2020, the year that was

 Ahhh, the usual messages from friends to reflect on this 2020.

When Oscar the Grouch Tweet just goes "Scram 2020".  I've been wishing for  this 2020 to end, just to forget all the baaaad things which have come our way in the Philippines where people still continue to worship a populist leader, like my kababayans never learn. So many other things could have been avoided if not for lousy, un/misinformed decision-making and the failure for my people to see that. I feel 2021 will be an extended play version of 2020 not because an unstoppable God wills it, nor can he simply runneth over this leader and his kampons. It is what it is = consequences of poor choices WE must all bear for years to come.

I really just need to do this for a friend and in so doing, perhaps I can still be hopeful for 2021, for the sake of my loved ones, my UPoU students, my parents and also so as not to put my hard-earned PhD to waste in this lifetime of mine. 

Here goes....

1. What was the single best thing that happened this past year? I should say, the single best thing that happened would be completing this PhD so I that I was able to keep my sanity and got back to work without further delay.

2. What was the single most challenging thing that happened? Still, the research journey amidst this pandemic.

3. What was your best decision of the year?Letting go of that phase of my life because the PhD changes you. In the letting go, I have forgiven myself and that the right time will come for me to realize that letting go was a good thing still. 

4. What was your worst decision?

The worst was still trying to book a flight so that I can get things done at USQ Toowoomba. And with this bad decision, you still feel God's protective hand and firm reminder coming from my son who said "Nanay, I think you shouldn't go."

5. What was an unexpected joy this past year?

An unexpected joy was joy I felt when I saw my parents about 2x-3x year.

I found myself crying and telling them 'a mother's wishes for her children'. I was there, on their bed and in between them. I cried and opened up. I hugged my dad and was utterly thankful that he came back to my mom.

6. Where was the majority of time and energy spent?

The majority of time and energy was spent on writing, thinking, reading, writing BUT this time, alongside my housemates who have long accepted me for who I am. And that also meant making effort to show more gratitude through breakfast, Q-time with my children and the Lazo Clan, and simply being more present in the moment.

7. What were the important skills you learned?

Stepping back and self-regulating...realizing that there is inner-strength.

8. How would you summarize or describe the year?

This is hard so I would not even try. Then again...

2020= was the year of could haves but just couldn't and so what. Life isn't measured by 'yearly thingies' rather moments in time, co-centric circles and upward-downward spirals. Just like research, life can be messy, fuzzy, crazy, and still lovely. 

Glad to have survived this...and thankful for the chance to be with family.

A Silent Night for this Year's R.I.P.'s

 To my Mom and Dad - I wasn't around to lend comfort to your grief. But we've managed to zoom for the nth time. Uncle Vic's and Tita Ely's deaths felt like God's way of preparing me for the inevitable. I don't know how I'll be able to cope. I admit, there were days when I wish you would just both relax & be merry, or be thankful for this second chance together. I promise to be there for either of you, just like how I did my best to see mom through all the pain she had to go through when she first lost you.

To my Cousin-sins - we all lost our dearest Tita Ely - in that loss, we kinda found each other all over again. Time just flew by and all of a sudden we are no longer swim-pool buddies and playmates at Alabang.  I will always have fond memories of being cousins playing mahjong, Trip to Heaven, all sorts of card games, Agawan base...and that memory of staring at this adult magazine we chanced upon at the Matoto residence and we all said "Yuck!!!"

To my Tito Uning and Tita Susan - I don't know how it will be like when your time comes. I can only promise to be with my cousins, as usual. And you bet, we will share the happiest moments we have spent with you.

To Cla - your FB post made me see how dead serious the consequences of this presidency's grave mistakes vs the Filipino people. I truly am sorry for you and your brother's loss. 

To Kat - we've kept in touch for more than 3 yrs since you've gone your way to Aussie-land. And yes, I've wrestled with God about trials which come your way. Then this very sad news of your M passing away. I've said some selfish words to you and yet your responses always remind me of my limitations and the limitless kind of love you have for your dearies. I really pray some day we would cross paths once again. Is that too much to ask from God who wills things?

To Sol - I miss you even more these days when I feel so out of touch transitioning from USQ to UPOU. It's like Collab 2020 wasn't enough. I really want to know how you are these days and now I understand why you needed space. Thank you still, for giving me the chance to get to know your dad. Some things about Fathers which occupy an entirely different space in our hearts and minds...

To Victor - I've let you down many times. That includes my lack of understanding of 'grief' and the Catholic rosary's sorrowful mysteries. And so, I've been asking God for quite some time, that I be the one to go first. I have your best interest in mind of course-always have. This year, more than ever, you have been a source of strength for all of us.

To Rachel and Atel - we have lost a part of ourselves as we faced life's battles.  Mine are nothing compared to yours and so I can only listen & listen well. And I know in my heart you will be there should God's will prevail over mine & you will always help me understand his unfathomable ways.

When the PhD changes you, WHAT remains 2

Circuitous is the only way to describe my ongoing thoughts and ideas moving into specific actions to finally define 'what remains' when the PhD changes you.

Markers of change

- the not so good part:  being able to quickly spot errors in minutes of the FEDFac Council mtgs and questioning reasons for change of grades

-the good part: I became an avid supporter of fellow faculty members intending for their course proposals to be approved for institution.  I hyperfocused on that for a few days to ensure positive results - that is, for the courses to be offered in time for the graduating students to take it within their last academic year at my open unive.  This effort is in support of the new AA program chair.

- I have become more conscious of people, their jobs and achievements of late. This meant removing biases against faculty members from other units. This is like me giving chances to others for future collaborations.

My eyes have also opened on fellow academic and professional staff whom I've taken for granted. I realized that in the process of doing webinars I've made allies out of them = the BEST part. And this time, I found a space where I can continue to teach and learn with them through FEDs Continuing Education Program (CEP) where my daydreams continue to take flight. The fun part is defining this thing called FED-CEP, which may be the space for a CeTL or MeTL to take root and take flight.

Markers of what remains

This idea of a MAEd program have been in my conversations with Sol, a FEd colleague and dear friend. We had those days in the DilFacrum@NCC where we imagine teacher education programs for my open university. We tried to suggest but failed in that area. I think because our brains weren't primed to follow given templates of action in our university. A colleague has reached exasperation point with our ideas, telling us to consider the channels or levels we have to negotiate with in order to have our ideas approved. So that remained afloat, for about years or so. Our lives went on safely, after all, we had enough teacher ed programs.

Now it's back, and with a vengeance. The ideas have solidified. Thanks to my Australian unive experience.

Markers of possible Change-a-coming

With weapons on hand (academic writing to launch the ideas), I have now crafted a Concept Paper on a prospective Master of Arts in eTeaching and eLearning. The weird part is I am going through this back to front. The idea is to play around with a bunch of non-formal short courses towards proposing a masters degree of purely coursework but with RPL schemes.

And when I PLAY, I mean these in my sandbox of sorts:

> we will set up a virtual learning community site which would contain spaces for: blogs, forum posts, OER sharing, news/articles

> do all sorts of discussions among fellow short course participants 

> do our short courses in our Moodle rooms or some Google Classroom

> open up the site to DGurong Pahinungod 1.0 ~ 4.0 to focus on the OERs

> then add SSE students for Service Learning Option OER projects

> craft course combinations leading to a CeTL - Certificate in eTeaching and eLearning

> define pathways to become RPLs schemes from this non-formal program to formal programs or the CTL leading to an MeTL

OMGahhhd, the list is going on and on.

I just pray I have my network of K-12 teacher-friends to help me.

I've started with a series of webinars, which ran quick surveys of possible short courses as part of the evaluation. Then came a list of courses and a list of possible course developers and teachers.

What am I missing here? A sure shot of course participants.

Good thing, I am now in this network of Gurong Pahinungod System-wide Group. Who would have known that we pioneer teacher volunteers will be working together?

Gotta stop here. Methinks my thoughts take me up too high.

Earth2Aleta...yoohoo...

4....3...2..1 Earth below Me

The thought of dying is getting to be truer than ever these days. A brod and sis passed away. Anytime I know it could be my parents' time or even mine. 

A terrible headache awakened me the other morning. A strange experience it was. As Vic held my hand I started to consider what if in fact I am sick of something. Hmmm, can I be given a bit of time to say thanks and say a few wishes to come true.

I thank YOU for my Zambales, Tarlac, Cuyo, and Romblon experience.

I thank YOU for those boat trips.

I thank YOU for ALL the kids of The Builders' School.

I thank YOU for the book and the new grant and the luxury of time to engage in research. 

I thank YOU for all the travels & adventures on Earth.

I thank YOU for the fun we've had since high school.

I thank YOU for all the love and care, for holding my hand in so many ways.

I thank YOU for listening to all my woes and troubles, little joys.

I thank YOU for all the help in my dissertation, finish it for me in case I no longer can.

I thank YOU for reminding me to give you a hug and a kiss. It felt really good to stay a while on your bed and be with you both to express my wishes for my children. I thank YOU for U.P. and my education.

I wish for YOU to have some time to enjoy having a new partner for a change, have time to do your PhD & travel more. I wish for YOU to have relaxed time to read your best-loved books. Please keep your hair that way, too.

I wish for YOU to become the Guidance Counselor you want to be, and have  a happy married life you planned on having while at Grade 3.

I wish for YOU to continue taking care of your father and your brother. I still wish that you consider studying & settling abroad then come back once you are more prepared to handle the Philippines.

I wish for YOU to find the love you can live with and grow old with.

I wish for YOU to complete your thesis and see all your sons grow old.

I wish for YOU to have another child because I know your son will enjoy having a sibling.

I wish for YOU both to live longer so you can still be with my children and enjoy their jokes.

I wish for YOU to see your daughter graduate.

I wish for YOU to achieve your dreams and make your parents proud and happy.

I wish for both of YOU to keep strong.

I wish for you to live long enough to see my son's wedding.

That was ALL I could think of for a few minutes.

Yeah, I think can say goodbye if I have to.

Pandemic Blah Blahs

That Monday, I broke into tears after seeing Twitter feeds coming from the Lumad Schools. The 6/6 tweet thread showed a timeline of military actions against these schools servicing IP students in Mindanao area. There seems to be senseless red-tagging of teachers and students who simply desire a kind of education which celebrates free-thinking, critical analysis & conscientization.  That could have easily been me years back as a volunteer teacher/ community worker in Palawan, Tarlac or Romblon. And so I feel for their situation. Then of course, the  news of Maria Ressa's Cyberlibel case. I've been following her in the news for days. I thought maybe there is a slight chance we could win this.  I've given up on checking the number of Covid 19 cases in Pilipinas kong Mahal.

I cried more because for the first time, I've finally admitted, I want to kick my children out of my house and out of the Philippines. Yups. We talked more over lunch for a possible strategy.

Midweek, felt glad to be connected online with key folks from USQ. Learning something new keeps me afloat. Research ideas continue to pre-occupy me in some creative and maybe escapist way.  The chance to read more and daydream, vibe/emails these with my very few friends while I'm WFH is one of the reason to get up in the morning.  I relish these last few days of my full study leave.

Then came my webinar -- what  a source of joy and more, source of rethinking.   Analytics show that the webinar reached about 3,000 active viewers. Nice to read the comments. After patting myself on the back, I wondered about the questions from the teachers. I sense a general worry, a bit of desperation, and more, well-meaning questions to search for a one-time solution. The questions were quite interesting-- ranging from parent concerns/issues, formative assessments, how to handle a big class, how to motivate the unmotivated, mostly not even related to blended learning but real questions the concern teachers with or without the shift to fully online delivery of instruction.

Of course I had answers, but their questions left me asking why these questions?  Why such worries?  Why the need for templates of action?
As I've told my husband, why Im no longer into 'teacher training' perse, is that I no longer believe in one time big time trainings like how we used to organize it with teachers and daycare workers. Even more now. I said it's hard for me to actually teach teachers things which I just happen to learn on my own because that is mostly how I brought things to my class.

I've mastered the skill of lesson planning, the height was during my IB teaching days when I managed to put all the words they wanted to hear or see to make the evaluators feel secure that we teach what we ought to teach.  In the end anyway, it's just a plan. What matters to me, once I face my class, or join my students at work whether seated on the floor, in front of the computer or on the ground itself -- is the experience of being with them, sensing what interests them, junk the need for coverage or sequence of skills and just see where they are and find ways to take them further from where they are.  Or back in the days of community based teaching, no matter how I prepare my plans and pull out a stack of materials to bring to the sitios --- when I reach the families, it's either they are ready to engage or they are nowhere at all, or the numbers change from time to time.  In such a case, you let go of your plan and targets and instead listen to their stories and concerns for the day.  Then you try to turn those into learning events. I decided to take pictures and next session, I bring their copies and then we talk more -- engage their thinking and story telling. Then weave in questions of what to do next time we meet.  The time spent while walking and crossing creeks those days, or even taking a shower or driving are precious time to think of ways to experience teaching and learning.  I'd usually have a drop down list of the basics to be covered which I know I can pull from or mentally tick.  Best parts would be the unplanned ones.  I'd pick up something from this and that while in my travels or side projects or anything outside of my K-12 school life.  It triggers an idea or two, then there it goes. You try to feel test a few things which seem to match your student's needs and most of all their interest.  On some days, I feel we didn't learn a thing, but we just manage to make use of the time. Then there really are brilliant days of light bulb moments and projects where kids surprise me with what they were able to do on their own. Of course, those days when I battle my will with the children and some surrender, let the teacher's idea go and days when my ideas aren't picked up and so let's see. With all these, I've made more successes.

But then I ask why? Possibly, it's the luxury of small teacher-student ratio, smaller group of students to handle, there's time to write and reflect, time to share during conferences, time to discuss students' needs and talk to parents, time for trips, time to make grand projects --- all these afforded by a smaller class size. Schools aren't just there for children to learn, it is there equally for teachers to learn. There is so much growth in that if only we bank on the idea that teachers aren't perfect. They do not know everything. They can just be 5 steps ahead of their students for all we know.  Sometimes when we thought what we knew for certain is a fact, isnt a fact after all. And therefore, in that imperfection comes the time to make mistakes, the time to search for read and ask a fellow teacher, what can be done better next time, and most importantly, the time to try again and do well. There is always, always the time to do better if only we open ourselves to that possibility that not everything can be learned in 1 hour, 1 semester, 1 schoolyear. What we thought as students have already mastered or may appear as such, wouldn't be there next time.

So I guess, I'll stick to the advice I gave in my webinar -- one of the major things we must consider are class sizes.  If we managed to pull the K-12, pull the free tertiary level education,  why not a reasonable teacher student ratio -- it makes the class manageable and more real collaborations going on, manageable paper work; why not lessen the lesson planning so teachers spend more time to empty their brains of an overcrowded curriculum or PD fatigue, so that when with their students, they get to really immerse and see possibilities.

Been a year or so...& 8 mos.

 It's been a year since I started with this thing called data ANALYSIS.

Around the same time last year, I was preparing to get back to Toowoomba for the final semesterS of my studies (or I thought so, haha). So I packed some stuff to bring: 

-fave childhood goodies (chocnut, curly tops and Jolly biscuits)

- a jar of ube = purple yam delicacy

- SPAM tocino + canned corned beef for pasalubong

-bottled dried fish and/or Spanish sardines

Unloaded some of those at my Gold Coast home away from home.

I finally arrive at Toowoomba.  Hopped off  Translink bus 907 at the USQ stop near Alison Dixon Theatre (reminds me of Alice Dixon the actress, haha).  The Australian air, hmmm. No smoky scent yet. Across the stop, I see familiar faces over at K-Block.

That was roughly a year ago, amidst the writing, I spent quality time, not just with fellow humans but quality time with Toowoomba. This sojourn of mine was a lot of ME time. These days, roughly 8 mos since TaalV eruption  and 6 months of being in a mix of GCQ, MECQ and ECQ = Enhanced Community Quarantine,  my forms of escape are really just my memories, daydreaming, productive googling...and still, this thing called research.

Productive googling = Sabina Murray's blog; VICE News articles; Noor gallery of photo-journalists and stories they bring to the fore

Memories = high school days with my BFFs; Davao time with my BFFs; trips to Anilao beach with my lovelies; days of being a much younger teacher and adventuring through Cuyo and Romblon while doing volunteer work; days with Wordlab teachers where I met Teacher Vic, Mimai, Lilette, Mailin, Candy, Hazelle, Mary, Nanay Conching, Kuya Sonny= that year I worked with my best friend and a former teacher idol, Teacher Dina.

I'm not exactly missing recent memories of Builders School, must be cuz it's recent memory. Then again, the very recent memories of Toowoomba always crop up:

> lazy Sunday mornings, passing the time by going to this church or that, 

> walks crossing the Japanese gardens to get to USQ -- and the scent of ducks, the feel of the frost 

>my spot at the library, that coffee machine

> late walks along that university avenue listening to Dua Lipa playing on my phone

>those convoes with myself, an imaginary friend or with God.

>my jog-walk-run routine

>TRAG

I guess, in this pandemic, one can only try to hold on to happy memories. Or convince myself that better days will come as long as I keep myself busy with K12 Journey webinars, crafting a new research project, RWLeague, doing a few firsts = like OIC for Dean Baggy, delving into epistemic cognition, collaborating with HDR-LA, UPOU ethics app, ...almost anything, anything to convince myself that THIS reality is now my reality and whether next year will be a better year, I really don't know anymore, or shall I say rather not look that far as we Filipinos need to bear this all for a few more years under this f***ing regime!!! Gohhhd, I hate him.

One day at a time...this thing called research will keep me afloat. 

This thing called Toowoomba Sojourn will make me look forward to graduating and having that #31 on the menu, for one last time before I die.

In between, I'm quite content with payback famtime or at least thankful for having the time to spend great meals with my loved ones and just seeing and smelling my mammals still. Should better days no longer arrive, then I know, for certain, I really, really, really managed to have gudt days in this time of Corona.

This Study is Epistemic (whatEVER that means)

Of interest in this new study is the idea of looking at teachers-academics spanning K-20. That was the second hook. A prior hook was just daydreaming about ethnographic studies with teachers. Now, something of significance as I’ve read more about PE > EB > EC, then the AIR and 3R-EC. [INSERT MODELS OF EB/C]

I admit, I’m drowning in the reads. I don’t want to slip into an imposter syndrome mode ‘cuz I did right after you poked  my brain. Nipped those doubts out of my mind. But I’m closer to being certain why I think this study is significant. Now, I have a greater goal which I foresee as translating to concrete action.  I exchanged ideas with Dr. Lunn Brownlee a week ago. She is the 2go2 expert on Epistemic Reflexivity. To add more context, I said:

        The main aim of my study will be to uncover the epistemic beliefs (EB) of these expert LSTs and LAs. I             am also foreseeing engaging these experts in a reflexive exercise to discern or deliberate on ways they            think their knowledge, skills set and experiences can be best shared through a non-formal course, a                mentoring program or even through more informal ways AND with EB in mind.

My current questions are along these lines:

a) whether I need a model of EB (such as the AIR or  3R-EC model)  to draw out and describe the EB of these experts;

b) Or whether the 3R-EC  is best suited AFTER an initial study so I can use the findings to engage these experts to deliberate on a set of non-formal courses or redesign pre-service courses, a mentoring scheme and/or more informal ways to learn.

I hope to tighten these up for the next poking and for the Ethics application to be finally out.

I think I may have repeated myself here.

And yes, I cried after the meeting (or was it after I read Chinn’s work while multi-tasking with 3-4 other things).  I cry when I feel I cannot take how my brain works. It spills into other things in my mind. My inner speech goes, “Gahhd, why wasn’t I born to be a great housewife?”…some superwoman who will manage home life perfectly for the family and will utterly find joy and contentment in that. 

"Something Just Like This..."

Was getting a bit detached from my dissertation for sometime.  

I had to be with family end of April to mid-May.

A very dear aunt died.  So I decided to  spend quality Zoom time hosting novenas and rosary prayer sessions for my relatives. Weird act from a very Protestant me.  But it was really a good time to catch up with my cousins.

We ended up unloading stories, making chismis. It was like 4 nights of life disclosures within the 9 day novena until the actual Zoom memorial.  We cried lots.

Losing Tita Ely is pretty close. The first death that actually hit me was Jerico's. Christened him as the He-Devil to go with my She-Devil Associate In Arts student. We spent good times at the UPOU community site, offline included. 

Anyways, just a weird thing happened.

I was daydreaming about my auto-ethnography to fill in more discussion points. I was reading more about teacher/ academic identities, and identities of Academic Language and Learning Advisors-- such creatures and possible ways to dig into their epistemic and pedagogical beliefs. I came across an article on the use of metaphors  in narrative inquiry discourses and sensemaking.

So I was trying to reconcile whether I should still maintain using superhero metaphors and actually wondered where the superhero metaphor started.  It was like a weird idea back then to engage my new found colleagues at UPOU to see whether how game they could possibly be. I set up my Scratch Pepper at UPOU Google Sites. I was testing content in tables and I sort of imagined each of them in their future selves at UPOU. I entitled it as

"Lay your Claim". Funny that some of them took a bite :) So yeah, I think I secretly knew that I can grow old with them. But to grow old with them also meant I should be someone they can live with or even deserve to grow old with.

Fastforward, I was now getting ready to let go of the superhero metaphor and use their real names in my autoethnog cuz Im sure they would not mind.

Then came the feedback of internal reader, Dr Karen Spence. And OMGOD, I use a GOD to emphasize that she must be God-sent= a surprise superhero. Gahhd, the 'labor' on my work was obvious. Is she an alien or what?!?
Her pencilmarks, checks and corrections brought me back to my chapters -- and this time, I'm looking at my work and my life from a different light. Yes, it has been my labor of pain and joy, for three straight years. Had to cut ties because of this thing called PhD. And yes it had a way of changing me. 

So I managed to quickly get into this zone of proximal submission with that last major fix-ins & add-ons on my chapters. Why not pick a Coldplay while I'm in this zone-- first time to really get into the tune and lyrics of "Something just like this". May I drown in the beat, it kept me going. Lovely lyrics.  Was trying to relate with the superhero lines. Yeah, it seems like a good match while working on my chapters page by page.

Close to 6pm, I was overcome with emotion --  I guess this feeling that I'm close to submission and that up to the last minute, you get the help you need from this person. I searched her at the USQ website. There she was. She's this mysterious lady whose name I obviously forgot but whose face really stuck to my memory.  My first time to see her felt like the time I first met Kat at the UPOU Facrum.  They both were the quiet and reserved type. She reminded me so much of her...a dear colleague who is no longer with UPOU. It got me thinking also of Jerico, RIP., who is  no longer 'here'.  Like if he were alive today, I know I can count on him too for this thing called PhD.

Going back to OMGOD, I've wanted to make conversation with her but I just felt she wanted to spend her lunchbreak in silence.  Well I guess the conversation took a different form --  Her writing on my work= the quality time she spent reading my work AND my brain was more than what I asked for.  And I can only feel gratitude all over again.

God takes away key persons in our lives because He has other plans for them. 

Or that there are people we have to leave cuz yeah, we were meant grow, take root and outgrow.

God had plans for Kat to be in another university.  Then Jerico and my Tita Ely -- they just had to go.

I've lost some people, too as I just had to move on from one workplace to the next.

That's me outgrowing causes and with that I've lost people too.

Maybe because God has other plans for me too.

And God has this way of giving them back to me, in a different form and at times I least expect.

He filled me up with a Catherine, a Lolita, an Anna, a Barbara, a Sofia, a Karen, a Petrea, a Linda, 

a Nicky, an Earl... a Bruce Wayne to Bane (HBD btw)

In the spirit of Coldplay's  "Something just like this..."

"...Achilles...Hercules...Spiderman...Batman...Superman...
Where do you wanna go, how much you wanna risk

Am not looking for somebody with some superhuman gift

Some superhero, some fairy tale bliss

Just something I can turn to, somebody I can miss...Something just like this

doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo..."

It's Like This 3

I now have key search terms for this new study I'm interested in doing.
At the back of my mind, I'm interested in branching away from a case study design and would like to go for: phenomenology and narrative inquiry. Or maybe to even find out whether these 3 can simultaneously happen in this new study.

New search terms:

• teacher identity
• teacher beliefs
• personal epistemology
• epistemic cognition

In other words, teachers' ways of knowing and in particular -- that of learning support teachers and learning advisors (K-20)

A bit of background:
In the process of writing my auto-ethno on my PhD journey, I have had quality exchanges with key persons engage in providing research support and learning advice from my Australian university. It made me curious about the role of the HDR-LA. There is no such thing as an LA in my university. I figured perhaps, if universities in the Philippines had more LAs, library support for researchers and working with Research Supervisors, without further delay. So how does one become an LA? How do you prepare one to become an LA? And more -  what's in the 'make-up' of an existing LA expert. How can you actually engage them to un-pack what they know and what they are learning so that they can recommend ways other teachers can learn these to.

I figured, with all the online learning that's going to happen, surely we will be needing more online learning support providers K-20. Some students will certainly fall through the cracks in HS and they will hopefully land on to university work, online ones even. So how do we prepare for them to make sure they continue to learn and succeed.

Then of course, I turn to my K-12 practice. This time taking note that for the first time, my curiosities and recent HDR experiences fuelled this interest in my new-found study.  Normally, I take the route of my teacher self and my K-12 bag of tricks to further research ideas at the higher ed.  This time, it's my higher ed research experiences which make me want to reflect on my K-12 practice and translate into a research study spanning K-20.

Recent K-12 experiences: (to mean b4 leaping into my PhD v.2.0)
1) I was Learning Coordinator at BA and really had the fortunate experience of observing teachers at work. Just so happen that these observations are within the context of teacher evaluation. BUT, it was great opportunity to 'learn' from fellow teachers and 'capture' their teaching based on their CK and PK and PCK. Teacher observations are really good ways to understand how-why teachers teach the way they teach. You see varied ways teachers engage students and it brings you to that space of understanding one's strengths and limitations as a teacher.

I've been fortunate enough to interact with the LST=Amor of BA who had all the tools and tricks to provide quality learning support to students whom I can clearly relate with when it comes to language processing and written expression.  My task then was to at least support her clear initiatives and desire to help as student in need. I needed to make sure there would be communication among key persons to identify possible student cases;  diagnostics and informal ways to assess student level; documentation of work; honest to goodness 'case conferences'.

From these exchanges with different teachers, I was able to put in words "teacher pathways of growth"-- that in fact teachers continue to evolve in their functions and roles. However,  how to provide support to this evolution was not mine to decide at that time. What I realized is that a major part of my growth as a teacher was: self-learning, on the job and while interacting with teachers and teacher-leaders. And there were clear areas I will not get into -- for example Learning Support -- as this is best handled by a teacher with more methodical ways of diagnosing, addressing and teaching those students in need.


2) As co-founder of Builders School, I was the luckier teacher handling inquiry learning projects with our schoolchildren. Luckier because I had co-teachers to ensure that explicit skills instruction. We managed to install our ILS = Integrated Literacy Support Program. Instead of the usual 'clinic-mode' model of Wordlab school, I figured that the literacy support should be integrated with the everyday things they do in their language classes and within the multi-grade setting.

While my mindspace was pre-occupied on dual language, whole-language approaches, field trips, integrating ICTs amidst co-crafting project presentations/ sharing with students, and doing classroom-based research and curriculum documentation, I was assured that my schoolchildren are still able to cover content they needed to learn and acquire skills they needed to deliver in the other subject areas. These way students can safely move up to traditional HS not only with the necessary skills but with the confidence and love for learning intact + wonderful memories of their gradeschool life to continue learning how to learn.

Within this space, I was a great witness to how students loved their read -aloud sessions with Teacher Vic; how their reading and writing lessons paid off as seen in their project work in my class; how our themes were at work not only in my project class; how students are just as committed to their artwork to express their understanding of literature. Most importantly, how our once-nonreaders have become fluent and confident children.

In other words, it's clear that my co-teachers have worked their magic! And while I do acknowledge my own magic, I've always wondered about the HOW behind their magic.

Tables have turned:
I recall that one of the first few questions I asked the HDR-LA during our F2F consultation Year 2017, while preparing for my CoC was something along the lines of: have you worked with students who may have language difficulties?

Then after a few consultations, I was able to confirm MY kind of language difficulties - in the area of written expression. While I was getting all the help needed for the thinking and writing I needed for my major research at my QLD university, I've come to realize that yes, there may be common spaces learning support teachers, special educators and LAs operate or even more, common things they bring to the table.

I guess, those were my ways of figuring out what exactly HDR-LA's do and whether he is the higher ed version of Amor and Vic. And if so, what was his background? how much of his K-12 practice gets into his current practice as HDR-LA? or if in fact that background even helps.

Teacher beliefs > teacher cognition > teacher and learning experiences

And why even? Is there something about this which can be 'transmitted' to would-be teachers? and how? or what are the basics we can integrate in pre-service courses to pre-dispose teachers to consider becoming LST and LAs? Will a background of an Education degree even help? In what ways? How can we explore informal learning spaces to learn to become one?

It's Like THIS 2

One time, I was daydreaming for a Zoom session because I've restarted to concoct ideas for next research 2do. I allow myself to daydream future writing projects as a way to look forward to having my life back. But because I had to hyperfocus in finishing my section on Limitations of the Study, and hadn't had breakfast, come Zoomtime I couldn't just ask that the session be recorded-- cuz the daydream was unfolding.....but no playback, tsk tsk!

THIS paper idea is triggered by the ff:
1) HERDSA and my daydream of doing a poster presentation I've never tried before
2) My husbandry asking about auto-ethno
3) A recent exchange with Professor X on a possible auto-narrative project
4) My unfinished blog on 3 great teachers

5) A shared conversation with Catherine Chinook on giftedness and demigods
6) Meeting another Learning Advisor - and me trying to listen to him give feedback to a student in THAT neat part of the library
7) Immersing with HDR-LA - like literally me, making a labrat out of me, observing, wondering and uber-benefitting from an academic writing coach & reflecting/asking myself 'will I be able to do the same for someone next time?’

8) My ongoing interest with expert teachers to include a cohort I categorize as 'gifted teachers'(by order of appearance in my life):
Rachel-R - Maryknoll HS and UP
Feny - Community of Learners
Mailin - Wordlab
Victor - Wordlab and UP
Dr. Acoymo - UP
Dr. Nellie Deutsch - IT4ALL
Dr. Dina Ocampo (as my EDR prof) U.P.
Amor - Beacon Academy
Eric Z - Beacon Academy
Dr. Eacersall - USQ

9) My wanting to do an ethnographic study of teachers
-as I do get a kick out of observing great teachers at work (it feels like getting immersed in a great movie or an art installation)
10) Wondering about an iteration of a TP study I've done before but using a different methodology

Pausing here…I'm trying to see what's common among 'gifted teachers'.
        My guess - ( like if I were to profile them)

• Good to great with languages or background in language teaching
• Hardly netspeaks nor truncates messages
• Sends complete text messages (not using shortcuts)
• Reads books for pleasure or has a taste for HiQ literature
• Grammatically correct
• Digests content just like that
• Intuitive and methodical
• An OC streak
• Have highly literate parents
• Really enjoyed reading as a child/teenager
• Has an older sibling who is highly literate

      Could be's -

• An actual IQ corresponding to that of a gifted person
• An IQ for the Fine Arts

Now, a bit of rewind:
Sent: Wednesday, 22 January 2020 12:38 PM

Wondering here-
So a study of expert teachers providing language learning support spanning - K-12 all through Doctoral level.

Shared views & beliefs about 
> learning how to write
> gaps in written expression of students

Common understandings of diagnosing writing problems
and how the above translate into:
>actual explicit language skills instruction

And how did you actually learn the how- to of those? + Teaching principles you abide by or unknowingly demonstrate

And if so, how do we train mowwwh language support teachers to do the same?

Love in the Time of Corona

It has been a hate relationship with my MS Word formatting, APAs and EndNotes for quite sometime. Now, it's official. I have to come to 'heart' doing all of them. Just paid focused attention to each and everyone of them in order to understand them really well

That took a total of 2-3 weeks of focused attention, then more

Wk 1: My EN + APA started to make more sense while spending quality time over at my BFF's place.  Quality time = girl-talkin' at the beach, at her apartment with her loveliest kids, Raylai and Avi; teacher-talking and more ghorl-talkin' while doing our daily morning walks. Our conversations would sometimes start before we went to bed then we'd wake up about 3am to talk shortly. Fun, tears and laughter in between.  We talked lots about her school, my research, our life questions, our troubles & worries, our future projects, our families, our marriages, probably some days of the future past.  That was really great catch up time given the constant viber exchanges we've had since my Toowoomba months and days. So much love in the air surrounding us all--the positivity benefitted me, MY Endnotes and MY APAs.

Then of course, I enjoyed the uber-self-contained space. Did my version of simple breakfast and minimalist cooking which the kids easily fell for - scrambled eggs with seaweed, Vietnamese pasta with fried fish tofu, grilled cheese sandwich with seaweed, fried egg with cheese & seaweed on top.


Wks 2-3:  The Corona is getting really Covid - sounds like morbid = so real.  There was news of 3 deaths in my extended circle. After 1 RWLeague, 1 PGECR Zoom and 1 Consultation on my auto-ethnography came sadder news. My Uncle Vic and Aunt Mila were diagnosed with the virus, with my Uncle being at his worst situation. My Tita Ely (motherside) in the meantime had to be admitted in the hospital and being treated as a possible PUI.  Those few days felt quite uncertain.  One early morning, the certainty came- my Uncle Vic passed on.

In the meantime, U.P. sent out news of a Professor who likewise passed on. Then a memo - travel ban was in place.

These times, hard to think really. Last year with all the meaningful noise on climate change, then the Taal eruption start of 2020,  I was most certain that our generation will be wiped out due to some major natural catastrophe happening one after the other at different regions of the world. I didn't see this pandemic coming at all.

I could no longer hold on to the joy I've felt being with my best friend. It was being chipped away one by one since the lockdown and my Toowoomba trip cancellation... gone were my plans of seeing my housemates, Lolita and Catherine.  In a matter of days, the lockdown has become Luzon-wide, that included where my family was.

I paused to thank the Lord as my Miranda reached our home before the lockdown.

Wk 4: While my husband busied himself with securing our food stocks and actually cooking more rice meals,  I proceed with chapter edits based on Dr Redmond's feedback.

I paused to thank the Lord for the approval of my extended study and for the funds finally transferred (USQ census date) and an email from Leonie which came on a Sunday. Oh my, that was precious weekend time it made me cry.

Wk 5: I distracted myself with finding ways to access and play with MS Teams so I can recommend its how to's.  I reviewed the Techtorials on MS Word styles and creating tables while befriending my daughter's choice of music = Harry Style's 'Falling' song. It goes with my finally falling in love with the idea of my List of tables and figures FINALLY working. I so get my APAs, thanks to Tricia and Emma. I've started to imagine helping any researcher learn those tricks.

I paused to thank the Lord for little things which keep me going.

Wk 6, end of Easter break - I am overwhelmed with tears.  Amidst reviewing my viber chats with my BFF, finally getting over my uncle's death  and learning that my Aunt's xrays have cleared with her trial meds finally working, and a new Lazo babe forthcoming, there was so much more to be thankful for.

Just when I noticed I'd stop talking to God (yep, I do that when I'm upset with Him), I was reminded of God's ways and my best memories pre-Covid. Let me list thy ways:

> my best sojourn at Toowoomba
> a trip in the planning for the nth time which finally happened
> a Siargao island surprise
> my 2019 VIPs
> my 20th wedding anniversary by the beach
> my 20th wedding anniversary at U.P. chapel
> Collaboratiore 2020

And now, newer memories:
> new research ideas brewing
> trying out new cake recipes
> paying attention to Zoom voices and accents
> getting to know my own family as housemates, haha: living with Mauro's moodiness and great hairdo, loving Miranda's muscle building and breadmaking, enjoying Vic's enjoyment of online classes -- most of all, gigil-mammal time :)

Amen to that!

Limits to my Cognition

I'm in my fourth year = Sem 1 2020.

Funny that I am still asking for help with regards to abstract writing.
That.is.so.basic.

It's like a pre-req to Assistant Professordom and yet why am I still
relying on crutch to get me through the actual abstract of my dissertation.
I set a consultation to condense it from a 600 word to  a 500 word abstract. Before that session, I had to shrink it from 800 to 600. Still cant get it down to 500.

I reviewed the recording and it's the same sense I'm getting of how my thinking=written work really is.  What's sticky:

- my written expression ain't direct to the point
- my findings are still all over the place
- my contribution to research ain't significant enough or at least I still have not communicated that clearly

That's the painful reality of it.  The months and months of work further validate my waterloo+.  Sad...

So what does this mean - I am certain,  I'll be getting my PhD. I just have to. It is going to happen, but post-PhD will I have to hire a writing coach for the written work I need to do? Or for project proposals which I need to come up with?

I think what this PhD is telling me (or at least I feel about it today)
is that it takes soooo much effort for my brain to attain clarity of thought and precision of language.

I didn't feel like this when I was working on my past papers. So maybe the difficulty is rooted on the project itself -- a doctoral dissertation entails so much more -  an expansive reading of the literature,  a larger data to present, interpret and analyze. Then of course, there's more to synthesize. And learning to be efficient and systematic about all these.

I ask, what is there to feel great about when it comes to my cognition?

Today = I.dont.know.

When the PhD changes you, what remains 1

My PhD journey meant facing up to my flawed self yet trusting even more that I do have a rightful place in higher education, the space which I aim to navigate further as a late-career researcher.  I’d rather be in this space, vacillating between comfort and uncertainty with 2^nd guessing myself at certain points. This way I work harder and put my hyper-thinking to good use.  Also, because I know myself- when things become too certain and too comfortable, I become bored and arrogant that way. Not good.

Looking back, I believe what greatly helped in this journey was taking part in the PGECR symposium where I had a small and cozy audience with whom I let that part of my narrative out in the open. The process of owning my flaws and failures have been empowering after all. 

Sometimes, I think the PGECR, Research Support Team, English Angel, HDR-LA and my Supervisors were the answers to my question: Why USQ? Why not at QUT or my U.P.?  Perhaps, I am meant to be here to see beyond my actual thesis and embrace me, and most of all learn ‘empathy’ and concrete ways to demonstrate these to future teacher-researchers in my university.  It was God’s way of telling me, my failures are all right and it will be alright…that we all had our share in our brokenness and pitfalls, and with great effort and positivity, transcend these to become better versions of ourselves. In the process, things will fall into place, as Dr Redmond had assured me time and again.

So, these remaining months of my extended study is meant for me to suck it all up – and still rely on God for all the little things and big things.  The sad part is my daydreaming moments are no longer within the comfort zone of my small school, rather with any K-12 school willing to collaborate with UPOU for that matter.  That perhaps, I am now really saying goodbye to that space for the next few years.  This also means savoring my last few months of dressing down or getting dressed up in whatever, being thankful for my workspace at home,  pause to enjoy a good window view of our trees (compared to a cluttered govt office) and in between still have time to do online chit-chats and a share a good meal with my loved ones.

Post-PhD, I only hope to work towards contributing to the valuable role of the UPOUs Faculty of Education.  Whether that means taking on more admin work because nobody else is there to take it, redefining an office’s mandate, or supervising 2 other programs while managing to teach my favorite teacher education courses.  And perhaps my full time work environment will now be 20 hours at the UPOU main campus and hopefully with a great view of our version of the UP Oblation.

This also means trying to be a Captain Marvel so that I can still get to do research I love doing.  My curiosities still remain within the teaching and learning space but now having clearer themes and terms of reference: of being and becoming, transitioning, teacher narratives and identities, lived experiences and daydreams, teacher knowledge, transplanting of ideas and research journeys. 

In a way, my daydreams have changed but still sinking my teeth in research collaborations. The here and now remains constant - that is being in touch with my best friend to listening to each other’s woes and worries for the nth time of our lives and enjoying our aging and still evolving selves getting more in touch with our real selves separate and yet linked with our beloveds.

A Neat Kind of Nitpicking

Two days after my full draft submission, I was a cockroach with 6 antennae. I was daydreaming= up and about thinking of 6 creative work/ paper ideas:

> TP study on learning support

> PhD journey auto-ethno Part 2 & Part 3 - HERDSA 2020

> a paper presentation based on my thesis

> website rebuild for my Scratch Paper

> 1 more blog for the Transformatives of Collab 2020

> an ethnographic study with research fellows of Collaboratoire 2020

HERDSA 2020 abstract writing  was top in my dropdown list.  But then, did that alongside other things: trying a not- the-usual chocolate cake recipe, chatting with the Transformatives, & blogging. So out came a so-so abstract.

Gaaash, Aleta. Can you be more focused and systematic?  Guess not.

Days later, I decided to sched a consultation with Dr D and try things differently. So what if, I compare my scores with the expert abstract writer-reviewer. Why not try to practice giving comments on my work, as if  I'm giving feedback to a student.  Again, compare. Neat!

As usual, things went un-recorded, tsk tsk. And why does the un-recorded leave me with mowwwhhh food for thought :)  What I witnessed is a nitpicking of the Doctor kind. Didn't realize how 'oc-oc' the process can be.

I remember saying, "Go ahead, just do the rating, no need to be nice".  I ended up quite amused with the nitpicking because he really went sentence by sentence, then for a few ones, word for word.  The automated-grammar-guru was still at work of course. He still found a few lapses despite me running that abstract through Grammarly. For a while I thought, "Is that what my examiners will do with my thesis? And if so, does that mean I should at least do that first to my own thesis? Omg, I haven't done that for some sections of my chapters!!!"

Anyways, the co-ratings for my abstract are here below:

Relevance -             a = 4     d = 3

Description -           a = 4     d = 4

Contribution 2R -    a = 3     d = 3

Clarity of writing -  a = 3    d = 4


I felt at some point, the ideas in my abstract got too 'scattered'.   Dr D noticed that I could have driven important points more directly.
And that one way to do that was to look at the wordings/ key phrases in the actual description of conference themes, then use those in the abstract. Hardly did that before!

Tried to visualize the phrases he used: 'slap their faces with it' (or was that 'drive it down their necks'? or 'ram it down their throats'?). While listening to those Englishingies, my quick translate was: saksak mo sa baga nila!  

That was almost 1 hour of a pretty neat kind of  nitpicking. But, I must say, it was quite tiring. And I'm just 1 out of the 3 or 4 more consultations for the day. Only a wizard can get those done. Glad that he's the wizard and I can just be a hobbit (for now).

So this is how it feels like to be at the receiving end of nitpicking. That was like Kuya Roger receiving explicit instructions from Teacher Aleta to hang this child's artwork this way > if that didn't work, do this > still not up to my liking, do that. Or while with Teacher Ron and reviewing his letter to parents > change this, change that. Or when Teacher Mai sets the agenda for our meeting > this goes there, this goes here > a better flow of discussion to make sure we don't overdiscuss. Gahhhd, that's funny. 

Seriously though,  now that I'm seeing the scores, I should be ready for a borderline yes. Awwwh. But hey, a No from HERDSA only means that I can relax and just enjoy the conference (in return for not entirely enjoying ASCILITE Dec 2017). Imagine getting nervous for a poster session a few days before my flight, instead of spending cozy time with E&N or A&A? That is if I can even get my study grant (extended version) approved in the first place.

Now the actual poster is another thing of course....hmmm.

PhD v.2.0 extended play version: Clear and present intentions

To be consistent with the extended play versions of Taylor Swift and Lorde running through my eardrums every time I write, here goes a version for my extended study to continue with reading, thinking and writing. I just surrendered to the fact that Feb 27, 2020 was an impossibility, though on record I have written the required THIS and THAT :) Yups, did it. And just said what will be will be.

The extension was much needed, upon realizing the full extent of what 'dissertation writing' means. Credits to my adviser.  I think, in the end, it could be most beneficial to lessen my stress and misery with a very tight deadline. In that state, that would mean me committing more mistakes. Though in the past, I really do work well by cramming. But then, this IS thesis of the examinable kind, a thorough one at that. We are after academic excellence and excellence has never been my goal. My prior writings were always for the sheer joy of sandplay.  I was after experimenting with types of qualitative writing I intuitively chanced upon then just got lucky.

Getting giddy awaiting approval of funding for my extended study. Without the funds, I'll cry an ocean, swipe my card then sell my car which by the way I lent to my mom and dad. So maybe, I could mortgage our property or pawn 2 rings. Hmmm, woman, have a little more faith in the Lord.

For this extended study, I am going partly for an on-campus stint.  Best to do some self-checks of my intentions so putting these here:

Academic
> get those revisions done
> work closely with a proofreader
> protected time to work on a paper for HERDSA or maybe a PGECR sympo or AAOU2020 at Sri Lanka
> quality time to join RWriting League f2f and tame my distractions
> immerse in a session with the CoP Research Supervising Team
> chance to visit THAT school recommended by Debbie and Catherine
> participate in a workshop by Ally

Social-personal
> take part in meetings/ workshops to practice my active listening skills without getting distracted by accents and high vocabs
> a chance to be with fellow women whom I wish to support and engage with (Nicky, Catherine, Lolita, Eva)
> a slight chance to visit Kat
> have Ice cream with Xin Yan & Gu
> get to see more of the best side of my Associate Supervisor LG
> fix those hardbound thesis manuscripts on a decent shelf in THAT part of the library

> take those picshots
> give my thank you gifts to my mentors

Wellbeing
> that goes without even saying

There you go.

Collaboratoire 2020: Coming home

Until the last minute, couldn’t be sure whether I could make it. Ahhh, my mind and my usual seesaw. I haven’t joined any discussion over at Basecamp for Mentors/ Facilitators of Collaboratoire 2020. Couldn't cuz quite fixated with my chapters which weren’t clean enough. There were major spots to work on. Taal volcano hasn’t quieted down. I was still tracking down my request letter for extended study. I haven’t been out to  visit my mom and dad nor sure whether I deserved to see anybody from UPOU until I got this 1 damn thing done.

But then, the commitment to join and support a friend was done many months ago. Like, sure, why not. I can handle the distraction. Whether this was going to be another Biomodd with Angelo, King and Diego, or a chance to be with Sol, I just said yes, knowing fully aware that those days would probably be crunch time.

Crunch time it was. Top priority should always be my dissertation over everything else. Then again, I have been doing exactly that for the past 2.8 years and lately feeling miserable. I love research right? Why do I feel like breaking up with it?  Like, how could I have loved you in the first place?!! While I got busy with commas and quotation marks, those APAs, I thought, why all of a sudden is my dissertation getting in the way of my learning.  I already missed my personal deadline anyways. What's another week? To hell.

I chose heaven. Being in Siargao was like an ultimate release. Will this be even worth it?

Seeing Angelo at the airport brought back memories of Biomodd. I didn’t even know a thing about gaming nor art installation back then when I tried my best to understand him and the ongoing emails of Biomodd members. My goals were purely social – to be with my colleagues and see them at their best. I thought, the learning will surely sink in.  The reward was witnessing ‘gifted teaching’ by Diego and seeing the caring side of AFDL finally unhidden. At one point I couldn’t exactly see whether the collaboration was working. I was feeling the tension at certain points. When I could no longer rely on cognition, I relied on pure labor...until I found a way to finally make Biomodd my own. Since then, the sight of roots, trees, leaves,vines, fishtanks -- the organic and nonmaterial -- all of a sudden takes me back to the sense of community we tried to build together. It still is a strangely warm feeling seeing all of them in one space once again.

Now this Collaboratoire 2020! What’s this yummy looking pauso ni Diego and the whomever he’s bringing in. I didn’t have time to google but ended up sensing people through their profiles and links to their websites. Such renaissance men and women of the 21st century kind. Wow, what an inter/transdisciplinary team we are.  I wondered what I can bring into the group.

In moments of uncertainty, I just usually bring my jolly self. Before the jolly self surfaced, I had to talk things out with Rita, a colleague who fondly labelled me as her Angel, haha.  I sorely needed her to be angelic back to me.  We talked about our struggles, both coming from harmful research advising and getting into our new universities. We had this shared feeling of questioning who we are, what went wrong and now seeing that we are almost, almost getting there.

By the time we took off, I was my smiling self. Excited to be with Sol and Bobby, fellow facilitators. Looking forward to our my sandbox play mode as usual. I thought, this week is just like going with the flow like the rest of the fellows.  I'll be living for the present with my unformatted chapters at the back of my mind.

It felt  nice to finally meet new faces, our actual fellows in the flesh. They had real hair and teeth behind their names and backgrounds on an excel sheet. I tried to recall who and why we chose whom. Just happy to be seated with them amidst the sound of the Siargao tides hitting the riprap. I did a version of active listening and sorting their grand ideas in my brain.

I paused and wondered: is this somekind of grand plan from above? Or just a Wonderboy Diego at work who seemed to know that there must be some prior connection somehow. Why did it feel like I've met each one of them once in the past?

Kate feels like a co-parent: a staunch believer of  homeschooling she is – very much into alternative education. I can imagine future projects with her.

Eric and his amusing accent still ringing in my ears: I can imagine being in his high school classroom hyper-focusing on his manner of speech cuz I'm already into his global citizenship anyways. Would love to observe his teaching presence :)

Jandy, the snowy white fairest of them all ('cuz I'm so cindered):  such passion for  teacher education when I was almost giving up on it. Got tired of teacher training at some point in my life. And so I admire his courage to keep at it.

Chao, and her vision of making things better for IP Ed: I see her going places, making a go for things outside the realm of her Grade 2 classroom. She's like a flashback to my beginnings as a teacher transitioning to community-based education work, post-Mt Pinatubo eruption and right at this time of post-Taal phreatic explosion.

While engaging with them, I was imagining the prospect of  how  their ideas can turn into actual research proposals, post-Siargao.  I was thinking perhaps she will be good with writing about the framework and rationale; she'll be great with outlining all the nitty-gritty tasks in writing, budget included; he will be efficient with describing the methodology and he will be perfect with editing the whole thing, adding thingies at the right places.  So this is how it feels like to be somekind of a mentor-facilitator= seeing promise and potential then getting surprised with outcomes as to what each and everyone will be able to deliver. Suweeet.

I saw bits of pieces of myself in them. And yet now with Bobby and Sol as higher ed professors, I'm confronted with the challenge of guiding them. Like how even, right? But my PhD journey has given me the chance to trust in myself and my intuition mostly.  Ahhh, now I remember! WE ARE TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION. We ALL aim for innovation...and based on our gut-feels, passion, frustrations and vision.

And then there was Sue.
So subtle. Observant and engaging. Listening.
At times I see her shut off. Letting us be for really good reasons. So much confidence in us. She sets group meet ups by consulting with us. Hardly imposing but setting things on record, smoothly enough for us to remember.

We both agreed to 'play'. And play we did. From the Arduinos + Microbits, to the fellows actual testing of 'play' amidst story-data-gathering and immersing with community folks, upto the role-playing session to help our fellows rehearse, and of course, until the actual presentation, we mentors/ facilitators played along.

And of course, there was ample time to play: me joining Diego in his self-care, movement workshop; me trying to provide inputs to our fellows' presentations, engaging in the other presentations; me trying to sense what Mihaela was trying to do with her group. I was secretly listening and watching Klara do her thing with the fellows moving around and about the whole space.  One time, I was trying to observe Pieter's camera parts, like wowh.  Then of course, seeing whether I can breathe in Mona's energy then found myself worried over Anna disappearing from my sight as she went on snorkelling. 

Amidst all those, I really got more done, and this time, quite gladly = finished formatting at least 4 out of 8 chapters, and did 2 online meetings/ consultations for my chapters. Then came our finale with fellow Transformatives doing this wave movement and caught on cam...just sheer fun which others took seriously, so we did, too in the end. Pat on the shoulder for me cuz I was utterly focused for 10 straight minutes!

Collab 2020 was also sweeter catch up time with Sol and Bobby to talk about how we were all doing with our research projects. It was such a relief to get a feel of our shared stories of our doctoral lives. All this time I thought I was alone in my quest to make good.  We were all in the same boat of wanting to hurdle this PhD so we can all be together again at UPOU.

Then of course, a first time for me to take in Ria and Joyce = such youth and such intellect. Yeah, I can grow old with them, too.  It's great to see how these women got it sooo right at the onset. That's me being relaxed in the idea of retiring some day knowing that these very capable colleagues are doing the right thing. And of course, the constant teasing of future Dean AFDL to downplay and ward off the idea of a future Dean JRV. Got some quality time with near-future Dean JS.  That was a steady flow of ideas on schooling coming out of me to help her try things out differently in her school.

As we bid goodbye, I realized that was how I wanted Collab 2020 to end...with a bit of uncertainty.  For now,  I've filled my cup with these moments of being surrounded by my colleagues and fellows -- the feeling that we are all in this together, UPOU through thick and thin. It is kinda scary, this pending responsibility of institutional growth/ evolution. Don't want to think beyond what's here and now.

Ah so much drama, Aleta. But ‘tis true. When nothing in this world seems to be sustainable enough, peaceful enough, compassionate enough, what remains is the human experience – to think, to feel, to connect, to dream, to share. That should be enough right? For the time being, at least?

As for big dreams, unpopular ones, unlikely ones, it'll just fall in place at the right time. Cuz beyond the human  experience is the human spirit that will keep on moving as long as goals are noble and true.

This was Collab 2020@Siargao, and this IS me coming home after all.

PhD v.2.0: Feels like Postpartum

Why do I feel like this thing called PhD is an American, white man's journey, with APA the 6th as the ultimate Uncle Sam = U.S. domination/ oppression of the research kind.

There's a blog out there on 'common mistakes students have'. So if it's 'common mistakes', then PhD is not for the 'commoner-mistaker'. Or if the mistakes have been there for the length of time to be common enough, have they ever tried a one-time common solution to the problem by making APA friendlier to commoners. For example, why have a normal font for the Table label and an italicized Table caption vs an italicized Figure label and normal font for the Figure caption. I don't get that!

Or why the fuss of whether the period comes first before the closing quotation mark or after if it ends in a sentence. Why even compare the American way vs the British way in a blog just to prove that APA is the American way we must all abide with. Why is there no Australian way to question the fellow-white way of doing this and make referencing and formatting be chiller than usual, as Australians are the chillest bunch?

Ahhh, I forget, my PhD is in the English-IELTS language so I just need to follow the inventors of English. And btw, there are different kinds of Englishes, too. So my spell check goes behaviour vs behavior, analyze vs analyse. How lovely! And such well spent time to do all those vs fixing my cabinet that's falling apart, or buying the right set of curtains to protect me and my asthmatic-rhinitic family from the ash or other particles coming through the window.

Before this turning-into-a-cynic mode, was the cycle of pain which has now turned to what I perfectly label as Postpartum. I was literally a b**** from January 13-25 and at home who gave birth to all my reworked but still messy chapters and not wanting to be with others nor wanting to go around. I've ignored messages from my mom and dad amidst all the cleaning up. I was saving my last week of January to fulfill a promise to be at Collaboratiore 2020. I tried to regulate the angst by joining the Research Writing League and setting consultation time with HDR-LA so I can sense that I am actually getting things done because I AM getting things done.

While getting things done, I got irritated with the sound of the ff:
- Java's nails scratching the floor while he moves to and fro
- Vic's slippers and the pots and pans when I'm finally in that zone of formatting
- the neighbor's dog barking
- the ongoing pinging sound of the neighbor's phone and Mauro's phone - they are obviously chatting

If there was a pencil to table tapping student around, I'd literally yell cuz I am not a nice K-12 teacher these days. I've been pregnant with this research project for 2.8 years. That's like being constipated for that long and now finally everything's out and I don't feel like looking beautiful all of a sudden. May I just be all sorts of emoticons :), and a cartwheeling one soon, I hope.

And so I drown with Lorde. She's my great company these days. Some day, I will raise my glass and will not get done saying this: You Transformatives, along with my top-fave colleagues snapped me out of my post-partum, like YEAH! Surf we shall, Collaboratoire 2021/2.

And yeah, I have to hand it out to the coolest Englishwoman I've met, who by the way started surfing at the age of 50. It makes APA the 6th feel like a breeze.

Ahaaaay. This is me saying, that my Postpartum was best spent at home, in the Philippines, with my full grown mammals understanding me. And that Collaboratoire 2020 was reward worth claiming (having skipped 2 major holiday get togethers).

While the Transformatives will be making their research proposals happen, I'll be breastfeeding my chapters. My adviser says it's still going to be months of fixing and fixing.  In the meantime..."when people are talking...people are talking....get still":

Happy birthday Java, Happy birthday Teacher Vic, Happy birthday fool's draft!

Zoom 332057716 in My Mind

Pre-Zoom Moments in Time

Been getting all sorts of help from Batman for quite sometime.

Like Yr 1, I got feedback on my RRL. The feedback/ comments came across as cautious - quite polite. Very helpful. Very unlike other experiences of getting feedback or having no feedback at all.

Yr 2 - an 'impression type' of feedback on a new section of my RRL on Blended Learning which resulted to a concise paper presentation at ICODEL 2018.

Then came Yr 3

What came were actual notes on my creative work as I was widowing the how-to's of an auto-ethnography. Got some APA-Grammar guru galore corrections. Niiice. Of course, that left me so glad for the auto-ethno happening through an actual sharing at the PGECR symposium and that instant #31 on the menu as a freebie.  I had to put on hold completing the whole paper to remind myself that my dissertation writing is the TOP priority.

A great part of the 1-1 consultation experience is that I now have an artifact of an actual handwritten set of comments and tips on my written expression as an HDR learner me.  That's my antennae responding to my need2learn-how2mentor future research advisees. The comments let me see the bigger picture while the nitty gritty corrections looked like decorations on my white sheets of paper.

Sandwiched in between months of being on-campus was time well spent with English Angel. She went very gently and carefully through my presentation of Findings. She reiterated that writing requires deep thought - and she showed me how to look at my own work then explained her comments. Smooooth.

Topic sentence...support with details...give examples.

That's like my husband's grade three lesson on main ideas and supporting details. 

Then there's more:

String the phrases/terms to sustain the reader's attention.                                    

Handhold your reader through your work.

Got some good stuff done :)

Back2DrD

Now came the iLibCalendar. Let me just get those slots!

In return, were kind & encouraging words about the whole process of doing a PhD.   Perhaps it was to cushion what else  was there to come. A bunch of pressing questions. I'm getting repeated reminders to be explicit with my thesis arguments, and tougher questions to make me think beyond my chapter Discussion. This is to make sure I hit those WIIFM = so what's in it for me.  That felt like an 'Oh my, did I even learn anything!!!' Perhaps I was but there's too much writing to do for me to even stop & notice. Movin' on.

The rewriting of my discussion sections were brain demanding. So the writing was an act of decluttering before the holidays to give space to rethink and rewrite.

Tried those links to Learning Object Repository. There were 2 videos: one on Writing Arguments and another on Original and Significant Contribution. Tried to do those on my own. But...hmmm, the big BUT...I can't get my linear thinking to work. I  beat my brain cuz I find it hard to think with graphic organizers or box-type tables to enumerate: Main Idea 1...Supporting idea 1.1....1.2. ahhhgain.

A part of me was wanting of an actual demo of how-to-actually-do-that graphic organizer but in reverse. Can somebody just extract it from my thoughts and currently muddled written expression and then show me how to actually rearrange it, delete it or whatever it takes to clean it up! My brain is a mess. But hey, just kept at it.

What I did was work on a different table to thresh out my significant contributions. Did 60 percent of those.  At least I found a way to do my Chapter 8 = Conclusion.  For the other rewrites, I switched back to my usual winding road of writing, rewriting, chopping, moving, rewriting, trimming.

One time, I remembered printing my written work. Cut them up to resort it so I ended with this strip getting to this paragraph/ section and that strip getting into another paragraph. Just like how it was like helping  a few grade schoolers sort out their story parts back in the days when I was doing writer's workshop with  Grade 2 -3 children. And those sentence strip sorting/ comprehension activity to help LD kids make sense of story events.  So I guess this is me, helping me.

Then came Zoom near-end of Year 3 

I say Oh-EM-GEEE. It was like a daydream unfolding and somekind of flashback ala cassette tape recorder.

> A flashback

Me doing my research on Teaching Presence (TP) of live synchronous ESL classes of the best teacher at WizIQ. I reviewed and analyzed transcribed recordings of  Dr. Nellie Deutsch @work, all the way from Canada and online with ESL students from different parts of the world.

> A daydream

I was wondering whether I can record the scheduled Zoom session so I can remember what I needed to do for that section of my Chapter 8. But my daydream led to a set of questions and a drop-down list of teachers I can study on TP, but this time on learning support, the academic writing kind. Imagine that: from Teacher Tin of the Integrated Literacy Support  (ILS) program of Builders, to Amor and Victor, learning support teachers of the Beacon Academy then to higher ed  QLD university Research Support Team, mainly Dr AT the LA & Dr D the HDR-LA.

Wooops. That had to STOP. Back to dissertation writing.

Done with a few chapter clean-ups. So now let me be.

>The OMG

I forgot to request to record the session. I crammed my work for Dr D's review, hadn't had breakfast and just had to turn on my PC from my daughter's work table cuz living room was getting too 'ashy' from the Taal Volcano's phreatic eruption. Ashfall baga = Alert Level 4.

Here goes...

- I'm seeing a page of my work with a  portion ready for comment. so thanks for the screenshare feature

-  the cursor moves up and down -  as if checking for consistencies from my chapter overview and that section

-  the first feedback is now taking me through my own written words...first few ideas in my paragraph then midway then last -- as if checking for the flow of thoughts and ideas, and whether my words capture those and deliver a coherent message

-then comes the routine of   good points.  here comes the segue...points which need more thought.  that's the formula for all teachers esp. among K-12s.  but wait, there's more...

-he focuses on points to work on and HOW 

-he is getting beyond  my stringing of words and gets inside  MY ACTUAL THOUGHTS = a seesaw of ideas, he goes. I smile at myself because of the play of words and because I got caught in action (omyged, I do that seesaw, and still at this time,...I vacillate, hesitate...can't be doing that on Chapter 8, right? I have to be surer than sure)

- then comes explicit instructions: possible solutions in 3 ways - MUST think and choose in other words.

- then it gets invasive - like yeah, go for it. The moment I've been waiting for!!!

I use invasive in a very good way because since November, I'm feeling like a doctor doing surgery on my own writing. That was how I described my dissertation writing to Dr. L of LBlock.

It's getting bloody, the blood is spurting ala Kill Bill, not from an enemy's neck, but from my work onto my pair of googles. CAN SOMEONE ELSE JUST TAKE OVER.

...Someone does, again and again. Whether it was for my Endnotes, my APA, my grammar, my LimeSurvey, my graphs, my concerns, my questions. Walang puknat, walang tigil.

The help feels like a bottomless pit, and this time, while seeing my work flashed on the screen, I see a small step forward -  I am actually seeing somekind of flow and good closing sentences with my paragraphs which go with comments = Good = gudt.

Post-Zoom Thoughts

The Zoom experience was quite different from the other consultations.

• must be the aid of technology -videoconferencing tool which makes the experience a bit more multisensorial (minus the olfactory); or
• could be the timing of explicit skills instruction unfolding before my eyes
• triggering thoughts on Iteration 2 of a teaching presence study, academic writing support kind but thinking of a different methodology this time.

In my mind, I'm trying to 'profile' what could be common among these 'gifted teachers':  their backgrounds, their givens, their values and mindsets which they bring to the table, their metacognitive awareness,  how they've managed to self-learn and how knowledge or expertise are passed on/ imbibed by fellow teachers.

Let these gifted teachers do what they do best then have their auto-narrative while I do mine = Part 3.  This can be based on actual experiences of being mentored = the what and how I'm learning how to mentor my future students' academic writing that is if in fact all the advises and feedback are translating to concrete improvements in my academic writing.

> A fastforward
From Prof V to Doc J = me THIS 2020, not as an Ethyl Alcohol branded product on a grocery shelf, but as a research supervisor to a former student with a Hollywood sounding screen name =  Angel America who is now re-entering under my open university's MA Social Studies Education program. I wonder what stuff I'll be able to deliver, using my own bag of tricks, a more positive mindset and thingies I've picked up from here and there at my Australian university.

Now we'll see whether I truly gained something more worthwhile from my educational experiences at my Australian university.