Disappointment vs. Elation

Well, I hit max levels of stress about 10 minutes ago when mom/boss told me that I needed to have the grant written by Monday. (Short explanation: my mother is in horrible amounts of pain due to problems in her back, and will be having surgery in a month. However, before she knew that would happen, she agreed to have the company write a grant that is due on April 7th. She isn't able to write it, though, which means that I get to "get my feet wet" with my first grant, but instead of it being a cake walk, it's a fricken 30 page monster worth $4 million over 3 years that, last year, was awarded to 5 out of over 100 applicants.) I thought I would have until the end of next week to write the approximately 22 pages that I was responsible for. But no, by the end of the weekend, says she, and I say, but I'm busy all day Sunday, and she says, then by Monday.

Then I come down to the Shepard Lab and check my e-mail.

I'm sad there won't be a game, but damn if it doesn't feel good to get a day back when I've got to write a 22 page grant on a topic that I don't know anything about (Early Childhood/Preschool education) by fucking Monday.

(Forgive my rant, but I'm a bit panicked, even with the day back, I've never written a paper that long - my record is 20 - I've never written a grant before, I've never had $4 million resting on my performance, etc., etc. I haven't been at the "I'm so stressed I'm nauseaus" point since the last week of my last semester of undergrad, a week when I wrote 3 papers and a total of 50 pages while trying to finish 7 applications to graduate school and work all of my just-before-Christmas hours at fricken Waldenbooks)