Author: Justin

MJ

Okay, if you’re a normal person, you had enough of Michael Jackson news approximately 2.4 hours after his death. It took me considerable time to ignore every single headline with his name in it the past week, but I ended up reading one article and it turned out to be fascinating: LINK
That is all.

Plagiarism in Thai Universities

I stumbled upon an excellent article on plagiarism over at Inside Higher Ed: LINK
Plagiarism is such a deeply rooted and widespread problem in Thailand, I think it deserves its own course for first year students. Most students understand that it’s bad for some reason, but their attitude is basically that they can’t do the work without plagiarizing.
Interestingly enough, most Thai students will immediately admit to plagiarizing if confronted, and the same goes for copying homework or cheating on a test. There’s definitely some good Asian moral richness blended into their transgressions.
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As a side note, when Nam and I were studying at Tenri University, we had a sad, sorry excuse of a teacher (you know who you are and I know you read this blog) who declared that cheating was OK for the Chinese students in our class because it was “part of their culture.”
I could use the same reasoning to turn a blind eye to what regularly transpires in the classes here, but somehow I just can’t let it slide..

love or hate

Last night we attended a wedding at the Takasila Hotel as a family. It was kind of funny to see how so many elements introduced at our wedding a few years ago (red carpet, flower columns, silk streamers on ceiling, etc.) have been made standard there (this is perhaps the third wedding we’ve been to there since then).
Max was a bad boy all day and refused to take his afternoon nap, so he was predictably wired and overtired by the time we got there. It turns out that the couple getting married loves children and had invited a lot of families with kids, many of whom ran around wildly in the carpeted ballroom.
Max went nuts and immediately kissed a girl sitting at the table next to us. She kinda freaked out but her mom thought it was cute. Then he (very softly) hit another girl who was running around the tables… I of course told him NO and, but there’s really nothing I can say about this behavior; I have no idea where he gets it. I should add that he kissed the cute one and slapped the one whose head was shaped like a tuber…
MAX, YOU CAN’T JUST GO AROUND BEING MEAN TO POTATOHEADS!!

Our New Thai House Part 5 – The Blessing Way

The end of 2007 coincided with the milestone of 98% or so of the basic house being completed, so we decided to move in on New Years Day. We invited some monks for a blessing ceremony and they did us up well.
It was the first time we were living in a new house. This coupled with the fact that we were one of the very first houses up in the neighborhood and hence kind of solitary made for a strange but very relaxing time coming home after work every day. I mean, in front of the house was our pond and around us was future house plots and rice fields. It was very cool. We bought some golden lions to protect our house, and they have worked out very well.
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This isn’t necessarily the end of the Our New Thai House series, but it marks the end of the first chapter.
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Our New Thai House entries:
Our New Thai House Part 1 – Picking a Plot
Our New Thai House Part 2 – Foundations
Our New Thai House Part 3 – Groundwork
Our New Thai House Part 4 – Roof and Walls
Our New Thai House Part 5 – The Blessing Way
Landscaping Our House – Before and After