by Pattarapong Choopanya
Waking up early again this morning… according to plan, this was the last morning in Pak-sang village and we had to say goodbye, even though it was difficult, to the host families… The girls had prepared a thank you speech to be said to Grandmom Shu, P’ Ruk, P’ Thong, Mai-chan, and O-chan… another touching moment again this morning…We gathered again in Pak-sang village hall where we first met with the host families to express our sincere thanks to everyone for the last time. The students could not help crying their eyes out… oops! I know it was hard to say goodbye but sooner or later, we all have to part… Am I right?PS – I have a photo of each of you crying your eyes out and I’ll tell you what, it is very very very ugly… If you DO NOT want it to be published, a million Yen will do the job… You know what to do next? Call me then! Hehehehe…
We headed to the City of Ubonratchathani where the Boromarajonani College of Nursing Sanpasithiprasong is located. There, the students from the two universities would have an encouraging discussion regarding their syllabus and facilities.
A very well-prepared meeting venue and the formality of the meeting seemed to both impress and excite our little girls at first… All the representative students attending the meeting and the lecturers were well-dressed in their formal suits… Hahahaha… And the meeting was conducted wholly in English… Ummm… But I know our students were waiting silently for a moment to fight back!
I was only joking though… :p Despite the fact that this meeting looked very formal, the atmosphere was truly casual and relaxing… I could see that the two schools were very eager to ask each other lots of questions regarding the commonality or differences between them. I could tell that today’s meeting at BCNS would be a very productive meeting for them…
Nozomu-san, the only guy in this trip started his EPIC question (and I’m sure everyone was also curious) of why most of nursing students attending the meeting were guys… which seemed a bit odds as most nursing students should be ladies.
The answer? They were just representative students from may many classes… the male-to-female ratio of nursing students at BCNS was the same as everyone else… 60:600 or 1:10…
The rest of the discussion? Sorry, I could not be bothered coz that’s not my interest… hahahaha… I was busy facebooking!!!
Funny, Dr. Jinnpipat, Mr chairman had just finished a meeting in Sanpasithiprasong Hospital (across the road) and he then came to see us for a short while… Here’s the funny bit; the lecturers at BCNS saw my dad, not knowing he was the Chairman of HSF, and asked him to join the meeting and give a speech to the Study Tour Group as a Chief Medical Officer of Mukdahan!
I later said to my dad, “Your organisation is not just non-profit organisation, but also highly confidential like a secret agency, no one knows who you are!?!!”
We then had a tour around the college after lunch to see their teaching facilities before cross the road to Sanpasithiprasong Hospital, this general hospital is the main and biggest hospital within this South-eastern E-san region with many specialists and heavy weapons (oops, I mean state-of-the-art medical equipment) in operation…
After a short (well, they claimed “short” >.<) introduction about the hospital, it’s capability, it’s duty and personnel, we then had another hospital tour… mainly focussing on the OPD and ER unit, it was a shame that we could not visit all departments due to a fixed and limited time slot…
Oh! One think I should mention is that during Haruno-chan’s (if I am correct) thank you speech at the Sanpasithiprasong Hospital… She got a lot of encouragement from visiting the hospital (I’m sure her friends also did) and seeing the other nurses working in the hospital. She promised to study hard and won’t give up to become a good, competent nurse in the near future… Ahhh… another touching moment… I was very happy after hearing that speech — if you put some effort on something and somebody could see, or be inspired by your work, I am sure you will feel the same!
We then moved in to Sunee Grand Hotel, the students would stay overnight and this was their last night in Ubonratchathani. After dinner, it would be my turn to say goodbye to the group…
I do not know what I should report during our dinner at MK’s restaurant, all I can say is that my students seemed happy and enjoyed eating Thai sukiyaki…
Thanks Mitsue-san for translating my farewell speech to Japanese… however, I would like to recall it once again here,