Finally, an update… 28 September 2007
Posted by neny in My events.2 comments
I know, I know, I haven’t updated this blog for the longest time and of course many have happened in my daily life. Maybe it’s better to put it in a list, for the sake of clarity?
Classes:
This semester is the busiest ever! I’m teaching 8 courses and it drives me nuts. One of my colleague is having her maternity leave, some are in their further study, some hold new positions that disable them from teaching too many courses. Those all combined make many of the faculty members have to teach more than the usual 6 courses (12 credits). But somehow, I don’t feel like it’s quite tired so far. This is already Week 5 and nothing much that I feel burdensome.
I also notice that I didn’t lecture that much this semester in class and spend more time for doing some preparation for classes and other tasks. The reason is probably because I use Moodle for three courses and it totally changes the way the course is taught. I used to be standing almost 75 minutes to explain some issues, but not anymore for those three courses. The typical class meeting will consist of a quiz to check their understanding on their required reading for the day, class discussion on difficult issues (based on the results of the quiz), and group work to do tasks for applying the reading materials. At the beginning, I can see that my students didn’t really enjoy the system and I myself need some time to familiarize myself with Moodle. Coming from an educational system where most (if not all) of the class meetings consist of listening to the teacher explaining and that it is unacceptable to have different ideas other than what the teacher has explained, being autonomous learners of course will give them an uneasy feeling.
Let’s see how it goes until the end of the semester.
Presentations:
I was invited ‘accidentally’ to speak at Van Deventer Maas Stichting (VMS) Leadership workshop for their scholarship grantees which was under the management of my university here. I said ‘accidentally’ because Izak Lattu, a.k.a. Chaken, the chair of the organizing committee, happened to discuss about the organization of the workshop with one of his staff while walking with me in campus. And suddenly he’s got this idea of me being a speaker. So I agreed. And that’s how I got in touch with the Director of VMS and got the funding for presenting to Vietnam, which is the next story…
Vietnam, GloCALL conference, I’m definitely going! With unexpected 60% funding from VMS and the rest from Bakti -Support Office for Eastern Indonesia (Thanks to Petra Karetji, the director, again another unexpected funding, as a result of chit-chat), they cover all of my expenses. This is another proof of how valuable networks can be. I’ve known Chaken since my days in student organization in college, and Petra is under my supervision for his thesis. I never expected that they would come to my aid now after all those years….
Another exciting conference in November that I will present is in my own campus. The department invites two speakers: Stephane Culhane of Columbia Uni, New York, USA and Paul Gruba of Melbourne Uni, Melbourne, Australia. Their talks will be on media and technology for language learning. I will be the third speaker, since I am the one in the department whose interests are related to technology. I just hope I know what to present. I think I’m going to present similar materials as the ones in Vietnam.
Publication:
Remember my frustration with my chapter submission for a book? It’s accepted for publication!!!! “Handbook of Research on E-Learning Methodologies for Language Acquisition“ will be officially released on July 1, 2008 and the grand launching will be during WorldCALL conference in Fukuoka, Japan, in August 2008. I’m planning to attend it, either as a presenter or just a participant, and it will be exciting to see the book with my name in it! 
Committee:
I am also happy to be serving as an assessor in national teachers certification program under the Ministry of National Education. My duty will be to assess teachers’ portfolios from Central Java Province for them to get certification of teaching. I haven’t gotten any roster to assess, but I’m sure I will be very busy as we have to assess thousands of teachers every year.
So…those are my updates…see you next time!
False Hope… 29 July 2007
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In relation to what I posted previously about the election, hereby I updated that posting to be NOT TRUE.
Am I lying?
No. I did get elected by at least 10 people out of 19 people.
So, why was it not true?
Because the bosses canceled it.
It has nothing to do with my qualifications and skills. I believe, as people who voted me also believe, I am very much capable of handling this position. My track records and my resume are tangible proofs that I am the right person.
But, there is a teeny weeny little detail called ‘religious background’. As much as it is not relevant to my position in terms of being able to do the job well, that is exactly the reason why they put me off: because I’m different.
Well, I guess I will just ignore my previous post. Obviously it’s just a false hope. Once I thought that this place will be better in seeing what’s worth seeing in a person, and not judging someone’s based on ‘colors’. It turned out that they are visually very demanding.
Well, I am who I am. I don’t need a position to prove it.
It’s time to move…
So, it’s official now… 20 July 2007
Posted by neny in My events, My perspectives.2 comments
Yup, I’m elected.
Exciting? Yes.
Terrifying? Yes.
The thing that I hate about it is that I will be awfully busy and have less time to do things that I enjoy, less time for my significant others, less time to travel. Oh, and I have to maintain ‘my image’ all the times and can’t be myself, even when I really, really, really want to.
Yet, it’s exciting, because I believe I have the opportunity (and power) make good things happen, rather than complaining about things. The question is, can I really do it? As much as I’m positive and optimistic about it, the results of the votes show me that I really need to be vigilant and get my weapons ready. Constant Vigilant! (says Mad-eye Moody in Harry Potter).
Oh well, lets see how it goes.
Help me.
Pray for me.
Glocall 2007 1 July 2007
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I’ve submitted my abstracts to Glocall 2007 last night. This is a joined conference between two CALL organizations in Asia Pacific: APACALL and PacCALL. This year’s conference will be held in Hanoi and Ho Chin Minh City (formerly called Saigon), Vietnam in November 2007.
I’m crossing my fingers to get at least one of my three abstracts accepted, but I have to wait until August 15 to find out. Plus, I skipped two conferences of PacCALL already, in 2005 and in 2006. I got my abstract accepted, with Anne O’Bryan, but we couldn’t start the research because we couldn’t collect the data. So, we passed that. In 2006, I got no ideas, and I skipped it. It turned that there is a doctorate student from Hong Kong who was looking for me (because his research happened to be concerning ESP courses for Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong). This year, I decide that it’s time for me to go and get CALL network in Asia Pacific. I even skipped RELC and CELC conferences in Singapore this year, although I got my abstracts accepted for those conferences, because I want to make sure that I get funding from my department to go (every lecturer in my department is entitled to one presentation abroad annually).
I really want to go and I even did a bit of research already regarding my transportation and my lodging in Vietnam. The price of the flights is definitely not cheap! It seems that I may have to go to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia first, then to Hanoi, because Air Asia offers a cheaper price than other direct flights. And the crazy thing is that it’s more expensive to fly from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh than to fly from Indonesia to Vietnam! As for accommodation, I am lucky I think because Hanoi university offers a room at the university guest house for $1/night, but in Ho Chi Minh I have to pay $32/night because the location of the conference right downtown.
My only concerns are about the funding. It’s going to be pricey just to pay for the flights and accommodation (about $700). Plus I need to pay the conference fee ($250) and my meal there, and fiscal (damn Indonesian government which requires its citizen to pay $100 just to go abroad!), city transportation, and other stuffs. I’ve thought of some ways to cut my expenses, like using cheaper flights, taking instant noodles with me (sucks!), and maybe going only to one city instead of two. Or get more funding from RELO or Dikti. I’m not even sure if the department is going to help me with funding. Oh, well..
For now, I just need to worry about getting in…
Sending the manuscript: time to pray! 14 May 2007
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I’ve been terribly busy for the last three days to edit my Master thesis to be submitted as a chapter for the forthcoming “Handbook of Research on E-Learning Methodologies for Language Acquisition“, edited by Rita de Cassia Veiga Marriott of University of Birmingham/UK and Patricia Lupion Torres of Universidade Catolica do Parana/Brazil, published by Idea Group, Inc.
It was crazy! It was definitely not easy to cut down more than 50,000 words into mere 7,500 words in three days. Not to mention my reluctance in deleting information that I felt somewhat necessary to include, but it had to go! Still, I ended up having 7,632 words. Finally, at 3: 30 AM, I was just too tired of cutting words and omitting tiny but relevant details, and I decided to send it to the editors.
I barely met the deadline of submission when I submitted it this morning. According to my time (which is GMT +7), I submitted it right on May 15, instead of BEFORE May 15. But the editors live in UK and Brazil, which are behind Indonesia time (ha!), so I cheated the devil 
I’m not sure if they even will accept my submission, because it was a late submission and I didn’t comply with the guideline on the number of words for the manuscript. Wishing that it will be selected for the book chapter is even too ambitious, especially when I have to compete with this person, and being reviewed by this person.
It’s time to hope and pray!
(update at 12:45 PM) Got an email from the editors. They received the submission (phew!) and forwarded it to reviewers for blind review and evaluation. Maybe it will turn out that they love every single punctuation in it (yeah right!) or maybe they will delete the file immediately after reading it, followed by a series of vomiting (of course, drama, drama, drama). By all means, I’m hoping for publication due to my narcissistic tendency (reading my name on the list of contributors is awesome), but more importantly I want my academic work to contribute on the whatever-you-name-it advancement of knowledge in my field.
Making decisions 10 April 2007
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I remember putting that quote on the first page of my undergraduate thesis as my personal belief in 1997. How true. How difficult to do. |
As a Libran (not that I believe in astrology. If it’s good, I take the advice If not, well, throw it to the trash bin and move on…), making decisions on actions has been my greatest challenge. Should I do this or that? If I do this, what will happen? So and so. I have this habit of seeking advices from people around me and at the end of the day, after asking advices from over 10 people or more, I still come up with no decision. I also have the tendency to follow my heart, do things recklessly and regret it later. Complicated, huh?
Particularly now, when I have to make a great decision of my career, I am still not sure whether I have taken the right decision. After all I know that my dearests are not thrilled with my decision and it will put a delay on my other plan for my academic career. I admire my dearests’ wisdom to let me make the choice and face the consequences and still love me anyway at the end of the journey. But then, when you’re making a decision and it’s not satisfying your loved ones, it’s heart-breaking.
Of course, when I decide this advancement to my career, I can see that it will be glorious and challenging for me. Why, everybody likes to be in a position that enables one to make a difference and to get things done. I’ve been frustrated for a long time for not making good things happen in my office, partly because I had no power to ensure that my proposal was applied. And now the opportunity has come and of course I embrace it dearly, thinking that maybe this time I can make good things happen.
But still, the glory and the challenges will be for me. What’s left for my dearests is less time and less attention. See how selfish I am? They may be proud of my achievements, but I guess all these times, it’s always me, me, and me.
After all, I think I’m quite fixed with my decision, and all the consequences that follow it. I realize that it may be rocky, full of frustration, lots of hard work, and all those negative situations. Yet, I intend to come out of it triumphantly.
So help me God.
I’m nowhere to be found today because… 15 March 2007
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I’m sick.
I got my allergic asthma back with all the wheezing and coughing.
The worst thing is I’ve got Jalu sick too, the same disease, and it’s tough for Yudi to handle two people sick in the house. I know he needs mental support to handle Jalu who is sick, but I’m sad that I can’t offer him full support.
The good thing is, I don’t have fever so practically what I need to do is not pushing myself too much so that I will be out of breath. I still can do some of my household chores and I skip my classes so I can be at home to rest and be with Yudi in handling Jalu.
So for you, folks, who misses me at the office, I’m sorry! I need to recuperate and be at home with the family.
Until then, I’m going to pull the blanket over my head, and get back to rest. See you when I’m back.
