dammit

i just lost TWO big programs, utah and georgia!! this is not dramatic yet, but it's only the begining of july and if people drop out at this rate, i'll end up with 2 schools!

one of the pilot schools has just asked me to put the student questionnaire online... which i did, only took an hour to do, and it's possible since it's only in english still. won't be able to do it in other languages for the fall study.

met with the statistics consultant and she was very helpful. i should have met her before sending my pilot out, but oh well, what's done is done. i've made so many mistakes on this pilot that i'm glad it's ONLY a pilot! for example i didn't ask students' AGES! hello?????? the consultant pointed out something interesting: i thought i could match pre and post questionnaires using students' languages, schools, classes, ages, and gender... and she said: what is there are twins in the same class? my response at this point is: too bad!

she also told me to have two people entering the data for the final project and then to compare the two entries to verify there are no mistakes. haha. i guess if i end up having only 2 participating schools that'll be very easy!

i am at the end of my rope right now, ready to snap at anyone and anything... not eating enough so i'm sleepy all the time... several irbs are bothering me a lot, sending stuff back and forth and asking for changes, additions, deletions, blah blah... i'm at the point where i think i'll drop those schools if they bother me too much! i've been a secretary for the last three months and i'm really tired of playing with those things. one school also lost my entire file so i have to start all over again, and that's one of the few irb protocols that can't be emailed. so now i'm calling EVERY SINGLE IRB office again and verifying that they've recieved the damn things!!!! one school wants me to ask the director to send me ORIGINAL PAPER from the university with the LETTERHEAD things on it so i can print the consent form on that. WTF??????? do they think i'm going to go there, ask for 3 pieces of paper, and print my damn thing on it???? I AM SO SICK OF IT!!!

it's never going to work, what am i thinking????

oh yeah, plus i hurt my shoulder badly... which is way worse than if i had broken a leg, in my case!

my cats are scared when i cry.