ARRRGGG!!! I was just reading the e-mail from my (science fair) mentor that my partner just forwarded to me, and it turns out he wants a typed-up rough procedure for our meeting tomorrow. There's a document that had a procedure I wanted to mimick, but my partner has it. So here I am at 2:00AM trying to figure out the order of chemicals to use in performing a sequential extraction of soil, and which soil fractions are most relevant in determining metal behavior in sludge-treated soils (this choice influences the first one).

Man, and I checked another e-mail that he sent me, and it turns out that he's only giving our mentor like 24 hours notice for our meetings. Now I don't know if it's my mentor I should be pissed at or my partner. I swear, I float him so much. I don't make him think at all. I did all data analysis myself and wrote all of the papers for our presentation last year. But at the same time, I need him because the team category of science fair is easier to win than individual... quite the dilemma. =/

"...These scientists reject the argument that the slow mineralization of organic matter in sludge could release metals into more soluble forms, often termed the sludge time bomb hypothesis. Instead, they argue that the residuum of sludge decomposition can perpetually maintain heavy metal solubilities at very low levels... the chemical nature of sludges needs to be better described before predictions about long-term fate of heavy metals are possible... The important question that needs an answer before the USEPA (503) limits can be considered environmentally and agriculturally acceptable is: What happens to toxic metals over the very long-term following the cessation of sludge application?"
~topic for my science fair project 2001-2002. Excerpted from an article by M.B. McBride
(note the use of the word "my")