press photos

My husband took some press photographs of me for my lecture at the TW Woods Gallery Scheduled for Monday October 30 at 7:00pm.

Then it was back to work. I have been trying to finalize the details. Working from the feet upward. Be sure to check out the hathaway blog at http://www.dickhathathaway.blogspot.com

Busy, Dick Hathaway and graduation dreams.

I received a note from my instructor that she received the black book and it looks good. She will be reading it this next week. Now that the black book is written and been sent to my two readers I have turned my direction to the Dick Hathaway sculpture.
I'm working long hours and he is receiving quite a bit of attention. Florencia comes in at 9:00 every morning to work until 2:00 on whatever I direct her to do. I work from 2:00 until about 10:00 or 11:00 at night. I worked on putting in some detail into Dick's hands and last night I got to put on his other foot. This was a huge milestone for me. I hesitated putting it on because it sticks out so I was afraid we would bump it as we worked. But I am glad to see he is finally going together. I put the folgers can under this foot to give it some support. I also had to put some foundry wax between the pieces to hold them together. It is more sturdy then just welding them together with clay. Now we will have to cover the wax with clay and put in the detail.


during the day while Florencia is working I'm upstairs again working in the office. I hope to get to my presentation, but I have been spending time taking care of bills etc.

I keep having dreams about graduation. The other night I dreamt that I was at residency and I did not have any sheets or change of clothes. I guess it is time to take out the suitcase and make my lists.

On to the next thing on the list

Hubby came in and said, "What do you do now that the black book is done?"

I smiled. There is so much to do.

1. CLEAN OFFICE- You can tell I have been doing something in here it is a mess with papers thrown everywhere. The recycle bin is going to love me!

2. FINISH DICK HATHAWAY SCULPTING- I don't know how much I can get done, but with FLorencia and 4 weeks we can get a lot done I am sure. If you look how much we accomplished on him in the first 11 days it shows. A majority of my time will be spent downstairs in the studio.

3. THINGS FOR THE SHOW- Each semester there is an art show. I really wanted to have the life size bronze there but I could not manage that. I may try to get a large print of the complete Dick Hathaway sculpture, if I get the sculpture done. That is up for debate. The print would need to be shipped early.

- Artwork for the show. My goal is at least 20 small quick sketches in clay. All of these will be sold at residency so that I don't have to bring them back. The money will go for Dick Hathaway casting.

- I have a special piece that is being cast for the show, not in bronze, in something else. I hope to have that ready as well. It is in memory of Charlotte Hastings and I would love to bring one to Vermont for Hannah, Charlotte's daughter.

-other than that it will be all photographs of work. Not the way I like to do things, but I am hoping within the next year a life size bronze will be in Montpelier and that makes up for the entire thing.

4. FIND THE CAP AND GOWN- I really wanted to use my daughters gown from her highschool graduation- I will be the only one with a gown, but it is what I want. Everyone else is going to just put on the caps. I feel I have never done this before. I want the full feeling. Chris will also use the same gown when she graduates from ORU in April. I need to search up in the attic for the gown.

5. PRESS RELEASES- I'm going to do a special presentation at the TW Woods Gallery and I need to help get the press releases out.

6. PRESENTATIONS- Because of number 5. and the requirements of doing a culminating presentation I have to put together two powerpoint presentations.

I also sold another life-size newsboy bronze- we will be working on that downstairs as well. I need to get the waxes off to the foundry by the time I leave.

I guess I better get busy~

The black book is off!

BLACK BOOK GUIDELINES?
According to my guidelines I am supposed to send my black book off to my teacher and my second reader 3-4 weeks prior to residency. Since this Thursday is 4 weeks, I guess I am on time.

I am so glad that is done. I highly recommend anyone doing a black book to get started early. I have worked on mine pretty much full time for about 3 weeks. I copied the Dick Hathaway blog (http://www.dickhathaway.blogspot.com) into my Black Book. It was a lot harder than I expected because on a Mac I could not just cut and paste the document. Luckily, I could get the copy that way, but I had to reformats everything and bring the photographs in. It took me about 12 hours to do all of that.

I first wrote my entire black book in Microsoft Word. I then transferred the entire document into Quark Xpress. Word has a horrible habit of doing something called "infinite pagination "when adding photographs. Putting the entire book into Quark Xpress meant updating my copy and learning to use this program that I have not touched in about 4 years. I am sure glad I did it. The blog gave me lots of practice in formatting!

For anyone interested the layout of a black book, according to the culminating study plan is
one blank page
title page
abstract ( one page)
table of contents
preface
body of document
works cited references
selected annotated bibliography
appendices

My black book contains 58 pages of writing including preface. Then the blog writing brings this up to 127
I also have a works cited page with a listing of over 67 cited works. Wow, no wonder I was going nuts!

My annotated bib and study bib had 40 entries. But I did have a 20 credit culminating study which meant I had to read 27 books. I also read a lot of journal articles.

I will also have a section for gallery but I can't finish that right now.

Now it is a matter of getting this back and doing corrections before I leave. Blythe suggested I bring extra paper just in case I need to change anything. Apparently all of the instructors look over the black book during residency. I think they do this at lunch, hopefully they are not eating spaghetti that day!

I have a lot of color in my book, so I hope there are not changes after arriving at school.

I spoke with Doris about possibly sending my gallery photographs later. The sculptures of Lucas and Jeanine may not be ready until I return. The school said they did not think that would be a problem. I assured them the black book was complete and could go as is. I want nothing holding up my graduation! The foundry e-mailed me yesterday and said they thought I could get everything on time. So all of this may not be a problem.


38 DAYS UNTIL GRADUATION!!!!

BLACK BOOK BLUES

I make a lot more work for myself. My black book guidleines say that you can do process writing or writing for the black book. What do I do. BOTH! I want this book out of here!

An update and a reminder of a great resource!

My husband took the Spanish clep today and received all 12 credits! I think CLEPS are the best thing ever.

I'm working on an article about all of my experiences of going back to school. It is one of those things that I just have to write because it is keeping me up at night. As soon as the thesis is out, the culminating presentation is created and the lecture presentation for the TW Woods gallery is done, the press releases for the presentation are out, and oh yes, and the sculpture of Dick is complete. My I have a lot to do before the 27th of October.

Be sure to check out how the sculpture is coming along at the Hathaway blog. I will be getting back to him this evening. http://www.dickhathaway.blogspot.com/

Another great resource. Mark Wilson's book Distance Degrees! Everyone should check it out. They also have a web site. http://www.collegeathome.com/

I am reminded of the CLEPS

One friend reports that she received 30 credits through CLEP. My husband is scheduling his spanish CLEP on Monday. He said it feels like stealing. I had to find the information for him about CLEPS so I thought I would post it here again.

The basic CLEP website College Board.com
http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/clep/about.html

This page was helpful in studying http://www.freeuniv.com/
This is a great site with lots of links to help you study.

Thomson Peterson's online practice tests. There are 3 practice tests for about 20. It is difficult to find these guys and be sure to bookmark the page once you purchase it. It is really worth it. Doing 3 tests online will help you to get familiar with the tests.
http://www.petersons.com/testprepchannel/clep_spanish.asp?sponsor=3776&path=ug.pft.sat

Good luck!

More resources

I find that the Hacker book is not easy to read. However Vermont College requires it. So if you are looking for an easier way to find items quickly try hackers web site. http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/p04_c08_s2.html. OF course this is for MLA but PLA is available. Note the drop down list.

What a compliment.

Yesterday while calling the Vermont College Library for the umpteenth time about some citation information when our conversation finished I said, "Now just tell me this never ending thing will be over." She said "You are the third or fourth doctoral student that has said that this week. " I of course corrected her and said, " This is for my undergraduate study." She was surprised. So I figure one of two things.

A. I can make undergraduate drama into doctorate drama.

B. My study, and thesis are getting close to the level of doctorate work.

I'm leaning toward B!

I do love research. I have not really looked at many black books but I don't seem to remember so many citations. This has been difficult but I have absolutely loved it! I love digging in deep. It is part of what I have done to teach myself my entire life. It is what makes me a perpetual learner! Now that my study is almost done and the black book written I think, "My, I have learned so much." Then I think, "I wonder what else I don't know?"

What is next?

I really wanted to skip the masters and go on to the Doctorate with a study on creativity. I do have some things that I would like to get done before hand and I thought, "why not make these into a masters study?"

I am looking at this possibility and will let you know how it goes.

53 days until graduation!!!!!

Continuous lecture from Dick Hathaway

I seem to be overcome with this black book thing. I am writing the final pages today and hope to get the rest of it off to the proofreader this weekend. My this thing is a great deal of work. I get down into the studio to work on Dick in the evenings. It was interesting that when this picture was taken I thought, "Hmmm looks like an never ending lecture from Dick Hathaway." I like working downstairs in the evenings, I can turn the TV on and put myself in a different position than sitting in front of the screen working on the black book all day long. I can hardly believe this final semester is coming to an end.

MY READING IS DONE!

I don't know what to do with myself. I always have a book in hand and three at the bedside a couple of journal articles and other things. I can't believe it I read all of my books and then some!

I had to read 27 books this semester, because I was doing a 20 credit culminating study. To date I read 26 book and 11 journal articles! ( 4 journal articles = 1 book) I also read much more than that because my research would lead me to other articles and papers that I did not list in this.

So what do I do with myself? I can't believe I am craving a book.

as I write this there are piles of books around my computer my table to my left the table behind my desk. Ahh the remnants of research!

GOOGLE SCHOLAR

I don't think the link I listed below is going to work, so this is how I get to google scholar

Go to the Vemront College Web site www.tui.edu
Click on current learner
Insert your password
Click on library link at the top of the page
In the right hand column there is a link that says "Information for Doctoral Learners"
About half way down the page you will see a link that says UIU google scholar ( I move my eyes to the right hand side of the page because I see google scholar is there).

It is a wonderful site and gives you many more direct search options.


Another hint...
When trying to find a quote and a scholarly source to cite the quote from if you put the quote in regular google search and sometiems at the top of the page you will see a few listings next to some books. These are books that have this quote. If you click on them they may even give you page number etc. A good thing to have.


Another hint...
Don't forget this link http://citationmachine.net/ It is great for helping to come up with your citations.