Adventure in Thailand: Part 24

February 7th, 2017

Finally the day has come! FINAL EVALUATION DAY!

We went to the office really early today because we don't want to be late at this very important day in our life !! (over-drama detected 😂). Based on the schedule, Alyssa will be evaluated first. At 10.30 am (or so) Dr. Tim asked me to go to the academic affair building with Alyssa. After we arrived there, he introduce us to Dr. Bannarak Khumraksa. He is our university supervisor from SRU. Before meet him, I thought he is an old man. Haha, turned out, he's quite young. Maybe at his early 30. After a short intro, we went to Alyssa's class. I saw her teach very good from the outside. I think, she will get a high score! I hope so. After he finished evaluate Alyssa, we asked him to eat lunch with us. But he said he want to have lunch outside, so yeah. He will be back at 12 pm for my session.

Alyssa being evaluated

While Alyssa being evaluated by Dr. Bannarak and Dr. Tim, I went to Ajarn Yasaeng class. She is a biology teacher for mathayom 4 (grade 10). Today she taught about microscope to the students, and she allowed me to help the students to operate the microscope. In Thailand, even the subject being taught by the teachers with Thai language, some part of the subject especially biology like microscope parts, cell parts, metabolism, and many more are still written in English. Unlike in Indonesia, we had translation from English to Indonesia for each term. In fact, they didn't have that here.

Matayhom 4 with Ajarn Yasaeng

The students were really excited to operate the microscope because ajarn said this is their first time to hold and operate one of the most important lab thing. 

"Teacher Nida, please take us a picture!" -- "Oke kha! 😊"

At the beginning, Ajarn Yasaeng told me that they will use student microscope. I thought that will be just the same with our student microscope in Indonesia and I am 100 wrong. Their definition of student microscope is a binocular, electric, and fashionable (ok, it's just my own term na haha). It's so much better than Indonesian students have. I bet that microscope is expensive. 

Thailand Student Microscope

Ajarn Yasaeng gave them 2 slides of ready-to-use specimens. Mostly plant specimens. At the first time, I saw the students really struggle to use the microscope, of course, today was their first time to use it. Since Ajarn Yasaeng couldn't come to each group at the same time, she asked me to help her and gave some directions to the students. They were very humble to listen my explanations.

Group 1 -- Khap phun kha na!

Exactly, this class will be over at 12.00 pm. But I remember, today was also my evaluation day. So I said to ajarn Yasaeng that I need to go earlier and can't join the class until finish. She said okay and she was pray and wish me luck for my evaluation. She is quite modern and fashionable. Before I leave, she asked me to take some pictures.

Ajarn Yasaeng and Future (Ajarn) Nida

12.00 pm. I asked my mentor to join Dr. Bannarak at the classroom and that was the longest 2 hours I've ever spent in my life! I don't know why, the class used to be so active and fun the last time I taught them, but today they were so quite and inactive. Maybe because that was a lunch time or what I don't know. I gave them lecture for the first hour and the second hour, I let them enjoy my game. It called Course Review Hooray! It supposed to be use in mathematics learning, but I want to give it a try to use it to teach biology. It was full of risk to be honest, since I used it for my final evaluation day. But Alhamdulillah, the students really into this game and the game went so well. The game itself, just like Bingo game. You just write number 1-16 randomly inside the boxes and put the answer based on the number of the questions that I said. Group with the most correct answer and most Bingo lines will be the winner.

Lecture Session

Lecture Session

As my mentor want me to give the student individual evaluation, then I gave them individual evaluation at the last session before the class end. It was a short news about Ta Pi river (the famous river in Surat Thani). To help the students, I also gave the vocabulary part (written in English - definition - and written in Thai). The students struggled to answer the question, so I walked around the class just in case the students can't answer or understand the question.

Students evaluation

Finally! The class is over. Since today will be my last day to teach them, then I said goodbye and apologize to them maybe during my class I did some mistake to them or else. Before I close the class, one student (exactly he is my fave male student after all) came in front and asked the microphone. I was confuse, what will he do tho? Turned out, he represented his friend to say thank you and sorry if they didn't well-behave or else.  Today, in that classroom, for the first time I felt really heart-touched. I felt sensitive hahaha about this farewell to my students. Ahhh, as the teacher (well I am not really a teacher yet) now I understand how's the feeling. Just imagine if you are their teacher for maybe 3 years or more and you have to send them away, to catch their dream.. to have better future. I can't imagine how sad that would be. Huhuhu... If any of my teachers read my blog, I just want to say sorry and thank you very much for everything you gave, you sacrifice for us. I love you!

Boat action 😎

To end the class, I asked the students, Dr. Salubsri, and Dr. Bannarak to took some pictures. Alyssa came to the class and she was helping me to take us the pictures. I will never ever forget this moment. I will cherish it for the rest of my life and I will proudly say that I used to be your teacher in Thailand for a while. For my favorite class, Mathayom 6/10, I just want to wish you all guys good luck for the O-National Examination Test (ONET, but I forgot what exactly the O stands for haha). Good luck in your university life. I will never say that uni-life will be easier than high school, but I hope God will give you all more strength to face the difficulties ahead. See you soon my students!

I will never forget you guys! 💗💋😢

Since Alyssa and I finished our final evaluation (pardon me if sometimes I inconsistent using term "evaluation" or "examination". That's just the same) so we decided to have some celebration. We went to CentralPlaza. Kyla tbh will be evaluated by Mr. Batman tomorrow, but she already finished the preparation so she joined. First of all, Alyssa want to change her 20 dollar to some baht. We went to the bank, and turned out the procedures to change your money in the bank is so difficult. They asked for passport, phone number, address, and many more. Thank God I made my ATM card in Indonesia, so I don't have to change my money in the bank, just simply take my money from the machine. In Thailand, especially in Surat Thani, I think it's pretty usual to have many banks inside the Plaza. I've counted and found out there are 7 banks inside CentralPlaza. Whoa, in Indonesia especially in Banjarmasin, we could only find Bank's ATM Machine inside the mall. Hahaha.. If you want to store your money or do some things with the costumer service, you need to go to the bank office outside the mall. Well, I think with a lot of banks inside the Plaza, they will give the costumers a lot of benefit. For example, if you want to store your money and you want to do some groceries, just simply go to the Plaza and you could do both of them. You save some time and energy tho.

Teller inside the bank

After finished the things inside the bank, we went to food plaza. I had seafood. I forgot the name, but it taste good. It's kinda spicy but not really. Haha.. It was among 55 baht.

Rice with seafood something

We went back to the dorm really late, I think it was almost 10 or so. Mr. Batman told us that tomorrow we will have Farewell Dinner. Huaaa, I hate farewell things! Due to some problems, he said that there will be no performance or else. Just casual dinner. So we are not sure if we could wear our national costumes or no. Since most of must bring heavy national costume and it's kinda make us heart-broken if we are not wearing them tomorrow, so Alyssa, Kyla, and I decided to give it a try and have some fun! That was my very first time saw Filipino Natcos. It has a very big sleeve hahaha... But it's quite cute and unique and full of history at the same time. Theirs called as María Clara. It has been connected to the María Clara character because of her traits: delicate, feminine, self-assured and with a sense of identity. The María Clara outfit is the only Philippine national attire that is named after a literary figure.  

Selfie princess

And for my national costume, well it's not a national costume because our national costume is Kebaya and Batik (for daily or formal occasion) but mostly every province in Indonesia has their own traditional costume and this is one of many traditional costume from South Kalimantan. It's called Galuh Banjar. Galuh has several meaning. In Sanskrit it means diamond. But in South Kalimantan it means a girl that have not married yet (a.k.a virgin) and Banjar is our place name. SO basically, back then, this costume only allow to wear by a virgin girl. It's sacred people, haha. It has 4 different parts; skirt, blouse, veil, and accessories but since the accessories are really heavy and many, I didn't bring them to Thailand haha. If you guys lucky, I will wear it tomorrow and give you guys a whole picture of this costume okay, so stay tune!

Modernization at its finest 😂😂

It's already 11.55 pm. I am exhausted and I think I wanna go to my bed now. So see you tomorrow in Farewell dinner (and maybe many more haha). Bye~