I'm trying to put a good face on things, but I'm just having a really difficult week.

Part of it is a paper rewrite I'm doing - some of the stuff that needs to be included is stuff I no longer have, and I'm trying to do reconstructions of analyses and not getting very far. I'm almost getting the sense that my co-author just wants to spike the paper but isn't coming out and saying it. So it's hours and hours of trying things (each try takes 15-20 minutes to run) and so far, no success.

Also, I think the rain - the constant, unending rain, coupled with flood worries and mold worries and all that - is getting to me. Yesterday afternoon when I gave up on doing more analyses at the end of my office hours, I thought, "It would really be nice just to go somewhere - maybe go to Sherman and go to the bookstore and then out to dinner." But by then it was bucketing down rain, and on the local news channel they were talking about how OHP and its Texas equivalent were closing highways right and left and how there were accidents because of people going off the road. So I just stayed home.

It's not unlike the cabin-feverish feeling I get, usually later in the summer, but that's when it's 100* out and it's not rained for weeks and weeks and it's way too hot to go and do anything - and again, it's kind of a trapped feeling; you are trapped either in your house or your office.

I'm having to cancel the field lab for this afternoon because there is a very good chance the place we would be going to is flooded. It's really, really bad, and it seems the news only shows the people who foolishly drive into high water and get stuck - but it's also taking a toll on us prudent ones. I do need to get out to at least the mart of wal this afternoon as I am out of both milk and orange juice. (But mart of wal isn't much of an "escape.")

I think also, as much as I gripe about all the responsibilities I have during the school year - committee-work, and AAUW, and the youth group, and all that - it's actually GOOD for me to be involved in a large number of things. One of the problems that I have when I focus too closely on one thing (like this paper) and don't have any other "essential distractions" (knitting and quilting are a distraction, but it's not "essential" that I do them...I'll explain in a moment), so if things go badly with the research, I just generally feel incompetent and like a failure. Like everything I touch gets screwed up.

(For me, for something to really work as a "distraction" it has to be something I feel competent at, but also something that there would be problems if it didn't get done. If I didn't show up to do youth group, people'd have to scramble around and find a substitute; if I couldn't do my committeework, it wouldn't get done, and things would slow down a tiny bit on campus. With the knitting and quilting, I am the only one who's affected if it doesn't get done - so it doesn't feel 'essential' in the same way that, say, typing up the yearbook for my women's group feels 'essential.' In fact, when I get into the "I suck, I'm incompetent, I'm a loser at research" mode, I feel like knitting or quilting is something I should not be doing - I don't know if it's some subconscious desire to punish myself or if I just feel like I should be over at the office cranking analyses instead of trying to relax.)

I'm also stressing about the paper I'm giving at meetings next month. It's as good as I can make it but sometimes I feel like my "best" doesn't count as "good enough" in the wider world of the big research societies. I'm just hoping there isn't someone there who feels the need to assert his/her dominance by totally taking apart some minor researcher from a small regional school, but I know that's a distinct possibility. In some research societies, everything is (pardon my French) a pissing contest, and often times it's the innocent, earnest people who are just trying to share some research they did and maybe build their c.v. a little, who get pissed on.

So I don't know. I'm already gunshy because a co-author suggested we drop a paper earlier this spring, and I'm still hurting from all the work put into that going for nothing. (I know, it's a part of science, but I feel like I haven't had something published in so long, that it's really hard to see something like that die.) And there's a certain amount of apprehension among certain folks on campus - we're going to get a new president sometime soon, and if he or she is someone who doesn't understand the history and background of the school - well, they could shift the balance and expect far more research/grants than have been expected in the past, and there's also a rumor that we might be going to a strict merit-pay system. (And that just brings out ALL of my inadequacies and ALL my senses of not being good enough).

So, in short:
it's raining
I'm getting nowhere on a paper and may not successfully get anywhere
I'm feeling like nothing I do right now is quite good enough
it's even hard to enjoy knitting right now.