back to work

haha, not a good sign when i'm so busy that i can't even find a minute to write something here!
so i came back on tuesday and got back to work. didn't do much in paris but got a few emails from a few schools asking for IRB stuff, mostly. i also finished the grant proposal and sent it on 05/31... worked very hard on it but wished i had someone to proof-read it before i sent it. oh well...

work right now: to get irb approval from all the schools who agreed to participate in the project! this means i first have to find the schools' irb office phone number, then i call them, feel very lucky if i find someone who knows what the deal is and is able to explain to me what i should do, and then i try to do whatever that is they want me to do. it varies. sometimes i just need to send a letter of approval from the school director plus purdue's irb stuff. sometimes i need to fill out a whole new application and that sucks! sometimes i need to ask the school director to do the irb training before they can do the project with their school and that sucks a lot too! i thought i was almost done calling people, but in fact, now i call irb offices... about 20 every day, since people are not there, busy, not sure what to tell me, etc. don't even want to think about my phone bill...

so i call, write things down, fill out papers, have little envelops with different things in it, write emails, fill out online forms, ... and above all, i try to keep track of everything i do, but it's hard. one thing that i learn by doing this is: TAKE DETAILED NOTES of whatever people tell you, who, when, why, and what i need to do, when, why, and how. with so many people to deal with (now i have the school directors plus the irb people at each school, that's about 60 people), i don't remember names, places, or anything else! i should have recorded details about each conversation i had with the school directors because now i can't remember if they were nice, hesitant, hostile, what they said besides yes or no, and what the plan was! darnit! i need a secretary!

it's only 10:45am but i've been up and working for so long already that i need my lunch!