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.