My Flood Experience



Above: My house

The flood affected me personally because it hit my home directly while I wasn’t there. I have went back to visit my house in Nonthaburi twice already. It was cool walking through the flood water in my neighborhood and experiencing some hardships that people in Ayutthaya had to go through every day. My family consisting of my mom, my brother and I decided to evacuate before the flood water came in October. My mom was tired of staying up past midnight waiting for the flood to come like the other neighbors. Plus, we had no place to leave our car. We relocated to my aunt’s house in Bangkok on the West side of The Chao Phraya River. However it may flood at my aunt’s house, then we will relocate to stay at my mom’s office. Recently, my cousin’s house was flooded and unfortunately it was a factory. He had to stop business for now. My mom doesn’t own a business but goes to work on a daily basis. My grandmother and grandfather on my dad’s side live on the Northeast of Thailand, which is not hit by the flood. However it is getting colder because it is almost December and they live on a hill. My current situation is fine. I will be able to return to school on Monday. I did all right with personal motivation and self-discipline in terms of being a continuous online learner. Getting access to internet isn’t easy at my aunt’s house because the neighborhood has mainly tall houses with 4-5 floors that disrupt the connection, so I go to my mom’s office. I check Edline, the school website and my inbox on a daily basis to stay updated on homework and school reopening dates.

            First of all, there will be many short term effects of this flood for Thailand such as flood water, mass migration, and food storages. Once the flood water goes down, many people will leave the refugee camp and go back to their houses. However, some houses like in Ayutthaya have been flooded up to over 2 meters so they will need to refuge at a relative’s house while their houses are being fixed. Mass migration will stop after everyone has settled back down in their own house and move on with daily life as usual. Food storages will also abate because people will be able to go to the shopping malls. Electricity distribution is a problem during floods, so once everything goes back to normal the electricity will continue again. Clean water distribution is another problem during floods; it will be a problem when all of the water has been dump out into the ocean and rivers. The government will have no water to distribute to the citizens. This leads to the food distribution to all of the shopping malls. Because of the flood, the products from factories and imports from other countries cannot be given out since supply truck is stuck in traffic. Roads are blocked or flooded which stops the truck from delivering on time.

            Other than short term effects, there are many long term effects for Thailand as well such as crop production, tourism, and insurance. Crop production has failed due to the flooding in many, or all, farming fields. It will take a while for Thailand’s farmers to regain the rice nutrients in the soil and be able to plant crops again, especially Thailand’s rice production. This leads to the price of rice in Thailand. My mom said that it will be more expensive than usual since the supply is low but the demand is still the same; farmers will also have to farm more for international export. The percent of unemployed people has risen because the flood disrupted many businesses and factories. Once the flood lessens, businesses and factories will be under renovation because of some flood damage it may leave. People won’t be able to go work for a period of time. However, some businesses and factories will be able to recover quickly and people will resume their daily work. As for tourism, many of the ancient ruins in Ayutthaya, I think will be permanently damaged because the flood would’ve dissolved the historical temples. Roads would be renovated. Tourist from other countries had to go back to their country so they wouldn’t be affected by the flood. Insurance would also be more expensive, from what my mom told me, especially on cars and housing because these are the two possessions that will most likely be destroyed when a flood occurs.

            As an individual or community member, I can volunteer to help at refugee shelters or volunteer to go out into the flood. We, as a school have already collected money for the flood victims of Ayutthaya, but we should also raise money for people around Bangkok who aren’t as fortunate as us, the students of Ruamrudee International School. We students are able to go to school, if the flood doesn’t come any further, and most of us have not been hit by the flood because we live in inner Bangkok. I encourage my fellow students to go to rallies and charity concerts that are happening in Bangkok. Furthermore, I really encourage people to go and help give out supply bags to people who are stuck in their house because of the flood. The reason is that many foreigners choose to come to Thailand, or stay if they were already here, and help us give out supply bags. If I stop and listen to my moral compass, it is saying that I have a lot of work to do when the flood goes down at my house. There is going to be a lot of cleaning, washing, and scrubbing. My mom also has to throw out the shoe cabinet because it totally fell apart. My moral compass is also saying that I should be grateful because I get to stay at a relative’s house and not at a shelter. I should also go and volunteer to help at shelters or go help distribute supply bags. Furthermore my moral compass says that the government is doing a horrible job and someone else should take control, someone like His Majesty the King because in the year 2538 (Buddhist Year) HM the King delt with the flood water better than the government this year. We can turn these thoughts into actions if we all get into groups and volunteer together or give money for charity because every little action counts. Some people are protesting and threatening to take the "Big Bag" apart because it blocks the water from flowing away from their province to lower the flood water. The government is too busy worrying about the safety of Bangkok and not other provinces outside.

My Identity Video

From this Identity video, I want people to understand that I am a quiet person but once you get to know me I am friendly. It will also show that media is a big part of my personality, for example Percy Jackson books are my currently my favorite to read, so I also watched the movie. You can see that I am a musical person. Music is a big influence on my personality because, as you see from my video, listening to music is one of my hobbies and artists such as Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne are some of my favorite singers. You can also see from my video that I’m not an athletic person since I only like playing ping pong and that I would spend my time socializing on Skype, MSN, and other social networks. Friends influence me a lot, even though I don’t have very many close friends. All of my friends make me happy and encourage me to socialize more and be more energetic. You can also see I love my family as well; we just don’t take pictures that often. School and nationality is important to me, but don’t influence my personality that much. Last thing you would see is that I’m not a very creative person.

While doing this project, I felt that it was technologically hard since I’m not good at creating movies. At first, when Ms. Renee said that we can only use 20 seconds of a song I was thinking hard on how to cut the song. After she showed us freecorder, I was relieved because if I had to cut the song myself I would spend a lot of time trying to figure it out. When I saw that we had to site our pictures and songs, I was surprised because I never thought that copyright was important for pictures and songs. Finding the pictures was difficult for me since I had no clue on what to put in my media category and hobbies category. I listen to a lot of songs and watch a lot of movies so I couldn’t choose the singer and the movie, so I chose a recent movie and singer I like. Also, my family hadn’t taken any recent pictures so I had to search through the CDs my dad made for storing old pictures from America and my camera I just bought last year. I was tired after choosing the pictures and also doing the copyright. After finishing the project, I was relieved, until the morning Ms. Renee said that we needed to have 30 seconds of credits. So I had to change it again. In conclusion, this isn’t the project I like the most but it was pretty fun, even though I don’t really know my identity that well.

Birmingham Grid for Learning Result

The Birmingham Grid for Learning shows my strengths I have when I learn and the challenges I would most likely have. From the results I got, I think it is quite accurate because I am not really a number smart, nature smart, and myself smart as shown in this chart. I agree that I am a music smart person since I love remembering lyrics and melodies and I work equally well with words and visuals. Also, I am a people smart person and would like to work within groups more rather than independent. Overmore, my body smart is kind of accurate because I don't like to stay in the same place for a very long time and I learn better when things are demonstrated for me. What this information means for me as a learner is that I work well when there is a lot of body movement and group discussions, using visuals to help me study and also an equal amount of notes at the same time. If I work outside, it might distract me from my studies and working with numbers isn't my specialty.