typ123

Well why not take the IgG without type specificity first?

If it is negative you save yourself the thinking.

(what is different in treatment between the types? (I have Herpes Simplex as symbiont (it reminds me to live healthy and I provide a cosy place inside my nose)).

That is a positive way of looking at it. That herpes motivates you to live more healthy and keep your immune system strong, and to be more careful when it comes to sex. Since I had the symptoms about 10 months ago, I've had about 5 breakouts. I'm not even really sure if it is herpes. I would just like to have a blood test confirm 100% if it is because I would be relieved with either result. I just hate being in herpes purgatory. It could be a recurrent fungal infection, jock itch, male yeast infection..I don't know. I never had an itching or pain, but I did have small blisters that formed ulcers on my glans. I had some nerve issues around my pelvic area and some lymph node swelling down there.

About ten months ago, I made the brilliant decision to "raw dog" a waste container of a woman from an after hours club. I'm afraid that I may have contracted genital herpes, and I want to get a blood test.

There's just one problem. I've called several hospitals and clinics in Chiang Mai and have spoken with lab technicians about herpes blood testing. Either they offer IgM, which is useless, or they off IgG without type specificity (type 1 or type 2).

So my question for you ladies and gentlemen is: where in Chiang Mai can I get an IgG herpes simplex antibody blood test WITH type specificity? Taking the test without specificity is pretty much useless. It doesn't tell you which type you have. You may or may not already know, but type specificity absolutely DOES exist for herpes testing.

This is driving me insane and I would truly appreciate any information if you have any. Cheers.

increasing classroom time is not the answer. the extracurriculars are a good thing and don't need to be diminished. increasing classroom time is only going to make things worse. once again they seem to be avoiding the glaring issues at the root of the system

this is just another ploy by the government to save face and act like they are doing something. the schools will save face by putting on a show when necessary but these policies will fade away eventually and wont be reinforced. the dance of the phony faces goes round and round

Good lord, what an awfully boring post! What happened to teachers adopting the "mai bpen rai attitude" and chalking it up to the game?

I don't recall any books specifically related to teaching in Thailand but I just read "Watching the Thais" by Tom Tuohy. Pretty good read on Thai culture and its quirks. The only book I have that I use for teaching is "How to Teach English" by Jeremy Harmer. Picked it up at Dasa used books. Maybe give the used book stores a gander in your area? Let us know what you find.

So what you're implying is that making an effort to become a better teacher in Thailand is a worthless endeavor? Maybe it is, but I'm not trying to save Thai education, I'm just trying to make my days a little easier and my lessons more rewarding. 55

Watching the Thais. I feel like this book should be titled Watching the Farang by the looks of the cover. Thanks for the suggestion! Cheers

Sorry but your question seems more like an advertisement to promote those books.

Why would you need books specific to Thailand?

No need to be sorry. Interesting that you would say that and I understand your concern, but I have no affiliation. These literally are the two best Thailand teaching books I've found. I've already read them, so I'm wondering if there are others out there like them. I figured by posting in the "Teaching in Thailand Forum" I might get some recommendations. As to the question, "why would you need books specific to Thailand?" The answer is quite simple really - I am teaching in Thailand.

I did make the same post in the Ajarn Forum and I copy and pasted it here because I didn't get any responses. Perhaps that made it look fishy?

I definitely reckon to read "Private Dancer" for all male teachers.

Ha! Actually someone recommended this to me in the office. I imagine it would be a good idea to read this if you plan on getting involved with those Thai broads of easy virtue. www.livingthai.org and www.stayinginthailand.com also give a lot fair warning with regards to the fast women of the red light district.

What about teaching books? Back on topic please?

Hi everyone,

I apologize if this thread has already been started, but I have a genuine interest so here it goes.

What books have you found that are SPECIFIC to teaching English in Thailand?

The first one I found is Teaching English in Thailand: A Practical System that I got here - http://thailandteaching.org - it's on Amazon as well. Ajarn Phil put a good word in for this one - http://www.ajarn.com/ajarn-street/ar...ssential-reads

The next one I found is Teaching English to Thai Learners: A Task Based Approach for Effective Classroom Instruction that I got from a link in a Facebook group (sorry I don't have it anymore). You have to download it through some sort of Thai app called MEB and it's a pain in the butt, but I still recommend checking it out.

Both of these are published and available in Asia Books bookstores as well if you prefer a hard copy.

These are the best two I could find. Do you have any others that you recommend along these same lines? There are some others I previewed on Amazon that are more like memoirs or travel brochures and that's not what I'm looking for. I think I'm due for some professional development, as I'm sure you're aware that doesn't really exist here in Thailand so we must take it upon ourselves to hone our teaching skills.

Hello helpful strangers,

I went to the labor department office in Chiang Mai (the new office near 700 year stadium).

I informed them that the school keeps the work permits illegally and that they lost it or are just refusing to cooperate with me.

I showed them my passport and made it clear that my non-B has already been canceled, and that I am not working for the school anymore.

I filled out a short form and they canceled my work permit without an issue. It was very simple.

Best advice for sure is just to go to the labor department office if you find yourself in a similar situation.

Good luck everyone. Peace.

Can I cancel the work permit if I don't have it with me? The school keeps the work permit and there is NO WAY I am going back there after the way they treated me. Extremely unprofessional people working there. Seems to be a pattern for them wirth foreign and Thai teachers quitting without notice.

See attached cancellation form.

In the absence of the actual Work permit then a police report as to its loss will be necessary.

Work permit needs to be explicitly cancelled.

Thanks a lot for this!

Maybe it's best that I don't worry about it, but if it becomes and issue with a new employer then I guess I will go to the department of labor and cancel it myself or at least file a complaint that they kept it illegally.

Can I cancel the work permit if I don't have it with me? The school keeps the work permit and there is NO WAY I am going back there after the way they treated me. Extremely unprofessional people working there. Seems to be a pattern for them wirth foreign and Thai teachers quitting without notice.

I am definitely not going backt to the school and I am not on good terms with them. If they don't cancel it, don't they have to pay to renew it? I don't see why they wouldn't cancel it unless they just wanted to give me a problem. Would they do that? They've already hired a new teacher. How would it not be canceled correctly and why would that affect me? The school witholds the work permits AND doesn't give copies of the contracts. It's really a giant POS that place.

I had a non-B and I just recently crossed the border, canceling the non-B and getting a double entry tourist visa. My school has my work permit and I never canceled it. I left on short notice because of a family emergency, but they were upset about me leaving and I am thinking they aren't going to cancel it.

Does it automatically get canceled when my non-B is canceled? How long are work permits usually valid for? I'm also wondering when it will expire if they don't cancel it. I'm going to the US for a few months but I want to return to Thailand and get a new teaching job. I just don't want this to be a problem, and the school isn't cooperating because they took my resignation personally and won't help me.

At Nong Khai Border Check Point they enforce it for Non B with WP since 6 month and for Non ED since 2 month.

We put it on our webpage and info letter as well.

Another teacher at my school did the same thing in Vientiene 1 month ago in October. He was NOT denied entry and successfully crossed the border and received a double entry tourist visa without any hassle. They never asked for evidence of work permit cancellation or a letter of resignation from the school...

I wanted to warn teachers and businessman/women that if you have a non-immigrant B visa that is in progress, your work permit must be canceled AND if you're a teacher you also need to have a letter of resignation signed by the school. I was refused entry to Laos and they told me to go back to my school!

You report is about something new, previously reported aboung Nong Khai only, thank you for it.

Please note your are talking about an extension of stay, not a current visa. these are different things.

I failed to note that the purpose of me crossing the border was to cancel my non-B and to get a double entry tourist visa, of which I DID receive. I am back in Thailand now. My non-B is void but my work permit is still valid and it's up to the school when they decide to cancel it.

"They were strictly enforcing this."

Obviously not that strictly, as they let you cross :-)

Honestly, I was extremely lucky. I waited in the main immigration office nearby the border for 3 hours and I was considering booking a flight. I then had the idea to go back to the same immigration officer that denied me and I made up an incredible sob story using polite Thai. My case was an exception. They were by no means prepared to be lenient with me.

In Savannakhet, Laos, you can get your visa on arrival. You go to Mukdahan, Thailand, and from there you go to Savannakhet.

I wanted to warn teachers and businessman/women that if you have a non-immigrant B visa that is in progress, your work permit must be canceled AND if you're a teacher you also need to have a letter of resignation signed by the school. I was refused entry to Laos and they told me to go back to my school!

I don't think this is a problem in Vientiene, but this could be a new restriction so just be aware. I ended up getting through the border because I made up an enormous lie, and they eventually let me through, but I was very, very lucky. I was considering flying out of Thailand.

Other than being stopped at the border, the visa run was a million times better than going to Vientiene. I went on a Tuesday and there were about 40 people there at 9:00 a.m. and I was out of there in 15 minutes because I was the 8th person in line. Later that day I picked up my new tourist visa at 3:30 immediately without even a minute of waiting. They say come back at 3:30, but I was the last person when I arrived at 3:30, so I think they opened back up at 2:00. Who knows. TIS.

There is a hotel right next to the consulate (sorry I forgot the name, but just ask someone it's literally a 5 minute walk from the consulate) for 500 baht a night down a dirt road in a quiet Laotian village. You can walk to the embassy from there. I got a taxi from the hotel to go to restaurants and bars for 200 baht round trip from the hotel. I recommend taking tuk tuks to and from the border because it's cheaper. Taxis were asking 300 baht from the border which is too much. Should be 100 baht per person for the tuk tuk but if you're alone it might be more. A tuk tuk from the consulate to the international bus station in Savannakhet is 50 baht, but you can also just take a 100 baht tuk tuk to the border and take a bus to the international bus station in Mukdahan. It depends on what your schedule is. Oh, and in Mukdahan, there is a hotel AT the international bus station for 400 baht per night which is pleasant and very convenient if you need to stay there due to the bus schedule or whatever.

Once again, let it be known that the Thai border in Mukdahan is enforcing this restriction currently so if you have a non-B you need to make sure your work permit is canceled and if you're at a school then you need to get a signed letter of resignation from the school too. They were strictly enforcing this.

Good luck.

I have a couple of thousand books on the shelves in my house. There's room for a lot more and whilst ebooks are usually somewhat cheaper to buy, second-hand printed books are almost always much cheaper than ebooks.

This all makes it a less immersive experience. If you're fiddling about with stuff like that, you are not in the book. With a book, there is you and there is the word and that is it. This direct, immediate connection is completely absent on an e-reader.

You can't flip through an e-reader in the way that you can flip through a book. Unless you know exactly what you're looking for, it is much, much, much more difficult to find a passage in an electronic book than in a printed book. And I have that same 'instantly retrieve your last page experience'. This is thanks to a rare and exotic piece of high-technology--a bookmark.

Reading textbooks is probably physically easier on an e-reader but in the case of other books, there doesn't seem to be much difference.

A cup and string does not work as well as a phone. A book works as well as, or better than, an e-reader.

As for degrading gracefully, digital technology either works or it doesn't work. Digital technologies don't partly work. I can damage an e-reader a little bit and it may work but if I damage it a bit more, at a certain point, it will simply stop functioning. Printed books are not like that. They degrade but they are still fully functional until they reach very extreme levels of damage.

1) What about new books? Should we just sit around and wait to buy second-hand classics on dusty shelves? What about free ebooks? Ebooks are more affordable. There's no argument here. You could have a couple million books on cloud storage and a couple thousand on an e-reader. It's amazing that the portability and convenience of this fact alone doesn't sway the dinosaurs.

2) A paper book and an e-book have exactly the same words, the only difference is that the e-book is equipped with technological features that enable people to navigate the book more efficiently. It's much more immersing. The ability to see the definition of words instantly is incredible for improving readability, keeping one immersed in the book without having to find a dictionary to look up a word, or worse forgetting it and reading anyway only to not understand. This is an example of a tool that makes the reading experience more interactive. It's not fiddling. You have the same "direct, immediate connection" with an e-book because it's the exact same book, only with added tools to enhance reading.

3) People can swipe their finger effortlessly across the screen, or click a button to turn a page. It's a lot quicker. No finger-licking, pages blowing in the fan, making creases, etc. How is it "much, much, much,", more difficult to search for a passage in an e-book? All you have to do is type it in a search bar and there it is. With a paper book you have to try to figure out where it is based on recall rather than using a search engine. Yes, it is physically easier to read an e-book, and it's a lot more efficient.

4) The analogy is accurate because the e-reader is slowly replacing books, and for many good reasons that I could list that will become more and more obvious in the near future. No one is claiming that their colossal collection of video tapes is superior to an external hard drive holding thousands of hours of video in just the same way. "Degrading gracefully". A 2000 baht e-reader with millions of books on cloud storage and backed up in other places vs. shelf of paper books. In extreme cases, if you drop an e-reader off of a balcony and it shatters, you can just buy a new one and you still have all your books. On the other hand, paper books are prone to becoming worn, bent, smudged, moldy, torn, full of water marks, etc. They become damaged, decayed, and ruined over time and you can't replace them.

Look, we could go on and on about this, and every time an electronic reader will prove to be a worthy replacement for paper books. It's going to happen eventually.

I still prefer real books over e-books, got me a great collection of over 3000 fantasy books in english that will go with me to thailand.

would hate it to left my first editions behind.

Sounds like a pain in the ass. Just think if you could put all those books on one device. After all, isn't the purpose of reading to actually read the books rather than glamorize about them and stare at them on a shelf?

Although I do it regularly, reading on an electronic device is clearly inferior to reading a book (unless, perhaps, you're reading some kind mindless airport blockbuster or looking up something in a reference book, in which case they may be as good or better than a printed book). Navigation is more difficult, the material is less accessible, it's a much less immersive experience, the costs of use are much greater, they're much easier to break, they do not degrade gracefully and the product has a vastly reduced lifespan. Plus, of course, there's the general worry (and it's one which I think is on the money) that that use of tablets, etc. generally erodes one's ability to concentrate and to function at higher levels of intellectual intensity; e-readers are a bizarre example of a perfectly good technology being displaced by a signficantly worse one.

My e-reader (not a tablet, it uses electronic ink) cost me 2000 baht brand new and I have roughly 300 books on it, and there are more in cloud storage. E-books are much more affordable. It's actually more immersing because the technology is more interactive. You can't zoom on a paperback book, change the font size, or look up words instantly. I can navigate much more quickly on an e-reader. As soon as I open the book it goes to the last page I was on, among many other features. I don't have to hold it open while I'm reading it so it's more comfortable. Cell phones are easy to break too, but you don't see me resorting to using plastic cups and a string. "They don't degrade gracefully" Can you elaborate on that?

I recently argued that reading physical book is much better than on a screen.This article bears out my theory http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/19/readers-absorb-less-kindles-paper-study-plot-ereader-digitisation

I only read articles online inaccessible here. I would never read an entire book for the reasons outlined in said article and like another poster, prefer the physicality of a BOOK. Together with the fact, it's very damaging for your eyesight. A fact to which, posters on here with an inordinately high post count will attest

This is simply due to the fact that people need to get used to navigating on an electronic reader. You have to learn how to use the table of contents and bookmarks to keep track. "The physical feeling of pages in your hand so you can feel and see the progression." You can see this on an e-reader if you just look at the bottom. It tells you how far you are in the book and some of them have meters that fill as you read. This study is hardly evidence for anything. The navigation tools on an e-reader are much more efficient than a paperback book. You can search for keywords on an e-reader, and you can make notes as you read just like in a paperback. There is really no reason to argue that paperback books are superior to electronic books other than being old-fashioned and finding a personal preference for it.

Stupid post. Re read the article. Also might learn something if you were to research digital overload and neuroplasticity.

Grandpa, I read the article, and I understand what digital overload and neuroplasticity are. Reading on the computer and on a tablet can give people digital overload. I am talking about reading on an electronic reader with electronic ink ONLY. No lights, no games, no movies, no music, etc. It's for reading only. Please respond via scroll and horseback because that would make me feel much better. It's clearly the better way of communicating because you can smell the leather of the saddle and your hair can blow in the wind.

I recently argued that reading physical book is much better than on a screen.This article bears out my theory http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/19/readers-absorb-less-kindles-paper-study-plot-ereader-digitisation

I only read articles online inaccessible here. I would never read an entire book for the reasons outlined in said article and like another poster, prefer the physicality of a BOOK. Together with the fact, it's very damaging for your eyesight. A fact to which, posters on here with an inordinately high post count will attest

This is simply due to the fact that people need to get used to navigating on an electronic reader. You have to learn how to use the table of contents and bookmarks to keep track. "The physical feeling of pages in your hand so you can feel and see the progression." You can see this on an e-reader if you just look at the bottom. It tells you how far you are in the book and some of them have meters that fill as you read. This study is hardly evidence for anything. The navigation tools on an e-reader are much more efficient than a paperback book. You can search for keywords on an e-reader, and you can make notes as you read just like in a paperback. There is really no reason to argue that paperback books are superior to electronic books other than being old-fashioned and finding a personal preference for it.

The decline of bookstores is not evidence for the decline of reading in general. All electronic reading devices don't hurt your eyes (ever heard of electronic ink?) and some devices are capable of sustaining battery life for weeks. The benefits of electronic reading devices far outweigh those of paperbacks. The sentimental value of a signed copy from the author, the smell of the book, and the feel of the book are some things people mention. Really? Does that really make a difference to you? What about the ability to store hundreds of books on one device, instantly looking up the definitions of words, affordability, portability, etc. The list goes on.

Treating this as a problem is like saying the drop we see in written letters via the post office equates to the decline in writing letters in general, but we know this isn't true because of email and other forms of social media.