43 days!

{Please keep the families of those affected by the 62 tornados that touched down in NC today in your prayers. According to the news, an on-base housing development at Camp Lejuene has been badly affected with many damaged homes.}

I will officially be done, finished, completed with college in fourty-three days! Graduation day is fast approaching and I have so many thing I need to complete before it gets here, in fact, I should be being doing homework right now. School has never been so busy in my life! I'm giving my practice capstone presentation on Monday, and I'm so not ready for it yet..... but don't worry, I'm expecting a very understanding two person audience. So what have have been doing all this time? Well, I've been sending lots of these to a very important person in my life:

And when I'm not making care packages, I'm doing research for my capstone. Okay, sometimes I sleep and occasionally I visit Meagan at work, but I feel like all I've done for the past few weeks is research. In fact, I only have 7 more hours to complete before I'm done! Earlier this month I synthesized nanobelts, with much help from my research mentor. Don't worry about what nanobelts are, just know that mine are a bright yellow-green color. And that makes me happy. Here is what the fumehood looked like when I was making them:

I remember when I thought, you couldn't get something any pinker than the paint on Amanda's bedroom walls. :)

Then, I met R101.

This stuff is PINK. Well, it is actually a very vibrant purple when it is a powder, but the second it touches liquid, it is so pink it might blind you. I'm kidding, I promise. I'm using it to help me determine the quantum yield of my nanobelts. And if you were wondering, I'm diluting it with 100% Ethanol, which is 200 proof alcohol, you can't find anything stronger than this stuff.

Isn't it fascinating? Couldn't you just stare at it for hours? I did. I mean, I had to, but hey it sure is pretty.

I made a buch of different dilutions of it, and examined them:

And then, one by one, I put them into a quartz cuvet (the little rectangular contraption below), and used a machine to find out how much they fluoresce! Because thats what I do. :)

Now I need to get back to my homework that I've been ignoring!