Paper and Questions

Well, here I am in the office, pondering all the questions one can as a grad student. My work is primarily with green buildings and today's task is to focus on the "Net-Zero Energy" ones. The pen sits by, ready to scribble questions in the margins of the scholarly journals I feverishly peruse, while the highlighter pencil (my favorite remnant of my time in Germany) awaits a line of text that needs to pop more at first glance. Meanwhile stacks of papers- either journal papers I have read or plan on reading or scrap paper with notes, lists, and questions on them- litter my desk. Since most of the sustainability department here focuses on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool, I can't help but wonder if my paper consumption will be redeemed by the time I leave here. Will I have positively impacted the world (academic or otherwise) to justify the use of all this paper?

And there's other, more important fears. Will I publish my own paper someday? Will it be good? (Can I even write all that well?) Will I teach a class? Will I actually graduate with a valuable PhD? But now I've gone too far into the theoretical... grad school! Back to work!