My mind, my way, my schedule... I have just plain old forgotten. Well, not really, but I suppose I need to think that from time to time. Escapism is a good thing sometimes. It keeps your mind from getting too freaked out. At any rate, although I haven't lost my way I have not been terribly productive as far as the dissertation goes lately. I have been busy dealing with the TA and VA courses, Research Day, and amending the IRB forms. Thankfully those forms have been submitted and I am laying in wait, so to speak. The TA'ship is taking up a great deal of time. I need to get at the week 6 commentary tomorrow so it can be posted on Friday. The VA course has an assignment due next week. I am so out of my league there! I don't have the background to do the course justice. I will muddle my way through.
There are a few other things going on right now. I am applying for a fellowship to the Stone Summer Theory Institute which is addressing the question of "what is an image?" this year. Hopefully I will get the opportunity to work with this group for a week during July. I think it will help me move things along in the study. I am running a month behind unfortunately and so I am afraid I am going to miss out on speaking to the academics before they fly the coop. I had better get on the stick! I am going to Denver this weekend for the ARLIS conference. I am giving a paper on digitization criteria. So many conferences, so little time. Ok it is getting a bit late and so I had better turn in.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
SSDD = Same Stuff Different Day
Ok, so it is now just Saturday and I thought I had better keep going with the daily blog entries. If anything the daily blog entry keeps me focused on what needs to get done and serves as a real account of what I do with my days. (I am my worst enemy sometimes when it comes to thinking I am a slacker. This is usually the thing that people are amazed at--all I do. Why can't I see this? As if grad school wasn't enough angst, I have to add some of my own!) I am going to keep this one short and stick to the accomplishments and to-do lists.
Accomplishments:
1. Wrote the letter to my committee updating them on my progress and sending along my proposed data methods changes.
2. I made the IRB modifications, changing the protocol and the consent form and creating a memo with the changes and filling out the IRB amendment form.
3. Wrote up my comments in response to one of the thesauri for INFO622 and sent them off to KM.
4. Searched for the Paul Potts YouTube vid to send along to KM, too.
5. Send a b'day card to my fave former BMC benefits manager!
6. Paid a few left over bills.
7. Mailed the bills and b'day card.
8. Packed up Mimi's stuff.
9. Called M's mom about party.
10. Got presents, card and packaging for M's b'day.
11. Emailed JT and AB about the study.
12. Called the SHC about shots and made an appointment for Tuesday morning.
13. Water the plants.
14. The daily routines - read and answer emails, water the plants, make dinner and etc., Bb and iWay reads.
Must dos
1. Need to contact AC and other participants about the delay.
2. Shop for office supplies.
3. Do the things I avoided (which follow)
4. Look at the creativity reads.
5. Plan of dissertation action.
6. Look at what needs to be attacked on the diss.
7. Re-read proposal, annotated bibliography and look over stack on my desk.
8. The II db updates.
Accomplishments:
1. Wrote the letter to my committee updating them on my progress and sending along my proposed data methods changes.
2. I made the IRB modifications, changing the protocol and the consent form and creating a memo with the changes and filling out the IRB amendment form.
3. Wrote up my comments in response to one of the thesauri for INFO622 and sent them off to KM.
4. Searched for the Paul Potts YouTube vid to send along to KM, too.
5. Send a b'day card to my fave former BMC benefits manager!
6. Paid a few left over bills.
7. Mailed the bills and b'day card.
8. Packed up Mimi's stuff.
9. Called M's mom about party.
10. Got presents, card and packaging for M's b'day.
11. Emailed JT and AB about the study.
12. Called the SHC about shots and made an appointment for Tuesday morning.
13. Water the plants.
14. The daily routines - read and answer emails, water the plants, make dinner and etc., Bb and iWay reads.
Must dos
1. Need to contact AC and other participants about the delay.
2. Shop for office supplies.
3. Do the things I avoided (which follow)
4. Look at the creativity reads.
5. Plan of dissertation action.
6. Look at what needs to be attacked on the diss.
7. Re-read proposal, annotated bibliography and look over stack on my desk.
8. The II db updates.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Yummy cake
Mimi and I made a cake to celebrate yesterday -- devil's food with milk chocolate frosting. Yum! We both just had a slice with some butter pecan ice cream. What a super delicious treat!!!! I am about ready for bed now that my belly is full of cake. :-) I had a busy day today and so it might be an early night. After the past few weeks it would be a real joy to get more than 6 hours of sleep. Soon, but for now I have to think about what I did today and what needs to get accomplished tomorrow.
Today:
1. Paid bills
2. Balanced checkbook
3. Did the Bb and IWay read.
4. Printed out a thesaurus.
5. Graded homework assignment 2 for INFO622
6. Met Kate and talked about 5 over lunch.
7. Did paperwork for ARLIS conference funding (heh, sort of a stupid exercise in futility!)
8. Answered a few emails.
9. Went to dr.'s office to get allergy shot.
10. Met Mimi at the park and hung out with her for a bit.
11. Watered the plants.
12. Made dinner and cleaned up.
13. Polished the silver tea set.
14. Went to the sciencetelling show at the library. What fun!
15. Ate cake! ;-)
I guess I did get something done today. It never seems like I am making progress, but I guess I could be wrong. Lol.
I suppose for tomorrow I need to focus on a few things.
1. The most critical is to make sure I get the letter to the committee outlining what I plan to do to go forward with the data collection written and set off to EA for words of wisdom.
2. Contact all the people who have said they would participate and tell them what the status is with the project.
3. Ask EA about the IRB updating -- how that gets accomplished.
4. Develop a plan of action about how I will proceed with the dissertation.
5. Peruse - read the creativity stuff for the visual analytics course.
6. Re-read proposal, annotated bibliography and look over stack on my desk.
7. Pay the few piddly things that are left over.
8. Find out about getting shots at SHC at DU.
This is plenty to do for one day. Heck, for a whole weekend.
Today:
1. Paid bills
2. Balanced checkbook
3. Did the Bb and IWay read.
4. Printed out a thesaurus.
5. Graded homework assignment 2 for INFO622
6. Met Kate and talked about 5 over lunch.
7. Did paperwork for ARLIS conference funding (heh, sort of a stupid exercise in futility!)
8. Answered a few emails.
9. Went to dr.'s office to get allergy shot.
10. Met Mimi at the park and hung out with her for a bit.
11. Watered the plants.
12. Made dinner and cleaned up.
13. Polished the silver tea set.
14. Went to the sciencetelling show at the library. What fun!
15. Ate cake! ;-)
I guess I did get something done today. It never seems like I am making progress, but I guess I could be wrong. Lol.
I suppose for tomorrow I need to focus on a few things.
1. The most critical is to make sure I get the letter to the committee outlining what I plan to do to go forward with the data collection written and set off to EA for words of wisdom.
2. Contact all the people who have said they would participate and tell them what the status is with the project.
3. Ask EA about the IRB updating -- how that gets accomplished.
4. Develop a plan of action about how I will proceed with the dissertation.
5. Peruse - read the creativity stuff for the visual analytics course.
6. Re-read proposal, annotated bibliography and look over stack on my desk.
7. Pay the few piddly things that are left over.
8. Find out about getting shots at SHC at DU.
This is plenty to do for one day. Heck, for a whole weekend.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
April already?!
I haven't posted a thing for over a month. I am scaring myself! I have been flat out crazy busy for weeks now, but barely getting a thing done on my dissertation. Other things have taken over and so I have fallen into a very bad dissertation work pattern. This term I am TAing an online course (INFO622) for Kate McCain and that is sucking up about 20 hours a week. Then I foolishly said yes to teaching a half semester course on Roman art at Rosemont. I love teaching there and the students are great fun, but what little time I have needs to go to the dissertation! This is what I get for being nice (and trying to make some money... the hole is getting deeper and deeper). One the plus side, I structured the course so the brunt of the work I had to do was early on. For the next few weeks the students will give their presentations on works in the UPenn Museum.
Beyond dealing with teaching these past few weeks, I took part in a design charrette at Drexel. Cameron Sinclair came and provided the numerous teams (13 teams of 7 members) with projects to design. The team I was on investigated an archery/community center for rural communities in Bhutan. It was a fascinating experience and I learned a great deal about how images are used in the design process. The thing that struck me as most unique was how the designers searched for images of how specific materials had been used. Bamboo was a major component to our design and so much of what we looked at revolved around this material. Another thing that figured prominently were maps and images of traditional crafts (bamboo and textile weaving). Maps were used to get a sense of the topography (flat land, elevation, rivers, etc.) and population distribution (closeness to other communities, cities, etc.). The patterns of the traditional crafts were also looked at for ideas about how they might be used in the bamboo work. Other than a simple pattern for some of the walls, the information from these images weren't incorporated into the final model or design mock-ups. I did make some contacts at CoMAD and this was a very good thing. :-) Hopefully as I go forward collecting data this will work out.
Speaking of collecting data, another thing that I did over the course of the last few weeks was revisit my plan of data gathering for the dissertation. I wasn't having any luck recruiting two of the participant groups and so I proposed to change the methods. I think at this point it is pretty stable, and so later today I will send out an email to the committee about the suggested route I should pursue. Tomorrow I suppose I will append my IRB documentation and send that off noting the changes to the protocol and crossing my fingers that they accept these.
Ok, it is just about time for little missy to get out of school and so I am off to pick her up and run some errands.
Beyond dealing with teaching these past few weeks, I took part in a design charrette at Drexel. Cameron Sinclair came and provided the numerous teams (13 teams of 7 members) with projects to design. The team I was on investigated an archery/community center for rural communities in Bhutan. It was a fascinating experience and I learned a great deal about how images are used in the design process. The thing that struck me as most unique was how the designers searched for images of how specific materials had been used. Bamboo was a major component to our design and so much of what we looked at revolved around this material. Another thing that figured prominently were maps and images of traditional crafts (bamboo and textile weaving). Maps were used to get a sense of the topography (flat land, elevation, rivers, etc.) and population distribution (closeness to other communities, cities, etc.). The patterns of the traditional crafts were also looked at for ideas about how they might be used in the bamboo work. Other than a simple pattern for some of the walls, the information from these images weren't incorporated into the final model or design mock-ups. I did make some contacts at CoMAD and this was a very good thing. :-) Hopefully as I go forward collecting data this will work out.
Speaking of collecting data, another thing that I did over the course of the last few weeks was revisit my plan of data gathering for the dissertation. I wasn't having any luck recruiting two of the participant groups and so I proposed to change the methods. I think at this point it is pretty stable, and so later today I will send out an email to the committee about the suggested route I should pursue. Tomorrow I suppose I will append my IRB documentation and send that off noting the changes to the protocol and crossing my fingers that they accept these.
Ok, it is just about time for little missy to get out of school and so I am off to pick her up and run some errands.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
