Donna's Journey

Yesterday, Roger, Julia, Jennifer, Alan, and I drove to Monticello, Utah for this weekend’s George Wythe University Ground breaking Festivities.

We started off at the George Wythe University Reception Center in Monticello. Dr. Brooks gave us an introduction to the Monticello Campus, Overview of the concepts upon which, George Wythe University is structured, and instructions for our tour. We then drove up to the land upon which the campus will be built. We began at the future entrance to the school. We drove into the property and up to the campus pavilion where the Youth for America meets and the the location of their future lodge. We drove to a second location on the future campus and took a 20-minute hike through the beautiful campus terrain. We hiked up a trail to a stand of Pines and met with others and participated in a discussion ideas of Emerson, led by Dr. Shane Schulthies, President of the Monticello Campus. From that point we could see flags marking the boundaries of the Monticello Campus. After the hike and discussion we returned to our car to drive to another section of the campus, where there were large drawings of the future campus and the community gardens. Then we drove up to the place where the first building will be built, where we would come for sunrise services today, and the ground breaking.

We were blessed to locate a hotel room in town and canceled our room in Blanding.

The evening two hour festivities included Dian Thomas as Master of Ceremonies, a country music group from Monticello, a GWU student, Kimberly Hansen, who treated us to her Celtic violin music, and The Wildflowers. When Kimberly played her violin, she played it much like the Celtic Women, spinning and dancing through the pavilion area, children followed her and danced and were spinning, as well. We had an enjoyable evening. After the evening events, we headed for our hotel room and retired by 930 so we could be well rested by morning and would make the sunrise service…

“Affliction comes to us all not to make us sad, but sober; not to make us sorry, but wise; not to make us despondent, but by its darkness to refresh us, as the night refreshes the day; not to impoverish, but to enrich us, as the plough enriches the field; to multiply our joy as the seed, by planting, is multiplied a thousand fold.” Henry Ward Beecher

After 18 months gestation, I am the proud parent of an 8 1/2 inch x 11 inch x 2 inch spiral bound thesis. I will deliver it to GWU tomorrow!

I started my journey creating The Princess Academy 16 December 2006. When we held our first meeting in January it became part of my practicum that semester. By February I came to the conclusion I needed to create a primer for moms, to assist them in rearing their daughters. By that time I had already received several international requests. What started as a small local group had international appeal. By March a year later, the primer had become my thesis. By June I was in the revision and polish phase, many, many , many long days. My challenges multiplied because of my lack of thorough knowledge of the word processing software I was using. I called in my good friend, walking partner, Candace, my WordPerfect ezer. She came to help me. I think we are now up to 65 hours since last Thursday. This was heroic of her and far beyond what any sibling or friend would do.

Last night and today we would read through 10 pages, print, each review 10 pages, make corrections on the computer, save, do another 10 pages. When we were finished we saved to pdf. Now I have a perfect pdf and a perfect WordPerfect stack and am printing my third copy to take down and bind. At this point they will be spiral and after the defense I create the hard bound finished product.

I have a stack of papers on my desk 9 inches high of proofed, edited, formatted, and reformatted copies of my thesis. Definitely not a green project, even with a laptop!!! I have to plant a tree to make up for this;) my friend suggested a redwood! I have three 2 inch stacks of paper on the table next to me, each a thesis to be bound!!!

My husband says it is not happy dance time until they are dropped off at fedex!!!

GWU will be having their ground breaking activities this weekend. I have hotel room reservations in Blanding! I have been looking forward to this for a long time!

while we are down there in Monticello this weekend, I want to show my two adult daughters the home we have under contract. My husband received an email this afternoon from someone who wants to look at our home. What will the future bring?

I have been working hard to finish. My friend Candace came over and helped me understand all the hiiden code in my file that was driving me nuts. She spent 10:30am-10:50pm Thursday, 8- 5: 40 and 10 pm Friday until 2 am Saturday, Saturday 9pm until after midnight reformatting and cleaning up my files. We are not done yet.

Yesterday, Alan drove his mother, Jennifer, and I to Salt Lake. Alan driving enabled me to type my thesis on my laptop as we traveled. We got to be there for the ultrasound.

I paid for an Education Week full pass and only got to attend two classes, both were the last hour of the day, one on Tuesday, one on Friday. It was on brain development.

I live for Sundays and look forward to retiring early tonight.

My son Jon and his wife Tiffany have been married five years, yesterday. They have three sons and announced this week that they will have another baby in April. They were announced by taking a poll of family and friends to select a boy’s name and a girl’s name. I liked the name Liberty. I have five grandsons. By the time Jon and Tiffany have their baby I will have seven grandchildren, and seven children. I guest this really will be my sabbatical year for me. I get to enjoy my children and grandchildren.

My grandson turned two yesterday! happy Birthday Zane!

I went to Sandy with Jennifer, Alan, and Alan’s mother tonight. Jennifer had an ultra sound and the ultrasound showed this baby will be my first granddaughter!

I have been sucked into the thesis vortex, burning the midnight oil. Boy, President Roundy was correct, grad school does extract its pound of flesh. But wait, this is a do-it-yourself kit. There no one else to blame. I chose my thesis. And when I lost everything on my crashed flashdrive, I chose my new thesis/project combo. I could have done something of a lesser proportion. But this was what I felt was the most pressing need to fill.

Writing this thesis/project has revealed to me those areas I need to address. Before I write another book! Technology and Grammar. I am always bumping my head against my own self-inflicted technology ceiling. No time in the thick of things to stop to sharpen my saw by honing my technological skills. I could have paid someone else to type it, this is true. $$$ I did pick up new skills along the way, but not enough to significantly shorten the journey. Grammar is improving, but it took me seven drafts of my thesis since May! My thesis stands at over 400 pages, double spaced, and one sided pages. I found myself stuck in no man’s land in the battle that has been fought between Cambridge and Oxford for two centuries. Do I place a comma before “and” when preceded by a list of three or more things? I had been taught the answer is, “yes.” My mother-in-law who taught college English for nine years, also says, “yes.” My friend, on the other hand says, “no.” Granted, she does admit that this is one of those gray areas and that this is not a hard and fast rule.
My son-in-law suggests I read Eats, Shoots, and Leaves.

Not only did I pick my thesis and project I chose my graduation date and thereby imposed these deadlines by default. Naivete in May is my reasoning. On 2 May, I thought that this would be a slam dunk or cake walk! Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I am older and hopefully wiser. Older, yes, as my birthday was 7 May. Wiser might be debatable. But we won’t go there…

I have revised and revised. I have proofed and reproofed. I have edited and re-edited. I have formatted and reformatted. I am on draft seven. This week the wordperfect file I am using was having a conniption fit. The formatting exploded and the file became unresponsive. I ended up having to cut and paste 350 pages into a new file, as it became painfully obvious that in a work this size, crescendoing does not work. I need to be up front and let the resources follow. As I did that I discovered that I had only addressed my thesis and not my graduate project. So I ended up shifting and creating a project/thesis with 406 pages! I am on page 90 of my last editing job. I need to have it completed tomorrow.

I now ask, “is my ox in the mire?” I live for Sundays so today I come up for air. I have been hard working and not dawdling. Really I have. But I am a mom and though my family is supportive and everyone has pitched in I still do the mommy thing. Mommy is part of who I am. Enough of this post. You know the routine. Stop whining! There she goes again…