[pattye]

Hi All--Just finished the course earlier today, and found all these previous comments to be accurate for my class as well!

For some reason the instructor did not have us do introductions, however, found myself chatting with a lovely lady who works with Terry at The Pearl Outlet! She knows about us here at the forum, but with 5 kidlets doesn't have as much time to spend here as she would like!

I did get in a plug for the forum at the end of the day.The take home materials and charts are great.I did feel freshwaters were shortchanged, with much emphasis on akoyas, but very little discussion of treatments specifically applied to them. I admit I am biased. No mention that freshwaters are now being successfully bead nucleated.
I suspect they deviate little from the course as designed.No discussion of keishi (keshi) at all.

The instructor did explain that the grading at GIA is done in a color controlled environment--by people screened to have very accurate color vision. That was one reason given for possible differences in how we saw the colors. I am not quite certain how to express that particular quality of one's "seeing."(However, Caitlin's daughter, Kether, has exceptional abilities to see colors and orient in pearls, etc, which was very useful to us in Tucson.)

Also discussed the "revised" pearl course with the instructor; he sez because the information is being coordinated internationally, could be a very long time before it is ready. So I may just go ahead and take it now, before I am any more ancient, and purchase the revised books when they become available.

What pearls did I wear?? Well, 2 long ropes of Oregon sunstone beads, one with keishi, the other with white fw. I need to photograph them for the show me thread.

Pattye
so many pearls, so little time