Concern about Future,,,

This semester is almost over. It is going to summmer.(not exactly! still little cold!)
I feel so nervous about my future in these days. Because I'm not young any more compared with American student. I am a non-traditional student-!!
It is a common thing in Korea, but I changed my major when I came Ball state. As I changed my major, I have to take more courses than the other students to graduate.
I am taking sophomore class even if I am a senior cause I transferred lots of credits what I already earned in Korea.
I need three more semester to graduate. I already finished most of core curriculums, so I will attend just major courses. It will be hard time. However, there is an important thing. That is what I did not decide my major yet.
I am taking a pre-business courses, because my uncle recommened finance. I planned to choose a finance as a my major, but my advisor told me another choice. Actually, I have a plan to get master and doctor's degree in America. My advisor told me, "if you want to keep studying after graduate, how about choose information management or economic as your major. Cause you don't have to learn same major in the undergraduate and masters."
I am very confusing now and it is hard to make a choice because it will be a great influence on my life.
Anyway, I have to make a decision as soon as possible. What could be my best choice??

My blog and blogosphere

My blog is based on giving information about Korea. It was my first time for blogging, so I did not have any idea. I did not know what to do, what should I do and how could I make up and pick lay outs. First of all, I worried what I had to choose as a subject for my blog. I remembered that there was no international student except me in class and classmates could visit my blog. I decided to choose Korea as my blog subject. I thought it would be a great chance to give information about Korea to them. Because I always felt so sad they did not know Korea well, even if they were using Samsung cell phones and LG cell phones and riding on Hyundai cars. Sometimes, my American friends used to tell me Samsung is good Japanese company. I tried to make up the header to be more impressive than any others, so it took lots of time to pick some awesome pictures of Korea for my blog header.

First time, I focused on giving information about Korea when I posted on my blog. I gave information about location of Korea. After that, I introduced about Korea cultures, customs, and weather. I posted how could cook the typical Korean food and who is the most popular singer group in Korea. However, I decided to change line about my blog after had a conference with Rachel and visited the other classmates’ blog. They more focused on expressing their feelings and thoughts and Rachel told me to do practice writing through the posting on my blog. After that, I tried to more focus on expressing my feelings and thoughts than just giving information about something. I think the best post on my blog is posted on April 10. Of course, I could not decide easily, because I thought the post about spring break in the San Francisco was also good. However, there are some reasons why I chose that one. That time, I was very hard, so it was unbearable. Cares about my lack of ability, weighed heavily upon me. I did not have any one to talk about my concerns with me. I was going to crazy. I could not do anything by disappointment and worry. What was worse, I started to think about going back to Korea. I wanted to express my feelings on anywhere in anyway. I decided to express my feelings on my blog. It was my first time to express about my worries in English. Of course, I used to express my feelings such as happy, and what I saw in English. It made me felt relieved. That I had had my say, I felt much better.

I think the blogosphere makes us to be related each other. There are lots of people in the world and there could be so many different points of view about something. Through the blogs, I could put myself in another’s place and get knowledge. In these days, Internet is called as sea of information. It means lots of information is overflowing now. It could include good things but also bad or wrong information on someone’s blog. We have to be sensible and thoughtful.

The Internet regulation for who????

In Korea, the Internet regulation exists for indentifying the user is using his or her real name when they try to post something on website. This is proceeded by administrator of the site. This rule is applied to web site what has more than 100,000 users per day. The Internet regulation is included in Information Technology Act. In hrere, I am so doubtful and I have lots of questions. The Internet is free space to anyone. We can express our own feelings and thoughts freely. Why the government try to control our freedom? In addition, in Korea the people who want to join web site, he or she has to put in the special number.(This is a kind of social security number.)
I did not use any number at all when I tried to join American sites and the other countries' site. They just want me to fill out the minimum information such as birthday, e-mail address or name. That's all! However, in Korea, through this number(social security number), the government agency can grasp the people who posted abuse or swearword. The purpose of this regulation is very good, but the government is abusing their power to search people who criticize against policies. Korea is a democracy, but this is happening now!!!

I want to link news what is related to my topic. If you interested in my writing, please click the hyperlink and read the article. It is related with Google and Korean government. It is so absurd.

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/349078.html

Feel sorrow,,,

I had a great deal of sorrow yesterday. I went to blackboard to check my score. I found something was wrong. I got zero point for an assignment. I was confused because I submitted the assignment before the deadline and I thought that I followed the guideline completely.
So, I sent an e-mail to meet my lab instructer to talk about that.
Finally, I made an appointment and went to her office.
She told me why I got zero point. I did not put in the quotation mark before and after informative sentences from web site. I thought it would be ok if I wrote down the citation at the end of paragraph when I wrote the essay.
She told me, "you did plagiarism and if you do it again, you will get zero point for this class."
I wanted to explain about my situation, but I was too embarrassed to talk about that.
I could not refute at all, I quitted her office.
I did not familar with APA style because I usually used MLA style for the other classes. I tried to find how could I fit my essay to APA style well through some books and I did my best for that assignment. However, I got zero point because of the quotation marks at most even if I did my best. I was somewhat bitter.
Of course, it was my bad. However, I think she could consider my situation one more time.
If I intended to plagiarize I would not cite the web site.
I tried to accept it as an instruction, but I am still somewhat bitter.
I am so worried about remaining assingments and almost at the end of my will.

Thank you for reading my murmur... :'-(

Should the Music You Purchase Be Locked? - Part.2

I want to continue talking about DRM. I don't like DRM on the files. Of course, I could understand the side of opposite. I want to introduce why I don't like DRM.

Here are some more reasons.

First, DRM doesn’t prevent illegal use of files, it just makes it a bit more difficult to access them.

Second, all it takes is one person to crack the file and it can be made available to everyone. In other words, there is no reason for being.

Third, anyone selling content on CD is already selling unprotected files anyway. CDs are almost DRM free except Sony. After purchasing CD, we can make DRM free mp3 files easily using the ripping.

Fourth, DRM adds a lot of costs for content producers. They have to pay when they develop, update and apply the technologies. It is inefficiency on the side of cost.

Fifth, there is a huge hidden cost in trying to sell DRMed content. DRM files don’t have unification DRM. It means there are so many different kinds of DRM and devices are also different for each DRM. After all, even if the songs are same song, the one will be played only when we use the IPOD, and the other one will be played only when we use Zune. If content producers deal with specific DRM, people who do not have a support device will not purchase files. So, online store will suffer from huge hidden loss.

Sixth, often the costs of the DRM are passed along to the consumer as well. As I wrote before, development and use for DRM need cost. Usually, supplier will impose the development costs to the consumers.

Seventh, DRM-free content will play on your device of today. For this reason, it is not easy to change the device for consumers.Eighth, media devices of the future will be significantly different than media devices of the present. For example, IPOD will not be able to lead the top of the market continually. Many different forms of device could be released in the future but if the files what I have are DRM, I will not be able to use that files. Even if there are lots of files, there are DRM on that files, it will be a useless thing.

Finally, DRM fundamentally changes who is control of our media. It could be the most important reason. The moment someone purchase DRM file, he or she could be controlled by the other person. Even though we purchased the files by our choice and our own money, it is not free for using that DRM files. If we purchased the files from I-tunes, we have to use only IPOD.

In conclusion, I often use I-tunes to purchase music because of plentiful contents and easy procedure. However, look ahead into the future, purchasing the DRM-free music is profit. Because I will not use only IPOD forever…