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December 2, 2011

Scholarship & The Legal Aspect

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I don't understand how Indonesian government works, or how scholarship should work, or how a legal document should be drafted and delivered. But I sure know if there's something ethically wrong. As part of my graduate scholarship that is granted by the Ministry of Education & Culture of Indonesia, I had to sign this suspiciously-sounding document:

  1. Melaksanakan kewajiban perkuliahan sesuai dengan ketentuan yang diberlakukan oleh Fakultas Seni Rupa dan Desain Institut Teknologi Bandung hingga selesai. Apabila dikemudian hari (30 hari setelah mengikuti perkuliahan perdana) tidak dapat mengikuti perkuliahan dan mengundurkan diri atas keinginan sendiri dan/atau tidak menyelesaikan program pendidikan sesuai jenjang pendidikan yang dipilih, bersedia mengembalikan dana Beasiswa Unggulan ke kas negara sebesar 2 (dua) kali dari biaya yang diterimakan selama masa studinya.
  2. Bersedia untuk tidak menerima beasiswa serupa dari pihak lain dan apabila menerima, bersedia dihentikan dan mengembalikan dana Beasiswa Unggulan ke kas negara sebesar 2 (dua) kali dari biaya yang diterimakan selama masa studinya.
  3. Bersedia untuk menulis pada jurnal/media massa nasional/internasional (mengkaitkan/menyebutkan Program Beasiswa Unggulan) sebagai pelaksanaan Intellectual Social Responsibility (ISR) sesuai dengan bidang studi yang diambil dan apabila tidak membuat jurnal/media massa nasional/internasional, bersedia untuk tidak menerima beasiswa pada semester/tahun berikutnya.
  4. Dalam kondisi anggaran Program Beasiswa Unggulan mengalami perubahan yang dikarenakan antara lain kenaikan harga bahan bakar minyak, bencana alam, krisis ekonomi global dan sebagainya, menyetujui beasiswa yang diterima mengalami keterlambatan pembayarannya.

If you find bullet number four, it says literally that in cases there is an oil price hike, natural disaster, economical crisis and et cetera, the government is not subject to the obligation that they should pay the scholarship in time. It means that during those circumstances (and add the ambiguity of "et cetera", the frustration!), they can pay whenever they want, even if it's late.

This brings two implications:

First, would it mean that there are other undefined, unplanned circumstances that could cause this? I am very suspicious of corrupt government officers.

Second, would it mean that in cases of payment delays, the students will be liable for temporary payment?

Ever since the beginning of receiving this scholarship, I have never felt that the ministry is truly committed, even more when listening to past grantees. I hardly trust the government, and now it's proved. If there's somebody who says we should put faith in Indonesia, it's definitely not the government.

Also, somebody must consult a lawyer before writing legal-binding statements like this.

May 30, 2011

Gone Fishing

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We had an Asia Pacific Oracle Education Initiatives staff gathering in May 17-19, 2011, held in Singapore. It was my first time in this kind of meeting, because I'm normally in the back seat. This meeting was more for the "marketing" staff. I put an apostrophe because what we are "selling" isn't entirely about having monetary revenues.

I've been working for Oracle Education Foundation for three years, it's a wing of the whole Oracle Education Initiatives, a part of corporate citizenship programs by Oracle. We develop ThinkQuest as a free on-demand application for teachers & students to use to evangelise and facilitate project learning in the classrooms. This session in Singapore was an evaluation and a projection on next year's mission. I can say we had a generally successful year.

So, back to the fun.

I've been to Singapore numerous times before, but only for personal reasons, so this time was different. It's definitely the first time I went to such event after three years in Jakarta office, meeting staff from the Japan & Asia Pacific region and having a memorable team-building session.

It's also the second time I met Galvin Sng, a long-time ThinkQuest winner, which I am a pretty big fan of!

The first evening we also had a team-building session at a Clarke Quay establishment called The Coriander Leaf. I thought we were just going to have dinner. I was wrong. We had to cook our own dinner!

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The next day involved an all-day meeting, concluded with a short night out with Lisa Siregar, Vanessa Lorein, Rika Safrina and Amudi Sebastian. Bliss!

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Also, I got to feel like a bird viewing this from my hotel window!

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April 1, 2011

Decisions

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We're occasionally busy with things, but can we hold back and think of where we are heading? Can we stop worrying about what the next minutes will be and worry about what the next year would be? Can we sit back and relax, think about things that define us? Or perhaps, is it just a question for the undecided like me?

Is indecisiveness okay? Is it a state of mind, or is it a reality? What's with the urge of being decided? Can we project ourselves into a certain path and let our life in the years forward become defined by this path? Is being decided a good thing?

Decisions sometimes kill. They kill possibilities. When you decide on buying a pair of shoes, you risk not liking them, you risk not having them for a long time. You're having a closure. You risk not having that better pair of shoes out there. But, perhaps, you might not need that better pair of shoes. For now. Maybe you should stick with the bad pair of shoes for a length of time and see the gems of the experience. Next time, you might or might not get that better pair of shoes, because "better" is a mind-framing of your own. Life probably wants you to be adventurous.

What is life for? What is a job for? What do you do for your life? What is it that you do with your job? Do you even know what you're doing? If not, then what makes you think you should be decided with a certain path? Can we just sway away from the firmness of decisions and let loose? Can we take the risk of being indecisive and not be dragged away by regrets?

In five or ten years time, let's be able to look back and convert all the regrets to values. That there was nothing wrong with what we have chosen, that they were actually part of our scenario. Sometimes, forgiving ourselves for not making or making a choice is the hardest thing.