Assalamualaikum Wr. Wb

What’s up friends? Bagaimana kabar kalian hari ini? Selamat ya bagi teman-teman yang sudah berhasil lulus ke universitas impiannya. Bagi yang belum, ayo terus coba, jangan menyerah ya… Meraih impian dan masa depan membutuhkan perjuangan, dan yakinlah semua usaha itu akan kalian nikmati nantinya.

Aku yakin semua orang punya cerita menariknya masing-masing. Pengalaman hidup di kampus itu memang unik, tidak sama dengan pengalaman kita di sekolah-sekolah sebelumnya. Dimulai dari mengenal macam-macam latar belakang orangnya, kepribadian dan tingkah-tingkah aneh dari teman, peraturan kampus, jadwal kuliah, tugas menumpuk, budaya begadang, sampai masalah dengan dosen pun ada. Di kehidupan kampus, kita semua dituntut untuk memiliki kepribadian yang lebih dewasa dan berakademis, dan pasti ada aja yang aneh. Dari sekian banyak cerita, izinkan aku menceritakan pengalamanku, mulai dari alasan mengapa aku memilih kampus UNJA dan prodi yang aku pilih sekarang.

Sejak awal, aku memang sudah berniat untuk kuliah di UNJA. Mengapa? Karena kampus UNJA memang yang paling dekat dengan rumah, dan hemat biaya. Aku sejak awal ikut SBMPTN di tahun 2015 sudah berencana untuk kuliah di sana, hanya saja prodi yang kupilih berbeda-beda. Pilihan pertama Prodi Kedokteran, yang kedua Pend. Biologi, yang ketiga Pend. Fisika, dan yang keempat Pend. Bahasa Inggris. Hampir semua mata kuliah yang kupilih mengarah ke Jurusuan Pendidikan dan Keguruan (FKIP) karena aku memang suka mengajar, dan ingin menjadi guru. Setelah ujian, akhirnya aku lulus di Pendidikan Biologi pada tahun 2015. Di tahun itulah aku menjadi resmi menjadi Mahasiswa Pendidikan Biologi angkatan 2015.

Selama jadi maru, aku tidak pernah yang namanya ikut kegiatan-kegiatan organisasi dan OSPEK Kampus. Kok bisa ya? Karena memang dari awal aku tidak pernah tertarik untuk mengikuti kegiatan-kegiatan seperti itu. Awalnya aku memiliki kepribadian introvert, yang lebih suka mandiri, menyendiri, dan lonely. Hahaha…. terdengar suram dan galau, tapi memang itulah kenyataannya. Aku memang lebih suka dengan kegiatan sunyi, rasanya jika bertemu dengan banyak orang lebih mudah capek dan moody. Aku memulai kuliah dengan hari yang luar biasa, mulai dari mengenal dosen bimbingan, tata cara mengirim pesan yang sopan kepada dosen dan kakak tingkat, mengenal peraturan kampus, dan yang paling aku nantikan adalah…. perpustakaan. Aku sangat suka mencari waktu luang dan tempat sunyi hanya untuk membaca buku. Sayangnya, di waktu itu (tahun 2015) keadaan perpustakaan masih belum sebagus yang sekarang. Keadaan perpustakaan yang sekarang sudah cukup bagus, mulai dari pelayanan, variasi buku, fasilitas dan ruang yang disediakan kampus. Walaupun begitu, aku tetap menyukai perpustakaan kampus UNJA sejak dulu, karena disana menurutku adalah tempat yang paling aman, sunyi dan tentram dari keramaian. Disitulah aku menghabiskan waktu luang dengan belajar dan membaca.

Dua semester aku jalani kehidupan kampus sebagai Mahasiswa Biologi, dan akhirnya memutuskan untuk pindah prodi. Selama kuliah 2 semester, aku merasakan jenuh dengan tugas kuliah. Pendidikan Biologi merupakan salah satu prodi yang terberat dan tersibuk di FKIP. Hari-hari dipenuhi dengan tugas, belum lagi kegiatan praktikum beserta laporan yang DITULIS TANGAN! Sebenarnya aku suka dengan ilmunya, namun faktor kesehatan tubuhku yang menghalangiku untuk meneruskan belajar di prodi ini. Sungguh disayangkan, dan akhirnya aku pindah ke prodi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris di semester 3.

Memasuki semester 3 di Prodi Bahasa Inggris merupakan salah satu hal istimewa yang pernah terjadi di kehidupan kampusku. Memasuki kelas dengan suasana yang berbeda, peraturan yang berbeda, dan tugas…….yang juga sama banyaknya. Namun entah kenapa, aku bisa lebih enjoy di prodi ini walaupun tugas kuliah datang setumpuk menggunung, menanti untuk diselesaikan. Selama kuliah, aku memang tidak pernah ikut kegiatan organisasi, namun sering aktif partisipasi dalam kegiatan lomba ataupun sukarela. Lomba yang ku ikuti di kampus ada menulis essay, menulis puisi dan menulis cerpen dalam bahasa inggris. Kegiatan sukarela misalnya menjadi penerjemah bebas dan mengajar anak-anak TK berbahasa inggris di sekolahnya. Aku sangat menikmati kegiatan-kegiatan sukarela seperti ini, karena di lapangan itulah kita belajar bagaimana kita bersosialisasi dengan masyarakat, murid, dan anak-anak secara nyata. Pengalaman hidup yang kudapatkan dari kegiatan ini sungguh membekas di dalam diriku, membantuku untuk tumbuh menjadi manusia yang lebih dewasa.

Selama 4 tahun, aku dapat menyelesaikan S1 dengan lancar. dan akhirnya aku wisuda di tahun 2020, bulan Januari. Seingatku, di saat itu Pandemi COVID-19 belum ada di Indonesia, sehingga kami masih menyelenggarakan upacara wisuda di Balairung UNJA. Hari yang bahagia sekaligus sedih, karena akan meninggalkan teman, dosen, bahkan kelas yang dipenuhi oleh banyak kenangan. Di hari wisuda itu aku sudah mulai mencemaskan masa depan, karena dengan menyelesaikan kuliah sarjana bukanlah akhir dari segalanya, namun itu adalah lembar baru dari mimpi-mimpi masa depan yang kita idamkan.

Nah, apa kabar denganku sekarang? Aku memutuskan untuk meneruskan kuliah di tingkat selanjutnya, yaitu Magister Pendidikan Dasar, dan masih di UNJA lho. Di tahun 2020 ini, aku memulai lembaran hidup yang baru, tentu saja di tempat kuliah yang berbeda, bertemu dengan dosen dan teman-teman sejawat yang berbeda pula. Aku harap pengalaman kuliah di Magister ini akan membawaku untuk menjadi seseorang yang lebih bijak, berpengalaman, dan cerdas untuk bangsa dan negara. Aamiin.

Sekian cerita dariku. Aku harap cerita ini dapat menjadi motivasi bagi para pembaca yang ingin kuliah di UNJA. Thank you very much…

By: Andari Amalia Syahrial (28th August 2018)

Today is the science day celebration for all students. Our students from Tawarawadee School will go to Silpakorn University to see the open day of science. Many other students will also go there on the same day, so we were pretty excited. All students, including us went by Tuktuk, which it is a typical public transportation in Thailand. When we arrived, we saw students from other schools as well joined with us. There were also other booths from different majors and they were promoting their faculty. We had fun with the events, especially there was a mini street market inside where everything is cheap. We shopped, walked around, and visited the Silpakorn Library and got some free books on the way home.

This week is the last that we could stay here. We were thinking how lucky we are to be part of this project. The purposes of this practicum is for training teachers to gain more experience in teaching, while practicing their English and learning about cultures abroad. As we only had limited time for one month, we had been given 4 weeks of practicum, the first 2 weeks are for observation, and the last 2 weeks are for teaching practice. The outcomes of the practicum are similar to what we expected, that is we learn about cultures from students, teachers, and their manners towards each other. Also, we learnt about the challenge of how to teach English as a second language to people, while both students and teacher can only communicate with English troughout the lesson. Meeting a lot of challenges helps us to grow up to be more mature and experienced in understanding people’s view, and because I teach English as my major, it is truly important to understand people’s culture and point of views as they mattered a lot in communication and language. Overall, I personally suggest this program for others to experience it, because by learning from each other’s culture from different countries has expanded our view about the world and we could think about developing our methods in teaching for better generation of Indonesia in the future.

By: Andari Amalia S. (21st August 2018)

This week is the real deal. We are starting to teach students. For my case, my coordinating teacher (Mrs. Bert) gave me 2 classes to handle, which are both in grade 11, group 1 and group 2. We also learnt and struggled to do our lesson plan, but Mrs. Oil always helps us by giving feedback and good materials to teach.

According to the lesson plan, there are four main phases that teachers should pay attention to in teaching, they are: 1) Information, 2) Input, 3) Focus, 5) Transfer. These four phases help us to plan our time effeciently and guide us to what we should do as a teacher to keep the students in control. These four phases should be all in total 55 minutes, and they way we divide time for each one is depending on the teachers and what topic they will be teaching. For the information phase, teachers should be giving some information and motivation to students about the lesson. Input and focus phases are when the teachers put students in control while doing their tasks in classroom. Transfer phase is for the summary of the whole lesson, that is for teacher to check their students whether they have understood the topics and how they can relate in real life experience.

There was no major problem at school. However, I faced some difficulties in making the lesson plan as i had no prior experience in making one. Also, the classroom I teach does not have facilities such as projector and speaker, which is hard for me to do my lesson. But I solved the problems with making games so that it saves my time, and it is easier for students to be involved in learning while having fun at the same time. As for language barrier, I created very simple texts using simple language with some attached images. Other times when I was explaining, I used body language and received some help from Mrs. Bert.

The students in the classroom are not high populated which it is easier for me to monitor students’ activities in class. For most of times, we like to put these students in groups and work together while discussing the lesson. Other times can be individual lesson, where students can easily come to the teachers to ask for help and ask questions.

 

 

 

 

By: Andari Amalia S. (15th August 2018)

We were still continuing our observation. This time we wanted to take a look at their teaching method and learning system. Here is what we found:

1. Teaching methods

For Thai teachers when they teach, they use variety of methods such as grammar-translation, audiolingual, and the structural approach. As the students and teachers can communicate in one language, there would likely be no obstacle in applying these methods in classroom. However, for this SEA TEACHER program, we must communicate in English, so we use the Direct Method in classroom.

2. Learning materials and innovation

Learning materials are usually obtained from the certain syllabus that has been given according to the curriculum. However, for some free topic like English for Daily Life, which we can develop the learning material as long as it is proper and acceptable for students. Teacher can create games, fun worksheet, or practical learning for students to follow.

3. Sources and learning technology

There is no certain source we can use because for the given topics are mostly authentic, so we can create materials from what they have already known and experienced in their daily life. As the classroom does not have certain technology such as speakers and projector, we could only apply the traditional method of learning, such as using worksheet and group discussion to help the students be more active in class.

  4. Authentic Assessment

In the classroom, students are asked to do some tasks in order to measure their comprehension of their knowledge. For example, students are asked to create their own maps and present it in class, or they have to retell their activities from morning until dinner in full English. The purpose of this is so that students can create their own materials based from their experience and practice their English speaking skill instead of reading some texts which the context is not part of their life.

On this day, we also learnt a rule that students are not allowed to turn on their motorbikes inside the school area, except for teachers and staff. Students also adopt this culture, where they plant vegetables and grow fish in their pond, or even chicken. Their school has these facilities which teach them about agriculture, and how important it is to protect your environment by growing greens and respecting animals.

Also, this day is meaningful for us as we haven’t met halal food for ages!! We had lunch outside, and thanks for our lovely friends who found a halal food restaurant for us. We ate a ton!

 

By: Andari Amalia S. (10th August 2018)

The next day after we celebrated Mother’s Day, we came to school as usual to continue our obsevation. We saw students did their flag ceremony in every morning, at 7:50 am. This time, we wanted to focus on observing and looked at the examples of lesson plan from our teachers. Here are some points that we gathered after we observed the school:

1. School Profile

Tawarawadee School is a private high school that is located in Nakhon Pathom City, Thailand. This school has six grades that is from Mattayom 1 to Mattayom 6. Mattayom 1 means for year 7, Mattayom 4 means for year 10. They have separated building for their elementary school level. The population of this school is not much, as only around 300 students are present from all the mattayoms (1-6), and the school has very strong culture that is influenced by Budhhism.

2. Academic Support System

Tawarawadee school provides educational services and resources to help students in accelerating their learning progress, meeting their learning standards so that they can succeed in school. For mattayom 5 and 6, students are already asked for their future planning course, and it is a teachers’ job to help them. One of ways to do that is from creating events for students and collaborating together with the available universities so that they can find out themselves about what they want to do in the future. For mattayom 6, they all have extra lessons available which it can help them to practice doing exercises and exams.

3. Teaching System

From the result of the observation, all teachers are asked to give materials according to the curriculum. For every subjects, they apply different methods in teaching. For example, science classes focus more on discussion and projects, while other subjects like English still focuses on lecture and group working. For English subject, they divided the course into to units, they are English for Daily Life and English for Analysis. The way they divided the course might not be similar to other schools.

4. Materials and Other Learning Sources

The given materials for students are usually in the form of texts or exercises that could be obtained from online or the available textbooks, and it depends on what topics we are going to teach. They prefer to use materials from specific website, such as http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/, and we can find textbooks from the school library. The school library is well-organized and it has a lot of qualified books we can use for students.

5. Measurement and Evaluation System

The method used to measure students’ competence are based from the criteria of their cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. They also give different types of test to evaluate students, such as summative test, progress tests like short quizes, and worksheet. Being active students in the class also adds some extra points to students.

6. Curriculum

The curriculum that Thailand uses for their educucation is called ‘The Basic Core Curriculum 2008.’ The vision of this curriculum is to aim at enhancing capacity of all learners, who constitute the major force of the country, so as to attain balanced development in all respects, including physical strength, knowledge and morality. It is also stated that the learner-centred approach is therefore strongly advocated, based on the conviction that all are capable of learning and self-development to their highest potentiality.

7. Teaching Plan

It is a must for all teachers, including training teachers to create proper lesson plans before the teaching process starts. Teachers have to follow all the important procedures in creating the lesson plan following the valid curriculum, and receive the approvement from the coordinating teachers and supervisors before the submission.

By Amalia S.

Thursday, 09th August 2018

Today, We had mother’s day celebration at school. We all wore a dress code, which is sky blue clothes or dress for all teachers and students. Mother’s day actually comes from the queen’s birthday and It is their tradition to wear bright blue clothes on mother’s day as they believe that it will bring happines and merit to their country.

In the early morning, the students prayed together with monks and they paid respect to each other. The monks also recieved gifts from students as for feeling grateful. After that, we went to the meeting room where the ceremony was held. After a short speech, all teachers were asked to come to the stage and sang Thai national anthem song, ‘We Love Mom’  and paid our respect to the Queen mother. The most touching moment for me was when students paid respect to their mothers. It is part of their culture to show their respects towards parents, especially mothers.

After a while, students recieved awards for their academic achievements at school. They present the awards with the parents and teachers, and they took pictures together.

We had a short break, at 1:30, and we had a different event which it was ASEAN day. Students had fashion show while representing each of the ASEAN countries. They had this competition, and they will be asked by juries how much they knew about its country. At the end, the winner of the competition  was students who represents Japan. It was such a good day and we fully enjoyed it.

 

By Andari Amalia Syahrial

Wednesday, 8th aug 2018

Today was the big day for us, because we were going to see our schools. According to the schedule, for English Major students should go to Tawarawadee School while for Science Major students should go to Rachineeburana School. My school is supposed to be private school, while the Rachineeburana School is a public school. For the first day, Mrs. Surattana came with us on the van. She apologised for not being able to accompany us all the time as she has been busy with her work. When I and Uci arrived, we had Mr. Pruek waiting for us in front of the school gate. We straight away went to the main office, and Mr. Pruek introduced us to our teacher supervisors, Mrs. Sutamma Suksee (Oil) and Mrs. Srisawang Wongtragulraung (Bert). Each of the teachers was caring and responsible for us. Mrs Bert is my personal teacher supervisor.

After a while, Mrs. Oil walked around the school building with us and introduced some rooms such as sound labs, science labs, physics labs, computer labs, classrooms, office, and so on. From what we saw, this school has four levels, where the ground level is for the office rooms and canteen.The rest of the floors are for classrooms. After the quick observing, we went to Mrs. Bert class and introduced ourselves in front of students. The students were very nice and welcomed us with many questions and their curiosity about our country. We quickly became friends and played BINGO game in our free time.

We also met Neon and Praewe from Silpakorn University. They were also teaching English in the program of teacher training. They brought us to their office, and gave us a space. We also met with other teachers there. It was a nice experience. After lunch, we visited On’s class to do observation. We saw her teaching some vocabularies and directions to her students with drawn map. Prew was asked to go around the school to check the students for preparing tomorrow’s event, mother’s day. After the class, we were asked to observe students in the meeting room. The students were practicing for the ceremony. The ceremony will start tomorrow morning at 7:30 am, with some prayers together with monks. We stayed there until it was time to go home, 3:30 pm, and we left the school before saying goodbyes to teachers and students. We are very excited to see the event tomorrow.

Andari Amalia Syahrial

Tuesday, 7th August 2018

Before leaving us in the dorm last night, Mr. Amarin told us to be ready at 10:00 am in the morning for the orientation day at NPRU (Nakhon Pathom Rajabhat University). We quickly got ready and wore our formal clothes. We felt excited to meet our supervisors and buddies, but at the same time we felt very nervous!! Exactly at ten o’clock, Mr amarin waited for us on the ground floor and accompanied us to the orientation room. There, we met our buddies which some of them I already knew. I knew Sa from Mathematics Major, she brought us an iron early in the morning. I also met Bank and Minh which we knew them from their LINE group. We briefly introduced ourselves and went into the presentation room. We met with some other buddies from different departments, and I just noticed that Mr. Pruek Prongsamrong, our coordinator was there. Around 30 minutes, the presentation started. The ceremony was opened by our lovely lady, Dr. Surattana Setchanwit who is also part of the coordinators of this program and focusing on Science Major. She gave us a short speech of welcome, and a short explanation of the program. So, each of us was given a handout about the schedule for the whole program, including our excursion day and holiday. We noticed that in this month of august, Indonesians at least have two compulsory holidays, which is on the 17th (Independence Day) and 22nd (Eid al-Adha Day), and these days were not scheduled as holidays. We requested for 2 days off as we explained the reasons, and they accepted it. After the short session of  asking-answering questions, then we all exchanged some souvenirs from each different province style, one is from Gorontalo, and another one is from Jambi. Later, we introduced ourselves formally to our buddies and took some pictures for commemorations.

One thing we noticed here that even though they are not muslims, they are very considerate about us, such as finding halal food, watch out for the praying time, ask permission to go to temples, and so on. We are surely lucky to be part of this  group, to be chosen to go to NPRU, and to build relationship with these people. They asked us about our needs such as iron, rice cooker, bread machine, water boiler, stove, frying pan, and even water!! They gave us all of these things and we can use them as long as we stay here. This is incredible. We just couldn’t thank enough these people for their kindness, and their supports has motivated us so that we can do our best for this program.

Around 12:30, we were back to dorm and took some rest. Some of us still felt jet-lagged, too tired from moving and decided to sleep for the whole day. I and Uci were the only excited ones to go and see people around us. We were unsatisfied and wanted to explore more of the whole buildings of this university. We made a plan with our buddies from English department to walk around, and we promised to meet up at seven eleven store at 1:30 pm. As promised, we met them at the exact time and they helped me to buy my phone card and refill my internet data. I spent money for almost 700 Baht for everything. But the system here is different from the ones in indonesia. In Jambi, they usually sell some different packets of data, like 1 GB, 4GB, 500 MB, etc, and they are sold in different prices. The higher the data, the more expensive the price is going to be. And once the data is used, then we have to buy some more again. But in here, they put the price according to the length of how much we are going to use. The price is depended on 3 days, 1 week, 1 month, and once we pay, we can use them for unlimited use until the scheduled date has lasted. It is almost the same as we set up a wifi, but it is set on the phone. Which is why we were easily using the internet everywhere and it was fast connected. We were also given a university private username and password when we want to connect to wifi at university.

And so, after I had my new card, we started to explore the buildings around. First thing we saw was the dorm buildings from different faculty, such as nursing, education, chinese, and lecturers. Some dorms are placed inside the university and outside the university. Inside the university, we have 24 hours convinience store (seven eleven), some restaurants and cafes which are opend until 7:00 pm. Students are allowed to go outside of university, but in case that they are not allowed to take in their motorbike into the university. Students have to park their motorbike in the parking lots at the outside gate. As we walked around, we found some important buildings from each faculty. One building that took my interest was the language and art building. It is mainly used for students who majored English department. And other buildings such as science and technology, education, humanities and social science, management science, nurse, and the demonstration school. NPRU is considered as the number one of school in Thailand that is good in quality and learning system based from the research. As for the last building, we went to a language library, and my buddies called them as UFO House, because the building looks like a UFO. We went inside and found some english books for children. There were also some figures that represent ASEAN countries, and other countries as well. The library is very well equipped, clean, and quiet. People have to register first before they come in. We looked around at some books and pictures from the shelves. We had a short break from walking too much and little chat about the city.

Our buddies asked to go out and do some shopping together at Big C market that day. Finally, we decided to agree and meet up at 5:00 pm. We went home and got ready to go shopping. We planned to go by motorbike together with our 5 buddies. We went into the shopping market while looking for halal food and bought souvenirs. In the market, I saw a lot of flowers and plants in a small pot, guessing that it would be for celebrating queen’s birthday and mother’s day for the upcoming events. I have been looking forward to the events, and I hope it is coming soon.

 

By A. Amalia Syahrial (Akson)

Monday, 6th August 2018

That night, I kept walking around the room by myself. I looked at the clock again, it was 2:00 am in the morning. I kept checking my phone, making sure that my friends were ready to go to the airport. I took shower and checked all my belongings and tickets. It was there while they were ready to be picked up. I looked at the front door of my parents’ room while waiting for them to wake up. Later, they woke up at 4:00 am and we left the house to the Sultan Thaha Airport, Jambi City.

We arrived to the airport and safely checked in at 5:00 am, which is the exact time to pray Shubuh. From Universitas Jambi, there were three people chosen to go to Nakhon Pathom Rajabhat University (NPRU), but that morning only two people were going with Garuda Airline, that is including me (English Major), and my friend Etika (Mathematics Major). The other friend, Soni (Chemistry Major) preferred to take Lion Airline at 9:00 am on the same day, so we were ahead of him. I noticed that my friend, Etika had brought so many heavy luggage and it was hard for us to carry them around. She brought some stuff like instant food and some pillows for our needs once we arrive there. This is actually a lesson for all of us, that when we travel, please minimise the luggage if we think that we cannot be responsible to carry it.

After we checked in and waited for the boarding time, that was the moment when we missed our parents, family, friends, and country. I was amazed and still couldn’t believe the fact that I will be leaving my country for a month. I felt slightly anxious and nervous thinking about Thailand, whether I will be accepted in their community or cultures, thinking about halal food, assignments, lifestyle, etc. But at the same time, we felt very excited and happy, looking forward to see what is Thailand, Bangkok, the people, and the University of NPRU. We took some pictures when we have little chance until we flied off to Jakarta at 6:00 am.

We arrived in Soekarno Hatta Airport, Jakarta exactly at 7:30 am, as expected from Garuda Airlines which there was no delay time and it was faster flight. We quickly took our luggage in lane 12 and I took the picture of my own boarding pass. Keeping the boarding pass is important for this program as it is part of the compulsory documents that we need to report later. After we both got the luggage, we planned to check out from the airport, and that was when I lost my boarding pass! I realised that when the officers asked for my boarding pass check, I must lost it on the way out. I tracked my way again to find the lost boarding pass until we found it in the rubbish bin near gate 4. It was so embarrassing while rummaging the bin, but fortunately we found it. After that, I always have to be cautious and double checked my belongings in the right place, so they don’t slip out again.

From Terminal 3, we went to Terminal 2 with Sky Train in order to check in for Thai Lion Air. After we arrived, we took a short break for lunch, praying zhuhur, a short nap, then we were checking in at 12:00 pm. We noticed that the desk officer asked us some questions about the purpose of our journey. We had to show them some important documents such us invitation letter from the host university, and the returning tickets from Thailand. We also had to make sure that our luggage is safe from any harmful goods, so that they could take in the luggage. After that, we went to migration office to identify the purpose of going abroad of the home country. We were questioned about the tickets, the invitation letters, and other things that are important for them. One thing I noticed that we were not allowed to use our phones in the process, such as taking pictures and recording videos. After we safely checked in, we met with other friends from Universitas Negeri Gorontalo (UNG) and waited for the boarding time. At 1:30 pm, we flied off to Thailand, leaving from Jakarta.

We arrived in Don Mueang Airport, Bangkok, at 5:00 pm. It took roughly 4 hours on the way to arrive at Bangkok. As usual, we straight away went immigration office to confirm our identification for staying in Thailand. This time, the process did not take long, unlike the one in Indonesia. They just gave us an identification form on the plane to be filled in and we gave it to the officers. Afterwards, we took our luggage in lane 5, and we all waited to meet up with Mr. Amarin, our Coordinator from NPRU. He picked us up exactly at 6:30 pm, and we had halal dinner together with him.

After we had our delicious dinner, we were picked up by the university’s van, and from Bangkok, it usually takes 1 hour to arrive in Nakhon Pathom City. On the way to the dorm, Mr. Amarin introduced us about the city, such as Big Pagoda at night view, some shopping centres from the sides of the road, and lovely scene of the road at night in Bangkok. Finally, we arrived at the dorm and we were surprised by the facility. Our dorm is a new building in University and the room they gave us is a very brand new and they are all satisfying. In each room, we were give 2 pairs of bunk beds, and all towels and blankets for each person. We also had a toilet room, 4 cupboards, a sink and a sharing washing machine. We quickly checked up the facility and unpacked our bags and luggage to set up our thing in the right place. We were too tired at that time, so we decided to quickly take a rest for tomorrow morning. Before leaving the dorm, Mr. Amarin told us to be ready at 10:00 am in the morning for the orientation day for six of us.