Hey, I've recently taken up Maya for my class. It is the first real 3D program I have used aside from a slight touch on SketchUp5 a while back. I've been doing pretty good with modelling so far, but I've had some slight problems with the tools.
Here's a picture.
https://img297.imageshack.us/img297/7200/glitchvg2.jpg
As you can see, the boxes are out of view for scaling, and can only be seen by paning them in view. The extrude tool doesn't even let me see any of them usually. Rotate is also very blown up, and a lot of paning and Ctrl+z is needed for simple rotations.

This problem is very annoying. I have tried to delete the history and have altered the tool's settings (without full understanding however, so I turned them back). Can anyone help me fix this? It's really slowing down my work as I prefer to work at home, than at my class.

Also, here's a proper image of my character so far. It's the second thing I've modelled so far and I would love some good critisism.
https://img257.imageshack.us/img257/8...aracteray5.jpg