Z E R O O N E M A Y 10 2019

A chat with Pa
Nantha Prommungkol
The Happy JANITRESS
By Kevin Tejasen “Nine”

When asked what comes to your mind when

you hear the word ‘cleaner’ or ‘janitress’, most
people would only think of someone who is
mopping the floor, cleaning up after other people
who most of the time show no admiration. But,
actually, a cleaner is rather important than what
you may think of.
Cleaning is one of the main jobs that every
place, especially school, needs. Because, unlike
offices where officers would normally try to keep
things in order, students are naughty having many activities all the time, and never have time
to organize the place. Cleaners help keeping our school clean, maintaining clean sanitation and
collecting the garbage wastes and trashes in our rooms. Without them, our school would be
dirty, the floor would be full of papers, trashes, drinking bottles, plastics, etc. It might be easier
for us to get sick by the bacteria from the bad unclean environment, and couldn’t stay focused
to study properly. So, cleaners are essential for us. However, most of the people do very little
about them. In this article, I am getting you to know one of our cleaners. Her name is Pa Nantha
Prommongkol.
Pa Nantha Prommongkol is from Salaya. She is 58 years old now, and single. Her elder
brother is 60 years old and her mother is 87 years old. Her elder brother has his own family so
she only lives with her mother. She lives in
Nakornpathom province and has started
working as a cleaner of MUIDS since December
2018. When I asked her to describe her typical
day, Pa Nantha Prommongkul said that she
starts the day by waking up as early as 4:00 a.m.
to have the time to prepare herself and arrive
at MUIDS at 6:30 a.m. to open and check the
classroom for the students. After that, she
cleans the library, then she goes to clean the
toilets. When asked how long does she have a
break, she said that she has a break at 12:00
o’clock until 1:00 p.m., for one hour. After her break time is over, she goes checking around
inside the school building to collect all the trashes, clean the floor and to see if any teachers or
students want her to clean something, then she comes back to check the toilets again .

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 Z E R O O N E M A Y 10 2019

Until the school bell rings, at about 3:00 p.m., she then gets ready to go to clean the
classrooms after all of the students have gone home. But if there are still some students inside
the classroom, she may enter the room to ask them whether she can clean the room, otherwise
she might just have to wait outside until all of them are gone.

When I asked her why she decided to

work as janitress here, she said that staying
home couldn’t bring her the money she direly
needs. Being rather old, it wasn’t easy for her
to find other jobs that she could do. Although
she thinks that being a cleaner is actually not
bad at all, she said the real driver for this job is
her 87 years old mother, whom she has to
look after. She explained that working at this
school is good because it is not far from her
home, so she can quickly head back to her
home to take care of her mother. After I heard
this, I got worry about her mother having
nobody to take care her during the day while she is still work. So, I asked her and she answered
that, during her working time, her brother will come to her home and take care of her mom for
her until she arrives home then her brother will leave. Many of us who wake up a bit late may
be curious to know why Pa Nantha has to wake up so early at 4:00 a.m. just to arrive school at
6:30. So I asked her and she then said that she had to wake up early because she must prepare
the foods, clothing and many other stuffs for her mother before she can go to work.

Almost at the end of my interview, I asked her if she ever feel tired and like to give up, the
only thing she said was “never give up! SUSU!” She said that we all need to fight, be patient, and
never give up. Pa Nantha
Prommungkul with the age of 58
years still works hard like this
everyday and it is not for herself but
her mother. The cleaners can be
more admirable than just the
cleanliness she keeps. Pa Nantha
Prommunkul has proven it. She has
become more than a cleaner, she
lives her life in taking care of her
mother. The last question, I asked Pa
Nantha Prommongkul about her
future plan and she said “Nothing
much, I will continue working here,
playing a little part in grooming good
and well educated future adults. The students and teachers here at MUIDS are adorable.”

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 Z E R O O N E M A Y 10 2019

The Speaking Style And Face of the MOST Frightening

ROTC Military Teacher
By Kevin Tejasen

Training to be a reserve officer or soldier is very common for all high school
students in Thailand. The most frightening and special one among all of the military
teachers that give us the lessons, has furious speaking style with his scary face giving
him ability to totally control all the students in the training.

He is a very powerful teacher. He could suddenly be mad then quickly returns

to be normal. When he talks with us, sometimes he starts by using good voice for a
while and less than a second later his voice abruptly changes to be so loud sounding
like he is shouting or he may start by using loud voice and immediately uses soft voice
again and again without any reasons. He
keeps changing his voices for so many
times. It is a special speaking style
because he always speaks like this much
more than what other teachers do. Not
only his speaking style but he also has
very scary face. Although he is old, some
parts of his face is firm and some has
wrinkle marks. Both the firm and the
wrinkle parts are mixed together in the
right position on his face making him
look very fearful and cruel with his brown face skin, similar to the color of a log. He
has a very sharp eyes like an eagle. His eyes sights are very good covering all the area.
He can see through a thousand of students very fast and can accurately find the exact
one who is talking or not concentrating in the training.

It is a little bit annoying to meet this teacher but we respect this teacher so
much because he always looks after us carefully. He is very strong and hard working
teacher in our Reserve Officer Training Cop.

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 Z E R O O N E M A Y 10 2019

Adapting to Changes
By Kevin Tejasen
Changes occur so many times in
our lives. If something has changed, it
will be hard to change that thing back,
perhaps, impossible. Understanding to
your mind could help you to adapt to
changes.
and he returns to his sad mood about
changing the school again. Fulfilling
your wants day by day is not the real
solution for adapting to changes. You
must find the exact thing from the
change that you are still struggling on,
and get to the right point. The purpose
of accessing your mind is to help you to
get to that point where you are still
having some problems. While you are
accessing the mind, you may have
many emotions such as sad, happy,
excited, etc. You must accept these
feelings to acknowledge the problems
and then you can do much more
things later to surpass and adapt to the
changes so we can analyze that
accessing the mind has many impacts.

Understanding your mind is

crucial to realizing changes. It is
important to recognize your thoughts
and feelings toward the current state. If
you could not understand your feelings
about changes, you will not know the
good ways to take care of yourself or
you may treat yourself wrongly
because you do not know what you
exactly want. For example, a boy must
change his school but he is not pleased
because he loves his friends at his old
You should be prepared for
school so much. He decided to buy
any changes that can occur. The first
video games to make him better
feelings instead of setting the farewell way that helps you to adapt to most of
party with his friends. Buying video the changes is understanding your
games helps him for short term only thoughts, feelings and your mind.

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 Z E R O O N E
Thailand Elderly Society
By Kevin Tejasen
If our society is full of elderly people,
how will it affect our life? What are the
impacts? Now, Thailand is going to be “Aged
Society”. More than 20% of the population
of elderly are over 60 years old.
After 2552, Thailand had number of
child and elder whose age is over 60, more
than working people. Thailand has been
considered as “Ageing Society” which has
more than 10% of the total population are
more than 60 years old since 2005.
According to NESDB report, 2560 was the
first year in Thai history that children were
less than old people because of the
decreasing in population growth rate and
death rate so the number of elders increased
rapidly. Now the number of Thai elderly
people is 11.23 million which is 17.3% of the
total population, closer to be “Aged Society”.
NESDB also forecasts
Thailand is going to be “Aged
Society” in 2021 because 13.1 million of
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M A Y 10 2019
the population will be elder people. But why
does Thai government must be so concerned
about this characteristic of the population?
That is because the structure of population
can inevitably affect Thai economy and
society a lot. In the article by Tejvan
Pettinger, increase in dependency ratio is
one of the impacts when retired elderly
people asking for advantages and pension
benefits. Government will only have higher
expenses in health care and pension. It will
reduce income earned by government and
make tax rate higher, decreasing workforce
of people. An aged population could cause
shortage of worker. Many companies may
have to increase wages for employees and it
will cause wage inflation which affects
economic very much.
Elderly people are very important in
society. They have developed, treated and
worked for Thailand for a long time. These
people have big influences in Thailand.
 Z E R O O N E M A Y 10 2019

Let Hunger Enhances Your Health

By Kevin Tejasen

Food that we eat is source of energy we

need for conducting our daily activities.
Hence it is natural to think that eating
regular meal and not being hungry is good
for health. However, there are studies
concluding that, in fact, the more hungry
you are the healthier you would be. Which
way is better for your health? I think that
being hungry is good for your health because
it makes your blood glucoses level controlling
better, improves your immune system and
boosts metabolism.
According to the study by Cornell,
2015, there is evidence showing that being
‘moderately hungry’ before a meal can keep
blood glucose level lower than those ‘not
particularly hungry’, even until after the
meal. High blood glucose level is detrimental
to cellular health, long term health risks of
illness like diabetes. Researchers from
University of Southern California have
found that when you starve your body will
try to save energy, by reducing production of
new white blood cells. The body will try to
utilize whatever white blood cells it already
has, some of which may partly be damaged.
Total white blood cells count would drop. But
when you re-feed again, that will turn on
‘regenerative switch’. Now the body will
promote the production of ‘super fresh’ white
blood cells from stem cells. In other words, it
seems like this process (of cyclic starving)
promotes flushing of old by new white blood
cells and hence improved immune system.
According to the same study,
intermittent starving allows the body to use
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fat as its primary energy source because, as
stated that “your body will try to save
energy”. A metabolism which is a necessary
internal chemical reactions in a body, is then
boosted, burning calories from fat more
efficiently. That also improves bowel
movement, giving digestive system to rest,
which is like a reset button reminding how
healthy digestion system is. In addition, that
helps the body to remove toxins and regulate
filtering organs like liver and kidney. It also
promotes regenerative abilities on other
systems, such as the skin.
There are more studies pointing out to
similar conclusion that ‘hunger enhances
health’. That may seem counter-intuitive for
many people. The difficulty is most people
can’t bare the hunger or resist the appeal of
food. Perhaps that is why it might be helpful
to make this purposeful starvation to
religious. People may be more determined to
effectively practice this starvation and better
health could then be attained. That is why
some people believing that fasting in some
religion is in fact good for health.

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 Z E R O O N E M A Y 10 2019

My Unforgettable
Flight
By Kevin Tejasen

Have you ever had a very During the flight, my head was full of
memorable experience that you could darkness, bad feelings and anxiety. No
never forget? I am going to tell my one could help me or give me any
unforgettable experience when I was in happiness. I stayed against these
primary 6 while I was traveling alone to feelings for many hours until I could not
England. take them anymore. I reached my limit.
Then suddenly, my body responded. My
mouth opened automatically and I threw
up. My body and clothes were dirty and
smelly. I could not do anything. Even just
a tissue paper, I did not have. The guide
came with tissue papers and wiped my
body but that did not make me feel
better at all because it was still dirty. I
was very afflicted.
I was only 12 years old and just
finished primary 6 in summer. My mom
reserved a trip for me to England for a
full month by British Council. Actually, I
did not want to join this trip because it
was the time that I had to prepare for a
very hard and competitive exam to get
into secondary school, so I was
extremely stressed out. Besides, this
trip was not similar to what I normally go
I had never thrown up in the
to with my family. The day that I must
airplane before but after this trip, it
take the flight was the exact day that
scared me and I got sickness like I
the exam result was announced. After I
always throw up when I take the flight.
saw the result, it gave me more stress
This flight was my worst flight but it
because I did not pass the requirement.
reminded me many stories and I
I was very sad and disappointed, but I
remembered them every time as people
had no time to cry and no time to regret.
usually say we can only remember just
I immediately went to the airport.
bad things that happened to us.
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