plant design thanks

I always have this apprehension and fear at the start of a major obstacle. That the way to the finish will be long and cumbersome. That I'd never get to have that feeling of accomplishment. I tend to be a pessimist. I expect the worst.

Anyway, we got through. We finished. We did it. We submitted the bound copy of our plant design, our research poster, the research text and softcopies of everything today. Truth is, our quest to convert banana stalks to ethanol began last June. Random thoughts, research and ideas come out constantly from then on. But it was only three weeks ago that we got serious. I mean, we did some things during the past year. We did the experiments and all. We drafted our process flow diagram. But the real work began less than a month ago.

I raise my glass (strawberry milkshake-filled) to Dale, who is the brain of the group. He practically did the entire technical study. Without him, we won't be motivated/scared to do our work. He knows what to do, how to do it, and when we should do it. Sure, he might have done some things that we may have seen as bitchy, but everbody makes mistakes. But sometimes some people need some "motivation" to get their butts moving *raises hand*. Thanks Dale, you don't deserve a crappy project, so you decided not to make one.

I raise my glass to Mon, who has been very patient and motivated. You were like the group's battery (sure you 'recharge' a lot, but so does this laptop). He did what he could do, even mundane tasks such as just draining the test tubes (LOLZ, naalala mo ba?). He has handled the first draft revisions very well, even with Ma'am's red pen extravaganza. He is always ready to offer any service (that is legal and related, but then singing...LOLZ) that he can give for the success of the group. He mastered the gentle art of spectrophotometer reading and mental cuvette note-taking. I know that you sometimes feel that um, yeah (gets mo na!), but you are as important as every gram of Rochelle salt that we used. Thanks Mon, because without you, the gaps won't be filled.

I raise my glass to Janine, one of the boys. She brought life and vigor (I didn't say daylight wakefulness, LOLZ) to the group. Sure you have missed a couple, couple of lab sessions, but you were always ready with what we need. She was hopeful, optimistic and very cheerful. She gladly offers to do stuff so that we can do other stuff (gets mo na rin!). She talks to Ma'am so that we can get away with things. Even though she had a lot of things going on, she still finds time to fill a cuvette or wrestle a bear...stuff like that. [Oh, I got carried away with the bear thing.] And the poster is BRILLIANT! Love it. You are my Banana Man pal. Thanks, Janina, you made the plant design less stressful for me, and for us all as well.

I raise my glass to every person who have helped us, directly or otherwise. To those who have doubted our capacity to do this, well, I guess, you suck. Because we did it. [Harsh, but then it's hard to light a candle when the wind is blowing hard.]

Groupmates, group hug. I'm here, because you're here, because I'm here, because you're here. Best group, ever! Angal ka? Basagan kita ng bote sa mukha! Joke.

Additional specific acknowledgements:
Sir Cy, for fixing Dale's laptop.
Jabellz, for the ROI calculations
Vinz for more ROI calculations
Mercy, Chiara, Sacs, for sulfuric acid prices
Haidee for the Matche suggestion
Mina, for everything.

More tributes (in the academic(al, LOLZ) sector of my second semester):
To Group Catalysis, we know that we really did great. We deserve our 1.00s. So he better give it to us all.

Huh. Yun na lang pala. This is my end-of-sem post. My sem ended just now. And I better catch up on sleep.