To Alfred: I can identify with being rhythmically-challenged. My own theme song is Genesis's I can't dance. :)

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I'm on the third week of a month-long trip intended for research collaboration. The first two weeks were very productive.   I think at this point I can safely say that I've met the minimum expectations for this trip.  The "must have"s have been attained.  Beyond these, though, was a lengthy list of "nice to have"s and at the top of that list was discovering what it was I wanted out of the rest of my life as an academic. 

Two things that have become much clearer are that I really do want to be more actively engaged in research and that I do want to work more extensively with people outside the Philippines.  The wanting to do more research is, I suppose, a no-brainer.  I emphasize it, though, because, the way Philippine higher education is set up, you can go through your entire career as an academic and never engage in publishable research.  You can opt to just teach. You can opt to be an administrator.  This is not what I want for myself.  While an all-research load is improbable, I would like to try for research to be a substantial part of what I do.

On the second point about collaboration, I underscore the need for collaboration with people outside of the Philippines.  I say this not because I have a bias against my own people. This preference comes from the nature of my interests.  There are few people doing intelligent tutoring and affective computing in the Philippines. I think that working with people from the outside will help me grow in the fields, much more than trying to do things on my own.

I don't know the extent to which these dreams are achievable.  I'm definitely working towards them and all I can say is so far so good.