What a week

Oh what a week this one has been. I've never felt this tired before, actually. But then again... It's been a full year since I actually got a job and actually step foot in a laboratory.

So now I'm just gonna give you a quick rundown of my week and I think this might become a regular thing since I never run out of activities in this lab ;;-;; and it uses so much of my stamina.

Let's start off with trainings. This week has been nothing but training for both virtual and in the lab. In the past week, I've been bombarded with safety training that I might qualify for a safety officer 1 position if I just took the certification exam. But no way will I take another exam.

Sadly, I can't paint while doing the trainings since my supervisor checks in on me every now and then, to make sure I'm listening promptly to the trainer. At home though... I could paint while training :"( oh how I miss drawing already.

The training I looked forward to was the instrumentation training I've been receiving from my supervisor. I'm pleased to say that like in my previous work, all my samples explode ☺️☺️☺️ and I'm no stranger to explosions and the math needed for it. So it's fun to me

Here is just a fraction of the instruments we handle and the things I need to learn how to operate. There's a bomb calorimeter, a sulfur analyser, and a flash heat furnace. But we also have an elemental analyser, furnaces, ovens, and spectroscopic instruments like the atomic absorption spectroscopy powered by hallow-cathode lamps and inductively coupled plasma. I've never used any of those instruments before so my supervisor and team mates basically have their hands full with all the questions I have for each instrument.

Sanitation. I'm not sure if I've already mentioned this anywhere but we're strict with sanitation since we are a laboratory and contaminations could ruin us. In light of that, we constantly hear "is this clean?" And if nobody answers, it goes straight to the sink anyways. There's also people sanitation because we have a set of work clothes we change in and out of whenever the shift starts and ends. We're minimising dirt that comes from the "outside world"as everyone here seriously calls it (so now I'm not the only one who calls anywhere outside "the outside world" and it's amusing because I feel normal here). It's good practice but I feel like I'm creating so much laundry.

Work clothes get sanitized after the shift so it's clean the next day but outside clothes also gets sanitized because my clothes always comes back to me smelling like detergent (yes, we have to surrender our clothes to the sanitation department). And they're pretty strict on social distancing because our food hall looks like a hospital ward with all the blue curtains that separates us. You also have to make sure to close the curtain when you're occupying a table. It's kind of sad to eat alone in total isolation but I get that it's for safety purposes too so I'll have to live with it for now.

Also, we have a bus that drives us to and from the office to make sure that we don't get outside exposure. Kind of makes me feel like a high risk patient but I guess this will be infinitely better than riding the police car just to buy ammonia because that experience was embarrassing- and I never want to experience it again.

Over this weekend though, I'll do my best to reorganize my closet to find work fitting clothes despite house renovations.

The entire house is getting renovated and it smells like paint everywhere. I'm kind of worried it'll make my sisters infertile but they wanted to paint the house ;;-;; and I got dragged into it. Well, I'm not painting my room yet because they just rebuilt my rotting old ceiling so maybe I'll do that next week. When I can buy my own paint ;;-;; cuz they only have white and I want my room with color since my entire workplace is white. I might go crazy if the house is as white as the lab ;;-;;

This is all from me ☺️ I'm still trying to do a bit of clean up from all the mess this house renovation day made