Water and thoughts
- Aoyumi Jung
- Aug 25, 2019
- 7 min read
Updated: Aug 28, 2019
25 of August, 2019
Thammasat University
The water spring is echoing around the fresh morning sky of a relaxing Sunday. Thammasat campus has been the most amazing campus in my life so far, this feeling gets deeper once I stay there and walk through every path inside and breathe the air of Thammasat. I no longer have any ideal expectation on things in order to be mindful to embrace all of incidents coming. Honestly, my first impression with this campus was not significant because that time was when I just came back from Tembusu College whose campus was nothing more than a paradise for a university student with full acess to incredible facilities and resources. Overtime, this is the third weekend, I am sitting in my lovely dorm room, listening to the meditating sound of the creatures around and writing my thoughts and I didn’t expect my story started with the feelings towards Thammasat…
There is no structure for a daily schedule as the activities expose me to have the intiatives to experiment things and work with teammates regularly to be a good problem solver.
Above all, I could point out one similarity of my everyday life is the excitement I have towards all of the courses and activities involved which are undoubtedly triggering my thinking to explore the questions “what is, why, how to” on the process of looking closely at the essence of life. The spectrum ranges from a visible concept like the principles of a global citizen with self and social responsibility, to the root causes of the current conflict in the political context of Thailand and the world. We are at the stage of cultivating knowledge and skills about the Foundations before stepping in the specialized major, in which we are supposed to build such important soft skills as Critical thinking, reading, and writing, Academic Writing, Collaboration, Public Speaking, and especially the awareness about Empathy.
Without my internship experience or my social project, I would have never familiarized my way of living with such term, and Empathy is constantly emphasized in my class since it is a must-have mindset as social entrepreneur. Many people want to do good acts to help the vulnerable groups by donating money, building house, or giving them the business to sustain their livelihood, yet have they ever asked the question whether those so-looked miserable people need such help, whether they want to change their life to be better or they are satisfied with what they have already? This is what keep my team Lens on Mekong wondering how we could help the Mekong locals directly and effectively. To make this wish happen, it requires huge resources including time, manpower, local network, finance, and the ability to understand the problem and the need clearly regarding the Mekong locals. Again, this’s all about Empathy.
The man inspired me by his journey of picking up his English. Learning Thai is possible, too!
That’s the content of the program, what about the human of Global Studies and Social Entrepreneurship (GSSE)?
In a nutshell, they are interesting and helpful! My friends are respectful and collaborative, in a sense, they initiate to do work and are responsible to get the work done on time.
It’s great that sometimes I get my friends to drive me on their cars and have such amazing feelings because I am not yet used to sitting in a car driven by such young men! My friend also helped to buy a simcard online for me as I don’t have Internet Banking, the person doesn’t bother to go to my place to give it to me during their free time. Some are so good at painting, sports, singing and more… that I will discover along the way next.
The faculty is small that offers the students opportunities to reach out to all of the professors or staff so easily. What impresses me is that each of GSSE student has one advior who will accompany our learning journey throughout 4 years. Even so we could always drop questions to Ajarns, Ajarns and the staff are willing to help us for their positive attitudes to grow the students. This is really like a wonderful present to me because in my previous chool, I was always obsessed at going to school on a daily basis to sit in a class of hundereds of students with no communication and relationship with any professor. Isn’t it a place that I should belong to and chose correctly based on my innate need and my gut feelings?
And I love talking to my Ajarns!
Austina said that "It's ok as long as I know what the disease is called, I know what I am living with, I know how to deal with my life." Life is ok and don't need to worry much. Thank you for a short inspiring moment!
…
Weekend.
1st weekend_Volunteer at Uthai Forest Project, Uthai Thani.
Uthai Forest. Action for climate and human beings. ---
The first meaningful weekend in Thailand! Feel connected again more than ever! Nature and human are the greatest treasure in this universe. No boundaries to separate these soulful creatures.
Uthai forest is a project in Uthai Thani Thailand, operated in a huge plot of agriculture land of 230.000m2. The purpose is to transform the entire area into a forest where people can fly with creativity by experimenting different planting techniques, designing facilities and bonding together. It is a dreaming area to be chill with early breaking down, to feel the purified air and smell the grasses everyday.
Besides the time roaming around to work on the field, we also visited an interesting Learning Center in the local community. It is supported by the government to hold free of charge courses and training sessions for those who want to learn agriculture or pursue it as the long-run livelihood. Beautiful work!
Uthai Forest project is supported by some international community and many friends around! Let's come and join them for our present and future prospects!
2nd weekend_Explore Bangrak
I was doing homework on the Civic Engagement and brainstorming the topics for public speaking. I am not sure how I will deliver the topics yet, I tried to take the new topics so that I could challenge myself by articulating the new things that I am not familiar with. It was good that my teammate made the first group call for easier discussion that I feel they are not bad at all. Roles were devided reasonably, it’s just that we have a very long answer which goes over the limit allowed my Aj. In another way, it shows our working spirit and details of findings in our excursion. The excursion was fun and interesting that we decided to choose the building that has less relevant factors to social entrepreneurship. Luckily, we got a worth-considering case study in the Social Complex Building about an old lady working for Thammasat over 20 years. Through her lens, we figured out some of the issues surrounding social status gap among high and low-attention-occupations, bringing to the sense of isolation and disrespect among the “taken-for-granted jobs doers”.
One more thing that worries my brain was how we communicated with the lady including how we asked the questions, and how I could understand the language. At times, the lady was uncomfortable to share her stories and just said no to the questions when the point was switched into some touching point towards her feelings, she began to open her sharing. And, I got more motivation to learn Thai so that I could be less dependent upon my friends, hopefully, the day is not far away. In the recce trip, I was helping Song to translate the conversation with the local of Mekong, and at the same time, I could express my thoughts through my own language, too. It’s the gateway to be connected to a world that seems to be distant but not really, separated by a door called “the language”.
Bangrak discovery
I will make a narrative about this trip according to 4 questions of School of Gumption:
1. What did I observe?
The area has itself polluted seriously which is being ignored by many people. The government is trying to sanitize the water manually but not technologically.
Behind this majestic view, under the Chao Phraya River, thousands of bottles and trash are floating and increasingly discharged everyday by tourists, people and business places. Would people think of the polluting scenes when they see this photo? Thailand is famous for shopping malls and more malls considered as its iconic sites are still invested to be built.
2. What did I learn?
The law was not strict enough to halt the fault acts of people. There is not strong call for action for the public to protect the river and be aware of their own behavior.
From this man's sharing, we could see how much ignorant the people passing by this river could be and somehow the future of this river is getting worse and worse.
We also talked to a 15-year-old kid at the BTS station. A kid performing musical instrument to earn money said no to the help that we might offer proved that we think their case is serious but they are fine with it and we do not need to give our hand to intervene into their ongoing life.
What is surprising is the trip is co-ordinated by a Thai friend in Cohort 5, Ruk who volunteers to drive everyone to the site and be a translator for the team. This is great kindness!
3. What questions do I have?
How to create a movement to clean up the river sustainably and effectively?
Why people take it for granted to throw trash into the river (the people doing business and the condominium nearby)?
4. What ideas do I have?
Do something REAL instead of just seeing the life for fun and opening eyes… Do something…
Inspiring quotes of today and for tomorrow:
"You can't learn from just a class room, you have to have real-world experience and work with real people. Don’t just dream about seeing the world, dream about being a part of it, and dream about adding the best of you to the world." (Her Vang)
Comments