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My First Powerlifting Meet Report

Thai Amateur Association of Powerlifting (TAAP) National Qualifier 3

On November 9, 2024, I participated in my first powerlifting meet. I’d like to put down some thoughts on how it went for myself and anyone who may be interested in hearing about it. I may write a follow up post about my overall fitness journey this year but the gist is that I began the year with bad hip pain to the point that I could barely walk unassisted in the morning when I woke. That combined with teaching my son the main barbell lifts, gave me motivation to start taking my physical health more seriously. It was a goal of mine to eventually join a powerlifting meet and I was able to stick to it and make it happen.

tl;dr – A summary

In case you’re not up for reading this whole post, I’ll start with the short version. I failed my first squat attempt, but made all the rest so I was 8/9 for the day. My final total was 395 kg, 130 squat, 92.5 bench and 172.5 deadlift. My goal had been 400, S:140, B:90, D:170. Since I messed up the squat, I added a bit to my other lifts to still get close to my goal. I came in last for my weight class but was really happy how it went and for the experience. I definitely want to do it again!

Preparation

This is the first year of my life I made a habit of going to the gym regularly. The first few months of the year were mostly about just building that habit at my condo gym. Around April, I found a gym nearby and hired a personal trainer who first started me on an Upper/Lower split, then a Push/Pull/Legs split. I wanted to focus more on the big lifts so I ended up doing StrongLifts 5×5 for a couple months but got interrupted with summer travel and not always having access to the equipment I needed. When I came back to Thailand I signed up with a Powerlifting specific trainer and got some pointers on technique and training. He introduced me to RPE based training and Reactive Training Systems. From then until the meet, I used JuggernautAI to do one strength block, then a peaking block. Nutritionwise, I didn’t alter my eating habits but I started supplementing with some whey protein and creatine. I kept my caffeine consumption to about 1 coffee a day, 2 on training days if I was feeling a little sluggish. I had a 10 day vacation a few weeks before the competition where we traveled to Taiwan. It was too close to the comp to stop training altogether so I found a few gyms that did day passes in the places we were staying. I set my goal of achieving a 400 kg total a couple months before the comp based on my projection of where I would be by then if my training went as planned.

Weight, Equipment, Rules

I weighed in at 113.85. I didn’t try to lose or gain any weight for the competition. I was solidly between 2 weight classes (Under 120 and Under 105) so this wasn’t a concern for me going in.

The mandatory equipment I had was the singlet and socks that covered my shins for deadlifts. I had a plain gray T-shirt and a pair of Chucks to wear for all three lifts. The only optional piece of equipment I had was a pair of SBD wrist wraps. I didn’t have a powerlifting belt or knee sleeves. I haven’t used either of those in my training so far.

There were a few logistics I had to ask around about. The first was rack heights. I hadn’t ever used the competition racks before so I didn’t know what to put down. I wasn’t alone, it seemed like many people also needed to figure it out. After the earlier flights finished, some test racks were set up so that we could queue up and try them out. There was some nice social interaction here with different competitors helping to adjust the racks for one another.

I was a bit nervous about the specifics of the day beforehand. Many people seemed to have coaches or handlers to help them out with warm ups, timing, and attempt selection. We were given a set of attempt cards during registration. I was confused about when and how to submit these. I asked and was told after an attempt you have 30 seconds to submit your next attempt. From watching others, it seemed that handlers usually did this for a lifter. I would have to bring the cards and a pen up with me and set them by the judges desk before I went out to the platform, then come back over and grab them to fill them out and hand them in.

Another consideration I had was that I didn’t want to be on my phone and get distracted but using the Lifting Cast web app was important for me to see how many lifters were before me in the line-up. Before going out for squats almost everyone had someone chalk up their back, I wasn’t too worried since I’d never done that in training but soon before I was up, someone else who I assumed was a coach offered to chalk me up and I accepted, appreciating the gesture.

Squat

Attempt 1: 120 kg 🔴🔴🔴👎

My nerves were at their highest right before going out to the platform for my first lift of the day. I had had a bit more coffee than I was used to and my heart was racing. I came out and went to the bar and quickly got under it, walked it back and waited for the squat command from the head judge. When I got to the bottom position and started to come up I started wondering if I had gone deep enough and hesitated. Part of me wanted to go down further but another part realized I had alright started coming up so any downward movement would disqualify the attempt. Being in my head this much caused me to lose balance and tip forward. I stumbled and took a step forward before finishing the squat. I already knew that was a rule violation and failed the lift. I went to the staff and asked about the next lift, if I would just repeat the same weight (I knew the answer but I was in a weird mental space). They said I could or I could go up, but I needed to write it down on the attempt card. Flustered, I just wrote 120, sticking to the same weight for my next attempt. Walking away, I was thinking I should’ve gone to 125. I knew I could do it,I just needed to clear my head. I started having some spiraling thoughts: What if the weights I’ve been training with were less than advertised and I couldn’t actually lift as much as I thought? Was I going to bomb out on the first lift? Was coming here a massive waste of time and money? The coach who chalked my back saw me brooding and asked if I was okay. I said yes, then she asked if I knew about the commands. I said “Yeah, just got nervous and messed it up.” That small interaction did help pull myself back into the moment and out of my head. I did a few bodyweight squats to re-convince myself I could hit depth and focused on calming myself down for attempt 2.

Attempt 2: 120 kg ⚪⚪⚪👍

When it was time, I took a deep breath and shook out my stress. All the people working the event were positive and encouraging, the loaders shouted affirmations and reminders to get stable, the referee reminded me of the commands and that I had time to set up, there was no need to rush. I was much more deliberate and took my time preparing, making sure everything felt good before moving on. I got the command, waited a moment, took in another breath, braced, and started my descent. No thinking this time, just going down and up, locking out at the top and looking out to the judge to wait for the rack command. I barely felt the weight, it was hard to mentally reconcile that I had struggled at all the first time. I hadn’t given much thought to my final attempt so I just defaulted to taking a 10kg jump like I had planned before and wrote in 130kg for attempt 3.

Attempt 3: 130 kg ⚪⚪⚪👍

I was so relieved after attempt 2, I wasn’t going to bomb out on squats so I was feeling good about my prospects for the rest of the day. Attempt 3 went about the same as attempt 2. Again, it felt easy so I had a small pang of regret for not trying a little more, maybe 135 or 140. But the positive feelings overshadowed the negative at that point. From then on, the nervous energy I had gave me a boost rather than hindering me.

Bench Press

Attempt 1: 75 kg ⚪⚪⚪👍

I went for an opener I was extremely confident I could hit so that I wasn’t worried about the weight at all. My goal was just to focus on hearing all 3 commands and executing it correctly. My warm ups were pretty quick, and my final warm up set was at the same weight as the opener. I was able to take the same approach as the last two squat attempts and slowly progress from one step to another, and focus on the commands. I declined receiving a lift off since I usually always trained alone so I’m used to unracking the bar myself.

Attempt 2: 85 kg ⚪⚪⚪👍

My second attempt is maybe the weight I should’ve used for my opener. Something I could confidently hit at least a triple on in training. Being less worried about my ability to adhere to the rules and the weight made the 2nd attempt really smooth. The most thinking I had to do was about what to enter for my final attempt.

Attempt 3: 92.5 kg ⚪⚪⚪👍

I had planned on only going to 90 kg but because 85 felt easy and I regretted not going a bit higher in squats I bumped this one up a bit. I still declined the lift off here. After getting the press command, I was able to get the bar off my chest but about mid way up, the bar stopped moving. In my head, I didn’t think I was going to be able to get it all the way up but I felt secure enough that the spotters would help out if I couldn’t make it so I just gave it everything I had and eventually the bar started moving again. WHen I locked out my elbows, I could tell the bar was a little crooked. I heard the rack command and at first the left side didn’t go on the hook but that was quickly fixed. I was unsure if I would get this one but to my relief when I looked up I saw 3 white lights meaning it was a good lift.

Deadlift

Attempt 1: 150 kg ⚪⚪⚪👍

The deadlift is my personal favorite of the three lifts. I again chose an opener that I was very confident I could pull no problem. 150 kg flew off the floor. I had a euphoric feeling as I looked over to see the 3 white lights. I officially succeeded in putting together a total since I had at least 1 successful attempt in each of the 3 lifts. I started walking off the platform and gave the head judge a smile and he was smiling at me then he put his hand up pointing over to the judges. I had totally forgotten about putting in my next attempt. I didn’t have much time to think about it; I had planned to jump 10 kg for each attempt but since 150 felt really easy and I was still below my goal of a 400 total, I jumped up to 162.5 for the 2nd.

Attempt 2: 162.5 kg ⚪⚪⚪👍

This one felt light as well. I remembered to go to the judge’s table to enter my attempt this time. I also noticed my wife in the front taking my picture as I walked off the platform. In my stupor after the first attempt, I hadn’t even realized she was there that time. To hit 400, I would need 177.5 kg but that was 10 kg over what I’ve done in the gym. I wasn’t sure I could do it, but I did go above my planned 170 and put in my third attempt as 172.5 which would bring my total up to 395 kg: only 5 kg short of the goal I had set.

Attempt 3: 172.5 kg ⚪⚪⚪👍

After the third I was surprised again at how easy it looked and felt. A small part of me wished I’d gone for more. But, on the other hand, this may give me even more motivation to compete again to bump all my numbers up. I felt pretty good leaving the platform for the final attempt of the day.

Special Thanks

I definitely have to give a huge, huge thank you to my wife for all of her support this year in helping me reach my goals. My son, Anthony also helped by lifting with me over the summer and last winter. My personal trainer from earlier in the year, Famp really helped me along on my fitness journey and the powerlifting trainer, Opur helped with my training mindset and helped me feel comfortable experimenting with my form and making some tweaks to make my lifts feel more natural. On the day of the event, my wife and her parents were there to cheer me on. All of the people working the event and the other competitors all contributed to a positive atmosphere. One of my coworkers, Gideon, also stopped by to show support as well and the rest of my coworkers haven’t told me to shut up as I yapped all year about my new hobby. Thanks to everyone who’s been a part of this journey!

Next Steps

I’ve held off on dumping too much money into expensive equipment since I wanted to make sure this was something I’d stick to. Now that I met my goal, I will reward myself with some additional pieces. On my wishlist is a pair of SBD knee sleeves, an Inzer powerlifting belt and some shoes from Notorious Lifts.

I am thinking about trying out the gzclp training program until the new year and focusing on losing some weight and doing more cardio and mobility work as well. As far as strength goals, I’m very close to hitting 2 plates on bench, 3 on squat and 4 on deadlift. My hope is to join the 1000 lb club (A 453 kg total) by the end of next year.

I’d like to jump in to the next TAAP meet in May, but we’ll see what life’s like after our baby is born in February. I do want to do at least 1 or 2 meets next year. I’m also thinking of trying to find a coach and potentially have a handler the next time I go.

If you’ve read this far, thanks! And I wish you luck on whatever journey you’re currently on.

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Getting Started with Go

(This post is about the ancient board game Go, not the programming language Go which I’m also a fan of)

Go is hard. This is a phrase I’ve probably uttered hundreds of times in the past 6 months. I started my go journey last October based on a suggestion from my wife. I had tried to learn before but I remember getting so confused and frustrated that I gave up without much thought. This time, however, I have stuck it out and made progress beyond just learning the basics. I’d like to share my experience with go so far in hopes that others will also join me in learning this beautiful, ancient game. 

To begin, I’ll summarize my journey so far in case you want to (a) follow the steps I’ve taken or (b) don’t want to read a length explanation of my path:

  • Learn the rules*
  • Play lots of games on various board sizes on apps and websites*
  • Buy an actual board and play in person
  • Do lots of tsumego problems*
  • Watch video tutorials*
  • Get a coach
  • Have your rank assessed
  • Play in a tournament (Haven’t done this one yet but I’m signed up for one a couple weeks away)

*these are all free so you can definitely get into this hobby at 0 cost

That’s it, that’s the post. If you’d like any elaboration or links to resources keep reading.

To begin playing go, you first have to learn the rules. I started by watching Go Magic’s youtube playlist on how to play go. After that, I downloaded the Go Quest app (Apple or Android) and proceeded to play enough games to learn which rules I misunderstood. I played hundreds of 9×9 games before moving on to a 13×13 board. Another app I used to get more games in was BadukPop. 19×19 games can feel a bit cramped on a phone screen so I’ve tended to use OGS to play via browser on my computer.

Near the start of my learning I also saw the documentary on AlphaGo and witnessed the beginning of the era of computers reshaping the landscape of go. I was a kid when Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov at chess and throughout my education in computer science, go was used as an example of a game with much higher complexity than chess so it was incredible to watch this milestone occur. Something profound that struck me after watching this was that we may have captured the last time the highest skilled human ever beat the highest skilled computer at a human created board game.

To get better at go, I quickly realized just playing lots of games isn’t enough. In chess, completing tactics puzzles is pretty beneficial but in go it feels almost mandatory if you want to not get totally destroyed. A great series of books with puzzles that start off easy but steadily increase in difficulty and teach you important patterns is Graded Go Problems For Beginners. I also use the Tsumego Pro app to complete daily puzzles.

As a teacher, I’m also very aware of the benefit of learning from a more knowledgeable person face-to-face so I paid for a few sessions with a dan level coach. Due to scheduling conflicts these 4 sessions ended up being spread out over about 3 months. At the end I ended up attending a large event where players around Bangkok had their skills assessed. You had to play and win handicap matches against master players to attain a particular rank (Here’s a video to understanding how ranks in go work). I started the day going for 12 kyu, passed then jumped 2 levels to try 10 kyu and also won. I also managed to get 9 kyu but lost my final match of the day so the rank I achieved was 9 kyu which just barely got me to the level of a single digit kyu (SDK) player. I now qualify to enter some local tournaments in the low kyu section. I plan to enter one that will be taking place later this month.

So, yes, go is hard. But it isn’t completely impenetrable. You can learn it and you can improve your ability to play it. If you do, and you’re ever looking for someone to play with let me know!

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2022 Reading

Even though the number of books I read in 2022 was below the goal I set for myself I think it was a good year of reading for me. Since I’ve started tracking my reading with goodreads and setting goals it seems like I alternate between going over my goal then undershooting the next year. I’ve been aiming to read about 25 books a year. I think I will set a similar goal for 2023. This pace keeps me constantly reading something and finishing about 1-2 books a month usually and getting a few extra in during breaks and vacations. Here are my thoughts of some of the books I read in 2022:

 

The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll

I read this book early in the year and it inspired me to attempt keeping a bullet journal for the year starting in February. I kept up with it well until June then neglected it over the summer months but picked it back up in the last couple months of the year. I heard about BuJos from a co-worker who was thinking about teaching her students the bullet journal method to help them stay organized in an upcoming project she was planning for them. The book itself is pretty straightforward: a bit of a how-to on the method with the bulk of the text being explanations of the supposed benefits of adopting the method sprinkled with some anecdotes about people who found success in their own bullet journal journeys. I could’ve just done a quick google search to see what a BuJo was and the basics of how to do it but I still stayed engaged long enough to finish the book and try some of the proposed activities like goal setting with the 5-4-3-2-1 pneumonic: Come up with a list of personal and professional goals with varying timeframes (5 years, 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 day, 1 hour).

Some notes I took in my Bullet Journal while reading Design of Everyday Things

The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman

I’ve read bits of this book before, in particular when I was pursuing my Masters in Secondary Education. I’ve wanted to read it cover to cover and finally got around to doing so around March. The current school I’m at is all about the Design Process so it was highly relevant to my work. Having taken a few courses on design throughout my education and reading for personal development I’ve encountered most of Norman’s ideas before but I always like going to the source when I can. It gets me to think of ways to apply the ideas to problems I’m currently facing. In the last quarter of the 2021-2022 school year I planned and implemented a learning lab where learners had to design and create electronic toys then combine their ideas into a toy line and make a business plan to pitch. One of the visual tools from the book was helpful for them: The Double Diamond model that presents design as a 4 part process (Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver) where the 1st and 3rd phases involve divergence and coming up with lots of ideas and prototypes and the 2nd and 4th phase are about converging and identifying the best parts of the previous parts.

 

Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull

This one was a direct suggestion by another co-worker. I loved this book, my copy was full of post-it notes and underlined bits. In my role as a “learning designer” at a project-based school I related to the difficulties of facilitating others to engage well in creative acts. I had a ton of ideas for how we might apply lessons from the book to our organization. As a computer scientist I loved the technical parts near the beginning of Ed’s journey and as someone who got into 3D modeling and animation during the pandemic, the artistic content later was good too. Overall, each part of the book spoke to some part of my brain and captured my attention all the way through.

 

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Last school year I taught some physics for the first time. I had several conversations about the subject with a colleague of mine with much more experience teaching physics than me and it made me want to explore some of the concepts in the field a bit more so I picked up what I assumed to be a classic. It was a good read and it reminded me of why some people are referred to as geniuses not necessarily because of how complex the topics that they tackle are but in how they can make something very complex seem somewhat simple (or at least straightforward) when they break it down for others. One of the really cool parts to me was Hawking’s explanation for how emitted light can be detected from black holes even though no light can escape the event horizon due to quantum relativistic effects (Hawking Radiation).

 

A Brief History of Equality by Thomas Piketty

This is the first Piketty book I actually finished (which I think was the point of this book). I made it one to two hundred pages into both Capital and Capital and Ideology–about 700 and 1000 pages respectively. I was really interested in the subject but after the introductions, they proved to be a daunting task to complete. But this one clocked in under 300 pages so I was able to make my way through it albeit slowly since it’s still a dense work. The gist is that over the past couple hundred years we’ve been trending toward more equal societies though on the economic front since the 80s we’ve been regressing due to unchecked global capitalism. There’s a need for highly progressive taxes and strong welfare states to get us back on track. He also makes cases for reparation between countries and for historically oppressed peoples within countries. Several forms of historic inequality were discussed alongside ways things have changed. It’s also interesting seeing trends reverse. One thing that still stands out to me is how some antidemocratic practices are now the mainstream accepted way of doing things such as shareholders getting direct proportional votes in business – many societies used to let people vote more in elections based on wealth and that seems preposterous to us now but we still accept it in the world of business. In places like Germany, the workers themselves have some decision making power by law (Codetermination).

 

Shape by Jordan Ellenberg

I’ve returned to teaching math this quarter and I always like thinking deeper about any subject I’m teaching to form more (and more interesting) connections between what we’re doing in class and what lies beyond. As the subtitle implies, there is a good deal of diversity of topics covered in this book including random walks, decision trees, markov decision processes and invariants. Near the end, the topic of gerrymandering came up which is something I’ve always wanted to make a geometry project out of. I like that Ellenberg didn’t seem to “dumb down” his explanations but trusted his audience to make some mental leaps while giving plenty of support to get you there. There’s also interesting stories about the history of the study of mathematics itself and the imperfect humans who have been players in that world. 

 

Game Theory by Brain Chegg

This was a quick read. I’d have to say it wasn’t particularly informative or entertaining. It definitely feels like it follows a common modern non fiction formula (Take a big idea, break it down to smaller ideas, make a chapter about each of the smaller ideas, tell some anecdote in each chapter highlighting while that smaller idea is relevant and related to the bigger idea) but it doesn’t do it particularly well. I had a cursory understanding of game theory going into it and this book didn’t do anything to deepen my knowledge. I feel like it could have been a nice short online article to introduce game theory to those that have never heard of it. It doesn’t make me want to check out any more of the “Hot Science” series.

 

Money by Yuval Noah Harari

Having read Sapiens, Homo Deus and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, I jumped at the chance to read more Harari and this was quite short and contained some of the ideas in Sapiens about human behavior. I can’t recall anything particularly new or noteworthy from my reading but it is always helpful to spend some time thinking about some of the concepts of economics and history that he brings up so I still consider the time investment of reading this worth it.

 

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

I’ve wanted to read this for a while and last semester I ended up reading it with my students. The other learning designers and I realized we hadn’t been having them read much fiction and we were running two biology related projects (genetic engineering and biomimicry) so this seemed like a fun tie-in. I have fond memories of watching Jurassic Park in my high school biology class. I think the book was also entertaining though not without some major flaws if you wanted to take the time to analyze it as a work of literature.

 

The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams

As I mentioned earlier, I got into 3D modeling and animation during the pandemic. In searching for resources on how to improve beyond just going through youtube tutorials I wanted to find some books as references. This one popped up in every list put together on “must reads” for animators. After going through it, I can see why. There was great, practical advice here as well as some interesting history of animation in the US. This was a book to follow along with and create some animations to really understand the principles that it laid out. I ended making a fanart animation of the Hornet fight from Hollow Knight that ended up being my highest upvoted post on reddit. Even though this was all 2D, many of the principles apply to 3D animation as well which is what I’m more interested in at the moment.

 

The Umbrella Academy (Vol 1-3) by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá

My daughter and I watched The Umbrella Academy on Netflix after she read that it has similarities to Stranger Things. We really enjoyed it so I picked up the graphic novels that the show was based on. If I’m being honest, I didn’t really enjoy them as much as the show but I’ve never been too into graphic novels though I’ve wanted to get into them (I also watched Sandman this year and I’ve enjoyed Gaiman’s writing so that may be my next attempt at getting into the medium).

 

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I’m a fan of TED talks and I liked Adichie’s talk The Danger of a Single Story. We Should All Be Feminists is another talk she gave that I had not seen. This was a pretty short (44 small pages) text version of the talk so I checked it out. I already consider myself a feminist so I didn’t find myself challenged by the ideas presented but they were presented very clearly and in a compelling way. This is something I think I’ll share with younger readers.

 

Deep Work by Cal Newport

I read the ebook version of this (partially while at work – it seemed appropriate). The cover gives away the main point – we’re living in a world full of distractions so it’s a challenge to find ways to engage in deep work. The book makes a case for why deep work is important, defines what the author means by deep work (as opposed to shallow work) and shares ways you might do more of it. There are different methods presented from being a complete hermit and cutting yourself off from the internet completely, to carving out set chunks of time in your calendar to dedicate to focused work and some in-between compromises. Many of the traps for how we get sucked into shallow work sounded familiar to me and it made me evaluate how I’m currently spending time which is always a worthwhile thing to think about.

 

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

I picked this up while on vacation with my family in Italy while we were going through the Colosseum gift shop. Like many philosophical works I’ve read, there are ideas that resonated, others that made me wonder about modern (or personal) applicability and some that made me pause and reflect.

 

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

I got suckered into studying computer science in college because I loved video games; then I ended up loving computer science as its own thing separate from a path for me to make games. I was suckered into reading this book based on the description and the reference to the characters starting a video game company which is something I’ve always wanted to do. The book wasn’t exactly what I expected but I was hooked and flew through it in a couple days (I’m usually a pretty slow reader). I connected to concepts like being mixed race, dealing with pain from childhood, complicated relationships and “gate-shut panic.” Happy I picked this one up and I think I’ll check out more of Zevin’s work even though they don’t seem to have anything to do with video games.

 

Books for my kids

I was looking back at some notes from previous years and I noticed I also talked about books I read with my kids and that made me a bit sad because I realize this is the first year that I didn’t complete a book with them. I was reading Redwall with my daughter but she lost interest and our tradition of reading together kind of fizzled out. Although, one thing I am happy about is that I do seem to have succeeded in instilling a love of reading in both of them. I tend to get books for them as gifts and I’m proud of my ability to select books for them that I think they will enjoy. When talking to my daughter earlier in the year she ran into the problem of not having a book to read because she’d already read all the books she has (She ended up doing a re-read and I got her a few more after that conversation and reminded her to make good use of libraries). My son has been going through the Game of Thrones books recently – I made a point of saying they may be a bit too “mature” for him (but secretly still being happy he’s tackling such long books and me voicing my concerns might even push that rebellious teenage brain of his to want to read even more). For Christmas I picked up The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes for my daughter and the Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson for my son.

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Trekking the Himalayas

For Spring Break of 2021 my roommate asked if I’d like to join him on a trek in the Himalayas. We’re living and working in India and international travel is out of the question but heading somewhere remote with a small group of people seemed a reasonable way to spend the break. It also gave me motivation to start getting into better shape. A year into the pandemic, my lifestyle has become pretty sedentary so I took this opportunity to push myself to start focusing on my fitness a bit. I thought I was decently ready but it turns out walking 10 km on flat ground in Delhi is uh, not quite the same as walking 10 km up in the mountains.

The trek took place in Uttarakhand and the trip itself lasted a week. We flew from Delhi to Dehradun and stayed the first and last night in Rishikesh – yoga capital of the world. We were picked up and dropped off by the company – Trek The Himalayas – and transported from Rishikesh to Joshimath. We travelled by van for about 9-10 hours both ways. We stayed in a guesthouse in Joshimath the first and last nights of the trek and camped in tents a total of 3 nights as we made our way up to Kuari Pass and back down. The first day of trekking we went from the end of the mountain road up through a few villages and to our first base camp. About 6 km of hiking uphill. It was a bit hotter than I thought it was going to be but it got chilly that night. So much was taken care of for us – tents were already set up including a food tent, supplies were brought via mule, we were led by highly experiences trek leaders including one local guide. They led us in some games so the members of the group would get to know each other. We were also led through some cool down exercises at the end of each hike. We took acclimatization walks at the different camps to get us used to the altitude. Our oxygen levels and resting heart rate were checked each evening. Even though I was extremely challenged each day of trekking I always felt safe thanks to the TTH staff.  Day 2 was only 3 km but it was a total ascent so it was still a tough day and after reaching camp we also took an additional 1 km walk to a nearby saltwater lake. Day 3 we went up about 5 km to the summit, then came back the on the same route. And the last trekking day was back to Joshimath (I opted to take the same path down that we had come up Days 1 and 2 but the other trekkers took a different route (both ways were about 9 km but for me it was 9 km downhill so I finished much earlier).

The food during the entire trip was great. We found good places to eat in Rishikesh – some small restaurant on the roof of a building near our hotel the first night and the Beatles café our last day (I only just learned while I was there that Rishikesh was where the Beatles stayed during their trip to India). On the van rides to/from Joshimath we stopped at good places to nosh. But most impressive was how good all the food was during the camping/trekking itself. No meals were repeated. We had great chai every morning and evening. There was amazing soup that became a running joke in our group (gotta wrap up the trekking quick to get back to that delicious soup each night!). The whole week we ate veg and it was so good I never had a thought about missing non-veg meals.

There were lots of other great parts of the trip besides the food. We got to learn about the area we were travelling through. We were told about the various flora and fauna in the region. The trek itself was diverse with different types of terrains and all kinds of incredible views. I also enjoyed bonding with the other members of the group. There were 17 of us in total and though my roommate and I were the only non-Hindi speakers we were made to feel included and had a great time all together. People looked out for one another and gave support when needed. I was consistently in the back of the pack during hikes but I was never made to feel rushed or looked down upon. We all celebrated one another’s success. It was great that all 17 of us reached the summit – that’s not always the case.

Since the physical aspect of the trek was quite difficult for me I was so focused on making it to the next destination that sometimes I forgot to stop and just look around at all the beautiful nature I was surrounded by. I take for granted sometimes the amazing opportunity I have to live in India. There’s such a diversity of geography, food, culture, languages, etc… Near the beginning of our trek was Holi and we had a brief celebration with some color powder at one of our rest breaks. Trekking through the Himalayas is something that always sounded like a great time but I didn’t know if I’d ever actually get the chance to do it. There were several times during the actual experience that felt grueling and I just wanted it to be over – to get to camp – to get back home. I’m back at my place in Delhi now and feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for being able to have the experience.

I’ve mentioned a couple times that this trek was tough for me. I’m not exaggerating when I say this was the most I’ve ever been pushed physically in my life so far. During the final ascent at one point I was crawling on my hands and knees for several meters. As I saw the top peaking over the ridge where the others from my group were waiting I got up to my legs and walked the final 50 or so steps to join them. I felt like crying but held back the tears more due to self consciousness than any kind of mental toughness.

In the end, I was able to reach the summit but the way back down was so much harder for me because I had pushed myself past my physical limits and felt like I had nothing left after that. I was experiencing some unpleasantness like headache, nausea and fatigue on the return hike. One of the trek leaders stayed with me and one of the members of staff from camp even ran out to bring me samosas and chai on the way. I made it back to the camp about an hour after everyone else and felt completely drained. I skipped dinner that night, took some medicine and at the trek leader’s suggestion went back down the same way we came up on the final day. I still feel proud of making to the top and overcoming my body’s desire to give up. This is definitely an experience I’ll always remember and now that I have one trek under my belt, I’m already thinking of the next.

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Staying Sharp

When I first made the transition from working in industry as a firmware engineer to teaching high school, my technical skills earned through my education and work experience was a selling point in interviews. One thing I’ve worried about during my teaching career so far is “losing my edge.” I’ve had the thought that the longer I spend as a teacher and not working in my field, the more likely I am to lose skills or knowledge I once had. Maybe this fear is irrational, but I’ve taken some steps to prevent it.

Formal Education

The most straightforward action I’ve taken is to take graduate courses in computer science. During my first couple years teaching I was an advisor for seniors so I spent time looking into different university programs. At the same time I was investigating the requirements to teach dual credit courses. To my dismay and amusement, I was qualified to teach computer science both at the high school and university level but not dual credit (teaching a class that gives both high school and college credit). I had a B.S. in Computer Science and an M.A. in Secondary Education but I needed at least 18 hours at the graduate level in my subject to teach dual credit.

Eventually I found Georgia Tech’s Online Masters of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) program which appealed to me for many reasons such as the low price tag, completely online nature, awarding the same degree as the on-campus equivalent without any special “online” designation and a wide range of interesting courses available. I’ve gotten to brush up in some areas like databases, artificial intelligence and information security, take classes relevant to my career as an educator like education technology and human-computer interaction and explore new topics I wasn’t exposed to in undergrad like machine learning. I feel like I’m getting to double dip: I’m learning content as a student in the program and I’m paying close attention to how these courses are run to think more about my own pedagogical practices.

Reading

I love learning from books. There are many must-reads like Code by Charles Petzold, Clean Code by Robert C. Martin, and The C Programming Language by Kernighan & Ritchie (even if C is the primary language you use). Not only do well established, popular books contain valuable knowledge and insights but it gives you common language to use when discussing technical matters with others.

I also enjoy reading more recently written books even if they center around a technology or tool that might not be around (or widely used) in a few years. A book that I attribute to pushing me to pursue computer science as a teenager was the book Game Programming for Teens which taught the basics of Game Programming using a language called BlitzBasic which I haven’t used or heard anyone talk about since I used it during my reading of that book. There’s still lots to be gained from the experience of using specific tools even if you move on to something else later on. Recently, I read a book about using Design Patterns in Unity 2019. I quickly jumped into Game Program Patterns by Robert Nystrom which is excellent.

I also try to diversify what I read. A good book that got me thinking more about ethical considerations of emerging technology was Weapons of Math Destructions by Cathy O’Neil. And there’s more to read than just books. There’s a ton to learn from articles online and blogs. I particularly like seeing blogs from other CS teachers like Mike Zamansky and Alfred Thompson.

Sharing

In addition to reading what other people have to say, sharing what I have to offer has been crucial in my personal development as well. Writing about my experiences in a blog has been a good way to stop and reflect and get something more out of those experiences.

I also share links to things I’m working on on social media like twitter. So far, I usually don’t get much feedback but the little I’ve received has been quite useful. I’ve thought about making an explicit ask of specific people to take a look and give me feedback since it is so valuable. I also understand that it’s a significant ask so I want to not do it too often and try to offer something of value to the community in return.

Something I have only done a couple times but would like to do more of is giving talks at conferences. At LexPlay (Game convention in Central Kentucky), I shared some experience using video games as a mode of learning with some fellow teachers. I also gave two talks (one regular and one “lightning”) at PyCon Thailand. One was about teaching with Python. The other was about using programming skills to help with language learning (It was only 5 minutes but I gave that talk in Thai which was pretty terrifying but worthwhile). I also showed off a game I made at the Louisville Arcade Expo which was an incredibly fun way to showcase a project I had made. Something I’ve recently begun is streaming myself working on some of my projects on sites like Twitch and YouTube. Even if there are few or no viewers, it helps me to talk through my process out loud as if I were explaining it to someone else.

Side Projects

I think probably the most important thing I’ve done to keep developing my programming skills is… programming. Time is a precious commodity. So, spending time outside work hours working on side projects can be tough but enjoyable if it’s something you’re really into. I have also spent planning time during the school day working on relevant projects like demos for students and tools like random name generators, group selection helpers and programming challenges with automated tests on repl.it.

Outside of work I’ve participated in game jams like Global Game Jam, made a Thai language learning app for Android and just generally fiddled around with tools like p5js, codepen.io and Unity. By trying to use tools I’m unfamiliar with I can experience the pain of setting up new and sometimes confusing software just like my students do. I also get to experience the joy of finally getting things to work.

Teaching a variety of courses

There are definitely pros and cons of teaching a large number of courses. It would be nice to have a semester teaching multiple sections of the same course or teaching the same courses for several years in a row to be able to reduce the workload and time spent on planning, curriculum design and creating assessments and rubrics but there’s a benefit to constantly changing it up as well.

I’ve only been teaching for 5 years but I’ve already taught Computational Thinking, Computer Programming, Web Development, Robotics, Design Technology, and IB Computer Science (Year 1 and 2, Standard Level and Higher Level). In addition to IB I’ve taught under the Common Core in the U.S. and British Columbia curriculum in a Candian overseas school.

I feel that I get a chance to learn as I review code that students produce. I have gotten better at paying attention to detail. I have to make robust tests since students will create all sorts of unpredictable code that could pass simple tests but still be incorrect. I have to learn common misconceptions and anticipate them.

I’ve been teaching math too: Algebra I and II, Geometry, Precalculus and Calculus. Every new topic I teach, I feel I get a deeper understanding of the content and I grow in my ability to relate a wide variety of topics to students. I try to make connections between and within content and to the outside world. In my math classes I always try to sneak some computer science in and in my CS classes I sneak math in.

Collaboration

In addition to combining CS and Math content in the classes I teach personally, I’ve found that I get even more out of cross-curricular work when collaborating with teachers in different content areas. I no longer have an expert view of the whole problem domain, I have to learn to work with others to create something better than either of us could’ve done alone.

I’ve worked with an English teaching colleague to have students develop Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories in HTML in our Web Development class. They also made Mad Libs in PHP and Buzzfeed style Top 10 lists populated with data from student created mysql databases. They used CSS to style their projects to help convey theme and mood.

I’ve collaborated with a Physics teacher to create visualizations and we got our students working together to make physics simulations for their final projects where my students made sure the simulations worked properly and allowed for customization of parameters while her students were the content experts and made sure the physics concepts were portrayed accurately.

Conclusion

A common theme in all of the ways I’ve tried to grow as a computer scientist and as an educator is that I always try to stay curious and try to go outside my comfort zone doing and learning new things. I try to put my learner hat on and not take myself too seriously. It’s also important to always step back and reflect to get the most out of every experience and to celebrate the successes along the way. I love what I do and I look forward to continuing to explore more topics over the years and sharing my accumulated expertise with others.

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Asking Questions in Thai

When I told คุณย่า (koon ya – paternal grandmother) I was moving to Thailand she offered to give me a little crash course in the language. She had taught me bits and pieces throughout my childhood but never anything too formal so I was definitely interested. There was one grammatical structure she considered the most important for me to know for asking Yes or No questions.

It looks like this:

Question:

X mǎi?

Negative Response:

mâi X

Positive Response:

X

Note that mǎi (ไหม) and mâi (ไม่) have different tones (rising VS falling) but it’s one of the only time the tone makes total sense to me since you put an inflection that sounds like you’re asking a question for mǎi and and tone like you’re responding with “No” for mâi. Also, if you’re reading Thai script, you’ll notice there are no question marks, the particles/ending words are used to signify a question instead of any dedicated symbol.

Some examples:

เอาไหม (ow mai?) – Do you want?
ไม่เอา (mai ow) – I don’t want.
เอา (ow) – I want.

ชอบไหม (chawp mai?) – Do you like it?
ไม่ชอบ (mai chawp) – I don’t like it.
ชอบ (chawp) – I like it.

หล่อไหม (laaw mai?) – Handsome?
ไม่หล่อ (mai laaw) – Not handsome.
หล่อ (laaw) – Handsome.
หล่อมาก (laaw mak) – Very handsome.

ไปไหม (pai mai?) – Go?
ไม่ไป (mai pai) – No, let’s not go.
ไป (pai) – Let’s go.

Or, if you want to sound really Thai say ป่ะ (bpa)

Another way to ask yes/no questions is to make a statement then add ใช่ไหม (chai mai?) to the end. To answer you would say ใช่ (chai) for yes, ไม่ใช่ (mai chai) for no. There’s also อาจจะ (aht ja) for maybe and ไม่รู้ (mai rue) for I don’t know.

And of course, like any Thai sentence you can throw Khrap (if you’re male) or Ka (if you’re female) at the end to make it sound more polite. When I’m walking through any touristy area where I’m getting asked by Tuk Tuk drivers if I’d like a ride, I usually use the phrase ไม่เอาครับ (mai ow khrap) and give a smile to let them know, in a polite manner, that I’m not interested.

This definitely isn’t the only way to ask a question in Thai but very handy to know. Here are a few others:

…or not yet? – หรือยัง – reu yang

Example:

กินข้าวหรือยัง (gin khao reu yang) – Have you eaten yet?
ยังไม่ได้กิน (yang mai dai gin) – I haven’t eaten yet
กินแล้ว (gin laaeo) – I ate already

…or nothing? (…or not?) หรือเปล่า – reu bplao

…or… – หรือ – reu…

Really? จริงหรือ – jing reu

(Or จริงหรอ – jing raw)

This is a phrase I hear/use often in Thai. Usually is sounds more like “jing aw” than “jing reu/raw”

To respond affirmatively you could say จริงๆ (jing jing – really!) or to respond negatively you say ไม่จริง (mai jing – not true)

A pronunciation tip is that the จ sound here isn’t exactly the same as ‘j’ in English, it’s somewhere between ‘j’ and ‘ch’. If you’re familiar with J.J. market and were curious why J.J. was the abbreviation for Chatuchak, it’s because sometimes ‘j’ is used to transliterate ‘จ’ and sometimes ‘ch’ is used.

Thai also has the 5 W’s (and 1 H). All very useful for constructing questions (or for understanding that you’re being asked a question).

ใคร (krai) – Who?

ใครคือเพื่อนของคุณ
krai keu peuan kong koon
Who is your friend?

อะไร (arai) – What?

อยากกินอะไร
yak gin arai?
What do you want to eat?

ทำไม (tam mai) – Why?

ทำไมแท็กซี่ไม่หยุด
tam mai tak see mai yud
Why didn’t the taxi stop?

ที่ไหน (tee nai) – Where?

ห้องน้ำอยู่ที่ไหน
horng nahm yoo tee nai?
Where is the bathroom?

เมื่อไร (meua rai) – When?

ร้านอาหารเปิดเมื่อไร
rahn aahaan berd meua rai
When does the restaurant open?

อย่างไร (yang rai) – How?

คุณเป็นอย่างไรบ้าง
koon bpen yang rai bang?
How have you been?

You might also hear ยังไง (yang ngai) for “How?” since it’s a bit easier to say than อย่างไร

รู้ได้ยังไง
rue dai yang ngai?
How do you know?

It’s also useful to be able to ask about quantities:

เท่าไร (tao rai) – How much?

อันนี่เท่าไร
an nee tao rai
How much is this one? (can use to ask about the price of an item at a shop)

กี่ (gee) – How Many?

คุณมีลูกกี่คน?
koon mee luk gee kon?
How many kids do you have?

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Public Speaking in Thai

This weekend Thailand hosted its first ever PyCon: a conference dedicated to the Python programming language. This was a great opportunity to meet fellow developers in the region and learn more about topics like Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing, Graph Theory and more. I even contributed with a talk on Teaching and Learning with Python. Another fun part of the conference is the lightning talk session. Lightning talks are 5 minute talks that anyone can sign up for that happened at the end of each day in the main hall. It’s a chance for people to dip into speaking at a conference or to test the water for new ideas or just to share something cool they’ve been working on. While I already have some experience in that arena, I have zero experience speaking in public in Thai. I decided to take the risk of trying my hand at it. I’d say around half or more of the audience understood Thai, but definitely a large part that did not so I made slides in English and Thai but made a goal of only speaking Thai during the presentation. There were a couple times when I couldn’t think of the word I wanted to say in Thai and was tempted to just say it in English but didn’t, I either found another way to express myself or just left the comment out. Below are the slides I created and used for the talk:

I already started realizing how hard translating this all would be by slide 1. For the first word should I use เรียน (riian – to study at the elementary level), เรียนรู้ (riian rúu – to undertake to study; learn; study), ศึกษา (sʉ̀k sǎa – to study; to be educated; to receive education; to go to school; to learn (at higher levels such as college)) or something else? And the connecting word, am I learning/studying with/by/through programming? What’s the most Thai way to express it? And it seems I was so focused on getting the Thai correct that I forgot to capitalize the ‘p’ in Programming for my title in English.

When I actually gave the talk, I was thinking “should I explain what I’m doing in English, that I’m learning Thai and want to practice speaking or should I just start speaking in Thai, I’m sure it won’t be very hard for them to figure out I’m just learning…” I jumped right in with an unsure “สวัสดีครับ… ทุกคน ยินดีต้อนรับ” (sà wát dii kráp… túk kon, yin dii dtɔ̂ɔn ráp – Hello… everyone. Welcome.”

After the initial awkwardness, I felt a little more comfortable. Sure, I’m speaking a new language and I might mess up but there are slides to help people figure out what’s going on even if I mispronounce something. I push my students who are English Language Learners to take risks and make an attempt. It’s more about pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and learning and getting your point across than delivering a perfect speech.

“วันนี้ผมจะพูดเกี่ยวกับ…” (wan níi pǒm jà pûut gìao gàp – Today I will speak about…)

Now for introductions. Pretty standard for a presentation, but it did feel rather like day 1 in a language class.

ประมาณ (bprà maan – approximately) was a new word for me. I’ve heard it before but I’ve never actually used it in conversation. I think the experience of using it in a talk in front of a large audience will help it stick in my memory pretty well.

Got my first laugh here. There’s a term for people who are half Thai, ลูกครึ่ง (lûuk krʉ̂ng – half child).

“ไม่ใช่ลูกครึ่ง เป็นลูกครึ่งครึ่ง” (mâi châi lûuk krʉ̂ng bpen lûuk krʉ̂ng krʉ̂ng) – “I’m not half Thai, I’m half half Thai”

The term for people like me who have 1 Thai grandparent and 3 non-Thai grandparents is “ลูกเสี้ยว” (lûuk sîao – crescent child) a reference to the crescent moon.

An interesting tidbit about the Thai language is that there are different words for maternal and paternal grandparents, so by using the word คุณย่า (kun yâa – paternal grandmother) instead of คุณยาย (kun yaai – maternal grandmother) it can be inferred that it’s my dad’s mom who is Thai, not my mom’s mom without me needing to elaborate.

After introductions I showed a few of the programs I made to help me learn Thai and explained briefly what they did. The first one was my program to help tell the time. This came from one of my first posts on this blog, Telling Time in Thai.

Second program, my Days of the Week quiz, also about something I made for the blog. I did say the English words “Saturday, Sunday, Friday” here because I was explaining that you have to select the correct English word in this example. Though my childlike enthusiasm when saying “ถูก!” (tùuk – correct, can also mean inexpensive) got me another laugh from the crowd.

This is the only example I shared that isn’t from the blog, JamDai, the Vocabulary Card Matching Game I made. Instead of ถูก, this one ends with a supportive เก่งมาก (gèng mâak – very good, clever, skillful, superbly performed).

The final example I shared was the Thai Chat Bot I made recently. Got a couple more laughs here excitedly reading the chat between myself and the bot and explaining that the bot is male since he uses the polite term “ครับ” (kráp) instead of “ค่ะ” (kâ).

Though, if I end up adding text-to-speech that may change since all the existing Thai text-to-speech tools I can find only have a female voice. I have noticed that general service messages, or posted announcements tend to be either gender neutral or use female terms. Another interesting difference between Thai and English is that there’s no difference between she and he, it’s the same word (เขา – kǎo) so no need to worry about misgendering someone because you don’t need to refer to people by their gender. Though you do gender yourself by the self-referential pronouns you use, ผม (pǒm – I (male)) and ฉัน (chǎn – I (female)). There are instances when speakers will use the opposite gender terms such as a male using female terms with close family members or intimate partners to show softness/gentleness (it’s common for male singers to use ฉัน in love songs for example) or women might use male terms to show harshness or to be stern. Reveals some of the cultural connotations surrounding gender.

I’m very glad I took this risk even though it was scary, I’m happy with how it went. I hope to continue growing and using my Thai language skills. It would be great to be able to speak directly to the parents of my students who speak Thai instead of relying on a translator (though, the Thai staff that helps us with that are awesome!) And of course, the most rewarding way in which I use this skill is getting to connect more with my family members on this side of the globe. Even though initially, I barely knew any Thai, they’ve been so kind, welcoming and warm to me.

I have to give a special shout-out to my wonderful girlfriend, Mild, who took a look over my slides for me and offered suggestions to improve them. In general, she’s been a huge factor in helping me learn and pushed me take chances like this.

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สวัสดีครับ

Hi! I’m Michael, an American teaching at a Canadian International School in Bangkok, Thailand. I created this blog to both share my adventures with friends and family that are far away and to chronicle my learning of the Thai language and culture.  It’s my long term goal to become fluent and literate in Thai. My interest stems from the fact that my grandmother is Thai so learning the language and familiarizing myself with the culture is a way of connecting with my own heritage and exploring a part of my identity.