Bubble's Academic Interests

     Medicine is one of the subjects that I wanted to study because of the treatment which provided by those who are working in the hospital and clinic are so incredible. The doctor has to exam his/her patients with their knowledge which can easily make a mistake, but they don't, that's inspired me of this study.

Thanaporn's academic interests

I'm studying marketing at Chulalongkorn business school, but I also have other academic interests.

One of my academic interest is Food science and Nutrition. I love cooking since I was young. So, I chose to take an internship at Food of Asia, one of food and retail companys in Thaibev group. Also, I have spent my free time after class participating in seminar about Food technology at Kasetsart University once to learn more about technology of  food manufacturing these days.

Another academic interest is English. Even though I have been studying English for 20 years. I think that there are still a lots to learn. I would like to be as fluent as native speakers, especially in speaking writing English.

Mon's academic interests

I, personally, have grown up with the interest of language especially Japanese, Korean and Chinese. that's why I chose to be here in this class. Because when I was young, I'd studied in convent school where I'd studied many English classes with foreign teachers which made me realized how important the English is.

Then, I moved to another public school and found out that there're not the enough English class for students. Therefore, I decided to take special English course and spend time there studying English for 4 years from fundamental level till intermediate level.

In addition, with the present trend of being healthy physically and mentally, I also interested in nutrition. I want to know the exact effect of what we consume to our body and what we have to eat to make our body healthy.

Play's academic interests

I have interests in history and financial . First, for history, I can learn about civilization about humanity's technologies something like how we can develop this thing or what happened before we have these technologies. Second, financial, because in my major sometime it good to know about financial to manage the budget in the project development.

Kieng's academic interests

      I'm studying in a major of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Natural Products. for my major, it's employ  academic English to write a plenty of research articles and to present my projects in the international conferences. Besides my major, I interest in Thai history (from King Rama V to King Rama VII), world history, especially in World War II, and history of anything around the world.

      In my daily life, I found academic English style in many publication such as textbooks, newspapers and scientific magazines. To fulfill my academic interests, I have registered the English Composition II class at the Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University with the English major students.

Tong's academic interests

I interesting in economic, because now every people should know about business. Our world has
been changed because of an economy. So that why I interesting in economic. I also interesting in technology. Technology changing the world. In every day people try to create the new thing that relates to technology. People who like to studies about this might be good at math or computer. I'm good at computer but, I don't good at math.

Job's academic interests

        Cancer, this disease make my aunt and  my uncle died. So, I like to interest in how to protect this disease or how to prepare when we have this disease. I get the knowlege from my aunt and uncle cancer case that we must not have strees when we know that we have cancer. If we are stressed, the immune in our body will down ,and the piece of cancer will gradually spread. Finally, we will die from it.

Yean's academic interests

My academic interests mostly relevant to the fields of arts. They have a strong connection to the career I'm thinking about to change in the future.

I'm now working as a graphic designer which everyday practices more for commercial purpose. Beside, I'm more interested in a conceptual aspect of graphic design and research writing about critical thinking in graphic design.

However, I started to think about my future in the career of graphic design




- art history
- museum study
- critical thinking in graphic design
- visual culture
- archeology
- philosophy
- languages
- conservation / paper preservation
- library system

Pansaar's Academic Interests

The subject that interests me the most is Physics because many types of engineering jobs require the skills and knowledge from this subject. Also it teaches us how to think cognitively

The second subject that caught my attention is Philosophy. From a Chinese novel named "Three Kingdoms" one of the character said that "If you know yourself and the enemy well enough, you will win the war 100 times from 100 times. Same as philosophy, if you study philosophy well enough, you may be able to adapt this knowledge with other branches of your knowledge like marketing skills etc.

The third subject that I want to improve is English for the reason that the world uses English as the language for communicating between other countries.

Peter's academic interests

My academic interests began when i was in primary school, although I didn't know they were academic then; they were just things that interested me. I grew up on a farm, and from around five or six years, I loved growing things. This interest was really good for me because it pushed my to learn to read so that I could learn more. Happily, my Catholic primary school was very supportive. I had nuns teaching me in primary school, and they were very old. Because they were old and a bit tired most of the time, they let us do what we wanted as long as it looked productive, so I spent a lot of time pursuing my own interests in the library. At first, i loved botany to help me grow a bigger range of trees and things, then I was interested in biology generally, and by the time I got to high school, I was in love with chemistry, but in first year at high school, I found physics and mathematics. There were my main passions until the end of high school.

In my second last year, the brother who was my maths and physics teacher, and also my religion teachers, introduced me to philosophy. I'm now sure why. Perhaps he thought that my interest in science would lead me away from religion, so he suggested a Christian philosopher for me to read. Although I enjoyed Kierkegaard, he led my to read a lot more philosophy, and that quickly destroyed my belief in gods, angels, devils, and the like. I suspect this was not what my kind teacher had planned.

At university, I continued studying mathematics and physics, but philosophy was my major, with a couple of dead languages for variety.

These days, i also like reading history and economics, although I've never studied this subjects at university. I like the way economists use their tools, such as statistical analysis, to help us understand how human beings behave and why we do what we do.

Welcome to RW3B and to our class blog

What we read

This post isn't really about what I've read, although I have been reading in preparation for your class. Rather, this post is to welcome you to our class blog.

But since we discussing the title of this section is "What we read," it will help to have read something, so if you have not already, spend a couple of minutes reading series consultant Dorothy Zemach's Foreword on page 4 of Skillful Reading & Writing 4.

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My response 

Thank you for joining our Saturday class in Reading and Writing for academic purposes. I hope you find the next six weeks useful, productive, also challenging, and perhaps even fun. 

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Click to enlarge images

My question

In her foreword to students on page 4, the series editor, Dorothy E. Zemach, gives some strategies for successful learning, one of which is to "be an independent learner" (Boyle & Warwick, 2014). This class blog is one way for us to do this. As Zemach advises in her comments, it helps you learn to "find and then share information about ... different topics." 

Some of the topics you will write about here are the unit topics, but I also like Zemach's suggestion that "reading for pleasure and using the Internet in English" are important, so your writing here will not be limited to the topics of the units that we study over the next six weeks. 

Do you agree with Zemach and myself? Is a class blog a useful addition to our class this term? (This is two sentences, but it's only one question for you to respond to.) 

You can respond as soon as you accept the invitation I will soon send you to join this blog.

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Reference

• Boyle, M. & Warwick, L. (2014). Skillful Reading & Writing: Student's Book 4. London: Macmillan Education 

Getting into Unit 10 = Persuasion (SkRW2, p97, Discussion point)

What we read

As usual, Rogers and Wilkin introduce unit 10, which is titled "Persuasion," with a large image and some questions for us to think about and respond to. 

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Rogers and Wilkin's questions

Think about them for a moment, perhaps one minute, and then write your ideas responding to these questions: 

• Which of these things do you think is easiest to do? 
• to persuade someone that your opinion is right
• to persuade someone to buy something 
• to persuade someone to feel better when they feel sick
   
• How do people and companies persuade us to buy things? Have you been persuaded to buy anything recently? 

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Reference

• Rogers, L. & Wilkin, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing, Student's Book 2. London: Macmillan Education

Water: readings 1 & 2, "Fresh Water Delivery" and "The World's Largest Garbage Dump" (SkRW2, pp. 89 & 91, Developing critical thinking)

What we read

We have now read and checked our understanding of the readings "Fresh Water Delivery" (Rogers & Wilkin, p. 89, 2013) and of "The World's Largest Garbage Dump" (p. 91).

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Our response 

As they normally do, Rogers and Wilkin now invite us to respond critically to the ideas in these readings. 

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Rogers and Wilkin's questions

Write a paragraph or two to share your ideas on these two questions. You can start with either question, but make it clear in your first sentence what you are going to talk about. That is, your response should make sense to readers who have not seen the questions: don't assume that readers have read the question you are responding to.

• Is it more important to deal with the impact man has already had on our planet, or to change current human behaviour? Why?
   
• Which do you think is a bigger concern: pollution or water shortages? 

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Reference

• Rogers, L. & Wilkin, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing: Student's Book 2. London: Macmillan Education

Water: before reading 2 "The World's Largest Garbage Dump" (SkRW2, p91)

What we read

As usual, before we read a text, Rogers and Wilkin invite us to think about the topic or ideas that are coming up. The second reading in Unit 9 of Skillful is titled "The World's Largest Garbage Dump," and as usual, there is are some question to share our ideas on before we read it.

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Rogers and Wilkin's questions

Write two or three paragraphs to discuss these questions in a comment. 

• Which of the following do you recycle at home? 
  bottles, cardboard, glass, paper, plastic bottles, plastic packaging 
  I usually recycle ... , but it's difficult to recycle ... where I live.
   

• Where does trash go if it's not recycled? 
   It largely goes ...
   
• Aside from recycling, what should people be doing to reduce the amount of plastic waste? 

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Reference

• Rogers, L. & Wilkin, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing: Student's Book 2. Oxford: Macmillan Education

What I read

According to the article, a Chinese hotel group is investigating the possible leak of millions of customers' records, which appears to be for sale on the internet. An advert is offering the 140 gigabyte data trove in exchange for bitcoin on a dark web forum. Data breaches are nothing new for China, but the scale of customer data involved has led to international press attention for the hotel group. 

Cyber-security firm Zibao told a local news outlet that it believed the breach was a result of the hotel group's software developers accidentally uploading a database to github, a service where developers can collaborate. The group told BBC in a statement " we have paid significant attention to this matter and immediately implemented an internal audit to guaranteed the safety of our guests' information" 

It added that it was using external companies to verify whether a leak had happened. 

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My response 

As it says in the article, The guests' data are leaking out on the internet for exchange of bitcoin on dark web forum. The hotels is also one of the largest hotel in China but how could the data is leaking? In my opinion, I think there must be some kinds of group in the hotel that are making this systems for bitcoin though I don't really understand what bitcoin is. 

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My question

Does this situation effects the customers? What is your opinion? 

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Reference

• Chinese hotel group investigates possible leak of millions of guests' data. (2018, August 29)  retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45349036

Modern Primitives

What I read

In "What is 'primitive technology' and why do we love it?" George Pierpoint (2018) cites an expert who explains that our desires to both create something as individuals and to live independently when we worry about government failures support the popularity of the Primitive Skills channel on YouTube, where its superstar, John Plant, now makes a living posting videos himself creating fire blowers and other things using only materials found in the natural bush around his home in Queensland, Australia. Mr. Plant, whose name only became known when he took action to receive what he thinks is fair payment for his 21st century YouTube creations, emphasises that he does not live a primitive lifestyle, but that he lives in a modern house, where he enjoys modern food. 

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My response 

Whilst I agree with Mr. Plant that it's sensible to enjoy the benefits of a modern lifestyle, I can understand the appeal of creating something with your own two hands. That's probably the only reason I still cook a little. I like to eat something that I've made myself, even if it's very simple. Living where I do in Bangkok, it would be easy to never cook. There is a market full of food stalls next to my condo, and plenty of restaurants, including at least one 24-hour one, within  a few minutes walk. But it's fun to sometimes make something with my own hands. But I'm a long way from Mr. Plant's adventures in the Australian bush. 

Those adventures remind me of growing up in a similar setting as a child, except that when my brothers, sisters, cousins and I built our tree-houses and other "primitive" creations, we also tended to raid my father's tool kit and building supplies. I don't think it ever occurred to us to make our own axe or hammer, although we did like making our own bows and arrows to go hunting with. The local animals pretty safe — we never managed to hit a single one with our very primitive weapons, which also required the use of 20th century pocket knives in their creation from the natural supplies our family property provided. 

Matthew's place

I was also wondering as I read the article the second time whether Mr. Plant would be able to enjoy his passion for primitiveness were he not also living in the comfortable abundances of the 21st century, with its vast and vastly complex social network to support him, including making a living by posting on YouTube. If he could build his own video recorder, computer and internet equipment starting from what he had found lying around in the bush, I would be truly impressed. In the meantime, I love strolling around the native bush on my brother's property when I visit Australia, but I also love his 100-year-old traditional Australian farmhouse that has been refurbished to have every modern convenience, from a coffee grinder to wi-fi. 

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My question

What, if anything, do you create with your own hands? 

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Reference

• Pierpoint, G. (2018, August 27). What is 'primitive technology' and why do we love it? Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-45118653 

Funny Smokers

What I read

 According to “E-cigarettes can be key weapon against smoking, say MPs” (2018), the science and technology MPs' committee has released a report about e-cigarettes suggesting that many rules and regulations, that were meant for normal cigarettes, should be revised due to the fact that e-cigarettes are totally different from cigarettes and also much less harmful regarding current evidence, although many public spaces such as hospitals, buses, or subways usually prohibit vaping the same as smoking. They even proposed that e-cigarettes should be categorized as a medical tool for quitting smoking. While studies about e-cigarettes have been conducted, but the benefits are still inconclusive. There are many responses to the report on twitter, some people don’t mind vaping in public, while some people strongly opposed to the idea.

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My response 

 The reason why I chose this article is because I have seen some people using e-cigarette quite often lately at a shopping mall near my home when I go jogging. It always makes me curious what exactly they were smoking? All I know is that it is obviously not cigarettes because there is massive thick smoke coming out when they smoke in which I’ve never seen any smokers smoke like that before. It reminds me a picture of boiling kettle. I didn’t mean to make fun of them, but no matter how I look at them, vaping people always looks funny to me. Then I found this article and I think reading this article might give me more information about e-cigarettes. So, that’s why I chose this article.

As I expected, I’ve learned a new word, ‘vaping’, from this article. After I looked at the oxford dictionary, I found out that ‘‘vaping’ was newly invented in 1980, specifically for e-cigarette. Both vaping and smoking look similar to me in terms of action, and that made me wonder why they had to coin a term for such activity. Perhaps, they might want to imply that e-cigarette is not the same as normal cigarette because most people perceive ‘smoking’ as something unhealthy, so for e-cigarette users they can use ‘to vape e-cigarette’ instead of ‘to smoke e-cigarette’’. And if you read the article, you will see that they used ‘vape’ a lot when they talking about e-cigarettes, while rarely used ‘smoke’. Could this be the real intention of inventing this new word?

To be honest, after I read this article it made me suspect whether there is something fishy going on; I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out that there are some big tobacco companies pull strings behind this scheme. If I were one of MPs committee, I couldn’t come up with any good motivations why I should raise issues about e-cigarette regulations in the first place without being lobbied by someone. Especially when you look at the reason they use to support e-cigarettes, all they said is just it’s less harmful than conventional cigarettes. In fact, there is no such thing as a harmless substance, even water can be toxic if you drink too much let alone excessive vaping for long-term. Furthermore, I wonder what the benefits of vaping really are. If someone successfully gave up cigarettes by using e-cigarettes instead, then should they quit e-cigarettes afterward? To me, it sounds like recommending someone to stop drinking whiskey to drink beer. What good can come out of this? You just change from whiskey addiction to beer addiction, but you are still an alcoholic. The same goes for e-cigarette case, changing from cigarette addict to e-cigarette addict. Is this really a good thing to do?

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My question

If someone you know would like to quit smoking, would you recommend e-cigarettes to them?

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Reference

• E-cigarettes can be key weapon against smoking, say MPs. (2018, August 17). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/health-45212444 

Getting into Unit 9 = Water (SkRW2, p87, Discussion point)

Click to enlarge

What I read

As usual, Rogers and Wilkin introduce unit 9, which is titled "Water," with a large image and some questions for us to think about and respond to. 

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Rogers and Wilkin's questions

Think about them for a moment, perhaps one minute, and then write your ideas responding to these questions: 

• Where does your drinking water come from? Do you drink tap water or buy bottled water? Why?
   
• Water covers more than 70% of the Earth's surface, yet many parts of the world don't have enough water. Why is this?
   
• Which of the following water related problems (choose one only) do you think is the most serious? Why is it more serious than the other two? 
• drought 
• flooding 
• water pollution

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Reference

• Rogers, L. & Wilkin, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing, Student's Book 2. London: Macmillan Education

Balaclava

What I read

According to "Nike removes balaclava accused of 'targeting gun culture'" (2018), it said that Nike has criticized by people playing Twitter from releasing their new product in online called as balaclava. Due to the picture used to promote, it shows a black model wearing their Nike balaclava and having straps and pockets also. It refers to the gang cultures and the criminals, so the stream of criticize is not only their endorsing knife crime, but also enforcing racial profiling. After that, Nike has apologized for making a big mistake and  had deleted that picture around the Internet yet.  

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My response 

From the news, creating the balaclava fashion is not the wrong idea and I also think that Nike can make it if the balaclava is designed properly not to mean endorsing the crime. Because of the fact that the crime still  occurs every day, it is not surprised that people are aware of this issue seriously. Anything causing to the negative effects more than the positive one  should be considered carefully especially the well-known brand like Nike having a significant impact on global population. thus, it is not a good idea to push it up.

Moreover, this situation shows that people in the present day change their way to input information by using social media more than reading in newspaper or even watching TV. So when we post or do anything in online, every posts should be checked over 1 time in order to make sure that its message will not do mistake whether it will be passed on or not.


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My question

Are you like this fashion? Do you think that people will not accept this trend next 20 years from now? 

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Reference

Nike removes balaclava accused of 'targeting gun culture'. (2018, August 21). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-45258541

Do you agree with open-plan offices is more active than desks in cubicles?

What I read

According to " Workers in open-plan offices 'more active' " (2018), The research said that the worker who works in open-plan has more active and less stress than the worker who works in cubicle-plan because in the open-plan environment will make you more comfortable to look away from the table where a lot of work. Moreover, some research said that office design is very important for physical and mental health. Some people like individual offices or cubicles because they need more private nevertheless the researchers found open plan offices have more benefit than a cubicle or private office, for example, it can be better communication and increased awareness of your colleagues.

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My response 

In my opinion, I like to work with open-plan desk more than a cubicle desk because when I study or doing the exam with cubicle-plan, I always feel more stress and more pressure than open desk environment. The most of library in Thailand is always use cubicle desks because they do not people to talk together. Sometimes, I think the desk with cubicle is a symbol of silence. If you don't need a noise and distraction, the desk with cubicle is a good choice but if you want more active and less stress the desk without a plan is better choices. Everybody has a different style, you can choose the desk that you like. I believe that happy with the desk makes you happy with your work.

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My question

If you can choose your style office, what style office do you like? desks in cubicles or open-plan office?

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Reference

• Workers in open-plan offices 'more active'. (2018, August 21). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/health-45247799

Can Radioactive went missing from a pickup truck?

What I read

Malaysia is hunting for a radioactive device which went missing from a pickup truck earlier this month. Authorities say the radioactive substances inside the radiography device could spread dangerous contamination if dismantled improperly. The missing object is used in industrial radiography. The 23kg large metal tube with a carrying handle had reportedly been used to spot cracks in metal. It contain the radioactive isotope iridium-192 which can cause radiation exposure or be used as a weapon if combined with a conventional explosive device. Whether or not the missing iridium can indeed be used for a so-called "dirty bomb" depends on how much of it was inside the device. 

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My response

This is actually quite mysterious.. No one knows where the radioactive device is and how it gone missing. The driver doesn't even noticed that the radioactive device was missing until when he is at his arrival. 

Last year, a similar incident happened and that there has been no information on that radioactive device either. Deputy Home Minister Azis Jamman confirmed the incident had taken place but insisted "everything is under control" 

I have a feeling that the driver must have something to do with the missing device.. 

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My question

How do you think that the radioactive device is missing? Is it stolen or fallen off the pickup? 

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Reference

Radioactive device gone missing in Malaysia. (2018, August 21)

Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45255181