My Socially Constructed Reality

I'm currently writing my dissertation. Well, yeah, I'm finishing this dissertation so I could get a doctoral degree. But at the back of my mind, I still ask myself, "Who needs a doctoral degree?" Honestly, I'm trying to finish this doctoral degree just because I think it's long overdue. It's just like an unfinished business that has to be done so as to "clean the slate" for me. Personally, I don't think this is the best thing I need. If I need this doctoral degree, I could have finished years back. For a time, I thought getting the doctoral degree is the best way to have salary increase. That was exactly the reason I enrolled in Ph. D. program here in AUF in the year 2005. Back then, I needed some increase in my salary and the only solution I saw was to finish a doctoral degree. Along the way, however, I found side jobs, e.g. writing online and teaching ESL to Korean students, that could make me earn more than double, or even tr...

My dissertation proposal is a case study of the conduct of the Automated Election System in Angeles City. I had my proposal defense last Saturday. Fortunately or unfortunately, my proposed method was technically not approved by the panel. The details on what happened during the proposal are posted on my dissertation blog: www.election2010angelescity.blogspot.com . What can I say? Hmmm.... I was a bit dismayed because the panel could not appreciate qualitative study. I am optimistic that there's so much to learn from a qualitative study that uses multiple sources, e.g. diff. types of interviews, observations, document reviews, and collection of artifacts. Unfortunately, the panel thought a case study of Angeles City-COMELEC's implementation of the Automated Election System won't have any significance at all. In short, they turned me to conducting survey and supporting the data with FGD. They suggested a regional coverage, the whole Central Luzon. One of the panelists ev...

I've become too strong. Sometimes I wish I were weak. Being too strong makes me lose myself. The stronger I become, the harder it is for me to pick up the pieces. I can't go on living my life this way...

The holy week was not really holy for me. This was time of the year when I played hard. Really played hard, as in trying to make the toon level every time I logged in . And to help my toon level up, even my husband and my daughter would play with her. This year, my toon is DanieGanda. Danie, for the record, is my daughter's nick name. But I thought of adding the word "Ganda," which is a tagalog term for Beauty. DanieGanda is a human priest in the normal mode. As the rule in Shaiya, a player won't be able to create a character in the hard mode [here, toons are stronger] without first reaching level 40 in the normal mode, which is a level lower than HM. When DanieGanda started, she was power leveled by king-kruller, whom DanieGanda met while my daughter was playing the toon. King_kruller was als o Danie's first friend in Shaiya. At the moment, he's already level 58, UM. The experience was good for Danie was able to meet players from different walks o...

My husband's toon: Chachu04 My toon: DanieGanda

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." "The brick walls are there for a reason. They're not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something." "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." -- Randy Pausch