Starting All Over Again

So I’m back to zero.  I want to start from scratch, to make this work better.  I even changed the name and theme of this blog, since I think the main theme will not be appropriate anymore.

I’m going to make this a frequent log of all the things that is happening and planning to make happen in my last remaining days here in Japan.  I hope when I read this years ahead, I would be reminded of that pain, that disappointment, the lessons, and the happiness that I gained while in this process.

I originally planned this site to be a daily log of my challenges in Masters application.  However, the plan didn’t turn out well.  A lot of consequent events happened, my work contract will be ending, I resigned from my company, and now my dreams of going to the university is now gone as well.  Looking back, there was nobody to blame.  And I know that.  Plan is not something I am good at and I hope this year, I will learn how to do it better.  That is why starting this day (or rather days ahead, I have been starting to think what to do already), I will try to plan carefully and not experience the same mistakes that I had today.

So this blog will be an enlightenment journey towards a more meaningful career ahead.  Be it as a graduate student, or an employee of another country.

All up and completed

With just a week of preparation for my essay, and several months of procrastination, I’m now in the final stage of my application, well, not so end, considering I still have to pass through interview.

I’m ready to submit my requirements.

I already got the last requirement the Philippines that I needed.  I already have planned what to do after studies.  And already decided on the focus of my research theme.  I am using the newly implemented online application system of IUJ, the school that I am trying to apply to.  All did go well, except for the part about Academic Institutions.  You see, in my country, we don’t have Grades 1-12, only 1-6.  But the validation in the site prevents me from submitting my info since according to the checking, I didn’t go through Grade 1-12. 

So okay, I have my forms ready (all online).  Checked.  I have my college certifications.  Checked.  Two recommendation letters.  Checked.  My pictures. Checked.  Money.. err.. to be paid later.  And Confidence? Err.. I would have to pass on this one.  I’m not quite ready actually.

Whatever happens to this application, should I pass or not, I am just glad that I went this far.  Trying is good.  Cramming for a deadline feels good as well (it’s been a while since school, really).  And anxiety?  Er.. I’m not quite looking forward to it.  My future now depends on my evaluators.  Hopefully I can impress them hahaha.. hopefully though.

Beating the deadline

I became an anti-social in the last party that I attended simply because I was so panicked and stressful in writing my master’s admission essay and research plan proposal.  The night before I went to Tokyo for the said gathering, I was informed through my googling that the research plan that I was writing is comparable to a mere college project proposal, even worst, that of a high school one.  So you wouldn’t believe my dismay while trying to write and re-write what I wrote during that entire week.  Yes, indeed, cramming is really bad.

At one point, I told myself to postpone the submission and move it to the next deadline.  But then again, I have been working on the papers since late last year (except the essay part) so I should be pursuing it, right?  Add to that, my time is running out here, so I really really need to put that into consideration.

Despite having doubts on this, plus the quality of the paper in which I myself isn’t in approval to, I will still try to pass (after receiving the final certification I needed from back home).  And then, the rest will be in God’s hands, to pass or not to pass.  Anyway, I told myself, there’s still other schools to apply to.  If this fails, I still gained experienced right?  Plus, no more rewriting of essay for next time, I can just submit what I wrote before, plus major enhancements.. hahahaha..

That’s for now.  Good luck to me!

Almost Complete

And so I decided to rush my essay and research project plan to be in time for the January 25 deadline.  I rewrote my essay and research plan.  I was planning to make a more personal tone in it, rather than sounding a class research paper because it would make me feel better saying things that I really mean rather than saying things to impress them.

I have a good feeling about my research plan, hopefully my panel will think the same way too.  I chose to stick with the subject of Information Technology while studying International Relations because I don’t want to lose the consistency of my resume, err..what I mean is professional career.

And lo and behold, I guess nature is just with me.  Two major issues about the use of IT in IR sprouted early this year.  One was the disaster that happened in Haiti, where because of several pleas over tweeter and facebook, help came in faster.  Another one, a more sensitive one, is about Google’s plan of drawing out of China due to issues of information hacking.

I just wish that my decision to do this is correct.  I hope I’m in the right school.  And I hope, that there will be jobs out there for me after graduation.  I was kind of worried because it’ll be a little different from what I used to do.  And I hate it to be in a place wherein I cannot work normally since I know almost nothing about it.

January 25 is up.  This is now or never.  God bless to me!

Change of Plans

Well, this blog has been stagnant for a while.  So I decided to make a little change on this. 

I will make this blog less serious and more personal.  I kinda like writing without being pressured of sounding like someone from a newspaper (not even a good writer to be one anyway).  Instead, I’ll make this a blog journey towards my goal of acquiring masters on international relations.  So on with the reading..

News recently
The deadline before the next schedule of submission for Domestic applicants for the university I chose is Jan 25.  It’s only less than 2 weeks and I have not completed all of the essays and I’m still missing one requirement from my school.  Hay.. It was beginning to be stressful already.  I don’t feel like writing the essay and the research plan anymore.  It’s more like I’m forcing myself to do it, just to get back to school.  And I know, that is not the correct heart to have when you are applying for something like this.  This can basically change the course of your life, after your graduate, if you are accepted.

I wanted to read the articles I got from the internet about my chosen topic, Information technology and International relations.  However, it’s just this cold and dull weather that is keeping me down (okay go, blame the weather).  I kept finding good articles and they kept on filling because I haven’t read half of them.. Shesh, I only love collecting huh.

The Fall of Berlin Wall Anniversary

November 9 1989 was one of the most memorable events in history of the present Germany today. It was the time when the walls that used to divide them has been finally torn down. It was the time that they can go back to their families in the West or vice-versa. It was a time of the real liberation of the united Germany. It is the start of the fall of communism in Europe.

I personally have no further knowledge other than that regarding the reason why the wall has been constructed in the first place nor, I am aware of the issues and the events prior to the fall of the wall. But it did remind me of the divided Korea right now. Both were divided countries at the start, but now Germany has already achieve the long awaited unification since 1950s, while the latter, well, the war that they were is still in peaceful slumber.

There were actually 3 countries as far as I know, who became divided countries before. They are: Vietnam, Germany, and Korea. As the first two already achieve their unification, it was still not clear as to when that will happen to Korea. I wonder if it will still happen, considering a lot of factors are already contributing to the complexity of unifying the two Koreas. What do you think?

South Korea and The Philippine: A Mini Comparative Study

Having read this article in Inquirer, I was again reminded by my fascination with the patriotism of South Koreans. There were a lot of similarities between South Korea and the Philippine’s history timeline, but seeing things now, it’s an undeniable fact that the Philippines is really far behind South Korea.

(the real)Liberation:
The Philippines – 1946 (from the US)
South Korea – 1953 (after the Korean War)

Based on the years above, both started in almost the same decade.

Let’s put the spotlight in the Philippines first:
1946 – Start of the actual Philippine government establishment. A constitution was created based on the US constitutional law.
1960s- this is a period of great economic growth. The Philippines was considered by many as one of the wealthiest countries in Asia. The South Koreans envied us. Ferdinand Marcos was the incumbent president during this period.
1972 – Martial Law was declared. There were several protests everywhere in the country but still economic development continued but with excessive fundings.
1987 – With Marcos out of power through EDSA people revolution, a new government arose. This time headed by Corazon Aquino, the wife of the assassinated opposition leader during Marcos regime. Slow economic growth was brought by huge national debt, coup ‘d etat, and Islamic conflict in the south.
1992 – Ramos Administration. The country was named as one of the Tiger economies of Asia but was short lived due to the 1997 East Asian financial crisis.
Present – Continuous corruption which brought about a very slow economic growth in the Philippines.

So what about South Korea:
1953 – the government of South Korea has finally started to be established after the Korean war. Since the country has just gotten out of war, South Korea was considered as one of the poorest nation during that time.
1960s – Park Chung hee, South Korea’s greatest leader but also considered as a ruthless military dictator headed the South’s aggressive economic growth plan. It was short-lived as he was assassinated in 1979.
1980s and beyond – Though marked with a lot of protest in the entire South Korea, economic growth of the nation continued to rise. The fruit of Park Chung Hee’s economic plan has continued to bring great economic growth to the country. Though they were also severely affected by the Asian Crisis of 1997, they were quick to recover and the country is now known as one of the Four Asian Tigers.

There are a lot of similarities in this timeline. Both countries were victims of previous wars. Both were once headed by a vicious leader that brought the country to economic success. Although the Philippines were first to achieve great economic growth, at the end of the century, the South Koreans were able to surpass it. Both were poor countries from the start but the former had been stuck into being what they were used to be known. And both, are from one region, which is Asia.

It is surprising to see how these two almost equally same countries can now seem to be so apart. Corruption is not an unfamiliar issue in South Korea too, but somehow they were able to manage to get out of that stronghold. As early as the the 1960s, the South Koreans were already sending out contract workers, remitting back money to their country. You’re see the Filipinos engaging in the same situation now. While South Koreans bring home the technology and the knowledge they gained from working overseas during that time, the Filipinos choose to stay and continue to live and never come back.

What can have brought to this difference? The article mentioned Patriotism, but is this the only ingredient that is lost in the economic recipe of the Philippines? If all of us are Patriotic, would that alone give the Philippines its long awaited economic success?

Looking back at the history, the Philippines were once inhabited by different barangays which was headed by different sultans. Since the Philippines in an archipelago country, each of these islets became small countries itself, having different dialects and culture as well. If you ask a Filipino who is from different parts of the Philippines, they will give great pride to their origins, since for them, they are Cebuano/Ilokano/Ilonggo. You can’t hide the fact that there is regional belongingness among Filipinos. I believe one factor that is lacking in us Filipinos is the central nationalistic awareness. Filipinos have to break free from the notion that each only belong to their own groups, Cebuanos/Ilokano/Ilonggo or only part of certain religion such as Islam, INC, etc. Though they speak in different languages, they stand in the same archipelago. They stand for the same flag. They have the same ancestors. They are all Filipinos.

Seeing that the recent issue of the DSWD brought a temporary nationalistic wind among Filipinos, I do hope that this can intensify and far reach into broader horizons. This hopefully will be the start of a new revolution. Hoping that in the future, the Philippines will also be known as one of the greatest economy in Asia.

Resources:
Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_korea, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines
Korea, The original mind map of the Korean consciousness by Won-bok RHIE

Climate Change – Blog Action Day 2009

I stumbled upon this event in twitter from a blogger who’ve been involved in the same event for almost three years now. I decided to join in the bandwagon. This annual event is for bloggers around the world who post the same issue during October 15. As I read from this site, this year’s topic is about climate change. Since climate change is an international issue, I decided to make a post about it here in my blog.

My Experience with Climate Change

I remembered some mid-1990s when I first heard about El Nino. I learned from school that it’s about having lesser rain and higher temperature. From that year on, the weather started to change. We would have El Nino in one year, then La Nina in the following year. I was never in an apparent awareness that time, because 1, no one thought it’s unusual, and 2, nothing bad really happened, yet. Starting five or six years ago, the unusualness of the weather finally caught my attention. We would always have unusual rains, even without typhoon warnings, thus we get unusual floods. Summers are more hotter, the cold season’s temperature at one time dropped to 16c. The sky would always looks so cloudy. I rarely see the blue clouds anymore. At night, there would always be lightning, but no thunder. Although I never see this lightning issue as connected with the change of weather, I still find it odd to appear, with no apparent rain or so all through the night. Can it be part of the change? Maybe since it happened not long after the weird weather change.

Japan, the eco-friendly country

I would always praise this country, which has been my residence for almost 2 years now, in combating global warming. Some may say that their practices can already be too much, but I never complain about it and would always think that preparing for the future is the best cure. Here, we are always required to separate our wastes, biodegradable and non-biodegradable. There are designated garbage dumping sites, and designated days for trash collection. New eco-friendly appliances are developed nowadays. The government even attracts citizens into buying these appliances by offering eco-points which can be used to retrive other gifts. And the biggest eco-friendly project (which too bad will not happen anymore) is the supposedly Tokyo Summer Olympics of 2016. It showcased Japan’s nature loving principle but inducing eco-friendly buildings such as the big olympic stage with will be powered by solar completely.

The recent calamities back home

My country, the Philippines, unfortunately, has never largely propagated the issue on global warming nor climate change. For once, I think being a developing country, focus is much more directed in other important issues that directs to development. However, with the recent 2 typhoons that had killed hundreds and took away homes from thousands of people, the issue of climate change was finally brought to the spotlight. Nobody was aware that it would and could bring that kind of devastation and it was really sad to think that the awareness would only come after something bad has happened already.

I hope, with the fad of social media, many of those countries who are unaware about the ill effects of global change would finally be reached out and find ways to combat it with the world. Let’s not wait for something bad to happen in order to do action. Prevention is still the best. Let’s save our world. We can never get any replacement for it.

Want to go to North Korea?

Last week, I watched several video clips on North Korea on youtube.  I never thought that there would be videos about the country since I know North Korea to be a very closed country, to the point that they even filter news coming out of their country.  At first, the videos seems surreal for me.  I thought they were re-enactments of the “real” North Korea but seeing the flags and the enormous space which probably isn’t possible for a re-enactment stage, I was finally convinced.

Initially, travel to North Korea interested me through this blog.  In this blog, the author depicts the story of their North Korea adventure.  They went on a very unusual path going to North Korea through rail from Vienna, to Russia, then finally to North Korea.  I was surprised that he was able to come out alive after 4 days of stay in Pyongyang, and had to be thankful for his safe escape else this blog would not be alive.

North Korea, if you will have a simple mind picture of this country, what would you see?  I imagine ghostly roads, depleted buildings, military men everywhere, and full of dampened air.  Apparently the video clips that I watched last week confirmed to me exactly that image, except that they have nice architectural structures that look like they are housed in a big museum.  The people looked like a facade.  They walk as if they are told to do so.  Everything to me looked fabricated.  Even their clothes almost looked the same.  There are no kanbans, no commercial stores, no riot, not a single loud noise.  Everything was overly perfect, even the movements of their human stop light (which was performed by women).

If I were to live in that country, I don’t think I can survive, having no internet connection available to the public.  I can’t even imagine how these people enjoy themselves, or if they know enjoyment for that matter.  Their TV screens only flashes whenever the government wants them to watch something.  They are forced to project fake smiles in front of the foreigners.  They cannot own phones, or anything that is used for communications, nor they are allowed to travel outside the country.  Everything seemed to be restricted for them.

If there comes the time that these citizens are allowed to speak for themselves, to be heard by the entire world, I wonder what things they are going to say.  Koreans are known to be “prideful” people.  This personality of them was brought by numerous attempt to colonize their country centuries before.  They developed this as a barrier, their protection to perservation.  Having said that, it might be possible that these people are trying to live by that principle so hard that they try to be very patient.  Call them stubborn, but that is just how Koreans are molded by history.  But, being in the era of globalizationalism, I think that that attitude might be a little outdated for a country.

Personally, I pity those people.. but on the backside of the coin, I understand them (having read a book about Koreans).  I just hope that the time comes when they will be ready to welcome the world and discover that there are better things than what they actually see.

Here is a video about a group of journalists who traveled to North Korea –> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSMQrMV5vcM (the video was disabled to be embedded by request)

Where it all started

As mentioned in my intro, this unusual (well, unusual for me) interest was brought by my trip to South Korea last month. Never did I had any great interest to anything politics before this trip. However, for some reason, being in the same place where war had been happening almost 50 years ago, I can’t help but feel moved.

I read a few article about the Korean War (if you can consider wiki pages as articles haha). I thought civil wars are entirely caused by internal conflicts involving people from within. The definition says it so, but it usually concerned some external group, such as the case of the Korean War and Vietnam War. The main conflict? The clash between the communists and the non-communists, with the communists group usually backed up by bigger nations such as Russia and China, while the non-communists group by the United States and its allies (will not mention as they are so plenty.haha..)

From then on, I wonder why the US is spearheading the fight against communism. I can understand why in the context of “communism” but why would a country such as the US would go out of its way to fight against it. Are they seeing something other countries don’t? Is that their indirect way of putting all other countries under their umbrella? Or are they just a rightful country to fight against this?

On the other side of the story, we have China and Russia, who are known to be communist countries. Both have a pride to brag, with China owning most people in the world with their huge population and Russia being the biggest country in the world. But looking at the bigger picture, most of us, living in smaller countries, tend to look up to the US, without considering the power of these nations. This doesn’t only mean politically but culturally. Whatever US says, US must do. We think all caucasians in the world is from the USA (well, at least in my country, this is how we look at this). Most, if not all, of things which came from the USA are good.

US is not even a great nation to begin with centuries ago. Browse through your history books, and it mentions China or the Roman Empire or the Latin Nations. It’s a nation under Europe way before, but looking at it now, they are up there, higher than all of those European countries. I know I have not read enough history on this and I hope to learn about that in the next days, and be cured from this questioning.

Research is a science itself. You have a question. You make a hypothesis. And then start the actual research itself. With limited resources (as there are no library nearby which offers English books), I hope to find my answers to my questions. And make this understanding a start for something deeper.