Appendix

Workflow

After I submitted OP5 of my first Action Learning Cycle I felt very motivated to learn from my first year and apply all new insights and ideas directly in my LIPD. It was also a great help that I read in the beginning of the OP production process the book "The monk who sold his ferrari" and "Anastasia". Both book inspired me to "just do it" in a different way. With this foundation I started to look for an appropriate Design process for my LIPD and decided to use Dragon Dreaming this time. I researched about this Process and started to implement it for my LIPD. It was amazing how fast it showed success and how I was able to structure and organize my exercises and every-day life. I applied various of methods from the books I read and they helped to design and develop a holistic every-day life. This first phase was from the beginning of February till almost the end of February. Then in the end of February my workflow decreased a lot and I lost some self-discipline, for example by not planning the next day or not doing the methods described in the books. This phase turned into a life changing event I unconsciously already expected! In the beginning of March my boyfriend and me found out that I am pregnant and that I will give birth to a child in the beginning of November. Yes!! Amazing ! I was full of joy and the day busy with thinking about our child and thinking about all necessary changes we need to do also in our future planning's. The next two weeks went very fast and I needed them to get familiar with such an amazing and great thought!
Now after the two weeks of finding ourselves everything feels like a big transition. But honestly I am not afraid or have any anger, fear or depression it just feels great! There is more a basic trust that I/we will manage everything, from the birth to find a home place to managing my GaiaU studies! It feels that now is just the right time for a child and for studying! Today is March 20th and I still have no idea how I will manage my projects... but I start to design my every-day life again! To work every day for GaiaU , read about pregnancy and meditate to get in contact with our baby. Yes, a big transition starts! Thank you!

22.03
I feel that it is really challenging to plan and design my projects for this ALC. It is difficult for me to concretely define what I want to learn, draw connections and design applicable projects. I feel a bit lost where to start and how to analyze and creatively design a plan. I am still not really clear about my learning areas I want to focus on. How can I combine my interests that they form an integral project? How do I know what skills I want to build (I know to less)? How can I implement my projects while travelling? How can I share my project outcomes with an wider area? How to do high quality work?

24.05
Again we need to figure out our future… We visited a Tiny House for sale and thought about buying it. But first we needed to clarify if there is a pitch on the farm where we are staying right now for the next year. During the conversation with the family we found out that it probably will not be possible…
And again all possibilities were open for us...will we stay on this place? Where can we life with our child? Should we just go to Italy again? Stay here and buy a Tiny house and rent a pitch on a camping area for the first time?

Very challenging questions! I just wished to know where to go and what to do! If we want a Tiny House than we needed to decide within the next week, otherwise it will not be ready till the birth.

Now our plan after I called with my family and get clear about possibilities: We will buy a Tiny House (we need to decide how the rooms should look like → draw construction plans) and give birth to our child next to Freiburg. We will look for a pitch on a farm or on the camping area and stay there till March 2018. This summer we will visit more projects (Italy, Austrich) and hopefully we find a place where we can stay after March 2018 with our child.

Okay, now O need to get done my LIPD and we need to write construction plans for our Tiny House!

22.09.16 Community and/or agricultural work?

Visiting two communities in Italy was a very rich experience! The  first community called "Corricelli" was located in the hilly landscape in Tuscany. There lived 6 adult (retired) people in strawbale houses and yurts. Everybody had its own house and a communual building is under construction. Their motto was :"Life simple". On the very steep land they had a very simple outdoor kitchen, shower and compost toilet. In summer they really live outside. On a social level their communication was very easy but clear as well. They are all friends and we did not had the feeling that there are surpressed fellings or unspoken expectations between the community people. The social life is very easy. The people share two meals a day together and one day a week they have a community meeting. The rest of the time everyone can follow the personal work or interests. They only have some view roles about money, and the common goods. There is no legal or hidden "chief" in the community. Everybodys opinion is accepted and decisions are decided in consensus.
What definitivly comes to short in my eyes is the agricultural part and designing the landscape. They have a small vegetable garden, which does not look overcared and some never cut, fruit trees which almost produce no fruits on the land. They are interested in being-self sufficient but there is not the neccessary energy and motivation behind it. I ask myself if there is a stable relatively small community which is socially strong and at the same time self-suffiecient...I did not really hear about one in Italy...

The second community we went is called "Giardino della Gioa" in southern Italy next to the national Parc "Gargano". Well, it is actually no community anymore. When we arrived there was no responsible person, just three other just arrived wooffers. On the 1 hectar big land some yurts were spread and a small neglected vegetable garden next to the kitchen. There was no community at all... People told us that the owner of the land was the hidden "chief" and wanted to make decisions by himself. Over time the twenty community members left and he ended up alone on the land left with some very nice structures (great bath, kitchen, toilet, yurts, treehouse). Although it was in the beginning an intentional community the social dealings between the people had no future-reliant capacities. What a pitty!

 (01.10.16)

Lost in the Internet:

Because I have a passion for learning almost everything I recognized that I read too many books at one time and research about many different things in the internet. Then there are some topics I am really interested in and I like to dive deeper e.g. Bees and Terra Preta. I spent weeks with reading articles and gain first-hand experience, but I am not able to document and structure it. Sometimes if I am able to do so, it is somewhere written on small pages of a notebook or in my laptop and I loose the overall-view on what I already wrote down and where it is now

09.10.16

If I have a question about something I will find the answer in the Internet. The answer of a question today is very often:" Oh, I do not know... just google it!!" .

And yes, it is true that you find the most of the time an satisfiable answer in the internet. It is so practical! But what I recognized that as soon as I started to google something new questions arise and I spend hours researching and end up in an endless sea of knowledge. I don' t know what I have really learned and never can recall the information. One day, after I was a little bit frustrated I just decided to find a way to research more strategically. I started to always track my research by writing all topics  and websites with the Core Content down on a scrap of paper. After this research I was a little more satisfied. Then I reached the point when I thought that I need to set priorities and only reseach things which are now really relevant for me in life. And that is what I did. I stopped researching irrelevant things and instead the idea arose to collect the knowledge which is relevant for me in life even better. I thought about different possibilities to collect knowledge in a non-digital easy coprehensible and nice way. And in the end I came up with a prototype which I can use for all my learning material. Puhh... now it is time to collect strategically knowledge and stop researching not necessary things. Lets create material!

10.10.16. OP-Process

I actually know which projects I want to put in my OP. I already prepared some texts for the OP. Nevertheless I am not sure if I will catch the OP bus in November. Actually I want to work a little more on my learning prototype. And for my OP it would be so great if I already would be done with the resistant bee learning material. But to be realistic the time is just a bit too less... So I will only present the prototype in the OP.

19.06

After a very busy day outside I research more about bee keeping methods. Should I look for something special? How can I document my researched knowledge? It is often a pitfall to research without a goal, because then I will go lost in a huge amount of information and afterwards I don't really know what I actually found out.. Okay then I need to find some sort of a tracking about my research. Maybe a line where I draw everything in? It needs to be something easy to follow something which does not need extra time, okay let me think more about that :-)

19.06

What a great festival yeaterday! The students were there and enjoyed a little shy the mood. In the beginning I thought there are too less people for all the expenditure Wolfgang and Annette had. But as the evening proceeded it became greater and greater :-) And the student had a great experience how a festival in community is like

9.07

In the last few days I started to think about my OP design and I decided to use the Kolbs Model again :-) I looked on some other OPs and again on my Feedback, again new helpful ideas arose... well lets see how it develops!

22.04: Starting consciously with my projects sounds lika a lot of fun but is at the same time a bit overwhelming! How to start? How to design? Just give it a try!? My every-day life is tightly packed with an internship on the permaculture area and the projects going-on there, working as a home help to earn money (to life and for my studies) and managing my studies with GaiaU.
To manage all these things I need to integrate my internship-projects to my studies. This way I am not too overwhelmed.

But now is my BIG question: How can I start with my project-work consciously? Where can I set priorities?

01.05: I clearly do not have the feeling that I managed everything properly. I just dived into my projects without a clear plan what to consciously do. Well I did observe all the processes going on. But I did not design a project-framework yet. But how can I design an appropriate project framework?

06.05: I started with my first attempts to design my projects, my skills and just wrote all my thinkings down on paper. As I recognized that could be an endless process. So what is really necessary and effective?

14.05: I designed all my projects. At least I tried to do so :-) YES! I am more clear about my priorities, next steps and further on-goings. It feels to be more effective than just working on something without a strategic direction. For sure there is still a huge amount to learn. But I am satisfied with my first trials and as time goes on I become more experienced!

08.02.2016
I became more or less clear about my focus in the next seven months. It was ahard consideration and still it is not sure. I decided to focus on everything which has to do with soil, like composting ( terra preta, worm compost,, human manure), soil building through crop rotation, building with clay,  liquid manure/ comfrey or nettel tea and soil as a filter.
Futhermore I will be in the process of learning how to keep in an alternative style bees.
And  I will be part of a natural learning space for children and be as a teacher in permaculture (especially in how to grow food).Up until now it is not sure if this learning are will take place in year 2016 so I can not focus on that in my mind now.
It was very challenging for me to collect my first projects, because I had too many ideas and was captured in a bit like a knot. I tried to be a strategic for myself and asked me: Where do I need esential knowledge/skills? What is an important basis of life? Where do I need a deep understanding?. And soil was the answer for me. Here in Lebensgarten Steyerberg we have a lot to do with soil and I can connect my project work with the permaculture area.

10.03.2016

For some days I received my LCR-feedback. It was more helpful than I thought in the beginning and I am so thankful that I received it. In the last weeks I steadily kept working on my LIPD. I was thinking and writing the whole time, because I think now I got a real awareness how powerful it is to design whatever you want by yourself. On some days that was very motivating for me and on others I kind of thought:" What happens if my design fails...". But I reached the point where I am just happy about a design challenge and even if it would fail, it would be part of my design and a powerful learning experience. So I did all writing intuitively without designing my OP. I knew that I need to put more conscious design in my work, but I felt myself unable to do so. After I received my feedback I just felt confirmed in my assumption and started to think how I can turn and adapt my written text in a conscious design. So I just started with writing an overall  design for my OP and for my Core Report. I looked at some different portfolios to get inspired and get an idea how they make their design process visible. After I had a rough framework I felt so much better.  Today I am working a bit more on my framework and design to get it good. That makes a lot of  fun but is also challenging because of my lack in experience on how to design an OP. But I see it now as a great design challenge and I am feeling that I am on the right way to practice.

16.03.2016

Everything is more clear now and the most of the work is done. Now I need to put my whole content into Mahara, which might become a longer process, since I have so much material and not so much experience, but I will see. Before that I have to shorten my text, because I am a way to long.  Yesterday I had a peer-guild meeting with Juli, and I was happy to hear her again after almost two silent weeks. It was very supportive to talk with her about the creation of our OPs' and our lifes. I want to start to visualize my pathway in form of a drawing.