ISOL 2020 title card

With Students in Songkhla

For the first time since joining the Centre, the International Soft-skills and Leadership (ISoL) camp programme committee invited me to chaperone students for two nights in Songkhla, Thailand. The camp was a joint programme between UniMAP and Rajamangala University of Technology Srivijaya. I thought we would go as a family (along with Syamril, the other language teacher on duty) not just to escort these young minds for their event, but also to learn from the trip. Not only did we learn quite a bit and gain new experiences, we also made new friends there. Add this event to things I never thought 5 years ago that I would be doing. We stayed at the Lake Inn Hotel with the students. Some day we would like to visit here again. Here is a short video on our trip there. However, there were more activities that were not captured on video. There […]

Continue reading
Nia’s waiting for us at Pasir Mas

A Northern Route Back to Kelantan

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED. Yesterday, we travelled out of the country as a family for the first time. Granted it was only over the border into Thailand, but it was something that all this while was out of our ability to do for fiscal reasons. It was almost time for Aidilfitri and we drove from Padang Besar to Rantau Panjang via Thailand to reach Tok Bah and Tok Ma’s home in Pasir Mas! Ain did a lot of legwork done beforehand, getting the Thailand vehicle insurance and such, days before we departed. We mulled over acquiring some Thai currency although we did not plan on stopping anywhere to buy anything. However, we stopped at a currency exchange and converted some ringgits into bahts. It was lucky that we decided on it as we had to pay some sort of vehicle tax at the border. We used the phone’s Map app to navigate. […]

Continue reading

Meanwhile, During the Rest of SILK 2018

The Symposium of International Languages and Knowledge was quite the event. Besides running the RPG workshop, I also sat in other talks, participated in other educational workshops and also had lots of food. Here are some photos to show the experience I underwent at Walailak University, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand. WU was holding their 26th anniversary expo on campus, a big event we were told. SILK was scheduled to be held at the end of March in conjunction with their anniversary. We waited at the border for their transport to pick us up. It took four hours for the two transports to deposit us at a hotel near their campus. That evening, a bunch of us went out to the expo site at the university in search of dinner. The expo site was big, along a single road on campus. There were vendors who sold food, flowers, furniture, agricultural gear […]

Continue reading

Mini Six: Whiteout, or an RPG Workshop at SILK 2018

This weekend I was honoured to be able to run a tabletop RPG workshop during the 2018 Symposium for International Languages and Knowledge which was held at Walailak University at Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand. Last year, SILK 2017 was held here in Perlis and was featured on the blog as well. Here are some photos of the event with an actual play report of the game that I ran for the Thai students. The little abstract for the workshop which I submitted a couple of months earlier appeared in the programme book for the symposium. Parallel talk session were underway when I went to scout the room where I was due to run the workshop. I quickly set up the table and then did some last minute game prep for the coming participants. Besides showing off the diversity of RPG systems, these book covers displayed side-by-side on the table can […]

Continue reading
International Irfan at the beach

Irfan Goes To An Exhibition

Irfan was selected to attend a school exhibition at a prestigious school in Satun, Thailand. With a group of 12 other students (all of which are fifth formers), he set out with his convoy from school early Wednesday morning. He participated in a spelling bee and helped man his school’s exhibition booth where they demonstrated various science experiments. Before he returned on Friday, the group also visited Pak Bara. Irfan returned home at the end of the day where he had stories of his adventures to tell.

Continue reading