Welshman

Can someone advise me about whether I can legally work on a retirement visa, either full time, part time or even private stuff?

I thought it was quite obvious -

Love is when you lose all reason or common sense, refuse to listen to the advice of others and generally behave like a moron dosed up on Prozac.

I'm in the same boat as you (I think) because I'm hoping to buy one in the next week or so.

In short, I needed a car urgently so I bought an old banger off my son. Over last couple of weeks have had nothing but trouble so decided to get shot and start again.

Until I manage to realise some capital from my property at home, I can only go downmarket so have been looking at around the 100,000 baht mark.

I've found one in a local showroom - really clean, single cab (not ideal) 2.5 diesel, no fancy stuff.

I've been told that, apart from insurance, I may have to pay some kind of transfer fee when I buy. I think that this is on a sliding scale depending on the price.

If you're thinking of buying more upmarket, my son has just bought himself a Mitsubishi Strada. I think it cost around 3-400,000 baht and he got it on some kind of credit agreement. The problem with one of those is that you need a Thai guarantor and the interest rate if sky high.

Insurance again varies as in any other country depending on the vehicle, kind of cover etc.

As far as I know, there is no bar to Farangs buying cars - just that you need to be careful and preferably have a Thai with you when you go to look (and get them to do the bargaining for you).

Anybody ever bought (new) furniture in Thailand. I moved into a house recently and had to buy quite a bit. By the time it was delivered I would spend the better part of an afternoon trying to get the cellophane off.

It was only after a while I realised what the problem was - they put the packaging on before they finish building the damned stuff.

That means that you have to unscrew all the handles to get the cellophone off.

I had a three piece (sofa and two chairs) delivered the other day - it took me the best part of the evening to get the stuff off and I daren't use a knife in case I damaged the covering.

It's still sitting there with bits of cellophane sticking out!

As a general rule, Thai students will be well drilled in English Grammar. But this would have been done with Thai teachers.

Probably what this guy needs is practice with practical English. This would be mainly pronunciation with possibly some writing thrown in.

Don't get in a knot with trying to teach the technical side of things - just get him practicising repeating short sentences over and over again.

I noticed it a couple of nights ago. I'm pretty new to UBC but had sussed that, above BBC, there were only a couple of French channels then all blocked.

Then, fiddling with the remote, ended up at the high end of channel numbers and realised that I was watching some good stuff.

Probably pull the plug after New Year!

No, not at all. I would think you found a girl who has received her education in America.

We had an American guy on the same TEFL course in August. One weekend, I went with some family to visit the Bridge on the River Kwai, the war cemetry and the death railway itself.

I mentioned this to this American guy, but he seemed completely bemused. I said 'you know, the Burma Railway'. No reaction, I said 'the death railway - where the Japs forced POWs to build a railway'.

'When was that then?' he asked.

'During the war' I said.

'Oh right', he said, 'that'd be the Vietnam war, right?'

I thought that the highway code in Thailand was far more simple. From my experience they seem to be -

1. If I toot, get the <deleted> outta my way

2. If I flash, don't even think about it!

3. So what if I am driving the wrong way down a dual-carriageway?

4. I don't wear a crash helmet on a motorcycle or, if I do, one of those plastic things that wouldn't do much for my chances if I did come off.

5. So, I'm taking the whole family out for the day - who said I can't pack them all onto one moped?

6. I'm a street vendor, of course I have a perfect right to tootle along at 15 mph in the outside lane of a dual carriageway.

7. So my front wheels leave the ground every time I move off - how else am I supposed to deliver this fully grown tree?

8. OK, so I have the pickup loaded up to a height of around 50 feet and the whole thing is unstable - I'll just have to avoid low bridges won't I?

9. Yes, it's perfectly legal (and natural) to drive my motorcycle on the pavement.

10. And yes, it's perfectly alright to overtake, undertake, pass on the hard shoulder, pass in the bike lane, pass anywhere as long as I can get past.

I see so the exchanging of 55,000GBP wedding rings and the wedding kiss were merely symbolic were they !!!!!!!!!!!!

Definately a weird world

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Well, for a couple of homos, yes.

I had a Canon Powershot and I loved it - damned good camera so, when it died on me I thought I'd buy another so that I could use the upgrade memory chip I'd bought.

Had a look at a couple but it seems that they've changed the memory chip so that my Flash card would have been useless.

I ended up considering the Fujifilm 'S' series. They look like SLR cameras and seemed to have good writeups. As someone else mentioned on a previous post, one drawback is that they use these new fangled XD cards but I read that the S7000 model can take both the XD and Flash.

Hunted around but, alas, it seems that they're not in the shops yet. I plumped for the S5600 model. Most shops were quoting 15,500 baht a time but I wandered into a small shop in Future Parks called Brock's and they had the same model for 13,500.

Upshot is that I bought it. Only had it a couple of days but seems a nice machine with 5MPs and 10X zoom. The XD is a bummer at only 16Meg (what the hel_l are you meant to do with that) but, having saved 2,000 baht on the price I'm not too freaked about spending another 2,000 or so on buying a bigger card. I can get a 500+ meg one for around that price.

The only real gripe I have is that, having spent extra on a computer with an all singing and all dancing card reader, it won't take the XD card which means either buying an adapter or downloading via a USB cable.

Many thanks to all the posters. I really was losing sleep over this but have taken a bit of all your suggestions and work on that.

Yes, got them doing a Crisis Management press release now - they run a factory where 3 workers have just been killed in an accident. Be interesting to see what they make of that one.

The speeches idea is great - they need to brush up on their spoken English.

As a project, I've suggested to the college that they do a house journal but instead of making up a fictional one, they do one for the college. Not sure if the college will fly on that one but has endless potential.

Again, great to be a part of Thai Visa - not end of friends and helpful suggestions.

I have a female Thai friend who speaks good English. She is a qualified teacher but not longer teaches.

She would like to teach Thai to Farangs but I've warned her about the practical risks of location etc. (hotel rooms, people's homes)

We're still trying to find a way round that but does anyone have any opinions as to whether there's going to be enough custom out there to make it worthwhile?

There are plenty of jobs outside of Bkk advertised on Ajarn. In fact one, AmeriThai, has readvertised and someone from there even phoned me to ask me whether I wanted a job.

They're down in Surat Thani, a very nice area I believe and close to the islands.

So, give Ajarn a try

Thanks to both of you (to khall64au for his (her?) email with course structure). Yes, I think you're probably right. I have the same students for several other modules all with different titles.

At the last one, I asked them to write a simple letter, and was shocked by the standard of their written English.

Probably will take khal64au's framework and put some meat on it in the form of tons of written work. I also deliver a module on Bus Eng in Advertising - I was crapping bricks about it but just finished the first (3 hour) session and both I (and, I think the students) thoroughly enjoyed it.

These were adults but the same problem arose - use of English, especially written English. I'll probably use quite a bit of the material from this one in the PR thing too as some themes do overlap.

Thanks again, which all goes to show that for anyone teaching Thailand, ThaiVisa forum is a MUST.

I use to work in Public Affairs for LA Recruiting Battalion for the US Army. What type of info are you looking for?

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Well, the course title is Business English in Public Relations. So, it's about PR as is but the use of English in PR.

I ordered a book about writing for PR but no use at all. Need examples, exercises, possible project ideas etc. These kids need a lot of practice with their English but I still have to deliver, examine, assess etc all for their degree.

One of the courses I have to deliver is English in Public Relations.

There's no curriculum or course content whatever. I've boned up on PR 'til it's coming out of my ears but having real problems attaching that to activities, etc, for the 'English' bit.

Is there anyone out there who's been through this. If so, would be mighty grateful for any pointers, sources of information or downloads etc.

I've tried countiless searches but haven't found anything that comes even close.

Help!

I was over 40 when I went back to college to do a two year B/TEC course in computer studies.

The first day there, I took a look in the classroom, panicked and almost ran - they were all so young! But there really wasn't anywhere to run to as I'd quit my job.

I managed to get over it but felt very very ill at ease for the first couple of weeks. Also, this was in the 80s when home computers were still at the Commodore/Amstrad/ZX80 stage so most of the kids had had experience of playing around and even some Basic programming. I hadn't a clue.

In short, stuck it out and got my cert. Before the course I was an insurance salesman (which I hated and wasn't very good at). When I finished the course, I walked straight into a teaching job which completely changed my life.

I did a degree course, but that was by distance learning and never even saw the university.

So, yes, it's usually well worth it but it really isn't easy at first. And further to what a previous poster said about mature students appreciating more - dead right. As I had a more mature attitude and experience of life, business, etc, then I enjoyed the course content all the more.

Further to that - we started off with around 20 students, just 6 of us finished the full 2 years!

The other day, one of my female students (who had her back to me) brushed up her hair to reveal the nape of her neck. There, on the back of her neck just below the hairline, she had a large swastika tattoo.

I've seen swastikas on some religious figurines here and especially in Malaysia but does it have a signifance ?

Any particular reason she would have such a tattoo?

did anyone say Klingons?

Horrible isn't it.

Same in China - I had bacon & eggs on toast once and it was awful, in fact the bacon in Asia is a topic all by itself.

Eggs have always been fine though - providing they ain't pink or black.

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Right about the bacon - seems you can't get back bacon here. And what you get is mostly fat.

Was in Tesco's the other day and was looking at a Tesco 'own brand' pack. I took it over under the light for a better look to see if I could see any traces of actual bacon. Just seemed like a strip of lard with the odd minute speck of colour in it.

Hemorrhoids

I have just started work here in Thailand and I'm trying to get the real situation regarding tax, but I keep getting totally conflicting advice.

Firstly, I was told that I would pay a straight percentage

Then I was told that, as a Farang, I would pay a fixed 1,800 baht a month

Then another person told me that they didn't pay any tax at all and that I shouldn't either

Then again, I was told that you're taxed on an incremental scale

Then another guy said that it was only Americans that didn't pay any tax

Anyone out there know the real situation ?

Err. why has this topic generated over 13,000 replies? Is it that the Aussies are so objectionable or univesally loved?

On small hillside farm in Wales, a farmer raised beef cattle. His son, Huw, want't the shiniest tool in the box, but is father was reliant on him for keeping tabs on what was happening within the herd.

One day, whilst entertaing guests, the son burst in and said "Dad, the bull just ######ed the brown cow".

Furious at being shown up in this way, the father belted his son in the mouth and told him to get out.

Later, the father tried to explain to the son about the use of language in front of strangers They came to an agreement that, in future, he would use the term 'surprised' as in 'The bull has just surprised the brown cow'.

Some weeks later, the family had a visit from the local Gweunidog (Vicar). Everything was laid out, the bread and butter, tea, fruit cake etc. They were just getting down to a convivial tea when the door burst open to reveal Huw.

'Dad, Dad, the bull just surprised the brown cow' he shouted.

The father, feeling pleased at this coded message, replied 'Very good, Huw'.

To which the son replied 'Yes, Dad, he ran straight past her and ######ed the black one"!

The world expert on European wasps and the sounds that they make

is taking a stroll down his local high street.

As he passes by the record shop, a sign catches his eye.

"Just Released -New LP -Wasps of the World and the sounds that they make - available now"

Unable to resist the temptation, the man goes into the shop.

"I am the world expert on European wasps and the sounds that they make. I'd very much

like to listen to the new LP you have advertised in the window."

"Certainly, Sir," says the young man behind the counter. "If you'd like to step into

the booth and put on the headphones, I'll put the LP on for you."

The world expert on European wasps goes into the booth and puts on the earphones.

Ten minutes later, he comes out of the booth and announces, "I am the world expert

on European wasps and the sounds that they make and yet I recognised none of those."

"I'm sorry Sir", says the young assistant.

"If you'd care to step into the booth, I can let you have another 10 minutes."

The world expert on European wasps and the sounds that they make steps back into

the booth and replaces the headphones.

Ten minutes later, he comes out of the booth shaking his head.

"I don't understand it", he says,

"I am the world expert on European wasps and the sounds that they make, and yet I

still can't recognise any of those!"

"I'm terribly sorry, Sir" says the young man, "perhaps if you'd like to step into

the booth again, you could have 5 more minutes."

Sighing, the world expert on European wasps and the sounds that they make steps back

into the booth.

Five minutes later, he comes out again, clearly agitated.

"I am the world expert on European wasps and the sounds that they make and yet I have

recognised none of the wasps on this LP."

"I really am terribly sorry", says the young assistant,

"I've just realised I was playing you the bee side."

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Groan