Welcome!

First, welcome to my research journal!

It is kind of a weird place to put the "Welcome" message, as there are three to four posts before this one!  Those come from the research journal I've been keeping along with the ones I require of my students in Research Methods class.  I've been more successful some semesters than others.  The first few entries below this one are just copied and pasted from that journal.

Because I was doing a lot of foundational work for my sabbatical research, I talked about that process in my Research Methods class.  One day, a few of my students became concerned about my safety.  Maybe.  Maybe they were just having a bit of fun at their professor's expense.  Maybe they were just trying to avoid talking about course content for a few minutes.  Either way, as a part of that discussion, I agreed to keep a research blog so I could check in and they can be assured that I was NOT at Camp Crystal Lake, and would not be suffering the same fate as those folks.

You can click on the links to the side to get caught up with where I'm at.  (I am not sure why the font is messed up on those. I'll try to fix it so you can actually read it without highlighting it.)

Hopefully there will be funny stories along the way..

Right now, I'm finishing up getting ready for the first event at which I will be handing out surveys.  I am hoping to finalize the formatting, and then get them printed tomorrow, and then we'll be all set.  I'm still waiting for formal permission from the events themselves; I've sent requests to about half, and gotten mildly favorable responses from about half of those, but nothing formal from anyone.

I also need to set about purchasing the voice recorder for the interviews, and maybe get something waterproof to put everything in.  If I don't get one, it will rain buckets the entire time.  If I do, maybe that will keep it from raining so much.  In fact, I have a long running list of "Things I need," some of which have to do with the research itself, and some just are about general living supplies.  I just recalled my rain boots had holes in them at the end of last year, and I had thrown them out.  Those are not covered in sabbatical funding, however.