School started!

Finally, the school started!
Looking back at my Feb, I was having a severe homesick when i came back from Malaysia.
But now, everything started to move. I've got no time to be bothered by the homesick. Though i still wanna go home asap ><

hmm... lets report the courses im taking and all the jobs im involved with in this semester.

Quarter 1:
Social psycology
Japanese traditional art (flower arrangement)
Asia Pacific religion

Quarter 2 :
International Security & Politics
Multiculturalism and society

Semester :
Introduction to research method
Korean 3
Kumon special lecture

Session :
Peer leader training

TA :
Workshop 1
Computer literacy

other jobs :  SA, RA, cafeteria part time.

Activities : planning to participate Chinese Week, Vietnamese Week, Indonesian Week, and Chinese dance show.

So see you in the class if you're taking the same course with me ^^

Kumon
Particularly wanna talk about the Kumon special lecture.
It's a special lecture in accordance with Kumon company. They sent their staffs to APU and teach us how to manage a Kumon style education.
11 of us were chosen in this course. Heard that many people failed the application.

at first, i thought it was gonna be a class that we can learn about teaching psychology or something.but it turned out that the class is actually a TA training. only the difference that we are getting 2 credits for being a TA of Kumon.

I still haven't experienced any excitement in doing this course so far because first, the training is soooo japanese style that the instructor always mention about Shakaijin (an adult in the society). Your behavior is being observed in this course. It's just like another RA stuff but less international and more Shakaijin brain washing.

Personally, i dont like the Shakaijin style teaching because i believe we are not living others' lives. We should have our own right to choose the way to live. but the instructor is telling me to live like others do. to become a Shakaijin that everyone has the same standards, manners, skills.
Anyway, though i dont like it, i still will consider it as an experience and try to learn the way how japanese society works.

RA
RA life is getting exciting because i have a group of warm people in my team ;)
Thanks again for everything W/C building.

As usual, RA's schedule is busy! I think in APU, only RA will require you to participate in several different teams and work on several projects at the same time. Im doing Education team, World festival PR team, and Buffet Party performance team which we have done it.
Imagine 1 team will need you to hold an at-least-1 hour meeting once a week, 3 teams we need 3 meetings + RA's regular meeting every tuesday + Floor meeting once a month.

Every RA should be respected for their workloads i think. We sacrifice our private times for AP house without getting monetary incentives which is equivalent to our workloads.  
Though it's tough, it's fun. I had had a bad image within RA organization last semester because of my carelessness, forgetfulness, absent mind and etc. it wasn't that i'm an asshole who doesn't cooperate or not good at working with a team. It was because i didnt like the team.

But this semester, i love RA. I would do everything that the team asked me to, because im happy with that.
It reminds me of the lecture i got from a professor about leadership.

Saying that leadership consists of 2 function

Performance function & Maintenance Function.

P = to focus on the outcome and result. 


M = to focus on the team management. 

A good leader should be PM, which means taking a good balance between performance and maintenance.
However, a PM leader is not easy to become.
a Pm or pM leader is more likely to be seen in most organizations.

According to the research, the good leadership order should be following:


Short term :  PM >Pm > pM > pm


Long term : PM > pM -> Pm > pm


What i m trying to say here is that , If you are trying to focus more on performance but neglecting the maintenance of team, your leadership is likely to see the down soon as a hardworking team without any team  activities is discouraged.

RA of this semester put more focus on maintenance function. and I'm a person who likes M more.
That's why im very happy to work with the RA in this sem ;)
Of course, thought we strengthened the M, we should keep P going well too.
Enjoy the life after getting our jobs done seems to be the motto of this sem.
Ganbatte guys ;)