Well, one bit of good news: my co-worker and I decided that since we don't have any students to serve as "field hands" (all the likely ones are on a workshop field trip class), AND because the afternoon heat index is going to be close to 110*, we are going to put off the sampling until the first week of classes in August.

The plants should keep. And at this point we're not on any sort of funding deadline.

So I've got the afternoon off, and I've got tomorrow to write my final exams for my two classes.

Also, something I read that cheered me up immensely - this was in an essay by a "biology teacher quilter" (I wish they had printed her address; I'd've liked to have written to her) in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine. She quoted a Nobel laureate who stated that about 80% of his work came to nothing. 80%! And here, I'm fretting about having a few research projects started that don't show what I regard as timely and sufficient progress. I've gotta stop riding myself so hard.

And you could apply that 80% to anything - if more than 20% of your knitting experiments work out, you're doing well. If more than 20% of the pieces you write get accepted for publication, you're batting higher than a Nobel laureate!

I think that's going to be my new mantra: "If 20% of the stuff you do yields meaningful results, you're working in Nobel laureate territory." (Okay, okay - my Inner Critic says that I have to tell you that I realize that NOTHING I ever do, even the most successful thing, will actually be of the caliber of a Nobel laureate on his (her) worst day, with half her (his) brain tied behind his (her) back. But still - it's a very freeing thing to consider that a Nobel laureate isn't successful 100% of the time. It's kind of like reading Bird by Bird and realizing that someone who is a successful writer like Anne Lamott has the same kind of internal mind**** going on that I do to myself. And it's freeing in the way her concept of sh*tty first drafts is freeing).