Teach For Thailand Visits Chicago

Teach for Thailand (TFT) is the project promoting Education which is inspired by Teach for America and Teach for All. Teach for Thailand itself is fairly new with only two years of official establishment. Currently, it is trying to promote the program to more motivated Thai students who are studying abroad in the United States and England. This is why they made a trip to Chicago.

The connection that I have about Teach for Thailand came from Alisa who is an undergraduate student from Brown University. I met her during my trip to Boston for spring break two years ago. She interned at Teach For Thailand last summer, and I decided to reach out to her once I know about it on the Newsfeed of Facebook. After talking with a person from TFT, I am really excited with help them while staying in the US in any way that I can. However, once I finished my interview for the Campus Leader (CL) position, I did not feel ready to add one more responsibility on top of everything that I have right now. I almost reject the offer, but then I think that no chance comes twice. If I did not take it now, I might not have the same chance again. This is a chance that I can help the Thai education which I simply only have it in my mind for the whole time while not doing anything about it. In the end, I took the chance, and my first task is to organize the TFT tour which they will come to the US to promote the program on different college campus.

Poster for the visit of Teach for Thailand in Chicago

Teach for Thailand is a two-year fellowship program for newly graduate students or motivated individuals to become a teacher in a poor neighborhood for two years while receiving educational supports and workshop for leadership to develop their personal skills. The goal is to provide schools with motivated and prepared teachers to go to the classroom and make a difference with students in that classroom while also develop their own skills, which makes this program a win-win for both the fellows who are a part of TFT and schools that these fellows go into. It is difficult to tell whether it is a successful program or not since this is only its second year, but it is good to see many people are enthusiastic about fixing the education problem and this will be a good start for more discussion about education in Thailand.

Istanbul: The Unexpected Trip from Layover

This is a kind of trip that I have never thought of until a chance comes around. Basically, I got an internship in Tokyo, Japan, so I have to buy a flight to go there from Chicago. After looking up online, I realized that two cheapest airlines at that time to fly to Tokyo is Turkish Airways and Air Canada. Of course, when I saw an opportunity to visit a new country even just for a little bit, I grab that chance immediately. I picked Turkish Airways just because I can go to Istanbul without a visa during my layover. This trip is my first layover trip to a different country where I don't know the language or anything else about it. But it was a pretty fun trip overall, and I would love to do something like this again in the future.

The first thing that I encountered during the trip to Istanbul is turkish dessert. I have no idea what it is or what it tastes like. Just because I saw lots of people were eating it, I decided to try it as well. I later learned that it is call 'Churro' which is a sweet crispy donut-like dessert. I love it from the first bite. I still wish that I have a chance to eat it again some day. Sounds like it will be a good start for my journey here in Istanbul. I forget to tell that I have to struggle at the train station for a while to figure out the best way to come to the city. It is fairly easy just to take a train to the center of the city, but the token system got me confused. Basically, you need a new token for each train that you take. No free-transfer.

Turkish sweet Churros: Great Dessert