It has been a few weeks since I finally restarted a workout routine. I found a place nearby that has what I need and provides access at times that work for me. It has felt so good. Last summer and at the beginning of the fall term I tried to start a morning workout routine and that just went to shit 💩 really quickly. Then, I just gave up. But by March this year I felt like I had to figured it out. So, I did. Anywho, I am trying a new schedule, a new location, and hopefully a new routine 😊
Tag: life
Winter Outdoor Adventures
This past Monday, March 20, was the official beginning of the Spring. This post has been in my draft folder for a few weeks. Yikes! This means I have survived my first Winter in Tennessee. So I am here to share some of the sunny day outings from the last two and half months of Winter.
Travel Preparations
I think for the most part when we think of preparing for work travel we think of getting work done that need to completed before we travel and preparing for the work that will be done during the work travel trip. In my case the work that will be done is normally a presentation.
But I know many of us also have to think of what is going on in our personal lives and what we need to prepare so that when we come back from work travel we are not to discombobulated to be involved and participate in activities in our personal lives (with family and friends). This all takes some serious project management skills!
This past weekend, it was Easter Sunday. I knew that after a week of travel I would come home to a special holiday for my little one and I wanted to make sure he knew I had not forgotten. So, my pre-travel preparations involved getting Easter goodies (thank you Party City!) and planning activities prior to leaving for my work trip. I also manage to get a chocolate bunny at the airport in one of my layovers on the way home 😊 🐰
UTK STEM Education Seminar
This past week, I was invited to speak as part of the STEM education seminar sponsored by the Theory and Practice in Teacher Preparation (TPTE) Department STEM team. I am part of the STEM Education team in the department and this semester a group of colleagues are organizing this seminar with presentations for faculty and graduate students every two weeks. I have really enjoyed all of the presentations this semester. Our STEM Education team is doing really amazing work and I love learning about it.
For my presentation, I was a bit nervous because I was not sure how my work would relate to STEM education. I know educational technology is consider part of STEM education. However, I think of my work as more than just educational technology. I actually see Learning, Design, and Technology as the umbrella term under which educational technology, instructional design, instructional technology, learning engineering, and others similar terms come together. Perhaps one of my main concerns is that under the term STEM, learning design is primarily associated with the “technology” term which I really see as just one aspects of the far more complex ecosystems of the learning, design, and technology field.
The presentation focused on how it is okay to have many areas of research interest. We are often encouraged to stay very narrowly focused on a topic. But, what if you are curious about other topics and want to explore them? So, basically, I used myself as an example of an eclectic research agenda. My research has evolved so much and in part it due to my curiosity to explore other topics. This has also been true in my life, curiosity to try new things or study programs outside my focus has helped me evolve and grow. Here is the link to the slides, in case you are curious.
Rooted and grounded in love
I don’t know if most people that know me professionally know this, but I am the daughter of divorced parents. My parents divorced in my adulthood. I was actually just starting my doctoral program when they got divorce. To make things even more interesting, my parents live in different countries. It makes the logistics of “going to visit family” challenging. It also means that I may not see both my mom and dad in the same family trip.
But my divorce parents are really not like many others. Although they are divorce my parents: travel together, sometimes spend Christmas and New Years celebrations together, talk on the phone daily (sometimes multiple times a day), have visited me together, and are very comfortable been in each other’s presence (sometimes it is even hard to tell they are actually divorce). They have taught me so much about true love and care for another person regardless of relationship status. Of course, just like any relationship they also argue and sometimes need their own space.
Recently, I got to spend time with both of them. It was the first time in a long time that I spend time with my mom and the first time in a long time that we were all together. It meant the world to me. Both my mom and dad live in places with fairly strict COVID travel restrictions and thankfully now some of those restrictions have been lifted. Hopefully it stays that away and that way I will have more opportunities to visit them.
Backcountry Camping
Recently, I went backcountry camping, which it is not to be confused with car camping (I just learned how there are two different names lol and now I guess I get to educate others). Camping culture is not something I grew up with at all. When I lived in Panama, people didn’t just go into the woods or the rainforest for no reason. However, now people in Panama are more into connecting with the tropical rainforest for weekend adventures such as hiking and camping. Personally, hiking and camping were experiences that I started to enjoy when I lived in Virginia. Some of my favorite hikes in Virginia were McAfees Knob, The Priest, and The Dragon’s Tooth trails. I also enjoyed camping and hiking at Crabtree Falls.
To be honest, the experience of backcountry camping is not something that I would attempt to do on my own. I like that I was going with mi familia because my partner has experience and knowledge on what is needed for the experience. He had also camped at this specific location a few weeks before friends. I definitely want do it again but there are a few things that I want to consider next time like bringing the camping hammock or being more creative with my food choices. I enjoyed been surrounded by nature and listening to water sounds. While I was out in the woods, I was thinking what it would be cool to see a bear but also it would be scary to see a bear. I was constantly trying to think of all safety procedures (how to scare a bear: yell like hell and act crazy — I can do that lol).
Here are a few photos from the backcountry camping outing, for some reason I was really into mushroom photography lol
Curly Hair Talk
I know I should be working on those IRB modules but, can I pause for a minute and talk about curly hair?
It was my freshman year in high school when I started straightening my hair regularly. Panamanian societal standards had taught me that straight hair was better than curly hair (in a country in which the majority of the population has curly hair). That sounds crazy right? I can go on with a list of other features of my body and face that I was told were not adequate, but I will spare you the horror! Loving me just as I am took a lot of reflection, self-discovery, and just a huge “fuck you” to societal standards.
Back to this curly hair convo! Fast forward to July of 2020, the pandemic is ragging and we are in “stay at home” orders in Florida. I had stopped straightening my hair, I was barely just trying to survive. Taking a shower, honestly, felt like like going to luxury spa appointment. I remember having a crazy curly hair day and I was complaining out loud about this “major issue” in my life. Then all of a sudden my then 4 year old comes to me and says “I love my crazy curly hair.” He has beautiful curly hair! I don’t know why but his words encouraged me to fully embrace my curly hair. So in that moment I decided, enough is enough, I am going to do this. I didn’t want to indirectly pass on the ridiciulos societal standards that I had experienced to him. I wanted him to continue loving his curly hair.
The transition to curly hair after so many years using a straightening iron was not easy. My curls had loss their shape and it was a hot mess. I have gone through so many hair products, curly hair treatments, different kinds of shampoos, and YouTube videos teaching me different techniques to protect my curly hair (Yay, informal learning!). But throughout all of these trial and errors I learned that companies creating hair products do really take into consideration the needs of people with curly hair and that made me happy. I have also started cutting my own hair. I felt nervous at first but now I am not afraid at all.
Last year I had a photo session because I wanted to start using my curly hair in professional headshots instead of the previous headshots with straighten hair. It was liberating and I love how the photos turned. I also did some casual photos just cus!
The Relocation Summer
I wrote my last post back in May after participating in OTESSA conference: The #OTESSA22 Recap and Resources and honestly I had no idea the craziness of a summer that I had ahead of me! It has been 1.5 months since we moved to Knoxville. The boxes are unpacked and we have settled. I think that has been the number one questioned I have received for the last month from friends and colleagues.
There is so much that has happened this summer, I really do not know if I can sum it up into a blog post but here are the highlights:
- I completely deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts. Initially those were going to be temporary deactivations but every time I thought about reactivating my account, I hated the fact that I was going to fall into old habits or deal with the social media non-sense (one day I will write about this term “social media non-sense”). It has been challenging at times because there are connections that I really miss and some that I honestly cannot connect in any other ways (i.e., friends who live abroad). But, I am still undecided on whether I will rejoin again.
- We no longer live in our Seminole Heights bungalow in Tampa. I can’t believe we sold our first house. The process of selling was difficult in so many ways. It was exhausting mentally. It took over our lives. I will miss our neighborhood. Seminole Heights will always have a special place in my heart (i.e., it is the house were I saw my son take his first steps and the neighborhood he learn to ride his bike) but I am happy that the house sold allowing us to move and fully focus on our new chapter in Knoxville.
- I became a U.S. citizen. I remember arriving in the United States January 2004 and landing in Kansas City to attend school at Emporia State University. That was an absolutely crazy adventure. I took the Greyhound bus from KC to Emporia (a two hour ride) and when we arrived in Emporia I was dropped off at a gas station. I was like “What the hell? Where is the bus terminal?” I asked the gas station employee to please call a cab for me and he was like “Well there is only one cab in town so know that it will be a while” (Yes, this was life pre-UBER, imagine that!). I really should write more about my adventures as an international student. Anyways, glad I completed all the requirements and applied for citizenship. The best part is that I get to vote!
- I did the bare minimum in terms of scholarship. Instead I focused on the relocation process and I am so happy I didn’t kill myself trying to do a million things. Early in May I was contacted about a project that “must be written over the summer because the institution was going to pay us $$ over the summer to write the paper”. My response was: “Well the institution can keep their $$ because I am not about to comprise my sanity over a paper I can write in the Fall”. Best decision ever!
- I did teach a two-week course on “culturally competent design for online learning” as part of a grant funded project “Online Ready” by colleague Dr. Lucy Green and colleagues. It was so much fun designing the course and launching it. It was an online asynchronous course for K-12 school librarians. This was the first iteration of the course now we get to address the feedback and launch it again next year with a different cohort.
- There was minimum travel this summer but in the road trip to Knoxville we did get to explore two other major Tennessee cities: Chattanooga and Nashville. Definitely visiting again!
Everyone needs a “thank you card wall“
This week has been a week of cleaning. How do we possible accumulate so much crap?
Today I cleared my office at The University of Tampa. The pile of crap that I had in my office is so irresponsible. The funny part is that now I pretty much do all of my work using only digital files and a MacBook Air. Why on earth did I have all of that stuff? I don’t know.
Let’s talk about the phone. I never learned my office phone number and I would lie if I tell you I know how to check my voicemail. If you left me a voicemail here what I have to say to you: why?
Probably the best part of clearing my office was my “thank you card wall.” That wall and the messages I received at some moment helped me get through a difficult moment. So thank you to everyone that at some moment in the last few year has giving me a thank you card because hey you probably made a deeper impact in my life in another way.
Me and my Uterus: It was Complicated
This post is not about COVID-19, life during the pandemic, or self-isolation. This post is not about online learning, emergency remote teaching, or Zoom. I could say this post is about wellness and care. But it is not about wellness and care as an academic or with your students. If you are looking to read about any of those topics, sorry to disappoint. This post is about me and my complicated relationship with my uterus. It is a about wellness and care as a woman; which eventually led me to the difficult decision of having hysterectomy at 39 years old (I did get to keep my ovaries, Yay!).
Before I start, I want to acknowledge and recognize that despite my circurstances there are other womem who make this difficult decision much earlier in life or make this decision knowing that they will not get to experience a pregnancy or motherhood. To those women: I see you <much love>.
I first heard the word “fibroids” in the year 2009. I was laying in bed one night and I noticed a significant lump in my lower abdomen. I was very scared so the next day I visited the student health center at Old Dominion University (which I was attending as an international student in her first year as a doctoral student).
The nurse practicioner at the health center referred me to an off-campus clinic where an ultrasound would be performed. After the ultrasound, I was told that I had multiple fibroids. The nurse and the technician told me that these fibroids were non-canceours tumors that adhered to my uterus and that depending on how fast they grew they could be an issue or a non-issue for my health. At that time, I had a very limited health care coverage and I did not have any symptons related to the fibroids so I figured I did not need to go for further treatment.
Fast forward three-years later, the fibroids had grown so much that I looked as if I was three-months pregnant, lived with constant back pain, could barely hold my pee (sorry! TMI), and had absolutely terrible anemia. I remember the face of disbelieve when my doctor saw the lab results of my blood work, she looked at me and asked: don’t you feel tired? do you feel lighheaded and nauseous all the time? I remember telling her that I was a doctoral student and I thought that it was just all part of the doctoral journey and that it was normal for all graduate students to feel that tired. Well, it turns out it was not normal at all!
Despite a few hiccups (finding the best doctor to perform the surgery), the summer of 2012 I had a robotic myomectomy. I remember that after the surgery the doctor mentioned that he had removed 5 lemon-sized fibroids. He did mentioned to me that future fibroids were possible and that I would have to “monitor” my uterus. But honestly, at that moment, I was so happy and the months after the surgery I felt really good. I felt energetic. I was hoping that I could put a life with fibroids and my complicated relationship with my uterus behind me.
Unfortunately, my complicated relationship with my uterus continued as I tried to get pregnant and experience a miscarriage, which let to a D&C. During my second pregnancy, it was not my uterus that was complicated; instead, for a change it was my “incompetent” cervix.
I feel over the last few years, I have been monitoring new fibroids that have grown in my uterus and it let me the decision to have a hysterectomy. I am tired of feeling tired. I am tired of feeling discomfort and bloating. I am tired of feeling weak for absolutely no reason. Also, the number of fibroids every year since my last pregnancy has continue to double.
I am writing this post while I am still healing from the surgery. As I wrote in a tweet, having the surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic was not easy, it was a lonely and emotional journey as family members were not allowed in the hospital. The weeks before the surgery, I was very anxious. I did not know what to expect. But, I have to say “thank you” to all the nurses and doctors, at the hospital. They took good care of me and I appreciate that. The physical recovery so far has been pretty smooth. Emotionally, I know in my heart that I was not planning to have more children but it feels so drastic (I don’t even know if that is the best word) to know that the possibility of experiencing another pregnancy is completely gone. But, I do feel happy with my decision.
This post is becoming relatively lenghty, but I just want to end and say thank you to everyone for their words of love, support, kindness, and get well wishes via text, private message, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I was struggling with whether I should share what I was going through publicly (I have not in the past with my misscarriage and complicated pregnancy), and it has made me feel better to feel supported by others. So much gratitude!
Design Goodiness 
You must be logged in to post a comment.