Daily Newsie

I have to submit an application to the Human Subject Review Board for their approval before I can begin interviewing people for my thesis. This is so they can verify that I’m not going to poke needles in people, scar them for life, or deliberately give them syphilis to see what happens. Yesterday was my afternoon off and I was happily filling out the form until I noticed the bold black type at the top that said applications must be turned in by the first working Monday of the month. As in, December 1. As in, the day before yesterday.

In that instant, several things happened. I blanched, said a very bad word, almost threw up, and contemplated hanging up my thesis and absconding to the Riviera. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and I e-mailed the compliance manager to beg for forgiveness. That done, I commenced panicking. (I’m so, so good at panicking.)

A while later, an e-mail from the compliance manager arrived, saying that he would accept my material late if I got it to him posthaste. I e-mailed Dr. Nerd Crush my documents and, bless his heart, he responded within five minutes. Another professor was doing a faculty lecture last night, so I banked on the fact that DNC would attend and, armed with the form that requires his signature, went running through the halls to his office. He was tapping away at his laptop when I screeched around the corner, waving a sheaf of papers, and signed his name as I paced nervously in front of his desk.

Success! The only thing left to do was turn the stuff in to the compliance manager, which I did earlier this morning. I’m free and clear — unless I forgot something — until December 12, when I have to go defend my application at their monthly meeting, and if all goes well I should be able to begin interviewing after New Year’s Day. If I fail to defend my application adequately, I have to wait until the end of January when the board meets again, meaning I lose several weeks of potential interview time between Jan. 1 and the beginning of the semester. That would put me seriously behind schedule.

I am, more than ever, grateful that I chose DNC as my thesis adviser, not just because I think he’s cute but because he’s punctual, thorough, and apparently unflappable. I hear some of the other professors were ragging him a bit because a few weeks ago I thought he was dead when he didn’t reply to an e-mail I sent (before you think I’m nuts, he always responds within a matter of minutes unless he’s out of town, and then he tells me so) and roused several of my other professors to organize a search party, but he takes it all in stride. I think I’m going to get him The Know-it-All for Christmas as a small token of my thanks. What I really want to do is build some sort of statue in his honor, but I think that would be crossing the line.