On the up swing of the noodle

After a short conversation with a labmate this morning I said a common Hebrew good-bye as he was heading out the door.
"Le-hi-tri-ot!" I exclaimed.
My lab mate stopped, backed up, looked at me oddly and asked "did you say 'le-hi-tri-ot'? Are you sure you don't you mean 'le -he-tra-ot'?"
"Uh," I answered "sure! What's the difference?"
Turns out that my version of good-bye actually means "To Noodles!"
Good to know. Good to know.
(This IS embarrassing but not nearly as bad as the time I made an X-rated blunder and made a French professor blush to her toes.)

Things are starting to turn around. Due to some serious studying on the weekend, Hebrew was only mildly painful tonight after the complete whooping I got last week. With some more crazy studying in the next week and a half, I might actually pass the course.

Most importantly, after nearly 3 and a half months of frustration, I figured out why my reaction would not reproduce. For the last while, I have been questioning everything and seriously in the dumps every day. Did I change regent bottles? Are my flasks clean enough? Are my flasks too clean? Is there some wired new impurity in the air of the glove box ruining things? Am I not cleaning up my starting material enough? Which gauge of needles did I use when it worked? Which size stir bar? Was my fume hood light on or off when it worked? I was grasping at straws.

Today I figured it out. Turns out I am too anal retentive of a chemist for my own good. In order for this thing to work, one of chemicals I toss in the flask needs an itsy bitsy teeny weeny amount of an impurity that I had been dutifully and completely cleaning out before the reaction. SON OF A HOO HAW! GRRRRR.

Anyhoo, I am just glad I got it figured out. Now I can sleep well with out nanoparticles dancing over my head and mocking me with their screeching nano-voices. After a busy day in the lab and three hours of Hebrew lessons, I need to catch a few Zees.

To Noodles!