Scholarship to Korea, Winter Semester 2011

ASEAN Millennium Leaders College Student Exchange Program 2011

The ASEAN University Network (AUN) in collaboration with Daejeon University (DJU) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Korea are now ready to launch the ASEAN Millennium Leaders College Student Exchange Program between the Republic of Korea and ASEAN Nations 2011

Scholarship Information:
Full Scholarships covering tuition fee, room and board, roundtrip ticket, and living allowance, will be offered to 30 students from ASEAN Nations who interested to study in the fields of Social Science and ICT at Daejeon University for the year 2011-2012. The program is developed for international exchange students and classes will be taught in English.

Students will be given a chance to attend a 2-month internship programme at the leading organizations in Korea, namely United Nations-Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development (UN APCICT), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Korea-ASEAN Center, Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS), Korea Nuclear International Cooperation Foundation (KONICOF), Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, etc.

Admission Requirement:

Applicant must be a citizen of ASEAN nations and currently enrolled in College or University.

Undergraduate students majoring in Information Technology (e.g. Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical/Electrics Engineering, Communications Engineering or IT related major) or,

Undergraduate students majoring in Social Science Studies (e.g. Economics, Business, Public Administration, Political Science, International Studies) and Korean Studies

Applicant must has an excellent academic record (Should be in the top 10% of their classes)

Applicant must have a good command of written and spoken English.

Applicant must have a good medical record.


Timeline:
- Application Deadline: July 10, 2011
- Scholarship Announcement: July 30, 2011
- Arrival Date (Fall Semester): September 1, 2011
- Scholarship Period: September 2011 - June 2012

How to Apply:

Interested students should contact their International Relations Office for the application package.

Individual applications will not be accepted.

Applicants must submit the completed package and required documents to the AUN Secretariat through the International Relations Office of their University.

Students must send 1 copy of their complete applications to Daejeon University via mail.

Check with your University’s International Relations Office for result of selection process.

Participating universities are:
Ateneo de Manila University
De La Salle University
University of the Philippines


For more information and/or application form, please contact the AUN Secretariat at pornpen@aunsec.org

Spa in Seoul

Only two weeks are left before the spring semester ends. Exams. Papers. Stress level: 100, Word count: 0.
OMG.
I had to do something to at least make my body feel relaxed. I hope my mind follows after the matter.
It took an hour and a half to go to a spa in Apgujeong, Seoul that I saw on TV. It is owned my Lee Mi Na, a Korean news anchor. As is expected of spas, the ambiance is very relaxing and the minty scent just adds up to the relaxing and "happifying" feeling. The attendants are very courteous, too. They ushered be to wait on the couch for a while and served me a good brew of jasmine tea. I changed my clothes to a white robe and had a foot bath. I got an hour-long massage and facial, which were really, really super nice. I can't describe with words the tactile satisfaction I got from it but it was sooOo good. I'll go back there again for another detox session.

They offer various services (different kinds of peels, slimming, Oxygen treatment, Power Massage for Men,gold face pack, etc.) but I only availed the basic facial and massage.

How to go to Spa d' El:
Take the orange line. Get of at Apgujeong Station (after Shinsa Station). Take exit 4 and walk straight. After around 30 steps, you'll see Body Shop to your right. Go straight ahead and you'll see Global Plastic Surgery. It's a huge building and you won't miss it. Turn right. Walk for about 30 seconds and you'll see a huge church (forgot the name but it's made of red bricks) to the right. Opposite that church is the Spa. It's located on the 6th floor.

피곤해서 압구정 Spa d' El 갔고 마사지 잘 받았어요. 진짜 좋고 만족이었어요. 스파 가는 길: 압구정역, 4출구 나가고 똑바로 가서 (한3분) Global 성형 외과 볼 수 있어요. 오른쪽가고 (한1분) 큰 교회 보고 Spa d' El 왼쪽에 있어요.

Behavioral Therapy to Change an Effeminate Child

You can read the full article by following this link.

What I think about this aside from pitying the man, is this:

Homosexuality was considered a disease in the 1970s and it was only recently removed from the DSM-IV list of psychological illnesses. The funny thing is, until now, the most widely stated parallelism between homosexuality and disease is that the former is no different from kleptomania and other behavioral disorders. To move the argument further, ask: Is stealing (being a kleptomaniac) a sin? Should it be treated? One can confidently retort, "Of course!". By extension, is homosexuality a sin? Must it be treated? It's difficult to run counter to the analogy. However, homosexuality being more pervasive differs itself from behavioral illnesses, which are confined to a relatively smaller portion of the human population." Why then, is homosexuality such a widespread and contagious behavioral abnormalcy! And those afflicted must be suffering self-denial as, like the man who took his life in the article, one should not act according to the behavioral congruency of being gay. Thing is, if one dissociates from one's nature, it causes neurosis, it extinguishes life, and it crushes the soul.

Gangnam to the World

If you're in a foreign country and you know that your time is limited, it is a big shame to spend a weekend in a swivel chair and facebook the day away. It wasn't the case for me, amid the weather being overcast telling me not to go out. I had to set out on a familiar subway route boarding the train from Yeokgok Station and getting off at Gangnam-guchong Station (강남구청역, dark green line), for the district tour organized by Gangnam-gu (강남구). Seoul has 25 districts (구) but it is only Gangnam, as far as my email is concerned, that has sent me an invitation to become an honorary publicity ambassador. It is also only in this district where you will feel an air of sophistication, much like when I visited Manhattan, with the district being dotted with huge business buildings, museums, and commercial establishments. The thing is, I did not feel detached at all from the cultural face that Korea is projecting to foreigners. The culture and tradition was there, intermingled with modernity and much more.

So we arrived at the city municipal office and waited for about an hour for the other participants. There was a bus parked just in front of the building and we rightly suspected that it's for the trip. Sure enough, it was. We were welcomed on board by a very nice tourist guide, a friendly bus driver, and a bag of snacks and a water bottle. Small as the snacks were, they made me feel that the organizers took our needs to heart. The water bottle saved my day.

There were a lot of destinations in the trip but I liked Kukkiwon the most. I thought, gosh, we're going to Korea's top Taekwondo academy, and Taekwondo being Korea's national sport, I must be able to get a glimpse of how jins train hard and execute to perfection Taekwondo routines. The well-built jins started to do Taekwondo moves to a tune, as if it were easy kicking almost to a split and doing the spins and still landing with great balance and composure. The choreography was excellent. But I wanted to see the apples juiced and ply boards splintered. Well, those came right after a sparring, which still was done to a very upbeat tune. Surprisingly, it wasn't just apples and boards, there were swords and bells, too. I was privileged to see such a performance done in a place where Taekwondo was originally founded (Kukki). The exhibitions include jins somersaulting and crushing the apples pierced by the tip of a sword 12 feet up in the air. You can say that that's accuracy. I guess they'd feel awful if their feet touches the sword. And there was this jin who was blindfolded and was just listening to the sound of the bell, using it as his cue as to how distant he is from the apples. With a sharp, powerful somersault, he brought the apples down, and so was the crowd of spectators. At the end of the performance, we were allowed to step in the court and take photos with the jins. I also picked a splinter of wood not as a souvenir but in order to test whether I can break it into two at home, and how painful it is to try.


There were other highlights in the trip like the Garden Restaurant and Samsung D'light. All in all, it was a rewarding Saturday. I got the chance to watch the jins and meet the honorable Mayor of Gangnam Shin Yeon-hee. The freebie didn't stop with the water bottle; everyone also got a USB.

One Lucid Dream

Suddenly I found myself in a mission to help a certain man. I know he's not a stranger to me because I felt unthreatened following him for the mission. We drove a van into a small Mexican-like village, got off, and started walking through narrow alleys of soil and scattered stones. There were walls enclosing in on us as well as semi-dilapidated houses. You know you're in a shady place if you can just visualize what it looks like. I don't know exactly what we're about to do there but I felt that, as his assistant, going through the narrowest alley leading up to a flight of stairs was the only way to go.

We started to ascend and up there I saw a very beautiful lady. She looks like an American with Middle-eastern descent. Draped over her head till her shoulders is a silk cloth adorned with sophisticated patterns and colors. She did not allow us to see her head, but some big curls escaping the embrace of the veil obviate any need for that. She looks 30-ish, elegant, and wise. She couldn't have been any more as after the conversation she and my friend had, I knew she was living for centuries.

Urdu. That small potion of youth was the key to her eternal beauty. I don't know how my friend met her but it seems like something romantic has been going on between them. For the concoction to be potent, the Urdu needs some ingredients to be acquired. The lady has drank the only bottle left and I suppose it was our mission to obtain the other rare ingredients.

More talks between them, about youth, life, wisdom, love. I was standing in one corner of the room. I saw her figure oscillate between old age and elegance. I was not shocked. Instead, I thought about the powers of the Urdu. "Will you drink it?", asked the lady to my friend? "I will not kill a person", the other replied. It was hard on him. It's as if however strong his love for the lady, extracting a human life for the bottle remains out of the question.

The lady did not dare argue. She has lived a long life. I don't think she's a bad person. Her figure trembled. I saw her arm wrinkle up. Feeling that she would be drawing her last breath any minute now, she invited us to sit on the floor with her, paying more attention to me now than to my companion. She unrolled a small scroll and wrote numbers, marks, and arrows. "8611** is the combination. The instructions for making the Urdu can be found inside this cabinet", she told me, her chest barely touching the ground; only her arm supports her weight.. Her voice is shaking now. White hair covering the sides of her face. I can only see traces of her past glory. In my heart of hearts, I felt relieved that she was able to write everything down for the Urdu can yet be rediscovered. The lady started to loose her mind. She began to babble and doodle on the scroll. I felt awful. "So it's what happens...", murmured my friend.

The lady was not able to bid us farewell for death took her as swiftly as youth runs into her veins everytime she drinks the potion. Her old body now sprawls on the floor as if embracing it.

I know where the Urdu is. When I dream again I shall visit her place.
By the way, I can still remember the number combination after waking up.

Rejoicing

I was supposed to feel relieved, to say the least, that Bin Laden was killed finally on May 2, 2011 after 2 years short of a decade international manhunt. But something was stirring in my gut. I felt worried and perplexed about the extent Americans have reacted on the issue--jubilant, vengeful, veering towards moral looseness. As a foreign observer, it appears to me that killing Bin Laden can be construed more easily as an act of revenge more than anything else, more than delivering justice to all aggrieved by his terroristic activities, Americans and Muslims alike.
I suppose America would have to live now under more contempt from those who identify and sympathize with what Bin Laden has not brought with him in his death.
We're very fond of saying one's spirit lives on in a good, hopeful sense. But this time, unfortunately, the spirit that the US has tried to exorcise might prove to be inextricable from the corpus of Jihadist men and women.

So, who's the real terrorist?

If we adhere to the aphorism "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter", then terrorism, as a concept, is pure BS. All countries that have engaged in war and have built mounds of dead people, then, must be terrorists. And can states (including the civilians) really be terrorists? For me, a terrorist group is a highly committed organization of people whose membership is definite, with homogeneous belief systems. Its behavior inflicts damage without prior announcement, warning or proclamation of intended animosity, and of when and where it will strike. The prior qualification, by extension, can also make one man be labeled as a terrorist.

The US is a baddie, and it's equally (if not more) as bad as the al-Qaeda , but it is not a terrorist.



Modify and/or add your own definition.