prisms and sampling and systems oh my!

I have to admit that this grad school thing isn't all happiness and light. This week has been a tough one to get through, and as I write this, I'm in the UNH Library at 10pm trying to finish a rough draft of a paper on PCBs for my class tomorrow morning.

I'm currently working on 4 group projects:

• The PCB paper, which is really more individual than anything else, but is big.
• The Plot sampling project (which we took data for on Sunday) which involves a lot of data calculation, and a group-written paper.
• The Prism sampling project (which we took data for on Monday) which involves a lot of data calculation and a group presentation.
• The State of The Systems Project on the Long Island Sound, which has 3 papers, 2 presentations and a whole lotta work.

I have to admit that I don't really like group projects, so having four to tackle at once has been a... learning experience. I am getting a hang of the research methods that I will need to use, and the program which organizes all of those references, called RefWorks is my best friend as of late. But I still don't like communicating only over email, and being unclear about what direction we should be heading in.

I'm behind this week because of the data collection for the plot/prism sampling taking 2 days instead of one. I spent all day today and yesterday trying to catch up with my other assignments, but I think I will still end up having work to finish on Thursday night. I need to finish this draft this evening though, because it is due tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!