================================================= I was teaching in a pharmacy school in Thailand and I will be back and continue my academic career there.
When I was there, I was appointed to be in a department head for 4 years..... It was a painful job (please see more details in Profession Life/An Art of Saying No).
In that time, our faculty had been just newly established for 4 to 5 years with a newest curriculum which had never been taught before in Thailand!!
Thus, in that period, most of our faculty members were studying aboard or in Thailand.... Thus, we had to invite many lecturers/instructors from outside....
Our former dean knew a lot of good people in academia... As a result, he gave me a list of many good professors from Chulalongkorn University, Mahidol University and Chiang Mai University, primarily.
Since our new curriculum tried to introduce and bridge between medicine and pharmaceutical sciences, many of those names were full professors from those famous medical schools.
Yes, they were "big shots".
We, the faculty members, always exploited these resource people as much as we possibly could.... :)
We invited them to teach in our school. We had to buy them a flight ticket, and looked forward to have them give our students as many lecture hours as possible...
As a result, those poor, kind souls had to teach 6-12 hours in 2 days... So, most of them had to spend a night in our province....
Our dean had a policy.... There would be our faculty member going out with our guest, taking care of our guests and having dinner with our guests...
In that time, in my department, there was only me whose got a car and our main campus was located outside the city where their hotel was located...
So, the take-care job was, unaviodably, mine....
At first, I felt a bit reluctant to do it.... I would like to have some free time for myself and my family also... But, when I looked back, I saw these going-out job as a terrific opportunity to "extend my horizons" in another direction.
As I told you before, our guests were really important people in their fields decorated with full professorship.... some of them were professor-11, the highest rank of all....
It wasn't trivial to become one in our domestic conditions.... To be more specific, it's darn difficult to become one!!
I always was a very curious person... I asked questions.... Before asking, I recollected what I should ask for a specific individual..... what was a sensitive issue for this person (which might not be for another).
Dinner was always a relaxing moment for many... These special guests of mine were also included... I noticed that these people shared many things in common... They were broad-minded and had visions.... All of them knew how to pave the ways to greatness in academic despite severe austerity in our Thai research environments....
Year after year of dining with them, my perspectives about academia had been gradually changed.... My perceptions about my responsibility to my students had become more and more important .... and that also extended to nearby communities... and kept extending to a larger and larger extent.
I now realized what I could do to make a difference in different levels.... What I and my ideas could have changed....
One guest after another, one dinner after another dinner, one question after another, one insight to another, I conceptualized what was my goals, what I should do to achieve them and how I should do it.
From an activity on which I thought it would waste my time, it became a melting pot of ideas and personal philosophy.... The meals of thoughts were unwittingly served and comsumed, and true identity of mine in my academic career ensued.
I now knew what were needed to achieve my goals.
Thank you very much for your given visions to that young faculty member. I am who I am today partly because of your given experiences and perspectives on a dining table. If you had any tiny expectation towards me, I would do my best not to let you down.
Lastly, thank you for food for thought krub. =================================================
================================= Note: My life has been intertwined with works and many others. New responsibility has emerged, resulting less and less time for my ordinary life. Although, a love to write is still intact... But having less time is related to having less imagination.... Therefore, I could not come up with new writings for quite some times.
It might be a good time for me to leave this forum for moment.... Please take it as Mr. A.T. is having a sabbactatical leave or something like that....
As noted above, my love to write is still the same... and will not be changed. Sometimes somehow, I hope I could come back and give some thoughts in this blog once more.
Cheers, Mr. A.T. June 6th, 2008
=================================
Hello,
My pen-name in Pantip is amatuer translator. Actually, I'm a lousy translator with lame translation. My pen-name is somewhat misleading, I have no background in linguistics what-so-ever. Anyway I love to read, write and communicate with people...
Reading is my most favorite hobby. I read everything from shopping bags to articles in theoretical physics. I do research and teaching for my living. So, reading, writing, thinking and doing research works are my everyday routine.
I would like to define myself as a person who is accepting new ideas and adopting those into my way of life.
I believe in power of knowledge/education. I think every society can be a better society with knowledge. Ignorance can be dispelled by it. Humanity can live sustainably and harmoniously with each other along with its biosphere with understandings in the nature surrounding it.
Apart from my philosophical thoughts reflecting who I am, I can tell you something I like or love in particular;
I love dogs.... Particularly, labradore retrievers.... One day, I would like to spend my time and life with them as a big part of my family.
Zhuge Liang is my hero. With his wisdom and faithfulness, he led a tiny army to a mighty and formidable kingdom. He left his humble residence with a hope to come back. But, sadly, he had never returned and died far far away from home in a horse carriage in a battle field. If I could choose where I would, I would say where-ever my lovely wife was nearby.
I value happiness and my family as my first priority. My profession and my philosophy come in the second. Pursuit in wealth has never been in my desire.
I'm glad to be your friend, and look forward to seeing you around krub.
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มันเป็น privilege จริงๆ ค่ะที่ได้ดูแลบุคคลเหล่านี้ นอกจากเราได้ idea ประสบการณ์จากท่านแล้ว สิ่งที่เราได้แบบไม่รู้ตัวคือใกล้ชิดสนิทกับท่านแบบไม่ต้องบังคับ เพราะเหตุการณ์มันพาไปเอง ดีจังที่คุณนุ่นได้ไอเดียดีๆ จากท่าน ถ้าท่านเหล่านั้นรู้ก็คงดีใจมากค่ะ