just....ugh....it's so long. Lots of distilling, extracting, stuff like that. Do you have methylamine? Have you ever tried ketamine before? Wouldn't it bee cool to make a K analog? Just in ning's mind, the possibility of both simplifying a procedure, and obtaining a novel never-before-tasted-but-really-likely-to-be-active analog is exciting. You're a lucky bee to have a properly equipped labspace. I hope you can make some use of it to perform some real experimentation....
I guess you won't know if it'll work until you try. I'm definitely interested in bioassay results, though.
If you can run the synth right once, then compare o-chloro K (i.e. ketamine) to the o-bromo, o-iodo, o-methyl, and o-nothing analogs. Then do some amine replacement. N-methyl (K), N-ethyl (like tiletamine), N-isopropyl, N-piperidyl (if you can git it). At that point, you will bee ready to write a small CiHKAL.
It's an addiction, this chemistry thing.