A good subtitle for this post would be: hiking and camping with people who have never been and have no desire to be hiking and camping. Or even better: hiking and camping with people who have never been and have no desire to be hiking and camping and who are really hungry because there isn't enough food. As you can guess, it was fun times.
Freshy Quest Camp is an orientation event for all freshman and pretty similar to the senior quest camp I helped with earlier this year. Payap is lucky to have some cabins in the "mountains" near Chiang Mai. They are in the middle of a national forest and are a great place to get away from the bustle and pollution of the city. And so, once a year, Esther's department coordinates with the International College to put on a camp for all the incoming freshman. students are shuttled out to the base of the mountain and then everyone hikes up to the cabins, stopping along the way for games. It's supposed to be a time for them to get to know each other and to reflect a little bit about their recent transition into life as a student.
It's really an excellent idea, with one little hitch. Most of the students at Payap aren't what you might call the outdoorsy type. True, some of them come from rural backgrounds and are used to living without things many Americans would consider necessities, but for the most part it's a group that is more interested in shopping and playing video games than in spending a weekend without cell phone service or hot water. But that problem is a small one compared to the fact that most of these students would rather not walk anywhere, much less up a steep mountain trail. If you think I am exaggerating, here is an example. On saturday before we were about to depart a couple of students wanted to get something from the nearby 7'eleven. By "nearby," I mean it would take maybe two minutes to walk there. However these students chose to use the campus shuttle service, which they had to wait for and which takes longer anyways because it has to take a more indirect route. These were the kids we were going to spend the day hiking up steep mountain trails with.
Of course by mountain I really mean hill and while the trails do get pretty steep in a few places, they don't come anywhere close to the trails I tackled in New Zealand and would be considered quite easy by most people. Plus the hike isn't really that long, only about 4k, and there are plenty of stops along the way. But to hear the groans of our unhappy campers you would think we were forcing them to climb Mt. Everest. At least we'd had the good sense to tell them to bring appropriate shoes this time. At senior quest camp we had girls wearing heels and platform shoes.
However despite the whining saturday got off to a pretty good start. I think the students really enjoyed the games, which were led by someone from another department, and despite their grumbling I think they enjoyed being out in nature for a change. And so we arrived at the cabins, tired and hungry from a day outdoors. And that's when things began to, well, not run so smoothly.
It started with the food. We had planned on having food for about 20 people. Unfortunately we actually had about 25 with us. Usually this event is catered and there is a cook, but we were under budget constraints and so our team was responsible for it all. When it became apparent that we had underestimated the amount of food we would need (considerably), Esther, sarah and Mai rose to the occasion wonderfully by supplementing our spaghetti with some fried rice, bread and butter and pretty much whatever we could scrounge up. But there still was barely enough and while no one went hungry, nobody likes to be told there's a shortage of food when they're starving and I felt especially bad since this group wasn't all that keen on the whole experience in the first place.
From then on we never managed to rally the troops' morale. Our team had some cultural activities planned for the evening that we had transplanted from our intercultural workshop, but by this point nobody was all that motivated. They were nice kids, and they listened and to be fair there were a couple of activities that went pretty well, but by the time I took over the workshop at the end everyone was tired and really just wanted to relax. I could understand that, and I would've even considered calling my section off, but the bonfire wasn't lit yet and I didn't want to leave them to their own devices for too long. so I tried to present my section with enthusiasm, but I was as relieved as they were when everyone had finished their skits and we were able to go to the bonfire.
We were lucky to be able to have some extra bread brought up for the French toast in the morning, but we had a late start for the traditional hike to the top of the mountain. sunday morning is supposed to be more reflective, and we had some good things planned for this during stops along the hike, but everyone just wanted to go back home. They weren't too pleased when we told them we would be going to the summit first. I was amazed that they actually invested as much as they did in the activities, but overall you could tell that most of them really just wanted to be done with the whole thing. Not the attitude I was hoping for at the end of the camp.
Anyhow, it's a classic case of live and learn. We'll know better for next time what doesn't work. I learned a lot about how to plan this type of event. And I still had a great time getting out of the city, doing some hiking, enjoying some cooler weather, and looking out over a beautiful view of Chiang Mai.
June 19, 2011
June 11, 2011
Guest Music psa
I haven't heard back from all my music psa surveys yet, but I have enough responses to get me through the next couple weeks. ;) This week I'm posting a favorite piece of my fellow music major and good friend Angela. Angela is a violinist and quite a good one at that. she's gone on to get her master's in music. I asked her to recommend a favorite violin concerto or solo, since my knowledge is more of piano than it is of violin. Angela said that the piece my question brought to mind was the vioin concerto in d minor by sibelius. This is a really enjoyable performance by Gil shaham (one of the few current performers that I actually know about) that I found on YouTube.
I'm a little sad that we never really studied sibelius in Music History as he seems like a composer I should know. All I know is that he was Finnish, he composed in the late 1800s, and you can definitely hear some of the nationalistic or folk elements composers were playing with then in this piece.
I've posted the third movement, mostly because the first movement is too long for one video clip. But the whole piece is really worth listening to. I can remember Dr. strauch getting on his soapbox about what makes classical music important and unique, and one of the things was how many different emotions it can span in a single piece. You don't really find that in pop music or even in jazz. This piece does a good job of demonstrating that, it's very fun but sensitive somehow at the same time. It's also impressive in how technically demanding it is, but not showy. I think my favorite part is the syncopated rhythm that first shows up around 1:40 (syncopation is a major element of swing music) and also the "whistle" effect the violin makes around 4:45. I also like how excited the violinist is about playing the piece. Watch his face at the beginning. "Ready? Okay, go!"
I'm a little sad that we never really studied sibelius in Music History as he seems like a composer I should know. All I know is that he was Finnish, he composed in the late 1800s, and you can definitely hear some of the nationalistic or folk elements composers were playing with then in this piece.
I've posted the third movement, mostly because the first movement is too long for one video clip. But the whole piece is really worth listening to. I can remember Dr. strauch getting on his soapbox about what makes classical music important and unique, and one of the things was how many different emotions it can span in a single piece. You don't really find that in pop music or even in jazz. This piece does a good job of demonstrating that, it's very fun but sensitive somehow at the same time. It's also impressive in how technically demanding it is, but not showy. I think my favorite part is the syncopated rhythm that first shows up around 1:40 (syncopation is a major element of swing music) and also the "whistle" effect the violin makes around 4:45. I also like how excited the violinist is about playing the piece. Watch his face at the beginning. "Ready? Okay, go!"
June 10, 2011
Random Cultural Notes
It's been a busy week. One of those instances where everything happens at once. I was about to tell you all the boring details of work and so forth, but I can hear the sounds of your tiny violins even while I'm this far away, so instead I'll try and post something more interesting.
On a cultural/event related note, I managed to make it to the capping ceremony for second year nursing students. This marks their transition to third year and also signifies that they are qualified to began doing intern work in hospitals. It was a very old-fashioned Thai event and students wore their nursing outfits, which gave me an excuse of taking pictures of them without feeling awkward.
I'm beginning to think that there's a point in living abroad when you sort of forget your life back home. Not that you forget what you did or the people you knew, but I guess you forget what everyday life is like there. Right now, to think of spokane and all the people there going about their normal routines is quite weird for me. It's a bit like trying to remember a dream you've had. I just can't fit the world of spokane and the world of Chiang Mai into the same reality. They don't seem to belong to the same planet, just as my life here doesn't really seem to belong to the same person. some days I wake up and I still think "wait a minute I'm not an English teacher, I'm a music student!" It's not homesickness or anything like that. It's just very confusing.
I mean, in many ways Chiang Mai doesn't seem all that different from spokane anymore. The people in it aren't really that different from the people back home and life here is made up of many of the same routines. "People are the same but different," a girl I met in New Zealand last year observed. We'd been talking about travel and that quote pretty much sums up my experience so far as well as my difficulty in describing it. That quote maybe doesn't seem particularly profound. It really doesn't seem to say much at all. But it's the closest I can get to describing living in another culture.
I've been looking through a book about study abroad that I wish I'd had access to before I left. It talks about stages of cultural awareness (along with a lot of other really good stuff). One of these is minimization of differences, which is something I'm afraid I probably lean towards. I like to think that we're all human beings in the end and we should all be able to relate to one another. I don't like to make things overly complicated or acting like being members of a different culture makes us members of a different species. Yet there are significant differences and to ignore them is to close yourself off. It's exhausting to try and figure other cultures out, which is why I often feel like giving up. I wonder how much I can really understand about why people do what they do. In my experience, we're all insane!
I guess I am trying to assess how much I've been able to integrate to Thai culture and whether or not I've been trying hard enough. Though I've been here longer than the duration of most study abroad programs, I still feel like an outsider in many ways. The language barrier is, I think, the biggest hurdle. Without being able to communicate with people fluently, you really can't be much more than a bystander. But there are other significant things that would get in the way, even if I could speak the language fluently. "In foreign cultures, it seems as though you can be loved, but you will never be "in." You simply lack "connections"--family, history, etc." my friend Amy observed during a recent facebook chat. That also reflects how I feel. I feel very loved here. The nursing students and staff are very friendly and show their appreciation for what I do (even though I feel like I don't really do that much here). Esther and the team are great support. But I'm not in. That's okay, but it's a bit frustrating and makes me wonder how or if I can change it even a little bit.
so I blog and I try to figure people out and I try to do good work and I wonder how this whole experience will fit with whatever comes after this or if it will at all. And that's kind of where I'm at. Didn't mean to get so reflective but sometimes it's nice to get it in writing.
On a cultural/event related note, I managed to make it to the capping ceremony for second year nursing students. This marks their transition to third year and also signifies that they are qualified to began doing intern work in hospitals. It was a very old-fashioned Thai event and students wore their nursing outfits, which gave me an excuse of taking pictures of them without feeling awkward.
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In case you are wondering, yes they actually practice nursing in those outfits. After they graduate it seems professionals get something slightly more modern. Events like this one are very formal and well-rehearsed. There usually are several very long speeches in Thai. I sat in the wings with various family members and several over-size stuffed animals that were to be given as gifts to the students.
Other stuff
- Anisha shared a funny cultural experience the other day. she was trying to explain to her roommate why she did not want to wear a Mickey Mouse hand bag. "But how will puchai (boys) know you're cute?" her roommate wondered. Hm. Dear single friends, maybe this is what we have been doing wrong.
- I finally managed to take a picture of the cows near the university entrance. It's not the best shot but you get the idea.
- I've actually been making a list of the quirks about where I'm living as a form of entertainment. This was inspired by the plumbing problems we've been having lately. I'd noticed the sound of a pipe leak from behind a maintenance panel in my room, but had been ignoring it because I needed to focus on work and didn't want to be harassed by chaang naam (the Thai word for plumber is, apparently, "water mechanic"). However today when it began to sound like there was a small waterfall in the wall, I thought it cause for concern. Luckily there were already water mechanics working on the problem.
- The laundry area outside often floods when it's rainy. A couple of times I have come back to my laundry and found it strewn on the wet cement in much worse shape than before I washed it. I miss dryers.
- There are three washing machines, one of which is perpetually out of order. The other two play music as they wash your clothes. No I am not making this up. There are also scales outside of 7'eleven that you can weigh yourself on (for a small price) while they play a simplified version of Fur Elise.
- My building has seven floors and therefore is equipped with an elevator. This, I have discovered, only stops on odd-numbered floors. I don't know why.
- In my room there are very few electrical outlets, and none next to the kitchen area. This means I often boil water either on the floor or next to the iron.
- The students are locked in the nursing compound promptly at 8:00 p.m. every night (10:00 on weekends) and often amuse themselves by practicing cheerleading on the front lawn. The dorm itself is locked at midnight with no way to get out. Esther has suggested that I invest in a rope in case of a fire, and I don't think she was entirely joking...
I'm beginning to think that there's a point in living abroad when you sort of forget your life back home. Not that you forget what you did or the people you knew, but I guess you forget what everyday life is like there. Right now, to think of spokane and all the people there going about their normal routines is quite weird for me. It's a bit like trying to remember a dream you've had. I just can't fit the world of spokane and the world of Chiang Mai into the same reality. They don't seem to belong to the same planet, just as my life here doesn't really seem to belong to the same person. some days I wake up and I still think "wait a minute I'm not an English teacher, I'm a music student!" It's not homesickness or anything like that. It's just very confusing.
I mean, in many ways Chiang Mai doesn't seem all that different from spokane anymore. The people in it aren't really that different from the people back home and life here is made up of many of the same routines. "People are the same but different," a girl I met in New Zealand last year observed. We'd been talking about travel and that quote pretty much sums up my experience so far as well as my difficulty in describing it. That quote maybe doesn't seem particularly profound. It really doesn't seem to say much at all. But it's the closest I can get to describing living in another culture.
I've been looking through a book about study abroad that I wish I'd had access to before I left. It talks about stages of cultural awareness (along with a lot of other really good stuff). One of these is minimization of differences, which is something I'm afraid I probably lean towards. I like to think that we're all human beings in the end and we should all be able to relate to one another. I don't like to make things overly complicated or acting like being members of a different culture makes us members of a different species. Yet there are significant differences and to ignore them is to close yourself off. It's exhausting to try and figure other cultures out, which is why I often feel like giving up. I wonder how much I can really understand about why people do what they do. In my experience, we're all insane!
I guess I am trying to assess how much I've been able to integrate to Thai culture and whether or not I've been trying hard enough. Though I've been here longer than the duration of most study abroad programs, I still feel like an outsider in many ways. The language barrier is, I think, the biggest hurdle. Without being able to communicate with people fluently, you really can't be much more than a bystander. But there are other significant things that would get in the way, even if I could speak the language fluently. "In foreign cultures, it seems as though you can be loved, but you will never be "in." You simply lack "connections"--family, history, etc." my friend Amy observed during a recent facebook chat. That also reflects how I feel. I feel very loved here. The nursing students and staff are very friendly and show their appreciation for what I do (even though I feel like I don't really do that much here). Esther and the team are great support. But I'm not in. That's okay, but it's a bit frustrating and makes me wonder how or if I can change it even a little bit.
so I blog and I try to figure people out and I try to do good work and I wonder how this whole experience will fit with whatever comes after this or if it will at all. And that's kind of where I'm at. Didn't mean to get so reflective but sometimes it's nice to get it in writing.
June 4, 2011
Guest Music psa
I had a brilliant idea the other day. Why not ask some of my fellow music majors and other music folk about their favorite pieces? I mean, that way I could maybe get exposed to some new music. so I've been asking around to see what it is my fellow musicians are listening to. To start with, I'm posting a recommendation from my jazz piano instructor at Whitworth, Brent Edstrom. I asked Brent to suggest a jazz pianist or performance that he thinks everyone should listen to. He recommended either something by Oscar Peterson or Art Tatum. since I've already posted some Oscar, here is Art Tatum's performance of "Tiger Rag." Art Tatum is one of those names you probably won't hear outside of the fold of jazz nerds, but he was one of the best pianists ever to live. His accuracy and speed are ridiculous, as are his improvisations. Basically, he's frightening. Oh, did I mention he was almost completely blind?
May 28, 2011
Classical? Music psa
Aaaaannnnddd we're back! This time with Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F Major. Everyone knows Rhapsody in Blue so I thought I'd post this one.
The joys of rearranging furniture
The new semester is just around the corner and new students will start moving in on Monday. The person who usually organizes orientation is out of the country at the moment and so we have been scrambling to fill her place. This has made for a lot of confusion and uncertainty, but with any luck we'll pull through.
Besides organizing events, our team is responsible for a cultural workshop for the international students. We are once again using Foreign to Familiar as a reference point and have decided go all out on the discussion-based approach. Basically, what we've encountered is that people are highly resistant to this stuff. It seems to oversimplify things and promote stereotypes and so people resent it. But the fact is that (at least in my limited experience) there is some logic to it. But it's no fun to be told things about your own culture, or to be forced to swallow something you're resistant to. However, it is fun to discover this stuff on your own and to start to be able to make sense of things. Therefore we're using activities and scenarios (Whitworth folk: think Core 350) instead of simply creating a boring powerpoint presentation. Unfortunately that means more work and anxiety, which I have been avoiding through every means possible.
On a related note, my room is the cleanest it's ever been! And my stuff is super organized. This is actually a great feeling. I've been meaning to rearrange the furniture and do some thorough cleaning for quite a while actually, but I put it off with the excuse that I ought to consult sarah first. Well, sarah's moved to another dorm and so I have this rather spacious room/suite all to myself. For the time being at least. I cannot convey how happy I am to have finally moved the furniture around. For one, my computer can finally live at my desk. The old location of my desk was out of the wireless network range and so I was using a makeshift table instead. I have finally switched the locations of these things so that I don't have to sit sideways anymore. Of course I'm so used to sitting sideways by now that I'm currently doing so anyways. I also discovered many things while cleaning, including a light switch to a light that I thought was burnt out. It's amazing what happens when you move things to clean behind them. But mainly I'm much happier because my room feels more like a place to live in and less like a storage closet. sarah and I had experimented before with furniture arrangements and never found anything that quite worked. Initially I thought I could move some extra stuff to sarah's side of the room, but I've discovered that I didn't even need to do that. I feel like I'm channeling Katrina. I can't stop looking around at all the clean, organized things and feeling extremely happy inside. so if you are feeling down, try rearranging your furniture. It may just be that your feng shui is off.
I can't believe I just wrote so much about cleaning. These are the exciting things I blog about while living in Thailand. so for some more important news, our team has gone from five to four people. As I've mentioned before, Ozzie and Rochell's contracts expire at the end of the month and they are both moving on. Esther had hired two new replacements for them, but one of them cancelled at the last minute leaving us with four people. This is part of why my roommate sarah has moved to another dorm, so we'll have a CV in every dormitory on the other campus. I'll be flying solo on this side, but I've decided I do better working alone than in a team. so sarah will be living in the international dorm, Anisha will be in the women's dormitory and our new team member, Eric, will be in the men's dormitory. Eric hails from Wisconsin but has lived in Thailand for a few years. He's currently completing his masters in tesol at Payap and therefore will be a great resource for our team.
It looks like it will be a busy semester. The general English program is undergoing a complete overhaul and we are going to be responsible for speaking "lab" classes. This sounded like a good idea before we realized it meant dividing up 1200 students between four CVs and two GVs. We'll see what happens. And with the loss of Ozzie, Esther is in need of some support for her department's classes: Truth and service, and Critical Thinking and Logic. I am quite pleased to say that it looks like I will be facilitating the Critical Thinking course, even though I have absolutely no credentials to do so. Thus "facilitating." I suppose it's more of an independent study course, but I'm still excited. I basically get to pretend to be a professor, which for me is a little bit like being a kid in a candy store. And I am super passionate about this subject because I believe it is a skill that is badly needed and that most people seem to lack. Maybe I should have been a philosophy major...
Anyhow, that's all I can think to write about and now I've used up the last of my procrastination devices and will have to actually do something job-related. Woe is me.
Besides organizing events, our team is responsible for a cultural workshop for the international students. We are once again using Foreign to Familiar as a reference point and have decided go all out on the discussion-based approach. Basically, what we've encountered is that people are highly resistant to this stuff. It seems to oversimplify things and promote stereotypes and so people resent it. But the fact is that (at least in my limited experience) there is some logic to it. But it's no fun to be told things about your own culture, or to be forced to swallow something you're resistant to. However, it is fun to discover this stuff on your own and to start to be able to make sense of things. Therefore we're using activities and scenarios (Whitworth folk: think Core 350) instead of simply creating a boring powerpoint presentation. Unfortunately that means more work and anxiety, which I have been avoiding through every means possible.
On a related note, my room is the cleanest it's ever been! And my stuff is super organized. This is actually a great feeling. I've been meaning to rearrange the furniture and do some thorough cleaning for quite a while actually, but I put it off with the excuse that I ought to consult sarah first. Well, sarah's moved to another dorm and so I have this rather spacious room/suite all to myself. For the time being at least. I cannot convey how happy I am to have finally moved the furniture around. For one, my computer can finally live at my desk. The old location of my desk was out of the wireless network range and so I was using a makeshift table instead. I have finally switched the locations of these things so that I don't have to sit sideways anymore. Of course I'm so used to sitting sideways by now that I'm currently doing so anyways. I also discovered many things while cleaning, including a light switch to a light that I thought was burnt out. It's amazing what happens when you move things to clean behind them. But mainly I'm much happier because my room feels more like a place to live in and less like a storage closet. sarah and I had experimented before with furniture arrangements and never found anything that quite worked. Initially I thought I could move some extra stuff to sarah's side of the room, but I've discovered that I didn't even need to do that. I feel like I'm channeling Katrina. I can't stop looking around at all the clean, organized things and feeling extremely happy inside. so if you are feeling down, try rearranging your furniture. It may just be that your feng shui is off.
I can't believe I just wrote so much about cleaning. These are the exciting things I blog about while living in Thailand. so for some more important news, our team has gone from five to four people. As I've mentioned before, Ozzie and Rochell's contracts expire at the end of the month and they are both moving on. Esther had hired two new replacements for them, but one of them cancelled at the last minute leaving us with four people. This is part of why my roommate sarah has moved to another dorm, so we'll have a CV in every dormitory on the other campus. I'll be flying solo on this side, but I've decided I do better working alone than in a team. so sarah will be living in the international dorm, Anisha will be in the women's dormitory and our new team member, Eric, will be in the men's dormitory. Eric hails from Wisconsin but has lived in Thailand for a few years. He's currently completing his masters in tesol at Payap and therefore will be a great resource for our team.
It looks like it will be a busy semester. The general English program is undergoing a complete overhaul and we are going to be responsible for speaking "lab" classes. This sounded like a good idea before we realized it meant dividing up 1200 students between four CVs and two GVs. We'll see what happens. And with the loss of Ozzie, Esther is in need of some support for her department's classes: Truth and service, and Critical Thinking and Logic. I am quite pleased to say that it looks like I will be facilitating the Critical Thinking course, even though I have absolutely no credentials to do so. Thus "facilitating." I suppose it's more of an independent study course, but I'm still excited. I basically get to pretend to be a professor, which for me is a little bit like being a kid in a candy store. And I am super passionate about this subject because I believe it is a skill that is badly needed and that most people seem to lack. Maybe I should have been a philosophy major...
Anyhow, that's all I can think to write about and now I've used up the last of my procrastination devices and will have to actually do something job-related. Woe is me.
May 19, 2011
Bangkok song
so Bangkok's real name isn't Bangkok. The true name is:
กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยามหาดิลกภพ นพรัตน์ราชธานี บุรีรมย์อุดมราชนิเวศน์มหาสถาน อมรพิมานอวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยะวิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์
or:
Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Phiman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit
Can't remember that? Well, no worries! someone on YouTube has anticipated your difficulty. Enjoy this video featuring students from the Prince Royal's College, which is just two blocks away from where I live.
Translation: Bangkok, the Great City of Angels, it's where the immortal Emerald Buddha dwells, the invincible city, the grand capital of the world, endowed with nine precious gems and full of joy, it is abundant with enormous royal palaces, it's where the reincarnated angels reside, at the order of Indra, Vishvakarma has magically built the capital.
กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยามหาดิลกภพ นพรัตน์ราชธานี บุรีรมย์อุดมราชนิเวศน์มหาสถาน อมรพิมานอวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยะวิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์
or:
Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Phiman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit
Can't remember that? Well, no worries! someone on YouTube has anticipated your difficulty. Enjoy this video featuring students from the Prince Royal's College, which is just two blocks away from where I live.
Translation: Bangkok, the Great City of Angels, it's where the immortal Emerald Buddha dwells, the invincible city, the grand capital of the world, endowed with nine precious gems and full of joy, it is abundant with enormous royal palaces, it's where the reincarnated angels reside, at the order of Indra, Vishvakarma has magically built the capital.
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