Am I being too dramatic when I say that I terribly miss the Daily Prompt and the Weekly Photo Challenge on the WordPress.com’s Daily Post? It made me sad – or should I say, heartbroken – when I discovered that the daily and weekly challenges have come to an end. These challenges have propelled many bloggers to blog and by so doing kept their blogs alive and meet other bloggers in the blogging community. Now that they are no longer gracing us with their presence, one should ask as Madonna’s rendition of Evita Peron once did: ‘Where do we go from here?’
Daily Prompt
The Momentum of Writing: Establishing versus Maintaining
It is quite true that momentum is easier to maintain than to establish in the beginning. This is also very applicable with writing. The last time I worked with the article I promised to write was before the Holy Week.
Like what I have already mentioned in my previous posts, this article is based on the research project I have conducted while still in the graduate school. With the workbook of Laura Belcher entitled Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success as my guide, I promised to Bestow one or two hours to writing on a daily basis. Since the Holy Week, I am not able to honour that promise.
Photography Day 1: Fake it until you make it
For quite some time now, I have been considering to buy a camera and make photography as my hobby. When I have stumbled upon the works of Mihaela Noroc on The Atlast of Beauty, I have been inspired to actually begin ‘doing’ photography as oppose to simply ‘thinking’ of doing it.
Aesthetically speaking, although I do not have any professional knowledge whatsoever when it comes to photography and therefore not in the position to judge her works, I can nonetheless say that the photographs she published are profoundly and extraordinarily beautiful.
Cringing at my own voice: The Ethnographic Method of In-depth Interview
Of all the tasks I have to perform that are related to revising my research project into a journal article, it is revisiting the interview recording that I find most tedious. I always find ways to do something else that are nonetheless related to writing and push listening to the recording to the very last. Of course, I always find something to do and the day will eventually pass that I have not listened to the any of the recordings.
Tedious though as it is, I have a full Grasp of the importance of meticulously studying and revisiting the primary sources from which evidences are drawn that will strengthen the argument the article holds. In ethnographic works, the words of the respondents from the community being studied is the beating heart of the project. As Wendy Belcher puts it: ‘you must engage with the original literature at a deep level; there are no shortcuts’ (2009: 142).
Lost Without Writing
It is Monday. A new week has begun. I like Monday because it gives me a sense that a new cycle has begun and that I could start a fresh. It is an opportunity to do better than the last. For some, at least in my own particular case, how we tackle our Mondays may set the tone on how we may tackle the rest of our week.
My week begun beautifully and productively. I woke up very early because I have to go to work. Now that I am back home from work, I allowed myself a cup of coffee and a peanut butter sandwich and instead of turning on the television, I am sitting behind my desk writing this particular blog entry. Continue reading
Writing Everyday: When I am not writing here, I am writing somewhere else
It has been quite a while since the last time I have updated this dear blog-site of mine and I am starting to feel rather guilty if not worried about it. The last time I have posted a blog entry here was last February 10 entitled To Be Published or Not To Be Published: Writing for the Sake of Writing, which is quite ironic because here, I talked about how I love writing and my promise to write, but did not write since then.
Aside from the huge delay, I have also realized that the blog entry of the 10th of February was the only journal entry I have posted for the month of February. This is quite a contradiction with the frequency I have posted last month. Last month, I have had 11 posts in total.
To Be Published or Not To Be Published: Writing for the Sake of Writing
While still in grad school and still at the onset of my research project, I came across this workbook authored by Wendy Laura Belcher entitled ‘Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success’. The title is very catching and captivating especially to those want to pursue academic publication. To borrow the words of Spivak, to be published is something ‘one cannot not want’.
To pursue publication is a very daunting prospect because writing can be a very scary, painful and frustrating process. Yet, the title of the workbook somehow seems to insist that, on the contrary to what one might think, writing a journal article is not only possible but also relatively easy. It does not only guarantee that one can finish a journal article but also Insists that it can be finished on the 12th week.
The Unfocused Mind @ Work: Mind Wondering Around While Reading
As part of The Study Game, I was reading Judith Butler’s work entitled Bodies That Matter this morning. The Study Game refers to the exercise I perform where I retrace and relive the years I have spent in graduate school by studying the texts I have read one course at a time.
Like Gender Trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity, Butlers work on Bodies That Matter is very difficult to understand. I did not fully grasp the ideas conveyed in these text when I have first read them while still in graduate school and little has changed since then. As I revisit these texts, I still do not understand them.
As I have said, I was reading Bodies That Matter this morning and to put it via Candidly, I do not have any clue what Butler was talking about or at least I find it difficult to discern the connections of the different ideas being addressed in her work. I can sense a barrier almost so palpable between myself and the text. It is like hearing a conversation in a different language. When we do not understand the language being spoken, we hear a nose instead of a conversation.
On Smoking: Mad Men, Friends, and Sex and the City
Mad Men is one of my favourite drama series. When it has become available on Netflix, I have watched the whole series that were available as fast and as much as I could. I could not stop watching it the first time and watched the whole series couple of times more.
For obvious reasons, I smoked more that I usually did while watching the programme. I was still a smoker back then. The plot of the story is after all premised within the time where smoking was not yet frowned upon.
In that programme, smoking is associated with strength and smokers are presented in the light of success. The underlying message is: smoking cigarettes makes us strong and courageous. It helps us not only to get through our difficult life but also to thrive in it.
Friends on Netflix: From Watching To Studying It
In the beginning, I was just merely watching the sitcom hit in the 90s entitled Friends. The more I watch it, the more I find myself to be studying Friends and treating it like a case Study. In this blog post, I intend to reflect upon my ‘addiction’ to watching Friends, but also how this addiction has made me immune to the humour of my favourite sitcom.
Since ‘Friends’ becomes available on Netflix, I cannot stop watching it. Last weekend for instance, I have spent the whole Saturday watching its episodes after episodes. As much as I do not want to be disrespectful to the experiences of those individuals who are actually struggling with their substance addiction, my watching behaviour last Saturday mimics addictive behaviour if not a symptom of addiction itself. I have lost control and this has already happened in the past.
Unlike the more structurally scheduled programmes on local television channels, Netflix offers us relatively more choices and freedom to watch what we want, when we watch them, and how much of it we want to watch in one sitting. As David Brook once wrote in his book entitled, The Social Animal: ‘freedom without structure is its own slavery’ (2012:58). While my face was glued on the screen watching Friends the whole day last Saturday, I was quite aware that I was being a slave of my own freedom.
Much To Tell About Nothing 