First Christmas in this journey

No special feeling is my feeling on these days. Like a piece of cheese cake, Xmas sometimes melts every piece of me like what an ice-cream does to a kid and some other times pushes me away due to its overtasteful flavour of too much cheese, sugar, and fat. I choose to surround me everyday in this tranquille room with books and the computer and no humans and to step out of the crowd and gorgeousness of Xmas getting fuller and fuller every corner of the downtown. Stepping out and diving in is offset and thus brings me peace and balance. This style grows well in me.

Christmas is the time to be surrounded with joy, family and friends. I can hold this fact true for me when I want. On the one hand, Christmas is originally Christian. We are to a great extent not used to things like church practice, carols, turkey, pavlova, Xmas tree decoration, holly, Santa Claus and other religious things. As a matter of fact, we seem to be ignorant of those things. To us, Christmas does not ever mean those things. On the other hand, the spirit of Christmas giving speaks more. I have learned through Christmas the lesson of giving and more importantly the power of belief in Santa Claus children possess. I prefer having Christmas this way.

(The following paragraph is written after Christmas.)
Our first Christmas in this country is not very overwhelming both materially and spiritually. We have had a peaceful time with family and a few friends. Kiwi people around us are not so noisy the way it is often seen at parties. They are interestingly very home-oriented. That is what we love from a kiwi Christmas.

Small word ignites big work

This entry is to capture my feeling when it is most vivid and truthful about my supervisors, since any delay may blur the sharp vividness.

Before this entry can go any further, a few initial words should be devoted for an explanation of the title I have just thought of. The words I got from my supervisors are not small, and the work ignited is not as big as the language may imply. What is meant is the empowerment my supervisors' saying brings to me. A great contrast of the signifier, language, and the signified, content, is found in their saying.

Imagery words speak much to me. Such metaphors used by my supervisors as diet, flavour, planting tree, fishing,etc. convey meanings far richer than they are intended. A wealth of lessons I learnt ranges from things in my research field to communication etiquette. Beyond the sounds of language (the audio signifier), silence, pausing, pacing, and intervals between stretches of utterance do touch my senses and nurture my mind. What if people do not hold a healthy perspective toward life, a rich wealth of knowledge in their expertise and life alike, a beautiful mind and soul, optimistic beliefs, respect to themselves and others, and passion could produce flowery language? Fragrance is not necessarily what all kinds of flowers possess, I believe.

Critical to this kind of empowerment the supervision brings to me is what and how much I can translate the nuance and essence of my supervisors' saying into my behaviour and action, and how I pass the 'fire' in me to my students/participants.

How do people say what they mean and mean what they don't say?

As a researcher 4

I wish my research area was something about art, or poetry, or design, or music,... something artful, creative, and imaginary. Why do I have such an idea? Because I am surrounded with a wealth of beautiful nature so inspirational and appealing that I can't help being distracted to embrace it with all my senses.

The birds are singing inviting songs, the trees are dancing, the flowers are catwalking on the nature's fashion stage, the breeze is rustling the book in an appealing way, the flower fragrance is overwhelming my senses, the fresh air is caressing my skin, the infinitive blue is soothing my vision, all of them are far too tempting and seducing in front of a me so diligently digging a dark and winding tunnel. No-one would resist to rush out there embracing such beauties and indulge herself. A researcher like me in this climate would like very much to translate those potential strong motives into her research. I am in a good mood, motivated, life-loving, soulful and mindful, but, unfortunately all of the good qualities are being confronted by the reality: my research!!! I am deep in the saying of my supervisor for a PhD student, wrapped compactly in DEAR, Drop Everything And Read! This does not work for me I believe.

The study of the person-in-context relational view of emergent motivation (Ushioda, 2009) speaks much in this situation of mine. Just like a second language learner is not an abstract entity separated from a complex backgound and history and a multitude of characteristics, a me doing research is not a me separated from the beautiful and seducing context of spring in full blossom. The interactive relationship between factors in the multiple system of contexts in which the person inherently belong to makes up her behaviour and the world.

I can't help separating me from this multiple context to drop everything and read! How do I make the motivation emerge? How do I translate the emerging motivation into my behaviour? How do I make all the beauties surrounding me the yeast for the blossom of my research?

Taking a road

"Taking the road less travelled" speaks much to me. It has been recently that I began to understand layers of meaning of that sentence from Robert Frost. At the end of the day, I have decided the research topic that I can find a strong genuine interest in studying. Reflecting on the 'at the junction' time, when I was not determined where to go, which road to take, I am much pleased now about my choice. I will study about one's self and identity, the development and fluidity of self and identity in L2 motivation, and case study is the research strategy of inquiry. Since humans are mysterious, studying the innermost image of a person to understand why s/he behaves this way not that one is very interesting and challenging.

...
(3 weeks later)

I am continuing this entry for the sake of a complete one because anyway I want to 'celebrate' the moment of being able to 'take the road'.

This entry turns out to be an ugly piece of cake due to the breakdown in the middle. Life is not always a delicious piece of cake if we master the recipe of making the cake and we have a strong belief. Resonating with this fact about life is this very moment, when ideas are flooding in my head but I am struggling with encoding them so that I can communicate with people what the ideas are and how smart (I believe) they are. Eventually, being able to 'take a road' is not something worth celebrating because it is not an end but a beginning.

I am beginning to go on my chosen road...

As a researcher 3

The book 'Research methods in applied linguistics' of Zoltan Dornyei published in 2007 by Oxford University Press is a great source of inspiration and encouragement for me. Before reading the book, I often questioned my research ability and doubted if I would do research well due to my little research experience. More seriously, i almost did not know what would particularly be involved in my research plus what it means by a system of research terminology many books, research articles and my supervisors keep talking about. What my research study would be like if it was fuelled with my (fake) curiosity and labour of a mislead 'well-digger' like me? Frankly, my research paradigm (qualitative)and inquiry strategy(case study) were pre-developed packages coming into being with very little understanding, knowledge, and deliberation of mine. Ironically, I was keeping labouring day by day with a kind of frustration-becoming-satisfaction due to a shortage of knowledge of an easy-going idiot, until I came across Dornyei's book. It is such an enlightenment the book brings me.

The notion of 'good enough mother' or 'good enough parent' introduced by Winnicott (1965, cited by Dornyei, 2007) opens my eyes and triggers my 'research mind'. You dont have to be a 'Supermum' or 'Superdad' to produce a healthy child! Such a fabulous fact! I am an actual mom, and I thoroughly understand what it means by producing a healthy child without necessarily being a supermom, because it is as clear as the daylight that I am a normal mom who produces a very healthy son. I have to confess I have fallen in love with Dornyei when he nicely made the statement that 'the best researchers in the field tend to be very normal people'(p. 17). It is undeniable that a 'good enough mother' does not have to be experienced in child bearing and rearing before she can produce a healthy child.

'A good enough mom' or 'a good enough researcher' however cannot act unthoughtfully to her child. Similarly to the rationale and ways I have equipped my self with knowledge of child bearing and rearing, child development and education, good parenting, and so forth, I am fully aware of a responsibility for mastering research methodology. I am learning to become a good researcher. Characteristics I am learning to build for myself are as follows:

1. A genuine and strong curiosity of the topic
2. Common sense
3. Good ideas
4. Discipline and social responsibility

They are four characteristics of a good researcher put forward by Dornyei. I can never have them all overnight. Taking item 1 as an example, as I said above, the 'curiosity' I used to have for my labour was a fake one. Reasons for this fact are unavailable at this moment, but generally I can say I was mislead then. Dornyei is blessing me in multiple ways, but overall, i am building the good researcher's characteristics with confidence earned from reading his book.

Just keeping research journalling

It has been three months or so since my studends and I last talked about the research projects. We have been silent for a while due to my slow progress or precisely a change of topic. We haven't done anything for our projects although the students used to be so eager to create accounts on Wikipedia and think of posting something there but I am not sure if there has been something done.

This time is the silence time as I said but it does not mean so in every sense of the word "silence". I believe what has been happening between us may say something for my thesis in the perspective of the teacher's role in L2 motivation. Silence does not mean no work, no communication, no feeling, or no acquisition (I am relating to the "silence period" in first language acquisition). Through Facebook as the major and actually sole means of communication, we are so in touch and more importantly getting a relationship stronger and stronger. Many factors as antecedents of motivation like vision, imagination, trust, hope, fantasy, ideality, and many more I believe, can be somehow achieved through our facebooking. Not intentionally do I communicate for the sake of my research but the communication has come very naturally due to the pleasure and love we have to each other. Exemplifying for this is the adoration they have to me as a superb cook and an academically successful person (as they said)though I am not that excellent and in return the admiration and love I have to them as intelligent and smart youths. Comments I have made in their postings at times add some value and trust to our relationship, which can hardly be obtained overnight.

It matters, in the perspective of motivation, that how to translate motivational factors into motivated behaviours. As a teacher, and possibly a friend of them, I believe all that has been happening in this silence time that counts.

As a researcher 2

A researcher's life of mine up till now has not happened in much boredom and hardship at all as I thought or imagined. Although the two discomforts are expected to last long, happy momments though short but has an impression even longer than the discomforts. It is weird that I ever wished the sleeping time had gone fast and the following morning had come right away so that I could fetch the computer as a means to express my happiness (on my personal blog)...

That was when I met my "lover". My heart was as if it jumped out of my chest in excitement. My fingers were trembling touching every piece of the "lover". I smiled pleasingly at the presence of the longed-for-so-long "lover". It was indeed the happiness of the person praying for the magic and the magic comes. It was now, in front of me, totally for me to enjoy and cherish, and to see a missing me in it. Thanks god for his blessing, to satisfy my hunger, my thirst, and my craving, to offset longest days of my depression and loneliness in the dark...

Here comes the warm bright sun, the loving company of a researcher's life, AN INSPIRING ARTICLE!

My role

In setting up the learner's motivation (more specificality needed) (e.g.surfing wikis, I'm supposed to:

1. Ask the learner to imagine (see the Role of imagination by Zoltan Dornyei, 2009)
"Throughout history of mankind, humans are driven by their imagination and their ability to see images of the desired future. Leaders, poets, writers, composers, artists, dreamers, athletes have been able to be inspired, stay inspired, and inspire others through such images. These images, once shared, have the power to become a force, and in that sense an inspiration for social development and growth, for intentional change at many levels of social organization, not just for the individual" (Boyatzis & Akrivou, 2006, cited in Dornyei, Z. & Ushima, E., 2009).

"Looking at the apple seed and seeing the tree, playing scales on a piana and envisioning a concert hall" (Wenger, 1998, cited in Dornyei, Z. & Ushima, E., (2009)
3. Praise, appreciate the learner (for their initiatives)
4. Help form hopes, wishes, and fantasies
5. Build up trust and admiration at the learner (FB is a useful tool for me)

(Items here are not in the order of importance but shaped in random according to my memory and reflection)

Miscellaneous feeling

I am surfing the internet to read more about some research issues. What people have done in research in general and in my intended fields in particular is far too awesome. The more I read, the worse I feel about me, as to whether I can produce such a piece of works or whether I can be strong enough to pursue such a great job of doing research. Am I incompetent? Am I weak? I dont know.

Today my office mate defends her PhD thesis. She did it very well. She is my first nearest PhD friend, both physically and emotionally. Looking at her victory and glory, a feeling of being inferior gets deeper in me. I can somehow figure out how tough her journey has been. I believe the hardship a head for me will be so big, but passable I wish.

I wish I will get more and more enduring and capable, thanks to my endeavour and love of my beloved ones. God bless me.

As a researcher

As a six-month researcher to be more exact, I am reflecting on my self.

Regarding a professional me, I am doing quite well my job in the pattern of the sin diagram, with waves of up and down. The feeling of approaching some destination and then growing apart from some others is quite exciting. Is it true that the more you swim, the nearer to the "finish" you get? It is not true for me at this time, because the ocean of knowledge is "finish"-less. Yes, the more I swim, the farther I get. More confidence, more strength, and more motivation, these good things, however, do not come along naturally with more swimming. The opposite, on the contrary, somehow easily kicks off those ideals. What I mean here is the support I need for the development of my autonomy. A six-month researcher with very little experience in the field of my study as well as research culture and practice is really in need of guidance, and inspiration too I think. Despite of some autonomy that may have been established in me before, it has very little to do with a new research context this time. Therefore, I find myself now struggling not only in a wider ocean of knowledge but also with a new professional me of both experience and challenge, competence and incompetence, strength and weakness, maturity and immaturity.

A personal me is never in separation of a professional me, but it should be in a separate paragraph for an ease of reflection. Being a researcher is being a human doing reseach. Of what a human, a wife, a mother is, I find myself so much like a shopper in front of a shopping mall with a flat pocket. What to spend and what to ignore, oh my budget is always tight. At the end of the day, I should live for my son, my family, and my personal me, and by no means sensible for my research. It sounds a bit pessimistic. OK, make it more possitive. Being a married woman with a son adds more values to my research than what I have made it sound like above. I find myself more mature in thinking and making decisions, and more aduring. I am not like what I used to be ten years or so ago, when I was doing research with a different personal me. At the end of the day, I should thank my son and those in my family life, who have taken from my professional me lots of time, thinking and concern and brought back far much more maturity and motivation in return.

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost (1874-1963, USA)

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then I took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that moring equally lay
I leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

(I copy this poem to remind me of the philosophy guide of my life.)

The first six months' time of the journey...

It has been six months or so since I began to step into this challenging journey. It is pretty late but so much better than not to look back the road I have travelled now to see what has become part of me and what has slipped through my fingers.

The road I have taken is pretty windy. I could never see what was ahead of me, whether I would come to a slippery path or a flowering garden. Several times, I expected to be welcome by Cynthia for smart ideas I had spent the whole night before to mould and lacquer them, and the subsequent morning turned out to be a mediocre one with critique and repairs. Is that true that what we dedicated is what we treasure? These challenges taught me the lesson of "emotion regulation" (I coined this word). I shouldn't be so expecting, and be more open to embrace even the harshest spell of cold, since I will always get more immune from collapse after that harshness.

The road I have taken is a multi-lane road, like a fork. It is quite tricky that when you come to the end of a path, you are in the junction of a several paths. Making decisions is always challenging, and making informed decision is far too challenging. I am not as determined now as Robert Frost, who could decide to take the road less traffic. I cannot make any decisions to take any road yet at this time, since I'm not informed about which road has less traffic. I owe my gratitude to Cynthia for teaching me how to envision the potential road and how to get informed before I can take any of the roads ahead. Not going, pausing, thinking, reflecting, critiqueing, all are crucial at this stage, when I am in the junction of a multi-lane road.

The road I have taken is full of love and passion all the time. This sounds fabulous, but is not always so to me. When you are loved, you are cared, and you are secured for the best. This does not mean hugs and kisses, tenderness and indulgement. Rarely. What do you as a parent often do to your kid to mean your love? The Vietnamese saying that sounds a little non-educational but is true " spare the rod and spoil the child" speaks all in this sense. Many times I had to suffer to love and be loved. I understand that suffering means and is meant good, but it is still suffering when I have not passed it. What were they? I made my son go to school when he craved for more sleeping. I made him eat what I thought best food for him when he hated it. I had to search and search and re-search for what I did not know whether it would serve my study. I struggled with wording my paper for what turned out to be nonsense. More and more... They are not sufferings now, when I have experienced them and look back, because I can see love and passion reflected through, and because I get more energy from them to grow up.

At the end of the day, spring has tenderly come to campus and the city. Early spring this year makes a difference. I get more confidence being out in the sun and facing any harshness this weather change may cause.

Massey Graduation Week May 10-14

It's autumn here, with the warm sun, tender breeze, and golden leaves. Gorgeous smiles of Massey graduates in the schoolyard, along golden tree paths, on the bus, wherever the sun shines for a beautiful picture. I found myself keep turning back to look at those happy faces when my bus passed them. Glory, glory, and glory from those happy men and women.

I have spared much thought about them. I sometimes get jealous of their glory. I wish my day would come. And I question me. What does GLORY mean?

In this challenging journey, I see the sun, I feel the breeze, and I look at the golden leaves.

In this challenging journey, Aki, my hubby, Cynthia, Gillian, Tweety, and many more beloveds give me lovely smiles at every of my presence.

In this challenging journey, folks say hello to me (either on facebook or in the street).

In this challenging journey, I have you all to share my ups and downs.

Glory comes to those happy men and women the way it does to anyone else, as long as the person knows how to embrace their present and cherish their dreams, and me not an exception.

Congratulations on your graduation, Massey graduates!

The sociocultural theory

Lantolf, J. P., & Thorne, S. L. (2006). Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

SLA Theories

Main Issues and Theories of SLA Revisited

Questions are Better than Answers

Here are what I query myself:

1. Why did I decide to work with my "gem students" group?
2. Why did I decide to do case study?
3. Why did I decide to study about wikis?
4. Why did I choose web 2.0?
5. ...

After a meeting...

I need to drop a few lines, as what my supervisor Cynthia suggested, about what I just said in the meeting about my study gem group.
1. They (the students) have similar traits. (i have to get to know about what the traits are.)
2. Getting to know about my students' trajectory (their past, schools, time in the states, undergrad time, present, future...)
3. What I should begin now? Creating a blog for them? Writing a framework? ...

Hope that this gem group is a hope for my study.

I begin to blog to study blogging

Hello folks,

Today is the productive day of mine. My officemates are so lovely in teaching lessons about money and ...blogging, two beautiful things in one's life.

At the end of the day I have to blog. Firstly it is because I am going to study about blogging and such things. Secondly i want to keep memories about this challenging journey, which I have just begun. Thirdly and finally I want to write.

Let's see what I can do during this long journey.