Tuesday, April 22, 2008

I Don't Know, Ask Me Tomorrow

In exactly one week to the hour my plane will be taking off for Rwanda! Everyone keeps asking me if I'm getting excited or if I've started packing, or how I'm feeling about this whole thing. Lately I've had to answer that with "I don't know, ask me tomorrow."
Today I met with my committee chair and presented my lecture materials for review. I knew there had to be something I overlooked and indeed there was.... I used literally hundreds of copyrighted graphics. Yes, I cited them every time and even looked up the fair use laws but I neglected to think about the fact that we would never be able to print handouts! OUCH!!! I can always just print the outline as a handout but of course that is never the same.
I must say that I'm a little disappointed with myself and even more disappointed that now I've probably disappointed a whole bunch of other people.
I guess I just never really thought about that as the students here can actually log on to our lectures and print the slides themselves. They can't really do that in Rwanda; bummer of the year award!
Long story short, I'm feeling like my work isn't what it should be and wishing that it was so much better and knowing that it could be. At the end of our meeting I was told, "you should be very proud of your work." I guess we are always our own worst critic.
It's true that there are other people in world who are much more qualified to do this task, but it was given to me for some reason. All I can do is my best and trust God for the rest.
You ask me how I'm feeling about all of this? Well, today I'm a little bummed but I hope the answer will be different if you ask me tomorrow.

2 comments:

eno said...

Send a request to the publisher with a copy of your materials and ask them for permission to use them as you intend. They may just grant you permission to use them. Give it a try--sometimes you will get permission and sometimes you won't.

Anonymous said...

April, you are amazing and doing so much. It may not be the handouts that you wanted but they will be just fine!!