Something Promising!

Damn. I just spent the day implementing an idea for speeding up some code I use for my research, and it seems to have worked spectacularly. I still have a ways to go, and there are many more potential pitfalls, but this is the first concrete sign I've had in months that my ideas on this project might actually turn into something useful. And it feels really good. It is heartening to know that even after not getting good results from a project for a long time, there is sometimes still hope. But I don't know if I have the stamina to work on these sorts of projects long-term. After finishing up this work, I think I need to switch to a project in a less well-studied area, where I won't need to struggle for so long to find interesting results. That might seem lazy (shouldn't I be working on the problems I feel are most important?), but I think it's necessary if I want to have some drive left in me when I finish my PhD.