A change of plans has been made, and I have decided not to present my research at the HEAD meeting. It's simply not ready. I came to this conclusion after nine stressful hours in the office on Easter Saturday. I'm only human; there's only so much I can do in the week remaining before the conference. I will present the research at a later date.

Yesterday, I felt like a failure. Today, I have a more realistic take. I'm not sure how I ever thought this project would be ready to be presented in only two months time! I had eight months to prepare the research I presented at last year's Amsterdam conference, and that was with a pre-written program that I modified with help. With my current project, I'm writing the program by myself, from scratch, and I am a very poor programmer.

That being said, I am proud of what I've created so far. The program really is almost done in its most basic form. I need to include the option to rebin the data (instead of each point representing the default of 1.7 seconds, provide the option of having each point represent 3.4 s, 5.1 s, 6.8 s, etc.), provide the option of changing the four energy ranges, provide the option of zooming into a certain time range, and color code the data points on the plot. Once the program is finished, I'll be ready to analyze the four GRBs in the sample I've been working with, and perhaps add in the newest bright burst, GRB 080319B.

I still intend to enjoy the HEAD meeting and my time in Los Angeles. I am going to try not to feel too guilty about submitting an abstract but not presenting a poster. This is an important lesson learned about how long research takes, and I'm glad I'm learning it while in grad school.