ups and downs

These past few days have really been difficult. I am still running pilot studies and just when I think something is working, it doesn't. Then, when I think it isn't working- IT IS! There is a lot of variation in my type of research and along with it comes the emotional rollercoaster of progress. I have been going from feeling accomplished to feeling like I need to abandon my original question and hypothesis 3 times a day.
I need X to happen in order to study Y. A old student of my advisors got X to happen only 5 out of 25 times. He studied what influences X and unfortunately, the conditions under which X happened for him, I can not replicate because of limited resources. I got X to occur yesterday but it didn't last long enough for me to collect my data about Y. Today, I go into the lab to break down the experiment and what do I see? X! I don't know how or when or why but X now seems stable. I'm taking data and we will see if it indicates anything about Y over the weekend. Man, I would love to be able to have an n = 1 by now!

I also must offer congrats to my super labmate who is defending her dissertation RIGHT NOW! I wish I could be there but know that her work is fantastic and that she will be a Dr. by the end of the day. SOO Exciting! I might have to buy yarn to celebrate!