Academia | The Chilean Chronicles Blog (The US Return Extended Version)

Profesora Paola Aceituno O. teaches at the Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana (UTEM) in Santiago. We are both members of the WFSF (World Futures Studies Federation).

Mixing business with pleasure can actually be quite enjoyable sometimes.

The Santiago weather was not very kind to my hair outside today. My “do” almost turned into a wavy Afro. But, I think that would have been kinda cute. 🙂 Any-who, earlier in the year I was accepted into the WFSF (World Futures Studies Federation), which is a worldwide organization of scholars, researchers, policy-makers, and world-citizens who have an interest in forecasting and futures studies. Profesor Aceituno meet during the grand discussions worldwide during the March 1st International Futures Day. She learned that my research was in Chile and we agreed to make time to meet upon my return to continue my dissertation/visiting scholar experience this semester. Well, fortunately for me, she was available for a list minute meeting request as I need to travel to Santiago on this past Sunday. Today, I had the good pleasure of meeting with her face-to-face over an enjoyable lunch. I hope she shares my sentiment that I believe I have found a new lifelong friend and colleague in this journey of academic inquiry and research. I very much appreciated our conversations over lunch, visiting a historic area in Santiago for lunch, and moreover additional assistance in identifying more participants to take my research survey which is a part of my quantitative portion of this mixed methods study.

As we walked, Paola showed me this above restaurant that typically isn’t open on Mondays and I immediately had a Georgia flashback to our most popular late night/early morning eatery, Waffle House. I have literally had dreams of WoHo’s delicious and inexpensive food while in Chile and will make it my business to get some while I’m back in the US for a spell. Nevertheless, seeing this place made me immediately feel at home in Santiago with visions of Rosco’s Chicken and Biscuit dancing in my head. Ha ha! I have also enjoyed capturing in pictures the amazing graffiti art that I am seeing all over Chile. Much of it always amazes me and I often wished I knew what was on the mind of the artist making these images.

I forgot to mention that my Spanish continues to improve and is much better than when I arrived her last year. Professor Aceituno is also learning to speak English so I offered to be her conversation partner via Skype and we can help each other fine tune our language skills as well as share academic interest. Her academic area is in the arena of Political Science and my interest in Spiral Dynamic Theory in relation to civic engagement appear to be excellent intersections for academic collaboration. Our conversations went so well I actually didn’t realize that we spoke very little English. Nevertheless, she had her smartphone translator and I my purse size mini dictionary close by if any emergency translation needs arose. Fortunately, no such crisis emerged.

Barrio Lastarria

The people at my hotel had told me about the wonderful a famous Chilean places to dine that were in walking distance of the Park Plaza Hotel called the Barrio Lasterria. However, last semester I was only there for a day trying to resolve my Chilean residency registration issue with my dear friend Camila. We had very little time for social/entertainment adventures but were able to enjoy fellow ship and coffee this evening. Camila and I are going to hang out more tomorrow and visit the museum near my hotel which unfortunately was not open today. Nevertheless, Paola treated me to a heavenly meal for lunch in this beautiful area of Santiago. That was the best fish I had eaten in ages and was so sad that I was too full to finish it all. I told her tonight I was going to be wishing I had this food late in my hotel room. That is in fact the case as I am typing this blog post at 3:13am and looking at this meal again is making me very hungry. I have plans to revisit the fine-dining areas with Camila tomorrow for lunch and I hope that Professor Aceituno can also join us so that I can return the favor of treating her to lunch. 🙂

The entrada (appetizer) was a chicken and shrimp dish in a type of light cream soup base. There were also supposedly “hot peppers” in the bowl, but I laughed as I shared with Paola how these was not nearly as hot as I like my food. Hot Sauce and jalapeños have become a regular part of my culinary delights. I was surprised to learn that Chilean foods aren’t typically hot in flavor as you would find more common place with Mexican foods. But this meal was divine (¡Muy rico!).

Professor Aceituno is also an accomplished author and she brought a present for me in the form of her latest publication to lunch. I only just this evening realized that I forgot to ask her to sign it for me. That is a must do upon my return to Chile. I told her that I was going to post her book, picture jacket, and foto on my blog so I can tell everyone that I am good friends with a famous international author and scholar. She actually, is the journal editor of UTEM’s journal Revista de Estudios Políticos y Estratégicos (Journal of Political and Strategic Studies) in Chile. She recently extended an invitation to me to submit an article for the September deadline and we discussed my introduction my doctoral research, Spiral Dynamic Theory, Memetics, and multiple intelligences theories for the manuscript submission. I likely will not be able to cover all of these areas in relations to civic engagement, but certainly believe I can write and introductory document of these topics for their review.

Here is the museum Paola helped me to locate after lunch and where Cami and I will visit tomorrow. It was quite literally in walking distance of my hotel. I’m very excited!!

Above is a very beautiful statue of an angle that was directly across the street in a nearby park adjacent to the museum. The guard allowed us limited access inside today (as they were closed) so I took this photo of the unique column structures made out of people on the upper level inside the atrium of the museum.

I was able to return to my favorite loft apartemento at the Park Plaza Hotel on Huerfenos in Santiago. Man!! I love that place. Initially, I was placed in a standard room not realizing that they had given me an upgrade upon my first visit there. I was not happy with the standard room as I usually do all of my hotel and travel bookings on Orbitz and I selected the more expensive option thinking I was getting the loft. But, I was wrong and initially very sad.

However, hotel worker Marcello came to my rescue and explained to the hotel manager my disappointment. As a result, they moved me into the loft the next day for the rest of my stay in Santiago for no additional charge. How cool of a blessing was that?!! I think I’ve now found my favorite hotel in Santiago. 🙂

Park Plaza Hotel knows what’s up, and that a black woman needs her body lotion. We’ve got to resist the “ashyness”. Ha ha!

The cherry on top for the evening is visiting with my first and longest friend in Santiago mi querida Camila. She had a ton of laughs over coffee and sandwiches this evening and I had to get a picture of her with her minion t-shirt on. She loves those little creatures! Ha ha.

Introducing the first and only Chilean who does not like the Pharrell “Happy Song”, yet at the same time loves the “Despicable Me” minions! Brahahhahaha Mi cariño Cami. 🙂

¡Hasta mañana todo el mundo!

Luke 24:5 King James Version (KJV) And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

My First Easter Sunday in Chile

In light of Resurrection Sunday on yesterday, and today feeling particularly reflective about life, my academic/career plans, and my relationship to Jesus of Nazareth. I thought about his messages offered to the world. Holidays have always been special times spent with my family, but since entering my Ph.D. program at the University of Georgia and now conducting my dissertation research in Chile, South American, I have learned to adjust to not being able to eat the wonderful family meals prepared by my mother or one of my sisters during holidays. I also miss out on the family fellowship times which can easily turn quite competitive if someone breaks out the games and we all form our teams looking to become the Scrabble, Monopoly, or Trivial Pursuit champions.

However, these memories did not lead to an existential crisis, on the contrary they led to more of an existential epiphany. Why does a person need to feel ostracized if they hold values and beliefs that are not common to me or visa versa? More specifically, when I study the life of Jesus, it is rarely depicted like you see in commercially produced movies or picture cards commonly seen during religious holidays. Jesus was very strong in his objections to religious leadership that held the less powerful to standards that they themselves did not regularly achieve. Yet at the same time Jesus produced a message that was both compassionate and full of expectation that called people to strive to a more excellent way. The call did not seem to be based upon some rules or commandments, but more due to his wanting people to aspire to their highest forms of self. Jesus’s teachings suggest to me that these lofty goals of self-awareness are not easily attainable in disassociation to The Creator.

We live in a physically comprehensible world, but our awareness of “reality” is incomplete if we limit ourselves to those things we can understand with our physical senses. Things that are explained through the principles of physical/natural science phenomenon are not enough for me cognitively or intellectually. For example, what is the substance that makes living creatures by nature want to survive… and conversely, what element of the self is lost among those people and things that no longer want to survive and exist to the point that death becomes a welcomed relief. I have come to the conclusion that it is our spirit, in the case of human beings, made alive unto God the Creator in a way that is not fully or easily comprehensible. The proposed inexplicably, in my view, is in large part because we are “so fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) therefore, the five known human senses become insufficient as a means to describe spiritual connections. Also, the fact that God is a Spirit and the aspect of everyone that is like God is made of spirit being, there has not to date been any scientific physical instrumentality that can capture the individual “you” in its entirety. Ahhhhhhh, there it is, complexity has just entered the room (smile and a wink). Jesus is my role model for teaching. I admire how when dealing with adult learners he used a variety of modalities to “meet people” at the level in which they could comprehend his messages. He used parables and allegories to help the most simple to the most erudite listeners understand his teaching.

Children and the less powerful preceded Jesus on a fateful Passover day (that many celebrate as Easter) with songs of praise and hopefulness; while respected scholars and theologians were so captivated by his wisdom and understanding of scripture many secretly counted themselves among his disciples but kept it hidden for fear of being ostracized by those who were the more politically connected and religiously powerful during that time period.

Fast forward to 2014, I find myself at an academic/career crossroad. I have been doing some research for my committee chair (I am also her graduate research assistant) about what will the 21st Century New Knowledge academic and/or scholarly practitioner resemble in comparison to pre-millennium professors and practitioners. I first surprisingly discovered that I fall into the category of Generation X, with a confidence interval of ± 2. he he I have also learned that there doesn’t appear to be the mass exodus of aging faculty leaving the academy as miscalculated; poor economic times has led to many a professor to work longer versus entering into retirement. So currently, we are producing from our universities a dearth of bright-eyed new doctoral graduates with no place to go per se.

I personally am finding the “publish or perish” paradigm quite unsettling. Not because I have reservations about publishing or writing, it is because I want to publish and write things that I feel are important to improving and changing lives, systems, and societies. I don’t want to be so obsessed with impact factors and finding “the right” journals that my research and scholarly contributions will only be relevant to a small circle of scholars looking to compete with their colleagues in introducing the next big theory or framework. I don’t want to lose folks who I thought were friends because they might be jealous of my seeming success during their time of struggle. Nevertheless, the conflict for me is that I love teaching and engaging with students and communities. I love academic research as I am also a scientist by nature, holding degrees in biology (specializing in microbiology) with a minor in chemistry, plus a MPA. My adviser mentioned to me an emerging field of “Social Entrepreneurs”. I need to do more investigation into this area as I think it might be something I will find rewarding. I told my committee member Dr. Watkins that I am not sure if I want to be an Academic and she vehemently told me that she very much thinks that academia was the right career path for me. That made me smile really big on the inside knowing someone I admired and respected so much in academia viewed me as a future scholar with much to offer.

This is probably one of my longest blog posts, which is cool because it’s been a minute since my last post, and this issue is weighing heavily on my heart and mind in my final year of doctoral candidacy. Now, if I could simply find a career (not necessarily in this particular order) post dissertation completion that allows me to: 1) show the love and compassion of Jesus yet have the right to hold my own values and convictions, 2) exercise my love for teaching, research, and civic engagement while getting paid to do so, 3) be able to make a contribution to the field through my publishing and research, 4) make sure I have a personal life with time for my family and friends, 5) have my own business where I can focus on social issues and ministry needs that are directed toward those with less power and opportunity in life and finally, have the time to go to my Zumba and Body Pump classes every week; then I would be most figuratively in Heaven on Earth! 🙂

The Chilean Chronicles Blog (The US Return Extended Version)

Proverbs 4:7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

Tag Archives: Academia

Mini Vaca in Santiago, making new friends and colleagues.