NORTH KOREA !

Today was awesome. On wednesdays we usually have Ethics and Leadership the whole day where we do something cool relating to a case study, but this week thursday and wednesday were switched so we did the case study today. This week's case study, our first case study, was about North Korea. We were introduced to North Korea this morning by our Residential Advisor (RA), Lucy.  We also watched the original footage of the Millgram Experiment and explored obedience to authority. We aimed to explore 3 ethical questions revolving around North Korea, or DPRK. 1) Should the US give humanitarian aide to North Korea? If so, how much. 2) Should the US pursue sanctions toward North Korea, and if so, to what extent? and 3) Should the U.S. attempt to negotiate with Kim Jong Il, and if so, under what circumstances? To explore these questions, we met with 3 of the top North Korean Experts in the country. First, we met with Scott Snyder, a Senior fellow on the Council of foreign relations, and director (I think) of the Asia Foundation, along with many many other things. He talked to us about humanitarian aide dilemmas in North Korea, and the North Korean drought of the 1990's. Then we got to go to the State Department and meet with Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell (who happens to be a huge red sox fan!) He's in charge of making US policies towards North Korea and was really cool. He explains how Kim Jong Il is starting to train his incompetent son to take over. He talked about his experience with North Korea and how it is not an easy situation at all. By the way, today at the State Dept. there was the negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis so there was cameras everywhere and I had a little issue getting in because I didn't have ID (whoops). Then we went back to school where we had our last speaker, Gordon Flake. He's the executive director of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, among many other things, and he talked all about dilemmas in the past revolving around North Korea and what's going on right now. He says that unification between North and South Korea may be the only way to stop North Koreas' nuclear program and their human rights abuses. South Korea has already started setting aside money for the reunification (as we learned). We learned a ton and it was so cool getting to meet with experts on North Korea. Tomorrow we're going to the South Korean Embassy and I can't wait!  :)

We also had our 1st arabic class a few days ago which was really cool because it's fun and the teacher is a guy who's very involved with the Arab world and really smart. All of my other classes are going well too :)

NEXT DAY:
Today we went to the South Korean Embassy and met with Secretary Yi who was awesome. He talked alot about North Korea and about his opinions...and he's been to NEEDHAM! :)

ME DRESSING "FORMAL" :

ME IN KOREAN EMBASSY BATHROOM: