A day at C-Point

It was five ‘o clock in the afternoon. Some high school students were walking on the street; they were talking to each other with bright smiles. One guy held a big plastic bag which was full of food; he walked fast to meet his family. At five p.m. everyone finished their daily tasks and they were heading home to rest. However, at five p.m., some people started their work with splendid lights, loud noisy music, and high-sharp tones of female voices; people call that place, “C-Point.”

When I entered Field’s Avenue, the world changed; although it was just a few miles away from the main road, C-Point was totally different from other places. There are a lot of bars, clubs and women who had thick make-up and they disguised themselves using artificial smiles. One woman who was almost naked tried to tout customers; with “Free blow-job” printed in large font on her clothes. This is usual in C- Point. Many people go there for girls, drinks and fun; I could smell people’s sexual desires. While I was looking around Field’s Avenue, suddenly I felt weird; something didn’t mix with my surroundings. Soon, I found the reason why I felt weird. There was one club which was really different from the other clubs. In front of that club, there were no women who were bare and no splendid lights; there was music, one girl and an old lady. The name of that club was “ d’Club.”

Unconsciously, I already walked toward d’Club. Then, I started to talk with the old lady. Her name is Marlene, 42; everyone in the club called her Mommy Marlene. She is the floor manager of the club. Before she worked in club, she worked in the hospital because her husband died, and she became a widow so she needed to earn money by herself. She was really hurt during that incident in her life. She was so lonely and emotionally down. She had an emotional breakdown, to the point that she couldn’t accept her job in the hospital. Thus she resigned at the hospital then started to work in the club. Besides, in the hospital, she was in charge of delivery but her compensation was really low. Her salary was 1,500 pesos/ half a month. Now, she earns 1,500 pesos for two nights. And she is satisfied with her job as a floor manager.

According to her, “d’Club” is quite different from other clubs. All the workers such as dancers, floor managers, bartenders, and DJs in the club are all females. Also, she said that there are no strict qualifications for becoming a guest relation officer(GRO) as a dancer; all that dancers need to do is simple: Stage disco. Their work start from five p.m. to five a.m. Mommy Marlene said, “Dancers talk with the customers. Though there are some bars here that do ‘ALL-THE-WAY,’ but we don’t do that because the employees here are not really GROs; they are dancers. But they are still entertainers.” According to her, there are no certain obligations to work. Employees in the club are not after the length of service. The girls there may work as long as they like, and may go anytime they want to; no matter what the reason is. She added, “All of them are new in the field. In my case, I’ve been working here for only five months. No one works here for so long because most of them find a foreigner husband. All girls here are clean. We only offer “Ladies Drink” – wherein customers drink with ladies, then they can go home afterwards. It is because our English owner dislikes that. He treats us, as if he is also a Filipino. He doesn’t want malice.” Lastly, I asked her what is the hardest thing to do? She said, “Nothing.”

Many people think that most of them who work at C-Point are prostitutes, but in fact, some of the employees at C-Point are just ordinary workers. They are just struggling to survive in the dog-eat-dog world like us. Usually, people have negative prejudices about people who work at C-Point, but they are just our sisters, friends and neighbors. Although people have minor job, we cannot blame person itself.

I am not passive anymore

This week, we learned three theories; two of them are regarding with relationship between media and its audiences and the other one is about communication. Among three theories, I really prefer to wirte about the spiral of silence because I experienced it many times as a victim of that.

According to the spiral of silence, fear of isolation is the key force that drives the spiral of silence.Usually people don't want to be different from others; we can feel the distance if people are different from us in terms of physical appearance or opinion. When everyone says, “Yes” it is so hard to say, “No.” However my cases are something different. I should be silence whether I want or not. The reason was that I am nuturally different from others in the Philippines;I am a foreigner and I can't speck Tagalog so my classmates(not only our classmates but also classmates from other courses because I am irregular student) felt that I was different. That is why they wanted me to be silent . When I was first year and second year, I really hated group work; my group mates didn't ask anything about projects; they just gave me order. I didn't want to be treated that kind of way; I wanted to say and do something but I didn't have choice then. I should be silent because I experienced the fear of low grade(It's horrorble.) If someone ask, “why didn't you tell about it to your classmates then?”, my answer will be, “ I tried but they didn't care; whether I told it or not, it was same.” What I did to overcome this is that I started to make my own group, and I tried to do my best. I thought that if I want to change something, I should show them some nice outputs. First time, it was hard to do it, but time goes by, I changed what they think about me; now, I don't have any problem. I don't blame my classmates(not only our classmates but also classmates from other courses)about what I experienced because I understood why they did it.

I think that this experience gave me lots of positive effects on me. Although it started with negative effects, if I don't have that experience, I cannot be who I am now. This is what I experienced about the spiral of silence. I learned really precious lesson from this that if I want to change something to become positive, before I try to change others, I should change by myself first. I am not passive anymore.

I explored ITunes U for one day.

Oh!! I stopped my blog for more than 3 months. Yeah! I was kind of busy recently but now, I have time to do something becasue the projects I had are done. I am using Itunes since yesterday and I am continuously downloading video and audio lectures. Till now, I roamed 8 universities; among 8, Berkeley University has the best contents in terms of quality and quantity. You can notice from this picture that there are a lot of lectures.

Nowadays, I am interested with computer programs so I checked the lectures regarding with computer programming in Berkeley University. Oh! My God! They are professional programming structures and data structures and so on so I quickly moved the page back. hehe. I am not sure that video and audio lectures give you help to get an applicable knowledge or not, but I think that it is better than nothing, if you can understand them. A! One more thing! If you visit the site of Stanford University, at your right side of the monitor, you can see “download top 10.” The top 1 is the speech of Steve Jobs during graduation of Stanford(maybe); it is just 15 minutes long but his speech is really interesting. I guess that most of the people who are successful in the society are kind of like outsiders; they are somewhat different from the ordinaries. Probably that made them become successful.

Go back to Itunes, One more useful thing for me from Itunes is Podcasts, I knew that there was Podcasts in this world; it is used by plenty of users. Surely, my interest is English so I explored language section; I found one lecture series for better writing by “Grammar Girl.” I clicked download for whole parts, also I added, “Just vocabulary.” As a result, non I have 300 download lists;I am so greedy. Right? I guess I download them during whole weekend. And one good thing is that I thought files can be played only through Itunes, but based on my experience, they can be played using other players. Therefore, you can put them in your mp3 after converting.

I really admire what Apple is doing, they are gainnig money form the public and they are returning some to the public through various ways. Anyway I hope that you can find good lecture. There is always a way, if you want to do something. Promote pm your own for your future; without investigation, you cannot achieve anything. I will not download anymore until I finish all of those I downloaded. I am so happy now because I have lots of thing to do.

please put subtitle.

I really wanted to understand what they said; frankly, I could not understand what are contents of documentary because narrations were Tagalog. During film viewing, Ma’am Virgie excused me that they will speck Tagalog for that time. I understood about it. I think that I am student who study in the Philippines so I respect their culture and languages. And Koreans are same as Filipino. If there are Koreans, they speck Korean instead English so it’s same anyway Let’s go back to documentary. Hum… Reaction paper of documentaries? Actually, I don’t have a lot of comment on them. I just watch the visuals and sound that’s all but the visuals were enough to make some comment to me. Recently, I did lots of editing such as VJ Hunt, RTV projects and E-NEW room so now I am more interested with many programs and way of editing. I will not mention each of them because I don’t want to criticize their good works; I think that whether they are good or not, all of them are worthy; I know that we were just watch their final products but behind of documentary there were groups efforts and hard works and I know that some of them get help from someone. I noticed some weakness from them on editing 1. When sound transferred to another sound, it was sudden loud so it bothered audiences. 2. Sounds were not synchronized with scenes. 3. Some scenes were too long, although those scenes had not really significant meaning. I could not find more, becasue wihtout knowing contents, it is so hard to edit. Anyway they were good and I learned what format of documentary is. I am sure that next year if I produce documentary, this experience will help me to produce better documentary and i will put English subtitle.

Oh~~!! Korea~~!

Oh~! Only 9 days are left until Dec. 14. Just nine days later, I will be in Korea with my family. However, there are hindrances that I need to take my preliminary exam and I need to finish my two projects in RTV. That is why, for two weeks, I am busy to take my exams. I think, although those are not really easy, I can make it, because I want to take a rest in a peace. OH~!! My God. I really miss Korea now.

hu~!!

Nowadays, I try to be aware of my pronunciation. When, I practice speaking, I can find what my faults are. However when I talk with other people, I commit many mistakes.
Meaning to say, I need to have more exercise. I always imagine that I speck and write English as native speaker. Practice will make perfect; efforts can make anything possible. These are what I believe.

what is good for society?

November 29, 2007 , Antonio Trillanes IV, Brigadier General Danilo D. Lim, and 25 other Magdalo officers walked out during their trial and they seized the Manila Peninsula Hotel , Makati City. They were joined by former vice-president Teofisto Guingona Jr., who called the gathering "New Edsa". They were also joined by other military personnel and civilians carrying M-16 or M-14 rifles.

The rebels demanded President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo step down. "We are joining our people in calling for a change in leadership. We call on the military to withdraw support for Mrs. Arroyo in order to end her unconstitutional and illegal occupation of the presidency," said Army Brigadier-General Danilo Lim, according to AFP reporters inside the hotel.However their rebellion was just ended after six hours by the Philippine military which sent 1,500 extra troops to the Manila Peninsula Hotel.

There was rebellion in 2003 by same member of rebellion in 2007. In 2003, Philippine government treated them in peaceful way to solve problem but this year, Philippine government used military forces. And this has positive after effects, because it is the kinds of warning to the people who want to rebel.

In case, their rebellion is finished successfully, what will be happened? That Successful rebellion will make a precedent. Meaning to say, people may think that it is possible that if they want to change a policy of government, they can rebel against government. And these kinds of thought will bring out a chaos of society; there is potential threat for government. The public will be suffering by chaos.

Famous philosopher Socrates respected a law, whether law is good or bad, because he thought that a law is a appointment in the society that is agreed by everyone, so people must keep it. Although he died by a law, he kept it. Everyone knows that a law has evil practices and sometimes, people take advantage of it.

However, if people use physical forces to fix that evil practice, that situation will lead society to anarchy. There is a proverb that, “Out of frying pan and into the fire.” Sometimes, people commit mistake that for fixing one problem, they destroy a whole. A solution of problem must be come from in a law of society; that is a democracy. The rebels should think what good for society is before they do something.

Now, I can hug anyone if they want

.
I think that EVT should apply different ways in the various cultures of different societies. Korean’s space expectation is really different from Filipino’s. Expectancy Violation theory reminds me my experience in the Philippines. Maybe that time was first SEM, last year. I was in the A Building 4th floor then, and I saw my friends there. My friends won a competition (I can’t remember what competition is.) so I congratulated their good works. Among my friend, there was unfamiliar face to me. Suddenly she hugged me same as my friend. I was really surprised and embarrassed because she violated my space expectation. However, my friends didn’t care about it, for them that was expectable space between her and me.In Korean, that kind of situation happens rarely. Most Koreans have strong space expectation because of Korean’s culture. Hugging is allowed between close friends. If a Korean is not familiar with person, they should respect the space of Korean.I have been here for more than two years and six months. Now, I can hug anyone if they want. Hahha. I adapted to Philippine culture well.

Time to change

with John~~!!

These days, I continuously search about job. After, I wrote my editorial, I am shocked. I already sign up three website related to job searching. I realize that I think getting a job is not hard but in fact, that is super hard. Companies want to have many requirements from the people who want to apply.

However, I have nothing; it makes my feeling nervous. I need to start practical things to get a job now. Before do something, I should arrange what I need to do. Frankly, I am doing many things inefficiently. And I should add works to prepare for my future.
I still have one year, I must change by myself. I am not the one who is took care by others. I am one of the members of this cruel society. I must wake up.

Getting a Job in Korea: A surviving game

Nowadays, many new wards are created in Koran; there are related with unemployment. For example, NG(No Graduation) student who postpone graduation till he/she gets a job, and “Li-GU-Back” which means 90 percent of people who are belonging to age between 20 to 30 don’t have a job. These new words explain well about the situation of employment of Korea. If a person want to get better job, he/she needs to beat almost 300 people, meaning to say, if a company wants to hire 30 employees, 9000 people apply to get a job. In this situation, if a person gets a job, people think that he is the winner of surviving game in the society. Based on the research of Korea government, 40% of people who are belonging to age between 20 to 30 don’t have Job. This phenomenon was begun since 1994. Unemployment in Korea is already one of the biggest threats of development of Korea.

To solve this problem, the Ministry of Labor in Korea supported 40 million dollars to universities and companies, but they wasted the money for Job fairs which were just temporary events, so it didn’t help to solve essential problem. Also Korea government spent four billion dollars for three years to solve this problem, it produced jobs in the part of social insurance. However, it was not helpful to find a job to the people because it was not related with their interest and talent.

Moreover, in August 2006, Korea government made a law that if a probationary employee works in a company for more than two years, a company must hire him to be a regular employee. It seems like good for the employees. However, companies took advantage of it; companies fired their probationary employees before they work for more than two years and find new one. Korea government intended to reduce probationary employees however among 1,500,000 employees, 60 percent of them,8,500,000, are probationary employees now, and probationary employees increased 20 percent than last year. As a result, People don’t want to have that kind of job; people want to have stable job. This is the one of the reason to increase unemployment’s rate.

We need to have more essential way for solving this problem. It needs to start with education system. More than 30 percent of fresh graduate students get a job which is not regarding with their course. The reason is that when they choose their course, they find what they can afford to enter university based on their grade; it is one of the causes for making problem to find a job. If a person has certain plan in life based on his/her interest and talent, he/ she doesn’t weed out in the society. Thus, people should avoid planning their future based on trend, incredible information or impulse decision. We need to educate people steadily. They can minimize their mistakes by systematic education and job training which really important project individually and nationally. They are the essential treatment for solving this problem.

Pursue the job

Today, I searched about employment of Korea for writing editorial for my class. I chose this topic because I knew that employment is really serious problem in Korea nowadays so I thought that there are many things to talk about it; my expectation is right.

After searching about it, I feel bad and quite worry about my future. According to my resources, 40% of people who are belonging to age between 20 to 30, don’t have a job and person need to beat 300 people. For example, if company wants to hire 30 employees, 9000 people apply to get a job from company.

That is why, people often say, “Li-GU-Bak” which means 90% percent of people who are belonging to age between 20 to 30 don’t have a job. This is just joke but it indicates what situation they encounter. They study English hardly for getting a job; they try to graduate university as possible as late because they expect that if time goes, the situation will be better; situation cannot be worse then now.

And I will be one of them soon; I need to adventure our society. That is why, their story is not others who I don’t need to take care, that will be my story. I hope that one years and half months later, the situation will be better than now.

Time goes by so fast.

I still remember last January when I saw fireworks for celebrating New Year; that was already 10 months ago. Also it means that I am turning to 26 years old. I used to say that age is just number but nowadays I think that age is not only just number, age is something.

Nowadays, I often think about my future. I want to do many things; I want to help my mother to enjoy her life, traveling Europe, and taking care of my sister. Simply, I don’t want to be took care by others, I am the one who take care of others. I feel sorry to the people who take care of me, specially my mother. I want to be their mainstay of life.

Maybe next year also goes by so fast and I will graduate soon. That time, I will become really adult who has responsibilities in life.

Byebye Kei~~~!!!

Hum… If we meet someone, there is a parting day. I think, no one can be together forever. And that’s sad. I’ve been with Kei for more than five months but I cannot believe that; I think that it is just one or two months. Kei is really good brother. He always takes care of me, and he want to give many things to me.

Sometimes, I feel that he is so cute and pure; He is childlike and he is easy going with other people. That is why, I can easily make a friend. For more than five months, I made lots of memories with him.

This Dec. 8, he will be back to Korea. I know that he needs to go there and find a good job; he leaves here for good. However I feel quite sad that someone who is important to me will be apart from me; that makes me sad.

Yet, I know that I will have our relationship with him continuously till end of my life. That is why, I can let him go. And when the time we meet again, we can show our better changes each other. I will pray for him to achieve his goals.

Life~~!!

last December in Korea with hyo-Ju and John

I believe in God. Whenever I encounter important alternatives in life, He guided me in the right way. And now, I am in the Philippines under His will; I met many important people in my life in here. I think, there is fatality in life. Although every events happen randomly, there is cause and occasion for each event. I never knew that who I will meet in the Philippines. But I already met Ma’am Virgie, Ki-Bok, Hyo-Ju. John and Kyang-Hyun. I am sure that they are already important in my life and they will be important people for my future.

I think that is life- -making a relationship with others. I already made lots relationship with other people. Sometimes those relationships gave my sorrows and pain but after overcoming them, I can feel that I grow up; at least I learned something from there. Thus I am not afraid of making a relationship. I want to meet many people and experience many things with them as much as I can.

improving????

Nowadays, I translate our church’s sermon. When my guardian told me that now you are the one who translate sermon to English, I thought it will steal my time a lot. The first week, I spent more than six hours to translate it. This week is my third week of translating sermon. I finished it for three and half hours today. Hehe. Good thing is that it helps me to improve my English writing. And now I feel that I am improving little by little. So I think, I will keep on doing this until my graduation.

I imagined two years later. Maybe I am good in writing heheh .Also I started to practice reading and speaking. I really hope that I can have good English skill two years later.
Hum. That’s great~! When I feel that I am improving, I am super happy. Cheer up Charles. Heh.

OH~~!!

They are my house mates...^^


I never know that dreaming is super tired. For more than 10 days, I have a dream every night.
This makes me super tired. Sinece last night, my body is malfunctiong. I have head ache and I feel that my body is like heavy stone. That is why, I didnt do anythings yesterday.


To solve this problem, I searched internet but I could not find anything to help this problems.
Actually I tried many ways. Someone told me, "If yourbody is tired, I won't have dream." so I had hard exercise but it didn't work. Another way, I slept at 1 p.m so I became too sleepy and I won't have a dream. However, that way was failed. Even I slept early.. I did many things but everything does'nt work. So i gave up.


I don't know what to do. If you know any kinds of ways to aviod dreaming. Kindly teach me.
T.T

My mind is fully messy... T.T

Sometimes, I got hard time writing something. Many ideas are in my head, but I don’t know how to bring out. Usually in this case, my mind is messy or I am tired. Yesterday and today are the days which I mentioned above. A! There is one more. Something is too private, I cannot write. I don’t want to show my weakness to other. I don’t know why. I guess that the reason is that since when I was young, I cannot express my problem to other. My mother is always busy to works and my sister was young. Thus I could not share it with them. And if I show my problem or agony, my mother will get hardship. I really didn’t want to bother my mother because, she really worked hard for us; she was always tired.

Anyway, today my mind is too messy; I think about something. So I cannot write something properly. Even I can feel that this essay is also messy.

OH~~!! MY GOD~~!!!

Today…. I had a presentation in Media Management about strategic alliances.
My group mates are Perz and Jaimee. They did a good job; I am satisfied with our presentation. However I was quite angry by myself.

The reason is that I did poor job.. I spoke so fast and my pronunciations were terrible.
That is why, I disappointed by myself. I have been here for more than two years and four months. However my English is still not too good. I need to practice more. So I decide to read loudly a English book a hour in a day. I don't know, I can keep this for a long time but I must
keep it...

Probablely after 2 months later.... I can feel something different from now~~~!!

and today I talked a lot with my class mates they are so kind... I love them... hahah.....

I am mama's boy~!!! ^^

This is my lovely sister..

She is realy different from me...

Some one told me," you are cursed." T.T In fact, I am carbon copy of my father...

she is carbon copy of my mother. That's it....

Frankly my mother is like my best friend.... I don't hide anythings to her, so she knows everythings about me....^^ Since, when I was elementray, I was so close with my mother..

of course, even now it's same. That is why, people who don't know much usually told me that I ama " mama boy." Yes... I am mama's boy, if mama's boy means that the boy who really super so much love his mother.. I surely say that I am... I love my mother so much...

However, I am different from usual mama's boy... I don't too much depend on my mother's

opinion. Since when I was 14 years old. My mother always tell me that "If you want to do, do it

but responsiblility is yours."( like Spider Man ha??? heheh) And she don't force me to do anything; she just give advice to me. My decision is always from me.

Two years ago, my mother asked me that "do you want to go to the Philippines to tudy English? If you want, I will let you go there. " Thus I said, "Yes." That is why , I am here now. I am sure that my mother is quite lonely, becasue my sisther is always with her friend not with my mother. When i was in Korea, I was used to hang out with my mother but now, I am here so my mother is quite lonely.... T.T

While ago, I made a phone call to my mother. We talked for 20 min, til all balance of calling card was gone; my stresses was gone also..she always give me energy for everythings.. we didn't talk about something important or serious. we talked Just trivial things but I could not fell that time goes on; I had really fun with her.

Now. I miss my mother too much... I will go to Korea on December 14. I am anxious to see my

mother... I already made plan with her.. We will watch play..... However, if I see her, I will be sad, because on one can avoid time.... when I see my mother's wrinkles, I am sad....

I must to study hard to make my mother happy and better future......

The praternity which is potential threat to the students.

What can you imagine that if you hear word, “fraternity”? The original fraternity is a group of people who share their certain interests and help each other. However, nowadays, it is changed; usually people have negative ideas of fraternity. Even someone thinks that fraternity is harmful to the students. If It is so what’s happening with fraternity in the school?

The one of AUF student said, “There are some fraternities in the AUF; before when you join fraternity, it is good but now, fraternity are a group of people who usually the gang that does bad.” And she added that some names of fraternities and mostly those which vandalized walls were written by them; even some teachers are members of fraternity.

Most serious problem in fraternity is that there is what people call "hazing" which old members of a fraternity torture the people who are trying to be a member of a fraternity. Another AUF old student said, basically, old fraternity was for good. When there was a new one though they also have hazing, it wasn't as severe as fraternity nowadays. For instance, let's say there is a new one. Since the old members of a fraternity need to test the new one whether they are gonna allow a new one to join the fraternity or not. In hazing, they tell the new one that they are gonna blindfold him or her and they tell the new one that he or she is gonna walk on the cracks of a glass. However, the old members of a fraternity will change the cracks of a glass into popcorns after they blindfold the new one. It is a matter of testing a new one's trust on the old members of a fraternity.

This was done before. But now, it is totally different. The old members of a fraternity REALLY hit and torture new ones because they are doing "hazing." Few people even die because of hazing. Another example for hazing is that we can see it occasionally near AUF. A group of guys run beneath the school with naked body. They cover their faces with some kind of a box or mask.

Also when they want to withdraw from fraternity, which is hard as hazing. The members of fraternity give force to the person who wants to withdraw. Thus they have hardships in the school. As a result, the person hesitates or gives up withdrawing from fraternity.

Therefore, to prevent negative effects of fraternity and protect their students, school needs to do something practical like educate them, what good fraternity is and what they should avoid. If school let them do something, soon serious problem will be appeared. Although we cannot face them usually, surely there are fraternities which give negative effects to the students; School must face them in the right way.