Throughout the journey I started with a lot of insecurities about some of the things I was doing, I had uncertainties about new knowledge, about unfamiliar surroundings and its unfamiliarity, and I didn’t know how to start a study, I started with some silly ideas about failure and a lot of things that I was obsessed with and I was very hopeful that I could make a big difference through the course.
Towards the end of the course I tried to think back, from the beginning we had learned a lot about failure, about being lost and doing a lot of useless stuff, and when I took my project to the tutor for evaluation I was still frustrated but rarely got anything out of it, maybe there was something wrong with the way I was thinking about things, maybe I hadn’t found the right way yet, and I didn’t know how to tell.
I remember our first group assignment was on the topic of mythology and when we discussed it together, it made us feel very uncomfortable because we didn’t communicate in the same way, and I complained to my family and friends around me about it, and I felt that I had made the wrong decision to leave my hometown to come so far away. It was like a cold war, we didn’t talk to each other, but as time went on, one project after another, and after class, I tried to communicate and express myself, and I gradually understood the importance of communication for me. The time went on, as usual, we did useless things and occasionally we thought about myths, Richard was talking to us about the first unit on imagination and it was like we were going to find our own tools. This lesson might not be as simple as imagination.
I remember learning about Schrödinger’s Cat in class, all this theoretical stuff that made us feel like our class was a lot like Schrödinger’s Cat, Forrest Gump’s chocolate, full of so many uncertainties. It made me think about my past life, my present life, and my future life from time to time, I didn’t know where I should go, something full of uncertainty, at that time because of what I was going through and with all the stress I felt like my course and my previous work life was in a mess, I was powerless and overwhelmed.
Coming to a new environment was also filled with a lot of newnesses, new classmates, teachers, and campus. As we started school in the spring, it was still winter and I was caught in the middle of an infinitely long night, it was hard to tell how I felt, I just went through the lessons step by step. But the first group presentation was not as good as I thought it would be, and I can only say that we only completed this one thing.
The second project was on obsolescence, and I had to understand whether the past and obsolescence were the same things. When I don’t know how to go about it, I just follow the tutor first, following the tutor to learn may have different things.
It was getting close to the Chinese New Year and the feeling of homesickness was not only there, where was I last year, but now I am in a new country, the day before the Chinese New Year we were still on the tutorial, the upcoming Year of the Tiger, I was very happy to receive a blessing from my teacher, we went to think about what we had outgrown and finally we needed to present a group video and we tried to brainstorm.
Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year are always very close to each other. Before Valentine’s Day came, we had to submit our own video for reporting this time, and because of my background in animation in the past, I took the initiative to take over the editing work, but group work is always full of uncertainty, we are still not sure about the concept of some things, we choose the same outdated things, but we had a big problem when we were researching, for handwriting and calligraphy, and we didn’t get it right until the end of the day, and I don’t think I did very well here because the inconsistency in their previous research ideas would have led to problems with my later, editing ideas. Instead of being brave enough to question, challenge, and express my opinion, I stayed neutral, which for me, at the time, may have passed and in hindsight, made our group work not show good research logic. At the final debrief, it was also pointed out by the tutor that the concept of handwriting and calligraphy was unclear.
After this collaboration, it became clear to me that if I have an opinion or question, I should raise it in a timely manner, which may hurt others for a short time, but is a responsible act for a team and a group. I don’t have a Valentine for Valentine’s Day, just learning, hahahahaha, just kidding. The Valentine’s Day one reminds me of the people I used to like, some are still in touch, and some have lost touch long ago, I still try to send wishes from a foreign country to the people I used to like and still like now, no matter what the past is or what the future is, at least I can afford to like them, that’s the most important ah. Life and studies may be bad, but we should never forget the people and things we like because they are the ones who have changed us and got us here step by step.
I also had a one-to-one tutorial with the course director. I said that at first I wanted to drop out of the course, I came here from a faraway place and the gap between me and my imagination was very big. It was not what I thought it would be, and I really wanted to quit, but now I’m getting used to it, I think I just have to go on.
The weather is getting warmer and the trees on both sides of the school path are sprouting, we are thinking about the past, and then we are thinking about uncertainty, what are we confused about, what are we torn about I’ve always wondered what you would put in a box of uncertainty, I chose Norwegian Forest, it could be a book by Haruki Murakami, it could be a scene from the Norwegian Forest, it could be a song by the Beatles. It could be a song by The Beatles, or it could be my imaginary Norwegian forest, so I would feel uncertain. I was wondering if the person in my mind would come back and meet again. I also used Maslow’s theory of needs, and Freud’s and Jung’s knowledge, but when I got the feedback after the presentation, I only focused on their development and positive effects, I didn’t focus on some negative effects, and I had to try to think critically.
The thing that really struck me was when we had to present our problems in Project 4 to Project 5, we only had two minutes to do it, I was wondering what I could do in two minutes, I wasn’t sure why I only had two minutes when I tried to present, the teacher pointed out a lot of problems in the class, I couldn’t take it, I burst into tears in the class, I turned off the microphone, I didn’t know what was wrong with me at that time. It’s not that I couldn’t take the criticism, it’s just that I would question the meaning of what I was doing. I started to slowly get into the swing of things, got over the failure, and then went back to the feeling of failure again.
When we entered the first independent study phase, I looked back a lot on the first unit, but when I was in the study period, I experienced something bad, my mobile phone was stolen, I felt then and it is sad, I don’t know what I was sad about, was it not having someone to contact, or was it sad that it would add a lot of trouble, life always gives you countless surprises like this, I was in deep meditation, I thought about depression, I wanted to express the depression in a humorous way because this is where my interest lies, I gradually found my way and also slowly clarified in the tutorial.
For the first time, we went to talk and express ourselves with the expert Dragon team, to see what researchers outside the course thought about our research questions, and when I expressed it, I felt that all my experiences were worth it, that learning is a long time coming and not something you can do all at once, and that you have to give yourself patience and some space to get it done. In fact, it was all a great opportunity to think about our mindset of learning and research, to slowly clarify what it is that we have in mind, and then on to Unit 2.
In Unit 1, I felt that I had achieved some changes in myself, but my group work was always so mediocre and didn’t have that sense of unity that brought me together, and this unit was mainly about thinking about application and practice. I went to think about what kind of interventions I wanted to start doing and this group work was also a big upgrade, we had to contact experts, we had to organize experts to give lectures themselves and I was actually not very hopeful about the whole thing at first because our topic was also full of a lot of uncertainty.
We started out thinking about how to go about finding experts for the group, it was very anxious, we went to think about the topics we got and I was thinking about what kind of format we should actually present it in, at the same time our first intervention started, at first we were all very confused when we came across the word, we didn’t know what it was, what exactly it meant, my first intervention, I ended up going to comedy that I was interested in, I thought of using the creative methods in it to do my own intervention, I also tried to contact my own organization to find stakeholders who were LGBTQIA+ with me, although I didn’t know the outcome if it, I just went for it, at least I didn’t know the outcome until I did it.
The time was very close to being reported, and my intervention and group work were intertwined, I really wished I could become two people, there were also some accidents in the middle of the group work, our expert communication had problems, and I temporarily wanted to put to contact again, good to contact a willing to help us, my heart was very touched, our group finally each person divided the work clearly, put their ideas into practice At that time I felt that we were all working in the same direction, and the misunderstandings we had were gradually removed, and in the end, our group work turned out quite well. When we integrate ourselves into the group, we will also gain a lot.
When we had our first presentation in the supergroup when we went to report on our intervention when I heard the feedback from the tutors of different groups, I had new ideas about my project, and I had to think about which opinions to adopt and which opinions to keep, as every opinion is very precious. The first time was like a template for me to compare and contrast, and when I looked back, I would see what I had done well and what I had done badly, and learn to reflect on my own project. The gap between my ideas and reality, and the gap between the theory I have learned and the reality of realization, these are all at a distance.
By the third unit, as I was gradually doing the intervention, I gradually lost my way, leading to a lack of clarity in my thinking during the first group presentation, making it feel directionless and unclear. In fact, I have to say that by the last unit, I really felt frustrated, the kind of frustration I had never felt before, but it was good to find out the problems in time. Diana followed up with us every week and the time passed in a hurry, and it was the end of the week.
When I did my third intervention, combining the shortcomings of the first and second interventions, I received good guidance from Diana to update and improve my project until the end. I don’t know what the point of perseverance is, but when we see such encouragement, I feel warm inside and I feel that no matter what the success or failure is, it is all worth it. It was all worth it, at least what I experienced and what I reflected on, and that’s unique.
Overall, the most positive thing about my whole study career is that I have tried to get out of my comfort zone and imagination, to find out what I really think and have the courage to question, communicate with different stakeholders, and find out what I am passionate about. I learned that learning is like a journey, not only learning different theoretical knowledge, but also learning how to find evidence, collaborate with others, and keep clarifying what I want in my mind. For my stakeholders, I offered them the possibility to try to express themselves in a different way, and in the middle of the project I kept hearing more and more people speak up and express themselves, maybe in a small way, but I kept trying to update and iterate on my project. We keep looking back and looking forward and keep updating and saying goodbye to the immaturity and lack of rigor of the past.
This project may still have a lot of immaturities and lack of rigor, but it’s not meaningless for a phase of the journey, and I’ve wanted to give up or change numerous times, but I’ve persevered to the end. I also learned how not to be brave all the time, but to go brave for the sake of ensuring my own safety. In the future, it may provide a new motivation for my own learning journey and a new possibility for research in related fields, not only for the stakeholders of my own project but also to try to integrate into more community groups to let more stakeholders understand and communicate with each other at the end of this project. As the journey comes to an end, I would like to say more than anything else, may you eliminate your prejudices and may you move forward.