Primaquine - available in your grocer's freezer

Crazy week.  A little more than three weeks to go here.  Let's see what's been on the docket.

Seeing as how Matteo is as italian as they come, I asked him if he had a Vespa, which he doesn't.  But he told me the history of how the Vespa came to be.  The italian aircraft manufacturer Piaggio was forced to suspend its operations after World War II and as a result, needed to find a business strategy to cope with the harsh political ultimatum.  They had a versatile array of aircraft parts still, including wheels, which became the basis for the scooters themselves.  The rest is history...

Afrikaans Lesson #9
klap - to smack

Salsa is very much like Sokkie.  A trip again to Opskop this wednesday night gave me the chance to have a more open dance floor and thus a greater chance to try new moves and become comfortable with the flow of a 'free-flowing' type of dancing.  As I also watched some of the other couples dance, you can see the chemistry some of them have and the different styles they show.  I guess what gets me so fascinated with it is the contrast to American clubs.  Using DC as a macrocosm, most clubs/bars with dancing are typically filled with many 20-30 somethings surround by good friends, lurking to find a new hook-up, murdering the dance floor, or meandering through the venue massively intoxicated.  These conditions typically spur a type of dancing, something we've all been used to and have all experienced from time to time.  From a girls' standpoint, there is nothing classy about a guy coming up from behind her and continuously pelvic thrusting.  From a guys' standpoint...from a mature guys' standpoint...they should know that the best way to dance with a girl is to make eye contact and approach her from the front, feel out the chemistry, and see what happens.  This scenario, if played right can turn into pelvic thrusting in the end...but I digress.  My point being is that most dancing you see is rather monotonous.  The songs they play at Okskop can definitely give rise to said dancing styles, but once the sokkie songs come on and it's only pairs on the dance floor, it's something to really enjoy.  There is an attractive innocence with this style.  It's fun.  It's refreshing.  It's creative.  It's Afrikaans.

The most important part of my sorption experiments have anything but ideal.  Unfortunately, initial experiments on many chemical compounds do not turn out to be attractive figures for publication.  Typically tweaks to the experimental methods must be made to optimize the results.  I have tried sorption of ethane with my cavitand molecules (below), the orange represents the void space that a small molecule can potentially become trapped in:

These experiments are typically done on porous materials, which possess large channels for guest insertion.  My molecules are not formally porous, but may be transiently porous, meaning that is does not contain atomic scale channels but may still possess a structure which allows the guests to permeate through to find the void spaces in the molecule.  More tests are being conducted.

Looks like at the end of February, I will be heading to Boston for an MIT/Bruker sponsored chemistry conference on crystallography.  Never been to Boston, should be fun.

With all the things I've done here thus far, there's entirely too much to do in only two months of time here.  After thinking about it, there are a number of things that I'd still love to do upon returning (knock on wood).  Namibia has quite beautiful scenery I've been told, a trip to bungy jump at Bloukrans Bridge would be amazing if it weren't 8 hours drive away, among many other attractions.  Most of my failure is doing these is the remote location of Stellenbosch.  I'm curious to see what Johannesburg has in store for me.

I booked my safari for next month.  It's a three day adventure, with 4 game drives, lodging, meals, and transportation included.  This recent development prompted me to head into the campus pharmacy to pick up some anti-malarial pills for the trip.  There are a few varieties, but the pills the lady suggested had me taking a pill before my Kruger Game reserve departure, the three days while I'm there, and up to a week after I leave.  The other pills she said I'd have to take up to a month afterwards and could potentially "make me go bonkers".  I will gladly pay the extra rand for 11 pills and no substantial psychological side-effects (R556).  Getting malaria may sound cool (to some), but I'd rather not deal with the effects and the trouble in entering the US while sick, and the inability for me to give my O negative blood at donor drives.

Tomorrow is wine/cheese taking with the group.  Maybe out tomo night?  Surfing on sunday, maybe wakeboarding?  Who knows.