Northeastern University

DY Thai 09

This is the last time yo…

November 17th, 2009 by Danny | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

   When I first received the letter about my Spring acceptance to Northeastern University, I was disappointed that I wouldn’t get to experience the normal life of a college freshman. Experiencing life in another country didn’t interest me before, though I had I choice to join the NUin program Greece or England. I thought to myself what life would have been like if I chose to experience Greece. Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken summed up my thought process about NUin:  

                               “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I –

                                 I took the one less travelled by,

                                 And that has made all the difference”

Before I made my decision, I didn’t know what “difference” it would have made because one thing that was for certain, I was not going to be at NEU for the fall.

     As I am writing this blog today, I still don’t know that “difference” because I don’t and will never know the experience of a normal college freshman. But, what I do know is that this London experience is an experience I don’t regret. Sure, there had been some ups and downs, but the current of the river (path) continues to flow. Going back to my service learning experience for Thames21, I learned the basics of group work, one of which is teamwork. River Thames still has a long way to go to being clean, but from what I experienced with the community work, the future is very bright, and I hope that one day when I’m older, I will not have to witness the its trashy banks.

    The Mouth Cancer Walk, Cancer Research UK (and Breast Cancer Research), and London’s Air Ambulance had built me into a stronger, more confident, and more open-minded person. These events all satisfied my service learning experiences here in London, but I still wasn’t fulfilled. I didn’t ended strong…not until I finally did my last service event. I was in contact with the Mouth Cancer Foundation once again, and this time, I got to travel to Birmingham for an exhibition and promote mouth cancer awareness. It was 4 a.m. when I got ready for the service. Sophie Love, the PR account manager, had been in contact with me. I realized from this that some of us NUin students, who were working with the organization back at Hyde Park for the Mouth Cancer Walk, were great ambassadors of Northeastern University, and therefore, I was inspired to work hard and represent Northeastern University on my last day of service learning in London. There are too many details to explain what made this service learning event a perfect day. Lets just say that it was the service of all services, and I was glad that I ended service learning in London with a strong finish. Because of this event, I concluded that doing service is my style. I am now in love with service.

     I was just ordering a take out at KhobKhun Thai Restaurant yesterday. The owner had asked when I was leaving, and I told him next week. Next week… will be the last week I get to play football (soccer) with my distant Thai family. He even gave me half price for the food I ordered. I learned that the restaurant was opened for over 20 years. Hopefully, I will to visit them again, but for now I will only reminisce the days of bonding with them.

“Like a pebble thrown into a pond and creating a calm ripple around it, this London experience is only the first crest of that ripple.”

November 10th, 2009 by Danny | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

     People say that when you are travelling outside of space, time slows down. And when you eventually arrive back on Earth, all your friends and family will change and grow old. You will have come to realize that they won’t recognize you the same way they did before you left. Time will have shaded memories of the past. I fear that I won’t be able to recognize my friends and family when I see them. I can already imagine my friends behaving maturely, more wrinkles on my dad’s forehead, and the dried paint of my house pealed off; and yet the sun will rise and fall like every other day. It’s a very depressing image I’ve been trying to draw out in my mind. I shall ask myself, “Where was I when all this happened?” Here in London, it doesn’t just feel like time is slowing down, but time has captured you, so that you can suck the juices out of my experience.

     In the past three months, I’ve been on that spaceship enjoying a revolution around the planet “London”, and looking at how its topography (identity) is shaped like. I remembered the first week like it was yesterday, my main goal was to find the best food joint in town. There’s simply everything: Italian, Indian, Chinese, South American, Thai, Korean, American, Japanese, Bengali, and anything you can name of. I remembered getting excited on the first day when I found out Jake plays football (soccer). I remembered my first service experience down at Thames River picking up trash with my new pals. Now looking back at the pictures, I don’t seem to recognize myself with my short hair, and I’m also losing my memories of the Danny Yin I was during the first week. What I do know is that I have changed. It felt like a part of me was gone, a part of my past, which I find it hard to explain, will be lost – its idée fixe remains like a ghost staring at a distance.

     I will miss playing football with the Thai community, for they have opened up a new dimension in my perspective of British-immigrants. I will miss the owner of Liko Restaurant, who has been very kind to us. I will miss Edinburgh (before I got sick), and I will miss all those hard work of services that I was 100% committed.

     Like a pebble thrown into a pond and creating a calm ripple around it, this London experience is only the first crest of that ripple.

Global Citizen means…

November 3rd, 2009 by Danny | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

     Global citizen means those individuals who is committed to understanding and just accepting that the world is shared by other beings, and that there is a connection between youself and something else. I will use religious influence as an example, that God created the world in his image. In this world, every being, who’s heart beats and breathes air, is living life shared by other creatures. Just realizing this, that individual is a citizen of the globe. There will always be interactions between an individual and other sorts of life in this world. Therefore everyone has a connection. For example, in terms of how individuals can be connected in a very broad sense –> indirectly related, lets say that I may have polluted the Gulf of Thailand by throwing a can of coke, and lets say this can of coke flows out into an island of Ithaca in Greece. If, for some reason, An Ithacan is swimming and gets choked by this can of coke, then I am the influence, therefore I am part of this world. Also, this shows that a global citizen doesn’t have to mean doing something good for the world; it is about the connection. This example may contradict with what I am trying to say because if a don’t realize that an Ithacan is being choked by the coke can I threw into the sea, then I am not recognizing other beings. However, it is my actions that affects another being, and therefore I am somewhat related.

     In the modern world, I will use Facebook, for example. Everyone is connected, because everyone is using facebook, and more importantly, they can relate with other people when people share the same interests. Also, a good example of connections of the globe is having “mutual friends” with someone you don’t know. Immediately, you are connected with that person. So in a broad term, everyone is connected because everyone is going to know at least some one who knows somebody else who doesn’t know you, but it is a connection, and that’s what makes it global.

Excercise 10.4!

November 3rd, 2009 by Danny | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

In the simplest terms, I’d like to see people cherish one another within my community. Starting with my family, we’ve been through many problems in the past, but as long as we keep on respecting each other and understand each other. I wish that there weren’t any tensions within my family, but there is. I realize that the past is something we can’t change. Life is about this coping with the past, experience it, and move on. Moving on to where I live, Thai have a lot of respect for one another, but when I think about it, it only comes in a form of tradition and duty based on the Buddhist ideal. I’ll admit I don’t feel like I am the nicest and that I cherish everyone. What I don’t cherish, I tend to express it with anger. In a broader way of saying it, I wish for world peace within my community – a peace that lays no tension, and to live the life without regret.

As simple as it sounds, this change, this asking for peace, will make the world / community more pleasant to live. I’m dreaming for a change that is almost impossible to ask for. This change is only an idea, and we all try to live by it, but in life there are going to be ups and downs, so again, we can only have to cope and experience, and move on. Service-learning experience allows me to accept that people are different and don’t always go the way you wanted it to be. I have to stay positive, and start fresh whenever there are downs with my experiences in life.

Crime and Violence in UK vs USA

October 27th, 2009 by Danny | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

When I think of crime and violence in the USA, I think of the Bloods and the Crips, the KKK, and the tv show America’s Most Wanted. Coming from Asheville, which is pretty much the South, racial expressions are very common. People are very creative with the name callings, such as Indians being referred to as “sand-n*ggers”, Chinese as “Yellow”, and African-Americans as “vinegar”. The Bloods and the Crips were always going into each other’s territories to kill one of their members. Every day is a war to them. The essence KKK still exists today, believe it or not. Lynching had been part of a dark and shameful history in America, and even still today, there has been cases of lynching.

In the UK, mostly I think of little kids getting raped or killed, which is disgusting, but it has always been in the news or the newspapers. Then again, racial hatred has been going on in Britain as well. Muslims has been referred as dangerous and terrorizing. And finally, hooligans are always somewhere in the streets going against each other. Like the Bloods and the Crips, they are violent, and they are pride with their beliefs. Overall, I feel like its still safer in London with the CCTV always on a lookout for trouble. 

Its been a privilege…

October 27th, 2009 by Danny | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

According to the book Learning through Serving, “privilege” refers to those with “unearned benefits” (pg.76). An example that’s used is a person who experiences privilege of her being white. By being white, she is automatically considered part of a “dominant group”, but the person is taught, “not to investigate or recognize that they exist”. I encountered this form of privilege, not in service learning, but just in London. I went to a Thai restaurant and I ordered a bunch of food for take out. They realized that I was Thai and so they asked me what I wanted to drink, and then they got me a free drink, just because we have come from the same culture and background. In service learning, I don’t feel that my skin makes any difference with the way people react.

Today, we went to the Imperial War Museum, and this one place shows a clock with a hand spinning in rotations (in each rotation, two people died in some form of conflict). In a stretch from this experience, I felt the privilege just to be alive. I felt the privilege to just have a house, and to get to go to school, and come to London.

“How am I suppose to breathe with no London?”

October 20th, 2009 by Danny | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

     In the past week, I was sick in bed, the soarness of it all – my tonsils, my fever, my lifeless body – yes, lifeless sounds like a good word to describe my past week. I had puss covered all over my tonsils. It hurts to talk, and it hurts to even swallow my own saliva. I am sick of goggling warm salt water. So what was the change in all this experience? Well, I’ve changed in a way that I appreciate the things I do in London more. First of all, being sick made me thought a lot about life. I missed London, and I missed everyone. I didn’t realize until now that all the things that I’ve done, I was finally feeling a sense of being one with London. I’m mad, as I am typing this post, that it took me two months before I can finally feel London, and now with only about a month left, I’ve never felt more willing, the wantingness and the desire to get the full experience here. Its like when I was learning how to play the guitar. All the repeated motions of the picking on the strings, I couldn’t see the point of doing the same thing over and over again, but when I finally started to have a feel with my calloused fingers, I was starting to feel one with the guitar and starting to enjoy the music I play.

     Service learning has now become my air and water. I am dying of thirst for more experience. The Breast Cancer Research, the London’s Air Ambulance, and the 10k volunteering at Victoria Park…I want it all. Besides services, I was drawn ever closer with London life aka playing football at Hyde Park. The small Thai “community” I played with every Saturday have now completely accepted me, more comfortable than ever, as a part of them, and they even expect me to show up. I was glad because they told me I was a good player, and that my addition to the games opened up new mind-set. I was Thai, so it gave them a familiar background and connection, but I was also different because I was born and raised American-style instead of British. I told them it was a different style of play back in the states, which metaphorically relates to difference in lifestyles between American and British. But we are all Thai in our hearts (which means I should call them my distant cousins), and we bond like a family.

Call me Mr.Positive (Exercise 9.6!)

October 20th, 2009 by Danny | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

     I’m Danny Yin, aka Chatchai Daenkaiwannapha from Bangkok, and my role in this service-learning course is to learn and experience the world around me, starting with London. Completing my service hours of at least 30hrs is my goal, but every day is a serving learning to me. On Monday for Dr.Rajini’s class, for example, we went to visit a mosque, and I learned that you can be of service just by smiling – you influence the other person by making his/her day better. And it is this that I was familiar with, especially during my service for Breast Cancer research at the Jubilee Place Mall.

     During my service experience for Cancer Research UK, I didn’t know how to approach the public at first with my pink camouflage, and I didn’t want to make fun of myself. But I kept focusing on getting as much loose change as possible for the charity. And when I smiled (so fake, but I had to look positive), it got people to react, and some even smiled back, even if they didn’t donate. As this kept going, I realize that when I smile, I am doing service by giving warmth and a positive attitude for people to carry on through the day. It is this that I realize that I can make a person’s life more pleasant with my smile. When people smiled back, it gave me warmth and comfort that I am not alone in this world. Money was no longer my goal, but the joy on people’s faces.

     Next time I do service, it will be the same. I will keep my smile. It has become a habit for me to smile now. I don’t realize it, but I always smile to little kids, because I feel like they, as a young age, deserve to see a bright and positive world. The kind of experience I got from service-learning here in London is what I expected in the NEU’s co-op program. I can be more individual, have more space, to do what I wanted to do. I want to major in the performing art’s music industry, because I want to make good music and inspire people to see their world positively. I want to and love to perform and see the smile on people’s faces. This experience I take with me can’t be described, but I can only smile to other people (students) that my experience was worth every second of my life. Smiles take me back to all the happy moments in my life and the people I was with, and its these moments that I cherish and take with me - inspire me - to be who I am today. And now I would like to end this post with a song by Robin Thicke, which goes a little something like this:

                                    “Why do people smile when no one smiling,

                                     Its cuz they’re thinking of someone they’re loving…”

Exercise 8.4!

October 13th, 2009 by Danny | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Going into Music Industry and dealing with music productions requires a lot of patience. One has got to be a team player, creative/imaginative, determined, ambitious, willing to learn, and willing to take risks. Like in service learning, it takes a lot of time and patience. One collaborates with many different people with different opinions. At times, music productions bring out your individuality. It is hard at times when you want things to be your way and not any one else’s because a CD can only put so many tracks that one has to be certain that it is the right style, the right music. Even if one artist gets the benefit, whatever that goes behind the studio recording sessions makes up for the importance of music productions. Teamwork. For example, this past Saturday we gathered some donations together and with time and commitment, each one of us got a lot of money, which makes a difference for the Cancer Research UK.

Reflections on Zone 2

October 13th, 2009 by Danny | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Pink was the only color that I thought of that day. It was on a Saturday when five of us went to the Jubilee Place, a mall-like setting, to help out the Breast Cancer Research with the donations. I felt out of place at first. The pinkness of the logo signs, a pink mini cooper, and ladies wearing pink, I thought that maybe this wasn’t the right service for me. Ridiculous. Me and my pink camouflage suit and pink saggy camouflage pants, asking for donations to help Breast Cancer Research. Femininity was in my state of mind. I’ve never felt more embarrassed in my life.

Me and my fake slant smile, I stared across the escalator, attempting to make eye contact with other people in hopes that they will throw in some loose change into my bucket. Even if they didn’t, I still had the smile on my face, greeting people as they passed by. Once in a while, I walked around to see how the girls are doing, and it seems that the girls are getting way more donations than us guys (Chris and I). I feel bad at times when I didn’t donate money and ignored to those people asking for donations. In the end, I enjoyed the experience and would love to participate in something like this again.