Projects

For 2007, my immediate missions can never become more clear--to wrap up my PhD in Language Education and to serve in the Afghanistan Higher Education as some Afghan university teachers have come to Indiana University for their graduate studies.  As distance education coordinator, I will get to work in helping these teachers succeed in their studies, especially in terms of their technological and academic skills. That means I will take care of their adjustment issues, technical and other basic skills building, troubleshooting as their problems arise, mentoring them in all aspects with which I can help, and so on. I am curious to know how these Afghan teachers can cope with the challenges in the U.S. academic context.

Besides these, my projects include:

• expanding the horizon of my knowledge on issues related to sociology of education, culture, communities & education, peace education, and education in the face of the clash of civilization

• creating an Online Resources Center for English Language Teachers of Afghanistan

• serving as member of board of advisors for the Nyaka School for AIDS Orphans in Uganda

• writing a weekly column for a Thai newspaper (ended due to sanction by the military regime in September 2007)

• publishing  a few articles based on the work I did during the past few years.

• working on the Friends4Peace Network to really make it work better among old and new friends

• establishing the Thinsan Foundation (i.e. starting to establish the first endowment so that the interests gained a year from now can be used as scholarships for kids in the provinces who are struggling like I did when I was a boy/young man)

• pushing myself more than 99% in whatever I do (one of my new year's resolutions)