Inside Front Cover

I realize this is somewhat less than exciting, but in the interest of completeness and consistency, I feel obliged to post it. Perhaps the only thing worth commenting on is the symbol I've appended to my name. It looks something like this:
It is one of a number of 18th-century alchemical symbols for phosphorus, which really is one of my favorite elements. Time constraints prohibit me from going into too much detail, but look up the history of phosphorous - I promise it makes for an entertaining read. Anyway, I chose the symbol for various reasons, the chief of which is this: the word comes from the Greek, φώς ("light") and φόρος ("bearer"), and refers to the elements, well, phosphorescence. The idea of bringing light to the darkness jives well with scientific endeavor. Also, a quick translation Φωσφόρος into Latin reveals another science-friendly allusion to someone who was not big on arbitrary, dogmatic authority. Knowledge, as we have learned, must not be based on imperial ex cathedra pronouncements, but on empiricism and experimentation. Thus, phosphorus.

Somewhat perversely, too, my adoption of the symbol was something of an experiment, to see if anyone would notice. I appended it to my name on every piece of paper that I handed in to my lab instructor, including a quite prominent inclusion on the title page of my lab report. It was never questioned, or even mentioned. This was a little disappointing, but I'm not sure what I expected. Chemists, I find (and perhaps I should say "most scientists," in order to broadly smear as many people as possible), are rather concrete and not given to frivolity. Perhaps, unexplained and apparently unrelated, the symbol merely glided into insignificance and invisibility. Sometimes, I can't help but think that the keen focus required by science narrows the mind and perceptions a bit. There is a richness that can be discovered in contextualizing, a certain kind of aestheticism, if not significance, that comes from broadening of perspective. In other words, when synthesizing 2-ethoxynaphthalene, I think it's really rather nice to stop and smell the orange blossoms. But more of that later: we didn't synthesize nerolin until Lab IX, so you'll wait until we get there.