Panic (〒︿〒)

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The conference thingy the faculty thingy the presentation thingy the writing thingy the meeting with supervisor thingy

Don't panic dude.

Take a deep breathe~~~~

and believe that everything is already in His hands.

Praying hard for my Korea Foundation's grant application.

The result will be revealed in early November.

I want to obtain the Korea Foundation's research grant.

I will conduct field work in South Korea next year.

Amen.

Social Sciences Buddies Peer Group formed!

We shall see the South-east Asian Power beaming at the Conference later, YAY!

Looking forward to our mini colloquium :)

It's great to have peers in our PhD journey.

Writing the conference paper

Just submitted my abstract so now am working on the writing T_T

The first part will be the definition on strategic stability, which I will include Hoeber (1968), Kokoshin & Kortunov (1987), Zhong and Pan (2004), Loo (2005), and Delpech (2001).

I think I need to give more of my analysis and opinion this time, which I lack of doing so in my literature review writing.

My conclusion on the definition (the working definition for my research) is:

Strategic stability is a condition that minimises the possibility of accidental or inadvertent wars breaking out between adversarial states, where policy-makers do not face unavoidable pressures to make sudden shifts from non-violent to violent strategies, and in which various strategic forces in the world are able to establish and sustain a strategic framework for basic relations between and among them.

Next, I will talk about the military-strategic aspect of the strategic stability. this will be the intersting part because I will be:

looking at the crises occurred in 1994, the local military balance is more important than general regional balance of power, because the high level of military preparedness and confidence in intelligence systems displayed by the US-ROK military alliance has helped to maintain the regional strategic stability.

I will give empirical evidence such as the data and facts and events on KPA (Korean People's Army-North Korea) vs ROKAF (Republic of Korea Arms Force-South Korea) and USFK (United States Force Korea) along the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). Intersting facts such as the tunnels and the intelligence information will be part of my presentation.

Oh, headache. I need to write and prepare for presentation at the same time. Need to get them done before I go to Tasmania.

Praying hard for my Korea Foundation's grant application.

The result will be revealed in early November.

I want to obtain the Korea Foundation's research grant.

I will conduct field work in South Korea next year.

Amen.

Abstract and Conference presentation

Awaiting confirmation from my Zoology friend on the species and the name of this bird that approached us while we're having lunch on the Simpson Place's lawn.

UPDATE: It's some kind of Starling^^

My supervisor's feedback on my abstract is that I still need to narrow down my scope and be more specific. So am working on it and will submit by this Friday.

And I have to write a conference paper and make a presentation out of it. My dear friend suggested we will have a "study circle" kind of group to practice among close peers especially to improve our presentation skill. Way to go girl ;)

*Click on the image to enlarge*

Praying hard for my Korea Foundation's grant application.

The result will be revealed in early November.

I want to obtain the Korea Foundation's research grant.

I will conduct field work in South Korea next year.

Amen.

Abstract for conference paper

I just emailed my supervisor my abstract. He will be off to Singapore this week but I have to start writing the paper. I hope this paper sharpens my literature review.

Will my prayers be answered?

Praying hard for my Korea Foundation's grant application.

The result will be revealed in early November.

I want to obtain the Korea Foundation's research grant.

I will conduct field work in South Korea next year.

Amen.

Postgraduate Colloquium of School of Social Sciences LTU

Presentation in progress. All were chaired by senior postgraduates.

Audience includes senior postgraduates, first year and second year postgraduates, Postgraduate convener and another lecturer of the school.

I presented on why am I working on U.S.-Korea relations and strategic stability, the two themes in my literature review and its basic conclusion. I finished my presentation exactly in 10 minutes and I got 2 questions from the floor during 5 minutes Q&A session.

Though some people came up to me and say I did a good job and they understand what I am trying to say, I am still dissatisfied with myself such as the wrong vocab used, funny grammatical mistakes and weird sentence structures in one or two sentences (written and spoken).

Anyway.

Overall I think it is a good exposure for me on how to do a presentation in front of academic audience in Australia. Most presenters go into details (regardless wide range of fields of audience), which is something for me to learn as my presentation is something very general about my research.

I like how Claire, a presenter from Anthropology program presented her research in great details without using powerpoint. I want to be like her---it is exactly my dream posture that I picture my future presentations. And also Chung, a Vietnamese who draws everyone attention by his creative opening and after his presentation everyone can't stop talking or thinking about his creative opening. And his research is very interesting: New Religious Movements in Vietnam.

I am actually running out of ideas on working on my conference paper's abstract so I think it may be good for me to blog about my postgraduate colloquium experience. Now I need to get back to work, hmph.

On another note: the Korea Foundation replied to my enquiry about the result announcement---- it would be postponed to early November.

So... I have to pro-long my prayers for 1 more month^^ Please extend your prayers for me too, I thank you very much orz

Praying hard for my Korea Foundation's grant application.

The result will be revealed in early November.

I want to obtain the Korea Foundation's research grant.

I will conduct field work in South Korea next year.

Amen.

Seeking advice from supervisor on conference paper

I will meet my supervisor tomorrow for his comment on my presentation this Friday and also the abstract and content of my conference paper.

Wonder what he will say about my ideas. I have to be very focus on my work tomorrow!

Conference paper?

What is strategic stability and why Korea?

US-ROK security alliance and strategic stability?

Post-Cold War strategic stability and Korean Peninsula?

Domestic politics dimension of Korean Peninsula's strategic stability?

Military-strategic notions of US-ROK security alliance and regional strategic stability?

While thinking hard about what to write,

Praying hard for my Korea Foundation's grant application.

The result will be known within this 2-week time.

I want to obtain the Korea Foundation's research grant.

I will conduct field work in South Korea next year.

Amen.

Finally submitted it!

Taken when officemates were not in, nyeknyeknyek

After much dragging-on-forever pain in completing the forms, finally I submitted my ethics application today! I can say I am lucky: I lack one signature and coincidently my co-supervisor who is supposed to be on leave until next week dropped by his office this morning! So I managed to complete the application form and submit in 3 copies: Microsoft Word, PDF (when will the photocopier in UKM office has this function of convert scanned documents into PDF?), and hard copy to RGSO.

After that, I went to pay the rent and had lunch with Tracy at Life Skill cafe that serves very nice Vegetable firatta (?---gotta check the name again^^) and spinach quiche^^

Yesterday I had done my presentation for postgraduate colloquium which will be held next week at Mt. Macedon. It's just a 10 minutes presentation but it would be a prelude to 4th November's Postgraduate Conference for School of Social Sciences. Am cracking up my head to see what's inside my brain to write for the conference paper. Although it's just a school level conference, I hope it will give me an idea for future's REAL THING conference. I have planned to attend an Asian Studies Conference in Japan next year but I am yet to ask my supervisor's opinion about that. The deadline for paper submission is in November so basically I have to get the draft done before the end of October. Had asked my experienced friends regarding writing for conference paper and am impressed by their intelligent and hard work :) I wish I can be proud of myself in that way one day.

All the best to my department mate who will present her paper in a conference at Serbia in November :)

Praying hard for my Korea Foundation's grant application.

The result will be known within this 2-week time.

I want to obtain the Korea Foundation's research grant.

I will conduct field work in South Korea next year.

Amen.