Failure to Paste

I finished my first Orgo Lab two weeks ago like it was NBD. I synthesized and recrystallized some salicylic acid and I thought I was the shit. This week, I go into Orgo Lab expecting it to be pretty much the same thing. So confident was I, that I even had the gall to bring my iPod. I thought my lab life could use some Mika-spice. The professor gave us permission to listen to music as long as we didn't distract anybody else or lose control of our reactions. Who's dumb enough to do that? I'll just keep my dance moves to a two-foot radius, you know?

First few minutes of lab go great. I go to the reagent hood and get all the materials I need. The reaction goes great, everything is clear, colorless, and exciting as always. Then comes the part where we add water, ice, and wait for ten minutes. Ten minutes? What better time to un-tss-un-tss to some Foster the People? I'm dumping the 10 mL of water and the 10 mL of ice into my solution, bawling at all the kids to outrun my gun, when Andrew, the TA, comes over.

"That doesn't look like a paste."
"Eh?"
 "Did you wait until your solution became a paste?"
"WHAT?"

A quick perusal of the procedure reveals that I had skipped an ENTIRE step, where I was supposed to soak my solution in a ice-water bath while stirring it into a white paste. I felt like I was Neville, being chastised for stirring five times counterclockwise instead of six times in the reverse direction.

"ANDREW. WHAT DO I DO? IS THIS SALVAGEABLE?"
"Well. All your product is in there. So you can't exactly go back. But don't worry, all the molecules you need for the final product are still in there. Just move on to the next step."
"Guh."

Major fuck-up number one.

Throughout the next three hours, I snuck glances at everyone's aspirin crystals, comparing their yields to mine. They had about twice as many crystals as I did. Balls.

Then, one of the final steps of the lab was to recrystallize the product again to ensure purity. Because this was the second lab, the rules were very general. "Psh. I can do this." I thought. I had a great yield for salicylic acid from the previous lab (a great yield that I lost because of my failure to paste).  The key is being patient. Instead of waiting merely ten minutes for my product to crystallize, I waited twenty. I dared to hope.

I finished the lab in a total of about four hours. I'm all cleaned up and getting ready to go when my lab neighbor asks me, "Is this what your product looked like at this point?" He's got his solution in an ice bath.

"What step are you on? Did we have to do an ice bath?"
"Andrew said it's a given when it comes to the recrystallization process."
"FFFFFFFUUHHHH."

So yeah, if I end up with half as much aspirin as everybody else...I have no one to blame but myself. I think this is God chastening me for my hubris. I pretty much thought/think everyone in my lab neighborhood is an imbecile. But now, I know that I am the greatest imbecile. Sigh.

I hope lab gets better. But one thing is for sure, I'M NEVER LISTENING TO MUSIC DURING LABS AGAIN.