Great Thought for the Day

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
– Saint Francis of Assisi


There are times when past mistakes swim into our vision and do their best to consume us in guilt or regret. At such times it is essential to turn all our attention outwards, away from ourselves.

Analyzing our mistakes and developing a guilt complex benefits no one. If, when you were in Milwaukee, you happened to say something insulting about your girlfriend’s dog, it is not necessary to go to Milwaukee and find your old girlfriend or her dog and make amends. Every dog you treat with kindness will be a proxy for that dog. In this way, if you have treated a particular person badly, even if you can no longer win that person’s forgiveness, you can still win the forgiveness of yourself, of the Lord of Love within, by bearing with people who treat you badly and doing your best not to treat anyone badly again. Whatever we have done, we can make amends for it without looking back in guilt or sorrow.

By Eknath Eswaran

I always love reading his thoughts and comments--very insightful, meaningful and soothing!

A very productive weekend!

Just spending some free time with my family on the weekend. This semester I am teaching six days a week, which is very challenging. Thus, the only day I have will be dedicated to my family at home. This week, Meen and I played volleyball with her friends at school. It was a lot of fun and deminded me of the old days when I played sports. Meen is so good at sports, especially volleyball and badminton.

Also, we cooked lots of food. Mom, my sister-in-law and I cooked some Thai dishes to sell to people in the neibouhood. It's Mom's gig! She enjoys doing it big time.

I could not help but have to talk about my car which will be paid off in a year! Judy, a friend from Brisbane, gave me a Red Nose sticker. I had to put it in front of the car. I think it's a very good idea to donate money for the sticker. It's cute though! :)

Rich in Love!

Could not wait to write this blog after arriving the office. In a minibus at 6 am., I was standing on the bus for the whole time (it might sound torturing, but this is life in Bangkok...you have got to take the best of it...right!); however, I was so occupied observing a family on the bus. The father is the driver himself, the mother is a bus conductor, and a very cute 2 year-old-daughter. What a life! Yes, it is the real life living in the true world these days. However, they seemed to make the most and best of whatever they have..on the bus with the whole family. How great!

At the traffic light (could not help, but smiling as I am typing), the mother, our bus condector, grabbed her daughter real quick as soon as the red light flahed. Meanwhile, the father, our bus driver, grabbed a big bottle of water and jumped off the driver seat. I was puzzled!? They got off the bus to clean their daughter's dirty diaper...on the sidestreet! They both had to rushed to beat the traffic light. I could not help then, but smiled. The whole family also smiled and giggled. They hopped onto the bus just in time. The mother came back to her duty with a nice smile to her customers.

It's very good to see the whole family spending time together. However, I am sure the parents would want to have their daughter in a daycare, rather on the bus. When you don't have the luxury to do so, I assume you have got to take the good with the bad. You just have to love what you do or try to love things that you do. Keep positive mind is the key!

Here I have a good passage and a great thought again from Eknath to share with my readers. Enjoy!

Late have I loved thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved thee! For behold, thou wert within me and I outside; and I sought thee outside and in my unloveliness fell upon these lovely things that thou hast made. Thou wert with me and I was not with thee. I was kept from thee by those things, yet had they not been in thee, they would not have been at all. Thou didst call and cry to me and break open my deafness. . . . I tasted thee, and now hunger and thirst for thee; thou didst touch me, and now I burn for thy peace.
– Saint Augustine


When we use the word love, let us use it very carefully, in the deeply spiritual sense, where to love is to know; to love is to act.

If you really love, from the depths of your consciousness, that love gives you a native wisdom. You perceive the needs of others intuitively and clearly, with detachment from any personal desires; and you know how to act creatively to meet those needs, dexterously surmounting any obstacle that comes in the way. Such is the immense, driving power of love.

"Beauty is all very well at first sight.."

First thing first, I have just read a very good passage from Eknath Eswaran's Thoughts about Beauty and I would help but wanted to share it to everyone who reads my blog.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?
– George Bernard Shaw


Often we try to build relationships on what is pleasing to us, particularly on physical attraction. But if there is anything sure about physical attraction, it is that it has to change. We cannot build on it; its very nature is to come and go.

Physical attraction is a sensation – here one minute and gone the next. Love is a relationship. It is pleasant to be with someone who is physically attractive, but how long can you enjoy an aquiline nose? How long can you thrill to the timbre of a voice when it doesn’t say what you like? It’s very much like eating: no matter how much you are attracted to chocolate pie, there is a limit to how much of it you can enjoy. Beyond that limit, if somebody merely mentions chocolate, your stomach stages a revolt.

If you want to build a relationship, build it on what endures. To build on a firm foundation, we have to stop asking, “What do I like?” and ask only, “What can I give?” Then there is joy in everything, because there is joy in the relationship itself – in ups and downs, through the pleasant and the unpleasant, in sickness and in health.

I wholehearteele agree with George Bernard Shaw and Eknath's thought on it.

There are some photos of the KM seminar I attended at Sripatum University.

Sripatum Academic Forum: Research and Innovations for Sustainable Development

August 13, 2008. Today there was an academic forum on the title of Research and Innovations for Sustainable Development held at Sripatum University. What I liked the most about this forum was the keynote speaker in the afternoon. Asst.Prof. Kanok Wongtrahgan, Ph.D. He gave a talk on Education in Thailand.

He noted that Thailand had become greater than many countries like Australia in terms of reinforcing people to receive higher education. As we can see that there are many students have entered to universities. In juxtapose, not many Australians (or New Zelanders)pursue their education after finishing high schools. However, many of the Thai students who have graduated can find no job or are not capable of working. Like my students, for example, they have learned English all their lives, yet they can't communicate with foreigners effectively. In conclusion, we have focused too much on quality, but lack in quality. Unlike people in Australia, after high school, they would go on training to apprenticeship to learn skillful tasks/jobs to become , for example, a locksmith and so forth.

Now, there is a new challenge/ weakness for the education system of Thailand to have to solve the latter problem and solve a question on how to take the burden of the parents and society of new graduates not getting a job. We can't just keep producing people with higher education, but lack of knowledge,competency, and proficiency.

In order to become successful and famous, according to the speaker, university should learn to blend in with its community, help people in the community (acknowledge what the university can do for the community, not what they can get from the community). Here, community and university should be united. For instance, Columbia University in New York used to separate itself from the New York City, so they were not quit successful and could not build as good reputation as Harvard University. Later on, they changed the management and strategy, they were more involved in the city and open the university to the city and tried to be a part of it by opening more schools that are in high demands in the job market in the NYC. Then, they became famous.

Furthermore, the speaker also mentioned about the goal of UNESCO of the basis of learning. UNESCO (2005) came up with the Basis of learning: Learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be.

Key Skills from Dan Buckley: Communication skill, Problem solving, Evaluation own and others, Information and communication technology, and working with others.

Now, education is not just some one's responsibility. It's every one's. We need to teach our students how to think, not what to think or do. They need to be able to apply the theoretical knowledge they have learned in classrooms to the real situations. They need to be able to answer the questions of their companies about what they do know, what they can do and how they can solve problems.

The speaker left a good note on students' imagination. Imagination is important and many times teachers spoil their imagination, so that they don't make progress and do not know how to think! It's very sad, but true!!

Teaching Co-Operative students

Today it's the first day of teaching (Cooperative Program) again after 2 months of teaching in Australia. This program was for those who would have to do there internship in companies and organizations for about 4 months. Prior to working, they needed to have some kind of English competency. The lesson comprised of four different topics in English business. The first two that were introduced today was preparing for a trip and booking a flight and a hotel room.

It was fun actually to run activities with the students. They seemed to interact better. Perhaps I was fortunate to have students who were majoring in English for Business and Communication. The first activity that I ran this morning was to pair students by employing words, phrases and sentences that would be taught in the first chapter. Once they had found their partners, I had them read them out loud in class. Then, I started introducing them vocabulary words. Power Point prepared by my colleague was utilized throughout the lesson. It was good to have the program; however, I could be detrimental since the teacher might not have enough time to do other activities that would have emphasize some of the points he or she might want to focus on.

Working in pairs and groups was also effective. I have them role play in pairs, but some of them were still stuck with the old way of doing it--memorizing the dialogue. Thus, I walked around and listened to them pair by pair to make comments. Another activity that was very effective in regard to reviewing a dialogue. I had my students repeated a dialogue with me once. Then, we started to interact by me reading person A's line and students would read person B's line and switched. The third time, I had them choose which line they would like to say, then, I had them close the book and we said the dialogue without reading. They really enjoyed doing this activity. There was another thing that I had students do--writing dictation. I had them listen to a conversation they learned in the last two hours, then I had them write down as many words, phrases and sentences that they had just learned as they could to review them. It was fine.

I was a good start of teaching Thai students again. One important thing of teaching is great attitude of the teacher and students!

Thai Mother's Day

It's Sunday 10 August 2008, we went to my niece's school for Mother's Day. Her mother and I attended the ceremony. All mothers were invited to the event today. I thought it was a great event which should be held every year and throughout the country. It reflects our wonderful culture and great traits of Thai people. We try to instill good traits to our children by paying respect to olders.

In the morning, we gave food to monks. Then, there were activities and performances from students from forms 3 to forms 6. Meen is in her last year in a local primary school. Then, the teachers asked all students to pay respect to their mothers or what we called "Wai" and gave flowers to them. We were very proud of Meen. Many moms had tears in their eyes. It was a touching moment.

On Tuesday 12, actual Mother's Day (and the Queen's Birthday), I took my mom and Meen to dinner in the mall nearby. We really had a great time eating dinner, shopping, and having some ice-cream. I gave my mom kisses and told her how lucky I was to have her in my life.

Family is the most important part of my life. We all should live our lives in balance by trying to seperate work from family. However, we should pay our most attention and always do our best to what we do and what we are responsible for.

"The Best Practices in Teaching and Learning" KM Workshop at SPU

Friday 8 August 2008

I was invited today to attend a KM Workshop on Best Practices in Teaching and Learning at(or what I would put it as "Professional Development")initiated by Dr. Numthip the Director of the Library of Sripatum University as part of Knowledge Bank Management. I was very pleased to attend the seminar and workshop as I learned more good teaching practices through the real role models (teachers from Assoc. Prof.Dr. Umporn, Srinakharinwirot University; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Somtawil, Kasetsart University; and Dr. Anuchit, Sripatum University). The keynote speakers are very knowledgeable and the one thing that I noticed during their speeches was that they are "born to be" teachers. They have their hearts and souls in this profession, so that they always learn new ways or strategies of teaching. According to the speakers, there is no such a thing as the best teaching and learning practice. It all comes down to serving what our students' needs and what is right for them. What I gathered, furthermore, good teachers are not merely those who know what to teach, how to teach, but also those who are perseverance and creative. Having a natural gift in teaching is one thing that help teachers imparting knowledge to their students more effectively. More importantly, the art of teaching can be developed since everyone has the capacity to learn, to change and to grow. Teachers should have good attitudes and mindset. Also, good teachers should have good knowledge in any subject matters and have good morale. Here, I have to say that I say all this traits in this three speakers and I was, inevitably, satisfied and energised or somewhat empowered to do my very best in this profession while I am still a teacher. There are also many teachers whom I met in Brisbane during the exchange program. Also, I am sure there are many other Thai teachers who are as good and dedicated.

One speaker mentioned about "Learning Community." I was very mesmerised by the term and kind of hoped that we have such community at Liberal Arts, Sripatum University. This place will be an ideal place for teachers to learn...learn how to teach and help one another to solve problems and develop our teaching skills and the courses we teach.


There are also many good teaching techniques, according to the speakers, as the following:
-writing a good and lengthy course syllabus,
-using role play, case studies, games, and other communicative activities
-assigning external reading and keeping journal logs
-teaching or giving advice on how to ask questions
-giving students a second chance for any small tests
-explaining to students about objectives of each lesson and activity taught and done in classroom
-providing teaching time in different phases: Lecture/teaching, Practice/action, Presentation/evaluation
-encouraging and valuing students' work in public or to share with other students in and out side of classroom
-teaching students to recognize their own potentials and each other's strengths and to socialize
-teaching students by following the MEAT model: Man, Edutainment, A...., Technology
-etc.

By and large, I have learned so much from this seminar and workshop. I learned that everyday has the capacity to change to learn and to grow.

A question left hanging in my mind though after the workshop. As a teacher, is knowing what we teach enough to make students become complete human beings with knowledge, morale, good spirits, and other good traits? And is knowing how to teach enough to help them stand on their very own feet with pride and courage to help support their own family and develop their own community and country after graduating?

Here I am again...HOME!

Six O'clock in the morning of Monday, Mom, my brother and Meen (my niece) anxiously waiting for me at the airport. They must have gotten up very early; I know for sure that my mom would have been up since 3 or 4 in the morning. She had some tears (let say tears of joy to see me back home) in her eyes as if I had gone for 2 years! It was nice seeing them again, although I felt as if I had gone away for so long that I felt attached a bit to Brisbane. I blended so well in the workplace and became close to people from other there such as Judy's family.

Not wasting my time, I dropped off my luggage and decided to go to the Uni. I guess I still have lots of piss and vinegar! My colleagues and friends could not believe that I would show up 2 hrs after landing and all said that I had gained some weight! Here we go again...Thai style of greeting. Anyway, I feel good about myself now...I'd rather gain some weight than losing my hair like I experienced before I went to Australia and the first week I was there. Not eating right and having so much stress almost got me bald. Good thing Nizoron 2% and Brisbane coffees and food and New Zealand wines and desserts did safe my hair there. :)

Anyway, it was great to come back again and prepare for my classes. I will be teaching 3 courses this semester: Negotiation, Speech Communication and Everyday English. I am acting as a coordinator for Everyday English again this time to organize the courses with other three coordinators. After a week, I found that everything was still the same, except the gas prices were down a bit. People now are the same, but something has changed. I have different aspects of things and tend to have better positive thoughts upon things. When we have positive thinking, magic appears! Well, this how I would describe it is that you see and appreciate more in life especially things that are right before your eyes.

The first weekend had arrived, my sister-in-law, Meen and I went to the park at JJ market to take a walk and just have a great time together. My mom, as usual, keeps herself busy with selling vegies and things. We helped make a Thai dessert for her to sell in the neighbourhood. I am planning to balance myself by separating work from home. My family is as important as my career.

The first week went by so quickly and good thing I finished writing all the reports I had to get done.

It's not a goodbye; it's see you again!

The weather did not cooperate all day; however, we managed to keep ourselves busy by going to Food World, a local grocery store, to get some ingredients for our party on Saturday. Mom planned to make beef stew, and I planned to make a Thai dish, Mussamun Kai (Chicken drumsticks with red curry) and an apple pie. Mom treated me a wonderful lunch at a local restaurant. We both had Smoked Salmon salad on a bagel (I was dying for a bagel). Then, we came home and went to see Graham play balls. It was very interesting. At first I thought it was like a bowling game, but it turned out to be an indoors lawn balls. Graham did a great job today. He was very happy to see us there to give him a cheer! I knew he would like support, so I had asked Mom to go. He won the game and expecting to play another game next week. After we came home, I started making dinner for them. I made sweet and sour stirred fry with pineapples with nuts on crispy fried fish served with rice! Ummm! Yum!!! They really liked it big time.

On the next day, we did not go any where far since we both really focused on making food and dessert. We did not get them done until later on because we had to get some some more ingredients. Also, Mom wanted to buy me a gift for my birthday. It was very nice of her. I was more than happy to just spend time with them and not a single gift would matter anyway. However, we ended up buying some rings, so they would remind me of them--every day. The weather started to clear up. Today, Dad from the first host family, whom I stayed with for about 3 months when I was an AFS exchange student, stopped by to see me. I thought that I would not have the chance to see him again and would have lost track with the whole family again since we could not find any contacts. Magically, we made a call to the Lawsons in Kaikoura and he turned out to be Dad's Uncle. Thus, we got Nana's number. We talked for a bit and found out that Dad was in Rangiora on business. Anyway, we met each other and got a chance to reunited. It was a touching moment to see Dad again and later that night I talked Mum 1 and Hyden, my host brother who is now 15 and hoping to become a pilot! Dad officially apologized for giving up on me 11 years ago. I had to change a family even though we got along so very well that I became real part of the family. I felt real bad that made him felt very bad after 11 years. Things do happen for a reason, and , in my case, it turned out quite well with 2 wonderful host families at that time and now. Dad felt very guilty then. I was glad we met and caught up with each other again. I respect him as if my real dad since I do not have one. I had never known what it was like to have Dad until I met him! Tonight I made them another Thai dish and we had a visitor for dinner. We had a great time chatting and did not go to bed until almost 11 p.m. I did not want the night to end. Graham spoke a lot tonight and I enjoyed his company big time. I guess the drink he had really did the trick. He said, "You are just too clever!" after I explained the Thai culture to Mom's friend about a problem with her Thai daughter-in-law. I told him, "I came with the whole package, not just a pretty face," then all of us started to laugh.

Finally Saturday had arrived. It's my last morning here in Kaikoura. We had to head back to Rangiora for a birthday party of Graham, Michael and me. Graham and I share the same birthday (July 15) and Michaels was a week later. I was very sad to have to leave, but the good memories still remain. On the way to Rangiora, I had to go to the loo so bad, so I said to Graham, "Please try not to joke around or say anything funny, not that you ever talk, but just in case!" Then, Mom and Graham started laughing since we all knew that Graham does not talk much.

We arrived Rangiora around lunch time. Mom and I attended lunch at Rosemary's house. I stayed with her family for about a month while I was waiting for host family (which was Mom and Graham). They invited me to their beautiful home and catch up with each other. There, I met her, her husband and Victoria. Also, I met with the Wanty's again. We had a great time catching up. I was so blessed to be able to see all of the people that I wished to see. They all were and are very kind to me. Then we visited another family whom I used to spend time fishing and hanging out with when I was in Kaikoara. We came back to Peter's house and started to prepare food and the party. We had so much to eat and drink, especially tonight is the rugby night between the All Blacks and the Wallabies. We stayed up until 1 a.m. The All Blacks lost since they made some many errors.

Anyway, the morning had arrived and I headed to see Nana and Granddad at their house. They were so thankful to see me again after 11 years. They were still the same to me and I was very glad to see them again. Then, I came back to Peter's to have branch and get ready to head to the airport. Graham, Mom, Tessa and Cassie went to see me off at the airport. It was touching to have them their with me. Graham looked sad. He viewed all the photos taken in the past week in Mom's digital camera while I was checking in. It was not a goodbye, I said, it was "see you later!" I could not help but almost tear down. I MISSED THEM ALREADY!

My trip in New Zealand had come to an end as well as my teaching experience in Australia. Judy and her family came to pick me out and took me out to dinner at Sizzler's. They drove me around town for the last time and dropped me off at the airport to catch another plane home to Thailand.

I would like to thank all of the people who helped me made my teaching experience and other things happen. I truly had a great time and learned a whole lot more both in teaching and in life!

Amazing Marine Animal--adorable baby seals!

It was a long walk we had this morning. We thought it was a good decision to start the day with some kind of an exercise before the weather got yucky out as the weather forecast predicted for the rest of the week. We took the same our track that we used to do our hike 11 years ago; however, some path was changed. We had to walk through a bush of pine trees, which was better, I thought. As soon as we got on the hill, we could see the town below us and the endless ocean. It was awesome! We bumped into Carmine, the lady I used to stay with for 10 days during my school exchange between Rangiara High School and Kaikoura High School. She still remained the same, I thought. We chatted for a bit since we intended to visit her later on for a coffee at her house.

On the way back from the walk, we stopped at a nursery where Mom helped out sometimes. The kids were there from baby up to 2 years old. There were about 3 adults running the place. There was one Japanese lady, who is at the same age as I am, just lost her husband who was a teacher at the high school. She decided after her husband’s pass not to returned home since she loved the peaceful environment so much that she thought she would spend her whole life there.

Then, we got ready to start our adventures for the day. First, we went to see Carmine officially. We had a chat and tried to catch up with each other. Her sons are now growing up and William is now a Civil Engineer at my age. He is out abroad at the moment as well as his other two brothers. After the visit, we went to see baby seals. At first, I thought that they would be in an indoor pool or some kind; however, it turned out to be that we had to walk up the hill in a forest for a bit until we reached the waterfall. And there they were about 20 baby seals showing off a trick with pieces of sticks without a trainer. They discovered the freshwater heaven in the waterfall. After they were fed, they would claim up the rocks from the sea to the waterfall to “exercise.” It seemed to me that they really had a great time swimming and jumping in the little pond. It’s just amazing of how cute they were and the energy they had to come up this far from the sea. Mom said last time some people brought some balls for them to play with, but this time there were none. We intended to bring some, but we forgot. They were like little babies.

After we decided we had enough of the rain,cold, and the seals, we headed back to the town to look for some gifts and drop off postcards. There were so many precious things in the stores there, especially jewelry made of jades/ green stones, shells and wood. I did not get anything thinking that I did not really need them. Yet, I got a picture frame for Judy. Then we went to a photo shop to get a picture of me, Judy and Kelly developed.

Later on, we came back to relax and got ready to go to the mid-week happy hour for ladies from the Lion’s club. Mom is the president of the club. Tonight, there were not many members showed up since it’s cold and raining out. We talked about things and had a great time among “girls.” We had chips for snack. Then, Mom and I had to excuse to Shane and Dawn’s house for tea. We are having GREASIE tonight. I loved it so much that I felt so full after a piece of deep fried fish and a handful of chips and a snitch of donut…no wonder why I gained 20 pounds back 11 years ago. I thought this time I did not mind gaining some but not as much! We had a great talk and the kids were just so good and well behaved. I had a chance to catch up with Dawn whom I used to hang out with. Everything is still the same here except me who talks A LOT!