Appreciate Constructive Critics

   Today, the public was astonished by the Head of State’s speech at the national parliament. I missed the live broadcast though. In lieu, I read Facebook postings showing a copy of the whole texts. I now have a little to post about. The news is extremely political; perhaps only politicians, and political observers can judge whether his speech contains a hidden political agenda or is objective reacting to the current lagging development stride we are making as a new and proud nation.

     I am NOT interested, at all, on the political perspective of it. I would rather be interested to say I do like people criticizing other people, even myself for instance, as long as it is for a progress. I do like nuisance, oddity, or things that we regard unusual to us in our regular life. The rational is because those words, at some contexts, can make people ponder their attitudes or actions, can wake people up to change the course towards betterment, and can drag people out from the comfort zone where they sleep too long and too much that the train could leave them behind.

     There was a protesting rally organized by activists in front of the Embassy of Australia two days ago. It was about demanding Australia to settle the maritime boundary problem with us. We know that it is within our maritime boundary, oil sources serve our future. Thus, we need to get the right. Although it was a good cause for the virtual public to share, I refused to blog about it because I felt the same like the President might imply in his speech that if we explore and exploit all oil and gas resources ourselves sooner, waste can rampant, and life gaps can be greater. Thus, I would agree if somebody agrees too that it would be a good choice to keep them there while negotiating, most importantly, improving what the President criticized today from within first.  

**Hope this gives you an inspiration

The telecommunication industry is still worse after I returned

       When I approached my last weeks of study in the US, last year, my sponsor sent me a video containing tips of addressing potential cultural shocks if students return to their home countries after living overseas for a while. The video perplexed me because I did not believe it would be true. How can I be shocked with my own culture? It sounds weird to some of us. However, it is true theoretically, based on research studies, the video explains the process why it could happen to expat students after they return home. Just an example, when you live outside of your country, you might experience a more reliable telecommunication service, but your country’s is fucked up; your phone plan credits are sucked in a matter of seconds with no reasons.  How would you feel? The feeling is part of the cultural shock thing.     

       By the way, I ended up agreeing everything that the video explains. However, I am not shocked, at all, with acute corrupt behaviors and politics. It has been and will be here for an undefined period. Instead, the shocking thing after I returned is the telecommunication service. I still remember, experts and politicians of this country used to argue that allowing competition in the industry would lower costs for users. However, the claim has never happened.

       Is there anybody agreeing with me, your internet plans are even more expensive than in America or Australia? Let’s imagine non-monetary costs you lose that tradeoff monetary costs of an American or Australian phone plan, for instance. You are told to have a very good plan. You refill five bucks for a 1 GB data ration; a half of it is gone before you even click anything yet. Another, your signal is on and off even when you are roaming like a homeless in downtown. Not to mention hassles dealing with the call center. The guy or lady tells you to wait until a problem is fixed, but you wait until the next day, there is nothing fixed. A week ago, you could not even do refills, and contact to the call center for two days. Those are more expensive than a fifty bucks phone plan per month.   

       Timor Telecom is the poorest service provider in our telecommunication history. It is the first, oldest, and richest, but the worst one. Why? it has never changed since I knew it sometime ten years ago, by the time we proudly got it as an independent country. I feel like Timor Telecom is like a regime, political entity which no one has been able to break its wall for a change. People said that the shareholders are influential people, that is why, complains have never been taken into account although some group of people have voiced it out through political channels to put pressure for changes in its service quality. Hopefully, it is not accurate.      

       The main message that I would like to express here is not asking telecommunication services here to be as sophisticated as in developed countries like America and Australia. But, we never learn to change. NEVER. No, there is a change, but the course is backward.

**Hope this gives you an inspiration