I'm a candidate!

I wrote out an entire blog on Friday and then Blogger malfunctioned. So here is what happened. I got all my signatures by Friday morning and personally walked the form to the Graduate School at 1:30 PM. Ahhh! Sigh of relief until 3:30 PM when someone from the Grad School called me to let me know that she couldn't process my forms until I had IRB approval. She asked where was the approval form and I said I hadn't submitted it yet. She said "ohh." Not good. IRB is a panel of people at each institution that has to approve all research. Luckily I had already completed all the forms a month ago so now I just have to get my advisor's signature and submit them as soon as possible. The main problem is that he is on vacation. I hope he will get the email I sent him today and let his secretary sign for him tomorrow. If I get IRB approval by the 26th, then I will have still met the Aug 15th deadline for admission to candidacy.