Whew for a Moment… Now for the Next Step

Two other group members and myself have been working tirelessly on a research project. We are doing an effectiveness study of the Crisis Residential Center’s Direction Program. It’s a fairly intensive project. We went though and looked at former client files, are sending out surveys to both the former clients and their legal guardian, and going to preform some in-depth interviews with former clients. We spent all last quarter examining what we were going to do with our project, exploring the literature, and defining our methodology. We also had to get approval from the Institutional Review Board. Many a night was spent into the wee hour hours of the morning working on the papers for this. We’ve really wanted to present an excellent product. We are even planning to attempt to get this research published.

The Institutional Review Board took longer than we expected to allow us to go forward with our project. Between going over the various documents ourselves, then with our teacher, then with the board we had seven different versions. We submitted the application four times to the board. I am truly proud of my group members for not giving up, it’s been a long process. That long process, while we have met a milestone is not yet complete. Last week we finally sent out the surveys, but we still have a lot to do. Now we will have to gather and analyze all of the data. After tuning in our project for class, it will also be a long process to format and submit our research to various journals. For now I am just excited that we have sent out the surveys.

On an even more geeky note (although, there is not much more geeky than doing research) I thought I’d share about my new backgrounds for both my computer and my BlackBerry. found my newest background for my PC a while ago (I tend to change it semi frequently) somewhere… I don’t remember where. You can see it below. I decided that I would make my PC and my BlackBerry match, so I created a similar background for my phone. Fun with Photoshop.

Desktop Background of a Smooth African Scene. I didn’t create this one, I found it somewhere, but I don’t remember where I found it.

BlackBerry background image of Africa that I created using Adobe Photoshop.