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

UTRIP: How I spent my last summer of college

During the summer of 2014, I had a chance to participate in University of Tokyo Research Internship Program (UTRIP) with the financial support from Friends of UTokyo, Inc. UTRIP is an undergraduate summer research internship program with top professors for those who want to pursuing Ph.D. degree in science in the future.

Prof.Tamura's seminar on the topic of Exoplanets

I participated in the Exoplanet Lab in the Astronomy Department hosted by Prof. Motohide Tamura. The main focus of the lab is about direct imaging technique to observe several types of objects such as exoplanets and protoplanetary disks. The data mostly comes from Subaru Telescope which is the 8.2 meter telescope of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), located at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. My research background is astrophysics, mainly exoplanet using transiting technique. Thus, I was really excited once I knew that I would learn this new technique, direct Imaging, to detect planets. Direct imaging planets are extraordinary because we can actually see a planet itself instead of an indirectly observed planet from technique such as transiting and radial velocity. By being able to see a planet, we can confidently say that we found an extrasolar planet and a planet does exist outside our solar system.

Firework Festival in Tokyo during Summer

This post will simply be mostly photos on two (maybe three if you count the one that I didn't wait to see the actual firework) firework festivals in Tokyo that I attended during my internship in Tokyo with the UTRIP program. There are festivals basically every weekend for the whole month of July and maybe couple more in August. I recommended everyone who has a chance to visit Tokyo during this time to attend one of the festivals. The enormous size of the events will surprise you even though they hold the events every weekend.

Sumidagawa Fireworks Festival 2014, near Tokyo Skytree

Big Reunion After Ten Years for SG in Tokyo

This is the first post from Tokyo, Japan. But it is not an usual post from the new city since this post is not about what new things I found in the city, but what old things I have forgotten during the last ten years when I left Saint Gabriel's College. 

Tanabata Festival on the 7/7, near Asakusa

It was a quick notice but four of us meet together at Asakusa for the Tanabata festival which is a festival about the story of two young people who can meet each other once a year during the 7th of the 7th month because of the separation from the Milky Way. The festival itself is interesting with all strange stuffs scattering around the festival such as Tamagoyaki (Japanese Sweet Egg Omelet) for 100 yen which was surprisingly good and people dressing in Yukata. But the main point of this post is not the festival, but about the reunion after ten years and thousands of miles away from where we met each other before.

A Common History for Nationalism and Role of Public Education

How can we unite people with different races, languages and values to create a unified and harmonious nation? 

Imagine bringing in people from different nations to live together in one place and say that from now on you all are a part of this new country. Chaos is what comes to my mind from this situation. However, this is exactly what happened many centuries ago when people try to create a nation. So, how could they do it? 

One possible answer is "Nationalism." They created a strong centralized administration to create a common history for all people in the country to share. Similarly, when you have a high school reunion, what bring people together is their common experience in high school that they want to share with others. By inventing a common history, the government basically makes us feel like we have a reunion all the time.

Champ De Mars from the top of the Eiffel tower.

Last post for Paris: Why do I love Paris?

I thought 10 weeks in Paris will be a long time, but in fact it was not that long for me. I feel like I just got to know the city. I just started to know what the city is like, what the people are like, what the language sounds like and where to go when one has free time. I experienced this feeling for the first time yesterday after my last final exam here in Paris, but it was also the last day that I can experience it. 

But time never stopped running, and now another chapter of my life is slowly coming to an end while the next chapter is coming soon.

When I got here, I don't think I will ever say this, but I do want to say it now. "I love Paris." There are more than just touristy places that everyone seems to post online to share when they come to Paris. Here are things I like about this city and the time that I am here.

Public transportation
It seems like everyone love this fact about how efficient public transportation is in Paris, how little time they have to wait at the metro station to catch a train home, how fast it is to get from one place to the other and how easy it is to find metro stations since there are everywhere. If you walked in the city and started to feel that you got lost, the next metro station will be right in front of you and you can just catch the next train home without much thinking to do. And I really like public transportation here for these same reasons as well and it just makes it is much easier to get to know the city like I could not have done anywhere else.

Musée des Arts et Métiers Metro stop

Also, there are many little details in the metro station that are worth looking at. And perhaps because of this, that I never hesitate to get the next train and go to different places that I have never been before.