Hey everybody,

Sorry for having been out of touch for quite some time! I have been very very very busy lately, since I have just started testing participants for my experiment! Before I could eventually start, I had to check whether there were any errors in the computer programs that I was going to use and that was a HELL of a job! Sorry, I usually do not use swear words, as you might know, but this time I really have to get this frustration off my chest! I have spent many hours checking upon my programs and of course I encountered many unnecessary barriers along the way! For example, my programs were put on 2 computers that were occupied for most of the time, since other researchers needed these computers. There were other computers that I could use, but my programs were not installed on these ones. Once it was put on the other computers, images didn't appear on the screen. Then SPSS (a statistical program) didn't work. Then a small error was found in the programs and I had to start checking over again... in case this correction had negative consequences for the rest of the programs (not likely but possible). Then it became clear that I could only use two cubicles, which I have to share with 4 other people, who have experiments lasting for 2 hours (just like mine)... (This means that ideally, I can only test a maximum of 8 people per week! :S And I have to get 75 participants at least... another problem is that I have a small target population, which I have to share with 2 other people...) Then... I can go on forever. Today I started testing for the first time! I was pretty nervous, as I had so many instructions to give! I am running 4 computer tasks per participant and for each task I have to instruct the participant what s/he has to do. You can imagine that at the end I was pretty exhausted! But then I wasn't ready... since I have a taste test phase (in which I have to give instructions...), I always have to clean glasses at the end... :S... Really really exhausting. And then I found out that my data were overwritten... I gave each file the same name but thought they would be separated from each other since each file came from a different task. But no, which means my data for these 2 participants are lost.... You can imagine how angry I was! I really think that if I had chosen to conduct my experiment at my own university, it would have been a lot easier! And a lot smoother too! Well, I will be here for quite some time, so I have plenty of time.. shouldn't complain.. but I actually wanted to finish one study by the end of June and start another study in July... seems that this isn't realistic. Well, should also look at the bright side of conducting research, right? ;)

Today I smashed my Chinese tingxie (dictation)! Wo kao de hen hao! (=I did very well on the test). I was able to write all the characters that the teacher read aloud! :D After that, I met up with an Australian girl I spoke to online. She was very nice and she is going to pick me up tomorrow for a movie with her friends! :) Sounds really nice! I think she might become a good friend of mine.. :)

And now I am home, trying to organize activities during my trip around Aussie. Yes, I am going to travel around! With 3 of my dearest buddies! It takes time to have everything arranged, so another reason why I couldn't update my blog... I am afraid that it might take a while before I write again, since the semester will soon come to an end, thus many exams to come. And research is taking up a lot of time too. But I keep in touch with you! Hope everyone is doing well, wherever you are ;)