How did it get to be Friday?

This week has flown. Seriously. I have no idea what happened to all the time, especially the time I thought I had to dig into some seriously interesting and engaging data. It's Friday and I'm just starting to dig into some serious and still interesting, but less engaging data that I was s'posed to have finished yesterday. The seriously interesting and engaging data is going to have to wait until Monday. How did that happen?

In an effort to regain perspective, as I was reading my blog roll, it seems today is pie day. Both of these women have my admiration - for different but similar reasons.

Marcia is, like me, a soshul werker (spelling intentionally mangled), but unlike me, she's a clinical soshul werker. Having peered through the open door that is clinical practice, I know the dedication and committment it takes to pull it off. It's heart-wrenching and full of utter dispair. It's fraught with human failure - both yours and those you're trying to help. It also has it's very bright moments of triumph that make it worth it. But in the end, I knew (and still know) that I don't have What It Takes(tm) to make it as a clinical soshul werker and to witness the strength, humility and humor that Marcia has is, for me, both inspiring and reaffirming.

Stephanie is without a doubt an amazing writing and an even more impressive woman. Today's post, though, could be applied to just about any one of us who find ourselves in the lucky position of doing a job we love, and seem to be able to pull off effortlessly. I could try to make some poetic comparison about unraveling the thread, the story, the context of a data set, but I think I've done that before and as much as I'm feeling calmed by the reminder, I'm also not feeling terribly prosaic at the moment. But I do wonder just how effortless a morning spent man-handling a database into the shape I need it only to discover that it's fundamentally flawed is supposed to have been. Like Stephanie, those three hours have been lost and there's limited time available to carve out another three hours to get things where they should be now.

Maybe next week will go more slowly. *sigh*