When the role is called up yonder

I thought I'd write a bit about the research I'm working on right now.

Things to know:

1. We have to do research as part of our curriculum.  It's called "Discovery Phase." If someone in my class says they're "On Discovery," it means their schedule is a bit more relaxed, but who knows where they are or what their day looks like.  Some people do bench research in the lab, others travel the world, and still others are sifting through data.  Lots have clinical components of their projects.  It all depends.  
2. I am working with a research mentor with whom I am incredibly thankful to be working.  He's - ahem - a research badass AND a nice person, the best combination of qualities to have in a mentor.  
3. Why's he so great?  He does work I admire and that I'm interested in - the public health impacts of global climate change.  He's an emergency doctor, so of the same clinical ilk.  He is a skillful mentor in that he lets me struggle a bit but not so much that I run aground.  He's available and supportive, and guides my activities at a reasonable level.  
4. There's a style point, too, which is that he's cognitively and creatively brilliant, which definitely comes in handy when problems need solving. 
5. I'm working on a survey-based research project exploring peoples' opinions (much-speculated-about but little-studied) regarding environmental sustainability in the context of healthcare.  
1. Questions: do people esteem env sust in the context of healthcare? If so, how does that esteem compare with other priorities?
2. Do populations of stakeholders (consumers, practitioners, managers) have appreciably different opinions?
3. Lots of other stuff...too much to catalog here.
6. The numbers we aimed for were ambitious (thanks to Jeremy, who pushed the goals higher than I would've). But my results beat even Jeremy's ambitious goal.  So that's cool.
7. NOW I'M ANALYZING the data...trying to see whether our data supports or refutes our hypotheses.
8. And it's hard. First, there are the vagaries of Excel and JMP, my programs of choice.  How do you code for a missing value? How do you get JMP to recognize your numbers? Which analyses are appropriate for your data type and what you're trying to ask?  Oh, man, it's complex
9. And THAT is why this:
10. has given me so much trouble this week.  See those little blue and green icons?  Well, they make a huge difference.  If you choose wrong, your analyses go all haywire.  I fiddled in this program for a total of two weeks before Dr. Beau Bruce finally showed me why I didn't have access to the analyses I needed.  I just kept fishing around in the stupid/smart program trying to find options it wouldn't show me because my nominal (red)/ordinal(green)/continuous(blue) choices were busted.  
11. Humbling computer programs, humbling computer programs. 

Okay, I'll stop there and maybe add something funny later on so readers don't drop like flies. Thanks for hanging with me.

When the Role is Called up Yonder - Johnny Cash rendition - is what I'm listening to. It works for a day like today.