Cold Spaghetti

Stanley Lemeshow is speaking tomorrow afternoon at Tulane SPH&TM/Medical School. It is wonderful opportunity; we all have read Lemeshow. His talk is “Assessing the Scale of Continuous Covariates in Logistic Regression Modeling” and YES… if given the choice between dinner out with my husband (something I do, say, twice a year?) and attending this… well, I’d tell Paul we could go to dinner once the Q&A began. (Okay, maybe it’d be alright to skip it if he offered to put out or something; I’m not totally unreasonable.) Anyway, the point is that since Dr. Lemeshow is probably in town for PAA, it makes sense to think that this speaking engagement tomorrow has been scheduled for awhile.

So WHY are doctoral students finding out about it THE DAY BEFORE!?! This makes me crazy. With our doctoral seminar from 12-1, going to Lemeshow’s talk from 4-5 completely screws my day and the rest of the week, since I’d have to put off some things, reschedule others, and get even more behind in work than usual. Had I known a week ago, I could have tried to juggle the week’s must-dos to make it all work. ARGH!

… stresses me out.

I’ve been avoiding the fact that I still don’t have a voice recorder. I have IRB… but don’t have a recording device. Today was a research day…. gear research. It feels indulgent.

After Ipod research and review, I think I’m going with a $100-or-less Olympus digital voice recorder. It does everything I need, without attachments and things to loose. I don’t need an Ipod and don’t want to mess with all the gadgets required for voice recording. I’m trying to decide between a few models and force myself to order tonight. I’m trying not to think of the cost of transcription… ugh.

Tripod research took at huge leap with the recommendation from my Aunt Deb, which lead me to this. Protective case/bag/backpack is the next consideration.

I just read Schroeder’s interesting post about climate change (well, really, it’s about an endorsement, but there is a lot of good stuff in there with it). He excellently shows cool graphs about spring onset and other global climate-related data. What I found interesting was the reference to China, specifically, that “China [is] on a course to match the entire world’s carbon output by 2050” and another, in a graph, related to China’s need for coal, which is suppose to match that of the remaining world totaled by 2030.

In Reproductive Health and Population Studies (all areas of focus for us Global Health folk) we talk about China quite a bit. One of the issues that is raised involves the great global hand-smacking we laid on China for it’s “One Child Policy,” where Chinese families’ reproductive rights are limited by law: couples register for permission to have a child and pay steep fines if they have more than the allocated One Child. Interestingly, I’ve not met many from China who have had much of a problem with this policy… that they are willing to share, at least. While I am not advocating a limit on anyone’s reproductive rights, ever, there is an undercurrent of a whisper among the demographer and population studies circles of the world that is sort of like the elephant in the room whenever China is discussed. It goes something like this: “we can’t support the policy, but thank goodness they did it…because imagine what we would be facing if they didn’t.“

In the face of all the current discussion on global warming, and the continued discussion that should rightfully occur, China is a particularly interesting subject.

The IRB head-honcho (note: not his official title) sent email notification that my dissertation has been granted Full Board Approval (meaning the recently received consent form changes were accepted), as of TODAY. The Official Letter will be ready for me to pick up in their office next week.

Green light! GO!!

Um…. could someone please remind me what comes next?

This just in…

Dear Holly,

Congratulations! You have been selected as a 2008-2009 New Orleans Schweitzer Fellow. We are looking forward to the contribution you will make to the community, your class of Fellows, and The Fellows for Life network.

Hooray!!!

I’ve been holding my breath with excitement and finally today… it’s official! I’ve been hired to TA a short summer course in Peru! It gets better: only part of the job is to TA. The OTHER part of the job is that the Dean’s Office is hiring me as a photographer to document the trip for Tulane’s Global Health Magazine!

The course includes amazing speakers from a variety of areas; mostly focused on the role of environment in health. The first several days are in and around Lima; then approximately 4-5 days are spent in and around Iquitos, including 2 days floating down the Amazon. It’s still being determined what areas in the Andes we’ll visit. (La Oroya is the only location on the current itinerary.) This is the third year the course is being offered and the syllabus has been a little different each time.

Even better, Paul is going to come, too!! We’re beyond thrilled about the whole thing. Did I mention that I’m getting paid to do this?

IRB responded!!

My research went through full board approval — and no big changes required! NO changes to protocol, questionnaire, or outreach materials. I have to make 6 minor changes to my consent form and turn in the final consent for final approval. The changes include changing “subject” to “participant” on one line and adding a running title to the header on each page. The other changes involve phrasing/wording, which is a little funny to me since, most likely, the consent will rarely (if ever) be given in English. But this is NOT a complaint… I’m very excited!

… and a bit freaked out because now I actually have to officially hire staff and start doing summa’ that primary investigator stuff!

I SHOULD be spray painting rubber boots, making superhero emblems, and decorating that seriously gorgeous float sitting in our outbuilding. And Emmy just called from the Mardi Gras store… I could be with Emmy in a Mardi Gras STORE!?! My priorities are way out of whack, ’cause that is what I should be doing.

Instead, I’m redoing my consent (or at least complaining about it) because the IRB people don’t like that I wrote a sensible, understandable, useful form (in two languages, don’t forget that part!) I didn’t correctly use their template and didn’t have a running footer with the version date. Apparently, you MUST use their ALL canned fill for ALL project submissions, even when it includes stuff about my salary from the research (what?!) and the potential profit in the sale of body parts (hello, this is qualitative research, people!) I understand and respect the IRB process and generally think it’s super fantastic that they are mandatory, but seriously… isn’t rational thought involved anymore??

Actually, what is pissing me off isn’t all of that… bureaucracy I can reasonably handle. I’m ticked that I requested meetings 3 weeks ago to go over these details and was blown off… three times. So I’m irritated that NOW I’m having to make changes. I guess it could be worse… they could’ve flat out denied me and made me do the whole process again. Aye, when I think about all the trees who gave their lives for this submission…

Hooray and hoorah, I submitted a mammoth-sized pile of documents to IRB today for the Biomedical Review board. Between the multiple copies of everything, the fact that so much of the material had to be in both English and Spanish (with translation certifications), the thing was probably 250+ pages. I practically had to give a blood sample to turn it in… but it’s DONE. Fingers are crossed that any review is minor. Time to move on to hiring staff… but that can wait until next week. Important work presses…

Like finishing the paint on the ladder. Adhering superhero names to our costumes. Adjusting my wig. Finding awesome costume bling. Determining which headpiece is the most appropriate for each parade. Important. Adult. Business. Get out the glue gun; it’s Carnival time!

The more I do this PhD thing, the more I learn. Don’t confuse this with being trained in your field; that stuff you learn in a post-doc. PhD learning is about learning how to get through a PhD. Unfortunately, I’m not proving to be the best learner in this area… I’m too determined to actually gain something from my experience and catching on a little too late.

Today’s lesson: there is a reason why PhD students do not do independent research. PhD students are better off piggy-backing something on a Professor’s work agenda because that is THE ONLY WAY TO GET ANY F&%$*!NG attention.

If I weren’t okay with just charging ahead on my own with no direction whatsoever, or practiced at getting feedback and advice from other areas (read: other universities, departments, persons outside my chair), then nothing in my degree program would ever happen.