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Hi there (21/11/08),
So a grenade goes off at dawn amongst the PAD protesters occupying the Government House compound (as they have for about 6 weeks), one killed and 20 wounded….what , you ask yourself was the point of that? If it was an attempt by the powers that be to scare them into moving, then all it will do is strengthen their resolve. If was an inside job to remind the torpid populace that there is still a constitutional crisis going on, it’s a pretty cynical move. It’s no wonder that most people’s eyes glaze over when domestic politics are discussed, it’s definitely “Same shit different day” round this neck of the world.
Gawd but I was awful at tennis last Tuesday..I was so shit it was embarrassing. I’ll be surprised if I get invited to play by the locals again next time I turn up haha…Still, my back seems a little better since I turned my mattress round and got my spine snapped by Ning. Yes , she was up on a business trip over the weekend and we talked a lot through. I don’t think it’s wise to persue this long distance thingy any more so I guess I’ll call us just friends until such a time as we might live in the same town.
It’s a really lovely time of year here. The temperatures have dropped unseasonably early to around 30 degrees. The humidity has significantly dropped and the temperature at night (about 25 degrees)is almost low enough to switch off both the fans. I think if you ask most Thai people they’ll say this is their favourite time of year even if they all start wearing jackets and getting colds. The vast majority of them wouldn’t last 5 minutes in a brisk Autumn gale blowing off the North Sea!!!
This means of course there is talk of resurrecting the Sunday nights five a side football game. This has two fold benefits..we get a nice wee runaround, and we’re usually so wrecked afterwards it puts paid to Sunday night excesses in parts of town that rely on just that kind of cavalier attitude to sustain their robust economies. Seriously though, it’s probably quite unsurprising how quickly one can tire of that kind of scene. Nothing and nobody are what they seem and for too many people the wheels come flying off and they end up crashing and burning amidst the fire and brimstone.
With a long weekend coming up, there is talk of a managers pre- Christmas jolly down to the old favourite “Peace Resort” at the coast for a couple of days. Sounds like a fun thing to do, chilling by the pool for a coupla days (The beach isn’t too hot), but we’ll have to get cracking and get it booked soonish as it is a long weekend…
I am also excited at the long term prospect being mooted of a stag night in Tokyo nextyear. I’d love to go to Japan but I’d prefer to go with someone else and really share the experience. James, who lived there for 10 years would be the ideal tour guide!!
I read my pal Al’s latest blog: www.frenchobsession.blogspot.com recently. He’s developing the mind of an ex-pat whilst still actually living in the UK. He talks eruditely wistfully about politeness, customer service, general manners and courtesy all slowly disappearing from British culture. I pondered on this, especially after having read the BBC report about the “attitudes to children” survey on UK . Words like “vermin” and “wild dogs” were bandied about. The spokesman said that demonizing children led to misunderstanding and untoward antipathy…..My question is this: Who made them like that in the first place? All this PC mollycoddling has left the UK in such a babying fankle that kids no longer get the direction they need…EVEN IF that includes light corporal punishment. There has to be some sort of self regulation in every society. If we’ve reached a point where adults don’t actually get some automatic deference or respect from children then we’re on a slippery slope. Think “Lord of the flies” on a countrywide scale. Thais don’t know very much about history or geography at all, but they do have a strongly ingrained sense of tradition and past (with an unhealthy obessession with ghosts and spirits too boot) that includes supreme blind faith in the absolute power the family patriarch (or matriarch) holds and they will unquestionably follow any instruction from them. Which is why you NEVER hear of gangs roaming around beating men to death in front of their kids…It just doesn’t happen here. There is so much that the west has forgotten in it’s striving towards modernism and ultra consumerism. Shame really….It’s ultimately all about piss poor parenting skills and only 1 in 3 marriages surviving nowadays. All of my friends who have recently become new parents are going to have their own futures battles on this front.
Anyway , enough proseletysing, I’m sure as a non parent my observations have a biased point of view. I just hope to God that whatever appears to have gone wrong in UK society is still fixable. Even from this far away I can see the writing on the wall for a pretty grim future there. 3 million unemployed by 2010 sure ain’t gonna help that.
Think I’ll hang out here a whiles…..
Hi there (14/11/08),
Sitting here at my desk at midday on a Friday feeling awful, I clearly understand why I usually adhere to a" three pint max " rule during the working week.
Having said that, I was out with the boss last night on one of our far too infrequent benders…I'm just glad I didn't know him when I was in my 20's, that would have been a recipe for "an early bath" as Eddie Waring used to say.
So why were we out? Nothing special really, we wanted to check out the Central World Tiger beer garden in advance of the Modern Dog concert there next Thursday. That's the trouble with drinking pints as opposed to small bottles, you kinda lose track of how messed you're getting. Anyway I should look on the bright side, we got blootered ,set the world and the school to rights, and I didn't even throw up in the skytrain this morning despite a compelling urge to do so! An aspirin, an au bon pan sandwich, and 3 coffees later and I'm just about able to coherently join the human race.
So whassup? I mightily enjoyed a Sunday night of free beer from my colleague Brett on account of the Phillies winning the World series Baseball title for the first time in 28 years. The pub we were in was a toilet, and Brett made us watch a 3 hour baseball game, (BORING)..but the beer and the patter made up for it. I was even home at a decent hour and able to function well the following day.
It was interesting to see the UK authorities showed a bit of backbone in refusing a certain Thai Ex-PM a UK visa renewal. I'm sure that must have stung him a bit. It got me thinking about all the bad guys we've harboured over the years under graceless diplomatic contingencies: General Pinochet, Idi Amin to name a couple of the more high profile ones. In a country where corruption and backhanders are rife it's nice to see there are still people out there who can't be bought. Maybe everything doesn't have a price.
Ning is apparently appearing in town tonight after spending a day signing legal stuff for the company she chairs. A free flight up to BKK can't be bad. We're supposed to meet up tonight and I'm not altogether how I feel about it all. I mean it's pointless to go back to where we were and I'm not chasing any more…It feels a bit like when you go chasing after a bus only to see it pull away and you slowly falter down to a stop. I think it's really important we remain friends though. I like her a lot, but sometimes absence makes the heart grow harder as opposed to fonder. I'm officially through with long distance relationships. I'm never going to have another one..ever! It's all just too much bollocks. Doubtless Ning will end up staying tonight and possibly the weekend. I kinda wish I was feeling less hungover..I'm certainly not up for a winding introspective relationship summit talk into the wee hours tonight..equally I'm not into hurting her feelings with any brusque and indifferent displays. Hangovers can be quite debilitating when you're trying to voice or deal with personal shit…it's so easily to be misconstrued or make some throwaway comment that doesn't actually reflect what you mean. I need to be cautious.
Change is in the air concerning the school . Given we don't have any seasons here you might say it's gonna get a physical and metaphorical end of year "Spring Clean". I expect to be embracing a new role and a new set of challenges in the New Year. It's not as daunting as I first thought and it technically shouldn't overly increase my workload (my learning curve for sure, but not my workload). So I mustn't grumble. I'd have been a lot unhappier if I'd been shipped out to one of the other schools or been moved to another desk in the office. I've got my workspace set up just how I like it.
I've been thinking a bit about what to do with my Christmas holidays. I haven't reached any firm conclusions yet. What I need to do is go and sit in a bookshop with a bunch of travel guides and read about some of the places that interest me. By the Way "Lonely Planet" has really got shit. I don't know if it was the bbc takeover, or their research/updaters, but it really doesn't hack it anymore. The one on Laos is a disgrace. Looks like I'll be sticking to Rough Guides only from now.
The Kings sister is getting cremated in an elaborate Buddhist ritual over the weekend. I expect it to be quite a sad and somber occasion for the Thai people. I'll certainly be wearing somber dark clothes in the school over the weekend and wearing a black tie. Everything will be shut over the next two days. It'll probably be an ideal time to stay quietly at home with a full fridge and a good book.
Hi there (07/11/08),
CONGRATULATIONS to my dear friends Ivon and Vicki on the birth of Holly. I can only imagine how chuffed and terrified they are of their first child!! Doubtless I'll be seeing the obligatory "wrinkled prune" photos in the next few days.
So I was at my first ever alcohol free wedding last Sunday. A most pleasant experience it turned out to be too. It was in the "Army Club". I was expecting something quite basic as opposed to the swish, modern complex we went to. In fact there were two other weddings in this cavernous exhibition/conference type venue. It was at times hard to tell who belonged to which wedding when you left the suite. Needless to say the place was packed with lovely girls dressed up to the nines. I could scarcely believe how pretty some of the girls were who lined up to try and catch the bouquet! A complete lack of "Dutch courage" stopped me from gliding in with a bit of the old patter..probably just as well, there's no telling what sort of serious social 'faux pas" are out there in Thai weddingland.
That's not to say I didn't go out after the wedding however. It was my co-manager Lee's last day on the job so there was quite a farewell in the Saxophone pub at Victory monument till the wee hours. I even ended up back at his place tanning a bottle of Baileys till 5 in the morning. Needless to say I ended up crashing. I'm sorry he's left my work, he'll be sorely missed, but at least he's still gonna be in BKK for nights out.
The spa managers curriculum project for the ministry of Education is slowly developing legs. I was down having a look at a rather nice spa in Ekkemai on Wednesday morning. When you think about it a two hour traditional Thai message is a serious bargain for 8 quid. A hot herbal towel wrap (2 hours for a tenner), aromatherapy two hour message (10 quid) and various other exfoliating scrubby gubbins for 5-10 quid made it look rather enticing actually. (Except facials..they appear strangely proportionally much more expensive…..a con just for ladies?)
What I mean is, you see lots of these "hole in the wall" message places all over BKK (NO!..NOT knocking shops), but it doesn't have the wellness "vibe" like a big professional place like this. There was even a separate desk staffed by physiotherapists who do one hour sport injury messages for a fiver!!!! If a place like this existed in Ari I'm sure I'd be going often. As it is I feel I ought to go and have a go sometime soon..it might even alleviate the chronic stiffness in my lower back!
I went to see my friend Small Paul in hospital. Seeing the damage that "exfoliating dermatitis" wreaks left me pretty stunned. To say he looked awful would be an understatement. It looked like leprosy, or some scabby aftermath of a bout of small pox. The poor sod must have been in a lot of pain. Given the choice I wouldn't generally want to be sick like that in Thailand. Yeah I've got a small BUPA package, but being realistic, the chances are I'd have to move to one of the "National Health" places Thai taxpayers like him and I can go to. (It was still 2500 Baht a day). The drawback isn't that the palliative care isn't good, it's more about the reliance on ever present family members at the bedside to do some of the more menial nurses tasks (bedpans, washing etc). This in turn leads to all manner of discussion, gossip, and contradiction on the best way to care for individual patients as everybody chips in during doctors rounds. Paul's wife has been around to help him though , I wonder how I'd feel sick and alone in a ward like that….
Anyway, he phoned me this morning and says he's back at home with a bunch of drugs to take to improve his situation. Good news!
Bangkok is going to be a slightly strange place from Wednesday next week. There is going to be an official mourning period of about 5 days to mark the death of the Kings sister last year. This has something to do with the number of days since her death and certain Buddhist requirements. This also happens to fall on Loykrathong..the festival of light where lovers put their lanterns into the canals and seas to thank the river/rain God for all his life giving bounties. I'm not altogether sure how the two will pan out. Certainly early next week would be a good time to stock up the fridge on beer as there won't be any on sale over next weekend at all. OK so there are usually some places you can get it, but I'm pretty sure this particular mourning period will be uniformly observed. In fact I'm still half expecting to hear the school will close. I'm sure there will be a big dip in student numbers attending the school that weekend anyway.
My folks are off on their 50th anniversary luxury cruise round the med. I expect they are literally "having a ball!"..Can't see my dad enjoying the company of the stuffed shirt brigade much…..Still, the itinery makes up for it. Have a blast guys!
Hey There! (31/10/09),
As you probably gathered my blog is a bit late this week as I'm just back from a week's holiday to Borneo, and I've had problems logging it on mr site…..
And a very interesting place Borneo turned out to be too! Aside from the dog leg journey via Kuala Lumpur (a rather grinding 12 hours of planes and airports) I was surprised at the juxtaposition of wild rainforest and modern KK town.
We found a nice 3 star hotel downtown (1200 Baht/20 quid) a night for an ensuite single room and started early the next morning to plan our itineries. Jon as it turned out, opted to spend pretty much the whole time climbing up the arduous Mount Kinabalu, a minimum 2 trek trek up a quite technical mountain, the highest in S.E. Asia. I, on the other hand chose a number of more relaxed options.
One thing we did do together on Tuesday was the afternoon and evening river safari down in the Kiralu wetlands 3 hours from Kota Kinabalu to see the rare and indigenous Proboscus monkeys. It was surprisingly good trip, not only did we see three different types of monkeys, but also big woodpeckers, HUGE fluorescent Kingfishers, and even a small croc!!! When it got dark, the trees down at the jetty were adorned with swarming fireflies..never seen them before!! Wow!
So Jon departed for the mountain the next morning and I went off on a days diving off Pulau Gaya. Really lovely coral forests and all sorts of interesting and intriguing beasties, the most impressive of which was a cuttlefish the size of a stuffed holdall changing colour as I wiggled my fingers at it!! The afternoon was on a small wreck (my first one) and I saw some big groupers amongst the spiralling schools of batfish. Even the ever menacing triggerfish didn't seem to want to have a go. It was a daddy clownfish (of "Finding Nemo" fame ) that was squaring up to me and nipped my dive buddy!!! I met up with a few locals over the evening and went out on one of those drunken holiday randans you only do once a holiday!!! Beer and Whisky chasers (just HOW old am I?), and finishing off at a seafront nightclub to watch the semi-finals of the Ms Borneo 2008 competition!! (Very Naice..from what little I can actually recall) Just as well I had nothing booked the next day, I felt terrible! I just about managed a wander about town in the afternoon.
I had hoped to do the grade 4 river rafting trip, but the river was flooded and it was simply too dangerous, so I had to make do with the more gentle Kiulu river. That said there were still a goodly few rapids to get your heart racing. The one and a half hour journey up through the jungle to the interior was also well worth the trip.
On the Friday the weather really set in. I was possibly secretly hoping the dive trip I'd booked would be cancelled as even from the harbour the wind was strong and the swell looked to be imposing. This was confirmed as the boat man couldn't get the boat started (flooded engines) and we had to move everything to another boat..and of course, something was forgotten..the dive ladder!!! DOH!
We reached the point of entry and the boat was swirling around in 3 metre+ swells. It was immediately apparent on entry that visibility was awful. I could barely see my dive masters fins from 1 metre away and in those conditions I felt rather panicky. We went down to 22 metres and scratched about the bottom with a torch , but there was very little to see. On top of that I was having real "rookie" like problems with staying still and with my buoyancy, which only got worse as we neared the surface in the swells. Trying to get back into the dive boat in those conditions was one experience I'd choose to forget…it wasn't easy and really quite scary. The second dive in a more secluded bay was much better…a black pitted snake eel, and a blue spotted ray amongst the things we saw. Again I felt something wasn't quite right….my regulator seemed to be behaving, strangely, the diaphragm oddly buzzing in some way, my tanks weren't the full 200 psi but 175 when I went in, and despite taking on an extra kilo in weight I was struggling all the time with my buoyancy and the conditions and so was gulping away on the air like a novice.(which I suppose I am) I think I was barely down for 30 minutes instead of a more normal 40-45. You just can't fight this sort of environment, just go with it…but I had to stay close and finned hard in the currents. I had the option of taking an additional third dive after lunch as the other two booked had prepaid for 3, but I was down with the conditions, the visibility, and my general aquatic performance (a bad dive day?) so I opted to relax in the restaurant on the beach and watch the teeming rain and a comic volleyball match the locals were having against the Japanese. First rule of diving: It you're not having fun, feel unwell or simply tired, Don't do it! If I had gone down again I'm sure after 15 minutes I'd wished I hadn't.
It seemed from Thursday night on, the island was locked in the tail of some passing big storm. It pretty much rained incessantly all through Friday and Saturday. It might have been the start of the monsoon season proper, but my understanding was that it came in November. Either way, I'd done all the outdoor fun stuff with the exception of that last diving day in glorious sunshine, so I really didn't mind. That said, it's been a long time since I've seen constant rain for 2 days, it reminded me of the Autumnal conditions in Scotland haha!
Jon came back down off the mountain on Saturday barely able to walk (and he's mega fit) and we spent a pleasant Saturday night drinking beer, eating lambchops and watching the football….Sunday afternoon and it was back off to the airport.
Prognosis: Borneo is a cool place to visit, it's not as expensive as you might think, and the people are really friendly and helpful all of the time with a real willingness to talk to you. Their English is generally excellent. The rainforest jungle is spectacular, and the sea is teeming with all sorts of exotic wildlife. There are tons of really fun things to do but you need to plan a little structure in advance to get it all in. I'll most certainly go back and do an extended dive trip to the world famous Sipidan islands and explore over to the North East and Sarawak areas sometime in the future after I've explored elsewhere like Sumatra and Sulawesi. I think I went a little late on in the year weatherwise, but it was relatively quiet in terms of tourists on the plus side. I really hope Air Asia reinstates the direct flight though…a twelve hour 2 flight trip is daunting.I hate airports! I could have flown direct to Sydney in Australia for that amount of time
So it's back to the grind! All manner of new things to take on and possibly a shedload of work to do at home at night..In fact, I may even have to go in on my last day off tomorrow to get it the weekend tasks prepped as I've got to attend a full day training seminar on Thursday to boot…..Then again, I really should at least try and get a morning game of tennis with Bruce in first eh?
Hi there! (17/10/08),
Well I finally got my sleep in! I did exactly what I said I would do and hid away in my room all day on Monday. It were bliss!!
It's kinda weird here weatherwise just now. We're supposed to be going into the last part of the rainy season, yet we haven't really had much rain lately and it's suddenly getting really hot again. November and December are allegedly the cool season, but if anything the temperatures are rising again. The week up in Kanchanaburi was also really hot with very little rain. Looks like even the tropics are suffering from odd weather patterns. I could really do with some cool and fresh nights for a change!
I did manage one set of doubles tennis on Tuesday morning. Though Bruce turned up late with Jelly belly so I was already on court:- invited to play with some of the local Thai guys. I was naturally slightly worried about making a total dick of myself faced with a bunch of folk who could really play! As it turned out, I only served one double fault, played as good as I have in a while, and we ended winning the Tie-break to win the set 7-6. By then it was 1130 and simply too bloody hot to even consider a second set!! I'm still stiff in the lower back region..I'm really going to have to do something about it. Whether this be yoga, stretching exercises, Chiropractors, or acupuncture I'm not sure. I'll get on to it when I get back from Borneo.
Ah yes Borneo! Two days to go. Jon and I have a very similar idea of what we want out of the holiday_ which is a bit of a relief as he's usually far more gung ho for extreme physical challenges like trekking in Nepal, or mountain biking in the Atlas mountains. I think even he needs a few days beach time before it's back to the Kindergarten grind in November.
Talking of things work: I've just had my job description increase by about 50%. As of now I'm gonna be heading up the Adult programme. By this I mean all the in house courses for adult students: IELTS, TOEIC,TOEFL, Effective Writing etc etc. I'm going to do all the scheduling, find all the teachers , sort out the contracts, book the rooms, do the IELTS final oral testing, and generally co-ordinate the courses in this building and across campus at the Mahit building. It's quite a fiddly business, it requires an eye for detail and a bit of planning/scheduling. I'm sure I can do it (though I'm bound to screw up at some point), and it's certainly good solid management experience…but I feel I'm starting to reach capacity of what I can do well now. I'm not keen on going into anything on a wing and a prayer not matter what I do here. It's like a house of cards, or the beat of a butterfly's wings on the other side of the planet. I screw up, and a lot of people get affected. The bottom line is I'm going to be busy as Hell pretty much all of the time till at least the middle of next year. I've also chosen to take on my old T4 class into T5 for another 33 weeks starting this Saturday. This presents problems in so far as they've already had me for 99 hours so my bag of teaching tricks and games is a little on the empty side. But since 9 of 11 students in the class renewed (for a class on a Saturday night too!!!) and really wanted me to come back and teach them, I'd feel I was letting them down a bit if I didn't do it. They're a nice lot, a but raucous, but well meaning….. BUT I'll have to be going off book again and turning it into another task based project class like my L9's. To do it well means a lot of work and preparation which is time consuming. Then there's all the usual school Lto Teen relevelling, walk in pre-testing, and regular round testing: Rounds 1+8 are coming up in early January. Then there's the series of between 7 and 10 residential Egat camps we'll be doing on our days off in the first half of the New Year, then there's the Spa project for the Ministry of Education: we're under strict time constraints to finish 60 x 1 hour lessons before the end of January, then there's the usual teaching, observing, managing , and running my team and the school at the weekends with the 3 monthly reviews coming up and regular Teacher observations shortly. And I've got to start studying this online course when I get back! I've got my laptop in today so Lee can set it up and install all the various programmes and gubbins that will allow me to work a bit more from home. I don't think I'll ever be much cop at Adobe illustrator though. As soon as I see a bunch of micro tool windows crop up all over the screen ,my eyes glaze over and my incumbent technophobia involuntarily kicks in!
Admittedly, some of this stuff is being done because I need the additional cash on top of my salary, but I am planning to go away for a couple of weeks over Christmas (Sumatra probably) and I need to see my family in early April…I can't see myself taking on any other commitments for a while..no extra corporate classes around town etc! I find it all daunting when I think about it I must say, but with proper care and attention I should be able to avoid sitting in the office in the dark on a Friday night and scurrying around like a blue arsed fly throughout the weekends!! Though it's probably time to buy a big fancy desk diary!!
As I'll be in Borneo next week I reckon it'll be unlikely that my usual Friday blog is forthcoming. I expect to post on Tuesday 28th.
A final word on babies!!! Congratulations to my pal Dom who's wife Jenny has just had a baby girl.
And "Break a leg" to my friends Ivon and Vicky who are expecting their first sometime in the next week. I'm thinking of you.
Hi there! (11/10/08),
Another looong week! I'm just back from running/teaching a kiddies camp up at the Legacy River Kwai Resort in Kanchanaburi for 5 days. The theme was "History Hunters", we looked at what happened up there , Bridge on the river Kwai stuff, the death railroad, the role of Thailand during WWII. The kids age ranged from 7-15 so there was quite an age spread. I spent the mornings outside on a roofed pontoon down on the river teaching the 11-15 year olds and Lee taught the young kids in an air-con room..lucky guy!!!. The afternoons were spent doing joint activities and watching over them as they played sport. The evenings were filled with games, quizzes, movies, activities, etc etc. Needless to say, Lee and I didn't get much rest at all. We took turns getting up to the activity room for 0730 to lead the 30 minutes aerobics/warm up session. Then it was breakfast (table manners teaching!), then 2 1.5 hour teaching sessions, then lunch, then games/activities, then sport, then shower time, then dinner, then activities/games, then diary time/milk drinking, then bedtime. And then we had to patrol and help out the teaching assistants put them all to bed. The first night, the power went out from 11pm till 4 am, the kids were all terrified (of ghosts!) so we had to move them in to bunk together with torches (they had lit candles..oooo-er!!) phew! .THEN we'd have a quick meeting to discuss any problems and plan the next day (over a beer). Then it was bed about 11pm only and up the next morning to do it all again. We also did a field trip to the bridge and the railway of death museum, herding them all safely from point to point. I really enjoyed the experience , though it was extremely hard work and very long hours, (11-13 a day!!). There were only 27 kids on the camp and they were all really pretty good and well behaved. I can't imagine the hassle with a camp twice the size with all manner of crying kids, bullying and other such problems. I was very proud of the two quality presentations my class came up with at the end of the week (one art/comic strip project telling the story of the P.O.W's, and the other one a narrated play!). To be fair though, as camp leader and programme/planner etc etc Lee had an even harder job than me. Even with radio microphones in all the rooms he was still losing his voice by the end!! It was a little difficult in so far as we had to do almost everything. The teaching assistants were fine, but all rookies to the residential camp game(like me!) and so generally lacked any balls in the discipline or decision making front, so Lee and myself were running around like blue arsed flies like a kind of manic tag team. One of us would wolf down food so the other could go and check on the kids who'd finished lunch/dinner early and were bouncing round the activity room. It went on like that the whole time. I honestly scarcely had time to go for a pee in 5 days haha! I went to bed at 2130 last night , woke up at 0630 this morning and am still stiff and tired!!! It looks like this Monday will be a day in lying on the bed with the curtains drawn again!!
So what's been going down in the land of dodgy politics. Images of tear gassed demonstrators headed up all the news channelas in the arly part of the week. It seems some of the PAD anti-government leaders gave themselves over to the authorities and were promptly incarcerated. By all accounts the government house "sit in" demo continued peacefully until suddenly tear gas and riot shields became the order of the day and violence ensued. I saw a particularly dramatic piece of footage where a policeman was deliberately run over by a speeding 4x4 and then it backed over him!! Nasty! Anyways things have quieted down again for the time being ,but I get the feeling this stalemate can't really continue for much longer.
What is strange is the strength of the Thai economy through all this. In a week where there are all these events in the streets of Bangkok and stocks and shares are plummeting in a worldwide crisis the Thai Baht remains strong. Indeedy it's hovering around the 57 to the pound mark..It was 70 when I first got here. I hope this freefall in thw world economy will find solid ground soon, I can't imagine the hardship some people will suffer having seen their savings effectively wiped away. One thing is certain, we're going to see a fundamental change in the way banks assess credit risk to customers and each other. The other certain thing is that the cost living is going to rise everywhere as the greed of the money men and suppliers reasserts itself. Not that understand any of this but apparently the market of "derivatives" appears to gamble on the market going down , so even while this global economy meltdown is happening, people are making a lot of money. I am glad I didn't gamble all of the little savings I had on the stock market 3 years back….Let's just hope the co-op bank doesn't go the way of the Icelandic banking system!!!
This week celebrates my 3rd anniversary of coming here. In fact I think it's today! All in all, I reckon I made the right choice in changing my career and my life. I still miss all my friends and family from time to time, but you only get one life and you gotta strive to make it a happy and, perhaps just as importantly, a meaningful one.
I think I maybe saw that more clearly than ever this week in the happy smile of 27 childrens' faces. Aaaw!
Hi there! (02/10/08),
Heavens to Betsy! Where did September go? I'm sure this is a sign of advancing age. When I was young it seemed like a year before a month went past, and a decade between each Christmas. Now everything is blur of half remembered details and an infrequent shocks as I wake up abruptly not even knowing what day it is, invariably thinking it's Saturday and I'm late for work haha! At least in a land of seasons there's something to mark lifes cycle ("aye right! shite weather an 'aw"! I hear you say!).
Though I'd be the first to admit this past month it's been no wonder I'd thought it'd been rushing by. Last Monday and Tuesday were my first days off in 3 weeks , and will be my last days off for another 2 as I'm offski to the kids camp in Kanchanaburi on Monday. SO DON'T expect a blog update on Friday as I will be coming back in a bus with a bunch of hyperactive bouncing kids….(They won't be getting any sugar laden hot chocolate at night this time..not after the shenanigans that apparently went on last time. Hahah). My day off on Monday was spent in a dark room. I didn't even draw back the curtains..benefits of a land bathed in eternal sunshine, you never feel as if you're "wasting" a sunny day. I DID mean to get to the condo pool..but..well..you know….
My other bit of news is that I'm OFF TO BORNEO!! Wahey. Indeedy, I booked the flight yesterday. Jon, ( my band drummer..though the bassist has just quit!!!) and I are off to do a bit of trekking, water safaris, and diving. It's only for a week. But with a return flight down there barely 150 quid, it seemed a great idea. We'll be heading to the Malaysian part of Sapah. The town of Kota Kinabalu is in the shadow of the highest mountain in South East Asia. It remains to be seen if I've the energy for the two day hike up that one. I'd rather mess about under the canopy and see what flora and fauna I can see. Though I am prewarned..I will not, repeat not, be overnighting anywhere wild. Travellers stories of fire ants and assorted nasties out to consume and digest any exposed parts of you in the twilight hours are not my idea of fun. Even as it is I'm gonna have to go looking for Leech socks..Yummy! Naice! The most important thing I get out of this trip is a lot of rest, relaxation and a bit of psychological peace from the quiet emotional turmoil I've been in. I could tell you what's been up, but then I'd have to kill you…AND I won't even go into being currently courted by a rich, young, and beautiful Mafia "princess" who seems very used to getting what she wants, especially when settling down with a nice farang man to be the substitute father of her kids seems high on her agenda…nuff said.
I'm often torn between using this blog as a complete confessional (which is not a very good idea) or as some kind of overtly censored (for your own protection) version of my life which hints at, but barely scratches, some of the meatier (or gossipier) realities of living in the East. Besides, then I think worrying my mum unnecessarily just ain't right. I don't tend to do many stupid things anymore…but then we all spit out the dummy, throw the toys out of the pram, and behave very oddly and out of character from time to time when crisis or frustration combine to unleash the madness in us. I guess it's OK as long as we recognize the temporary nature of such times… Know your demons and all that!
" What on Earth is he talking about?" I hear you all say. That's exactly my point . I can't really tell or explain in easy-to-swallow bite sized chunks. Unless you broaden your horizons and try to assimilate different cultures and attitudes first hand, you're always gonna carry around the excess, or plain inaccurate or possibly provincial moral values and ethics of your referent group or country. It's a bit like when I was 17, I worked as a labourer for Rentokil in the school summer holidays. Over three short months I was aware of amending my accent and my polite language to fit in with a bunch of gruff carpenters, sparks, and plumbers!!! I don't pull that sort of thing nowadays, but I probably fit in better and smoother here than I would have thought possible a couple of years back… "Boys gone troppo"! I hear you say….If you only knew…..But then again I really don't give a flying squirrel what people, what anybody, thinks about me anymore, I'm past all of that. I love my job, like and enjoy my colleagues company, and feel, however misguidedly, that in some small way I maybe am making a positive difference to a few eager minds. Well at least I try and get people to express and think for themselves even if it probably not worth the effort of scaling ingrained cultural monoliths. It can't be bad to try, even if it is slightly delusional eh? I am after all a teacher. OK , so I'm an English teacher, but surely there's an innate obligation of every teacher who cares what they do to make the world a better place...."He's got a fever and is delirious!" I hear you say.....Could well be...
On reflection, probably just best the blog remains exactly the way it is.
Just had the briefing for the Kanchanaburi "Bridge on the River Kwai" kiddies camp next week. Looks like it'll be a hoot actually. I'm sure it'll be tiring but there are all sorts of afternoon sports and activities going on which, although I'll have to oversee, I'm sure I'll get a wee dip in the pool or a kick of the football too!! I'll have a class of 11-15 year olds to teach so they're not as young as I expected!
As regards the Egat camps I've been doing these last few months, it Looks like they want us for most of the first half of next year to carry on the residential training programme. On top of that, I'm involved with the other guys in putting together an English training curriculum for Spa managers on behalf of the Ministry of Education. That's probably gonna compel me to give up one of my days off to come in and work on it until Christmas. It's an interesting and challenging project to be involved in. If it were to prove successful, I'd expect we'd see more curriculi stuff to tender for floating our way from them.
I'm just below the level of biting off more than I can chew just now, and that's without embarking on the online training programme I set up for the management team just yet..That'll have to wait till after I get back from Borneo!
Hi there! (26/09/08),
It's been a week of changes this one. Tall Paul has finally decided to call it a day as bassist with the band. He's getting really busy at work and love seems to be in the air with a girl from way out of town. All in all it's best to leave him to his own devices and move on. We always said the band was about having fun and enjoying the process of playing music. If it becomes a chore in any way it loses its appeal very quickly. I sometimes get a bit disgruntled about carting my gear round a hot and sweaty city en route to the studio, but when I'm there I'm always glad I made the effort. Anyway, it's far better to call it a day in this line up and remain friends. The rest of us met for a pint last night, (Tall Paul had a late night biz conference call) and decided we'd go on. Now the problem will be finding a bassist though I may just have handle on that. We may have to start playing one or two more contemporary songs too. It's been a blast playing all this obscure stuff but we'll have to become just a wee bitty more accessible.
Jon the drummer and I also discussed options for the up and coming October week holiday. I think we're gonna head out somewhere for an adventure like we did in Laos. I had a few flight schedules with me to the pub and we discussed the options. We're only going to have about 7 days so I didn't want to spend loads of time trying to cram in multi- flight transfers and long bumpy bus journeys. We both agreed walking up a volcano, seeing some nature, and a bit of beach/scuba diving would be about the right criteria. At the moment Borneo is getting the nod. There is also an Urang-Utan sanctuary there you can stay at. As Jon's a ginger doubtless he'll be of considerable interest to them haha! Either way, I've got to get out of town and do something worthwhile. I've been working and saving pretty hard, and with holiday weeks so few and far between it's madness not to utilize them properly. Besides I need the distraction and a bit of cheering up. I haven't exactly had the best time of it in the emotional stakes lately. Whilst I remain realistic and philosophical about it all, I don't want to hang around staring vacantly into the bottom of a beer bottle or lie by the pool in a Thai beach resort listening to vacuous vacationers.
Talking of work, I just got back from delivering the 5th and final EGAT camp for this year last Wednesday. It's been a really good experience and pretty hard work (especially as they tend to fall on my days off—I'm looking forward to a lie in on Monday WAHEY!). We appear to have gone down a storm there, and the training centre manager is lining us up for another NINE 3 day residential camps next year!!! I'm not sure how that is all going to work out, but we've got a pretty slick training operation going on now. It'll be a question of whether the current management dream team will all be able to get away from our standing work commitments. I would agree however we've really got to have these camps span our days off and do most of them early in the week. The Wed-Fri camp we did time before last was exhausting, and then immediately going back to teach and run the weekend school put a bit of a strain on all of us.
So it's FINALLY a couple of days off on this Monday and Tuesday coming, then a full weeks work, and then I'm straight off to work on a 5 day kiddies camp up in Kanchanaburi…. It's in a "history hunters" theme discovering the story of the bridge on the river Kwai and the plight of the POW's under Japanese run Thailand in WWII. I'm slightly nervous about volunteering to staff it as my teaching experience is solidly with older students (11 years+) and I'm sure I'll have one or two difficulties. BUT..I am here to learn and develop my career and teaching skills. Lee (my assistant manager colleague who creates and co-ordinates all these summer camps) is leaving Go-Inter at the end of October, and while I lack the expertise to create a suitable curriculum, I need to know the elements that make a camp successful and the pitfalls too.. So he'll be camp leader and group 1 teacher and I'll be the other staff teacher for group 2. We'll both have a couple of Thai Teaching Assistants to help out and marshall them about. There's only actually about 3 hours of "formal" teaching schedules each day with the rest of the time spent on trips, sports, activities and games (including a giant water fight I believe). I'm not under any illusions as to how exhausting it'll be with 30 kids for 5 days! I'm certain to be needing a holiday afterwards haha!! AND I'll probably be very hoarse from bawling over the cacophony!!
I've been co-ordinating some in-house training lately. We all had a session on adobe illustrator on Thursday. It's bamboozling and complicated computer packages like that where you seen just how generally inept and technophobic you are! Even doing simple stuff like manipulating an image and embedding it on a page had the management team umming and aahing as line upon line of accidental image overlays appeared. I'd like to practice it a bit more in the office on my PC, but installing the programme will probably shut the whole thing down in a jiffy.
I've also now got the release codes to a whole series of online training. It's part of the Cambridge books product line. Each successfully completed course even comes with it's own wee certificate haha! Each member of the management team is going to do a different one. I'm gonna embark on the "Introduction to task based learning " when I get back from the Kanchanaburi camp. It'll be good to get into a little bit of study again. It's only about 3 hours a fortnight apparently. That level of commitment suits me just fine haha.
Hi there! (19/09/08),
You got to wonder what kind of a crazy world you live in sometimes. Barely has PM Samak stood down (for appearing on a cookery show on a commercial channel fir cryin' out loud), and his party has decided to replace him with ex-PM Taksins Brother-in-law, whose sister (Taksin's wife) is on the run from a three year sentence on corruption charges!!!...So we've just had all these mass demonstrations and government compound sit-ins by the PAD pro-democracy movement to change the government as they believed that Samak was a "puppet" of Taksin, and now the politkers put his brother-in-law in place!!!
Well at least it sends out a pretty clear and transparent message eh? I'm really not sure what the repercussions of this latest move will be. Doubtless, there'll be a series of strong demos at some point. I only hope that the new guy uses as much restraint as his predecessor did and doesn't send in the troops and the tanks..Where the army and the police stand in all of this is unclear. As far as I can make out allegiances of the security forces seem to work on an individual basis. Apart from the few motivated ones, people in the street shrug and smile resignedly about it, they've seen it too many times to care or get really upset by it all.
I hope this whole business gets sorted out soon, it doesn't mix well with worldwide financial crises, which, according to an expert in the field I know is just the tip of the iceberg and there will be LOTS more to come. I think a lot of people (myself included) had the wool pulled over our eyes about a new age of easy credit. Debtors jails don't exist any more, but if they did, they'd be full to the gunwhales. All these banks existed on their reputation and image .NONE of them (a couple excepting) can put their money where their mouth is in terms of hard cash reserves. It's all just electronically generated money on a computer screen. It's just a typed out invoice from the credit card company. The "cashless society" theorists have dreamt about has led to an utter cavalier attitude by those who should have known better. Rest assured, the fat cats in the financing world will come out of this smelling of roses and also be turning a fat profit. I'm just glad I haven't put all my eggs in one basket and put all my savings into speculative shares.
Those of you who have been following my story so far will now that it's been tough time for me and Ning lately. We've sustained this long distance relationship for a well over 2 years now, but the time has come to find definitive closure about what to do. She's off with her work to the
Oh dear, I just re-read the last paragraph. That'll have my mum on the phone faster than you can say, "Oh my poor boy!" haha.
My boss has been throwing down the gauntlet to me lately too. He's trying to get me focused on my future and career development. It's kind of him and I understand and appreciate his intentions, but maybe cause we're both Scottish we end up at loggerheads, in locked horned cul-de-sacs. I don't think I've ever met somebody who cares so much about what he does, yet hides it in such a gruff and disposable manner. You have to admire how much he tries to always move forwards even given the indifference and inherent negative entropy of complacent Thai Higher Educational establishments. I think my lack or forward inertia disappoints him a little…Yet I feel I still have lots to do and learn in my present role. I've been setting up a series of inhouse and online trainings for staff and I'm trying to learn about task based learning as I do it with my project class. I'm also studying how to effectively incorporate technology into task based learning. That and al the other management issues every week are keeping my on my toes. I do understand his point of view though. I will have to think about changing my role at work or engage in more serious study in the coming years. Most of my colleagues are in one way or another forcing themselves to see themselves 10 or 20 years down the line. It isn't being narcisstic just practical. It may be true to say our personal lives are generating this view more than our professional ones, but at least we're thinking about it. I think once I've sorted out a few of my immediate personal issues I'll be able to focus on aims and objectives more clearly .
So no football and no tennis this last week..not at all good. I'll need to get some exercise in soon. We did take the staff out to a bowling/Karaoke night on Wednesday night. That was a laugh. I really don't like Karaoke much, but now that people realize I can sing a bit (let's say I can hold a tune, which is more than many of colleagues) I'm having songs chosen for me without my knowledge and the mic thrust into my hand with monotonous regularity. The irony is I have to do the final training camp down at Bang Pakong power station Mon-wed next week and we seem to have an obligatory Karaoke session with the delegates built into our curriculum now. They're a young lot so maybe I'll do some Kylie as opposed to Elvis haha.
Hi there! (14/09/08),
I'm a bit late with the blog this week….I've been away training electricity generating authority managers and then gone straight into the weekend teaching/managing…Soooo I'm a wee bitty tired. I always feel like this on a Sunday afternoon as the school winds down for another weekend. This one has been quite fraught as we've also had testing for round 6 (which I'm in charge of) in two different places. Fortunately I did most of the prep work last week, but there's always the odd niggly/personnel thing that comes along.
The EGAT training camp was the best of the 4 we've done so far I think. Thestudents were keen and happy go lucky. They took to all the games and activities with gusto making our teaching sessions fly by. Still my calves feel all sore and knotted from all the time pacing About on solid floors. We tried doing an "all change" activity undercover but outside late one afternoon and it ABSOLUTELY poured down. I found myself bawling and shrieking to 18 students over a tropical storm…I was sweated through by the end of it haha.
Whilst there, I got bitten by what I must guess was a type of mosquito/insect that hadn't feasted on me before, and my left upper arm and elbow have swelled up quite a bit in quite a violent reaction. The skin was burning hot for 2 days, but I've been treating it with Betnovate anti-histamine cream and now it's settling down to being just generally itchy. The actual bite itself is tiny….wonder what the bug had in its spit that caused me so much discomfort. I'll need to be care of the fauna down there, especially as we'll be going back a number of times in the future apparently.
Still I mustn't grumble. My pal Paul returned from his week trip down the coast to see if it would improve his skin complaint and has suffered a serious relapse. I still think he has to move out of the house , but it's getting really bad and making him understandably miserable. The band hasn't been playing as a consequence of course…It's all a bit sad. I just hope they can find out what's up with him.
It seems that
It's 5 weeks to my next wee holiday. I'm still not quite sure what to do with it. Maybe I'll head over to
That's not to say I'm not currently craving the close proximity of a woman. My dreams have been most intense and graphic on that front recently. Whoever said that celibacy was character building was clearly talking an utter load of bollocks. I do realize though, that I'm craving the closeness of a sleepy cuddle almost as much…
Outside of work, and the odd drink afterwards with colleagues, I've been living like a bit of a hermit lately. Infrequent days off, (cos of all the extra work stuff) have been spent reading books and watching independent movies that I've downloaded). I've actually enjoyed the time on my own, but occasionally I need to remind myself to try and be a little more proactive in the things I do with my free time. Aside from the tennis (again this tues..wahey) and the football I don't really do much else. I guess I don't quite have the energy levels I used to haha.
So it's back down to Egat a week on Monday for the final training camp this year…wheew. I think the whole team is starting to get affected the 'groundhog day" or deja vue of the place and the course. The food however is seemingly getting worse if such a thing were possible. They tried to feed us the same salt dried fish 3 days in a row. Next time I'm gonna mark it with a marker pen!!
My boss asked me if I wanted to go to a day long seminar by teaching guru Dr Crashen next Saturday (someone would have to do my 2 classes and I'd lose out on 4000 baht tho). But I think I'd like to go actually. Ain't nuttin' wrong wi' a bit o professionnull development innit?
Good luck to my mate Dom who'll probably be a daddy by the weeks end…..Boy or girl ? " You want what you get " he said…..Very true.
Hi there (5/9/08),
Another state of emergency in less than 12 months! Technically all meetings/gatherings of more than 5 people are banned!! Somehow I don't think that bit works….
So what's the score on the ground? Well, the stick wielding farmers of the north came down late last Sunday night and had a set to with the PAD squatters in the government house compound. 1 person died…. PM Samak has unequivocably said he will not stand down or resign..This inevitably leads to the issue of what to do with the civil unrest. He has got court orders allowing him to remove the protesters but so far has shown extraordinary restraint. There's a funny feeling on the streets just now. It's simply not as busy as usual; the roads re quieter, the skytrain less pack, the market stalls fewer, a few corporate classes getting cancelled. If a city can hold its breath maybe this is what we're looking at. Either way, as a farang I'm pretty much safe. I don't live in the affected areas and I'm not about to go on a jolly with my camera to get snaps! There has been talk of 24 different unions going on strike, but apart from a few highways infrequently blocked and some train disruption most of the planned action seems to have failed to go ahead…Perhaps it will all blow over, but there seems to be a little more edge to the proceedings in comparison to the coup last year.
I've had a few friends passing through this week. Graeme came back from India and picked up the rucksack he'd been storing with me, and Leigh, Donna, and baby have shown up for a week…They haven't got very much positive to say about life in Melbourne. They really must have gone troppo. All of it sounds so familiar: 2 weeks to see a doctor, hoards of neds sweeping majestically through the Highpoint (aka knifepoint) shopping centre, shit pizza and coke for 15 quid, and a long early commute at 6am every weekday…YUM! Apparently down there in Winter it's 3-13 degrees in Winter and summer up to 40..so the houses generally don't tend to have heating and at this time of year it's BALTIC. I sometimes miss being cold, but every day? No thanks.
Needless to say Leigh, Chris and I painted the town red on Monday night. I haven't been on the randan like that in a very long time…Tuesday was a bit of a write off , though I did manage to finally get to Pantip technology plaza and buy a portable hard drive. My laptop was full and I had to transfer files (movies mostly). I don't know what it is about these places, but I find them daunting. You go in, you know what you want, know the rough price, and SUDDENLY you're riddled with doubts as all sorts of gadgets, newer models, gubbins, doobries, bluetoothy, DDRAM, hyper-drive stuff, is flying at you. I'm not technophobic , but I genuinely don't know what half the stuff is for. It gets so bad, you wonder if what you came for is actually what you want. It's like some sort of wondrous toyshop for adults. It was amazing to see how outdated my 15 month old laptop has so quickly become. Specs ,specs, specs, it's all about the specs! I even saw Chinese copies of the apple iphone for 100 quid…I still hanker after one slightly, but keep telling myself to wait a couple of years..I'm far better off saving . Whilst I'm not exactly a portrait of a Frugal and monk-like existence, I have been really trying to keep my spending down.
So there's another EGAT training camp next week. Another three days out of town followed by a helluva busy weekend testing . Then back for 10 days, then one last camp for the year. After that it looks like I'll be part of a team darwing up a teaching curriculum for Spa Managers on behalf of the Department of Education. It'll probably take till Christmas. I've already made inroads to see about getting a day in a spa to get an idea of their English needs…Doubtless I'll have to endure a pedicure or mud bath or something as part of the process. Then it'll be back to EGAT in January and February as they want the 'dream team" to teach a further 200 delegates. I'm also in the running for doing the in-house 5 day kids camp up in Kanchanaburi in early October, though I'm not sure I'll have the requisite energy!
So I guess I've a bit of a plan over Autumn. I do have a week off and may end up heading off Phisanulok, Loei way and the National Parks of central
On the school front, my L9 special project class is launching issue one of their "Green Earth Gazette" this week. They've worked really hard on it for the last three weeks, I'm very proud of them. Now all we gotta do is staple a couple of hundred copies together and put the posters up. My only worry is that the parents will ALL want their kids doing project type classes. They require a degree hard work and take a lot of thought and preparation as you don't tend to use any books at all in project based learning…Think I'll reward them will a BBC Earth special on Volcanoes in period three..What a nice guy eh?
Hello there (29/08/08),
I've had a few enquiries about what is going on in Thailand just now…Well, it seems the PAD mob (or "mop" as the Thais pronounce them) have raised the stakes a little higher……
It all started with the incredibly speedy way in which the proceedings against former PM Taksin and his wife were processed. If you recall she was found guilty but given bail to leave the country to attend the Olympics opening ceremony from where they both absconded back to the
…. Back again, I just had to do a 30 minute Reiki session on a colleague's back. It's always funny to see the expressions on these tough northern "Doubting thomases" when a Reiki session does more for them than 4 painkillers, 2 anti-inflammatories, and the back rub ministrations of a live-in girlfriend…Bottom line, as I told him, "44 year old men shouldn't be bench pressing their own bodyweight (80kg) 75 times over in a gym"…nothing wrong with a bit of toning and light weight repetition, but your own bodyweight? Nah!
My poor band mate small Paul is having a nightmare. He's developed the worst cirrosis/ alopecia (however you spell it) all over his body. He's a flaking mess. Not one part of his body has escaped this. He's been stoned on steroids and antihistamines for weeks, the moment he lowers the dosage it'sd back with a vengeance. I've told him to take the doctors advice and move out of his home for a week..Actually I told him to get out of town altogether. I think as he lives near a large canal, and his street is prone to flooding that somehow the water is getting into his house water system and he's being slowly poisoned. Either way, it's a complete nightmare for him, he looks so bad and everyone stares, for a teacher that's just the worst! We've cancelled a gig on Saturday because of this. Poor sod! I really hope he sorts this soon.
So, Kerry's cousin Graham aka. Wig is back in town from his 2 months in
AND Leigh and Donna hit town again on Monday. Doubtless they'll be a boys night or two coming up this week..and I'm trying to live frugally haha….actually I'm doing OK on that front, but my laptop has just started to tell me it's getting a bit low of the disk space. I really am going to have to bite the bullet and go get me a portable hard drive from Pantip plaza. I've been going crazy downloading all last years independent films I can find. You don't see them out here at all.
That's about it for now. I need to get on and prep this weekends classes. It's pretty quiet in the office for a Friday as all the thai support staff are elsewhere in the University to see the Crown Princess do something. There's a look of "Chula pink" shirts to be seen round the campus today!!
Hi There, (21/08/08)
So my pal Pete breezed through BKK this week. Always good to hear a fresh perspective about the general goings on in the
I guess the thing that bothers me as much as slowly but inexorably losing the closest ties with my friends, or missing my family, is that I'm finding it harder to envision ever moving back. I doubt I could really afford it…I mean getting a job, finding a place to stay, settling back in there...it all seems so difficult now, more than ever…it was hard enough to even get an interview when I was IN a job. I can scarcely see the reasons anymore. This place isn't perfect, the heat can be wearing sometimes, the city centre noisy and busy , yet my quality of life is so much better. I count myself lucky to have landed such a good job with a fun and happy working atmosphere: the ipods are never off in the office and we sing along to the tunes as we work over the week.
Questions however remain….what do I do about that time 25 years hence when I need to look after myself in old age? Should I be buying a flat here even in this financial climate? (Houses are better value for money but as Johnny Foreigner I can't own the land beneath) Am I destined to go through life childless and unmarried? Should I consider a course of study to keep trained and enhance my future job prospects? (online MA or Delta, or PGdip/PG Cert). Basically, do I have a plan ? And I don't think I do..I mean I follow through on most of the things I intend to do. I do look for possible business opportunities from time to time. If I do study, to what end? There's no point in studying towards a well paid job at an international school If I find I don't actually want to teach 20+ hours a week and get bogged down in all the minutae like many people I see. Of course the holidays are generous but staff meetings at 0700 every day.? I like the balance between mgt and teaching.. should I do HR stuff? It's all pretty expensive (in Thai terms) so I have to make sure to get some return on my outlay if I do so….Lots of I dunnos here. I guess a sense of personal happiness is where I've always gauged the success or failure of my life and I'm pretty happy here…These questions go round in a loop and epiphanies nowadays are as rare as being aware at a recognizable "crossroads" in your life. Veritable "hens teeth". Up till now I've only ever seen my life choice crossroads from the perspective of the rear view mirror inside a speeding juggernaut:
….."Next petrol station 16 years…"
I'm off on a residential camp for three days again next week…Hard work ,BAD food…I mean BAAD: the only place in Thailand I've ever experienced factory worker type canteen food. Chilli eggs, dried anchovies and stewed Kale for breakfast anyone? Still I'll be saving money, I might just get till the 28th with my 50,000 Baht savings intact..hopefully 75,000 by the end of next month. With two more camps after this one in rapid succession I should definitely reach my 100,000 Baht "Christmas" target by the end of October..It's all new to me this saving malarkey..Not nearly so hard when all you've got to do to save money is not to get suckered into wasting money on gadgets, home improvement, clothes, … just STUFF….The kinda stuff you're not supposed to be able to live without haha. I probably spend heaps on going out compared to a local Thai person though..there's the irony.
My friends Leigh and Donna who moved back to
Tennis was good this week..though we still lost, Bruce and I gave them a run for their money. I caught up with my mate Chris for a long overdue eat and drink this week too so I've been pretty busy.
I've looked into another venue to play this week. They seem quite keen, but their equipment setup leaves a lot to be desired. I need a second opinion.
That's about it for this week. Oh, and congrats to my cousin Mikkel for getting married to Eda. Poor lass..you gotta feel sorry for her!!! haha
Hi there (15/08/08),
Things in a political aspect have calmed down a little since "you-know-who' jumped bail and flew back to the
I've also been hearing rather disturbing news as to how my old colleagues at the Glasgow Tourist Info office and leaving in absolute droves as the working conditions and lack of high leadership are simply too dreadful to bear. I gotta feel sorry for them. Even the ones who've been committed to the god of Customer Service up till now have had it… six resignations in six weeks!..I can imagine just how awful the queues must be at what is traditionally the busiest weekend of the year. My deepest sympathies to those of you left in the rudderless ship: Nines, Gillian, Larissa….I hope you've all got some holiday booked….Maybe you guys should get out of there too..It's really not good for the soul. VisitScotland the bastard son of the Scottish Tourist Board you've got a lot to answer for.
Football was rained off on Sunday after work, but I did get a game of tennis, and a game of golf in this week. Bruce and I stupidly agreed to play the guys beside us at doubles and paid the price of relative but thorough humiliation 6-3 6-0!! And my golf game still teeters between semi acceptable and woeful..but the ground WAS pretty waterlogged AND the clubs are a touch too small for me..sooo. Anyways, it's always nice to be out doing something vaguely sporty. However, my niggly back problem refuses to go away…Maybe it's a compressed disc, or inflamed fluid at the base of my spine..I just dunno. After any kind of running exercise it just kinda seizes up and standing up or bending down becomes a painful chore. Sometimes when I stand up I have to just wait twenty or so seconds until I can straighten my back properly and move. I'm wary of sitting on hard stools or benches and actually stand up and move around when I feel the symptoms of back lock starting. Once it goes, it can take anything from 12 hours to 3 or 4 days to resolve itself. I think quite soon I might have to go in search of a chiropractor or an acupuncturist or something similar. There don't appear to be any osteopaths here. It does leave me slightly concerned that I can't shake it….I might actually have to start a more regular regimen of yoga or something..not something I particularly want to do..but if it stops me getting gradually crippled…
A mix up in communication meant the band didn't practice last week, but we did play together last night and it was really good. It might be a little to early to tell, but I saw the first glimmerings of moving up a notch to the next skill level for about an hour last night. Errors were very few, tightness was at the fore and we all seemed to be trying to interpret the songs rather than just play them accurately. Either way there's something a little new in the air. We also played 2 brand new songs and just about nailed them both after 2 plays each. Alas the monstrously fast, frenetic and rhythmically complex "Brianstorm" by the Arctic Monkeys is still to full of space and pregnant pauses to be anywhere near performance level. One song I did manage to cock up twice has proven to me that there are certain riffy, widdly bits I have to sit down and play EVERY week for twenty minutes to keep my edge. I have also been experiencing a few technical problems with my gear. This corrosive climate is terrible for stuff like that. I think I'll have to get it looked at before I gig again anytime soon. When I see what six hours of heat, humidity, and sweat do to guitar strings, I can only guess what it's doing to the electrical innards of things. Talking of gigs I've heard word that a farang bar on soi Rangnam at victory monument is happy to let us try out there. I'll hopefully go and see the guy soon and thrash out a date where we can get another farang band like the Fake Degrees along, make a decent gig of it and promote properly in advance.
I was toying with the idea of a two day trip down to Pattaya on Sunday night as some of my colleagues are doing teacher training down there on Monday and Tuesday. The main drawback is that it'll be digging a wee bitty into my savings to do so. Then again I'll be working 2 weeks through without a day off after that (another EGAT camp)….Hmm, that lovely pool at the "Peace Resort" is starting to look definitely enticing…but do I really want to night wander round endless beer bars warding off countless tarts whilst drinking too much for a couple of days? That's the problem with Patters you can never have just a quiet time there. It just won't let you.
Hi there, (08/08/08),
I just spent the last hour writing out a very in depth and detailed blog about my life, Thai life etc, only to have it all fail when my computer developed a fault as someone else printed something from our shared printer!! DOH!!!
I haven't really got the time to start all over again…Suffice to say I've been very busy. I was chuffed that the special "Green Day" curriculum I put together for day 2 of the EGAT senior managers 3 day camp we did at the start of the week worked really well. Two down, three more to go…boy they are hard work but also ultimately rewarding. It's a shame the training centre food at Ban Pakong is so bad, that's the only negative! Oh, and that I showed up on day 1 with the WORST tummy bug!! Thank God for Ciprofloxacin!! I never want to go on the skytrain in Monday morning rush hour to the office in that state ever again, I was soo close to losing it, dripping in sweat, tromboning vision, the works. I consequently didn't each much down there: I got back to BKK after 3 days gagging for a decent meal haha! AT TH E RISK OF REPEATING MYSELF I"VE JUST RECOVERED THE 2 PAGE ORIGINAL BLOG DOC SO IT"S GOING HERE
All the 8's huh! A VERY auspicious number in Asia, especially
So I was walking past a building site this morning near my work and all sorts of things were going on..the gates were open, the public were peering in, the workmen standing solemnly around a wee gazebo erected in the middle of all the mud, and a bunch of monks were sitting around chanting! It took me a minute to realize what was going on..They were obviously about to put in the first foundation pillar and had to ask the monks for a blessing and get the chief monk to identify which one…Weird concept isn't it? I mean we in the west all understand "ground breaking" ceremonies etc..but to ask a holy man to decide which foundation pillar goes in first is a bit of a weird one. It's also the same when private building gets knocked down or renovated…ON NO ACCOUNT can the spirit house be removed or replaced without the express blessing of a monks ceremony. In a city where real estate is at a premium, you can often see two or 3 spirit houses clogging up gardens where the space could be far better used….. I know I'm a heretic and do not honour my ancestors like I should, but then like most westerners I simply haven't been brought up to have an almost psychotic dependency on the extended family structure…. Recently I was talking to a 25 year old divorced mother of two who cannot sleep at night because alone she is afraid of the dark. It transpires she shared her parents bed till the age of 18, then when she came to BKK to study she kipped down with her brother for a further 4 years, then she got married directly after graduation!! She tells me She spends the nights with the lights blazing, the tv on and the stereo going. This conditioning is probably something she'll never recover from.
I was also thinking of the condo building madness that is gripping the city. They are springing up everywhere along the predicted skytrain extension and along the river. People actually buy an apartment from the plans and pay a sort of monthly deposit then paying the balance when they move in (that's how they're financed. This is potentially a bit dodgy if the economy goes belly up as has happened once recently. They've all got flowery names like : "The River", "Seeding gardens", "Immolta" ….But the one that made me laugh is " The Hive"….I mean who wants to live in a hive? Who wants to feel like they're living in a hive? Thais see it as a bustling vibrant community living experience, westerners see it as a homogenized, compartmentalized ratrace existance. This perhaps more than anything shows some very fundamental differences in our thinking. We westerners all want believe we are individuals: special and unique, Thais want to conform and integrate. Certainly there are none of the crushing youth and gang problems of broken
I've been down at Ban Pakong electricity Generating Authority of Thailand residential training centre mon-wed this week. Myself and the management team delivered an English course to Senior managers. I was a little nervous as I had put together a specific 2 hour training on raw materials, reusing, recycling, and energy. We didn't know in advance what their level of English was like and I was concerned it would flop. As it happened, it all went down very well. We worked really well together as a team each person taking his turn at a specific teaching point or session. But it was a really intense 3 day course and very hard work..I'm still feeling tired. That said we've another 3 x 3 day courses to do there before the end of September
THE RISK OF REPEATING MYSELF I"VE JUST RECOVERED THE ORIGINAL BLOG WORD DOC AND WILL INSERT IT HERE>>>>
Still, it's all money. I might just have saved about 700 quid over the last 2 months if I remain frugal to the months end. Like I said tho' there are so many distractions in terms of gadgets, clothes, etc here. That said, I'm still committed to keeping my life relatively clutter free..says he who just went to town spending 50 quid on a Camel Factory discount sale, mind you, that did buy me 3 shirts, a pair of trousers, and a sturdy pair of outdoor boots!!! I gotta say I really do like Camel gear, it's hard wearing and really good quality. You've just got to be careful what you buy so you don't look like you're going on safari..oh and their patterned or checked shirts make you look like an old fart!!
I've got three days off next week and looking forward to a nice break. Not that I'll be going anywhere just reading books and kicking back…my pal Pete back is back in town from the UK (off somewhere just now Koh samet I think)) with his girlfriend so hopefully he'll show up.
That's about all I have time for folks. Next week we get an extra day off for the queens birthday so doubtless I'll be having a very chilled out time.
Hi There (01/08/08),
My oh my! How the months seem to be speeding by, August already! Summer in the
There's a bit of frost in the political outlook here too. Ex-PM Taksin's wife, her brother, and her maid(?) have all been sentenced to between 2 and 3 years prison for tax fraud ( and "out" on a 5 million baht bail pending appeal of course). Taksin himself will be up next on similar charges. What does this exactly mean? He is, after all the EX-PM. Well, as popular belief would have it, he's currently the power behind the present governmental setup and they haven't exactly been endearing themselves to the general populace of late. There may well be ramifications that would eventually dissolve the current parliament. Rumour is, by the way, that Taksin's wife took off for
There a lot of rumours bouncing around just now about the state of the economy.. If it's one thing this country is full of, it's rumours . I'd tell you some, but I'd have to shoot you! Certainly there is a squeeze on the economy as continued high fuel prices have their inevitable knock on effect. Every time I go and eat in one of my usual restaurants, everything has gone up in price by about 7p. Not a lot for someone who earns well like me, but a lot for the average citizen. Indeed, belts are being tightened, banks are trying to get more deposit account investors through mass cold calling…Figure it out!
I've been doing an awful lot of extra work here and there lately and my wages are reflecting it…If I stay frugal myself this month I might have my first substantial savings in the bank since got here!! This is the point where viral marketing gets hold of me and I start dreaming of Nicknacks like iphones, portable hard-drives, bicycles, and holidays to
Actually, I'm away off to another EGAT (Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand) residential camp from Mon-Wed next week. It's the Senior Managers camp this time so we've had to change and theme the syllabus a lot more so as to differentiate from the Junior managers (the Senior's English is also apparently a lot weaker), but it's really anyone's guess how it will pan out. I'm a little nervous of the hour and a half I have designed to kick off "Green Energy Day" on Tuesday, especially as I have to deliver it in front of my Manager colleagues. They're a great bunch though and if it should die on it's feet I'm certain they'll bail me out. I'm sure the blindfold "feely" bags for the "What's it made of, What's it for?" team game will be quite amusing for all concerned.
Talking of designing stuff, I attended a TESOL conference on Sunday morning for a couple of hours and was chuffed as anything to realize I'm embarking on the right track with my L9 special project class. Task based learning is a difficult thing to deliver well, but I'm making some progress. The class Wiki I set up is getting its first few chats/threads from the class individuals coming in. Those who want to have a look it's: http://blueearthgreenplanet.wetpaint.net/ but please don't register as a user I'm trying to keep this a closed discussion group…Still not sure what direction they want to go in but it's early days, only week three this Saturday.
The band had a gig last Saturday night, but we really got messed around badly and didn't actually get on till 2330. After a 12 hour day including 6 hours teaching and a shedload of personnel issues, I was REALLY pissed off by the time we got on stage…I think we all were…Which is probably why we played so fast, so tightly aggressive, and so well !!! Shame there were only about 15-20 people to see us. We've really got to find another decent gig and soon! We didn't even get paid for the gig due to some chicanery as to who was "setting up" the 3 band night: not even expenses…not even a beer! AND I lost a favourite guitar cable…A high quality replacement is gonna cost me 30 quid! Doh! But I've got to get a good one as cheapos really don't carry the signal nearly as well (guitarists: they're all sonic purists!) and they break down easily too.
ANYWAY, I've perhaps got a line on a bar on Soi Rangnam by
5-a-side footie on Sunday night and Tennis on Tuesday morning took their toll on my back again. Maybe it's the high impact jarring on my lower spine. I made sure to stretch and warm up too. I cut short the tennis game and spent the day in a lot of discomfort (but left the painkillers alone!). By Wednesday morning, the pain, stiffness, and spine locking up had all completely gone!!! I can't figure it out…..
Hi There, (20/07/08),
Well I just got back from
Yes the trip was something else… A real adventure up into the Laoatian wilderness with jungle treks, waterfalls, and remote villages to boot. I'll post pictures up in my GALLERY on Wednesday (POSTED!) when I have a better connection.
We flew to Ubon Ratchathani in
The next day, up at the crack of dawn we drove on up to the Bolaven Plateau. We went straight to the giant Tad Fane falls (biggest in
Another early rise (no shower save for a dribble from the non-existant water pressure) and it was off on 160 km loop over the north of the plateau and back down. We took the whole day over this doing some jungle trekking where we found a magnificent view down over the valley floor with the
We made it back to Pakse for late afternoon and watched the lightning storms over the mountains in the distance sitting drinking beer by the river at sunset. Then , after a long beery dinner we fell into bed.
The last day Jon had to head out early as he HAD to be back in time to teach his kids on Monday morning. Paul and I took the bikes out for one last blast (about 140km as it turned out) trying to find the entrance to a 1000km square National Park…..We found it EVENTUALLY, but we had to turn round and get back to Pakse ourselves. One thing about this holiday was the scarcity of decent maps, signage, and information. The Lonely Planet guide to
We finally got back to Ubon in Thailand late last night and splashed out, oooh 30 quid, on a seriously luxury hotel. My room had everything from a bathrobe to a DVD player, and, (praise the Gods) LASHINGS of hot water. I stayed in the shower a while till the water running off wasn't orange tinted!!
All in all I've been very impressed by my trip to
So it's back in BKK and civilisation again. The boys have perversely booked the studio for three hours tonight..I can't see Jon being in a very good mood after a 12 hour overland journey back and straight to school haha! Let's hope we can keep improving on our playing.
Actually, We've been asked to play "Mind The Gap" at Noriega's on saturday night. We're playing the middle set of three bands at about 11pm!!! I'll probably get , oooh, a whole pint free!!!
One more day off (hopefully a game of tennis with Bruce tomorrow) and it's back to work. I'm still very busy with stuff , but this trip has really recharged my batteries….the next possibility for a similar adventure feels like a long way off.
Hi There (11/07/08),
I've been in a particularly busy phase at work lately. There's lots going on…and it certainly doesn't help we're getting sporadic power cuts throughout the building for causes unknown. You almost feel like saving your work after every sentence…I should look on the bright side tho', at least I haven't been trapped in the lift for half and hour haha!
It's been a difficult time of year to find teachers. I don't know if it's the prohibitly high flight prices, the overseas image of a politically unstable Thailand, or the relatively lower wages compared to say, Korea, but we're not getting the usual stream of applications coming in. Even then interviews are funny things. I've conducted so many now that I have a very good idea of what a prospective employer wants to hear , and am constantly astounded by what some of the applicants come out with, and why-oh-why do they sometimes bring their Thai girlfriends with them to sit in reception and wait?
So a new round in starting this week and with it my special project class..I have to admit to being a little nervous about it. I understand the experimental nature of introducing a task-based learning project to the school, but the preparation, planning , and expectations of the parents and the Thai Ajarn who promised me to the project has me just a wee bitty concerned. I mean I take a pride in my work. I loathe the idea of going into a class un or underprepared and I just don't know how far I'll be able to push them, or interest them in the Blue planet-Green Earth theme that'll be running the length of the course. One thing I hope to set up early on is a website that they can all log into, contribute to, and update. If that comes off I'll post a link so you can see what the wee urchins are producing.
The other thing about task-based learning is that I have to take much more of a back seat and let the students work things out for themselves. This effectively means I can't over-prepare too much in advance cos if they suddenly want to work say on the "plight of polars bears worldwide" then as the teacher, I have to encourage and facilitiate that direction. This kind of teaching is all about getting students to invest their own interest in the project and thereby be much more inclined to learn… cutting edge stuff. I'm hoping to go to a seminar on a Sunday morning in a couple of weeks about it all. This will be my first time putting together a 99 hour highly detailed curriculum as opposed to an outline..so it'll be dotting i's and crossing t's too. Others may follow my pioneering path haha!
So it's a WHOLE WEEK OFF from Sunday..Wahey!!! I'm off to
The band practiced again this week…Oooh ropey! But not completely awful (like my tennis skills were this week. Note to self:-best stick to Doubles mike!). We've made a passing attempt at the Arctic Monkeys song in the studio, but it's awfully fast and terribly difficult in terms of all the synchopation..but what the Hell it's all good fun!
The next blog will, in all likelihood, not be available till around Monday 21st July.
Hi There (05/07/08),
Sorry for my slightly tardy update, I've been away at a 3 day residential English training camp for the Thai Electricity Generating Authority.
So how did it go? Very well actually…but REALLY hard work, you're "on" all the time and there's a helluva lot of walking and moving around the complex on solid stone floors. I can feel my back even more after these past three days. EGAT has a purpose built training centre out in the middle of nowhere (complete with training pylons etc). It's very well appointed with light airy meeting rooms with good acoustics and microphone systems. But it was still a very long 3 days. The fact that the canteen food there was terrible didn't help….I mean it wasn't so much terrible as REALLY Thai…I know I should have assimilated Thai food by now, but there's no way I' m eating boiled eggs in chili sauce, dried anchovies and boiled cabbage for breakfast. Let's say it was typical simple workers fare….I did find myself gagging for something that wasn't likely to burn the roof of your mouth off!!
Still, as a first experience of a "camp" I think I learned a lot about how to set one up and stage it correctly. The 35 delegates all seemed to have a good time and that was the main thing. I and my colleagues even accepted their invite to a beery Kareoke session at the back of the canteen and I minced through a Kylie Minogue number to their obvious delight!!
It look like I'll be going back to the centre in about 4 weeks time to train 25 senior managers…This is likely to be more challenging as they are likely to have much worse English ability which makes things tough in terms of suitable fun activites.
Beaten at Tennis again last Tuesday 6-4 6-3..Still it's an improvement I suppose. We were 3-1 up in the second set and tiredness and lack of concentration just set in.It's really weird how quickly your game can just fall apart!! Anyway it's all just for fun and I had a couple of cracking shots that made me overall very happy with the way we played.
I'm really looing forward to getting away for a few days adventure. It makes the 45 minutes wait in immigration for an exit Visa seem almost worth…That place has to be my least favourite place in all of Thailand….it's just so depressing. There are always hundreds of seriously dodgy looking characters there too!
I've got a lot of practice to put in before the band hits the studio next week. Two new songs apparently. I think I'll have to keep Monday free to practice, if I show up unprepared, the others will have me for breakfast!
I'm feeling very tired and flaked out just now. The camp has taken more out of me than I thought. I've just got to get through 6 hours of teaching in about half and hour and Sunday can be spent clambering up the paperwork pending file !!! What joy!…at least the teachers seem to be behaving themselves this week for a change!
I'm going to try and go on a wee bit of a diet too. Although I've lost half a kilo this past week I have been hovering a little too close to the 100 kilo mark for my comfort..I REALLY don't want to go there. Looks like beer consumption is going to be reduced!
It's funny, some of my (pretty slim) colleagues have been going for medicals and Thai doctors have been suggesting that some of them are up to 30 kilogrammes over-weight. I think they have a different height-weight-bodymass index over here!
That's about it for this week. Congratulations to my friend Kaela who's had a lovely baby girl…almost in the hospital car park (again)..nice going!
re (27/06/08),
It's been a niggly lower back week. I can't seem to be sitting too long or it just seizes up…Old age/ a worn disc? Who knows? .I am definitely not going to spend my time necking Voltarol to mask it… I have to admit it's very annoying though. I got to thinking about all those people out there that suffer some kind of low grade pain all the time, how wearing it must get. And how easy it would be too get hooked on painkillers.
I think it's because I haven't been doing a lot of active sport. I actually worked through the discomfort and played football on Sunday afternoon and Tennis on my day off on Tuesday and although it's still there, it's a lot better. At least it's not waking me up at dawn as I roll around trying to find a comfortable position like last Sunday. AND almost six months after the Uni football tournament I've still got discomfort from my ribs when I roll over to my left when I'm sleeping. Looks like that's another injury that'll be slow to heal, or permanently weakened at best…Ah , the joys of middle age. At least I've pretty much decided that I'm finished with contact sports. Our old boys game of football has become FAR less competitive (and all the more fun for it). We know we can't go chasing and barging about like teenagers (or one of us will kark it I'm sure) and the "two-touch" ball rule, (originally developed for wet conditions so we didn't slip) we play now means that it's become a different kind of Sunday workout. We've also got to take it easy for John's sake too. He was back in goal following his major cancer surgery and how great it was to see him there- long may it continue.
It was also nice to be back on the tennis court up at Ari. The local Thai guys up there are soo friendly. I met a bloke called Noy who was just leaving the court with his wife and he just walked up asked me if I wanted to play a few sets with him sometime soon. I said I wasn't very good and he said "no worries just a knock around and I'll practice my English with you during the breaks". Sounds like a deal! There's also an old boy there called Chang who always asks me to join him if I turn up alone or with Bruce (he beats me!!). It's like a wee club. The courts used to be really busy (they are free- unusually for Thailand), but when a fancy new Tennis complex opened up a couple of kilometers away, all the local "players" went there. So it's so much easier to get on the court now. I rarely have to wait. I think even Jamie at work is expressing an interest in getting into it….I think it's a game that I really could get into, especially doubles..they seem more fun (and less graft) than singles!
I find myself helluva busy suddenly. I'm off to teach the "Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand" managers (EGAT) for a three day camp at their conference and meeting centre about an hour south of Bangkok from Wed-Fri next week. 4 of the management team are going down to deliver a course that we spent yesterday afternoon outlining the curriculum. It'll be all hands to the pump over the weekend to get the materials ready AND I have to deliver a themed training day curriculum ( 6 hours: energy sources and recycling etc) for the senior managers camp in early August by this Monday!! Still we've got 3 day EGAT camps coming up regularly from now till September.. as it's residential it's a nice little earner too.Three full on days is infinitely preferable to two nights a week at a company doing corporate work. I'm looking forward to it. It would be nice if this weekend (and my 2 classes) goes peacefully so I can think about it and get stuff together. Either way I'll have to come in on my day off on Monday to do stuff. I'm not getting back till late on Friday night and the last thing I'll want to do then is prep my weekend classes. OH, and Ning is up on Sat and Sunday nights passing through on her way to see her mum. Slightly bad timing…
The band got into the studio for a two hour practice this week. It was very apparent we were dead rusty, but at least we remembered the structure of the songs. By the end of the rehearsal we were getting back into it. I really love playing. Of course it sometimes seems a hassle to drag your stuff around with a sore back in the heat, but once you're actually playing in the studio again it all makes the most perfect of sense. We will need to bring a few new songs to the table though. The boys are making noises of getting rid of a few more and they'll need replacing.
That's about all the news for now. Things have gotten quiet on the possible coup front. The Stock market is rallying slightly. The weekend demo went off relatively peacefully despite the dramatic pictures in the paper.
Next week's blog is most likely to come out on Saturday as I'll be away.
Hi There (20/06/08),
So a friend who teaches near
Of course, it's hard when you're earning comparatively so much compared to Thai workers to know how just exactly what the impact is on a household of a 3 baht increase in the price of butter. But I'd have to reckon there are significant strains out there for the people. Certainly the huge increase in the price of fuel is going to have the biggest impact and you just know that when it goes up, it'll never go back down once the crisis is over to the price it was before. The cheapest flights down to Koh samui (first and last each day) have suddenly gone up from 2000 Baht each way to 3500, which makes a round trip of over 100 pounds now. Effectively making it no longer particularly viable for a quick and cheap 3 day beach break. It's bound to have a knock on effect on the businesses, construction, and the tourist industry down there too.
This is just the backlash as to what's happening globally. It just seems to hit harder in countries with a less robust economy I suppose. I still lead a well fed and watered life and have no need to worry myself. But what of those folk who live on 8000 Baht a month/ I can only guess. It's a troubling time for English teachers out in the state schools. All teachers have to undergo a few days course in Thai cultural awareness in order to be certified to teach. It's not cheap either. There appears to be a bit of a dearth in English teachers right across
Political intrigue aside I'm had a relatively quiet week again. The weekend was a pretty tough one, with all sorts of niggly personnel problems, but the new school at Sam Yan opened up pretty successfully.
I'm starting to get stuff together for the first in a series of Department of Energy (EGAT) camps starting early July…I'm even getting my own custom made polo shirt for it wow! Just as well, I think I'll be needing the extra money. I've been clamouring after a leccy bill for my apartment for the past two months and have worked out I haven't actually had one for about a year…oh dear!
Tallpaul, Jon, and I are all now booked to fly to Ubon Ratchetani on the 16th of July. We're going to hire bikes and go into
Hello again (13/06/08),
It's been commented that I've been in a slightly philosophical frame of mind in my recent blogs. I guess that would appear to be the ca