AIT Campus

While I’m waiting for the next funny thing to happen here I thought I write some things about our lovely campus here at AIT.  As I already mentioned we have a lot of possibilities to do sports. Two bigger shops were you can buy fresh fruit, snacks and other useful stuff for your dorm. I usually buy breakfast, like eggs and choco pops thereJ

There are also many different kinds of restaurants. Indian, Vietnamese, Thai and then we have the SU café which provides all sorts of different meals. There are also three or four different cafes where you can have what we in Sweden call “fika”. The best of them is Hon Krum but it is fair enough a bit more expensive than the other ones.

There are also laundry service, dry cleaning, travel agency, hair salon and a massage place on campus so you can easily get stuff fixed here. The facilities when it comes to classrooms and such are in good quality. Equipment that works and a lot of friendly staff helping us with different kind of problems.

Right now I am studying for our midterm exam in Business Economics tomorrow. I hope it will be fine, and afterwards I´m going to Bangkok for an event that will be a lot of fun.

You can see some pictures of campus on http://www.campusbangkok.se/ - there is a link here.  

Pilip   

Tug of War Miniolympic Champions

After a postponed Final on Monday due to some weak Portuguese arms it was finally time. The big Final in Tug of War in AITs miniolympic tournament was coming up. Our opponents were again Portugal, last years undefeated champions.

We knew that we had beaten them before, but from watching their semi-final where they looked really strong some of us had respect for them.  You can really see in our eyes how focused we were to win this game. We wanted honor and pride to the Swedish people on campusJ

Before the game there was a mental game going onJ our opponents wanted to distract us and make us lose focus on what we were aiming for. This did not work. First round started and we had to really fight for a few seconds, but as soon as the Vikings machinery started we had no problem fishing Portugal in. Second round was even easier and we felt how Portugal did not even try to make an effort. An incredible game by the Vikings and I am so proud of us.

Go Vikings, Go Sweden!!!   

Pilip

Results from exams and final coming up in Tug of war

Got my results back from our two first courses this week, it was in Logistics and Design of experiments. I passed both of them and even managed to get good gradesJ I am proud of myself right now haha!

So after another Bangkok weekend I'm back at AIT. Everything is as usual except for the heat. It is extremely hot here today. Morning class in business economics and then went home to use that knowledge to buy stocks for my future fortune haha after sitting a couple of hours I really feel like going for a run and get rid of some energy.

We played football yesterday also, an easy 4-0 victory against some young British guys. After the game I went to see Chelsea-Manchester city and it was a wonderful performance by the bluesJ

Tomorrow is the Tug of war final and I just saw that we are going to meet Portugal again! They had a little bit of a struggle against Pakistan in the semi final but they still won 2-0. So we really have to be ready for a tough fight tomorrow, and I'm really looking forward to it. Hope all spectators will cheer for the Vikings and push us even moreJ Tell you the result as soon as I can!

Pilip

Crushing last years champions in Tug of war

Today was the day when AIT miniolympics started. It is an annual tournament in all sorts of different sports like football, volleyball, basketball and tug of war. You compete against other nations like Thailand, Nepal, Portugal and so on. From the Swedish side we have teams in the tug of war competition and the basketball. Three of us also helped the Nepalese team in football because they were too few players.

Starting up the miniolympics was the really important tug of war game between last year’s champions Portugal and the big Vikings from Sweden. After the weigh in we took our positions for the big round. We in the Swedish team had a lot of respect for our opponents and you could almost hear the nervous heartbeats. The game was best of three and we were getting ready with David the crazy leader getting us psyched. Till Valhall, AO!! First game started and we had an awesome start just ripping the Portuguese line and an easy victory. For the second game we switched sides and that didn’t help Portugal. After a couple of seconds the Swedish Vikings crushed them and the win was definite. A good effort from the Portuguese team didn’t help this day because we were to strongJ

On Thursday its time to play our first game in basketball and we will do everything we can to have another win. Then we will continue our journey in the tug of war with a lot of confidence and we are for sure going for the win. I just saw one team that can be difficult to beat and that is the Pakistanis. Lets hope we have good rung when we meet themJ Go Sweden!!

Pilip       

First loss and a nice night out

The midterm in Thai economy felt ok but I don’t really know if I had my focus on the right things. Anyway it felt like I understood the questions and could answer them quite fine. After the exam I just sat quiet with my computer the whole evening, I was so tired.

Saturday was as said match day, me and Daniel woke up and went to have breakfast on campus. The regular place I usually go to was closed so I just found a disgusting sandwich and bad coffee. This day didn’t start in the way I wanted. I had the same feeling after the game this time. After a loss 4-3 and the referee taking away two goals from us by calling bad offsides. To get myself to think about other things I had a couple of beers afterwards and it was quick to forget.

Then a long night out startedJ First went for pub food at Londoners pub and couple of pints. Then for my first time in Bangkok we visited the party street RCA, a really cool place. Many nice nightclubs and a lot of new people to meet. After drinking some whisky-soda we finished off in the nightclub Narz with some dancing. Overall a really good night but now its time for me to cut down on my alcohol consumption, it has been too much these last couple of weeksJ

The Thai sentence of the day is Chan cha pai and means I am going to… Good things to use in the taxis which you use frequently here.

My schedule this week is only three classes and one presentation to take care of in Thai economy. I think it will be a good week.

Pilip   

Visa extension

Today we got to see Thailand for another perspective. We got our first visa in December when we first came here for some vacation. That student visa was valid for three months and now when it was one week until it would expire we went on a little trip with AIT visa department to extend it.

First stop was in Ayutthaya in the middle of nowhere. We sat outside in the extreme heat for 2 hours having no clue of what was going on. Luckily a drink motorcycle came by the office so we could buy a pepsi. The pepsi was not served in a glass or the bottle; no we got it in plastic bag haha lots of ice and a straw. We were so exhausted and some people (David) even fell asleep outside the office.

After this visit we thought we were going back to the school but we went to another place in Bangkok which seemed to be the headquarters of these matters. We just circled around the building in our minivan maybe 3 times and then the guy fixing everything came back and we were doneJ we all asked ourselves why we needed to be there haha

Some more calculation in Thai:

6 - hok
7 - set
8 - bpeet
9 - gao
10 - sip

I would say since I learned to count it helped me a lot in all sorts of situations.

Tomorrow we have the midterm exam in Thai political economy and I hope I am ready for it. After that I going to have easy evening and try to rest as much as I canJ Saturday is matchday and party in the night, looking forward to it!

Pilip

Logistics exam and Bangkok

This week has been kind of hectic. On Thursday we had the logistics exam which I hope was alright! After that we went to Huntsman pub for the third networking meeting with the Scandinavian society here in Bangkok. It was a lot of people and so much fun speaking and sharing stories with them. Friday was only afternoon class in political thai economy and then just relaxing in our houseJ really needed that.

Saturday was matchday with football and this time we managed to play a good game. Final score 5-0 win!! The weather is crazy right now. Its so hot you don’t even want to be outside and this is just the beginning, all Thai people I meet only says “ yeah, wait until April” haha. After the game me and Daniel went to a pub, watched some football and had a pint.

If we go back to the Thai lesson I guess I should continue teaching to count to ten. 2 - song
3 - sam
4 - si
5 - ha

Also I should tell you about a cultural crash I just came to understandJ In Sweden its very common to hug friends doesn’t matter which gender. But here if you meet a girl and just hang out you cannot hug her good bye, hugging and kissing is when you have a relationship here. Good to know when you come hereJ

This week I´m preparing for midterm in Thai economy and I will try to focus on things I forgot to do this last couple of weeks. Just got a picture on my mail, do you think this is true? J

See you

Pilip