Try

Phone calls punctuated last night's dinner as students discovered the file server intranet had crashed the night before projects were due in two of my classes. I sensed an educational opportunity in the tide of panic and sent the following e-mail:

Yes, o my children. I have heard your lament, rising like incense. No matter how many chickens you sacrifice on the altar of technology, ye cannot revive the ethernet. Verily, I say, follow ye in the way of the parable:

Once there was a servant tasked to split logs for his master's hearth. But when the servant came to the woodpile, he found the axe handle broken in twain. "I cannot chop wood," he said aloud to any who would listen. Yet secretly, the servant was glad in his heart, for he dreaded wood chopping more than all the chores of the farm.

A second servant -- wise and much beloved of her master -- found the same broken axe and used it as a hatchet to size smaller twigs for the fireplace. When the master returned in the evening, no logs were split, yet there was still warmth for his home.

Just because you cannot do all... it does not follow that you cannot do any. Media production is problem solving. Go thou and do likewise.

It strikes me that honor students (easily spotted thanks to bumper stickers on the minivans of soccer moms everywhere) are ill-prepared for inevitable failure. They have little practice taking responsibility for incomplete tasks in ways that are honorable. They are not trained to ask forgiveness; they seldom offer drafts or other paper trails as proof of industry and process.

For goodness sake, attempt something.