ollylama

but what's the point of posting anything until you have something to say?

i'm going to make a post:

Topic:

Something I Hate

Subtitle:

Don't you hate it?

Body:

Hey man, there's this thing I really hate. It's so corrupt and lousy and awful that I've just gotta tell you all about it.

Man, if you have something to say about it you should write in too.

I just haven't figured out how to express what I want to say about this really terrible thing.

In fact, I don't even know what it is yet. But I JUST COULDN'T WAIT!

YEAAAAH!

why couldn't you just tell your stories right away? seems strange. bizarre post.

I noticed the red shirts were holding a protest or rally of some sort on the north end of the night bazaar tonight. Has that been a regular event or is tonight special?

they shut down the gay pride parade because they felt it was not in keeping with Lanna values. viva la redvolution!

jerks.

Saw them all at the event. Have they stated that the reason was "because they felt it was not in keeping with Lanna values" or is that your interpretation? My reaction was the same just would like to hear the rationale.

Fascists to the left of me, fascists to the right...

that's exactly why they protested. i have a falang friend who was there who was supposed to be in the fashion show and gave me the play by play. i saw a photograph of signs that said something to the effect that gayness was not congruent with lannaness. only in far simpler language.

soon everything in thailand, it seems, will be determined by mob rule.

sure would be nice if the police force could keep the ardent idealists under control. you can't have a civil society in which mobs can so easily continually shut stuff down. (man i wish they'd shut down the annoying loudspeaker tedsabaan announcements/advertisements in my moo baan, though. or the crappy loud concerts. that's a mob i could really get behind)

i hardly believe these are democratic demonstrations of opinion -- as has been expressed here these mobs are organized by high ranking people in power who feel it incumbent upon them to decide what democracy and freedom of speech actually constitute. there is no real rule of law in these situations.

I noticed the red shirts were holding a protest or rally of some sort on the north end of the night bazaar tonight. Has that been a regular event or is tonight special?

they shut down the gay pride parade because they felt it was not in keeping with Lanna values. viva la redvolution!

jerks.

i just heard that a big group of redshirts forcibly shut down the parade. a little sketchy on the details, but the whole thing's been canceled.

this makes the red shirts look even more like a bunch of yokels now.

easy to get around. and i see someone i know nearly every day just on the street. coming from a huge metropolitan US city, this charms me to no end.

mainly i find peace of mind here but without boredom, a nearly perfect balance. and if i do get a little restless, i travel to a nearby country or city and when i return everything's fresh again.

As I said, it's very difficult to confine her in the garden, she can escape through anything. She could even get herself out of the cage thing she was in at the animal hospital! For now I suppose I will have to keep her in the house while I'm out until I can work something out.

Are you sure you don't own a ferret?

I could see how one could easily be mistaken for a little mutt:

nice marmot.

The vet is adamant, absolutely adamant that the injury was from a kick. I couldn't believe it myself. She says not a fall, or fight, or bike. She also says it was not related to the heartworm that she had.

I don't see why I shouldn't have one, I take full responsibility for her! I take her for a long walk every day and I also take her most places with me in the evenings and at the weekends, where possible. During the day when I am at work my other house mate is usually here so she is very rarely on her own, what is the problem?? I just feel it is cruel to take her independence when most other dogs around here can do as they please, not locked up. She is very nice natured, and like I said the only thing she does is go in to other people's gardens sometimes but she'd never snap at people - she'd run away! I can't really train her not to do it!

I don't care about the cost but the garden is quite big I'm sure she'd just find another way, she's very small and agile. The only sure way would be inside the house.....

but you don't take full responsibility for her, not if she gets into people's gardens. especially if they have small children there, they have every right to react with force to get your dog out. just because you can vouch for her kindly nature doesn't mean everyone else can feel at ease having a strange dog in their yard. sometimes the small ones are the most aggressive. i know several people who have been bitten by dogs in chiang mai. even the best-trained or gentle ones will bite under the right circumstances.

if you think she should be "free" like the other dogs in the neighborhood, then you're going to have to deal with the danger that she's going to get hurt, just like the other "free" dogs -- if not by getting kicked, then by getting run over by a car or motorcycle.

bottom line: it's in your dog's best interests and the best interests of your neighbors that you find a way to keep her on your property.

inside the city moat check out the south west quadrant, which is the least impacted by development. however, you might consider something on the canal road - it's close (parallel, one street west) to nimmanhaemin and has lots of wide open space and presumably cheaper rents. it runs right by the university as well.

go west on ratwithi from moon muang. pass the irish pub on the right, pass the indian restaurant (forget its name), then turn into the alleyway before you get to the traffic light. it's just there on the left, across from zoe in yellow (another bar). just steps away from heaven's beach.

Cafe del Sol, a small and friendly place in the Rasta Compound on Ratwithi road.

kava also varies a lot in potency. it comes in pill and tincture form but i found the tincture more effective. although it really depended on where you got it from. my hunch, though, is that if pharmaceuticals don't work for you, kava, valerian and melatonin won't either. but it's worth a try.

i had insomnia my whole life until i discovered meditation years ago. i admit that i have been lucky with it - many people i know have derived no benefit from it and find it very frustrating. i also admit that i sometimes take xanax just because i like being able to "turn off" artificially. i'm sorry that that stuff like that doesn't work for you.

i no longer meditate regularly, but when i find my mind wandering as i lie in bed i'm now able to forcibly stop myself from thinking. i know that most vipassana meditators say that you can't "force" it, but i disagree. for me, learning to control my overactive mind was the principal benefit i derived from meditation practice. the "spiritual" aspect didn't appeal to me much. anyway, it might work for you. give it a try.

not sure if it's legal for someone ordained outside of thailand to marry you or not. it might be purely ceremonial until you go to a registrar's office in your home country and get it officially approved. i'm assuming you're both foreigners?

in any event, you might consider this site: www.dudeism.com.

as a former professional graphic designer i'd say your friend should do whatever he can to get some regular freelance gigs he can do through the internet and then come live here and email the work back home.

the point being that in the west any kind of skilled labor can fetch very high pay, whereas here "time" cannot actually be called anything approximating "money". there are loads of talented young folks willing to work for a tiny fraction of what they'd pay at home, and the quality of work here is superb compared to the average graphic designer in the states (anyone with a mac thinks they're a graphic designer these days). never mind the legal issues.

but with the advent of the internet it doesn't matter much where you live - it's easy to send stuff via the internet. i myself did that for a while years ago. the disparity between my incoming cash flow and cost of living here was very pleasing.

better yet, have your friend land a huge job and then tell him to come here and start a graphic design sweatshop!

limited coverage unfortunately. i never could get it, even though i lived in the center of town. always some reason why but i never could understand why they weren't aggressively expanding their coverage. supposedly they were going to implement wimax which would have obviated the need for extra cabling but nothing's developed on that front.

now i live on the other side of the river from the center of town, which apparently will never be connected (by cable at least) to the true service.

anyone lucky enough to be in their area should consider it. i consistently hear that it's better than all the rest. maybe it has something to do with the fact that so few people have it, so it's less congested.

tot is pretty crap but it depends on where you live. off nimmanhaemin it was atrocious. in wat gate it's much better but still slow at times. oddly, torrents run at full speed, but html access is choked - i rarely get more than 400k downloads via my browser whereas torrents often give me the full 2megs or close.

note that the problems are only for international pages - local sites are full speed almost always. i suppose there's not enough domestic demand for overseas traffic to justify CAT purchasing more bandwidth. many have already noted this.

no, but you can get dye at chiang mai plastic, the most amazing store in chiang mai. it's in warorot market. you can buy everything there. get a big bucket, some dye and do it yourself.

it's spelled "dyeing."

I'm quite close with the purveyor of those flyers. In fact, I helped her design them. So I can quote verbatim:

"The only university-accredited TEFL certification in S.E. Asia."

Before casting aspersions you might double-check your facts, femi fan. Sounds like the only "propaganda" is coming straight from the horse's mouth. Neiiighhhh!

In that case then i apologise. It is also poor reading skills on my part, and that is sorrowfully ironic to me. I'm glad you're here to put me right.

However, if i am to attempt a defence, it's a bit of a vague claim. I mean, it hardly means that the course is therefore better than others. It still belongs to creative marketing, if not propaganda.

And i don't think i've exactly been 'casting aspersions'. I showed that my memory was dodgy in terms of the area of the claim.

Finally, a question to you, since you're talking about double-checking facts: how did you manage to discover that of all the universities in south-east asia, not one is supplying a tefl course that they are willing to accredit?

i didn't. as i indicated, i just designed the flyer. i've never taught anything in my life and i'm not affiliated with the program. and i have no idea whether the course is better than any of the others. however, i imagine (as someone who is utterly unqualified to imagine, due to my lack of experience in the english-teaching realm) that schools which don't know any better might appreciate a certificate from a university rather than one from "joe's english teaching school." i'm not saying that's fair, just or right, just stating that it's something that might be worth considering.

anyway, no biggie. trying to remember all the info one encounters in chiang mai everyday is a herculean task. that's why i carry my camera around everywhere - pictures are better than memory.

This thread illustrates well why we have to close discussions in the Teaching in Thailand forum over so-called "TEFL Wars."

I doubt that CMU claims its TEFL course is the only one in Thailand certified by the MOE.

This thread really looks like a 'war' to you?

Your doubts contrast with the adverts i've seen from them around town, you know, the kind that have tear off phone number strips at the bottom. What i can't recall is if they say the only one in thailand or chiang mai. Either way, they're being rather economical with the truth. [better not say 'lying' since this might be considered some sort of machine gun fire...!]

I'm quite close with the purveyor of those flyers. In fact, I helped her design them. So I can quote verbatim:

"The only university-accredited TEFL certification in S.E. Asia."

Before casting aspersions you might double-check your facts, femi fan. Sounds like the only "propaganda" is coming straight from the horse's mouth. Neiiighhhh!

maybe in fang, but i think poy sang long takes place later in mae hong son. normally march or april. it's some kind of lunar thing so you never really know. or maybe you do if you know about lunar cycles and all that. ask a moonie.

i happen to know that you can get a 3000 baht discount on the CMU program if you sign up through the marketing director: [email protected].

And speaking of propaganda, CMU claim to do the only tefl course accredited by the ministry of education in thailand. Now, THAT'S real propaganda!!

to quote fezzik from the movie, the princess bride:

"that word. i do not think it means what you think it means."

if you're going to be pejorative, at least use the proper term. this would be "graft."

however, it might more accurately be called an "endorsement."

or are you claiming that other tefl programs are accredited by the ministry of education? then the word would be "untruth." in which case, you should probably back up your statement with some details.

okay, english lesson is over. fee waived due to my lazy avoidance of capital letters.

i happen to know that you can get a 3000 baht discount on the CMU program if you sign up through the marketing director: [email protected].

it's a bit more expensive than some of the local shops but it's from a real, accredited and respected university. surely worth a bit extra in the long run.

350 baht to see a reggae band that plays mostly cover tunes sprinkled with the same old tired hits from ages past.

oo oo oo oo jah blah.

i fail to see what all the fuss is about.

i'd rather just watch chai play.

I didn't know David but I saw a performance of his choral group at the Chiang Mai University Art Museum a while back. He made the show extremely entertaining by introducing all the songs and offering interesting commentary. I hope the group is still together. Maybe they should put on a show in his honor? Here's a couple of photos I took.