Old People's House

The second service during the conference I went to Old People's House in Banglamung along with a small number of delegates. This was an orphanage for those who had been left or disregarded by their family so they would come here and live their life.

This service project was separated into 3 main parts, cleaning the beach, planting crops, and getting rid of the climbing plants on both sides of footpath on the way down to the beach. My first duty was to go down to the beach to clean up as much as possible, but it was almost impossible to completely wipe out everything that was there because the waves keep hitting the coast, and either drawing some trash back or giving me trash but at least we did put some effort to make the beach look a little bit cleaner after my duty even though we knew it would have been the same the next day anyway. My second ship was to plant some crops that would be sent to this Old People's House and would later be used for food, the process was only to put a soil in a pot, plow the soil, water the soil and plant some seed. And the last past was to clean the footpaths along the side to the beach, which was the hardest physical job in the day because shovels were needed to scrape off everything on the surface.

Later that day in the afternoon, we went and did what they regularly did in the Old People's House, playing Bingo. I was to team up with one of the senior resident and even though it was not clear but I could see them enjoying being companied by foreigner friends and at the end of the day, they did ask us to come again in if possible.

Our goal, just like at the Fountain of Life Children's Centre, was to entertain them and to be there for them if they needed anything and we accomplished that goal and looking back at how we achieved it, it was rather impressive because we did face probably only one difficulty, the language barrier. There were some residents who knew how to speak a decent english but most of the residents could not and this was the main problem.

But after all, that day was a big success both for us, and for all the residents at the Old People's House as well. We did give out our effort to help them and appreciation was received and I felt grateful for what I had done during that day and had been appreciated back and there was one thing I learnt that, no matter how uncanny it might have sounded for foreigners to go help them without knowing the existence of this place before, the kindness was still sincerely appreciated and for that I would like start devote myself to help those who are not as fortunate as I am to be living their life happily.

Barazza practices & sessions

Barazza = Equality within the same level

For our major Roundsquare conference that was coming up in October, every Barazza leaders needed to practice their facilitating skills and leaderships skills that would be required for the three actual Barazza sessions throughout the conference therefore several Barazza sessions were organized for Barazza leaders to prepare themselves.

During each session, there would be one topic according to a previous speech either from a keynote speaker or some source of information and my job as a Barazza leader was to facilitate the discussion and pick out some key points that were made. The biggest difficulty I had faced was that the awkward atmosphere made each member of the group feel uncomfortable to share their ideas and the fact that none of the members knew one another before made it more difficult for them to share their opinions to the others but I managed to get the conversation going by picking on a person who had not spoken during a discussion.

The more I had practiced in each session, the more I had found out about how to improve the next session and do's and don't's and I managed to break a barrier in the discussion by the end of the last Barazza session by using some powerful ice-breaking activities .

It had always been a stressful time before every Barazza session but once I learnt how to lead it properly, I found myself enjoy every minute of it and after the last Barazza session during the conference, I realized one thing that even though we were from different parts of the world but surprisingly we had much much more in common than we thought and once each of us started to be open to one another , one can incredibly be sincere to everyone.

International Day 2009

International Day of Regent's School : A day of internationalism

What was the activity ?
My role for international day was to participate in international world cup tournament and to decorate the Thai room to show and share our culture to people around the world.
International Day was held at our school of Regent's Pattaya and organized by our international pillar leader. This event was consisted of many international booths representing traditional cultural items and customs and also there was international 5-a-side futsal competition throughout the event.



What did I do?
My job was basically to decorate and to organize the Thai booth as part of senior Thai student. The area for Thailand exhibition was held in the roundhouse and we had made a lot of presentations related to Thai cultures such as traditional thai fruits and translation, posters about thai's way of living back in the days, and we also served Pad Thai and other Thai desserts. This had attracted a lot of visitors to come see our exhibition but unfortunately roundhouse was not exactly where people regularly walked past so I did expect more number of visitors to come.
A lot of difficulties were encounters such as during the preparation week, I had asked many Thai students in lower years to come help with the decorations but not a lot of them seemed to care how important it was seeing it was an annual event. But as the day coming closer, I managed to convince some more students to help out and we finally finished the Thai booth before the day.


Indonesia, Thai and Belgium. :)

What have I gained?
As a co-leader for Thai during the international day, I thought the event was a big success, our booth had received many positive feedbacks , food and drinks that were served were also given a lot of compliments and I found that I had developed my leadership skills from the preparation time until the end of International Day and even though I was not firstly selected to be a co-leader for Thailand but I had to step out for a leadership position otherwise our exhibition would have not come out the way everyone expected and sometime in life , the best decisions are the ones you decide by taking the leap and challenge your fear.

Barazza week with JUMP Foundation

JUMP Foundation for the leadership skills of youth

What was the activity?

Our school of Regent's had gotten a great chance to arrange a one week visit to Koh Chang IDEALS center for every Barazza leaders who would be running Barazza sessions during the Roundsquare conference that was coming in October of the year 2010 and we had a great privilege to be accompanied by JUMP Foundation led by Justin Bedard who had been running a program to help improving leadership skills in youth. The trip was meant to enhance and bring out leadership skills in every Barazza leaders so everyone would properly be ready to lead a Barazza group.


Me and Rasmus during our talented performace.


What did we do ?
We were taught on how to be a good facilitator by learning to know how to be a good leader in a group discussion and how to pick out key points from a keynote speaker's speech. And also we did get a chance to get out of the comfort zone and get up in public and make a speech in front of the crowd, which to me was one of the biggest challenge but practice makes perfect , and I had managed to overcome my fear of public speaking to a certain extent during that trip. And in group discussion training, we learnt how to be lead facilitate a discussion by knowing the meaning of the body language , group member's action , or what to do if this happens, and also learnt the main rules of do's and don't's when leading a discussion.
By the end of the week, I found myself more comfortable in a Barazza session. I knew exactly what to do in what situations and I also felt more comfortable to speak up in public. I must say I was proud of myself once I found myself able to cope with the fear of public speaking but there was of course some difficulties along the way. It took me quite a while to get myself out of my comfort zone and I was never good at public speaking but attempts after attempts I finally managed to improve my self-confidence .


The Barazza Crew! :)


What have I gained?
A week in Koh Chang with JUMP Foundation had improved my leadership skills and I never thought I would have improved this much in only 5 days and now I find myself eager to improve myself in term of leadership and now I realized that if was offered another chance to make a speech in front of a crowd again, I would never hesitate and take a chance right away.

Pattaya to Phi Phi Triathlon

Open triathlon event for every interested marathoners

What was the activity?
Pattaya to Phi Phi triathlon was a sport event organized by the Physical Education department of the Regent's School Pattaya by challenging every student, parents, staffs, or anyone who was interested by either walking, running, skating, biking, or swimming.
The event started from 4.00 PM and went on until roughly 8 PM that night and large numbers of participants did put support and attend the event. The total distance at the end of the event exceeded the distance from Pattaya to Koh Phi Phi which was a great success and also a trophy was given to the team who made the longest distance.


The participants!

What did we do?
We did not come across any hardship during the event but there were some minor points that quite bothered me when I saw some students did not participate as dedicatedly as the others did but beside that I appreciate the spirits of everyone who gave out everything they got to just to run around the oval nonstop, I could sense the perseverance of hundreds of students and teachers everywhere and no matter how long the distance in total was , we all still managed to accomplish our goal and even though all of us did not get any trophy but we all did received one most important gift, a participation trophy.


Jeff and Harut on the rub. :D

What have I gained?
I did not actually take a serious part in the event but I did observe some very important point of the event. I realized that there was a wide range of people from young pupils to senior parents who participated for this charity event. I felt touched by how much they were willing to participate without expecting anything back. It's amazing what people do to others sometimes.


The girls in tutus :)

Summer Concert 2010

Summer Concert held at Globe, Regent's School Pattaya

What was the activity ?
Sumer concert is an annual musical and orchestral concert held at Regent's School of Pattaya. The whole performance consists of numerous pieces of greatest songs of all time and every student has devoted themselves to each rehearsal and lessons.


Jazz band performance.


What did I do?
I started to pick up my music skills again once the second term started because of 3 reasons. Firstly because I needed to get creativity hours for CAS, secondly because the part I used to play during the time when I was in Thai school needed extra players, and lastly and probably the most important, I wanted to be known as someone who had got some musical skills and this would be the great chance to start and I started joining the orchestra band ever since.
But to be honest, deep down inside I truly wanted to be a great musician but unfortunately I had not motivation when I was a kid and just started learning piano. After 8 empty years of motivation, I quit but I had always known this could have been the path to what I would end up doing in the future and starting off again with french horn was not quite a bad idea.


Me playing my mellophone during brass band performance. :)


What have I gained?
I learnt how to play french horn before when I was in Thai school but picking up again after a couple of years without it was kind of a challenge for me so I continued to play french horn in the school orchestra band in the Regent's School of Pattaya. Firstly I inly wanted to pick up my music skills in general so I could go back to study piano again but after a short while of french horn session with the brass section members, I found myself enjoying orchestra band a lot more than Ithought so I decided to take extra french horn class with one of the music teacher to follow my dream of becoming a great musician.
As strong as my motivation may sound, there were also some obstacles on the way. Time did not give me any chance to make immediate decision and before I knew another year of IB had gone and here came the last year of my high school so I saw this as the last opportunity to take away as much as I possibly could.
My first performance on the stage was the Summer concert 2010 where I had gotten my first chance to play french horn in public. After the concert, I quickly realized how much I had been enjoying music and how much it had made my life more lively and so I had made up my mind that I would have to master on instrument in this lifetime.
Once you have received motivation to what you truly want to do , it is hard to let it go without achieving it to a certain level. I think I could say that to my case. If I had not gotten myself to join orchestra band at the beginning , I never would have been so willing to carry on my musical skills.

Service project : Pattaya Bed-race event

Charity event for local groups : 31/1/10


What was the activity?
Pattaya Bed-Push Event was a charity event for those who would like to raise money for organizations who were in need of aid, by designing a trolly with fancy decorations and complete a lap around the beach road and the second road in Pattaya.
I was one of the students who were interested in this event so I signed up for it. More than 30 local groups of people participated but me and other students still managed to come in second. My job was basically to run a trolly with 3 other students past the finishing line and the trolly was decorated by our female students.


Hardworking much?

What I did and what I gained
Coming in second was rather impressive but not after when I found out that the other teams did not take the race as serious as we did and we also did not win any prize for finishing the second but considering it was a charity event so I did not let that fact bother me. Another hardship we had faced was that the actual race did not start until late afternoon but we were told to be there right after the first glimpse of dawn, the heat and the humidity throughout the day was a major hardship as well but still, one thing that amazed me was that no matter how long every participant had to wait, no one gave up, even a person in the weirdest costume, and I was sure the hottest costume to be in at that time, no one backed out before the first blow of the race. I deeply appreciated the spirits of whoever was involved in one way or another. I think the only thing that kept them to endure the the extreme condition was our will to be supportive to those who were in need in any possible way.

The crew :D