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 friends to listen 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.