Week... 7

It's crazy that it is already week 7, and progress on thesis is slow! Poster power-point presentations are due tomorrow, which feels so soon! Hopefully things start to feel like they are coming together sooner rather than later! :(

Slow progress is still progress

Well, it feels like progress slows down every week that passes, but I guess the key is to keep slogging through it.  Spring break is around the corner and promises a brief period to catch up with everything that seems to be moving faster than I am.

Creating this poster has been more of a struggle than I'd like to admit.  I can see it in my mind, but getting the technology to work with me is painful to say the least.  Hopefully getting past this hurdle before spring break will help me go into it with new found momentum.  This cold rain that's supposed to turn into snow though doesn't really have me thinking much of spring time.  Oh well, soon with warmer weather and longer days should come better motivation and progress.

Blog Post #3

Quick question: How is it Week 7 already? 

This going semester is going by so fast, and somedays it feels like I'm just treading water to get by. Despite the stress, however, I'm still trying to have fun! I keep reminding myself that, by this time next year, I might be missing these moments, so I've learned to cherish every brain dump and laugh shared with my advisors. I'm doing my best to be present for every spellcheck, cup of coffee desperately consumed, and Hozier song played on repeat (he's key to my writing process!). It's a melancholy feeling, but it's also excitingly haphazard.

As I like to joke, I go forth under a “carefully crafted facade of competence.” Things are moving, albeit slower than I thought they would be. After Spring Break, I'll be in a better position than I am now, though, and that's a fortifying thought.

Hope everyone's staying warm and taking care of themselves!

Reworking material

In the last chunk of time between posts, I have mainly focused my energy into figuring out, more clearly, the form of my digital literature piece I am creating to go along with my paper. It's been a strange dive into deep considerations on concepts of mortality and sense of place and the stories we leave behind when we pass on. It's been a little jumbled and I've had a mess of ideas on how to go about actually creating it but I was able to set down with my secondary advisor who helped me center my ideas and bring into focus angles and ideas I hadn't thought about and considered with weight. Overall I feel like I'm making good progress on this part of my project even if I do need to rework some of the materials that I've already produced.

Week 7....Losing Momentum?

In the two weeks since the last blogspot my semester has kind of fallen apart. I got sick, and then had a migraine for 12 days and couldn't really go to class or write the way I wanted to. I had serious motivation issues and kind of felt like I was losing direction. Thankfully things started to look up this week and I have started to write again and I have plans to finally do my visitor studies this weekend. I'm nervous about not being able to finish the way I want to by the final deadline but hopefully I can maintain this new energy until then. My computer is also on its last legs and I need to get a new one, which is going to be a distraction over the next week or so until I can finally get a laptop that connects to the internet when I'm not at home. Other than that I'm excited to get into the poster sessions and get some feedback on my frankly terrible first draft!

Third Blog Post

It's an odd time right now, the workload and time I'm spending on this class compared to other classes is insane, but this is clearly a more important class and I'm keeping that in mind because I do like balance. My thesis feels oddly near completion, even though I've still got a few more sections to go through and have a lot more to say. My poster actually looks quite good, my only fear is that it is too simplistic, but I also must consider the fine line I have to walk when deciding the design and color layout of the poster. I'm actually really excited for feedback because I really do need it for this poster. I also am looking forward to the feedback from my advisors as their feedback and resources have been tremendous so far. I can't wait until Spring Break where I can finally dedicate a lot of time towards the thesis and ironing out the details, once the thesis is done I know it'll be a huge relief and accomplishment as I had no idea the amount of work that goes into these types of research papers, which is panning out to be really rewarding.

Thesis Post #3: Oceans of Longing

Even though I've already passed the minimum page count for the thesis when I add together the body pages and the lit review, I feel like I haven't gotten anywhere. There are still subjects that I want to discuss that I have not gotten to yet in my paper. There are also subjects that I want to expand on. When I look at my content outline, I have only been writing for the case study section, which is at the end. My next writing goal is to zoom out to the national scale. I'm looking forward to talking about how Zimbabwean museums use technology.

Blog Post #10: Senioritis Incoming...

It's week 7 and oh boy am I losing motivation to do homework. I only have 2 classes this semester and with my thesis 90% done, just need to write a conclusion and get edits back from my advisors at this point, I really just can't wait to be done and move to the next stage in my life. That being said, we still have the second half of the semester left so I'm counting the hours until spring break, which will hopefully give me the motivation to finish everything well.

My poster is coming along, I worked on it a lot this weekend and am eager to get feedback on it this week in class. I may or may not have broken nearly all the poster rules, but personally I think it works, so we'll see how it looks on the big projected screen!

#3

It is so exciting to see the thesis grow. The working document gets longer and longer, I cant wait to be done. Tomorrow I will be interviewing the artist, Aaron Delehanty that worked on the Rochester Diorama. It will feel so good to have one more step done in this process. 

Blog Post #3

Hello everyone! I completed my google form and lined up my questions for the women to answer to get a sense of the demographics. I have about 20 or so women that my advisors sent for me to contact and I have about two dates scheduled for the focus group. I feel much better than last week and I am ready to start wrapping up my project and focusing on writing. Last week I revised my 8 pages and added a few more, my goal this week is to continue to write and edit.

BlogPost: Week 7

Hello Everyone,

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. My thesis work had taken a little bit of a pause, while I dealt with other mid-semester papers and exams. I was still working on it, but it was a little weird not having it be my primary focus. I'm excited to start working on everything again. I've started creating my poster and hope to have a finished rough draft in the next couple of days, it's been hard deciding what information to put on and what information to leave out. Also update on my digital project, I finally decided on a layout and everything is coming together pretty smoothly, although there's always going to be some kind of quirk. I am happing with the direction my paper is taking, I feel like I finally have all my thoughts in order and I am eager to get my next set of edits back from my advisors!

Third Post Update

Hello everyone! Hopefully you guys are doing ok and making some good headway on the papers and projects! I've been hounding people through email for about 2 weeks now and I was beginning to think I was barking up the wrong trees. However, in the past 2 days I've finally gotten 2 responses and have set up 2 interviews for the USHMM. Unfortunately, I'm still having trouble with Hostile Terrain. So, I have contacted the lovely Dr. Decker to help me hound my contact. I'm hoping between the two of us we'll get a response.

Excited to see everyone's progress!

Dinah is very proud of you and your progress, class of 2020 : )

Week 5 Progress Update

Getting a chance to get peer reviews of my 8 pages has been fantastic, it seems like no mistake is being lost in the paper which is great because even with advisers looking at the pages, they too would miss a small grammatical error or two. Dr. Lent even helped me structure my essay a lot better and having that framework in place is making the 8 more pages much more manageable and given me a lot more to write about and correlate it back into the Seneca Art and Culture Center. I will be typing up the rest of the pages by Sunday and hopefully the proverbial writing ball will keep on rolling now that I've got a much clearer focus.

Thesis Post #2: We Live in a Society

Right now, I want to start focusing on ideas related to sociology and power dynamics. I received a lot of feedback from my advisors and Dr. Lent to look into the relationship that the Tonga people have with the dominant ethnic groups of Zimbabwe, so my next step is to do that. One source that my secondary advisor recommended explains what happens when an ethnic group has to commoditize its culture for economic gain. It is possible that the BaTonga Community Museum - a state-sanctioned museum - may be contributing to generalizations about the Tonga people or making local artisans only show off traditional arts rather than contemporary ideas. I don't know what the case is yet, but I'll see as I do more research.

On and On

8 pages have been written and are being considered and reviewed. Starting has been a little rough but interesting, my full board meeting bringing forth new questions and considerations of human remains, their display and what defines what we consider the idea of a dead body. The direction I have taken, the reflections and moral considerations and the way it is coming together weren't originally in my considerations for the project but I am fascinated with the journey it has brought me on. For Now I continue to work toward writing my next set of pages and start in the writing for my digital literature project that will accompany my work.

Week #5

This week has been about getting feedback from my advisors on the first 8 pages and moving forward to the next 8 pages before the week is over. With a baseline and something written for my methodology, I want to start writing about my case study and start to compile my list of subjects for the focus group. I am still waiting for the full list from my advisors but I have started looking on my own using the online RIT directory. My goal is to finish my 8 new pages while also getting started on my list and demographic questions. I am feeling a little overwhelmed and stagnant at the point, I started strong and have a clear plan, I just need to get started on the actual project!!

Week 5...Making Progress!

This week my game plan is to get into the feedback from my advisors and use it to refine the sections that I have already completed. I've got somewhere between 10-15 individual sources that I'm going to be reading. I'll either use these to expand my literature review or I'll use in the rest of the sections. This next week is going to be really stressful because I have lot due but i'm going to try to compartmentalize and get small chunks of everything done everyday. Hopefully that means I'll have a bunch of completed assignments and midterms and no stress! At this point i'm still focusing on the RMSC and will probably be reaching out to Dr. Uzelmeier in the next few days with follow-up questions about the labels I'm talking about. Other than that I don't really have any updates!

Next On the List

Hello All,

It's hard to believe that it is already week five, it's going by super fast! I've started actively working on the digital part of my project and hope to have it done by the end of the month. It's a little slow going. I've written quite a bit of the narrative, and I also have chosen most of my photographs but I am still having trouble with the layout and what I want it to look like - also the color choices are really limited and although this is a trivial thing it's a bit bothersome. I'm also continuing with my writing and trying to expand on what I already have, finding the correct layout of the paper is also proving difficult (I guess layouts in both digital and physical form are my nemesis for the week), but I have been switching paragraphs around and I think I am on the right path. I also want to go back in the next week or so and take another look at my lit review. There are some parts that I think I need to scrap and other areas that I can expand on.

Blog Post #2

So I've kinda had the rug pulled from underneath me a few times, but I'm making a comeback! I have 2 interviews I'll be setting up hopefully to be finished by the end of this month! Plus with another 8 pages for my research I'll be over the minimum page count hooray! I'm continuing to write, but I'm also finding that it's becoming more difficult for me to do so. Maybe by the end of this writing session I'll feel more confident.

Second post

I am trying to finish the corrections and start on the next 8 pages. Saturday's storm ruined visitors' survey for me this week, but I have my sights for next week to finish the first round of visitors' surveys!!!!

stay tuned!

  

Post #9: my program finally happened!

Last Friday, in the middle of what might have been the biggest snowstorm so far this year, Brie and I trekked down Jefferson Road to Solstice Senior Living. We found this really pretty one-lane bridge that went over the Canal - thematically appropriate! - and we also didn't get into a snow-induced car accident, which was great.

Once there, we set the room up in a giant mega-table with space enough for about 12 people, then made a frantic Wegman's run to get snacks for the audience. With one minute to spare we raced back into the place, chocolate chip cookies in hand, and I began!

It was a little intimidating, 12 white-haired strangers staring expectantly at me, but once I got into things I had done more than enough preparation to sit back and let my instincts kick in. The entire program took just over half an hour to get through, they weren't as chatty as I had planned, or perhaps I didn't let the awkward silence go long enough, and by the time I was done there 17 people there! While the program wrapped up around 4:30, the evaluations took a little longer to complete, and some people stuck around to talk after we had started resetting the room. All in all it was definitely a success, even if some of them liked the chocolate chip cookies more than they liked the program!

Here's some photos Brie took for me: