Well, shit.
Today, at 4pm, the deadline for submission to SRCD will pass, without a submission from yours truly.
I am deeply, miserably disappointed.
The data I have spent the last three months coding just doesn't correlate to what we thought it would. There's nothing there.
It is possible that we will still find correlations with other things we study in the lab, but there isn't enough time to start a new analysis. There's always next year, right?
...
Disappointment is a state that I feel particularly ill-equipped at recovering from. I practice a healthy amount of skepticism, realism and pessimism to buffer myself from it, but alas, it sneaks in one way or another.
This has been a summer of disappointment. Ben and I thought we'd be in the house by the end of June, and now the days swiftly pass through August without an end in sight. I find it hard to even get excited about the house anymore. I'm exhausted. I need a space to relax. I don't know how much longer I can stand the traffic-riddled two-hour commute from the home of our generous friends who are hosting us to my ill-fated (see above) job in Delaware. I can barely even think about classes starting without heart palpitations.
And so, I will deal with this as I do with anything that bruises my ego and denigrates my spirit: 1. cry; 2. look up topical and inspirational quotes on the internet.
enjoy:
"The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes." ~Thomas Hardy
"Disappointment to a noble soul is what cold water is to burning metal, it strengthens, tempers, intensifies, but never destroys it." ~Eliza Tabor
"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." ~Martin Luther King, Jr
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." ~Mark Twain
sort of related:
"Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. "
~ Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
and, if all else fails: instant gratification
