This is my non-resident pre-med adviser from Harvard College: his name is Chris Lee, and is currently working on policy development in response to HIV in the migrant population in Thailand. He is working in Bangkok for the International Organization for Migration this summer, and came to Mae Sot on Monday with his colleague Michael, who is working on a swine flu preparedness project. They came the Mae La refugee camps to gather field data, and I caught dinner with them at a local (and delicious!) seafood restaurant when they were still in town.
We talked about medical school (he is my pre-med advisor, after all), the merits versus drawbacks of summer research, neurobiology and nerve regeneration (my field of study), taking time off before medical school, MCATs, taking patient histories, advisers, summer funding, Korean crab preserved in chili and deliciousness, why Michael hates Beijing accents, the Master's in Public Health Program at Johns Hopkins, health policy research, practicing medicine, and everything else worth talking about when you meet you pre-med adviser half way around the world in the middle of the rainy season near the Thai-Burma border.
It's interesting how limited my memory span seems to be; for the last month, I've felt like I would be perfectly content to spend a good three or four years here, just teaching and living with the students, seeing them through high school and hopefully into college. When I am at school, I hardly have time to think of existing elsewhere on the planet, and at home, the recollection of school is but a faint dream...
I've been seriously considering staying here through the semester, but I was suddenly reminded of the cost of living here but a few days ago.
As I am a highly intelligent human being, I decided to not check up on visa requirements and related information until three days before my departure from the states. It turned out that the visa process had a turnaround rate of approximately 4 business days. I am therefore here on a one-month tourist visa, extendable by 15 days with each border crossing.
The Myanmar border is only about 20 minutes away by car, so on Wednesday I hopped onto the school truck headed over to the border. I walked across the bridge, was tailed by a very nice English-speaking interpreter name Kyaw Htun who offered me the services of a bike-taxi after I got through the Burmese customs, strolled around the street immediately leading into the bridge for a couple of minutes, then walked back to Thailand. It cost 500 Baht.
This is less than a visa, and the experience was interesting; I'll have to make another border run come July 29th, and was considering taking a day trip to Singapore until I realized there were no flights departing from the Mae Sot airport... Oh well. I'll just head over to Burma again.
About Me
- Florence
- Florence is a third-year university student pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Neurobiology at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. In December, after weeks of scouring volunteer opportunities, she found the Global Art Exhibit and fell in love with its fusion of art, humanitarian work, and ambition to enhance global education. As a summer intern for the Global Art Exhibit, she was assigned to Thailand for 7 weeks and Hong Kong for 3. Thanks to the generosity of the Fung Foundation Scholarship, she is able to volunteer her time (not to mention pay for airfare!). She is currently in Mae Sot, Thailand teaching science classes in English to Burmese refugee students (most of the Karen ethnic minority), and is boarding at the school campus along with the principal's family, the office staff, the female boarding students, and some other teachers. Florence is having the time of her life.
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