la saga de l'été

you want the latest on this summer's mini-series? well i finally found the paper iu's irb wanted and faxed it there... and thought that was the last of it. but oh no, miracles don't happen in indiana! the lady wrote me back and said that obviously, purdue didn't require a couple of things that they required. so she sent me two templates of two forms i had to write and send her: an information form, and a recruitment form. i had the recruitment form, which i sent her, and i also had an information form, which i also sent her after i made a few changes to fit their irb information. she wrote me back 2 minutes later saying no no no, you MUST copy our template. ok, so the information is basically THE SAME but the format is different... that time, i lost patience, and i wrote her and said: dear madam, i won't do it that way, because the information form is being translated into 12 languages and i can't have a different form for each one of the 20 schools i'm using. it must be a generic form. i'm spending $3000 for those translations and consequently won't be able to copy your template for the info form. i think you forgot that this is for a pilot study and not even for the real thing. if you don't think the students will be able to manage with my information form that says exactly the same thing as yours and which you could have asked me to write five weeks ago, then i am not sure what to do. hopefully, since this is for a pilot and the results will never even be published, it will work out. PS. in case you don't believe me, here are some of the info forms and questionnaires that have already been translated into arabic, japanese, chinese, spanish, etc.

she either had a heart attack or decided never to talk to me again. at any rate, i haven't heard from her since. which i don't care about. i won't call her because i'm too mad and don't even want to hear her voice. i'll write an email to "enquire about the status of the protocol" (huhuh) next week, maybe, if i feel really cruel. i mean, i still want to do the pilot, even if it will end up being done at the same time as the real thing, just to know, and just to bother her to the end. it's really too late now, but i think she has not suffered enough ;) (unfortunately, she might think she has).

there's something i don't get: why don't they have a LIST of things that they need? when i first called there, they told me that ALL THEY NEEDED was what i gave to purdue's irb and the third page of their irb form. well, i gave them all the stuff i gave to purdue, except the stuff i didn't have anymore because purdue had it (signatures, etc.). but then, every week they came up with something else. like her info form and the signature she wanted last week, she could have seen from the beginning that it wasn't there, she didn't have to wait five, almost six weeks to ask for them! she's either making things up or has no idea what she's doing. other schools were a pain, like they asked for a LOT of stuff or tons of details or whatever, but they asked it FROM THE START. it was clear. no one ever came back at me and said oh by the way, we forgot to ask you for this or that... (well, one school did for one paper and i didn't send it to them and no one ever noticed and i got their approval, it was just a fluke). anyway, i'm almost not angry anymore, it's just been such a waste of everyone's energy. and it's sad that i couldn't do a pilot.

other than that, not much. i got a french translator for the questionnaire and also someone who very kindly revised my infamous info sheet in french. i am trying to finish my chapter 2 so i can give it to margie and hope she'll approve it so i can give it to B. so he can write me a letter of recommendation. T.'s writing me one. must call Dr. H. to see if he'll write me one too. must ask margie for one too. so i just need to finish that one section on chapter 2 and i'll be done. 50 pages only... i'll add more with time. but i'm pretty happy with it so far.

ok, back to writing insulting emails.




... i'm kiddin!