My project this summer

My feelings about this summer's project have vacillated on almost a daily pattern.

One day I was frustrated, at being asked to do the impossible.
The next day I was gratified, at realizing that the "impossible" was not just possible, but accomplished.

One day I was frustrated when my seemingly all-knowing but hard-to-reach bosses were not giving me all the answers to all my questions. Why can't they just tell me the formula I need? Surely they must already know it!
The next day I was gratified, at realizing that they actually didn't have a simple formula, which is why they were asking me to figure it out. You mean I'm actually contributing to a project that a grad student and a post-doc are working on?

One day I was frustrated at being told, "Read up on the subject in Chao's thesis", and having to figure not just which of the 348 pages discussed that topic, but what the heck he was talking about.
The next day I was gratified, at the realization that with enough effort and experience, I actually can read a physics PhD thesis (and other scientific papers) and understand something.

Some days I was frustrated at being pushed to what I thought was way beyond my limits.
Other days I was grateful to my bosses, for teaching me the lesson that with perseverance, all such limits are artificial, and you can accomplish a lot if you just keep trying.