erbiumspectrum

[erbiumspectrum]

Orgo geochem anon, please don't publish that last anon. Its so embarrassing

No worries Anon, I won't publish it, but I also don't think there's anything embarrassing about what you said there. Beginnings are usually hard. After high school I took up biotechnology first, didn't like it at all, switched to chemistry, so in a way I've done two first years of uni, which means I've seen twice as many first-years, lost and confused, all of them, fumbling and struggling. Myself included, of course. I was once the only person in the entire cohort (~100 people at that point) not to turn in an assignment bc I didn't understand the instructions.

Anyway, I don't know of any helpful posts here on tumblr and I've always been skeptical about making one myself because from what I've seen, the exact requirements vary from uni to uni and sometimes even from prof to prof. But that also means your professor should always specify what they expect on a lab report. Don't be afraid to ask them for extra clarification if you have any doubts. Explaining things to students is quite literally their job. Not to mention if they normally work with first-years, they're used to clueless students who just genuinely have no idea what to do. It's okay, every chemist starts as a baby first-year!

That being said, if you google "writing lab reports", you get lots of manuals from different universities. I read through some of them and I liked this one in particular. I think it's fairly comprehensive but not "too ambitious" for a first-year and it has nice examples.

And finally, my personal go-to template looks something like this:

This is just a template as, again, the details will depend on the professor and the general contents of each section are described very well in the link above. And let me say this once more: don't be afraid to ask your prof questions!! Not knowing something but wanting to learn is never shameful. Your professors are supposed to teach you.

I hope I could be helpful. Oh, and congrats on getting accepted into uni! I hope you'll have a better experience this time around :)

[erbiumspectrum]

This week was ehh. I was so tired, I truly had to force myself to go to some classes (I really wanted to skip but it's a requirement of the course to attend those specifically). But I have Haunting Adeline to look forward to tomorrow.

Victories

Managed to drag myself to all my compulsory classes (though I skipped some noncompulsory ones)

Finished a pharmacology assignment

Had a (admittedly very short, but interesting) conversation with my chemistry professor where, I later realised, I wasn't worrying about if I was saying the right thing or making the right amount of eye contact

Used a rotary evaporator ENTIRELY by myself...though I forgot to switch it on at first

Successfully handled multichannel pipettes

Just watched Everything, Everywhere, All At Once and it helped me have a good cry and release a lot of the stress of this week

Exercised 5 days

Defeats

I have several assignments due next week which I haven't worked on enough

I am extremely lacking the motivation to work on those assignments

Really need to revise chemistry, I've fallen back and have started to feel really lost in classes

REALLY need to prepare for an upcoming test...I am maybe 2% ready at the moment and it's only a few days away

I was the slowest person in my lab again lol

I feel like I didn't work hard enough on the pharm assignment but I have no time to do it better

Overall just feeling really anxious... genuinely just feel like I'm walking up a steep hill and halfway there but about to lose my footing and fall all the way back down

[erbiumspectrum]

u know besides the million other reasons i hate generative ai i also refuse to use it bc i dont trust anything being pushed on me this hard. why does every company desperately want me to get on the bandwagon. whats in it for you. whats in it for me. if ur pushing this shitass product into my life so intrusively u must have nefarious intentions. i dont trust anything being shilled like this

[erbiumspectrum]

my mythology pet peeve is when someone describes a scenario in which they keep nearly getting something and then having it snatched away, and everyone's like "one must imagine sisyphus" no!!! one must imagine TANTALUS!!! sisyphus = being made to perform a pointless, aggravating task over and over without ever making any progress. tantalus = being offered a glorious reward only for it to vanish as soon as you reach for it. they are NOT the same

[erbiumspectrum]

15.08.25 i have been very busy with work lately but thankfully i'll have some more free time for these last two weeks of august that i absolutely need to finish up my remaining two essays of the year.

one is almost finished, the other is basically still in outline form (oops...), but i believe i can make it in time! the worst thing that can happen is that i submit a mediocre assignment, i think i can live with that 🧍

[erbiumspectrum]

As a recovering perfectionist, having to settle for fuzzy or ugly looking surface meshes for the sake of time is extremely frustrating. Like I could spend all day just getting one skull looking nice and accurate, but nooooOOOooooOOOOoo I have to do 100 of them so we don't have time for that 😭

[erbiumspectrum]

day 3/100

friday — 15/08/2025

still don’t get how it was perfect blue skies yesterday and then this 🫠🫠 i didn’t have the most productive day (i’m blaming the weather) but i forced myself to go to my lab and do some random tasks i’ve been avoiding.

[erbiumspectrum]

15 August 2025

It's just me and the duckies against the heat (34°C for a Polish person is like standing at the open gates of hell 🫠). Found an ash tree though, I think :) Now I know I'm lying here under ashes and beeches! Reading my atrociously old copy of The Plague (for like the fourth time I'd say?), one of my most beloved books.

[erbiumspectrum]

so i have a mildly popular “reblog and put in in the tags” post going around and its. very clear how many people don’t know how to interact with a tumblr post

so, first of all, tumblr’s culture has changed a lot in the past couple years. there’s a genuine community effort to not start any drama, and ironically a lot of the current hostility is an effort to keep things calm. there’s also a change in how people interact with posts, so if you haven’t been here in a while please skip down to the tags/replies/reblog with text section.

for newcomers: you should be reblogging posts about as liberally as you would like something on twitter. if you only like stuff, people will think you are rude/a bot. you’ve probably heard people talk about “cultivating your dash,” and thats because this platform is 100% centered around your dashboard. trending matters less, unfollowing and blocking in order to shape your dash into it’s best form is widely accepted, the majority of the content you’ll find and interact with will be because of your dash, and the only way to put things on your dash is to reblog them. tumblr users are deeply distrustful of algorithms and have largely turned off the “see posts your friends have liked” function (i recommend you also turn of the various algorithms in settings → general settings → dashboard preferences).

so, once you’ve reblogged a post, there’s three ways to add content to it. the tags, replies, and reblogging with text. all of them have different connotations

the tags: an inside voice. originally they were meant for organizing your blog (and they’re still used for this), but they’ve also morphed into a way to share thoughts that aren’t funny/insightful enough for non-followers to be interested in. when in doubt, put your comment in the tags

replies: basically talking to your friends in class. your followers have no way of finding your replies (they don’t pop up on the dash, nobody gets notified except for the original poster) so chances are, only the person who made the post is gonna see your comment. it’s for quick one-offs that you’re okay with other people overhearing, but really is only made for one person. they’re like a public dm

reblog with text: an outside voice. you’re getting up on a stage in town square and entertaining people. make sure it’s funny or insightful— bottom line, add something new to the conversation. you should use this the least

general rules of thumb: 

when in doubt, reblog. people will judge you if your blog is only personal posts and you only interact with other content by liking it.  

the only things people will judge you for reblogging are personal vent posts. leave a like to give a little virtual hug

if a post is asking about your personality/opinions (i.e: tell me what’s the last tv show you watched, that kind of thing) put it in the tags 

also if you see a nice edit, gifset, or art, reblog and say something nice in the tags! it’s that nice sweet spot of common enough that no one will notice but uncommon enough to make the artist’s day

[erbiumspectrum]

being anti ai is making me feel like in going insane. "you asked for thoughts about your characters backstory and i put it into chat gpt for ideas". studies have proven its making people dumber. "i asked ai to generate this meal plan". its causing water shortages where its data centers are built. "ill generate some pictures for the dnd campaign". its spreading misinformation. "meta, generate an image of this guy doing something stupid". its trained off stolen images, writing, video, audio. "i was talking with my snapchat ai-" theres no way to verify what its doing with the information it collects. "youtube is impletmenting ai based age verification". my work has an entire graphics media department and has still put ai generated motivational posters up everywhere. ai playlists. ai facial verification. google ai microsoft ai meta ai snapchat ai. everyone treats it as a novelty. every treats it as a mandatory part of life. am i the only one who sees it? am i paranoid? am i going insane? jesus fucking christ. if i have to hear one more "well at least-" "but it does-" "but you can-" im about to lose it. i shouldnt have to jump through hoops to avoid the evil machine. have you no principles? no goddamn spine? am i the weird one here?

[erbiumspectrum]

| 14 august 2025 |

preparing for the next semester of quantum ii 🫡 also I've been trying to catch up on some sleep before it all starts

🎧 | vandalize – one ok rock

[erbiumspectrum]

Trying to write this alternative coursework essay and I hate articles that are just a bunch of abbreviations talking about other abbreviations.

[erbiumspectrum]

You say ochem sucks, as do the majority of people who take it. I'm going back to school for a chemistry degree. In high school, I got my hands on my sister's ochem textbook (my sister was premed) and I found it fascinating. While I didn't do the practice problems, the explanations and theory side intrigued me - at the moment I plan on pursuing a masters of organic geochemistry once I get my second bachelor's in chemistry

Will actually having to do the problemsets ruin the interest in have in ochem /gen? One of my friends from my first bachelor's degree who switched from chemistry to physics for his degree said he did so specifically because of how much he hated ochem. I'm worried that I will lose my interest in the subject once I have to learn it for a grade

Hi there fellow chemistry enthusiast :)

Starting from the end of your ask, I like to think of chemistry as a continuum of sorts. It isn't entirely accurate, but I think it's an all right approximation that works just fine in a lot of cases like the harmonic oscillator.

On one end of the continuum is physical chemistry. That's where chemistry and physics permeate each other, where the physical basis of chemical concepts is of the greatest importance compared to the field as a whole. In the middle is inorganic chemistry, all the things that usually come to mind when people hear the word "chemistry". The physical basis is still there, of course, chemistry is a physical science after all, but they aren't as significant - other concepts are the main focus. On the other end is organic chemistry where physics' influence is the smallest; instead, ochem is where chemistry and biology start to permeate each other.

It's no wonder then that chemists who are more bio-focused - who enjoy medicinal chem, biochem, who find the chemistry of life fascinating - will feel at home with ochem. Similarly, chemists who are more physics-oriented may find ochem tedious and pchem fascinating and enjoyable. I have one foot in pchem and the other in inorganic - ochem just isn't my jam. It probably isn't that ochem spoiled chemistry as a whole for your friend, but rather that he was leaning strongly towards the physics end of the spectrum all along and ochem turned out to be the final blow (which is fine! If your friend is just genuinely more passionate about physics, good for him!).

Personally, I mostly hated the labs, which is ironic bc I otherwise love them. But in ochem they were just so exhausting and unpleasant for me: I struggled with assembling the apparatus, all the chemicals reeked (and I'm sensitive to smells), and, for some reason, I just couldn't get behind substances that were liquid at room temperature that weren't water. Don't ask. I just hated working with them. Aqueous solutions my beloved. Theory actually wasn't so bad to me! I didn't find it particularly fascinating but it was fine, especially as the semester progressed and my knowledge grew.

Meanwhile, a lot of my course mates enjoyed the labs very much but struggled with the theory; but I think that might've been bc they underestimated ochem.

I wouldn't say ochem is hard to understand. But it's bulky as hell. There's tons of things to memorize. If ochem is interesting to you - that'll probably be fine! But many people simply don't expect such a big workload, they quickly get behind, and then they struggle to catch up.

So I don't think doing the problems will ruin ochem for you. If that's what you're inclined towards, they may even make your interest in ochem grow! The two most important things is to stay on top of the assignments and, in the case of actual ochem enthusiasts, not to lose sight of what draws you in to this field (I also have some more tips here if you're interested). That way the whole journey has the potential to be fascinating and rewarding.

Cliche as it may sound, we're all different. We have different interests, different inclinations. What works for one person may not do much for another. Don't get discouraged just bc something that looks promising to you doesn't seem to be very popular with other people. You aren't them and they aren't you :) Organic geochemistry sounds cool and I wish you the best of luck, wherever your chemistry journey takes you :)))

[erbiumspectrum]

13 August 2025

I've been feeling dreadful and depressed lately, so I did one of the best things I could do for myself to stop the spiraling: went out into the nature (another thing of the same category I planned for tomorrow: being a social ape catching up with my friends).

I love watching nature, but I've always been a passive spectator: I can't recognize any plants, birds, insects, or mushrooms. I decided to change that! I started out with the plants. I downloaded an app to help me recognize them (Flora Incognita - I really like it!) and found a lot of different trees: lindens, beeches, maples, and hornbeams. Guys, I had so much fun you wouldn't believe it. Especially with all the little flowers I found in a meadow!

Here are some of my favorite plants I saw today:

Głóg jednoszyjkowy // Single-seeded hawthorn

L: Krwiściąg lekarski // Great burnet | R: Bez czarny // Black elderberry

I really love the Polish name for the great burnet: I would very loosely translate "krwiściąg lekarski" as something like "medicinal blood-binder/ -shrinker/ -tightener". Pretty telling, isn't it? Sounded to me like a hint that it used to be important in folk medicine for things like stopping the bleeding, treating wounds etc., so I did some googling and it seems I was right :) It does appear to have some blood-staunching properties which is really cool.

Bonus! Bugs screaming. And also me. (Not screaming. Just talking. Bc the video was originally made for a friend. That weird pop! at the end was the water bottle in my backpack protesting against the heat in the meadow lol.)

[erbiumspectrum]

Your daily reminder that you don't have to be a genius or some math whiz in order to be a STEM major. One failed class, one bad exam, or even one awful teacher does not make you unintelligent or incapable of achieving your goals. Dust yourself off and try again.

[erbiumspectrum]

We've all seen this cartoon a thousand times and I'm always struck by how relevant and accurate it is.

Lemme share my own Quartz moment.

My degrees are in organic chemistry. When I was doing my undergraduate research project, my mom asked me what it was about. My mother is a smart woman but has zero science education.

I thought, okay, start simple. So I drew this:

I opened my mouth to start talking about the project and she stopped me and said:

"What do those lines mean?"

I just sat there mute, utterly wrong-footed. This is a totally reasonable question, but to me, it was like I'd written a word and she'd asked me what the letters meant. This notation (standard molecular drawing notation) is so second nature to me that it's every bit as natural as writing English.

I had not fully appreciated how far I'd need to downshift to explain this. A friend of mine on the same project was asked to give a talk to a group of non-science folks about what we were doing and she made slides with overlays to let them know what the notation means.

The above notation is shorthand for this:

The lines are bonds. The single line is a single bond, the double line is a double bond (well...in benzene technically each bond is 1.5 bonds but this is the usual way it's drawn even though it's not really accurate). Each corner is a carbon atom. We don't draw the carbon atoms unless we're calling attention to them, and we leave off the hydrogens entirely unless they're significant for some reason, they're just understood to be there.

None of this would be obvious to someone who's never taken chemistry. But I had to remind myself of this, and my mom's question knocked me for a loop for a second.

We got it sorted out.

This really becomes an issue when there are news events having to do with science. Vaccines come to mind. People have HEARD of DNA, but they've barely heard of RNA, and even if they have, most don't understand it, or what it does or what it means. There was a lot of effort put into making analogies and cartoons and other tools to help explain how an mRNA vaccine works, but too many people still hear it and think SCARY.

And don't get me started on those "if you can't pronounce the ingredients, don't eat it" idiots with their naturalistic fallacies and woo-woo pseudoscientific snake oil bullshit YES I TAKE IT PERSONALLY.

[erbiumspectrum]

the microbiology students

the familiar weight of a micropipette in your hand

dreaming about the millions of bacteria we have yet to discover

a sheaf of papers stuffed into your backpack

the fluorescent glow of the biosafety cabinet

advocating for proper use of antibiotics

memorizing cell wall architectures

wondering about the makeup of your own microbiome

an organized lab notebook, each entry neatly dated and indexed

carefully labeled freezer boxes

an appreciation for the invisible microbes that help keep us alive

the sleeves of a lab coat tucked neatly into your gloves

poring over electron microscopy images, debating their significance

the flicker of a bunsen burner flame

seeing microbes not as something to fear, but as something to be appreciated and understood

the background hum of centrifuges and incubators

eagerly explaining the difference between archaea and bacteria

hair neatly clipped back from your face

the vibrant colors of gram-stained cells

practicing your sterile technique until you're sure you've avoided contamination

rattling off the names of bacterial strains

complex phylogenetic trees, jumping from one branch to the next

a fascination with the endosymbiotic theory

the sharp smell of ethanol and bleach

a lab coat with your name scribbled on the tag

admiring a perfectly streaked agar plate