Attitudes for study

1. A commitment could be regarded as one of the most important keys contributing to success. From my experience, a commitment helped me succeed in a thesis research on parasite migration in mice. It is not easy to conduct research in this field, I pledged a large amount of time to review considerable literatures, draft initial methods, perform scientific experiments, analyze experimental data, and give some reasonable and reliable conclusions. My experiments felt many times throughout that period but I still sustained my effort to go on my research because I realized that my research would contribute many advantages to the field of tropical diseases especially in the aspect of prevention and therapy. Importantly, my research result would benefit Thai people’s health as a whole. This was my inspiration to conduct my thesis research; therefore, it would not be wrong to say that my commitment is a crucial factor facilitating my research success.

2.It is undeniable that ongoing commitment and persistence are important behaviors facilitating success. However, it is not an easy task to create these attitudes. As for me, there are some strategies to build my attitude of commitment and persistence to succeed in a difficult situation. To start with, when I was in a difficult situation, I tried to figure out some benefits of that event. This strategy provided me an inspiration to perform difficult tasks. For instance, when I conducted my thesis research, my scientific experiments felt again and again and I almost gave up. However, I realized that my research would benefit Thai public health as a whole; therefore, I had an inspiration to continue my thesis. Moreover, I tried to utilize my time effectively. Too many duties sometimes made me very tired and had no mood to do anything at all; therefore, it was very important to build some attitudes immediately to go on all of hard duties. Likewise, my works might not be finished. So, when I confronted with such situation, I tried to manage my time effectively. I would perform all duties from the most significant one to the least and not forget to spend some time to rest. This helped me pass many trouble situations. Therefore, optimistic thinking and effectively time management facilitate my success in difficult situations.

Abstract noun subjects and Avoiding gerund

Abstract noun subjects + Avoiding gerund

In the following sentences, use an abstract noun to replace the noun clause beginning with a question word (how, what, when, etc.)

1. The reason why we are given an assignment is to evaluate how much we understand the course material.
Assignment evaluates students’ understanding in the course material.

2. This kind of assignment is used for assessing how we master the basic point of the course.
This assignment assesses students’ mastery of the basic point of the course.

3. Another 30% is the assignment is for testing how we comprehend the whole course material.
Another 30% of the assignments test students’ comprehension of the whole course material.

4. The municipal building code tells us how we must make public facilities more accessible to the elderly.
Municipal building code requires people to build public facilities more accessible to the elderly.

In the following sentences, rewrite the sentence to avoid the use of a gerund (-ing word) as a subject.

1. Sometimes, doing such kind of assignment can inspire the students to find their interests in their future research.
Assignment can inspire students to find their interests in their future research.

2. Having a unique research thesis is difficult since research has been conducted on so many topics already.
It is difficult to perform a unique research thesis because research has been widely conducted on every topic.

3. The writing for this kind of assignment is composed of summary, analysis, conclusion, and recommendation.
This assignment requires summary, analysis, conclusion, and recommendation.

4. The way people calling each other is different in Japan than in the U.S.
Japanese people use more different words to call each other than do the U.S. people.

5. Furthermore, the academic studying of politics includes the policy of a country and the importantance of the key party in the country and the international policy.
Furthermore, the political study includes the domestic and international policy, as well as the domestic key parties’ importance.

Animal Behavior

It is well-realized for long time that animals are able to learn some skills and display some behaviors to help them get some food and survive in specific situations. For example, a dog might learn to open a door to reach some food, or a mouse could climb to an upstairs by using only single thread. Almost all of learnt behaviors were adopted to benefit their own; however, some animal adopted behaviors may contribute several advantages to human and considered to be social behaviors also. From my experience, chimpanzee behavior is a good example. When I was in Thailand, I used to visit the Safari world zoo, one of the most famous zoos there. There was a chimpanzee with which visitors could take a photograph and shake hand. He was very clever. It was not surprised that he could shake hand and could smile to take a photograph. These actions could be taught and practiced as we could always see in a circus or a zoo. His behavior making me very surprised was that he could understand human language!!! After I took a photo with him, he looked very unhappy. He shook a staff’s pants, and ran around. I wondered what he was doing, and then the staff said “You can’t go now because there still are many tourists. Be patient!”. This made me very wonder, so I decided to wait until there are no tourists to see what the chimpanzee wanted to do. Then, he shook the staff’s pants again but that time the staff said “O.K., now you can go!”. He immediately ran into nearby bush and urinated. I saw that and could not stop laughing, but still be surprised how he could understand complicated language like this. It was very uncommon sentences to talk with animals which I used to know such as “Stop!”, “Wait!”, “Go!”, or anything like these. Therefore, I talked with his trainer about his actions. His trainer told me that he had never taught the chimpanzee about that before, but he had raised the chimpanzee since the chimpanzee was very young and lived together all the time. When the trainer wanted to go to the toilette, he had to ask his boss in the zoo, and went together with the chimpanzee as usual. This might be the source of the learnt behavior of the chimpanzee. From this experience, there could be no doubt that a chimpanzee is very intelligent. It may learn and adopt some social behaviors from human and acts like does human as well.

Gnathostoma spinigerum migration

In Thailand, like other tropical countries, one of the most common diseases is round-worm parasitic infection. Generally, parasitic infection is not a serious problem. Infected patients could live their life normally without any serious symptoms. Almost all of patients suffering with these problems could be cured by taking only a tablet of drug. However, few species of round-worm parasites may lead to a critical condition. Among these species, "Gnathostoma spinigerum" is the famous one. It can make infected patients blind, shocked, or even died by invading into inner organs such as liver, kidney, or even brain. Human is usually infected the worm by eating larval worms which always contaminate in raw or undercooked freshwater fish, frogs, and snails. Scientists have known for a long time that after ingestion, larval worm would invade into human’s inner organs; however, whether Gnathostoma spinigerum worm has a common route in human’s body to migrate or not had been still mysterious. I was very eager to know the answer; therefore, I decided to do research on the topic of "The Migration in Mice Experimentally Infected with Gnathostoma spinigerum". In this essay, I would like to explain the method and interesting result of my reaserch on Gnathostoma spinigerum migration.

In this research, I decided to study by using mouse as an animal model. The reasons why I chose mouse to be an animal model instead of human were that I, of course, couldn’t use human to be infected and mouse is a very good animal model to study in several aspects. First, the mouse’s common immune systems responding to parasitic infection are similar to those of human. When migrating into mouse’s body, the worms would be responded by the same immune systems like migrating in human’s body; therefore, I could assume that there was no significant difference between in-mouse migration and in-human migration related to immune responses that have effects on the parasites' invasion. Moreover, mouse is an animal which easy to look after. I can feed it by using a feeding set bought from a pet shop. It helps me save my time to look after.

To study the migration of Gnathostoma spinigerum, I divided mice into 15 groups, 3 mice per each, and then experimentally infected them with 10 larval worms per each mouse by oral infection. Mice in each group were sacrificed at different time, those were 0, 1, 2, 3, 6, 12 hours, 1, 2, 3 days, 1, 2, 3 weeks, and 1, 2, 3 months after infected, to be cutting opened and examined to find all of organs to which the worms had migrated.

Interestingly, after all of mice were sacrificed, I found the route of Gnathostoma spinigerum migration. In mice immediately killed after infected, I found all of the worms, 100 percent, in mice's stomach, and then, only 1 hour after mice infected, 43 percent of the worms invaded through stomach's wall and were in the gap between stomach and liver while the others still were in stomach. Surprisingly, only 2 hours after mice infected, all worms were found in liver tissue. The worms stayed in liver until 1 week after I infected mice. After that, at the second and the third week, 65 percent of worms were found in liver, whereas 35 percent of worms were found in abdominal muscle; however, in one month after mice infected, no worms were found in liver tissue and a new target is muscles. All worms migrated to muscles, 60 percent in abdominal muscles, 20 percent in back muscles, and 20 percent in leg muscles. Since 1 months til the end of the observation, the worms tended to migrate randomly. I found the worms in many organs such as abdominal muscles, back muscles, leg muscles, lung, tail, skin, head and even brain.

For the results, we can conclude that after mice experimentally infected, Gnathostoma spinigerum worms will invade through the wall of stomach, migrate to liver and stay there until 1 week, and then the worms go on their migration by invading muscles. Among all muscles, the first targets for most worms are abdominal muscles and back muscles. After that, worms migrate randomly throughout whole mice's body. When we compare my research results with the symptoms in infected patients, it could be possible that Gnathostoma spinigerum has a similar route of migration. Patients suffering with gnathostomiasis usually went to the hospital because skin pain or other abnormalities on skin, especially "creeping eruption" that is the symptoms appearing on patients' skin resulted from migration of the worm through that area. After clinical laboratory examined, almost all of patients were found that there had been liver abnormality before. Therefore, it is very possible that Gnathostoma spinigerum invade to patients' liver before going out and migrated to skin like it does in infected mice.

In conclusion, there can be no doubt that Gnathostoma spinigerum can lead to a serious condition in infected patients because of their random migration after leaving liver. The knowledge about the route of this harmful worm migration will help preventing lethal symptoms before critical damage of inner organs will occur by monitoring laboratory results indicating liver abnormalities.

Anger Management

Anger Management

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines "anger" that it is a strong feeling which makes one want to hurt someone or be unpleasant because of something unfair or hurtful that has happened. It would not be wrong to say that one of the basic feelings of human is anger. All of us can be angry, but to manage our anger, each of us has different ways. Some always express anger powerfully; some usually manage their anger by suppressing it. But why? Why we have different ways to manage our anger? There are several generalizations from a large number of written articles trying to explain this question. From my experiences in the United States and in my home country, Thailand, I agree with Carol Tavris' generalization that different cultures have different ways to express their anger.

In "Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion", Carol Tavris interestingly explained that to manage anger, different people from different cultures have their unique way. It's based on their country's history, social structure, relationships, or even beliefs. In my perspectives, it's true. In Thailand, more than 80 percent of Thai people are Buddhists. Buddha taught them that anger is a bad emotion because it would bring a number of disadvantages to people who express it. He said that people who are powerfully angry are not different from the mad. Of course, this belief has a huge effect on Thai behaviors, especially on expressing anger. Therefore, when they feel angry, Thai people always tend to suppress it and try not to have any argument. They would try to deal with unsatisfying situations by using reasons, not anger. For example, when I studied in high school, Nan, one of my close friends, borrowed my most favorite novel and lost it. Of course, I felt very angry because this novel was not sold in Thailand, I ordered it from England. At the first time she told me what happened, I decided not to talk to her anymore. However, I didn't do so. I tried to suppress my anger and explained her that I love this novel much and it was not sold in Thailand. She felt very guilty and promised me that she would order a new one from England to give me back. I accepted this offer but suggested her that we both should try to find it first. Fortunately, after all, we found it. From this event, I believed that if I had expressed my anger to her and hadn't talked to her anymore. I, certainly, would have got a new one novel from her but might have lost one of my best friends forever.

Moreover, Thai behaviors are also significantly affected from social structure. As Thai people place high value on seniority, they believe that it would be very rude to express anger to the older. The younger should not express his or her anger to the older although it is the fault of the older. For instance, another one of my friends, Note, is very bad-tempered. He's always moody even to little things such as bad weather. Once one of his servants who is older than him made his shirt burnt by too-long ironing. When Note knew that, he shouted angrily to his servant. Although everyone accepted that it was the fault of his servant, Note was blamed. He should not shout to the older even though the older is his servant. Note's parents blamed him seriously; therefore, he felt guilty and apologized to his servant. This event could be a good example to reflect Thai value on seniority that has strong effect on anger expression.

In contrast, anger expression of American is quite different. Tavris criticized an American way that it makes people become "active pessimists". In this American competitive society, people place high value on individual rights; therefore, when someone breaks rules or breaks others’ rights, it become more serious than in Thai society. Individualism is one of the reasons why American people tend to express their anger powerfully. I agree with this generalization. For example, because I’ve just come to study in the United States, I have some problems in listening skill on real-life English usage. Once I was on a line to buy some food, a waiter asked me what did I want to buy but he spoke very fast and used only few words, not a sentence, so I couldn’t understand what he said. I asked him to repeat what he said. It made a man waiting to buy food behind me disappointed. He blamed me that I made him spend much time to wait. The best thing I could do that time was just apologizing.

For the reasons mentioned above, there can be no doubt that I agree with the generalizations of Carol Tavris in the “Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion” which stated that people from different cultures have different ways to deal with their anger.

Manners, Emotions, and the American way

People who came from different countries and cultures naturally have different behaviors to manage anger. It depends on a history, social structures, rules, relationships, and beliefs. Sometimes this difference can cause a conflict because of misunderstanding in each other behaviors. The author also criticizes an American way to manage anger that the American philosophy, individualism, produces “active pessimists” who believe that it’s possible to release anger.

Vocabulary Acquisition

One of the largest problems for most of Thai students in learning English is how to remember vocabulary. Although it’s very difficult to remember all of those, I’ve spent all of my attempts to find the way to remember a large number of words. To deal with the issue, I’ve found several effective methods. To start with, it’s very effective way to acquire new words that I’ve never known from reading newspapers such as the Washington Post and, most often, the Express. Also, reading other types of books helps me much. I’ve got a great amount of vocabulary from various kinds of books, especially novels and textbooks and after that, I always look up their meanings from dictionaries, especially online dictionary. What’s more, speaking out or thinking of words in my real-life usages and try to use their different meanings in different situations are very effective methods as well. These methods always help me remember my new words and their various meanings for a long time. Furthermore, I usually try to vary my known vocabularies by using prefixes or suffixes and transforming words into other forms such as noun forms, adjective forms, and so on. As the methods mentioned above, I can remember a large number of words.

Initial Reflection

Like other Thai students in the past, I had to learn many English classes since I was very young but, unfortunately, Thai teachers always focused on only vocabulary and grammar even if it was all of the things we should know in learning English. I had to remember many English words and remember grammar rules without practicing in real-life English usage; therefore, it would not be wrong to say that English education in Thai, at that time, was quite poor. However, I used to learn two academic writing classes. They both had their own advantages and disadvantages as follows.

The first academic writing class I used to learn was a required class for freshmen of Chulalongkorn University. This class was divided into many sections, my friends and I was ranked by an entrance examination score in English; so, we who had got higher scores would have to learn together. Each section was composed of thirty to forty students per a teacher. A teacher taught about basic components of academic essays such as an introduction, a body, and a conclusion and some other basic knowledge about writing. After each class, he gave a topic and assigned us to write an essay about that. After getting our assigned essays, he checked, gave scores and sent our works back in the next class without any reasons or comments on our works. As for me, it was not a good way to learn academic writing because there were too much students for only one teacher to pay his attention to all students, so he didn’t have enough time to carefully look on our works and give some comments to improve our works. After this class ended, I didn’t improve my English writing at all. The only one advantage of this course was being a free course.

The other academic writing class I used to take was a writing class for TOEFL examination. In my opinion, it helped me improve my English writing skill so much because of several benefits. To begin with, we all had to take pretest before class began and tutors would rank us into the most proper level for each of us. This made me have a chance to learn in my most proper level. Learning in this course was very different from the first one. I learnt many things about academic writing and learnt even how to write interesting essays in details. Moreover, although teachers were Thai, persons who checked our works were native English teachers; therefore, they could give a number of good comments on each of my works to urge me to improve my English writing skill. I could tell everyone that this course was a key factor contributing to my 5.0 TOEFL essay writing and total scores of 600 in TOEFL examination.

About EFL110, I expect to acquire more knowledge than I used to get from the past. I want to have more skills in writing so that I can write interesting and reliable essays and researches, especially in the field of Science. Moreover, I desire to practice my English skills in other aspects such as reading, listening, and speaking as well.

Homework Assignment I

Title of book : Articles from the New England Journal of Medicine – Genomic Medicine

Title of article : Genomic Medicine – A Primer

Author : Alan E. Guttmacher, M.D., and Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.

Page : 3 - 13

Originally published : The New England Journal of Medicine, November 7, 2002




The authors have explained specific details about the history of genomic medicine since 2001 when scientists discovered all of the 3 billion-base pairs in human DNA, the most important human genetic material, until now when we have the great amount of the biomolecular medicine information. Moreover, the authors have given some of the applications of the genomic medicine for not only the treatment and the therapy, but authors have also looked insight into the protection of many hereditary diseases, the diseases that can transfer from parents to their offspring via genetic materials. They have accumulated a great amount of specific knowledge related to genetic-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and so on. This article has provided much knowledge in many aspects. It has not only given a great deal of useful knowledge in the field of Genetics, but this article have also provided many interesting points about an English writing skill as well.

Like other formal articles published in journals, “Genomic Medicine-A Primer” has been composed of three sections – of course, an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. For an introduction, the authors have composed it by using a general-to-specific technique. They have said about general information related to hereditary diseases and background knowledge of Genomic medicine in a large scale. Then, they have gradually given specific details about such knowledge and at the last sentence they have stated an interesting main idea of their article and brought readers to a body of their article. Their introduction is very interesting. They can make readers, especially who are in the field of medicine, desire to go on reading their article. In my perspective, a general-to-specific technique like their introduction is one of the most interesting techniques for me to practice because this technique usually gives readers general information and background knowledge in a large scale first and then gradually gives more specific details later. It will make almost all of the readers have the same background before start reading a body of article.

The body of the “Genomic Medicine – A Primer” has been composed of six sections. Each section has provided various specific details. As a whole, the authors have given a great deal of specific information related to Genomic medicine since the past until now and particular knowledge about many hereditary diseases caused by a variety of the mutations of human genes. By reading the body of the article, there are considerable interesting techniques to make this article reliable that I want to practice.

First, the authors have demonstrated some details of the in-depth knowledge by using illustrations. This technique helps readers understand some difficult points easily. It is unnecessary to explain some of the difficult points by using only text. In fact, many writers always use illustrations to explain what they want their readers to understand; however, the challenging point of using illustration would not be choosing pictures to illustrate but ,actually, it would be the way to make the text and the illustration still coherent. When the authors have used illustrations, they would have given some explanations about those points before linking it to the illustrations. Also, they have given some explanations under their figures again. Readers could understand easier what they would like to say and all of the contents are still coherent. Therefore, it would not be wrong to say that the authors of this article could use this technique effectively.

What’s more, the authors of the “Genomic Medicine – A Primer” have also used some examples to make readers understand more clearly. For instance, they have given two cases of patients suffering with different hereditary diseases to explain how knowledge of Genomic medicine could lead to better management of common medical conditions. Besides, they have also given references through out their article. The authors have accumulated this article by reviewing both of the general and the specific knowledge from a large number of references. Of course, they havn’t forgotten to include the titles of all references they had reviewed. These techniques make this article reliable.

For the conclusion of the “Genomic Medicine – A Primer”, the authors have summarized the entire knowledge provided in the body part into only one last paragraph, so readers could remind all of the knowledge they should have learnt by reading this article. This technique is significantly interesting and very useful for summarizing articles, especially long articles like this one. After we give many information and knowledge, it is good to remind readers what we want to tell them. Therefore, unsurprisingly, to become a full-fledged participating member of my academic community, it is necessary for me to practice this type of conclusion.

To summarize, for the information mentioned above, there can be no doubt that there are a great number of knowledge including all styles of an introduction, a body, and a conclusion that I desire to acquire and have to practice to become a competent member in the field of Genomic medicine. Therefore, this class will play an important role in shaping my thought and help me become an effective writer in my field.

pictures from http://pirate.shu.edu/~connolam/DNA%20LESSON/DNA%20L...

About myself

Hi! my classmates,


It's me, Tewarit Sarachana. A 23-year-old male from Bangkok, Thailand. About my nickname, actually I have two nicknames. My family always call me "Rit" but my Thai friends usually call me "Tel" because in Thai language when you say my name "Tewarit", it sounds like Tel-Wa-Rit so you can call me Rit or Tel, both are O.K. for me.

I graduated from Chulalongkorn University in Allied Health Sciences field majoring in Medical Technology. After I graduated, I have been granted the Strategic Scholarship for Frontier Research Network from the Royal Thai Government to do further education through out Ph.D. degree in the field of Bioinformatics, majoring in Genomics and Proteomics, in GWU.
Therefore, now I am studying in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences (CCAS) in Genomics and Bioinformatics program to do the master's degree in this field.

Whenever I have leisure time, I always enjoy watching television, reading novels, swimming, and shopping. So anytime if you want someone to do these activities, you can call me and I will go out for you. However, I havn't bought a mobile phone yet but I wll. If I have it, I won't wait to tell you, I promise. Now, if you want to cantact me, please send an e-mail to my inboxes. You can send it to tewazz@gwu.edu or letmetel@hotmail.com. I'm eager to read your e-mail. I'm really happy to be your classmate.


Thank you for reading my blog!

Rit (or Tel if you prefer this one!)

Welcome to Rit's new blog! ~ ^o^

Hello everybody!
This is Rit's Blog (Tewarit Sarachana, from Thailand), so let you read my class assignments and give me some comments. I look forward to read and comment on your blogs too. I'm eager to know you all.

Nice to meet you!
Rit!!!