One Silent Night for my VIPs v.2.019

This is 51 years spending Xmas here on earth and it truly is getting old.
I'm starting to dread going to church to SEE all the capitalist Xmas noise.

But this year should really be a good time to pause and quietly look up to thank the Lord. This is willing myself to keep memories of people cuz my tunnel vision can be hyperfocused on mere process & product.

Best wishes to this year's VIPs of my soon to be over PhD Journey v.2.0.

Let me do my greets of gratitude:

LM - I owe you for that Bukas Palad concert I attended which sealed my truerfaith in God. I understand why you had to un-friend me. But my heart can handle an overflow of pain coming from your much bigger pain. So I took it fair and square, melted it down  because I am one to get hurt & heal fast being over-loved and a keeper of little joys.  Sending over that rectangular plastic container with that  Laing dish says it all. I accept your forgiveness :)

Rachel Red - You have and will always be the bearer of my gurlish, weirdest and funniest stories of only u-know-hhhhwattdafs.  Can't believe we  have remained in touch through all these years since HS. You have listened to all my whines, grumblings and ADHD talk, confessions, misspells and pasikots included. Let's get old and stay young.

Lolita  - I forgive you and thanks for explaining. Come Christmas 2020, tell me about him. And I'll tell you - Sabi ko na nga ba, eh!

CC - We've met briefly but hit it off great. You have added color to my last few days of being at Toowoomba. Our shared stories and insights into self-doubt & our demigods, mommying and our children, giftedness and the X-men, the Guilty Feminist...need I say more? It got me thinking about femininities and masculinities and corresponding literature archetypes.
       
Anna-HEART-Alex - Yups, you are my generous and caring AirBnb hosts turned friends. Got a separate blog entry just for u2 and Dante :) Quilt+Coffee+Tuna Pesto Pizza=Lots of A-heart-A

Maria Power - Your journey and your story have been all worth it. I heart your spirit and your energy. Thanks for asking help. It's the least I could do...and I can really do mowhhh. Just holler.

Xin Yan  -  Yes, that tasty broth with cauliflower and braised beef with potatoes are the first genuinely home-cooked Chinese meals I am so thankful for. It kept me nourished through my brain-tired days & nights. Your smiles and our mix of Englishes are the only reasons I will even look up conferences in China. It should be fun to let you drive me around and see the lights.

Gu of Xin Yan - Will do my best to  treasure that beadwork ala pendant forever. Send me a pic of your dyed hair when you reach your 16th birthday.  Or better yet, let me do the dyeing for you. Then, we'll both say Happy Buthde in the Aussie accent way.

Eva - Yes, you are the only Eva I know. You have trusted me with your stories and I will keep it for a while then throw it to the wind so that my wishes will overtake it and mine will come true FOR YOU. There is a time for everything, woman. And we shall meet again someday to have that ONE smoke. Dadalhin ko mula sa Pinas para uber-mura.

Nickie - You have been a really sweet junior sis to Sigma Delta Phi Batch '87 me. I admire your loyalty, your mommy-ness, sense of fun, and sense of porma...most of all your lovely home = Shadow + children + your one and only Chef (perfume included).

Teh Dr D. - I'll take your D's anytime versus the Duterte D. Yups, my mind can afford to contain your comments found all over my chapter writing AND I WILL DO ALL the rewrites. Gahhdami and Gademet, all because I want more checks on my white paper!!! That's the least I could do in return for all the reading & fixing I put you through, not to mention the big chunk of my life drama and atypical brain I laid at your feet. You handled my work with care and I can only say 'bless you a hundredfold'.

All the above = 12 candles...HeartUAll :)

'Cycle of Pain'

I was watching the video on Writing Arguments where the speaker 'talked too much' about the following but in a good, well-meaning way:
>thinking through arguments
> the difficulties involved in communicating ideas in writing as HDR students
>main ideas and supporting ideas
>tools for brainstorming and thinking through
>coherent paragraph writing
>SEEL
>gently guiding the reader through your ideas

I'd say 'talked too much' because now I remember viewing this initially while I was doing my findings chapter but stopped short cuz I was getting distracted by his accent amidst the talk. While listening again, I couldn't help but mimick his pronunciation of:
actual - akchuwal
argument - aahgyumint
issue - issshoo
structure - strukchuh
literature - litrachuh
making - maykin
supporting - supohwting

Yups, I get distracted by accents and vocabs most especially during PGECR mtgs.  Imagine what else happens to my brain when Dr PD spills out his high vocabulary every now and then. And he does it oh so naturally, leaving me with a big question mark on my forehead. I caught lovely-looking Hanna having the same experience so I just had to blurt: "What was the word again....?"

Moving forward, I picked up a line from Dr D which all the more resonated (aha, got to finally use that word in context...again, re(heh)sonated) >> PhD = Cycle of Pain. What a way to label your dissertation writing but then you see, that is just sooo true.

I've been through my share of pains in life and this PhD is something else.

My pains are not that much when it comes to relationships.  In fact, I chose to get that part settled once and for all so I can get on with my life.  My bigger pains have always been job related - the fact that you invest your heart and mind to be part of a school community through thick and thin. You work your butt off to achieve shared goals then you realise later on that because your perspectives change or your ideas are seemingly different and no longer fit so the painful choice of uprooting yourself. You cut ties because you have outgrown their process & and you have to confront your new questions, new daydreams and the uncertainty of whether you can make those work in a new environment. So you move on,  take a chance all over again knowing that there is a slight chance of 'hope and happening'. You simply rely on your dreams to keep you going and hope that these dreams are shared by most in your new found organisation. The challenge of problem solving keeps you going, you build new ties with the realisation that your collective imagined thingies will work.  You just don't give up despite foreseen pains cuz there is just too much work which needs to get done.

Then of course the pain of childbirth.  In one big push, the pain  disappears in your memory as you rely on the drugs to help you forget the initial pain.  Science says our bodies heal so it does.  Then you see your lovely offsprings grow up to have a go at life, and share in their joys and pains. The pain of childbirth is forgettable in other words because of the joy your loved ones bring and because you have more things to look forward to together.

Now this thing about the cycle of pain known as PhD...the thing is, the pain is a self-inflicted kind of pain in the brain and chest. It was a life choice between:
> adopting a child (which involves other people's lives I wasn't prepared to bother) or
> staying as a teacher, program coordinator in my small school
(which btw, is no longer a relevant job as the program is up & running) or
> getting out of the academe and settling for a high-paying job in some international school.
> sticking to my daydream + noble goals of professor-dom, a way to teach teachers in an organization with people I can grow old with, hence the PhD

I chose this pain because it still feels like a good fit.
I got other ideas to push for at UPOU, and being at UPOU is still very much worth my time.

The cycle of pain is 2x and the work triple in magnitude for the kind of learner I am. This Phd v.2.0 (in suspense) does not merely mean hitting it off with a new-found adviser to bounce your  research ideas with. The true test is whether your ideas are valid and worthy to be accepted as knowledge further qualified as a significant contribution to the discipline, the field, the practice, existing knowledge which have been mined by people's brains before my brain came along.

And so there goes the pain of trying to think with coherence,
to see clarity in the mess of my writing,
the pain of finding out that your sentences do not seem to make sense to others,
the pain of finding ways to think when you can't think
cuz pfffeelings get in the way,
the pain of realising that the thinking and writing required of this PhD runs against what ADHD's are so great at doing -
selective memory, perseveration, lack of executive functions, distractibility, impulsivity.

But then, the pain of dwelling in this pain is making me sick.
Sooo sick of it. I only have 75 days left.
Let me just juxtapose this with my 'cycle of joy' to be consistent with mood-swinging.

So what are my joys in this dissertation phase itself -
JOY =

- seeing that findings are mostly done
- I have actual chapter drafts
- I got check marks on my sheets
- cleaned up varied but minor messy sections
- I have my chapter intros
- I am relearning something old and learning something new
- I can still afford to understand a few more readings to fit into my RRL
- the challenge of putting down in writing my 'aahgyumints'
- seeing  grace coming from Amor and Victor, the best K-12 learning support teachers I know, moving in full circle and benefitting me = recipient of the best academic writing support there is at USQ
- I have my daydreams intact so when I get angry at me, I turn to
   future work plans post-PhD
- knowing that there are real, honest to goodness people you can rely on for help

In this cycle of joy and pain, I pay homage to Guillermo Tolentino's Oblation, the silent witness to the immense pain of it ALL and the great coper that I am who managed to jog-sprint UP Diliman's oval on several occasions. I couldn't bear for my children to see me cry endlessly, so instead, I spent more time at work (and research), and finished off with a routine of running. From the UP Theatre, I'd do a sprint to reach Oble, to see his open arms, palms upturned towards the sky = surrender/ deliverance/ offering/ freedom.

I have pulled myself out of that cycle of depression = cycle of immense pain.

So, note2self:
Remember who you are and be kinder to yourself.
You CAN and you will have your life back.
You are loved by God from up above and so this cycle of pain
is meant to keep you stronger for the greatest pain there is to confront
as you move closer to death = your 2nd life.

You will come back to this cycle of pain over and over again, but in a different context and will find new meaning in it.

Ahhhmen to that.

Quilt + Coffee + Tuna Pesto Pizza = Lots of A-heart-A

One day this week was about ‘when all the roads that lead to them are winding, when all the lights that light the path are blinding' = just like staring at my computer for more than 30mins, and nothing coming out of my brain, and so ME cry like toddler....a toddler who is done with her sandplay and failing to appreciate what she has made, questioning whether what she has done so for will be good enough, then asking again why she ever chose to be in this sandbox when she was quite happy & safe in her classroom.

I almost gave up on me that Friday while awaiting feedback for my Chap 4. Been imagining my weekend at BNE for days as a well deserved reward for my chapter writing. And also bec I've been postponing it for the nth time.  But I marked it on my calendar Nov 30  = 

>Difficult Methodologies - thinking of future writing, people’s narratives I'd like to capture post-PhD 

>  imagining hitching a ride with Dr Bromdal and listening to her story 

>  imagining cozy time with Alex and Ana, my first AirBnb hosts whom I’ve come to ‘heart’, especially their Dante the Foxteria.

> a museum tour former yoga teacher

I was slowly losing sight of spending a great weekend as I was on the verge of choosing chapter writing over spending time with people I care about.  

I  thought of cancelling my meeting with Dr D. And just head home and cry myself to sleep. But I sorely needed that meeting to help me ascertain next steps in my other chapters. Can’t be crying in front of him with some mucus ballooning out of my nose, eyebags bulging and all!!! So I said woman, get your act together. Imagine a 50yr.old-toddler-in-distress? My goodness, have a bit of female pride. No can do!

I re-read my RR's vibe then. I quickly watched a Swiftie video. Thought of choosing a song I could play at  Spotify.  Oasis Wonderwall just came out of the blue. It's a song which my student had in mind one time we had dessert at Sweet Inspirations. Never really paid attention to song meanings that time. Quite fitting  for this moment. Found the piano violin version and whhhallla!

Chap 7 reworking came to be.

What this distracted mind could muster to do in an hour’s time, enabled by technology at that! Flashback:

> cry > vibe-RR > music video > spotify > websearch for song lyrics meaning > back2Spotify search for an acoustic version > back2writing :)

Sustained the writing quite a bit to polish Findings section of Chap 7.

Whewww!  A truly deserved weekend. Thanking Netta in my mind and most of all A & A.  Nice talking to you over coffee, nicer playing with your Dante,  so nicer having your handmade pizza  (it went straight to my heart), much nicer sleeping under that 1st ever AirBnb quilt at your Newtown home & laughing at Will Ferrel the Elf,  much more nicer waking up to a perfect morning view,  and nicest having blueberry + banana pancakes which reminded me of my beloveds back home. Precious moments...

This should fuel me for my last few writing days at USQ Toowoomba.

It will get stressful by the day. Like thanks for the reminder Batman, haha.  But I'll hold on to these happy memories with A-heart-A. I WILL GET THIS DONE.