Stars In My Head—My Introduction to the Hive Community

Earlier this week, I have published my first post on Hive. The post was about my story of getting into playing chess, which I had been thinking to write for months. Unknowingly, I posted into the @theinkwell community, home to short fiction stories, which is coincidently an area I had been passionate to write about.

While I was extremely excited to have the content online, I realized I have skipped quite a number of steps, including #introduceyourself. Still, shortly after my awkward entrance, several greeting and welcoming comments (and even votes!) came into the post.

So before getting into my introduction, I would like to give words of appreciation to @theinkwell, @agmoore, @stayoutofherz, @brittandjosie, and @lovesniper, for the advice and encouragement given to me through my first post. I was given a chance to go through guides on how the rules, communities, and ultimately the Hive blockchain work. I still have not digested all the necessary information, but I will surely do as long as I keep being active on the platform. For now, I will make one long introduction that suits one of my writing styles and would best describe who I was, who I am, and who I will become.

Let's begin with my name

I prefer to be called "Ice", my nickname. My full name is Korakoch Rienmek, and I am from Thailand. Sounds very hard to pronounce, but the name is only used for identification. We almost never call someone with their first name in Thailand. We also come up with other names for friends. "Ice" is a gender-neutral name. In some social circles, there would sometimes be 2-3 Ices, which makes it difficult to refer to each individual Ice.

Sometimes I am called "Suta", which now seems like a funny name that works right for me. Suta is the name I use for most of my online accounts, from games to social media. Suta is a Japanese pronunciation of the word "star". I learned this out of curiosity when I watched "Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha"—an anime in which the protagonist has an ultimate attack called "Starlight Breaker". Every time she uses the move, she yells with the Japanese pronunciation "Sutaraito Bureika!", and I was always intrigued. After I connect to my friends online, they see Suta on my username and would think it represents my character.

A glimpse at my identity's background

During my mother's trip to visit her hometown Udon Thani—a northeastern province in Thailand, she gave birth to me. Among her 3 children, I am the youngest and the only one not to open eyes in Hua-Hin hospital. Hua-Hin, one of the most known tourist destinations, is where I lived with my parents. It is a 3-hours drive away from the capital, Bangkok.

My father's family had settled in Hua-Hin for a few generations. As a police director, my father often had to move to various provinces to work on projects and cases. My father met my mother when he was positioned at Udon Thani and developed a lifelong relationship, adding the northeastern Thai lifestyle to the family. It was decided that they both settle in Hua-Hin, and my family became one of the few to speak the northeastern dialect in Hua-Hin.

Shaped forever by my childhood

I went to a private Thai school in the center of the town. After finishing grade 5, my father sent me to the school's international counterpart, investing in a much higher tuition fee for me to learn English. The first two years were tough, as I was subjected to school bullying. I could not put up any resistance as my English was close to nothing, and I could not be less dependent on my friends. Thai education has been criticized for its failure to encourage students in learning conversational English, therefore, I was one of many children who struggled to communicate in English-speaking communities. When I began 7th grade, some of the bullies transferred to other schools. This, along with some improvement in my English, allowed making some good friends and made my time at school much better.

Two years of being bullied brought my self-esteem to the bottom. The rest of my school life had me spend the most time on video games, reading novels, watching animes. Yes, I was not very sociable. I made some achievements with annual public speaking and debate contests—the rare opportunities for speaking my minds out. During my childhood of gazing into the computer screen, I grew interested in philosophy, fictional concepts, storytelling, idea generation. I always dwell in my thoughts, but never put them into shape, due to my low self-esteem and video games addiction. In my head were only rogue stars, metaphorically.

My development arc

After graduating from high school, I went to the School of Global Studies, Thammasat University. The campus was located in Bangkok, I had to live in a dormitory far away from home. I also began working as a freelance Thai-English translater to add to my living allowance. At college, I studied design thinking, case studies, intermediate business maths, philosophy, and much more.

I had opportunities to conduct research, go through a lot of readings, and ultimately develop social entrepreneurship mindset. In my cohort, I was most known for great writing, though still with mediocre choice of vocabulary and format errors. Most of the written assignments were not freestyle or creative pieces that I dreamed to write but were mostly academic and advertisement.

Along with many prototypes, I developed—both with teams of friends and individually, I also work on extracurricular activities such as events for social causes, pitching business ideas for funding, volunteer field immersion. It was a great journey which I made many good friends along the way. I could not resist reflecting on my childhood. Hard to simply put it into a few lines, every single moment in this phase of my life is the inspiration for my writing.

New chapters await

Admittedly, I had matured a lot throughout college—from living far from home, an overwhelming load of assignments, and stages of different relationships. The dire covid-19 situation in Thailand prevents universities from organizing official graduation ceremonies, though my university life was concluded. For now, I spend my time as a freelance translater, as co-founder of a start-up team that pitched several seed rounds, and as a graphics ads creator for my partner's accessory shop.

I could not say that I am the opposite of who I was in childhood, as I am still shy and awkward sometimes around. My partner's parents would encourage me to correct my postures and gain confidence. But I have learned to communicate and trust my ideas. One thing that has not changed within me at all is the idle thoughts of fantasy worlds I had since young, with logical thinking added to the stars. Since my final year, I had been slowly working on my fiction novel, which I am planning to publish on a Thai platform. However, the Thai audience loves yaoi and traditional Chinese-inspired romance, which are outside of my arsenal.

I am truly glad to have discovered Hive blockchain and found communities that I can attempt to fully test and improve my believed abilities to write, and finally, bring together the pieces that resemble stars in my head. Writing has been the only piece of work that fully exploits my full control and ideas.

That concludes my introduction. I am pleased to let myself be known to the kind members on this platform!