Far from EBPM

Once back in Japan, Japanese news jumps into my sight. One of them attracted strongly my attention. It is about Joint custody. Currently, Japan doesn't have joint custody. Only Single custody exists. In many cases, the mother takes their kid(s) and gets custody because the mother and their kid(s) live together at that time. For example, when a wife decides to divorce her husband, she leaves their home with their kid(s) and their luggage quietly during his working time (without his notice). Yes, this is a domestic kidnapping by his mother. Then she sends or leaves a divorce notice. This is an example and a typical divorce case in Japan. It causes many problems. Even though a wife takes their kid(s) somewhere without agreement with her husband, she can get custody normally and she can refuse the right that the father of the kid(s) sees his kid(s) without a specific reason. But he still needs to pay the expense of bringing up the child. This strange unfair situation has existed for several decades and divorced fathers have suffered from it. 

A troubled career planning

Time flies, it's been a while since I uploaded a post last time. Wow, almost 1 year! Can't believe I still remember this blog!

Anyway, I entered British graduate school last autumn and the spring term is almost finished. It means my master's student life in the UK is almost finished. When the spring term finishes, the rest of the module is just writing a dissertation,  and no reason to keep staying in the UK. 

I have been spending mentally busy days recently because I need to write an outline of my dissertation until this coming Monday, make a proposal for the dissertation, and write some term essays. In addition, I am a job hunter, I need to find a decent job within a couple of months for my brilliant future.

However, job hunting is really problematic because jobs that I am keen to get a position are professional and normally there is a 1-2 years contract only. For example, I'm interested in international development, that's why I'm studying development in the UK, but development covers a lot of subjects such as food, governance, peacebuilding, and infrastructure. Many master's students in development study development plus something like gender and development, sustainability and development, and business and development. I am studying business and development, and want to get a business-related position in private sector development. There are agro-business, marketing, tourism, finance, industrial thing, and infrastructure departments in that specific segment. In addition, the positions are vacant, so there are not always vacancies basically. Of course, they are super competitive. It is very difficult to make a career plan in this situation. It has to be somewhat fluid and hugely rely on luck. For example, I want to work in a development bank near future, so I want to get some financial experience which I don't have currently next career. I applied for some investment positions in private sector development and my applications were rejected. I don't know the real reason but probably because those positions are a bit beyond my ability. I have been promoted by getting a position beyond my ability, this strategy which applying for a position a bit beyond my ability is not wrong, just needs more application. But, yes, apparently I lost the opportunity to get some financial experience to work at a development bank near future. It means I need to rethink my career plan. 

Another problem is the location where I work. The vast majority of development jobs are located in offices in developing countries. Probably many people can live in middle-income countries like Thailand, but how about Ethiopia? Bangladesh? I can, of course. But how about my partner? What about our family planning for the next 2 years? Can we have a child in developing countries, I mean in the low-level public health condition. Does my partner accept those conditions which never face in her country? 

I haven't cared work-life balance ever because to me,  it happened in one country only in the past roughly 10 years. However, a development job is something different because I need to move a lot, almost every 2 years to a different country and new workplace. what a rootless life.

I love to travel. One of the reasons I want to work in the development sector is I can visit a lot of countries without my money. I still have the same feeling and I'm curious enough, but how about 5 years later? 10 years later? Can I keep having the same feeling even if my life stage changes?

I think I'm at a turning point in my life.

Why celebrities become a politician easier

When I chat with a Philipino friend, I heard a interesting speculation about why celebrities become a politician easier.

I do not know the current election trend in Japan, but sometimes TV stars have won the election and become politician. In that case, most of them were candidate for the House of Representatives, Mayer or Governor as requested by a political party.

What I expect studying in the UK to bring

Luckily, I got a offer with IELTS score condition from graduate school in the UK recently. I need to get 7.0 since my score is still 6.0. But it is good news anyway. I can study in the UK to get master's degree, although it is still in the pandemic situation.

Hectic and silent year

2020 was completely unpredicted for me, probably for everyone.

My ideal plan was ruined by the pandemic.

Since the covid-19 was recognised as a serious deadly disease such as the Spanish flu in 100 years ago, soon I was sent back to Japan by our agency's order to evacuate from covid-19. It was quite sudden and we needed to pack all luggage I brought to the Caribbean island in one night because we had to leave there before the border is closed.

But it was understandable decision because no one know how serious it is, and people like me who were sent to developing country as a volunteer by a government are not experts of development issues and our contract with national aid agency was, dispatched as a volunteer, not as a expert. It meant,  to protect our lives takes priority over our any mission in the local for our government. In my case, as a Japanese who stay in overseas due to Japanese mission, Japanese government has an obligation to protect Japanese citizen's life. 

Some people claimed this decision, but volunteer activity was run by Japanese tax. This activity needs understanding in Japanese citizen. If someone Japanese died due to predictable accident like this pandemic, probably it is going to be very hard to restart and blamed a government responsibility by the opposition party. 

That's why I considered it as a reasonable decision to restart the volunteer activity in the near future after the pandemic is over. We don't have any choice even though how much we have full of enthusiasm for tackling development issues. 

After 2 weeks quorantine in Japan, I could go out freely. 

I came back to my parents house to stay a while since my apartment in Tokyo was already moved out when I was dispatched to Caribbean island 1 year and a half ago.

My parents house is located in countryside, and it doesn't have wi-fi. 

My silent and internet free life had started.

Life in my parents house was quite simple. My parents both have full-time job. I took a dog for walk everyday and read some books. Sometimes I helped my father to work in fields in weekend. That's it. I felt like I live apart from the world.

No covid-19 and no noise like a conspiracy theory about covid-19.

Had stayed more than 3 months there. It was a nice period for me to reflesh myself and to think about my next career and life. 

Then, I started to live in Osaka with girlfriend. 

That's it. Nothing happened to me what I mentioned here right now.

Silent and promote introspection to me this year.

Media or Development studies?

Recently I'm looking for postgraduate course which I should go to. By the way my GPA score was improved thanks to evaluation system difference between the UK and Japan. Now, I'm in upper second level. It means I can apply almost every courses.

What? I have a possibility of improving my low GPA?

I planned to write a diary everyday but somehow already passed almost 3 weeks since I posted last time. Anyway I need a lot of opportunities to practice writing in English to improve and to get high score in IELTS, so I wiil try to write many thing around me down here as I can.