Thai Society/Culture
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Adventures in English Teaching
So you might have noticed that I don’t talk about my job here much, and there are several reasons for that. It’s mostly because I’ve read a lot of people blog about teaching and I personally found it less than enthralling, and that was before I was teaching. My not blogging about teaching definitely is not an indication that I don’t enjoy it… (After writing the previous passage, I realize that the only thing less enthralling than reading about English teaching on a blog is reading about why an English teacher who blogs doesn’t blog about work.) Anyhow, today I had the hardest time figuring out what a student was…
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90-day report
Pretty much every foreigner in Thailand on a non-immigrant visa is supposed to report into immigration every 90 days. This may be in the form of a letter, except if the immigration officer tells you to report in person (or send a representative from your organization in). Of course, all the teachers at our school got stuck with the latter method, and the girl who usually goes in for us (we have to report to immigration in Nong Khai, on the border with Laos) was busy, so a coworker and I went in a university car. Nam also came along with us to help clear any snags that might come…
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over yonder
Max is almost walking by himself
Swiss Sheep Farm, Petchburi, Thailand
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Solar-barbecued chicken
This sounds interesting. As a sidenote, Thailand is more “green” in some ways than first world countries. For instance, they sell B5 diesel here at major gas station chains – B5 is 5% biodiesel. And Hi-octane gasoline (95) is all but gone around these parts, supplanted by its E20 (20% methanol) equivalent. Whether this is truly better for the planet in the long run or not is up for debate. It sure isn’t better for some older cars! I met a fellow who has made a small-scale biodiesel production facility in his garage; this is an area I am interested in. I also want to try building a solar chicken…
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hisashiburi no kabe
So in Japan-speak, a bunch of us ran headfirst into a cultural wall yesterday, and it was a rather bracing slap in the face after having conquered so many other challenges in the semi-distant past… We went to the sports college next to my university, most famous for being the alma mater of the “Jackie Chan of Thailand” (Tony Jaa), in order to start a thrice-weekly regimen of swimming in their Olympic-sized pool. So we paid 40 Baht (adult price, about $1.20) admission fee, and were promptly rejected entry int o the pool for “not wearing swimming suits.” But the thing is, we were wearing swimming suits. So it ended…
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Real life neko bus
craigslist rocks. One of the things I miss most about Japan is Yahoo auctions. Thailand, or for that matter, most of the rest of the world simply has too fiendish a mentality for any kind of shopping/auction system employing the honor system to work.
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Water in the damn line again
If they ever get around to making a hermetically sealed telephone line in Thailand, I might have a decent net connection. My line is down again, or perhaps waterlogged as the telephone monopoly keeps telling me. I’m not desperate enough to be online to go to net cafes or anything, but I may check on email every few days when I happen by an open hotspot. Dammit.
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Let’s Have Our Piece of Third World Cake! (and eat it, too!)
Third World Cake(TM) Checklist: Pseudo-trademarked jelly/frosting entities (Mykkie and Myni) – check! Indestructible sugar frosting – checkcheck! Red jelly blobs in place of actual fake cherries – checkcheckcheck! It was kind of a celebration for Max’s 2nd week of life outside of mommy – and the underlying chocolate spongecake was actually pretty good, and not overly sweet like 99% of sweets here.
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Thai ATM Horror Story
So today turned out to be a big bummer because of the stupid Thai banking system. In short, I tried to withdraw 20,000 Baht from my Japanese bank with an international (PLUS system) bank card, which is something I’ve done many times before with no real problems. This time, however, the ATM (Thai Commercial Bank) flashed an error, “Communication Error,” and spat out my card but no cash and no receipt. I figured it might be an error with this particular bank and mine in Japan (Mitsui Sumitomo), so I tried again with the ATM to the immediate right of the first one (Thai Military Bank). Same error message, same…
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Contender for Best Brand Name of All Time
See? The baby really is lucky! I went to buy a case of water at a farmer’s wholesale mart and stumbled onto the grand mother of unfortunate branding – Golden Shower Brand Sugar! “For the perverted diabetic in you!” I just appreciate that they seemingly got the trademark (TM) – then again, in most parts of Asia, sometimes a marking is just a marking so – maybe they just claim to have the trademark. It’s time for someone to jump on this opportunity; the Golden Shower name must expand across cultural boundaries and product lines alike!
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Scenes from a University Van
From our road trip to Pattaya a couple weeks ago. If you love frogs, you probably shouldn’t read the latter half of this post, but I’m not hiding it in the extended entry, either. Do or do not, there is no try, as it were. (as always, click on any photo to open a larger version in a pop-up window) This post goes out to my brother Adam, who definitely might be man enough to eat skewered frogs after a few beers (although we did it sober here). The one I pulled apart in the tissue shown above was pregnant, so the blurry black and white dots are eggs. Actually,…
