Not much to say today. Yesterday was a full day of work, both translating, and working on final graphics files for "Advanced Organic Chemistry" (the page proofs for the first five chapters arrived about 2:00 am this morning, Kazan time, so that is now one more task, but an enjoyable one). You can read page 1 below...


Otherwise, it was a typical work day, We are now well into the start of the translation of Markovnikov's Dr. Chem. dissertation, and finding that there are remnants of older nomenclature everywhere. Calcium salts, for example, are referred to as "lime" salts; the term "lime salt" has a special meaning -- calcium chloride. I assume that this reflects the days when hydrochloric acid was known as "spirits of salt." I had expected the dissertation to focus strongly on the structural theory of organic chemistry, but it actually strays into the chemistry of simple inorganic compounds, also.

Lunch yesterday was a "business lunch," which is a sort of lunch-time special. It consisted of a fish/onion/beet in sour cream or yoghurt salad, a Russian version of chicken noodle soup (with lots of dill -- the Russians love dill), and a chicken shashlik (meat on a stick) with boiled potato as the main course. It was lunch, so of course, we had tea in the correct Russian style. Coffee is reserved for breakfast and a morning coffee break.

I took off at dinner time, looking for a Tatar place to eat. I didn't find it because it began to pour down. I took refuge in an Irish pub (the Trinity -- Gene has photographs of it), and ended up drinking Irish beer (tolerable, I guess), and home-made sausages with plenty of paprika (delicious). Then it was back to work until exhaustion had me making way too many mistakes.

I need to make some contacts today, so Sasha and Gene will both be translating alone.

До завтра! (Until tomorrow!)