As I have written as the big headline of my blog. Yes. I “failed” the Monbusho interview. If you asked me whether it is difficult, I would say the questions were unexpected. My proposal was not in their interest, even though several professors had said my topic was interesting, my research topic was not interesting enough or convincing enough to prove that yes… there are these kind of changes in Japan.

I won;t tell you what my research proposal is, unless you asked me through email. Because I still need this for a PhD thesis, and i don;t want anyone to do the same topic as I do.

But I would share some tips for those who will have an interview with Monbusho.

1) Know your research topic, REALLY WELL.
2) RECITE all the theories you can that can lead to your topic. Because if you can;t recite the theories (In my case, 5 theories of _________, who wrote them) you fail.
3) Make sure you can convince them.
4) Make sure your topic is not too contemporary, entertaining, feminist…you know, you never know that no matter how liberal you think you are, there are still people who think against your ideologies.
5) Recite more theories if you can. If your topic is on media, figure out who is the first person who decides that media helps influence people, what he wrote, who argues against his case, add more theories that supports your ides……remember… THEORY THEORY THEORY.

Well….I can;t recite the theories… How was I to know that I need THEORIES to support my proposal …(when literature review is not needed), and even though I thought that should be in the stage of the “literature review” not proposal. I was never asked of my methodology, but only theories theories theories.

I can’t complain much. Cause I am not as intelligent as them, I didn;t learn to recite all theories from my Masters, and my topic is not ENTIRELY what i studied, cause my profession is on area studies, but i included two more mini topics within. It is part of the society in Japan, and I cannot take 1 year to eat down all the theories i can.

So What i’ll do now, is to get parents’ scholarship.
No need to even go for an interview.
I’ll get it for sure.
But for now, I am sick of this kind of competition. I am gonna work first then go for PhD….. Monbusho is out of the question.

This is the first time I lost. I tasted failure…..
And then, I learnt that….. I am not only unlucky in love, but also I can be unlucky in game as well.