Post-Trip Reflections

Here’s a video of the Sustainability Group’s trip in Chiang Mai!

Cowtherine’s Elephants – Chiang Mai Trip

In my pre-trip reflections, I said I wished to experience hands on research data gathering, learn from my friends who study different courses, and get a greater sense of a multidisciplinary education. With this scope in mind, here’s my post trip reflection.

I think I honestly managed to satisfy all of my expectations. In experiencing what its like to be a scientist, or gather first hand research data, I kind of fulfilled one of the tasks on my bucket lists since young. I’ve always wondered about the process of research, and it greatly intrigued me: the idea of someone whose curious about a certain topic, throwing himself into a country and asking everyone a bunch of questions and digging out information to form patterns and theories and draw up conclusions.

In gaining a multidisciplinary education, I’m really not sure if I managed to achieve it. I’m still not very clear what it would feel like to be learn multiple disciplines. But I do know the perks one would have when you have taken Environmental mods, and made Communication Studies and Psychology friends, and you discuss the actions of mankind and human nature and how it could be manipulated. Different backgrounds or learning from different expertise really helps to locate all these “lost jigsaw puzzles” of life in a sense. With that said, I kind of also achieved the friendship goals I set out for myself on this trip. Getting to know them better is just one side of the story, but it’s a real sense of fulfillment when you now have more people in your life that you care about and when that care is mutual.

I also however, learnt intangible things I did not expect. I learnt to take life slowly. Apparently by sheer luck my group mates are complete zen monks in their state of mind. I used to, or still am a very impatient person. I would run up and down a night market to get the best deals possible, or make sure I didn’t miss out any shop. My friends on the other hand would just take their time to slowly look at each shop and not care about the time or whether they missed out stuff. I honestly viewed this perspective in a bad light, but I tried to understand things from their perspective and I think I may be able to quantify it in words.

“Merely seeing everything in life is of no use if you’re always in a rush to do it. Sometimes the beauty of things at the moment can only be fully appreciated when you realize that life needs to find its own comfortable pace so that, for example, a picture is seen in full, clear view, instead of it being a blur. Its like a museum, its better to have properly inspected and browsed the Mona Lisa, than see all the famous paintings at a blur because you’ve been running up and down the museum”