went on about other characters. Also because a lot of splinterland cards were also based on greek mythological characters so this is for that too. I hope I can get my new stylus soon so I can do digital again. I want to make a small render of hades and persephone and show him That all from me today UwU I'm gonna continue my sulfur series one of these days UwU

@Hanzell 10 November 2022

Sulfur is everywhere Inktober is done and chemist Hanzell is making a comeback~~!!! I was supposed to do my comeback on the first but my sleepiness had other plans. Plus, I've been busy making plans with someone on hive UwU Alright, so since I already wrote about ore types, processing and a few other terms before, I thought now would be a good time to talk about some common metals/elements that usually come through the lab doors. So I talked about sulphides and sulphates before, but what about thiosulfates and the native sulphur ore itself? Yes! *I’ll be talking about sulphur/sulfur* because it is one of the most common ore types we get in our lab. It’s also one of the most used ions in the lab too. So the element ***sulfur*** It has an *atomic number of 16 with an atomic weight of 32.01 g/mol.* It has the most number of allotropes (element with different forms/phases. Think carbon powder, graphite, diamond. All carbon, just different atomic arrangements. Same logic with sulfur) yet its most stable allotrope is the *orthorhombic sulphur (S8).* here's the crystal structure of the orthorhombic sulfur. This is just a 3D model I got from here: https://www.webelements.com/sulfur/crystal_structure.html It’s a poor conductor of anything, but it’s one of the most reactive ions out there. It can combine with almost any element on the periodic table except for gold, platinum, and inert gases since these aren’t reactive to begin with. For occurance. **It is the 10th most abundant element in the universe** because it’s not only found on land/earth, but in the oceans, in the lithosphere and meteorites too. But on a matter of where you’re most likely to find sulfur, I suggest near volcanoes. It can occur in **its native form (this you can find in sedimentary rocks), which is a pale yellow, soft solid/crystal** another name for native sulfur is also brimstone and I think it's really pretty if it weren't so hazardous XD This is what they use to make sulfa-drugs and those sulfur beauty products like sulfur soap source: https://www.geologysuperstore.com/product/brimstone-elemental-sulphur/ Or it can occur mixed in with other metals, and that’s what I’ve been talking about for a while now. I think, ever since I’ve started working in labs, sulfur has always been an analyte we needed to quantify. Like when I tested coal, we had a sulfur analyzer because combusted coal produces sulfur gasses that in turn, contribute to acid rain and eutrophication, so we had to see if the coal sample we received would be good for energy production. Meanwhile, when you look at food, it’s seen as a preservative, namely as a sulphite (SO2) which is a gas blown into dried fruit packages like prunes, raisins, etc.. It’s to ensure that moulds won’t grow on fruits since sulphites do act as an antimicrobial agent here. As for when I handled fertilizers, sulfur is seen as a nutrient in this case. Going back to the eutrophication effect it has, sulfur can promote algal growth as well as plant growth. That’s why back when I handled fertilizers, we did gravimetric sulfur analysis because of the sulfur percentage in just 1 gram sample most of the time. this is probably the last batch of sulfur I digested in my previous company and it was also the dirtiest because I think it was too high in phosphorus so it came out colored like that. Now that I’m back in the minerals industry, sulfur is back to being a contaminant XD but now, checking for sulfur is kind of like a preliminary check we do to the oores, kind of like when we run all the samples through a four acid digestion as a preliminary check. In the case of the sulfur check though, it’s sort of the same thing with coal. Sulfur gas does form when you process ores through roasting or calcination. roasting and calcination from the geochemsitry pdf my supervisor gave me. Sorry, I'm so lazy to look for the actual source ;;w;; Then here is the occurance of sulfur in ores: it's quite a long list, and that's not even all of it. Although we've sampled and tested quite a number on that list, but there's still quite a bit of ores left for me to explore. There’s also the fact that if the sulfur content is high, and if it happens to be a sulfur ore of high purity then it can be used for plenty of other things, specifically in the prooduction of sulfuric acid and in the pharmaceutical side of things since native sulfur is considered one of the oldest fungicides, pesticides, and antimicrobial agent. Sources: https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-12-369397-7/00583-5 https://geology.com/minerals/sulfur.shtml https://www.mindat.org/min-3826.html I wanted to dive into how sulfur ores are processed and the analyzer we have for it eventually. When I can get an idea of how I'll be explaining combustion chemistry properly.

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@Hanzell 5 November 2022

Spooky November Hello hello~! It is November and I haven't practiced my digital art yet ;;w;; I did make attempts, but Traditional art really has a strong hold on me this time, especially after all that work with inktober. So now, even my most recent artworks are still on a traditional medium ;;w;; I mean, I'm not really complaining, but I do want to get some form of art versatility back. So since November started, I haven't really done much. I caught up on days I missed on inktober then I started on a new drawing fitting for Spooky November. This is day 29 of inktober which is **uh-oh** And when you think about it, the first thing you'll think about when you see a zombie hand is **"Uh-oh, this is not gonna end well"** because you might not survive it XD Though that's just one of my thoughts on uh-oh. Another idea I had was someone breaking something or forgetting something, but that seemed too abstract for me to draw. Here's the progression shots UwU Materials used: Rainbow pen, black ink, green marker that got wet Duration: 3 hours because I did this at work since I didn't really have much to do this week This is A Charon drawing I worked on today. And I kind of realized that this is the second time I've drawn Charon. The first one was when I made a drawing for someone's poem, because I relly liked it, then this one because I just felt like drawing it today XD And also because there was a Charon character iin the splinterlands cards and I thought it was a really cool card. What I didn't do right with this one was to focus on Charon. Though it still fit the perspective triangle, but idk, the focus seemed off with this one. Charon still seemed pretty far here to give it any visible features Here's the progression shots I took of it UwU Materials used: Liquid ink, fineliners, white pen, chalk for that misty texture XD Duration: 2 hours (Ink drying time not included, of course. Then here's a little throwback of the first Charon drawing I made before: The perspectives have definitely changed, and so did the style, but the style change is something I attribute to the change in medium. Like this one was made from charcoal. I didn't have that much art materials when I made this 2 years ago. I mean, I was still an undergrad when I made this and I think... my art style seemed to lack the little refinement I have now. Actually, I can't really tell if my art has improoved in the last 2 years that I had time to really focus on it. I do think inktober played a huge part in refining my traditional art, but idk about my digital. Okay, that's all from me for tonight. I'm excited to write about the instrument training I had at work for thursday and friday! I think by december, I'll be operating one of the Atomic Absorption spectrometers in the lab, and I think that is such an honor because my previous workplaces wouldn't allow me to handle equipment since there was a separate department for it.

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@Hanzell 31 October 2022

Inktober closing? Maybe not! It is the *31st of October* upon writing this. I have missed so many days and based on my count..... I only got to finish drawing 14 prompts out of 31 ;;w;; Just 14!!!!! and this kind of bums me out because clearly, my preparation for inktober was not enough. Or I simply just got too busy this month to even allot a bit more energy to this. Especially during the middle of the month when I started working, and towards the end of this month because a whooping 350+ samples came busting through the lab doors like a wreking ball, on top of another 200+ samples that also came in later that week. So I somehow survived processing 550+ samples, each with a processing time of like 3-4 hours, depending on if I can shortcut some digestions. Enough of the lab talk though. I'm putting a close to the last few prompts I managed before the month ends UwU So for a recap: Inktober start! Inktober updates It's getting there! https://read.cash/@Hanzell/inktober-start-90f904f8 https://read.cash/@Hanzell/inktober-updates-263212db https://read.cash/@Hanzell/its-getting-there-e064982f Those are all the prompts I've accomplished so far. I'm not proud of some of them, But I am definitelly proud of the amout of improvement I have for this month UwU I feel like all those art critique I've been getting from various discord server people have really helped me with polishing my style nd with fixing the composition of my art. Without further ado, here is my work! Day 16: Fowl I made a punk Guinea fowl for this one OwO and I reaalllyyy think it came out so good! My current art critique told me so too and I was happy because it's so hard to please him UwU plus the amount of technique I poured into this bird was just crazy because so much penning and inking ;;w;; but I have no regrets. It was a good 3 hours well spent Materials used: red pen, white pen, black pen, black ink UwU Duartion: 3 hours Progression: Day 22: Heist I actually did this in a hurry. I was thinking that I wanted to relax and do something that didn't require that much technique. But in the end, it came out as one of the good ones I've made this month. So I kind of fortified the fact that I work well with liquid ink and pens ;;w;; Also, tis was the last drawing I got to make before m hell week came around and I had to do all those samples ;;n;; Materials used: Black liquid ink, black pen, white ink, white charcoal stick Duration: 2 hours Progression: I actually forgot to take enough shots of this one because I just wanted to draw something ;;-;; So I do not have enough progression shots for it Day 31: Farm Not bad as a closing piece for inktober, right? Abandoned farm house in the middle of nowhere. Possibly a zombie hideout place because it looks so desolate of life. I personaly count this as one of the few environment drawings I've done that I actually like UwU I like it because the house doesn't look so disproportionate and the shading was pretty on point with this one UwU Materials used: Black ink, fineliner pens, white charcoal stick Duration: 2 hours Progression: So that's it from me today! Thank you for stopping by UwU and thank you for the time. Until next time~~!

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@Hanzell 22 October 2022

I've been skipping days!!! It's already the 22nd of October. I now admit to skipping more inktober days than I had hoped for XD I thought maybe a day or two would be okay but now... I'm questioning whether I can keep up with the prompts XD Also, I can feel my wokload already ;;-;; Just yesterday, I had to digest 300+ then the other days I had to weigh 200+ samples and extract gold from 100+ samples, so my body is already taking a toll on the workload. Though it isn't that different from my previous workload. I still prefer it here because the methods are simpler and everything goes to the machine. Like if you digest in the morning, by afternoon, you just have to load everything in the machine and let it do the rest of the work. there's plenty of time to rest here and I appreciate that in my new lab. I just hate that my supervisor is tripping with me and is making me carry the pulverising basin, And that thing weighs around 25 kgs. He says I need more muscle on me, which is why he's making me do it. Anyways, back to inktober. Currently, these articles show my progression with the 31 prompts : Inktober start! Inktober updates It's getting there https://read.cash/@Hanzell/inktober-start-90f904f8 https://read.cash/@Hanzell/inktober-updates-263212db https://read.cash/@Hanzell/its-getting-there-e064982f And I can definitely say that there's improvement in my traditional and that makes me proud UwU I've also been getting a few art lessons from a friend I met in hive, and I appreciate all the feedback he's been giving me recntly. I really think it's why my art is getting more polished. Here's what I've worked on so far UwU Day 11: Eagle I really like this one, aside from my dragon because the eyes look so fierceeee!!!! though senpai said the focal point doesn't follow the golden ratio here, and that it would have looked better if I moved it a little more to the left so that the right wing could be seen more and so that the empty space on the left side wouldn't look so empty, but still, this looks good OwO Also, I ended up sacrificing a white pen here because my white pens stopped working and I wanted to finish this asap. No regrets though Materials used: Black and white ink Duration: 2 hours Progression: Day 12: Forget If I'm being honest, I don't like this drawing that much because apparently, I forgot how to draw an orb XD so I think I should have used something like a compass here just to mmake the orb more... orb-like. This is neville longbottom's remembrall, it glos red when you forgot something ans that was what I was going for XD Materials: red ink, white acrylic paint, markers Duration: 2 hours Day 14: Empty So I went back to my old ink painting habits with this one. Because you know how how fog, smoke and dust give off that desolate feeling, so I went with that UwU Sadly, my perspective skills have greatly declined because I don't even bother practicing it XD so now it looks like shit XD but at least the inking looks pretty good. Materials used: Black and white ink Duration: 2 hours Progression shot the feeling that, even with ink, i still get dirty hands after XD That usually only happens when I work with charcoal, but oh well Bonus drawing I tried to go back to digital for a bit to see if my hands can still function on a digital setup XD I swear, it's harder to transition from traditional to digital and vice versa XD but it's doable. I just need a day or two to readjust my eyes and hands to a screen. I know I can do better, but this is what my hands can work with on a deadline and on an impulsive medium shift. still, it looks pretty good. I call it: The queen and her vision since it's a combination promt again of: **Machine, queen, vision, dream** Though it looks so off. I'll be doing traditional again for this week's hive ph entry since I'm not so willing to make myself suffer that much again XD Software: medibang paint Duration: 4 hours Progression: This is all from me for a while UwU Imma try to art more until I actually do all 31 prompts

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@Hanzell 17 October 2022

Waterfall chasing for a day I am back! And I have tons of pictures! So yeah, yesterday, I went on a trip with my cousisn and sisters somewhere near the metro. It would have been more fun to go further, sadly we adults have work and the students have classes the next day so we had to make do with the limited time we had last sunday. By 5am in the morning, we were all busy getting ready for the trip because our cousins would be picking us up adn they'd be driving us to the falls UwU we basically had to split the gas for it, but I think it was pretty worth it We left the house at 6am, got there by 8am. It wasn't so bad for a 2.5 hour drive there, considering that my cousins are pro navigators ;;w;; they know so many shortcuts! Anyways, before we even got to the campsite, we had to cross this wooden bridge These were taken by my youngest sister while we explored the river and while I was tryig to see how far the river went. I was actually following the trail then I ended up following the river to the falls that way XD My sisters didn't even bother stopping me since they know I have a habit of getting lost but eventually coming back when I get hungry XD This was the expanse of the river trail I followed UwU and the people just kept coming and coming UmU In the end, we had to ask around if Dinarak falls was always that crowded and if there were other falls nearby. One of them suggested we try out batlag falls since it was just a short hike from where we were. Sad part was that we had to pack up the tent we struggled to set up since the small hike seemed more exciting than having to stay in a crowded place like that. on the way up, I got excited seeing this plant because I know this as a shampoo plant. When you squeeze it, thick liquid comes out and some tropical countries have used this as shampoo. I dared my cousins to use it and they did, they actually liked it too and I think they planned on planting this in ther house one of these days. That's batlag falls and the last picture is the trail we followed going up there UwU I hate the slippery path but it was so worth it!!!! I think we ended up swimming there for hours. The water was the kind of cold that wasn't so harsh, it was just really refreshing and we kept coming back in the water even after eating UwU It was just that fun then idk, the whole afternoon was just spent going back and forth the tent and the falls since there wasn't really much to do aside from swimming, eating and talking XD By 3pm though, we just randomly started craving coffee so when we all agreed that we wanted coffee, we began packing up, getting changed then the next thing you know, we were on the road again looking for the cafe in the sky XD It was definitely a cozy place and and the view was to die for ;;w;; We ended up staying there til sunset. Sad we couldn't stay longer since we're all working plus we have students with us too That was basically how I spent my weekends UwU not much screen time, just cool people and beautiful places This is everything I can muster with my energy XD I still have work tomorrow and I still need to attempt to catch up to inktober ;;-;; goodnight lovely people

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@Hanzell 15 October 2022

Back to a mineral lab and geochemistry Hey Hey~~ I am back to the lab again! And back to trying to be active ^w^ So just a little update, I am officially back in a testing lab! And I am happily working with ores and lab grandpas and grandmas. I actually have no issues here anymore because I thinkI'm guided really well on procedures and lab protocals. And since they're old people, they speak so calmly and I like that. I don't feel the rush or pressure despite the fact that we handle much more samples than my previous workplaces. It appears that geochemistry really is the field that I belong to. There's also a geochemistry graduate here (her master's study and she told me that the company sponsors master's degrees so I should just inform the HR adter regularization so they can enroll me if I ever want. Meaning free fieldwork and lab access for the master's thesis UwU It's a really good place on top of the fact that it's just 30 minutes away from my place. I have no regrets in coming here and I've already been here for almost 2 weeks, and I'm sure I'll be here longer. Going back to ore talk, the last time I wrote about ores, I wrote about classifications. So this time, it’s finally time to discuss metal extraction! It’s honestly not as exciting as it looks, because if we’re basing on my experience, you either come out extremely dusty or extremely sweaty. It depends on which end of the process you get assigned to, or if you have to oversee the entire process, you’ll get to experience being dusty and sweaty on the same day XD First and foremost when you get an ore sample, you have to **crush/grind it.** It has to be in uniform size as much as possible. In most mining companies, **they have an analytical mill, a few splitting riffles, pulverizers and a mechanical sieve** ready for this. I’m not exactly sure what sieve size they use, but the one we use in a testing lab is at a 80-40 micron mesh. That’s really fine and it can get dusty whenever you sieve. `younger me using an analytical mill for the first time. That thing scared me, I swear ;;-;; such a violent machine that just keeps eating rocks. See the internal panic in my eyes XD` **Next thing is to concentrate it**. it’s either you **use a hydraulic hose** to wash dirt away (this is mostly applicable for high grade and inert ores, the types where you see chunks of metals as soon as you dust off a bit of dust), you **use a magnet**, **froth floatation**, or you **treat it with chemicals** (applicable for refractory ores). Whatever works to get rid of rocks, organic matter or any other interference (we call this **gangue**) from the metals, actually.  Then the next step? well, that would depend on the reactivity series again. The reactivity series is what I call the holy scriptures of chemistry and I swear, if you do my kind of work, it would be great to know it by heart. **Metals with high reactivity,** the ones in the p block of the periodic table, are often the easiest to treat and extract from since they easily lose an electron. In these cases, they often undergo Electrolytic reduction. Here, you’ll have to use a bit of electricity and electrochemistry knowledge. It looks like a lot to study, it is. but the end result is very pure metals and that's often a very sought out commodity. Gases could also be a very nice commodity that can be acquired here, but our focus is metals right now.  `sorry for my handwriting again, I'm a bit lazy to type this on MS word, I swear. Anyways, this is the gist of what happens in electrochemistry. You have your metal on the cathode side then gases or halides on the anode side. This method is also used for gold plating and for any metal coating practice, actually but I'll save that for a different discussion.` **Metals with medium reactivity, calcination and roasting works**. Both processes produce an oxide end product, yet the process differs just slightly. For **Calcination the process involves heating concentrated ores in a place with limited air**. Usually they use a muffled, reverberatory or multiple hearth furnace for this since you can control the air flow rate. The point of limiting the air is to dehydrate the ores. To remove moisture and organic matter without actually melting the metals in the ore. This is a good method when you have hydrous ores or if you have carbonates **my example of common metals that gets reduced through calcination** **Roasting is the opposite of calcination. When it comes to roasting, you have an unlimited supply of oxygen/free air.** It’s also a way to remove organic matter from the ores. This is actually the most common extraction routes for your sulphides `my example of metals that are normally roasted to become oxides` **Smelting is also a way to process metals with medium reactivity** and the end product is an oxide too. This process is pretty different though in a sense that it uses reducing agents. Normally carbon or carbon monoxide would suffice and this usually occurs in chain reactions. For the process, oxide ores are heated with a carbon source. This could be petroleum coke or charcoal and the reaction would be as follows: **Metals with low reactivity, in other words, the noble metals like gold, silver, platinum and palladium**. The only way to extract these metals would be to **reduce them with precipitating agents**. In most cases, it’s sodium cyanide. Really nasty stuff, I tell you. Luckily, the highly toxic form of cyanide hasn’t been used since the early 1900s (hopefully). In recent journals and newsletters I’m subscribed to though, I see that they’ve been using thiosulfate, thiourea, halide and thiocyanite as cyanide substitutes. In some cases, they’ve been using biogenic cyanide (like pyocyanite) as a leaching agent since it doesn’t take that much cyanide to actually leach out noble metals. Around 100 to 500 ppm suffices to extract from a 1kg bulk sample. Hopefully these newsletters eventually gain applications because it would be nice to see the mining sector take more environmental responsibility (aside from their rehabilitation budget during and after mining operations). this is all I can elaborate for today XD On a side note~ I love my new work uniforms and my room in the lab! (yes, I get my own room there too ^w^ It's in case of another pandemic and we need to quarantine or go into another lockdown again Sources: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0892687521005653 https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Inorganic_Chemistry/Supplemental_Modules_and_Websites_(Inorganic_Chemistry)/Descriptive_Chemistry/Elements_Organized_by_Block/3_d-Block_Elements/1b_Properties_of_Transition_Metals/Metallurgy/An_Introduction_to_the_Chemistry_of_Metal_Extraction https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/ore

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@Hanzell 10 October 2022

It's getting there It is now *October 10* on my side of the world. First official day of work was... okay XD A little overwhelming during the laboratory orientation, but what can I do, information overload is part of working life. I was also given my locker and my sleeping quarters assignment (I have my own room here in the lab, but I think I'll use it for emergency cases only). Despite the information overload, I still managed to get a few drawings done todayyyy!!! I finished 2, to be exact UwU So if you've been following my inktober journey, I've managed to get quite far with the prompts already OwO If you haven't seen the previous pieces I've made, you can check these links out: Inktober Start! And Inktober updates~ https://read.cash/@Hanzell/inktober-start-90f904f8 https://read.cash/@Hanzell/inktober-updates-263212db I know, my hyperfixation for the event is pretty strong, but what can I say, I really want to finish it this year! And I will most likely keep posting about it until I finish all 31 days XD After that, I'm going back to my science articles because I have a few goals on hive that I still want to accomplish before this year ends UmU Without further ado, here are the newest addition to my inktober journey Day 7: Trip Trip can mean a lot of things. Mostly, it pertains to travels. But is it just the physical that gets to travel? The spiritual and psychological can too, and that's why I drew mushrooms for this prompt. I was aiming to portray a psychedelic trip. I actually want to experience that kind of trip, but I think I'll try this out when I stop working in a lab XD for now, I'll abstain from any tempations since I want to last long in my current job. My life finally feels exciting again here. I like my color choices in this drawing UwU but I actually based it on the ink cap mushroom XD Materials used: blue and black liquid ink. White, blue, pink ballpens. I'm also sad I used up my 2nd white pen this month on this piece ;;-;; Duration: 1.5 hours Progression: Day 8: Match Although it looks okay... I am not entirely satisfied with this piece. The focus was supposed to be on the match stick he was holding, but my focus fell on the hand XD and to top it off, I couldn't even render the hand well enough! like that lower part. The shading on it is sooooo offf but I worked on this during lab orientation, so I can't really complain since I was focusing on 2 things at once again XD Very bad of me to, but what can I do. it was either I fall asleep on my supervisor, or I keep myself awake by doing this. To be fair, I mostly worked on this during my lunch break and on my morning and afternoon breaak, so I was still good today!!!! Materials used: red, yellow, black liquid ink. white, yellow, orange, black ball pen. My brown pen ran out halfway ;;n;; so now I need to buy a new one Duration: around 3-4 hours because I mostly just did this to wake myself up or to get my eyes off the computer screen for a while Progression: Day 9: Nest This is by far, my favourite drawing!!!! Look at the small mama dragon protecting her egg! I made a dragon nest for this one because I love dragons! I mean, who doesn;t love dragons they're so cool OwO and they look like they can be pets (my reference for this is how to train your dragon, okay- not the house of dragons. I have no energy to do that much detailing). Still, I made this one today too, while waiting for my sister to finish cooking. My new lab is just 3 minutes away from my house so I was alreadu home by 5:40 and since my sister was already cooking, I had time to do the marker layer, then after dinner, I worked on the pen layer to give it more life and detail UwU Materials used: markers, white, green, black ballpens Duration: 2.5 hours Progression: Bonus drawing: This one is actually for an art contest in hiveph. I decided to join because why not, they allowed combination prompts unlike inktober, and I hhonestly just wanted to try using markers more These are the prompt words they used for the event and those that I've crossed out are the prompt words I used for this drawing. So those are: **Villain, bird, fish, sailor** Hopefully I don't need to elaborate more. I'm still trying to figure out how I'll manage to draw the prompts for this week. Though I already have sketches ready, IDK I have work now and I'm just praying that my god tier time management skills are still intact ;;w;; Materials used: markers, white and black ball pen. Duration: 2.5 hours Progression: This is definitely all from me today ;;w;; I am trying to update as much as I can on inktober, okay ;;w;; so I hope you guys notice my drawings

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@Hanzell 7 October 2022

Inktober updates~ Hey ho~~ I had a bit of a life crisis because I started going to the new lab I'll be working in, and as of the time I'm writing this, I am now a hired chemist again OwO so that means less drawing time again ;;w;; Hopefully that won't be the case yet because I still need to observe and read a lot of laboratory manuals... and maybe review my geochemistry. I have to do those before I think I can be ready for laboratory testing again UwU Back to Inktober! *Today is October 7 on my side of the world~* I missed a day and I'm a little late, but I'm still pushing to do this event! all the days... I'll potentially miss, well... I'll just draw them by the end of this month UwU what's important now, is that I work on as many prompts as I can for the time being while I'm not that busy yet. Without further ado, here is what I've worked on so far! Day 3: Bat My photography skills are... well... I can just say that it's hard to take pictures of stuff when the ink I use reflects light. I made a sort Morticia Adams look because I love the Adams' Family! Also it came out with a bit of a burlesque appeal because i based the model on pretty little burlesque ladies getting dressed up for halloween UwU I am still so iffy on the legs part because of proportions, but this is what happens when I do the inking when I'm tired af. That's a lesson learned! But I'm still gonna do it again XD Materials used: Black and white ink Duration: 2 hours **Here's the progression:** Day 4: Scallop **- skipped** Day 5: Flame: I'm actually proud of this one because I did this so fast! and this is also my smoothest drawing process so far because I really didn't need to worry about anatomy and stuff, just the part where they should blend or glow. I can't get over the candle part because it looks exactly like the candle I lit last night just to draw that XD I know, my satisfaction is weird, but it's so pretty! **Here's the progression:** My mistake here was that I did not take a picture of it while it was just ink. But oh well, It still came out amazing in the end! Materials used: Black, yellow, red liquid ink. white, yellow, red, orange, brown, black ballpen Duration: 2 hours Day 6: Bouquet This is the prompt I worked on today! I'm also proud of this one even if it made my hands hurt so much ;;w;; I don't think I want to draw a flower this colored again ;;w;; unless I use paint or something. I really can't with doing this entire piece in pen. It makes me question why I didn't just use liquid ink and just painted it then penned it in later. That would have made things faster... minus the drying time. But oh well, what's done is done and I am done with this so I'm happy UwU My hands still hurt so much after finishing it though. and it makes me question why I'm still doing inktober, but I remind myself that I'm no quitter so I have to finish this month. Materials used: red, yellow, blue liquid ink. rainbow pen (because I used all the colors on it UwU ) Duration: 4 hours-ish because I was drawing this while listening to my work orientation **Here is my progression:** My sisters said it looks so creepy!!!!! But I think it looks cool UwU this is all from me today! I still have a lot of reading and drawing to do ;;w;; so pray for my soul

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@Hanzell 2 October 2022

Inktober start! Hello lovely people~~ It is *October 2, 2022, the second day of inktober and the second day of October on my side of the world!* I am definitely late in opening up inktober here but I did start drawing them earlier! I couldn't stick to the content Idea I had lined up since I had a few setbacks and thus why I decided to focus more on the drawing part than the actual writing part XD I really hoped that I could have stuck to the ideas. Perhaps I'll save them for November and in the succeeding months. Anywho, I came back to present my inktober progress on the prompts! Inktober day 1: Gargoyle This prompt is one I particularly like. I love gargoyles! I think of them as guardians since they're known to ward off evil from the buildings and structures they're placed on. Aside from that, they function as a gutter/drainage system, thus why you'd commonly see heads with open mouths on some really old buildings. I just really found these sculptures/creatures really cool and I was working on a few stories for this particular prompt, but I'm definitely saving those for another day. This is my take on the gargoyle prompt, and I'm really proud of this one because of the detailing I went through for this. I still think it's a little rough, but it still came out good UwU Ink was too strong, the highlighting could use a little work and I ended up elongating the neck a bit, but I tried to save it with shading XD I don't think it worked that much since I still find it very obvious. Then this is my progression with this gargoyle. I just compiled eveything in a collage so it doesn't look all that space consuming in an article, and also because I upload these collages I make when I put them up on social media XD Inktober day 2: Scurry This is the prompt for today! Scurry mean hurried running, or moving in a confused, agitated and fluttering manner. I definitely can't do dynamic poses just yet since that isn't on the list of things I want to learn yet. I will learn dynamic poses eventually, but not right now XD As a way to avoid dynamic poses though, I tried to look up slangs and other menaings for this. The best i could work with was the fact that a group of squirrels and chipmunks are also referred to as a scurry. A scurry of sqirrels/chipmunks, so to speak UwU So now, here's alvin and the chipmunks XD okno, this is just a scurry of squirrels I found on pinterest. Definitely a cute trio though! I still haven't gotten a feedback on this from the friend that's been helping me improve my art, but I can definitely say that the white ink was too strong on this one because I just used a jelly pen for this. And I don't really have much control on the ink output on it yet so yeah. Then there's my progression shot over the course of a few days. I do think I got delayed on this one because my orange pen ran out of ik and I had to schedule a day to go out and buy it. The delay was worth it though, but I think I won't finish inktober on time XD so wish me luck this year! I'll be working on day 3 and whatever progress I could make on day 4 for the rest of the day. I really wish my energy would cooperate with me, but with this heat, I'm getting so sleepy plus my crazy sleep schedule is really giving my brain a hard time. This is all from me for today~ Thank you for stopping by and for coming to read through my inktober attempts!

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@Hanzell 24 September 2022

My old style is coming back I think you guys know that I've been practicing drawing on my phone recently. I have mentioned that I finally found the brushes that work best for me too and it really makes me happy! And I've actually been rolling with the oil paint brush and airbrush for a while now. It makes me feel like my old drawing style is slowly coming back to me as you can see from the first image :") That's my most recent drawing that I've worked on since yesterday XD I'm pretty happy with it and I think it I'll try exploring more brushes for more effects. So far, I've added the sharp pen brush to the mix of brushes I use, as well as the blur brush to make some hair strands look more natural. At least to me. What I probably need to work on is the nose XD because it looks so wonky. Progression: I know some people from noise have been looking forward to the gif progression timelapses I would make of this, and so here it is XD I still find great satisfaction in watching these. I mean, it went from random blobs of color to this polished portrait! I'm just a bit disappointed that medibang does not show when I zoom in on a certain feature. I think it would make the progression more appreciated because the viewer would see the struggles I had while focusing on the small details. And I think that's the sad part, it's often the small details that get overlooked, yet they do add a really good impact on the final output. I'm thinking if I should give this character a background story because he seems like a main character in a story to me. Let's see if I can think of somethig tomorrow. Right now, I'm just happy because it looks like a delicate vintage painting

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@Hanzell 19 September 2022

It's all in the brush! Okay I'm back with another art themed blog because that's basically where all my energy goes to now aside from reading and cleaning. And yes, this is another splinterlands weekly art contest entry since the need to have a constant weekly challenge is becoming stronger. I think drawing and sketching is becoming a habit again and that makes me happy. Anyways, for this week, I chose the character Iza the fanged. This is the original concept art in the cards: Then here is my take on the character in portrait style: I actually wanted to do more of the torso since I liked the costume she wore, but I told myself that my focus would be on the face only. I needed to get in touch with my portrature skills again and drawing bodies just really distract me from faces since I tend to focus on body anatomy instead of the face. Anyways, I mostly went with the oil paint and airbrush brushes with this one since I recently found out that medibang had more brushes than the default ones they offered As you can see here. All this time, I really thought that whatever brushes that were in the app were the only brushes available for use then all the brush updates I get were exclusive for premium users. Turns out, I was wrong about that one and I was fortunate enough that a user from hive pointed it out to me. I've experimented with all the brushes I've downloaded so far but when it came to the suitability with my natural drawing style, Oil and airbrushes definitely were the best fit for me and I've been using that for my reccent drawings. This is the progression gifs of this drawing: SEE!!!! the progression and the skin blending looks really good with the recent brushes I'm using! Compareed to when I first started out on medibang a few months back, I think I made pretty substantial progress in understanding the app. Hopefully I can make enough art to be able to mint in the NFTShowroom in hive. That's my new NFT venture for the time being as well as an attempt to start on a few established NFT games. I also made a first version of this but with the watercolor brush I normally use. The result was.... well... not so good XD I don't think the watercolor brushes can keep up with the kind of blending I aim to achieve in any of my drawings. And I have spent so much time customizing the watercolor brush too. But since medibang lacks a dilution factor, I really couldn't work out the blending and clean up witj it that much as compared to when I used oil paint brushes. I mean, this watercolor attempt wasn't that bad, but a different brush really made it better, that's all I can say! So I should definitely keep a look out on more brushes because who knows which brush would level up my drawings more UwU For now, this is all I'll be updating with. Thank you for reading my blog!

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@Hanzell 17 September 2022

October is for arts! Hey ho~ we are halfway through September and you know what that means for me? It’s almost Artober! Artober is the month where artists take on art and drawing challenges and this goes on for the entirety of October. Among the most popular Artober events is Inktober. To give you a little background, Inktober is a worldwide event. It was established back in 2009 by Jake Parker as a means to improve his inking and to develop positive drawing habits. People have since then caught on and joined the yearly trend. Each year, 31 prompt words are released and each day, an artist makes 1 drawing in ink. 1 drawing for the 31 days of October.  Controversies with Inktober. Of course, with each art event, it would be impossible not to have a few controversies here and there. The biggest controversy was when the inktober creator decided to copyright inktober since it was him that first coined the word and event. There was also the issue of plagiarism between Parker and another ink artist. A lot of the artists present when the issue circulated have claims that Parker based inktober off of that artist’s work upon releasing his art book. A lot of things happened in 2020 and in the succeeding inktobers, artists have created alternatives for their own inktober prompt. So to speak, artists wanted to keep October as an artists’ month but have refused to support Parker and inktober.  In my case, I honestly just wanted to do inktober for the sake of finishing the challenge and for the enjoyment of trying to be creative! Creativity is highly important to me and so I won’t let any controversy stop me. Plus I’m too lazy to look for other prompts. I was waiting for the spooktober prompts to come out, but I haven’t seen it yet. I have found things similar to spooktober so I might go with that. I’m currently eyeing witchtober since it matches my need to draw spooks and creepy stuff!  I started my  attempt in October back in 2020 and halfway through, I couldn’t continue because I got busy with a few things.  I wanted to attempt again by 2021. Sadly, it was an impossible feat because my board exam was just days away and I could not afford to waste any time on things not related to chemistry.  This year, I really want to push through with an artober challenge! Since I’m not sure which prompt I’ll follow this year, I made preparations for the current inktober prompts. This might change though, if I find my spooktober challenge or if artpark hosts an artober challenge this year too like last year. Or who knows, maybe I’ll make my own prompt like what I did for my 60 day watercolor challenge.  Anyways, I made a few preparations for inktober just in case I push through with it. This is me at my current organizational skill XD And I am not happy with how I just need to sketch and ink in some sketches I already made (I've already sketched in 2 days. I did try to do a scribble sketch before cooking dinner. I had about 30 minutes while the chicken defrosted, luckily that was all I need to make good progress on this I have no intentions to detail this in further since I have other sketching plans tonight. Anyways, this is all from me for today! May I soon decide on what artober challenge to do this year!

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@Hanzell 15 September 2022

Ore types and more terms 2 weeks back, I wrote a little about how we handle ores in the lab, then a brief introduction on how ores are usually formed. You can check that out here: https://read.cash/@Hanzell/back-to-ores-31469493 So before I go off discussing ore types and all, I want to make this one big differentiation between minerals and ores since they’re both naturally occurring metal sources. First off, **minerals are defined**. They have names, a **structure and a definite composition**. You can easily tell minerals apart through basic geologic tests, meanwhile **ores are just rocks**. Just a **clump of dirt and sediments or geothermally fused matter together that contain one or multiple minerals.** In an industrial definition, ore is a rock that has metal concentrations that are high enough for extraction. *A mineral will always be an ore but not all ores will ever be minerals since minerals often have pure metals.* In metallurgy and back when I was still studying geology, this was always emphasized during fieldwork since us students always pick up useless rocks, or so our seniors and instructors always said. Anyways, on the discussion of ore types, I’ll just base on the metallurgical classification because it applies to both minerals and ores. If we’re going to classify minerals, we should know that there are oxides, sulphides, carbonates and sulphates. Although there are other types like silicates and chlorides, these four are the most commonly mined minerals and are of the greatest industrial priorities. In terms of reactivity, we can easily say that **chlorides and oxides** are the easiest to extract metals from since oxygen and most halogens are usually quite reactive. As for **sulphides and sulphates**, these are quite a problem when it comes to metal processing. Since these mineral types aren’t that reactive, they’re often converted to oxides or chlorides through the use of perchloric acid, or through the use of peroxides or any other powerful oxidizing agent. Even back in the lab, metals from sulphides usually get longer pretreatment and digestion methods. Then for **silicates**… Well, these are minerals that rarely ever need processing since they come in crystal forms so you can see why metal manufacturers almost never make use of this unless the business is a jewelry processing company. Although I have heard of some cases that a mineral crystal is still processed and converted to metal due to the extreme scarcity, but with the rise of metal recycling, this has been minimized since it’s a bit too energy and chemically consuming of a process. This is a simplified chart to look at when extracting metals from its ores. Source https://flexbooks.ck12.org/cbook/cbse-chemistry-class-10/section/3.7/primary/lesson/extraction-of-metals-from-their-ores/ Hopefully by this section of the blog, you can understand which forms are easier to extract from, but before moving onto the actual extraction process, one needs to understand the importance of the metals and non-metals reactivity. Back in my undergrad years, this chart was basically one that everybody needed to know by heart because then, we would know if the experiment we’re designing would yield anything. The chart goes like this: Forgive my handwriting XD I'm just basing on my notes here from my undergrad years To sum it up, the ones at the bottom of this chart cannot be easily replaced by the one on top of it. Nor can they easily bind with non metals. That’s why gold, platinum and silver can exist on their own. Other metals not mentioned here, **the ones on the lower part of the periodic table, can also exist in their elemental form**, and I think it’s pretty cool. **This form is called their native form** and in the rare cases that they do bind, they are referred then classified as refractory or non-refractory ores. So many terms, I know XD Such is the way of chemistry and mineralogy! Last few terms! So a **refractory ore**, to put simply, are **metals with extremely high melting points**. This is due to their crystalline structure and in the way their atoms are arranged. Although if we talk about metals and atoms, they usually tend to be compressed,but with these metals, there’s enough space in their structures to allow them to vibrate. So they can easily shake off some of the extra energy (heat) until their heat capacity is exceeded and their atomic structure breaks apart through melting. In an industrial setting, extracting refractory ores is never desirable because of the amount of energy and heating a company would use just to process this ore. the periodic table with refractory metals | source https://msestudent.com/refractory-metals-definition-examples-and-applications/ As for non-refractory ores, these are one that can still undergo chemical processing. Like in the case with gold where it can still be extracted through the addition of cyanide. This is still profitable because cyanide is much cheaper than high energy smelts and ovens. Which is why this is more favorable in the industry. As of late (around 2013 onwards, I do think the industry has shifted to looking for greener alternatives for metal extraction, especially in terms of refractory ores since bioreactors have come into industrial use, so are biologically produced metal leaching agents. Maybe next time, I’ll write about that too, but for now, this is all from me! Thank you for reading up to here! Next time, I’ll really write about metal extraction, I just got distracted by terms here. Sources: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/0-387-30720-6_80 https://www.vedantu.com/chemistry/extraction-of-metals-from-ores https://flexbooks.ck12.org/cbook/cbse-chemistry-class-10/section/3.7/primary/lesson/extraction-of-metals-from-their-ores/ Originally posted in hive UwU

@Hanzell 13 September 2022

Phone drawings Hey hey! I haven't written anything science related recently and that's been sad for me, but I'll be working on that for the next few days ^w^ since I'll be gathering all my brain cells for a few topics. Anyways, I'm not here today to focus on science. Today, I'm just here to show how proud I am for learning how to draw on phone 😊 You might think this is shallow but let me just say this, I've been struggling with digital art again since the new puppy ate my stylus and the spare one I kept. I'm not sure which of my sisters allowed this to happen while I was out one day, but I am certainly upset with it. For a while, I really stuck to traditional since it was the only way I could draw and de-stress myself whenever I went out. However, I learned how to calibrate the stylus on my phone in such a way that it would respond precisely to the drawing applications I use. So this was my first attempt. This was a photo I found on Pinterest, but she wasn't orange. I was simply in an orange mood when I made this plus... I'm also trying to welcome autumn, this the color choice. I honestly think it came out pretty though it doesn't look much like the reference, but still, it's a very pretty piece. Duration of this was less than 2 hours, but that was because I had a reference. The second attempt I made for drawing on phone was actually my splinterlands weekly art contest entry. I mean... I don't win but I love the challenge UwU And apparently, it's much much more challenging to do a character I am definitely not familiar with. A character I couldn't even reference on so I think it took me 3 days (of procrastination) to finish the Naga Assassin I was attempting to draw. So basically, I really struggled with those eyes. That's why I decided to do object studies again for a while. Though right now, I'm working on my splinterlands weekly art contest entry for next week, but at least, I'm partly referencing her this time so I don't get stuck and so I can figure out how to draw eyes again on such a small screen. It's a good thing my current phone has a screen height of 7.5 inches tall and 4.5 inches wide. Not bad for a phone that can function as a tablet, if I do say so myself. I'm just happy my grandfather sent me this phone as an advanced birthday gift. And I'm also happier that it has a really good stylus that can respond well to the screen and the apps I use. It's cute too that my grandfather knows how much I love drawing and he always asks me to show him what I'm working on. This is the last piece I've been working on today before I had to cook dinner I'm doing something portrait style for Iza the fanged since I've been thinking hard on my approach to drawing. Like... If I draw something that shows body, I mostly focus on the body since that becomes my highlight, but if I focus on portraits, then maybe I can focus on the eyes since that's usually the focus on portraits. Anyways, this is just a little mental experiment of mine. I'll see if my hypothesis is true when I work on this again tomorrow. This is all from me for tonight. Good night people!

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@Hanzell 11 September 2022

Karaoke nights! Hello Hello I'm back from life! And these past few days from me have been really full of life lately. My sisters kept telling me to enjoy my birth month and the fact that I'm not actually employed yet, but I can't really seem to enjoy unemployment because I like having the money to buy things I want and money to pay the bills (though I'm doing that now but still, I want to save up more crypto and not use them to pay for my bills) Anyways, last night, my sisters dragged me to a nearby KTV place since wecouldn't remember the last time we ever went to one, and because we have been planning to go to one since the COVID restrictions lightened up here. So far, the KTV place was pretty okay, everything was sanitized and there were replaceable mic covers so that took a load off of me, and it allowed me to lighten up a bit, as my sisters kept telling me. We actually had to argue over what food to get when we got there because we were torn between rice and finger food, but since it was an extended birthday celebration, it was my call and I chose finger food since I was too lazy to eat rice again. So this was the food we had and I was surprised with the extra platter of fries but the staff said it was a birthday treat so there was no need for us to order again. This is a little toast we did to start off the night. And that's just Iced tea! No liquor for us since we still had a minor with us. It kind of sucks that our youngest is still only 13 so we can't really have liquor together yet, and mom said she'll lift the liquor ban in the house when this kid turns 15-16 so that's a year or 2 more of waiting. Though with how hyper we all are, I don't think we even need the liquor to have fun since we seem funnier when we're all just high on sugar and not alcohol. We had a couple of smoothies though and that kind of fueled us for the entire night. After that toast, we just started singing one by one. If only there were more mics but oh well, 2 is fine, we just shared This was when we sang "Super trouper by ABBA" and we even remembered the cute dance moves from the Mamma Mia movie.. It was cute! and mom just laughed. The staff that assisted us laughed because she thought we were a strange bunch that sang mostly old songs from the 70s-90s, but who doesn't like the classics? But i guess since we're all pretty young, it would make sense that we listened to newer songs. I think this music taste of ours came from being raised by our grandparents and our single mom who's way too deep into grunge. No complaints though because I think we have a much more diversified music taste than most. This is when we sang Super Bass by Nicki Minaj and I loved that in sync dance moves XD it was so cute! and we also sang a lot more pop songs where we danced but this clip is definitely my favourite. Can you spot me in the little black dress? 3-4 hours in there was clearly not enough for us, but the fact that we all had sore throats by the end of the night was a clear sign that we've sang (basically screamed) everything our vocal chords could handle. It was a fun night though. Plenty of food, unlimited iced tea and smoothies, and plenty of songs we could all sing without even looking at the screen. It was definitely a good way to end a saturday night. More pictures of the wild children and mom XD there was more, but they all came out blurry and these were probably the most decent ones we had. I hope we get more karaoke nights before my other sister leaves the country. We have until November to really bond over everything so good luck to us! Thanks for stopping by!

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@Hanzell 9 September 2022

New experiences at 25! It was my birthday yesterday! September 8! A lot of things happened on september 8. One would be the death of Queen Elizabeth II. It was a huge loss for UK and I know because I have a few friends there and they were telling me how she loved her job and how she represented UK well. I get their sentiments, despite that, they still greeted me a happy birthday and wished they could have sent me gifts, but since they were expecting a recession over there, I said it was fine and that my college buds were going to take me out to celebrate. I know I've said this before, but I really do not celebrate my birthday. It's normal to me that my birthday would fall on an exam day, or on a day where a typhoo would make its landfall on the country (There was supposed to be a storm on my birthday this year too but the typhoon left the country before it made a landfall and idk if that's lucky). Either event isn't fun and it limited what I could do so I decided to stop celebrating altogether. I honestly just looked forward to cake and sweets and that was it. This year though... no more exam and no storm. That's why my college buds decided to help me celebrate for once. They even told me to bring the guy I was dating along with us so theyy could meet him. I was a little uncomfortable with the idea because he might not fit in. My friends are all chemists, mostly ones in research and he was band guy. He's cool, sure but I wasn't sure how the interaction would go. Anyways, I was out the whole day for my birthday, and my family was perfectly fine with that. My first stop was the house of the guy I was dating because he said he'd make breakfast for me... and then he'd have his breakfast after we ate XD (huge perv). And I hung out there until the gang finished with work. We all just met up at the bar, and I swear. The moment I saw them, it looked like it was a doctor's conference because the idiots forgot to leave their lab gowns at work. Wish I could have taken a photo, but laboratory policies about their employee's privacy is high here so no photo. I feel like lab gowns are so natural to us that we don't even see it as a uniform anymore. It just becomes comfort clothes. This was the bar we went to ^w^ It was so aesthetic! And I loved the lighting! I tried to take pics of myself... but I was too shy. My friends on the other hand were pretty shameless though. What I'm happy about was that the gang was pretty rich now so they told me I didn't need to pay for anything. I still tried to though so I ordered food for us since it was a lot chaper than the cocktails and alcohol bottles they sold there. These were shots my friends took along with their drinks. They were pretty bold to borrow the alcohol bottle though, but aesthetics is aesthetics. I only liked the chicken popcorn and the mini burgers. The cold cut meat was soooooo weird and so out of my tastes. This is the cocktail I wanted to try. It's called bubble bath, because it had bubbles when it's served, then the bartender had to pop those bubbles when he dropped the lemon slice. The bartender diliberately made 2 perfectly proportioned bubbles and referred to the drink as "bubble butt for the lady with the bubble butt". That kind of annoyed my date for some reason and he was sure the bartender was trying to hit on me so he got really clingy. This was the other drink I tried. It was a bourbon mix that had smoked bacon flavoring. It was a really weird drink, I swear. And even the actual liquor tasted like bacon, and I never imagined that that was possible. I didn't finish this drink though because the bourbon was too strong. I also ordered another drink that wasn't on the menu, but since it's a cocktail basic, it didn't have to be on the menu. I had a blowjob (a shot cocktail. It's good, tastes mostly like chocolate). Too bad I couldn't take a photo of it, the gang pressured me to down it with no hands (that's usually how you would drink that shot though, with no hands) and I did. Overall, we all only had 2-3 cocktails each because it was a work day and the gang still had work the next day. My date drove me home to make sure I got home okay then my family surprised me with cake in the fridge ^^ It was a fun birthday, but I'm not excited to see what comes with being 25. This is all from me for today! Thanks foe reading!

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@Hanzell 1 September 2022

Back to ores I'm not sure if I mentioned a new lab, but yeah! I tried applying for the lab one of my college buddies is in! I just finished the technical interview last tuesday and the hiring manager told me that she would be endorsing my resume to the HR people so they can draft my contract. I actually took this as a good sign so hopefully i can start there soon. I thought of writing about the samples I’ll soon be handling there while I do a quick review of my basic metal chemistry. In the new lab I’ll be going to, I’ll be handling **ores!!!!!** `These were the last batch of ore samples I analyzed in the previous lab I was in` **Ores are metal deposits**. They’re where you get your metals from and lucky for them, I’m not a stranger to the commodity. In my previous job, I was actually the one mostly handling the ore samples. Usually these samples come in bulk so whenever we receive ore samples, we usually receive around 4 (the fewest samples I have ever received) to 90 (the most number of samples I’ve received. And each sample has 2 trials. So there’s trial A and trial B and this is to check whether the results we get will be the same. `This is them in solution form. Here I have iron ores ready for iron titration. You can see that there's a trial A and B on the labels... well, there should be but I think the trial B labels are facing the opposite side XD` Back in my old lab, we were only able to accomodate copper, iron and nickel ores, the common ones used for mass production. And this was mostly because we lacked the instrumentation and methods to process other types of ores. I believe that in the new lab, they handle the analysis and extraction of all 89 metals in the periodic table and I do believe that they have the instrumentation suitable for the elemental analysis of each. I’m just not sure with their digestion process and whether it’s a one-pot digestion or a multi-step digestion process. I’m curious because each metal group has a different pH preference, and ultimately, a different mobilizing/extracting agent. Before I dive further into metal extraction and all that, I should talk about ore basics first. `> An Atomic Absorption Spectrometer. This is usually used to to measure an analyte/element of interest in a sample when liquefied. Although i think this model I found on the web uses hollow cathode lamps. the ones that use plasma can simultaniously read multiple elements in a single run` `>Source: http://www.pci.tu-bs.de/aggericke/PC4/Kap_I/aes.htm` So first and foremost, Metal ores aren’t renewable like what they appear to **be.** The supply is actually becoming very limited and the most people can mine now are refractory ores. **It takes millions of years for ores to form**, very much like coal and fossil fuels. And to make them, there’s 3 different processes for it. Internal processes (mostly metamorphic/igneous rocks/ores), hydrothermal processes (mostly igneous and metamorphic rocks/ores are taken from here) and superficial processes (mostly sedimentary rocks/ores). So when we say **internal processes, this is due to volcanic activities**. Then **hydrothermally** formed ores are the same, but in their case, these kinds of ores form from the **activity of underground volcanoes**. In this case, unusual ores are formed since seawater contains just as many metals as that of molten lava, if not, maybe more. For the **superficial process**, these are the orese that either **form from sedimentation, erosion, rock cleavage or any other physical process** and they’re only surface level ores. These never form with heat, and believe it or not, meteorites are actually classified under this ore type. Cool, right? Meteorites are actually high in iron too and no, I’ve never analyzed a meteorite yet, or maybe I have yet the client never told me about it. Would be cool if I analyzed a meteorite though because I would be holding a literal shooting star! Asteroids and meteorites that have landed on earth! >Source: https://earthsky.org/space/2018-la-meteorite-vesta-botswana/ Fun fact that everyone may or may not know: **meteorites are shooting stars**. They burn up while entering the earth’s atmosphere so they usually don’t even reach the earth’s surface. The rare ones that do make it are never that big unless it was really big to begin with. That's all from me today! Thank you for your time UwU Sources: https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/ore https://www.toppr.com/guides/chemistry/metals-and-nonmetals/occurrence-of-metals/

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@Hanzell 23 August 2022

I couldn't protect her Since I’m planning to join a weekly contest in HIVE, I’m doing this to get rid of the violence and gore in my system since it’s not allowed in that prompt contest XD **[WP] And as the hero falls, his beloved catches him and lays him down. The blood flowing from his side, showing how limited his remaining time was “Rest my love, you’ve protected me long enough. It’s my turn to protect you”**  “Where is Anisa-”  The connons again boomed as Finnigan scanned the battleground. “Has anyone seen Anisa!” He shouted from the top of his lungs as his sword slashed down all that dared  block his way.  They said they would keep his beloved at the rear. They promised they would protect her and not drag her further into war than she already was, yet why was she taken and why was he frantically searching for her amidst all this chaos.  Lies. They only promised him lies. His eyes were reddening, rage was starting to fill him despite how hopeless he was feeling. Oh how he prayed that she would be far from harm. It was wishful thinking, but it was the only thing that persuaded him to keep pushing to the frontlines.  “Captain, We found her!”  It was one of the soldiers assigned to him.  Anxiety loomed over him as he made his way to the crowd that gathered around his beloved. “What’s all this-”  No eyes dared meet his, they only cleared a path for him and allowed him to see the state his wife was in.  A three edged blade impaled her by the heart. Crimson flowed from her chest and stained her once pristine white robe.  “I told you to protect yourself too. You can’t just rush to the battlefield. You are a mage, not a fighter!” Finnigan exclaimed. His tone carried rage and helplessness yet the way he fell to his knees and clutched onto her hands betrayed him.  “I wanted to make sure I could protect you with everything I had,” She caressed his cheek with what remaining strength she had.  The feathery touch only showed how little time she had left.  “But who would protect you-” The brokenness in Finnigan’s voice grew evident with each passing minute.  At last, her grip on his hand weakened and fell from his. light faded from her eyes, and as quickly as light faded from her eyes, so did all hope in Finnigan. He knew this often happened in the battlefield, but to imagine such a thing would ever happen to him, It was beyond him. For a moment, his mind went blank. The screams and cries faded out, the people seemed to have vanished and all that was left was him and Anisa.  “Rest my love, you’ve protected me long enough. It’s my turn to protect you.” With one last somber look, he kisses the top of his lover’s head, resting only a single tear into her hair “i will be seeing you soon, my love”  As he stood up, he felt nothing. He was an empty shell. All the bruises and slashes he gained from his earlier encounters, none of them registered in his head. He just kept walking, and slashing down man after man. It did not mater whether the man he just slashed down was foe or friend. All he wanted was to end everything.  He reached into his robe’s pocket and grabbed the orb his lover had left him for emergencies.  “Only use it as a last resort. When all seemed hopeless and when she could not protect him anymore” He muttered to himself as he gazed at the red orb that seemed to radiate the rage of hundreds of people. A magical weapon crafted for mass destruction.  Once he reached the front lines, the center of the field, he placed the orb on the loose soil and raised his foot.  And as he proceeded to step on the orb and smash it to bits, he then realized that he was never a hero of their nation, but instead a villain. For a hero would sacrifice one to save millions, but a villain would sacrifice millions to save one. But in this case, if he couldn’t save his only one, then the world would fall as she did.

@Hanzell 21 August 2022

Magic mushrooms Just a little scenario before I start with my actual article. So I have a friend that’s reviewing and earning units so he can take his microbiology licensure exam. It’s an annual thing for them and with 6 classes that he’s trying to juggle, he chats me up to say he gives up and that he wants to just go home to the province to grow magic mushrooms.  In all honesty, I’ve done the same thing to him where I said I wanted to go up the mountain to make crystal meth, but I think we’re always just half joking when we talk about just being drug lords instead of actually taking our professions seriously. Because if you think about it… 1 mushroom is around $30 and a gram of crystal meth would probably sell pretty high if it’s crystal grade. And I never screw up an analysis so we just thought it would be easy money.  Anyways, Since we were talking about magic mushrooms, I thought I would talk about it here too.  Magic mushroom, shrooms, hallucinogenic mushrooms, little smoke, purple passion, is a collective term. It just refers to mushrooms or any other fungi/fungus that’s high in psilocybin and psilocin. Under the kinds of genera that are high in psilocybin include Copelandia, Gymnopilus, Inocybe, Paneaoleus, Pholiotina, Pluterus and Psilocybe.  Contrary to popular belief, they aren’t the colorful red mushrooms you see in cartoons or in movies. Magic mushrooms are often just regular looking mushrooms that you can mistake for any edible mushroom sold in markets.  What makes them special is the hallucinogenic compounds they contain. So we go back to Psilocybin (PY, 4-phosphoryloxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine). Its name was actually based on the genera psilocybe, which has the highest concentration among the fungi mentioned before.  That’s not the end of it though. After ingestion, psilocybin gets converted to psilocin (3-(2-dimethylaminoethyl)indol-4-ol) , which is really what causes the hallucinogenic effect in these shrooms. Although psilocin is already present in shrooms in smaller amounts. Other than these two, there’s two other compounds present that contribute to the “magic” - baeocystin and norbaeocystin, but they’re not the key compounds of this article.  Going back to psilocin, this compound mainly interacts with 5-HT1A, 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptor subtypes (receptors for serotonin/love). But unlike most hallucinogens, they have little to no effect on your dopamine receptors, instead, shrooms show a high affinity to your serotonin receptors because of the amine in their structures. It’s a fascinating drug, actually since most substances usually almost always affect dopamine receptors. It might be a reason why withdrawals from shrooms aren't as deteriorating or that hard to quit on compared to other substances like cannabis and other forms of drugs.  How it affects behaviour would depend on the dose and the individual reaction and sensitivity to psilocybin. One should consider the strain of shroom they’re going to consume first. Psilocybe, Panaeolus and Copelandia are shrooms that have the highest amount of psilocybin so most shroomers opt to cultivate these. It would also depend on the form it’s taken in since it’s a mushroom, it can be taken as a regular consumable, as fresh, dried, steeped (tea form), powdered, capsuled or mixed in food. Although studies have suggested that heating or cooking the shrooms may reduce the psychedelic effect. Still, one would likely experience these when they intake shrooms: euphoria and wellbeing change in consciousness, mood, thought and perception (commonly called a trip) dilation of pupils perceptual changes, such as visual and auditory hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that aren’t there, or are distorted) stomach discomfort and nausea headaches fast or irregular heartbeat increased body temperature breathing quickly vomiting facial flushes, sweating and chills. Of course, these will all depend on the mood of the consumer too and on the mental state. Like most substances, shrooms also often boost one’s current mood, and of course having “bad trips” is not exempted when taking shrooms.  Overdosing. So far, there’s no reports of anyone ever dying from overdosing, but cases of coma have been reported. Last time I checked, shrooms aren’t fully accepted as a treatment for depression, anxiety and PTD (post traumatic depression) since there’s a lack of study on shrooms. Most government agencies make it impossible for medical institutes to obtain shrooms, which is why further clinical development has not been made with this substance.  Sources: https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/drug-profiles/hallucinogenic-mushrooms_en https://adf.org.au/drug-facts/psilocybin/ https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/308850#risks And so, think about it if you want to take shrooms XD my friend and I need to stop reconsidering being drug lords as a profession, I swear.

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@Hanzell 19 August 2022

I'm dating the band guy Okay so you guys already know that I'm no stranger to online dating. I use dating apps and I meet people I meet on dating apps. It's all for the sake of "getting out there and meeting new people" is what my friends keep telling me whenever I say I want to remove these dating apps from my phone. They have a point and since I don't go out because my job requires me to get locked up in a lab, online dating is the only way I ever meet new people. One of those people I've met is Hana. He's actually a lot older than I am. He was a businessman and now he's in a band called similar sky. He doesn't actually tell me much about his band and he doesn't take me nor invites me to any of their gigs for some unknown reason. Despite how busy he is with his band, work and a few other deals he has in his life, he still makes it a point to see me every week and I like that I don't have to beg him to see me. I'll just be surprised that his car is parked outside the lab then he'll ask me out for dinner. For the past 2 months, we've established a weekly habit of eating dinner together and I can say that I really appreciate this because sometimes he hasn't really slept yet since he was in band practice or sometimes he's just stressed and he keeps telling me that he doesn't feel that stressed when we're hanging out. Though he doesn't tell me much about what stresses him out, I can pretty much tell that it's mostly because of the band. I think he sees it as the good kind of stress because you know he loves what he does. He loves music, and making songs for his band. He's the lead guitar and the songwriter for the band, as well as the videographer and basically the guy that handles most of the deals because his band mates are all younger than him. It's a change for me that I don't have to put in much effort for this guy 😂 I don't need to keep checking up on him, or to excessively worry unless he calls and he's dead-ass drunk. I don't really need to stress about any other girl that tries to approach him because he's assured me a lot of times that they're not interesting to me, and "why would I look for another girl, I already have a drug dealer right here" (yes, he calls me his personal drug dealer but all I've been doing is sharing cookies and coffee with him whenever he picks me up for dinner 😂). I have no idea what's up with this guy, really. But I'm kind of hoping this thing we have would last 😅 There's no feelings said so far and I don't think there would be confessions even in the near future, but even if we don't get labels, having him stay as a friend would be cool. It would actually be nice cuz I need a guy's straight forward opinion sometimes and he is definitely so straight forward that I just want to choke him sometimes. Anyways... I'm not promoting or anything but I've been listening to his band's song a lot today and now I'm a fan 😅 So I'm just gonna share their links because I want them to get more attention despite them using the local language. Spotify https://open.spotify.com/artist/5v3Pm6onpGC3AHLCO6Da45?si=1GUOh2tgQj6Kz5xBJyR11A&utm_source=native-share-menu Youtube https://youtube.com/c/SimilarSkyOfficial Anyways, this is all from me 😅 read.cash became my safe space for sharing stuff like this 😅

@Hanzell 14 August 2022

Stressed These days, I've just been extremely stressed. Much more so when I was working in my previous company. I have a lot of regrets in choosing my current company because it wasn't as good as I hoped it would be. As it goes in any chemistry lab, all benefits are given upon regularization unlike in some companies. Also 6 working days is just rediculous in the end. No job is ever worth it unless you really love the job, you're escaping problems at home, or you live really really close to the company that you never have to wait for the traffic to subside before you can go home. Unfortunately, none of what i mentioned applies to me. I live quite far from my current company. I like my family and my house, and I want to see my dogs and have time to help around the house. And I get caught in traffic for an insanely long 2 hours. I know some have it rough with having to travel 4 hours for work, but I do think they have some kind of out of this world dedication to their job to actually have the patience for that. Sadly, I don't and I'm more on the practical side of this world. I want to be productive, I want to have time for myself and time to do what I planned to do for that day, but with this company, my personal time is so compromised. So is my health because I've been walking 3 kilometers every day just to get home. There are barely cars that I can ride once the clock strikes 4pm. And i either have to wait an hour or 2 or I walk the 3 kilometers (which takes me about 30-40 minutes to do so.) Sure, walking shouldn't be that bad but when you're walking down a street that has nothing but cars, and you're basically inhaling all the car fumes, it is nowhere near healthy even with a mask on. I got sick because of this, my system is not used to these kinds of fumes and this amount of walking. My mental integrity is so compromised because I found out they don't test every sample they get as they should. It feels like all my experience in a testing lab just went to waste here because all the protocols they have are so against the ones I was trained to do. i never had to fake results because thre was always data to back everything I do. But here, I experienced faking data. You guys have no idea how disgusting it makes me feel, especially since you're considering food safety. I get that they lack the time and equipment for it, but it just really goes against everything I know. In light of that, I think this drawing of mine highlights my mental state here right now. Messy and completely incomplete. I feel like this lab will not complete me, but instead, will slowly tear me down. The pay is not worth it despite there being no OT. I would rather have time to rest, draw and write than to be stuck somewhere where I'll eventually get sick (either from diabetes or from something in the lungs cuz of the location). Either way, I will adjust to the nightshift time since I like the night. I can adjust to sleeping in the day and I don't have regrets in not using my license. I can still use it in the future. Another painitng I finished today but lol the nose was pretty long. Progression shots Sorry for ranting again. I'm still pretty sick but my supervisor is still asking me to report to work tomorrow. Then my mom is arguing with me about why i applied for the BPO industry and she won't even listen to my explanation. She's just telling me to adjust and give it a try. The generational gap is really not helping my case here, I swear.

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@Hanzell 11 August 2022

New work, I already want to resign Helloooo I'm back from the dead!!! And I have to say, the lab I'm recently working in really has bad management. Yes, I am employed as a laboratory analyst again, but this time, for a well known food manufacturing plant that manages all starbuck's products and other companies that are in line withh starbucks. Every single day, we get an insane amount of food coming in and out of the lab for physico-chem analysis and for sensory evaluation and contaminant check. every food manufacturing and food lab has this. at first, I thought I would enjoy this job. I mean, who would say no to free food? who would say no to starbuck's discounts and production rejects I could share with my sweetdevouring sisters? I know people wouldn't say no to this. I would though. I value my rest a lot. It's unfortunate that they require 6 working days here since it's production and not testing. I would honestly never have taken the offer had I known that I had to work 6 days. I'm not surprised though since almost all the labs that surround my area function for 6 days a week, sometimes even the whole week and they just shift around the employee's schedule. That happens. It's also not rare to find labs that run for 24 hours. So yes, my company also has night shifts. Even my previous company had night shifts, but my lab supervisor didn't require any of us to do a night shift while it is required here. A week of working for this company and I honestly give up. My workload is light, sure. employee benefits are so good, but the role they're giving me is basically for a supervisor and they're basing this on my laboratory experience. For the past few days, I had to lead some product recall investigatiions and it's fortunate that despite my knowledge of food preparation, my chemistry knowledge helped greatly. I'm happy to have found a solution to a problem, but my decision-making skills really stops functioning when it comes to my life XD Anyways, I decided to try the BPO industry since I'll be placed in night shift sooner or later. As to why I want to try this area is mostly because of the commute XD The commute to my current lab takes 2 hours, not because it's far but because of how ridiculous the traffic gets. Without the traffic, I would be in the lab in just 30 minutes or so. Meanwhile, the BPO facilities I've tried applying for are so close that I only need to travel for 20 minutes (that's with traffic. 1 if there's no traffic). Also, BPO only has 5 work days and yes, there's OT but it can't be as bad as the 3 hours I usually had to give to my previous company. At this point, I really don't care about what people say about how toxic it gets in there, all I care about now is that I get enough rest and the prospect of saving up so I can survive in this country and hopefully I could leave here sooner. My apologies for ranting this much, My family just doesn't understand how bad the commute here gets and how tired I am from having to render more time in a lab than the working hours they pay me for. (they're lucky they're all wfh). I just feel like I won't get to enjoy my life if I'm just gonna be locked up in a lab for the rest of my life. I do plan to go back into a lab when I get the chance to leave this country. When working conditions for chemists aren't as bad as the one here.

@Hanzell 7 August 2022

Coal types and usage I'm aware of how often I write about cola XD But in my defense, it's because it's the easiest sample to write about. I do think this will be the last from me on coal since I'll be moving to a food lab this monady. And from that point on, I will most likely be writing about bread and food analysis we do in that lab. So coal. Coal is a decayed matter. Usually from ancient plants or animals. Fossil fuel, in short. It’s a type of non renewable energy source (as what we’re taught in schools) and if we’re being honest, it’s really inexpensive yet land feuds and the claims over reserves persist and that’s why it affects everything when coal prices move. Anyways, in most cases, it IS used as a power source, especially for big countries and first world countries (The US alone, around 23% of its electricity is derived from coal (2019 survey)). Or countries that have a coal deposit somewhere AND has the means to process that coal into energy (power plants). But then, what people don’t know is that it has many more uses such as metal production. Yes, coal is used for making metals that we use in construction. It’s also used for cement production. The key ingredient for cement is usually a byproduct of coal. It’s also the source of your LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) and is often further processed into other chemicals like methanol, ammonia and urea. Those which are either used in the lab or are mixed into the fertilizers that the agricultural sector uses. To further familiarize you guys with coal, I think it’s best to talk about the different types of coal or ranks it has. I believe they refer to it as ranks because of the vitrinite reflectance (measure of the incident light reflected from the surface of a polished vitrinite (I believe this is a crystal as well, not sure, we never had to rank the coal that came in the lab). So this is based on Optical microscopy. Aside from that, rank is also based on moisture content. Moisture is what we use to identify coal ranks in the lab since it’s more reliable for us. The highest ranked coal is called Anthracite. “Hard coal” is its secondary name. It’s ranked the highest because of the extremely low volatile matter present in its constitution, as well as the % carbon. It has about 86-97% carbon. For us analysts, this is actually the easiest sample we can have… unless it was derived from ferrous pyrite, then you’ll have a case of magnetic coal on your plate. But then, if you consider that magnetic property, and the high heat value/calorific value (and high combustibility) it makes it highly ideal for metal production (mostly gold, platinum, silver. The ones used for tech fabrication)  since a lot of metals melt at higher temperatures and the slow burning of this specific coal makes it ideal for continuous smelting. It’s also good to keep in mind that the fire this coal produces is one of the purest (Combustion is usually complete and sulfur content is low so there’s little need to consider environmental impact). Sadly, it’s so hard to come by this kind of coal. I believe the biggest deposits of this are in the middle east, africa and some places in central europe.   Next, you have your Bituminous coal coming in second. This is what they refer to as “Soft coal”. This coal rank has about 45-86% carbon and it would take approximately 1oo-300 million years to form this. Based on my experience, this type of coal was always sent to us in powders because after analysis, it’s immediately sent to power plants for energy production. Yup! This is the one they use for energy production because its heat value/calorific value is on par with anthracite, but then, it’s also used for producing gas (Hydrogen, Ammonia and LPG because of its high volatile matter content). That is upon burning the powders, but because of that high volatile matter content, it either turns to coke (mixed in cement or is used to produce ammonia gas) or to asphalt, both which are used for construction (and both which I already tested in a different lab I worked in) Sub Bituminous coals have no other name, but their carbon content is around 35-45%. This is the main energy producer, and one of the biggest air pollutants because of the high volatile matter content, nitrogen content, and sulfur content. It’s relatively young coal since it only takes 100 million years to form this, so you can see why the contaminants are still considerably high for this coal rank. Despite the contaminant content, it’s still widely used for energy production and for cement production since its ashing is relatively high. In some literature I’ve read before, in my old workplace, This Coal rank is counted as  a sub-rank since it’s usually interchanged with bituminous coal and lignite. What I found interesting about this rank though, is that it’s one of the most chemically modified coal, and that modification is often to enhance the energy output once it gets processed.   Last on the list is Lignite (though peat is considerably lower ranked, but most surveyors and geologists don’t consider it a rank anymore). Lignite is brown coal and the youngest coal. It also has the highest moisture and contaminant content, the lowest heat value and the lowest energy output. Despite this though, it’s still used in the energy sector. I’m pretty much against it though because this coal is the biggest greenhouse gas contributor. And the last time I handled this kind of coal in the lab, there were chunks of animal and plant matter in it, and it was so gross to have to remove those one by one.  I believe some countries wrote about how drying lignite first before using it for energy production has lessened the pollutant output, but still, it doesn’t really remove the fact that pollutants are still being emitted and that is a big no for me.  Sources:  Applied Petrology **https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-045051-3.00001-4** Fuel Flexible Energy Generatin, 2016 **https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-1-78242-378-2.00002-X** Plant Engineer’s Handbook, 2001 **https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-075067328-0/50023-9** Materials for Ultra-Supercritical and advanced Ultra-supercritical Power plants, 2017 **https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-100552-1.00001-4** Low-Rank Coals for Power generation, Fuel and chemical production **https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-100552-1.00001-4**

@Hanzell 26 July 2022

Hello Opensea!!!! I did it! I finally did it! I got on opensea! For those who aren’t aware, opensea is an NFT marketplace where one can buy, trade, sell or mint NFTs (non-fungible tokens). This platform also allows one of the widest range of accepted NFTs. You can mint just about anything under media. I have seen art, trading cards, collectibles, photographs, sculptures, gifs, animations, and even music in there, it is not limited to just art (yet all of these are considered art).  The purchase of these assets was initially powered by Ethereum smart contract, but with ethereum expanding and gaining more currencies, more tokens have been accepted by the platform as a way to keep up with the changes. As of now, they accept ethereum, polygon (matic), and now they’re beta testing solana.  As of now, I'm on the polygon blockchain, and I can assure you that the fees are very minimal. I don’t think my balance has even changed since I started minting in opensea. As for wallets that support polygon, metamask works pretty well. You’ll just have to add the polygon network to your metamask networks either through selection or manually.  For metamask on phone, you can add the polygon network through their popular selection, but if polygon is ont in their popular selection then you can just manually add it on the other tab **Network name:** Polygon Mainnet **RPC URL:** **https://polygon-rpc.com** **Chain ID:** 137 **Currency**: MATIC **Explorer**: **https://polygonscan.com/** Once polygon is added, you can open opensea through the metamask browser, if you're on an androi/ios device. That will make it so that you don't need to repeatedly sign in like what happens when you use desktop/pc. If it's pc, you just have to make sure that you're on the polygon chain before directly opening opensea.io That's what it looks like when you open it from the metamask browser. You just need to sign up your metamask wallet again by tapping on that 3 lined bar. You connect your metamask wallet through the "My Wallet" tab and it will ask you to sign for permission. It won't charg you anything, so don't worry about that. Just mak sure that your Matic wallet still has something in it. even $5 worth of matic will suffice tbh. So that's how you sign your wallet up. For making an account, you just go to the "Account tab to edit your information, because when you sign up your wallet, your account will be unnamed and almost all info will be null. Make sure to keep all your soc med accounts active because it helps a lot with self promotion. Making your account as personal as possible will also be a good selling point if you're like me who wants to mint my works. If you're good with your account creation process, then you can make a collection if you're gonna mint. That part is in the account tab as well. Check "My Colletions" then you'll be redirected to a different page. That's my collection. It has about 49 items in it. I didn't use all the images I uploaded in juungle, and I also added a few other pieces that I never uploaded in juungle. For the collection creation pocess, it's just a really straghtforward process but when you're gonna create a collection, you'll need to sign your wallet again. This part is where having a balance in your matic is important. You'll barely notice the fees, I swear but I know they still charge a bit for the collection creation. So that's the first thing you'll see when you create a collection. Those logos and banners will represent you and your collection. I've seen people collage their NFTs and I've seen some people use the same picture on everything. Anything goes, actually, as long as it represents your collection. Next, you put in the mportant details of your collection. It has to be unique because the platform itself checks the rarity of your collection name. What you gotta love about opensea is their Creator earnings though. It's basically royalty and you can take a percentage out of the final sale price. I set mine to 5% because it seems fair for me since I'm not selling my collection at such a high price. The blockchain you use, you should change it to the blockchain you're using to open thewebsite becuase it would be hard for you to move your assets later on. Another thing to enjoy on opensea is their widened variety of tokens they accept now. I think they accept a lot of ERC-20 coins now, at least the popular ones? because I also see game coins in there. I don't know if there's a payment token limit though but I only have 5 set on mine. Once you're good with all the info for your collection, you can save it and you can start adding items to your collection. To do that, you just go to your collection You jus tap on those 3 little dots and you scroll down to add items to your collection. Uploading will not incur fees, no worries. Then another thing, don't do transactions outside of opensea as much as possible. Sale is good, but if they're paying in a currency that you don't know then it's better to just reject that sale since you might not even get to withdraw it. So you still didn't get anything plus you lost an asset. Anyways, you can mint a few copies of your NF, but I think opensea aims for having a limited supply per NFT piece. @solumvis I hope this was helpful to you? Just chat if you need some explanation on some other things Also XD Can you help spread my link around? https://opensea.io/collection/a-little-edgy Thank you!!!!!

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@Hanzell 20 July 2022

Employment differences HEllo hello! I return!  I think I lost the habit of writing, or maybe I’ve just been so busy with life. It’s back to employment for me. To think that I was only unemployed for a little over 3 weeks. I have to admit though, that applying for a job this time was more tiring compared to when I was applying 6 months ago. And I don't think I want to go through all this again. I thought the online interviews were bad because I usually had 3-4 interviews a ay, but gosh I was so wrong! Face to face interview is much worse, epecially for an introvert like me. **The interview process is back to the old ways**.  I remember in the pre-pandemic days, my seniors would complain about how tiring and costly it was to attend an interview. Not to mention, time-consuming. I kind of get what they mean now. My recent job interviews were all live and in person. It’s nerve-wracking, I swear!!! And definitely costly and so so SO time consuming! I have nothing against HR people because they have other tasks to, but in this application season of mine, the HR people don’t seem to respect other people’s time, they’re the ones alway late. I understand that on a face to face setting, there could be more questions, but I wonder if they ever consider the other applicants who sometimes even stay until the afternoon, just to be interviewed. Unlike 6 months ago,when online interviews were highly catered, all the interviewers were punctual, I didn't need to leave my room, and I was comfortable. Oh how I wish they kept this interview system. **Exam on every interview and the processing got longer** For my first face to face interview back in June, the lab was just 40 minutes from my house. I arrived 30 minutes early (as per interview protocol), yet I still waited for almost an hour and a half.It took that long before the HR came out and handed me a form that I answered for 30 minutes, although if she just referred to my resume, it would have saved the both of us a lot of time. After that, I was given an exam that was on the same level as my board exam, and I just thought: damn, was the license not enough?  An hour later, I was finally interviewed, and that also lasted an hour. I enjoyed the interview, yes. But half of my day was consumed. We finished the interview at 1pm and I ate with my best friend cuz she worked there. My 2nd and succeeding interviews all proceeded in the same pattern. I arrive early, I was made to wait, I was given forms to answer despite already submitting my resume, I was given an exam that was basically on the same level as my board exam. I swear, in the week that I only had interviews, I studied like crazy because I felt like I forgot everything I knew from college, and the exams they gave me made me feel dumb as heck. I’m not sure if job applications for other positions are like this, but the continuous exam was so extremely tiring. This was never a thing with online applications. In my online application series, I was only given an exam once and then never again!  What I’m not sure of was if this exam-interview thing has always been a tandem or is it just with this application season. That I’m not sure at all.  Anyways, now I’m finally hired at a place that’s 40 minutes away from my house, and I will be starting some time next week. They said around wednesday or thursday so until then, I can hang around the crypto world for a bit. Wish me luck on this new laboratory, guys