Vacation Project: A Present to My Dad

5 years ago this month, April 8, I was officially getting my S.Pd degree after accomplishing the skripsi examination. I announced the good news to my dad as a birthday present for him. Here it is, pak. Your only daughter finally finished her study.

Today, I was crying on my way to his grave, imagining how happy he would be to know that today I’ve registered for my thesis examination, my so-called Vacation Project. Insya Allah I will do the exam next week, April 17, 2015. And the process to the exam is done in the day he was born, April 10 :’) So, this is also a present for him.

Nothing along the process of doing the project will be so smooth as I experienced today without the willingness and power of Allah The Almighty. Which maybe the power is delivered because He granted my father and my mother’s prayers. Also my husband’s. And close friends’. “Then which of the Blessings of your Lord will you both (jinns and men) deny?” (ArRahman : 13).

I feel like to copy paste the acknowledgement page of my thesis for this post but I think it also won’t be enough. Nobody can reimburse their kindness to me but Allah. So, let’s just wait, I believe Allah will give them all His blessings in various ways :)

This won’t be the end of my journey in pursuing my passion. I don’t know how, but I believe there will be the next steps I will go through. Insya Allah.

To be remembered

Beberapa pekan lalu, saya mendapat kabar yang bikin shock. Salah seorang teman seangkatan saya di kampus, Hardiana, dipanggil Allah dalam usia yang masih muda. Seumuran saya. 27, atill young, no? Perantara ajalnya adalah sakit anemia aplastik dan maag kronis. Berita itu mengingatkan saya bahwa maut tak kenal usia. Kematian tak mensyaratkan kita harus tua dulu. Begitulah.

Hal pertama yang terlintas ketika mendengar kabar beliau telah tiada adalah senyum dan candanya yang khas. Meski kami teman sekelas semasa kuliah, tapi kami bukan teman akrab yang rutin berjumpa dalam kurun waktu tertentu. Tak juga rutin berkirim pesan lewat berbagai aplikasi messenger atau layanan sms. Apalagi berbagi kabar lewat panggilan telepon. Tak pernah. Namun ketika kami berjumpa di kampus, khususnya ketika tak ada lagi proses belajar mengajar rutin seperti di semester -semester awal perkuliahan, Hardiana selalu dengan hangat melontarkan canda dan berbagi tawa riangnya dengan saya. Tak akan pernah saya lupakan.

Maka ketika saya dan teman-teman mendapat kabar duka itu, saya merasa seperti kehilangan teman akrab. Sedih. Tak menyangka. Meski pastilah tak sesedih keluarga dan kawan-kawan akrabnya.

So that is how we remember her. Hardiana yang ceria. Hardiana yang sanggup membuat kami merasa seperti teman akrabnya. You will always be remembered, Hardiana :')

Kelak ketika kita tiada, seperti apakah kita akan diingat? Tak bisa dibuat-buat. Orang-orang akan mengingat kita apa adanya kita. Jadilah diri sendiri. Jadilah yang terbaik dari diri kita sendiri. Bukan semata untuk dikenang orang-orang. Tapi supaya di akhirat sana Allah berikan rahmatNya agar kita bisa berkumpul di syurga bersama mereka yang kita sayangi.

Weblogs as e-portfolio

Technology, especially the Internet, presents us with new opportunities for authentic tasks and materials, as well as access to a wealth of ready-made ELT materials (Dudeney & Hockly, 2007, p. 8). Therefore, it will not be a huge leap to jump from blog filing cabinet to blog portfolio. The traditional portfolio process is supported almost perfectly by Weblogs. First, students collect the work they might want to consider highlighting in their portfolio and then they select those that represent their best work. This can include links to videos, podcasts, presentations, and more, all of which we'll cover in later chapters. They then reflect on the choices they made something they can easily do in a blog post. Finally, they publish the result for others to see. Even more powerful is the idea that these portfolios could conceivably span many grades and many classes (Richardson, 2010, p. 39).

Entry Seven: Never Ending Writing

Self-enticement to delay, till the 17th day of this month which should have been Entry Seventeen of this project, is still the major factor of why ten days have been wasted for nothing. I really thank Allah that I have two great supervisors who never stop insisting me to finish this project. And now this sentence is starting to sound like 'Acknowledgement' section of a paper :lol:

Today, I pull myself to continue writing. So far I've written about 1,000 words of 13,374. I don't know whether or not this kinda project has minimum or maximum words, but I reckon what I am doing today hasn't my best yet. Then I took a break a while, checking my phones that remain silent *because I set them so*, and one SMS was unread in my primary number. I thought it must be from the cell-operator that frequently send messages to the customers. Surprisingly, it wasn't them. It was one of my supervisors, asking whether or not I have finished writing the thesis. It wasn't his first SMS asking the question. And I feel like a student who procrastinate the project for years for receiving that kinda question at that time :'( Feeling sooo guilty *again and again*

Today I really feel grateful to have the SMS. It opened my eyes and got me up, and made me aware that this vacation project denies all the delays. This project deserves to be paid myriad attention from me. I cannot have reason to keep the lazy bones growing in me. This project does have DEADLINE, and I have to make it on time!

I have 24 hours a day. And I think I am to make the half of it to accomplish the project. What about yours?

Entry Six: Beginner Writer

Having been 'tolerant' with my very own writing schedule and confessed that I am guilty of it, I finally have to get myself up by realizing that guilty is not enough. I must follow it up with an action. Start writing. No matter how awful my writing will be. 

The extra challenging part of doing this writing is the temptation to copy-paste other researchers' sentences in their research paper. I really need to read more and read a lot. As a beginner writer, even for composing only a paragraph is a difficult thing to do for me. I felt like being knock-up when reading others' research paper, their ingenuity in arranging the sentences, the words they choose are just so sophisticated. While mine? Mine is a text-based communication style :'(

Entry Five: Vacation Project, Last Day of Online Observation

Halo!

Alhamdulillah I have finished doing the online observation, the formal one. It means, I observed plus put some notes and captured the participants' Weblogs. I think later on when I start writing the result of this project, I will re-visit their blogs.

Having done all the series of the Chapter 4 pre-writing has arisen my guilty whatsoever. I know this project has no specific deadline, that's why I deadline myself. Unfortunately, I am *oh yes AM STILL* aware that I just can deny the deadline :(((( As an example, instead of just doing the last online observation yesterday, I skipped it, and acted like Sunday is the time to chill out, no project, as if the rest of the days I seriously do have big daily project like everyone else :p

At least I feel guilty, yes? 

Entry Four: Vacation Project, Online Observation Day 2

Isn't it wonderful that a project turns into something you enjoy? Absolutely it is. I think what I wrote on my about.me page represents the situation, that when your job is your passion, then it's very perfect combination. Or yes, just like an exquisite quote from Confucius, "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life". Day 2 of the online observation has elevated *or re-elevated* my passion of blogging.

I almost forget that the reason I changed my blog url was to keep me blogging. Yet the quantity of the posts in this very blog has been decreasing sooo significantly: 237, 118, 19 from the last three years. Thank God that this project, in the second day of doing the online observation, I realize that blogging is maybe the only passion which can keep me 'alive'. 

Entry Three: Vacation Project - Online Observation Day 1

It has been so long time I didn't actually do blog walking. I used to love doing it, because blog walking means a lot of things. Blog walking means learning from other people's point of view, a training to self-patience, a chance to have new friends, respecting people's choice, and so on. And this project reminisces me to those values. The difference is, when I do blog walking for merely blog walking, no strings attached as I am doing for this project*, I got a lot of bloggers visited and put comments in my posts. Aww, it was also so much string attached :p

Entry Two: Vacation Project

It's such a big challenge to do this project at this very moment, with so many distractors *which mostly I created myself hiks hiks*. Anyway life must go on. Then I have to force myself to continue this project, and also post this entry two.

So far, I have done with the questionnaires and interview recordings. I have printed them out for the convenience of reading them through. I am now still in progress to divide the text into segments of information, and then collapse the code into themes. Thank God my experience using blog really helps me a lot to sort the things out.

Mostly, the data are in line with the theories I provide in Chapter 2. It should be that way, for sure. Anyway I still need to explore more from Online Observation to triangulate the data. I plan to do it tomorrow.

Okay then. I think I really have to fight myself from any laziness that might provoke me to procrastinate, for last nite I had a dream that one of my lecturer asked me how far I have been doing the project :'((((

So see you tomorrow with next entry.

Entry One: Vacation Project

This should not have been entry one, because I am now in the middle of my 'Vacation Project' entitle "A Study of How Students Utilize Weblogs in Developing Writing Skill". Anyway, it just came through my mind last night when I regret the days I procrastinated doing this project. Well then, I think procrastination more won't help, that's why I decide to make this entry, and let's agree this is entry one.

The choice of the topic, I think you all know why, that beside I do not have any class to conduct a Classroom Action Research, I find it is easier to do things that meet our passion. And voila, there came the topic about blog. And Alhamdulillah I could convince my lecturers to accept my research proposal. December 19, 2014 was the day I had the seminar, and I think I am still satisfied with the result :")

I miss you already

Time goes by, and here I am, at the very moment when I even now miss the moments already. A classroom consists of 16 passionate people, gathering twice in a month every weekend, to enjoy what other people may think as merely studying while we agree to name it as "Vacation".

Recalling the time when I considered whether or not I would enroll my name to the program, and it just feels like yesterday I propose to my husband to let me continue the study. Not for the title behind my name, not for a piece of paper called Master Degree Certificate, but to kill my longing of the moments which generally experienced by those who have accomplished their degree. I missed studying at class, I missed having the deadlines, I missed the 'aha' moments, and so on!

And now that yesterday the classroom vacation has done, I am a hundred percent sure one day I will really miss those moments. It was (and is, because I am still having some deadlines to go haha) very exhausting. Yet it gives me so much fun! Not to mention another funnier activity like hanging out with some friends outside the classroom, especially when we were gathering for having dinner together, sharing stories, laughing for so many things, aih now I miss those stuffs already!

If only the moments are in form of people, I am gonna tell them, "I miss you already". Maybe one day along the days I will spend after finishing all these things, I am gonna hope the moments to open my door and say, "Did you miss me?"