Networking

Tomorrow is my last day of work at the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies. All heavens rejoice! Just kidding...sort of.

In all seriousness, it's been almost three years since I've worked in this office. While it hasn't always been the most exciting and fulfilling job out there, it was a job nonetheless and so I've always been grateful for my experience. I've been surrounded by wonderful colleagues, faculty, and peers, along with having the opportunities to meet amazing lecturers from around the world. The tasks themselves weren't all that challenging, but the interactions I've had with these people have challenged not only my character, but also my perception on ideas and fascination on international affairs, particularly concerning politics in Asia.

Working for several years in between undergraduate and graduate studies was a worthwhile experience. I've learned to develop more interpersonal skills and networking abilities to help me in my career goals. Last night I had dinner with a faculty whom I had developed a good relationship with over the years, and she took it upon herself to give me various contacts of her former students who work in the Washington DC area who would be of help to me in my career pursuits. I don't consider myself to be much of an out-going and social person, and I've always found it difficult to network with people. But from seeing my director and faculty and other students network with others has taught me a thing or two to get uncomfortable for something greater.

P.Seth always reminds people who eventually leave the HMCC community to "never burn bridges" in relationships because you'll never know what will happen in the future. I see how some of these faculty are well-connected with past students all across the world. Whenever they travel, they seem to have people they know in some of these big cities whom they can meet up with. I hope to keep in touch with some of my colleagues as well as some of the faculty and students I've come to meet through this job. Whether to be in the know of what is going on in their lives or for career networking, I believe there is a reason why these people have been a part of my life these past several years.

At Least I Tried

Nicholas Kristof, one of the New York Times Op-Ed writers, first opened my eyes to a form of slavery I had never been exposed to before--children, as young as eight, and women abducted from their homes to work in seedy brothels all around Cambodia. I could not begin to fathom how one could justify subjugating a child and rob them of their innocence by allowing Western tourists to sexually assault them.

Today, the New York Times published an editorial piece by John R. Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a former State Department ambassador. In the article, he attacks the United States Department of Justice for not wanting to end the sex trafficking industry in the United States and abroad, one of the hallmark humanitarian platforms that President Bush has staked his presidential legacies on. I, too, agree with Miller in that the public should excoriate the Department of Justice for its refusal to do whatever it takes to end this horrific injustice.

The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2007 was introduced last year to, among other things, give broader powers to Congress, the Department of State, the Department of Justice, and other federal agencies to combat the pervasive sex trafficking industry. The bill passed almost unanimously in the House of Representatives, but is currently stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee. How the United States cannot get their act together and continue to ignore the eradication of rights for women and children who are trapped in the modern day slave trade is deplorable.

Although I am unsure of how everything is going to turn out in the years to come, I wish to get involved in tackling social injustice--maybe not sex trafficking per se (although I am open), but anything social injustice related. I watched the movie "Lions for Lambs" last night, and in the highly politically-charged movie, Robert Redford's character, a college political science professor, tries to logically persuade an apathetic student with utmost potential to care about society and get involved. In one of the more poignant parts of the movie, the student says, "You think it is better to have tried and failed than to have failed to try. But what is the difference if you end up in the same place?" And the professor calmly responds, "At least you tried something."

When all is said and done, when I have to give an account for what I did with my one life, I want to say that at least I tried to make right some wrongs in the world in which I live in today. At least I tried.

What the Future Holds

Ever since my decision to leave Ann Arbor to pursue a graduate degree in Washington D.C., I've been repeatedly asked to share my vision in life after graduate school. And I simply respond, "I don't know."

I've been struggling for quite awhile about what I should center my academic focus on and finding a clear-cut long-term vision for my life. Coming up from a visionary church culture where everything I did had to have a vision, I found it hard to think that I didn't have a concrete plan for my graduate studies and thereafter. Inwardly, I felt a bit insecure because I didn't have a 10-year plan and how my international relations degree would bring God glory.

Even as I sat down to write my statement of purpose for grad school applications, I was conflicted as to what I wanted to do and what my motivation was. Eventually, I wrote out how each of the graduate program would help me in my interest in seeking political redress for victims of human rights violations in North Korea. But even when I submitted my applications, I was not completely satisfied with my purpose.

But lately, God has been speaking to me and giving me peace in small ways. The cost of following Christ demands radical obedience. When Jesus called the Twelve to follow Him, the disciples needed radical faith to abandon everything. They didn't have the slightest clue as to what following Christ truly meant. They may have speculated how Jesus' calling would play out in their own lives, but they certainly could not have imagined that ten of them would be martyred, one would betray Jesus, and one would live out the rest of his life in exile. It was only when they stepped out in faith and believed that God began setting things in motion and used each of them to accomplish His purposes.

In the same way, I'm beginning to see that work in my life. At each crossroad, He invites me to take a leap of faith. And as I'm beginning to learn how to make decisions based on faith, I realize that God doesn't tell me everything I would like to know. He tells me enough so as to make faith possible. And while it is good to have some idea of a vision, I'm learning that, as with all things, I need to hold it loosely because God's plan will always trump mine. And in terms of where I am now, with the question of what I want to study and for what purpose, I realize there is no such thing as a bad decision. Regardless of whether I focus on human rights issues in the repressive North Korean state or the effects of ethnic conflict in eroding human rights and destabilizing political structures around the world, God can use me. And wherever that takes me, God is control and bids me to come follow Him.

And so, now when people ask me what I want to do with my life, I can confidently say that I don't know but my God does and that's all that matters.