The connected void of social networks

22.04.2020

My thirst to express my stories will be exploding right now. Hiii got a lot of fun to tell! Just tell but not deeply analyze each point. My argumentation is hardly logical and most of the time messy as well as emotionally manipulated. I am ok with it because it is me. I am making constant efforts to articulate my thinking understandably… And anyway, this blog is to meet my personal need of expression and living with my own emotions.

I will share the feelings in a chronological presentation, meaning what happens latest comes first. But I don’t make sure it will be absolutely in order. Here it goes!

I have written a crazy note on Facebook sharing my thoughts on social networks and banking. This was not my initial intention until the thoughts came out. It is fascinating to see how natural thoughts are funnily produced over the writing process. I have to say I am a boring person. Sometimes, that little moment turns out to be such a treasure to dramatize my boredom. Other than that, during the writing time, I tend to pick different stories I went through to talk about which are all under an associative network from my life experience. The points made seem to be messy but they are connected in the other way around. And after all, re-reading the creative status makes me feel like I have told a strange but attractive story. Yash, it’s called self-satisfaction. =]]]]

Next, it is about fortune-telling. Or it’s my intuition maybe that was internalized out of nowhere since the morning. For some reason, over one week, my paid jobs have not made any progress. I got enough rest and focus on “personal things” including studying and club supervision. I felt like in the working mood again early of the day. I asked my manager to assign me some tasks. Shortly after, 2 tasks were given, then another job emerged, then 2 people approached me, and I got a sweet call with a friend after months. Such a series of emergences and I love the way it is. In a sense, this occurrence has something to do with the law of attraction. All the stuff tends to happen simultaneously that I might find it hard to handle it at first. However, once I gradually spend time on each thing in a maximum level of focus, it goes quite smoothly.

An interesting topic assigned is about the making of a touristic district. I have to search for journal articles related to such concepts as urban tourism, mapmaking, touring,… In particular, the focus is about “cartography” – a term meaning the art/ science of mapping. It is to investigate how a “mundane” urban district is transformed into a touristic area through the application of cartography. I have been on and off for a course on Edx about Urban Planning 101 by Havard Uni. The professor is way knowledgeable of the history and the interpretation of urbanization across the world. That’s why I am overwhelmed at times. Needless to say, I am totally a new-learner in the space. Among the popular trends of learning domains in society like technolog, artificial intelligence, and coding ect, I am messing around with this aspect. I was surprised since the beginning I got to know my advisor whose background was presumably irrelevant to my studying path. Time passes by, my narrow mind stretches out accordingly. It is when I start seeing a maze of interesting connections of this “urban” thing. This point is a clear manifestation of associative thinking excluding as much personal bias as possible.

Next is social networks learning and my interpretation of the networks of my empirical dots. I had the last class of “People, Group and Networks” Course whose name itself incentivizes me to be drowned into it. I was in love with the topic since last July, 2019 when I was wandering in a second-hand bookstore in Singapore. Nothing seized my attention but the book called “Connected” by “Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler”.

It fell on me at the right moment, simply. My self-actualization journey was reaching a climax over a gap year, of which the most powerful lesson is “the law of attraction”. It is all about how people are attracted to each other for the commonality in interests, goals and personality. I would say it’s like a theoretical idea for social networks. Linking back to the above point, it is not just in the thin air that I enrolled a course about Urban Planning out of a heaven of topics freely offered by the instituion. It is the “right timing” that captivates my mind to make the decision. All of the decisions and events totally make sense.

A concept I have been lately curious about is “human capital”. It was referred to in the last Social Networks class. While I was not so impressed by a discussed idea like “how much success is influenced by the social networks for native and immigrant people”, the thought of “human capital” never walks out of my head ever since. It was not my first time to hear of it but it was the first enlightenment to know what it is. My vague perception of it changed when seeing the definition. Human capital consists of intangible assets of humans that are not officially recording in general management system of organizations. The assets can be motivation, skillset, motivation, intellectual property or personal interests, ect. I had a question in mind but did not ask my professor as it was quite out of topic. Indeed, my concern is rooted in my personal eagerness for human potentials. That is “what kinds of jobs can be done to improve and embrace human capital?”. Suddenly, the term stands brightly in the book “Knowledge management in theory and practice” my caring professor gave to me. There was no deliberate intention to seek the term in the book at all. I opened it as I wanted to read about “Community of Practice” to prepare for the KM project. Guess what, human capital is analyzed logically in the book. A little conclusion to draw is that a small action taken is arranged by destiny and magical connection. Will share my findings about human capital at some unplanned point.

The next point deals with the learning value from taking self-initiatives and sharing experience with others. In the call with my mindful friend from Indonesia, we naturally opened to cool and simple stories! It was as if there was never any boundary interfering our relationship. The talk has no agenda like a meeting and it went so authentically with joy, surprise, freshness and connection. She shared with me about her organic farming project in Lam Dong, Vietnam that has been affected by the situation, her little interesting secret (I keep it for myself), and her goal in the meantime. I asked her about show she analyzes qualitative data for social science research, because we both pursue social science field and I want to improve my academic skills. Rather than finding the similarities and differences or using technology, she likes using hand to making connections among collected data. This method is certainly favorite to me, yet of a huge challenge. I have learnt that no matter how much I write or do something, without a proper methodology, not much knowledge can be produced, and my skills will forever stay zero. Thus I hope my goals will be fulfilled with quality improvement. In terms of self-initiative lesson, I told her about my club. There were some thoughts I did not even think of before when answering her question about the impact I want to create. It was like “synthesis” comes in reflecting on the beloved experience.

My little intention to make sustainable impacts for my highschool community.

1. My goal: To inspire students who want to become independent and self-directed learners in a small society where students have little voice to make decisions on their own. Literally, for the past 5 months, I believe the club is to empower youths to learn English skills and social life skills. But I have realized the dominant achievement is how the club members have grown leadership and self-confidence. I am so proud of them. The dynamics of human capital has changed tremendously such as members’ leaving, behavioral changes or capability progress, etc. My hope is that those who stay will be the potential leaders to inspire the next generation with the least involvement of myself in the process.

2. Why there is a high possibility of sustainability? Youth Nurture Club is a student-led club which is indirectly under the regulation of the school, and particularly under the supervision of the Hochiminh Communist Youth Union – a political unit of every educational institution. It means once it is founded, students will converge a sense of pressure to maintain and promote it, not only for their interests but also for the sake of the school. In all kinds of social projects, political power is of necessity to claim the right and the worth of the agents. My project is self-initiated but the essence is to serve the school. Especially in the context of a countryside area, students are mostly dependent on being pushed by others (adults, teachers) to act, it is important to incorporate the power of the school to move the students to act. In another way, it is about turning stress into a string that enables students to be responsible and committed.

3. What challenges are arising to embrace? Well, the management of the school that stimulates students’ responsibility, does not mean the school pays detailed attention to it. Probably just for now, and the crisis is over, the students’ efforts will be recognized. Everyone wants recognition unless we really reach the stage of being fully satisfied. Also, people can change when external factors evolve, except truly motivated human beings. Luck does not always happen in the first place that we meet the right people. This resonates with the coming and going of the human resource. Words of mouth could be anything until we really act, meaning we can’t foresee anything in advance. So be prepared for the farewells at any time. And be persistent to take small steps. My faith is “a thousand mile journey starts from a single step” (Lao Tzu).

There are several days to go to celebrate the 100-day birthday for Youth Nurture Club. I intended to write a blog on that day but this blog is perfectly enough to make a remarkable milestone for it. After roughly 5 months, so much ups and downs arrive, and happily, things are moving thanks to motivated spirits. I am quite stunned to look back these roughly 2000 words at this point, sadly writing academic stuff costs me weeks, not just hours. Thank me, my family, my professors, School of Global Studies, Youth Nurture Club, School of Gumption, Lens on Mekong team, my buddies, the Internet, music, coffee, my laptop, my health, my destiny and everything that fills the void in my growing journey.

To end, I would like to quote a saying made by me “A life of constant questions should be exciting to tell”.

#reflection #freshness

#void