Physical Chemistry haunted my dreams as a freshman chemistry student, because it seemed so far away and so very difficult. I wondered if I would actually ever make it to pchem. I don’t know what I thought would stop me from taking it, but possibly a major change if chemistry became not fun. So today physical chemistry is still in my dreams, and if you ask Jacob, he would probably still say it haunts them when he hears me sleep talking about the orbitals.
One night I fell asleep on the couch studying pchem. Falling asleep on the couch never ends up well for anyone, but it seems like the best place to study late at night. Every single time. Jacob woke me up to go to bed when he was done doing some more serious studying. In my confused and sleep-deprived state I crawled into bed as irritated as could be. “Jacob, I’m annoyed!” He asked me why, and I explained that the pi and sigma orbitals inside of me weren’t aligned correctly, so they couldn’t form bonds, and it was making me upset. I got annoyed when Jacob tried to cuddle with me and finally got up to go to the bathroom. When I came back I explained that I got all my high energy electrons out, so now I was in my ground state, (apparently a much happier state). Next I apologized to Jacob for not letting him cuddle with me, but he was at a different temperature than I was, so we couldn’t form a bond!
And last night I dreamt about point groups for far too long. But this time it’s not haunting any dreams, rather pchem is a surprisingly pleasant comfort. It means I’m learning or at least thinking about learning, and luckily for me, my pi and sigma orbitals are feeling a lot better these days.
*** Picture from Hawaii in August at the top of Mount Haleakala****
