Melbourne life: busyness and learning journal

The middle of semester, getting busy as usual. Assignment due, group presentations, whilst thesis progress slowly. Too many things I read, too many things I think in my head, too many things I am interested in, too many things I want to do at the same time. Lists all things I want: to raise the children properly, better than before and better than our parents generation, to maintain a very happy family, to achieve my best career, to do something for the poor and disadvantages people around me, if possible in the big scale, to achieve my personal development and satisfaction, etc, etc. the lists can go further.

Life in this era of modernity means the feeling of the time limitation, much more than what my parents generation probably experienced or what people in my village is experiencing. Life is so busy. 24 hours is not enough. What actually I am or other people doing recently. If I count on time I spend for my activities daily in general, 6-8 hours for sleeping, 4 hours in the morning for children, around 5-7 hours doing study activities (within this, probably minimum of 1 hour I spend for email (especially from mailist)- and most hours in the internet (browsing materials), another 3-4 hours with family in the evening.
So, besides sleeping most activities I spend in front of computer or internet. I can imagine how much time other people, who really into internet or net-chatting, need to spend in the internet jungle. Wuih, hours and hours. Everyone feel busy on the internet, which is foten an excuse for lack of real life social relationships, while actually what we are doing is wasting hour time, wasting energy, electricity, and wasting a great opportunity to explore the real world.

I felt that I myself could control internet addiction (addiction for being popular by making comments on the mailists, inviting friends into facebooks or friendsters, multiply or blogs, etc) as many of my friends and colleagues experiences. What I experienced here is my addiction to read all study related materials from journal, from many important sources etc, which is available easily by login into my university account. The results are I read this topic, and find another interesting topic, which lead me to another hot issues of my concern, and so forth and so forth. It's never ending. I read, I read, I read. The more knowledge in my head, do I become a smarter person, do I become a better person?

Well the answer is relative. As the traditional proverb says: the more you read, the more you know. But knowing is not enough. I believe that after knowing something, we need to reflecting. After we read something, we need to reflect on our reading. This is what we, modern people, lack of. We read something, know about this thing, and than in the next minutes we read another new information, and then we just pass on that ifnromation without actually reflecting it in our mind. This process continue in a cycle. What a pity! The internet has gave us opportunity to access all of information that the previous generation couldn't easily get access. But the internet has decreased our opportunity to reflect on information that we get on the internet, which our parents generation enjoyed.

So, I decided and promised to myself to do reflection, at least once a week, if not once a day about what I have learnt in this weeks, and how it may affect me to be a better person who can do something for others, for humanity and for the world. I will keep learning journal, since I can't keep it in paper, too slow too write with pen, I want to keep my learning journal in this blog. The promise that I couldn't delivered until today. I learnt about keeping learning journal for one of my subject I am taking this semester. Despites additional work burden, I am actually enjoying the experience of reflecting on my learning process. I enjoyed the feeling that I have actually learnt about something, I actually have certain vision that I want to achieve in the future, and I documented what I really want to achieve using knowledge that I acquired in my study, in my social life, in my internet searching, etc, etc.

So, I am promising myself, started with this writing, that at least everyweek I need to spend an hour to write my learning journal. Yes, I am busy, but if I still can open email in mailists, why can't I do reflection on my learning process or even to make reflection about my life. If I can do that regularly, I am sure I will be a better person, who is thankful to the god bersyukur for what I have get, what I have enjoyed and what I have achieved in my life. I remember how peaceful my feeling when I am walking alone near the Merry Creek in the afternoon of my birthday to reflect on my 28 years, or probably the last 10 years. A peaceful feeling was coming into my mind, because the more I reflect the more I realise what I have achieved, what I actually want, what strength and weaknesses in my life, or even what mistakes I have actually done.

Get busy is alright, but don't let all of the knowledge I have get just passed on my mind without I can actually use it for benefits of others. get busy is alright, but let I make this busyness to be more useful. So, when we get busy, and busier, just stop for a while, sit down and write down a reflection of what we are actually doing. One tool to do that is our learning journal.