souvenir from Vietnam 28 November 2007
Posted by neny in My events, My perspectives.add a comment
|
I’ve been swarmed by many unfinished business as soon as I returned to Salatiga from Vietnam. In Vietnam, I was attending and presenting in GloCALL 2007 International Conference with funding from Van Deventer Maas Stichting and Bakti-Support Office for Eastern Indonesia from 2-7 November 2007. So, here is the long due posting of what I experienced during the conference. |
In general, I should say that attending conferences is a good way of developing networks, particularly if you’re attending a conference in your field of interest. That was exactly how I feel about GloCALL 2007. I met some CALL practitioners whose names I’ve only read or found in the Internet (like Tom Robb, Jeong-Bae Soon, Deb Healey, Charles Kelly, Vance Stevens) , some colleagues who use CALL in their courses (like George MacLean, James Elwood, Jacqui Cyrus, Anthony Robbins, Andrew Ross, Stephane Charitos, and others) and a virtual friend like Howard Martyn. It’s good to develop and renew contacts with people who have similar interests with you!
me with some presenters including Jacqui Cyrus, Scott Windeatt, Tom Robb,Jeong-Bae Son.
Although it’s quite tiring to present five presentations (some other presenters thought that I was crazy presenting three different topics!), I think I was doing alright. In Hanoi, which was the first city for the conference, the participant attendance was low and they were not very responsive to my presentations. Maybe because almost all presenters were still around, so there were quite a number of sessions that the participants could attend. Some presenters were not attending the Ho Chin Minh City one, so the sessions selected were limited. Hence, I got more audience and more responses. However, I appreciate all comments that I received because in many ways they gave me more insights and ideas of how to further develop my research. If you need the PowerPoint files of my presentation, please email me.
On a more personal note, Vietnam was in a way similar to Indonesia. The weather between Hanoi and Ho Chin Minh City were different. Hanoi was colder because it was in the north and Ho Chin Minh was hot and humid. I was lucky (and I guess just being thoughtful) because I brought a jacket that helped me survived the chill of Hanoi. I stayed at Hanoi University Guest House and I really liked the architecture of the buildings in the campus. They have these colonial style buildings that I just adored! The funny thing was, when I arrived at the Guest House, it was dark already and looking at the hall I thought that it would be a perfect shooting location for an Indonesian horror movie! It looked creepy, but I didn’t sense any spirits (I will tell you about this sixth sense of mine in another post) and the room was new and very clean, with good mattress, a TV set, and a shower. Just like a two star hotel. The feeling of the campus was pretty similar to my campus in Salatiga. Students were everywhere (the dorms were on campus, nearby my guest house) and Internet cafes were just two minutes walk! Hallelujah!
Ho Chin Minh City was another version of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capitol city. The hot weather, the hell-crazy traffic, the way the buildings were located and built reminded me of Jakarta. Maybe that’s the reason why I’m fonder of Hanoi than of Ho Chin Minh City. Hanoi, although the main street near HANU campus was terribly crowded, I still could have a peaceful walk in the campus and people looked similar to Indonesians. I, of course, love the architecture of the buildings in downtown Ho Chin Minh, which again, in colonial style. Remembering home, during those walks to and fro the conference place at SEAMEO RETRACT in Ho Chin Minh, I was sad with the fact that many old buildings in Salatiga (which many are in the Dutch colonial style) was being destroyed everyday, for being replaced with more modern, yet less elegant buildings. Growing up in Salatiga, which used to be the relaxing city for the Dutch living in Semarang during their occupation, I have this soft spot for any old colonial buildings. While travelling, I like to observe the architecture along the way, looking fondly to charming old houses.
Another thing that I learned in Vietnam is how similar they look with Indonesians. There were countless times in Vietnam where people immediately started talking to me in Vietnamese, which I of course replied with a puzzled look on my face and an apology in English that I didn’t know how to speak in Vietnamese. It turned out that my appearance was pretty much similar to those living in villages of Vietnam. When I told this to my students here, they jokingly said that maybe I had the qualities of being ‘villagish’ and backward! :)) Well, I don’t mind being a villager and once I lived for five weeks in a village near Boyolali. Even my grandparents were originally not from big cities. Still about appearance, I had this unpleasant experience of getting unpleasant look from a taxi driver because I was sharing a cab with two Caucasian men (they were George and Jim, presenters from Japan, who stayed in the same hotel with me) and looking like Vietnamese but didn’t address him in Vietnamese. Maybe the driver thought that I was some cheap Vietnamese girl, trying to hook up with male westerners, and being so stucked up by not using my own language. Gosh! First, of course I didn’t know how to speak in Vietnamese because I was not a Vietnamese. Secondly, if you can tell a ‘lady escort’ from the way she dresses, my outfit was not even close to being revealing. I remember I was wearing long black pants and a simple silk shirt, carrying the conference bag (which looked like a laptop bag and indeed it carried my laptop). In short, I looked like an office girl. Well, maybe it was my face. People often mistakenly guess that I am a university student or something, age of early 20s. Sometimes I took it as a compliment (being early 20s as opposed to my real age of 33 means that my face is still fresh like those youngsters!), but sometimes it gets annoying too.
For the souvenir to you, I will post some more pictures when I get the chance. For the time being, please enjoy this video of me presenting in one of the sessions in GloCALL 2007. Thanks to Howard Martyn for taking this video.
*Back to life*
Narcissistic me… 30 September 2007
Posted by neny in My perspectives.2 comments
| Well , not many people here know that I can sing. I even had the experiences of competing and being in bands for that. Being in the US (with their media coverage) had put that little interest of mine on the spotlight although for a narrower audience of my old campus. Not that I want to brag about it, but sometimes I miss the feeling of standing on stage and performing to a large audience. | 
me in Cyclone Idol 2005 |
Last night, I was browsing my music collection and stumbled upon a song that I sung during the final of Cyclone Idol 2004, ‘Unforgettable’, originally by Natalie Cole. It was actually included in a CD produced by the committee. And I was thinking if you would be intested in listening it. I didn’t win, but I did receive a honorable mention for that song. The next year, I won third place in the same competition. It felt so good to stand on stage, singing for 750 something audience, especially my friends who were cheering me 
and it even felt better when I won.
So here it is, Neny-Unforgetttable.wma. Enjoy. I feel so awfully narcissistic…
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!
Little Taipei 27 September 2007
Posted by neny in Uncategorized.2 comments
This is the place where I used to have lunches and dinners in Ames, Iowa. Their angry fish is amazingly good! I love chatting with my friends while having their delicious noodles.
The funny thing is, although it is owned and sells Chinese food, all of its cooks are Latinos! Now, you tell me about ethnic diversity!
False Hope… 29 July 2007
Posted by neny in My events, My perspectives.add a comment
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
Posted by neny in My events.add a comment
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…
