Status Updates From A Novel and Efficient Synth...

Attempting to read this again because why not. After allowing some time to pass for the toxic self-destructive academic cynicism to not trigger me so much, I'm actually enjoying it. It's not every day that you read poetic metaphors of everyday life in terms of chemical equations. Or a glorious comparison of a battle-hardened postdoc making diazomethane to Schroedinger's Cat. Death/Nondeath by exploding chemicals!

With me being a chem major who skipped grad school, you’d think this would be something I’d enjoy reading, or at least be curious about. But there’s just too much hopeless and self-destructive cynicism here that I don’t appreciate.

p.150 “And after I die, my final paper will be published posthumously: A Novel and Efficient Synthesis of Cadaverine.”
WE HAVE A TITLE!