I'm not sure things could get any worse...

But, I've probably just jinxed myself. This will be me tomorrow, "Oh! THAT's how this will get worse...." I'm trying hard to laugh at that statement, but...not yet, perhaps. Instead, I think I'll just cry, but that would make me look not so competent to all the denizens of this computer lab (I'm the on-duty consultant right now).

So I'll just blog about it instead. I've been having an incredibly difficult time dealing with a certain professor who is in charge of the psych pool. He's isn't allowing me to use the pool for my class assignment, and he's being very unreasonable about it as well. My fav prof approved the project; and technically, I have IRB approval for it, but he won't budge. So I've been dealing with him through emails and he is so blunt, harsh, and condescending in his emails. Almost every time I read a response from him, I feel like I've been slapped on the wrist. I usually have to back away, collect myself, then formulate a well-crafted response, ingratiating myself to him. It totally strips my ego. But, today a glitch happened and we both blew things way out of proportion. I finally responded by slapping him on the wrist in my email. But, he didn't take so kindly to it, and requested a meeting with me to talk about it. The problem is, I don't know if he wants to meet to reprimand me or to clear the air. But, whatever's going on, he indicated that he enjoys working with me and thought we had a good working relationship. I don't know where he got that idea; I think working with him has been incredibly difficult. But, anyways...

The other problem is that I stupidly left things until the last minute with the grant proposal. I was vaguely aware that I would need someone from the university to handle the final product, insert special codes, and throw in some signatures for good measure. But, when I tried to contact them last minute, I got someone who had never even heard of the NRSA and thought that everything goes through faculty members. So I tried talking to my advisor and again, I let my mouth do too much talking and put that foot right back in that mouth. My poor advisor just humored me, but this has not been a good day for appropriate responses on my part. So she told me to contact another person, who responded to me by saying that basically I'm not eligible to apply for the grant because this is not a combo Ph.D./M.D. and I'm not from an underrepresented group. So I searched the PAs again and thought I had found something that indicated I was eligible. Ugh! I cannot even explain how I felt. I thought that my small sliver of hope that I could obtain my own funding was gone, and that I was grasping for answers because everyone else seemed so incompetent. It was horrible. But, I have an appointment with her and she seems to have agreed with me that I'm eligible to apply. Apparently, I'm the first brave soul from this university to try applying for a federal predoctoral fellowship. Oh, help me God.

To top it all off, I'm not even finished with the grant proposal. I've been stymied by crazy statistical problems. I guess that's what happens when you try to write about a sophisticated statistical technique in which you've never even taken a class. Even worse, the literature suggests curvilinear relationships, and complicated interactions among the variables. So I'm going to have to describe a procedure that I will do to deal with nonlinear data. And it turns out that it's a special case that is so unusual that most people don't even attempt it. Once again...Oh, help me God.

If that wasn't enough, I tried putting through the paperwork for the neuropsych externship again. (Why, oh why do I load myself up with extra work that I don't get paid for!) But, when I tried contacting the neuropsychologist about fulfilling the requirement for demonstrating training in infection control (whatever that is), he insisted that the university was supposed to provide that...again. Can we stop passing the ball people? So I took it upon myself to figure it out...again. I came up with a Red Cross course in preventing disease transmission, but it's not offered until next month. Yep, what more could possible delay this? At least I get to decline the Hepatitis B shots that would have cost me $300, and would have taken four months to complete. Sigh...

To reiterate, I'm not sure things could get any worse...