Reflections

What went well?

The invitation to create the life journey and the résumé was felt from the beginning as a fun and nice thing to do.

It offered me the opportunity the clear up details about my own story that I had to check with others, for example, the exact date of my parents’ divorce. So it was very nice to go back and clarify whatever was not exactly clear.

I have revisited my own story quite a few times identifying patterns and big picture meanings, but never produced a piece of paper of it, or never focused on the un/learning in it

I think it helped me to gain strength, clarity and openness about my path.

It happened the same with the résumé, especially with publications, learning story, accreditation, etc. When I decided 11 years ago that I didn't want anything to do with the academia, I dropped all interest for keeping a record of my work, writings or certificates, so this was a nice opportunity to recover interest in tracking my own professional path. And discovered that many things were lost, especially writings and publications that I didn't care to store or keep the record.

I am happy and thankful for this renewed interest in my own records.

CHALLENGING:

Challenging but interesting is writing in English. I kind of like it. What I don't like is to go into the final stage of English editing. This is challenging and somehow still to be resolved.

Challenging, as with everything with this Gaia U adventure, is to accommodate time and logistics inside my life flow, which is indeed pretty unpredictable and changing, with ongoing travels through remote places, various projects happening at the same time, and a place of residence with terrible internet connection. So it is almost impossible to set a routine or a fixed schedule of Gaia U activities, but it is more about drifting in alertness to catch the best opportunity to achieve the goals.

Challenging is the way the materials are presented with large number of details, the replication of the same info, a dozen of different forums, dozens of tiny little emails, dozens of tiny little books smaller than 10 pages, many many layers of places, spaces, materials, processes, many many tiny little details here and there. That is challenging and kind of boring and overwhelming to me, since my personal taste is to keep it as simple as required, to focus more in the depth than in the form of things. I have found much emphasis on the form so far in Gaia U, and I am fearing to remain in shallow waters and pass quick and swift through subjects as deep as the cynefin model, or the article by Vanda Shiva, and on the contrary spend lots of time in this tiny little details of the form and style of the report.

I do believe it is important for all of us to learn how to create "outstanding output packets", but I have serious doubts for example about how important and frequent use will have the mahara platform in my life.

I know we are just starting and the forms we are learning will serve to the following processes, but still it is challenging for me to overemphasis on the container and not in the content.