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Published: January 23rd 2018
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Monday: January 23rd
This morning I was able to sleep in until 8:00 which felt amazing. I had some breakfast and got ready for the day. Today was going to be more of a chill day as we had the morning off and then were going to sit in on a nursing conference for the afternoon. I was able to FaceTime with Alli and my parents who were watching the Eagles game and were keeping me up-to-date. I have missed so much football since I left but fortunately I will be home to watch the Super Bowl 😊
I let my food digest from breakfast and then around 10:30 I went for a run on a bike/walk trail along the main road outside of BCNC. Autumn and I ran almost 3 miles and returned to BCNC looking like tomatoes. It felt good to run after a long weekend of relaxing and a constant feeling of being full. I had just enough time to shower, eat lunch, and put on my professional outfit for the conference.
The conference was hosted by BCNC which I quickly found out is similar to Penn State in that it has many schools in
various locations. At the conference was Messiah College, BCNC Chiang Mai, three other BCNC branch schools (one being almost 5 hours away), Chiang Mai University, and Payap University. Each school had 4 or 5 student representatives who would be giving a 20 minute speech on the topic: non-communicable diseases. Most Thai schools focused on the broader end of the topic and talked about strokes, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, etc. The BCNC schools have a program where once they are second year students they go out into the community and provide care and education through home visits. Throughout their years in nursing school they will periodically check-in and do follow-up care. It is from these visits where they obtain data for various research projects. While Messiah's nursing program takes pride in offering two research classes, these students are actually doing their own research. It is also a great way for them to get involved in the community and see firsthand what the greatest need is of the people. Payap University students also presented at the conference. We saw some Payap students at Nakornping when we were there. Payap is a private Christian University which I think is pretty cool considering majority
of Thai people practice Buddhism. Before we presented, Chiang Mai University presented. Chiang Mai University is home to more than 36,000 students and offers various majors within the subjects of agriculture, engineering, science & medicine. The people that represented this school had very good English and were able to communicate and enunciate very well. Enunciation is the hardest part about our language for the Thai people. We have a lot of different sounds that are very difficult for them to say. After their presentation, we talked to the one girl member of the group and told her that her English was good and asked where she learned to speak so well. She told us that she studied for some time at University of Chicago: Illinois. I have found that families with money will often send their kids to study in either England or somewhere in the United States.
Messiah was the last group to go and three of our team members talked about obesity. They chose this topic because obesity is a huge issue in America and is less prevalent in Thailand. They talked about risk factors, causes, and treatments including bariatric surgery. Once the conference officially ended, we
took 15 different group pictures with the various schools and a few selfies 😊
After the conference ended, I walked back to my apartment and changed into comfier clothes. Mint, the nurse I worked with at Nakornping in the Neuro ICU was going to take a group of us out to dinner and for some shopping. She picked us up around 5:30 and we headed downtown. We went to Mix Restaurant that was in a more touristy area. Our group of 6 decided that we would order four plates and share them. The server told us that we would get our food in 15 minutes. Those 15 minutes passed and we only got two of our dishes. We shared those two and each person only got 1 shrimp, some beef, and broccoli. I was still hangry and Mint was losing her patience with the serving staff. She reminded them once and we waited another 10 minutes. In Thai culture, waiting for your food for longer than 30 minutes is abnormal which is different from America where you could be waiting an hour for your food. Mint ended up cancelling our order and apologizing to us for bringing us to a bad restaurant. We told her we were completely fine and just wanted to spend time with her. After leaving the restaurant we walked around and found a cute shop that I thought sold ice-cream but actually sold little grilled cheeses. There were different sandwiches to choose from including the supreme super grilled cheese, a super grilled cheese, corn cheese sandwich, sandwich with durian (foul-smelling fruit, you should google) cheese, and a sandwich with spinach and cheese. I ordered the super grilled cheese and while I was waiting I noticed little ice-cream balls in a freezer. There were several flavors to choose from but the chocolate banana was calling my name so I got one. The sign said you needed to wait 30 minutes until it was room tempt. The center was cold like ice-cream but the outside was almost like sticky dough. It is hard to explain but it was DELICIOUS. So delicious that I bought another one before I left. We walked around the area and spent time talking and learning more about Mint. I feel so lucky to have met Mint and I hope someday to visit her again in Thailand or for her to come visit me in America. We got back to BCNC around 10 pm and I was welcomed by Mean, Libby, Autumn, Ohm, and Meji playing UNO in my apartment. Sarah and I joined in and this time around, the loser had to sing a song in front of the group. My luck did a complete 180 from the last time we played and I was the first one to win! I waited anxiously as it came down to Autumn, Ohm, and Meji. Meji finally lost! He chose to sing Teenage Dream (I have a video, don't worry) which was probably the wrong song for him to pick as he couldn't hit 90% of the notes. Meji is probably the funniest Thai buddy and is surely the most outgoing of the group. We played one more time and this time, the loser would have to go to the downstairs apartment and serenade/dance for someone. I had quite the scare as it came down to Ohm and I. It was just him and I playing back and forth for 20 minutes. My luck held on and Ohm LOST! He sang One Thing by One Direction to my friend Katie and Meji was his backup dancer. It wasn't as funny as when Meji sang because Ohm could actually sing...
What a great ending to a day that started slowly. It started to hit me how I only had three days left in this beautiful country and how I would more than likely never see these people ever again. I am thankful though to have met people that made such a foreign place feel like home after only three weeks. I would miss them.
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