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Welcome to Students Incorporated, a podcast where we dive into relevant topics and issues

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related to the world of business, technology, education, and design.

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I'm your host, Mr. Jason.

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Episodes include student conversations, interviews with thought leaders, and inspirational stories

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with an international flavor.

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This podcast is created and produced with the help of students from the International

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Community School of Bangkok.

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In today's episode, we explore the topic of cultural transitions, and I'm joined by our

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student co-host, Lyon and Linda.

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We also welcome our special guest, Mrs. Amber Quick.

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Thanks for joining us.

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But before we jump into our interview with Mrs. Amber, I'll turn the mic over to our

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co-host.

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Let's hear the quote of the day.

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Eleanor Roosevelt once said, if life were predictable, it would cease to be life and

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be without flavor.

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Remember, my listeners, always live your life with flavor like KFC's famous fried chicken.

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But before we get to Mrs. Amber, here are some headlines from our news desk.

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ICS Carnival was a smashing success.

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Thank you to everyone who attended.

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In other news, Bangkok continues to rank 11 in the world's worst traffic.

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However, if you look on the bright side, Thailand ranked 6th place in 2022 bright side beauty

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pageant.

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And for some international news, a drought in Europe has recently revealed hidden villages,

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sunken ships, and lost hunger stones not seen since World War II.

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Thank you for those headlines, Linda.

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Now let's jump into our first segment with Mrs. Amber.

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Thank you so much for taking some time out of your busy schedule for this episode.

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Our co-hosts have some great questions they'd like to ask you about your journey through

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different cultures.

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But first, I'm not sure everybody knows your last name.

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It's Quicked, correct?

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Correct.

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Speaking of your last name, how quick are you, Mrs. Amber?

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If you, Mrs. Karen, and Mrs. Donnie, race in a 50-yard dash, who do you think would

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win?

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Oh, that's pretty easy.

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Mrs. Donnie would be all of us.

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And actually, you may not have known this, but for a long part of my life, I was a runner.

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I went to university on a scholarship for running, and ironically, I don't have a fast-twitch

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muscle in my body.

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I was a long-distance runner.

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Another story, another time.

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We've heard that you've traveled a lot.

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Which countries have you lived in for how long?

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Yeah, thanks, Linda.

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I grew up in the US and lived there until I was about 27, and then we moved to Hong Kong,

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and we lived there for nine years, and then now I've been in Thailand for five years.

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I actually have a Chinese name.

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It's Kui Ba Ya.

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Those tones may or may not be correct, and a lot of my students at my last school would

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call me Kui Lao She.

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Very nice.

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Makes sense, yeah?

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I like that.

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I think it's a great name, Mrs. Amber.

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So, when you decided to move to Bangkok, what were some determining factors?

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Yeah, we were looking for a different sort of lifestyle.

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My husband and I were kind of hesitant to get caught up in this ideal kind of American

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dream lifestyle.

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We had a lot of friends around us that we felt were kind of looking for these certain

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things and always trying to get this kind of American mindset, and to us, that wasn't

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really a definition of success, so we were looking for a little bit something different.

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I had a best friend that taught in China for many years, and she was always trying to convince

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us to move overseas and try teaching overseas, and so after several years of talking to us

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about this, it was finally something that we looked into.

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It must have been hard for you and your family to adapt to a whole new culture.

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Did you encounter any obstacles or culture shock?

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Actually, a lot of times when people transition, they say you go through this kind of certain

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... You kind of hit this honeymoon phase, and then you hit this deep transition culture,

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which can be really hard.

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I know for the seniors, when you guys do some of your transition stuff, they'll talk about

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this.

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I feel like for our transition to Hong Kong, it was actually kind of this whole upward

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thing.

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It was all just very exciting.

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We loved it.

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We really embraced Hong Kong.

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We love Hong Kong.

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So there wasn't so much, but obviously pretty much everything was new.

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I remember the first time in the grocery store was absolutely overwhelming.

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These teeny tiny aisles packed with people.

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You don't know what anything is.

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You don't know where anything is, and just kind of some of those moments being really

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difficult.

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Can I share about an embarrassing story?

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One of our first... Yes, of course.

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Of course.

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This may or may not have involved some of my older sons.

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If you know what the Poon Choy festival is in Chinese New Year... At Chinese New Year,

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everyone decorates their houses and the temples, and every village has an ancestral building,

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I guess you want to call it, a bit of a temple.

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Everyone has those orange trees, those mandarin orange trees.

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It's decorated out front.

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It's symbolic of wealth and all this.

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At the temple, we like to go to the temple because right next to it was a little fish

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pond and you could feed the fish and everything.

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Some of my children who will not be named went one day when they were playing, and they

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were playing with their friends at this temple, and they found these oranges on these bushes

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that were outside of the ancestral worship center.

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It's also a really beautiful building, not only just for worship, but it's also where

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they keep the genealogy.

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These families who live in these villages, it's amazing, can track back their genealogy

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for so many generations.

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It's really incredible.

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Anyway, this one had an entranceway, but then in the middle of the foyer, we'll say, there's

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a cutout, a sun roof, whatever, this empty spot.

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They thought it would be really fun one day to take these mandarin oranges, and they started

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throwing them like a basketball game.

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They were trying to get however many oranges they could get up over the roof, through the

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hole in the center of the roof, into the building, which was the worship center.

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Obviously, the village leaders saw them and came running out.

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It was horrifying.

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It was absolutely embarrassing.

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Then, in true Chinese culture, of course, instead of being upset with us, well, I mean,

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they probably were upset with us, but instead of shunning us, they actually came and invited

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us to this Poon Choi Festival.

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Our friend was like, oh no, you have to go.

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You have to take the red envelope, and you have to basically repay this.

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It was a very neat cultural experience.

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It was also very embarrassing because everyone in the village knew what our kids had done.

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I would say that was a way that we were not very respectful of different cultures in that

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term.

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But they forgave you.

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They did forgive us, yes.

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My children lived to tell the tale.

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Very good.

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Very good.

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That's a very fascinating story.

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Thank you, Mrs. Amber.

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Our next question is, what were your family's initial reactions to moving?

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Yeah, well, we just had two boys at the time, Ben and Isaiah, and they were pretty little.

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So they were kind of excited about it, but a bit clueless, really.

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It was just kind of like, OK, mom and dad are excited about it.

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It did take my husband two years to say yes.

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This was something I talked to him about for many years, and he was really resistant.

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He grew up in one town in Indiana in the middle of the cornfields, and then he went to college

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like an hour and a half away.

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And that was really like the expanse of his travels.

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But he did over time.

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This was something that he really started to look forward to as well.

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Our final question for this segment is, what is your favorite food in Hong Kong?

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So many good foods in Hong Kong.

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I love dim sum, so hao gao.

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I mean, hao gao is my favorite.

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That's my favorite one at all.

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Chicken feet really aren't bad.

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If you haven't tried them, you shouldn't try.

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I know.

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The idea is hard, but the flavor is so good.

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So almost any dim sum food, any bubble tea, jeon ju lai cha is like a regular ordering

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that I'll go to.

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Yeah, dumplings, bubble waffles, so much good food.

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OK, with that, we'll be right back in a moment with more from Mrs. Amber, world traveler,

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principal and the 50 yard dash champion.

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ICS's very own literature club is hosting a book drive for pre-loved children's books.

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If you have books suitable for lower elementary students, please consider donating them.

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Our collection boxes will be placed at the front of school, past the turnstiles and in

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the media center.

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If you have any questions, you can contact the leaders, Linda Cho, Eliza Mast and Ron

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Kottari.

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We are back with part two with Mrs. Amber.

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It's always fascinating to hear the personal journeys of people we know.

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With that said, let's jump back into our questions.

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So Mrs. Amber, was there anything difficult that you experienced when you moved from Hong

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Kong to Thailand?

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Or was it a smooth start?

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That's a good question, Lion.

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It was not a really smooth start.

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I think because the move to Hong Kong had been so seamless, I was kind of expecting

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that.

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But it was hard.

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Leaving Hong Kong was really hard.

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So there was a lot of emotional turmoil, right?

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Just saying goodbye and leaving another community.

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But then when I came here, I actually had several...

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I had a very rough first year, if you ask anyone.

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It was close to me during that time.

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About I don't know, week six or seven of being here, I was already kind of emotional and

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stuff.

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But about week six or seven, I ended up in the hospital.

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I actually nearly didn't make it, honestly.

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They ended up having to do an emergency surgery.

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Anyway, it was a very long ordeal.

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I was in the hospital for about three weeks.

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And it was hard.

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It was a really hard situation.

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But I think through it, God really used that to bring community around and help me kind

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of connect with people in a very different way that I wouldn't have obviously reached

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out for.

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This isn't what I would have asked for.

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But it was a rough start.

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But it was really beautiful, too.

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And after that, I feel like I really kind of settled into life here.

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Since the culture in Thailand is different from Hong Kong, what do you love about Thai

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culture?

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Yeah, Hong Kong and Thailand are very different.

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And when we looked at coming here, I thought, oh, man, I don't know how I'm going to do

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with Thai culture because some of the things I really valued about Hong Kong was its orderliness,

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it's very on time, like every train, you know exactly how many minutes till the next one

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comes in the station.

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And they're very fast.

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It's only like two to three minutes usually.

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Things just run a different way.

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And that tends to be maybe how my mind runs.

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That's what I kind of value is efficiency and things being done on time and things running

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smoothly.

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But Thailand has this, it's kind of raw.

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When we looked at coming, I kind of was like, oh, it feels a little bit like the wild west

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of me, kind of compared to Hong Kong.

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But I've found that I've actually really fallen in love with this culture and prefer it in

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the long run.

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I found that in Hong Kong, I was really just like we were running at this breakneck speed.

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It was insane.

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The lifestyle was just like we were constantly busy.

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Everyone was.

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It was just kind of the lifestyle and it was fun.

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It also is maybe not a long term thing that I could have kept up with.

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So this is this to me feels like a more relaxed culture.

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It feels like there's time for people.

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It feels more friendly to me now.

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It's an unfair statement to make on a whole group of people I know.

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But as far as like what people present, it's not as polished here in Thailand.

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There's a lot of rough edges.

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You go down, you know, Bangnathrath and you'll pass like almost basically like a slum.

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And then the next time you have like one of the biggest malls in the area right next door

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to each other.

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But I really love that.

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It means that like there's not this hidden poverty, right?

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It's there for you to see.

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And I do like that because it reminds me of well, it reminds me, A, of how blessed I am

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and then like challenges me.

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What should I be doing with this?

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What can I be doing to give back to people?

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So to me, there's very much this culture and beauty that's so evident in Thai culture that

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I've really grown to love.

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Very cool, Mrs. Amher.

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I also agree that Thailand has a certain charm to it.

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But how are the students different between the countries where you have taught?

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So the schools are actually the schools are somewhat similar, but the schools themselves

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are different.

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So of course, the students are different.

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This school here is definitely more diverse.

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Our last school had probably started that way, but then over the years changed.

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And I really love the diversity here, whether that's like ethnic diversity, socioeconomically

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or religiously.

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That's just something that I think ICS Bangkok, my last school was actually ICS also, which

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can get confusing sometimes.

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ICS Bangkok brings to it.

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And it's something that I really appreciate about this school.

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Because you've been a part of both ICS middle school and high school, could you describe

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some of the big differences between them?

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Yeah.

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If you've spent much time with middle school students, you'll know that there's a pretty

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big difference between middle school and high school students.

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Both of them have a very fun spot in my heart, but obviously for different reasons.

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Middle school students have been the ones that I spent most of my teaching career teaching

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was usually with middle school students.

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They're crazy, they're fun, they're wild, they're very like awkward.

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It's fantastic.

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It's a fun group of kids to work with.

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High school students have some of those same things, those same traits as well, but in

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a much more like really working to kind of like, okay, I understand or I recognize these

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things about myself.

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Now, what does that mean for me?

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Or how is that making me?

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I've always loved working with high school students over the years more and like I would

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do more of like a mentoring or discipleship type role.

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And those are always like my favorite kids to kind of connect with.

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And yeah, that's that's something that I really love about high school students versus middle

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school students.

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Although of course, they don't need to be versus they're both.

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They're both great in their own right.

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So how did you become the high school principal?

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What's the transition like going from your previous roles with this role?

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Oh, man, it's been fast and furious.

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I came to ICS Bangkok as the sixth grade science teacher.

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Part way through my second year, this role, this role opened up this assistant principal

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role.

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It was something that I had really been interested in for a number of years been kind of thinking,

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oh, this is something I think I would like to do, but I would like to do assistant principal.

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That's really what I wanted to do.

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So far away through my second year, that position comes up and I get it.

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So I'm kind of trying to prepare for that.

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And then I thought, oh, this is what I want to do.

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I want to be assistant principal for like at least five to six years.

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It was a new position so I could kind of create it.

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I could really work to like, what do we want this to look like?

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How is it best going to serve the school?

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What will it look like before I even think about anything else?

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That did not happen.

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We had to shift like the next year.

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Mr. Darren, our beloved headmaster at the time, head of schools left and we thought

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things might say so, but they didn't.

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Everyone kind of shifts and I find myself in the high school principal position.

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So it was way sooner than I had thought or expected.

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But yeah, I am really enjoying it and it's been a fun ride.

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And then COVID.

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And then COVID times three.

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Yes.

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Lastly, do you have any advice for seniors who may be preparing to move into different

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cultures?

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Yeah, I love what we do at the school.

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Mrs. Jen and the counselors, they will host some transition type things.

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I guess my advice would be hang in there.

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This last year, a lot of it's going to feel, I don't know, I feel like this time of year,

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there's often seniors that get frustrated with things.

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I don't know if the other things they have to do or the way things are.

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And I think that's very normal.

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And then as the spring goes on, it kind of turns around and I think a lot of seniors

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realize like, oh wait, I'm leaving.

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And then they become very reflective and very, very sweet and it's fun.

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So anyway, it is, it is can be, I don't know, it can be a bit of a roller coaster, I feel

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like this last year.

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But hang in there.

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Yeah, I mean, I would say listen to the advice of the people who went before you.

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But I know when you're in that, you don't really want to listen to those people.

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But it is the same, the same kind of feedback comes back year after year.

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Oh, I wish I had done this.

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I wish I hadn't done this sort of thing.

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So I don't want to bore you with that.

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I will say when the time comes when the transition, we offer like transition seminar, Mr. Sean

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has been leading some transition things which are excellent.

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Like go to it, try to take it to heart, even if it doesn't feel real at the time.

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Yeah, and just enjoy the time you have with your friends.

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Make the most of it, dig in and enjoy the time that you have here.

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And with that, our time is running out for this segment with Mrs. Amber.

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Thank you for giving the seniors some great advice about how to move into another culture,

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especially as many of them are thinking about going off to college or university in other

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countries.

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Our quote of the day connects very well with the subject of culture.

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Culture can seem unpredictable at times, but the unpredictability is what adds flavor to

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our life.

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As we end this episode, we'd like to thank our listeners for joining us.

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Please stay tuned for the release of more episodes as we continue to dive into topics

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and interviews relevant to you, our listeners.

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And we are signing off until next time.

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