Beyond CLESOL 2012: Emerging oportunities in new learning spaces

I have just returned from CLESOL 2012. I felt I had started to miss the conference even before it finished, just two hours ago, when I was sitting in the Rec Center, the hub of the conference, in IPC. That was the time the key note speakers and the conference organisers were having final words about the conference highlights. They were also saying thank you words for everything, and I was being overwhelmed with the urge to say thousands of thank you words to everybody, the thing I was unable to do physically in the spot. In fact, Gillian did pose me the question of what I thought about and how I felt being in CLESOL early this morning, the final day, when we met in the Rec before the conference started, and I tried to make my answer compact and most revealing of what I was feeling and thinking about, but the answer would  never be enough for it is increasingly added to.

Key note speakers: Left to right: Prof Andreas Lund, Prof Cynthia White, Emeritus Prof Paul Nation, and Sunita Narayan

Personally, being in an international conference like CLESOL makes me feel different, and hopefully, better about me. I have realised I am possessing something, which I don't know was worthy or interesting or whatever to people, that they liked to (or probably like to) listen to. I received possitive comments and supportive questions to my presentation, and I was not sure if people meant so when they said so. However, I told myself just to be optimistic, and relate the situations to the conference theme to think "they are trying to make opportunities emerge". Significantly, being in the conference has made me feel going public is not as daunting as I had imagined. This might not be true in other situations but CLESOL conference, which was very supportive, encouraging, and stimulating to me, a young bird first time flying out into the big sky. The feeling of a young bird (I don't know if people were viewing/knowing me as a young bird) who was counted in, listened to, and paid attention to, was amazing and stimulating. Above all, the feeling of not being daunted at all has helped trigger some more confidence inside me and opened more of my hidden selves.

Me in my presentation: Negotiating roles and identities in a new teaching and learning space: Wiki writing in Vietnamese tertiary classrooms

What would be far more worthy to me, at least at this time, was the professional values the conference brings to me. Opportunities to observe, listen to, and to think and relate to my research are numerous. I have found connections and reference to my research from every branch sprung out of all the presentations I was in. I have felt the passion for doing research and academic endeavours radiating from every face, which made me start to believe that only does a genuine interest accompanying hard work make people excel, retain accomplishment and most importantly to realise their idealism. Apart from that, I also saw potential paths to put my steps onto to expand my teritory of learning, the teritory that is already charted by forefathers and will be enriched and flourished by newcomers. My eyes have been opened, my views have been widened, my path has been brightened, my mind has been fuelled, and I have been hugely inspired. Why not embark on the journey of discovery and excellence?

Professor Lund and Professor White giving comments to my presentation

Opportunities have been emerging from this CLESOL 2012. Things have just started.

Dear Writing

Dear Writing,

We have been staying so closed during this time, closer than ever before, I believe. Just to let you know, whenever asked, I describe to people I am in the stage of writing. So you can imagine how integrative you are in my life at the moment. I used to wish that I had a job in writing or a huge opportunity to do writing a big lot, for you guy are my favourite thing buddy, and I believed I was nothing but your close friend. The wish has come true, but I have been thrown twists on, not by you, don't you think.

I am writing over and over again. I really never know when I can finish a thesis chapter without re-writing it. I am always writing as if it was the final draft, and every time after the meeting with my supervisors, I feel you are a strange and remote person challenging a shift of my view. I not only think about you then but also think about me as to how I should treat you. Is that because you are tough and hard to get closed, or because I am not grown enough? Perhaps you are still what you are, and what I understand about you is not thorough enough.

My dearest Writing, the latter is the most likely to be the reason of my struggle. I don't dislike you Writing, because every of my endeavour to approach you is worthy. At the end of the day, there is no point of making you bigger and tougher. To put it precisely, I bet no one can do that, for you are divine enough, as always. The point is I can move nearer and nearer to an ideal me of being your close friend in this struggle with you. I have learnt that you always stay still and I am moving towards. That's good enough don't you think.

Dear Writing, I am not saying you are torturing me but the opposite way would make more sense. No pain no gain hey buddy. Please be staying there and guiding me. Also please lit up the road to widen my views in the journey of seeking an ideal me.

Thank you and love you Writing.

Your struggling buddy.

Having started my third year

How time flies! This year is my third year of PhD. A little bit scary thinking of work ahead which I dont know from where to start with yet, a little bit proud of myself being able to overcome twists and turns the last two years have thrown on me, and a little bit ambitious thinking ahead a little further beyond the graduation day, when hopefully I will be able to surpass the limit of a young bird to fly far and wide. Possibilities are still possibilities, but I know for sure I have grown a great deal from this journey, at least to be able not to feel uneasy when being thrown out of my comfort zone.

Stories the last two years have woven in my PhD fabric are diverse and colourful. Life of a woman, a wife, a mother, a researcher and of course some other identities I have been playing all at the same time has been sometimes very crazy and some other times sweet enough. It's life I know. But what I know far more is when I live to the fullest of me, life turns out to be very encouraging and can present me with worthy life-changing moments .

Well I must tell about my research, which is anyway something I have to do almost all of the time now. I remember reading some scholar saying about a professional self and a personal self he got to live for, in separation he admitted. When it comes to those two huge selves in me, a separation is unreal and impossible. I am truly living the way they supplement to each other. For the data collection, I had to meet many people, especially students, at my home college. Surrounded by them and the teachers, I could not help thinking about the learning environment in our home college, which is surely raising up the student learners, their minds and their souls. Thinking about the reality and envisioning the future felt like bitter. Anyway, the collection went well, which was in a large part because of me listening to and thinking heavily about the reality and the responses from people. I was not only a researcher in my home college but also a teacher, a colleague, a friend, and a folk fellow to all the teachers and the students, which I believe enabled me to be a good listener and professional inquirier. Doing the job of a data collector in this setting is nothing but amazing and worthwhile. What has grown in me as a new plant in the garden of research is you have to be a truly person before you want to be a truly researcher.

I have started my 3rd year. Thoughts to share, stories to treasure and ideas to challenge are plentiful. Shall I be able to weave them all in my PhD fabric, the fabric of crystal clear lights and nights, realities and fantasies?