Loy Krathong 2012

Did you float your Krathong and made a wish and prayer this year? This year occurred on November 28th.

2007 Loy Krathon

The first Krathong I did float was taken five years ago when I arrived in Thailand. I thought it was just for fun but later I learnt that it is an important tradition and ceremony in Thai Culture; where they gave thanks to the Goddess of water for using it intensively for livelihood and creation purposes and they also ask for more blessings during this time. In other words, Loy Krathong festival is essential in people’s life in Thailand. It actually called as the Festival of Lights. It is the most beautiful festival of the country and occur during the full moon night of the lunar month usually on November.

Krathong

The Krathong is usually made up of banana trunk and leaves designed around with flowers, joss sticks and candle. Nowadays, people are more creative and environmentally friendly in making their Krathong. They made it from different biodegradable materials like bread filled with flowers and some were made from vegetables. It was really fun and exciting. Thousands gathered around the river and canal to celebrate and float the Krathong. Everyone has to light the candle and joss sticks, make a wish and prayer as he/she sends his Krathong to the water. They watch it as it flows downstream hoping that the candle light will not turn-out. The flame is the symbol of longevity.

During the Loy Krathong festival, hundreds or thousands of sky/floating lanterns known in Thai as “Khom Loy” were released to the sky from the temple, private homes, beaches and parks. They looked beautifully amazing as they illuminate across the sky in Thailand. This is for the hope of releasing the misfortune in life and goes with the lantern and burned. I did float a Krathong and fly a lantern this year. I made my wish and prayer and I believe it will come true.  Let’s truly believe on it that the best will come in our life. I claim it in my heart. Good luck for us. 🙂

Go and fly

Amazing lanterns – Google image

My lantern

Graduate Education: A Step Higher

This is an essay stating my purpose of pursuing graduate education (Ph.D) required in the application for admission in UPOU…

Pursuing graduate education is one of the greatest dreams of every professional, whether it is to enhance professional knowledge and skills or to land a promising career that could support life. These are actually my main reasons for applying doctorate program. However, providing the current situation and location, distance education is the most practical way in pursuing graduate school, in the sense of flexibility of time in doing the course work (we can work at the same time we can study). Further, financial matter was also considered. Most graduate schools offering weekend classes like in Bangkok, Thailand, however, the transportation cost going to the University is going to eat up a lot of the budget which is supposedly for tuition fees and learning resources.  While enrolling distance education in UPOU is financially feasible for me and thus, there is a high percentage to sustain and complete the program.

Since I’m working in the field of Education and was taking Master degree in Education, it is appropriate to pursue Doctor of Philosophy in Education to develop further my teaching skills and managing skills necessary in delivering effective teaching and learning process to my students, to help other teachers who are in need of peer coaching/mentoring, and somehow to help in developing better curriculum. Importantly, I want to develop my research skills in the field of education, for somehow we can discover or develop something that can improve the present educational system in general and develop new teaching techniques to cope with the fast changing demand of the society, the environment and the world. As an educator, we need to upgrade ourselves through furthering our education to be able to teach our young generations to be globally competitive as well as will be able to facilitate positive change successfully in the organization where we belonged.

Choosing the area of specialization, I honestly want to take General Science but UPOU doesn’t have it, I choose Biology considering my undergraduate degree Environmental Science, in which Biology is one of its components. It is interesting to learn and explore deeper Biology because this explains the science of life including us. It’s fascinating to know how all living creature exist, to study the history and romance of DNA to the big picture of our living planet as well as the breathing biosphere.

I believe that the knowledge and skills that I’m going to earn and acquire from this program will be very helpful in the teaching field. Although, I’m not teaching in the field of science right now but I am planning to move sooner and teach science in the secondary and even tertiary level. So I’m going to equip myself the necessary knowledge, understanding and skills to achieve maximum learning and applications of my students in the field of Biology. Further, if I will successfully finish the program, I’m planning to pursue another area of specialization like Physics or Mathematics to fulfill my quest for science, so that I will be able to teach any field of sciences wherever I go.