#learningjournal

[thebrethrenpost]

Problems

There are some problems to be solved and problems to be embraced or dealt with.

These past few years, I've learned that there are problems that can be solved because they are within our control or influence. e.g. finances, habits, responsibilities, bills, etc.

There are also problems that are not within our control. e.g. political issues, economic downfall, corrupt systems, changing society, etc. These are the ones that are unsolvable or cannot be solved in an instant.

In my experience, these are the types of problems where we just have to deal with them.

By dealing with it we can focus on what decisions are best at the moment. We can also easily identify what can be changed for the better - ourselves.

By embracing the circumstances, My decisions were focused on the improvement that is within my reach. This gives me power and responsibility for myself.

And the strange thing about it, despite that the problem was there, it didn't seem to bother me anymore. Not because I've ignored it but I've also learned to calmly overcome it.

I learned how to react and respond properly on how to deal with it. And the more I learned to deal it with, the faster I learned to embrace and love it - including the most tragic failure. I even became more capable in handling the most complicated conflicts or issue by facing them intentionally, not vulnerably.

And now looking back, I realized that my problems didn’t go easier, I just became stronger by knowing how to embrace and deal with it.

[writingpluscoffee]

Entry 3: Inspiring and motivating

- Your reactions to assigned readings

We had been assigned quite a few readings so far, and I am so thankful that all the readings were not dreading, but rather, “adviseful.” All the English classes I’ve taken prior to this one had always assigned readings that made me question “why is this important?” or “okay... and?” But this class, it’s different. There were three particular readings that stood out to me the most.

The main show, the star of the readings, Mary Pipher’s “Writing to Change the World,” has to be one of the best books I’ve picked up. After my senior year of high school, which was about three years ago, I thought I’d never have the passion to write again. I used to be so into journaling, and online blogging her on Tumblr, but I just “lost interest” I suppose. After reading this book, however, I was encouraged to write again. I wouldn’t say it was to “change the world” or anything, but more like “change my life for the better,” or even “change my outlook on life.” Ultimately, it has pushed me to go back into my roots, and reunite me with my happiness – writing.

“Beginner’s Mind, Pen, and Paper” by Natalie Goldberg screamed “ME” all over it. The excerpt had definitely confirmed my obsession with stationary. I bullet journal, regular journal, and bible journal, so you could only imagine the amount of notebooks and tools that I have. Choosing such materials help motivate me to write, but sometimes... I get too obsessed with finding the perfect tools and never get to the writing itself. So when Goldberg wrote “choose your tools carefully, but not so carefully that you get uptight or spend more time at the stationery store than at your writing table,” I felt that. 

Another excerpt from Natalie Goldberg that I loved was “First Thoughts.” Man, this reading screamed “guilty,” to my face. I remember when I was in the process of writing the unedited draft of one of my book’s chapters, I was so overwhelmed by my emotions that I decided not turn in that specific draft. Instead, I turned in a “not so sad” one, to save myself from the judgement of my future readers saying “calm down,” or “wow, over dramatic much?” I regret it, but I took Goldberg’s saying for future advice into mind, “continue reading or writing right through the tears so that [I] may come out the other side and not be thrown off by the emotion.” And quite frankly, I know I regret the filtration of my writing, because had I just wrote through the pain, maybe I wouldn’t be feeling the same pain anymore. 

[writingpluscoffee]

Entry 2: The scary truth about freewriting

-Your own observations on our course themes and contents

I have only been freewriting for about three weeks now, and can I just say that it has probably been one of the most terrifying experiences ever. I say this because I am genuinely afraid to be alone with my thoughts. Just my luck, kidding, but this activity causes you to confront your thoughts, meaning, literally sit down and listen to the “bumbo jumbo” of your mind, and attempt to write it all down without sounding psycho. Okay, maybe that’s a little too far, but definitely on point for me. 

I tend to keep busy all the time. If I have even one second of being idle, I have an anxiety attack because I am so used to programming my mind to be pre-occupied with life and all the things it throws at me. Seriously. Now, thanks to this class, I have carved out about 10 minutes of my time, three to four times a week, running towards my thoughts instead of running away.

At first, I guess it seemed like I wasn’t up for the opportunity since I would write  “I don’t know what to write now” or “Ok, keep the pen moving.” Now, however, I legit write the most randomest things that come into mind. Is that even a word? Whatever, we will work with it since that is the term that best describes my thoughts. Wow, the last two sentences is basically me freewriting. 

I have actually grown to be fond of this activity, as my unfiltered writing has revealed some characteristics to myself. Is that weird? Nope. Like Pipher stated in her text, “Writing to Change the World,” “writing can teach us who we are” (33). This activity has definitely showed me who I am. It’s pretty scary at first, but it’s pretty fun and therapeutic overtime. I look forward to it, and I’m determined to make it a weekly activity, even after this semester ends. 

I feel that freewriting would be the backbone of the themes and contents of this class. It’s about listening to yourself, writing, and using that writing to create change within yourself and those around you. 

[writingpluscoffee]

ENTRY 1: Reminiscing on change writing

- Personal history reflections on your previous experience with the topics and contents of class

Hopefully I’m not wrong, but I have the sense that this class focuses on the power of writing. I have to admit, the way the class is structured is by far the most creative and distinct approach I had ever encountered in an English class. I am, however, thankful to God that the course is more than a college requirement, but rather a more personal encounter with one’s inner voice.

We’ve been focusing on “change writing.” Upon reading Mary Pipher’s book, “Writing to Change the World,” I had revisited a familiar motive of wanting to write. Above is a photo of my book signing, where I got the opportunity to work with a YA author, Maurene Goo, in publishing my very own book. I was only sixteen when I had started writing the book, and then published it when I was seventeen. The opportunity was not a “I’m going to write a book” ordeal, but it started off with a required Senior Project. I decided that if I was going to invest much of my senior year into a project, I might as well go all out and dab into my passion for writing.

I had a pretty well known Tumblr blog, hi-aj.tumblr.com (can’t get into it since it got hacked). It was more of a collection of my thoughts and opinions on certain topics, but my posts attracted a significant amount of attention. I then got to the point where people would ask me for advice, or just stop by and thank me for “touching their hearts” in some way. I also got hate, but that is another story.

Point being, I saw how my thoughts, with all these grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, had the power to influence people in their own personal ways. I took this realization and decided to write a book about ten reasons why youth contemplate suicide. I did not do it in hopes to “change the world,” but i did it in hopes to change someone’s mind about ending their life. I did it for change, and I think this is what this class is all about: the idea that anyone can influence change.

(Shameless Plug) To check out my book, please visit the website http://lifebyajgarcia.bigcartel.com/

[diaryofnotawriter-blog]

10/2-10/8

This is my second post for my learning journal, and I still am unsure what I’m doing. This week was hard for me, because I felt that I had a lot of work and not enough time. I am jealous of all students who don’t have a full-time job. I am also jealous of all students that college just comes easy to them. Up until this week, I had planned on getting out of the Navy to become a full time student. I don’t think I can do this.

Anyways, this week I read a text from Bell Books called “Critical Thinking” which I found interesting and incredibly insightful. Is it dumb of me that I didn’t know how to critically think before? I try, but I feel I have nothing to think about. I just want to read a book, not think about the meaning. I don’t want to think about anything really. I just want to learn. Now, I understand the importance of critical thinking and how to do it. I guess you could say that’s my “AHA moment” 

Another thing that I found difficult this week was reading the book “Writing to Change the World”. Honestly, I couldn’t get past the introduction. I’m tired of being a part of this political agenda that the school I attend tries to feed me. I am so blessed the Navy pays for me to go to school, because I would not use my own money to go to this one.  I feel this class is part of a political agenda that I don’t want to be a part of. I am really choosing my words here because I honestly don’t want to offend anyone, but if you’d like to discuss my thoughts I’d love to. I won’t go into to much more depth there, but like I said, I’d love to discuss it further. 

Basically, this week was hard and bad, but at the same time I did learn a lot and I am thankful for that. Here’s to another week of learning!

[coldmarilay-blog]

A Learning from Information

We study. We learn. We discover things that we cannot simply acquire in our everyday life. We information system students hardly deals with information, thus right, reliable and relevant information is a must. Through this course, I learned, enlightened and understood so many things. Starting from the strategy, company direction, the vision, mission, the internal and external environment of the business and different assessment tools for the IS and for the business itself. These learning was really helpful in complying the IS planning project given to us. I was able to clearly understood the frameworks, the IS Governance and the planning process in the IS Strategic Planning. Those are not just the things I learned, I also learned things from outside the school. I experienced stepping in the real industry, where we gather information, communicate with different stakeholders and do analyzation through the combination of what we learn in the class and the assistance given by the stakeholders. Sir Emilio Macaso was a great help for us to learn things. The team members and the other classmates was helpful too, to have a better classroom ambiance which is conducive for learning.

           Without the learnings from the class given by the professor, we surely can’t comply in the course requirement. Those information is crucial not only to the course itself but to the future of us too. Even though the course comes to an end, it doesn’t mean that the learning and information also will end. This should continue not just for the sake of graduating or finishing the program but also for our everyday life. Studying strategies, vision, mission, planning process and others is not exclusive for the business and Information Technology only. It is applicable in our everyday life and decisions in our life as well. We can simply strategize or make plans whenever we encounter things. Bryant McGill once said, “If you have a deep desire to move forward, a way is being prepared for you.” Nothing will beat a prepared and knowledgeable person. Mostly those that are ready encounters opportunity. In our case, this course is an opportunity and it is up to us to wisely use the learnings and things we get from the whole semester.

           What now? Honestly, at first I don’t know. But because of this course, I now know. I was able to know different things related to our field that will be a great help in building our future and achieving our goals. I will keep the learning not just in my notebook or in my laptop but will keep it in my heart and mind. The best learning in life stays in heart not in paper. Though keeping it in heart will let you keep outcomes in paper. What I wanted to say is a learning should not stay as a learning. It should be productively used to create different outcomes for the learning and information to be applied. Achieving one’s goals start with a learning from information.

[coldmarilay-blog]

Incident Management in Real Life

As I am writing this learning journal, incident management is still fresh in my mind, because it is the most recent topic that was discussed to us. We are in the application of the learning phase in class and analyzing a case, which is related to incident management. I am grateful that I was listening when Sir Emil discussed this topic because I can see why it is so important to manage incidents.

There are numerous learning I got as well as the question I had asked, especially those times of analyzing the case given. I learned how incident affects the entire business if ignored and handled incorrectly. To avoid problems with incidents, incident management should be practice. This will eliminate the effects of disturbances that may encounter in IT service. A need for a proper Service Desk is essential in incident management because employees here will control, handle and record incidents. Employees who are assigned in the incident management, particularly in the service desk should know the following:

Priority

Incident Category

Escalation

Owner of the incident

Incident Status

Previous incidents

Solution to basic incidents

Knowing these will make an incident management effective to the business. If one can successfully handle incidents, they can come up with improvements that will help the business more.

Everything that we learn will be used in the future and one of this is handling incidents. There is no doubt that those learning I mentioned above will be essential not just in our job in the future but also today. Incident management is not just meant for IT services, it is also appropriate in our everyday activities. It is important to us to weight priority, categorize, escalate, status and solution of an incident that we will encounter. 

Today, I will apply incident management in my life. No, I’ve been using it already but in an informal way. Everyone of us were managing incidents already but unaware that they are doing it. Since I am already aware of managing incidents, I can now balance my time and look for improvements to make me and my society better. I can able to use my learning in the workplace, everywhere because incidents are always there.

[coldmarilay-blog]

IT Service Provider in the Future

Information Technology is prevalent nowadays. Not just in schools but mostly in the industry. Lots of companies today offer IT as a service. With the lesson about IT as a Service conducted by our dear professor, I was able to be enlighten and learned so much about it. The definition of service industry were explained to us. Service industries mainly offers or deliver processes rather than offer products. The properties of it were also elaborated, and I learned that service can’t be stored, sold and ownership can’t be transmitted. Delivering service is also a no joke work to be done. It includes several activities before considering a success delivering of the service. Customer’s involvement is as important as the involvement of the service provider. It is because the service is provided directly for the customer and they can only give proper feedback if they are involve in it. I learned also about the difference between front office and the back office. I realized that both of the offices are necessary to offer a quality of service to customers, whether internal or external.

With the learning and information I got, it will be helpful to us because in the future, there’s a high possibility that we will be working in an IT industry. In this case, background knowledge and awareness is essential to easily cope up with this type of industry. It is important to us to know these information because preparedness is better than nothingness. Since the role of customer were also discussed, it will be our guide on handling customer if we ever encounter it in the future. Both front office and back office is present in an IT industry so it is our advantage that both offices were clearly discussed to us. In the future, I can see myself working in an IT company, so this serves as a preparation for us when we already take step to the real world.

What now? Since I already learned these important things, might as well treasure it and make a practice of it. I am in my 3rd year and mostly taking major course subjects, so I will use these information to produce a more technical and reliable outputs. Few more months and we will be taking our internship and I am planning to have it in Manila, where I can experience the “real” Information Technology world.