Contemplation in April

16 April 2023 

I haven’t published many blogs since 2023. I still write and write by hand, mainly on my notebooks and iPad. I am at a defining stage where I keep asking myself questions regarding the work and the relationships I am part of. The confusion emanating from those questions made me unready to publish any blog. I anticipate that there isn’t any focus on the topic. My mind is all over places. Think, Think, Think

Since I moved to Bangkok, living in this cozy apartment, I haven’t undertaken a writing piece. All wooden furniture matches my energy, and I have this longing feeling to sit down on a day-off and immerse myself in my thought flow. Here I am. The rain came, a proper rain of 2023. My day didn’t start early like a hard-working day, I feel awake and wondrous. 

I am an INFJ person.

My language uses lots of “feel”. This is part of my MBIT mechanism. One of the biggest enlightenments of March is to decode my personality, thanks to my beloved colleague coaching. I don’t know whether it has always been rooted in INFJ characteristics, or it has evolved. Why saying decoding? Because dichotomy of MBIT has been a myth for me. I never looked for its actual meanings but only assumed according to their English words. In fact, “J” doesn’t mean being judgmental but being confident in one's ideologies.

I am an introvert who now loves to be alone and hang out with good friends. I love to reconnect and nurture relationships I treasure rather than reaching out to social events for new people. It is not like I am stuck in my comfort zone. It’s just that my good friends are heritages that can teach me in many ways already. 

I am an intuitive person. Funny that I am writing about myself! This refers to how I perceive information from the external world. I like to collect information from my observations and pay attention to what the future holds. 

I am a feeler. I make decisions based on so many feelings. I value emotional health and connection, thus I often evaluate how healthy my emotions can be as I embark on something. Feeling means humanity for me. Thus, my common word to use in my writing is “I feel…”. I care about my feelings as well as others’. 

I am a judger. This category is about how one organizes life. I love freedom but I like to set goals and have organized living space, work, schedules, etc. I am really surprised that I am gravitated towards discipline and regulations. I aim to achieve my goals in the best conditions. So I often like to have to-do-lists or resolutions to keep track of my growth. 

So this is a recap. I don’t explain much about the other sides of MBIT. Let’s see how I will change in 10 years? (What will change are the behaviors, not the type). The question like “How do I see myself in the long-run?” is not a favorite one. My answer is I will still be free and living my life at peace. :D 

Oracle cards from my Sasin colleague. It's nice to do this energy feeling activity and imagine the future haha

After “Little Fire Everywhere”, I read “To Kill a Mockingbird”. I tried to read half of it, and I paused. It is not the right time to read this book. Again? I bought it in 2018! I then turned to books about curriculum and instructional design to train myself for my new work. Before Songkran, my team went to Kinukonia in the Central World together. I found this “Midnight library” book (Matt Haig). I heard of it somewhere… Luckily my senior has an e-book and shared with me. The last ebook I read is…? Hell 5 years ago or something? I only read e-book for academic purposes, otherwise, books like fiction or anything that feeds my soul have to be paper books!! Yet, I am halfway on Midnight one already! Reading on my iPad mini is not bad. 

Midnight Library. 

Nora. 

A person who has various interests and has attained certain achievements in life is about to commit suicide. Around that moment, she is invited to travel to other lives that she didn’t get to live where she presumes it must be way happier. In this magical library, she can access all books about her unreal lives. By accident, the initial book she picks is called Life of Regrets. From her perspective, everything she has done is a series of regrets. This resonates with her decision to end her life. Of course, she is even more depressed at this point. The librarian is sensible to convince her to gradually enter the books. From being hopeless, she shifted to curiosity of how her life turns out to be. 

In every book, Nora wants to see how her life is if something/ someone is different. There is this takeaway quote: Even if I do one thing differently, it leads to everything different onwards. That’s true! I make one decision which will drive others to occur. Then, one by one, she has erased some regrets. 

Regrets sometimes are not truth but only our internal assumption. What we think is miserable or fault might not be how things are in reality. 

I am guessing that the end of the book allows her to rethink and appreciate her choice. She is loved and she is a good person. I believe everyone is. We are also flawed by nature. We need to learn a myriad of lessons by ourselves to recognize we are born for a reason. 

—-

Love & Relationships

The past evening's sleep has not been easy for me. I have not felt as happy in my relationship these days. Life is ambiguous. I am no longer in an ecstatic mood talking about my boyfriend to others all the time. I don’t even miss him much when we are away. 

I am content in my own solitude. 

My mind, weirdly, lingers about some people who I learnt to hold myself back because of distance or social roles. I think of them at times as if my feelings remain strong. It is just like as soon as I see them, the emotion manifests. Love is complicated. There is room of love for different individuals. Every relationship has its shape and meaning to me. Keeping it means I want to stay connected, not walking away. So, I am on good terms with those I love. I respect all, I push up the boundaries in communication. It used to be in so much pain. I learnt to live on my own.   

CU park, come here almost everyday afterwork

April opens opportunities for me, I hope. 

I am excited to meet 2 people this month. I took courage to inbox my teacher who I admire. I wonder what our conversation will be like. Let's not ponder much, so as to see the natural happening. The way I said it was like I am about to leave Thailand. I just want to meet them, as I wished 3 years ago. I am graduating. Almost a decade long in my university pursuit (2016-2023). I am so proud of myself for being in Thailand alone diving in adventures. Life is beautiful. 

Ideals

I have lots of interests. I am not good at them all. I am enough living in such interests. To name: reading books, cooking, jogging, cycling, hiking, kayaking, drinking coffee and alcohol. I follow “Me Hu” (Minh Hung Le), a life-long learner, teaching Korean and sharing lots of life lessons to his community. He literally can learn anything and be good at it. 

I am in love with geniuses who are smart to master something new. That’s why I have this subconscious expectation for my boyfriend to be good at things? His lifestyle and knowledge don’t really fit mine. I want to wake up early together, travel around, explore and learn new things together. I want my partner to teach me more, inspire me to live, and help me reflect in difficult situations. In this regard, I often turn to my good friends who are able to give me advice. He is willing to listen to anything, it is just that I don’t feel heard. I have complex choices to make, he said “Up to me”. This is the worst advice I want to hear. 

We are falling far apart? 

I am not sad asking this question. 

Time will give us the answer. It is about how I contemplate on my needs and goals for life. Then I act upon such contemplation. 

Since joining JUMP, I can’t count how many new people I have met. So I feel heavy and tired of getting to know new ones. And Rosalind is exceptional. At an SDGs Game event at Sasin, I happened to be at the same table with her. I feel that she is another admiring person I want to be like. She has this positive energy and attitude to contribute to society. She wants to transfer the wisdom of her family in terms of culinary heritages. She invented the Sustainability unit for PwC Thailand. She wrote blogs on this trend, and shared knowledge of herbs and food. She is running her own company that provides consultancy for companies. Along with this entrepreneurial mind, she will take a PhD in Mahidol focusing on Regenerative Leadership that is all about building authentic human connections. She said I am a smarter version of her young self. No way!!! 

Fixed mindset?

Has my mindset been open over the past 4 years? I recognized my growth mindset has slowly become fixated. In a way, I don’t really live in Vietnam now, to solve problems there, so I shouldn’t make any statements. For other parts of life, I guess my mindset has become fixated. Or I hold such a strong belief in my values like righteousness and equality. I can be hot-headed speaking about things against my ideology. Or am I just being a J (Judger)? Everything is confusing! I am laughing about these self interrogations. 

Love this Book SO MUCH, talking about an inspiring educator, Ted. Available at Thammasat Uni Library.

Work contemplation begins.

One excuse for not blogging is… I spent time applying for opportunities to plan for my next step. I am waiting for the result of a short program in Singapore. I got rejected from a summer job in Japan since they can’t support my working visa. I did enjoy the serendipitous application process! I need to schedule time to go home in June. I am floating in unconnected time periods. Once my internship is done, what’s next? I have heard around 50 times the question “What’s my plan after graduation?” LOL. I will smile and say I don’t know. 

Rosalind said maybe I can build my own Global Perspective Course

I was applying for a Global Perspective and Humanity position in a school in Bangkok. I am just afraid they asked me to teach history and geography, and require a teaching certificate. I was thinking of this for several years but still hesitate to take a teaching certificate. Can I get accepted without one? Can I learn by doing? 

Educating behind the scene or in the scene?

Yesterday, while watching “You Who Came from the Star”, I thought that being an instructional designer (ID) is also like being a producer of films.

They work behind the scene, write up stories, scripts and characters, they shoot many many times and connect multiple pieces together. They don’t know their audience yet while putting them into a masterpiece. Until a long journey is crafted out into publicity, then they receive comments and review from people and the media. They must be fulfilling. As I am trying to look for a source of joy and motivation for my instructional design work, I find it a bit demotivating to not have a direct interaction with who I am building this educational content for. 

Is it too early for me to dive into this role? 

Most of my instructional design colleges have worked as trainers before, or all those successful ID out there used to be teachers. They recommend this ID pathway to be a nice shift for them to still contribute to education. Now I am more into seeing how students work in teams, how they discuss ideas and present, how they grow curious into themselves as well as the world issues. I love my work in Dhaka, facilitating students to investigate pressing issues and being a mentor for their projects. I guess I should continue this path… 

In any case, I am a Global Studies facilitator and learner. <3

#12:05pm