BlackArtemis

No matter the outcome of who and why, regards go to families hurt and lives lost

See, now if you were a Philly Fan then you would be used to watching your team choke!

The one on 3rd floor of Central is cheap and basic. no locker rooms (they have lockers though and no bathroom inside the gym, but it is cheap, has all you really need (cardio machines of all sorts, free and weight machines). TONS of help there too, really friendly place.

I went there in my workout clothes and drove back :shrug:

I loved it! 24" here outside of Philadelphia during Christmas. Not only was it the first white Christmas I have seen in over 10 years, but the timing was perfect as my in laws came to visit my wife and I and they were able to see snow. I will have to post pics of my niece enjoying the winter wonderland.

Now tht offically connects this thread w/ Chiang mai

The shops mentioned, do they sell real "jing jing" games or copies?

I'm after somewhere in CM that sells real games as I like to use Xbox live.

Play Asia sells them and ships to Thailand for about 500 baht.

They might have a handful of games, but most will be copies.

Funny, the most real games I ever saw was on the 3rd floor of the mall in Phitsanulok.

Guilt friends into visiting you, and then have them load up their suitcases

and thanks for the info about Live.

I find myself repeating this statement a lot, but because it's the most sound advice I was given.

Once you get a job observe your co-workers, Thai and Foreign. Observe anyone and everyone and see what works and what doesn't. Now of course you will have different ball games when comparing Thai Vs others, but that doesn't mean you can't learn a thing or two that will work wonders in your own class. For one, i started out my classes the exact same way my Thai partner did, so there was a familiarity, rather than "YAY! it's the Farang, this means fun and games only!" which many Thai kids seem to believe.

Other than that, relax and I am sure you will do fine.

Stateside we have a product/service that is a GPS tracker. It's about the size of box of matches. Charge it up and hide it on something and you can find it anywhere.

The problem is it runs on a certain Cellphone company's satellites here in the US.

There has to be something similarly offered in SE Asia. Perhaps even one that you can hook up to the battery to recharge it.

On a side note, my friend had her Mio stolen and the cops found it 4 months later in Ayutthya. The color was changed but they kept the original papers in the bike... So on a traffic stop she got her bike back.

Yeah, since Microsoft just banned over 1 million Xboxes for life from Live for being modded, I don't find it worthwhile. So unless you have no desrie what so ever to ever have your system updated etc, go with a chip.

On top of that, chipping a Wii is even more pointless since you can now soft mod them to load any game off an SD card or external harddrive, you can simply reflash it to go back to normal.

It's hard to find real games and it is not worth getting a chipped system. Can you access Live from Thailand?

If you have friends in a western country it might be easier to have them mail you the disc.

Government Schools: I've had some very good experiences with Government Schools. If you make an effort to do a good job, they will generally appreciate you and treat you very well. The downsides: low pay, long hours, large class sizes, many disinterested or unruly students, often no air-conditioning, some Thai teachers can be hostile or resentful and the directors (who are usually transferred around every 2 to 4 years) run the schools like their own private fiefdoms.

The first part varies, as with my experience it was quite the opposite. However, the last part is 100% true and you and yout co-workers will be tearing out you hair at the asinine things that go on due to this until you reach your breaking point. That's when you either quit or learn to accept the system.

Tesco is 2-4x the price. And with the Wii homebrew Channel you only need to download games.

unlike a chip the change can simple be reversed by updating the console's software.

None that I know of, sorry.

As for an update I did get a wii and compared to my Xbox 360 it feels like a waste of money.

but now that I found "The Homebrew Channel" I have a 500gb harddrive hooked up to it and load games off of that, no need for a chip.

I too had no problem with respect.

If you dress clean, show up on time, be prepared, and are always polite 90% of Thai teachers will be respectful of you.

Come in hung over one time and expect to never regain it though.

When I'm in Houston, my Alpha-male straight hunky friend lends me his Miata and I act straight in it. It was copied from the Lotus Elan, a man's car. But my old boyfriend drove a shocking pink Honda Civic; that was gay.

I have to disagree with you here. Both the Mazda MX5 and the Lotus Elan girly cars. The only Civic that was every gay was the CRX.

The US CRX or everyone elses CRX?

The CRX in Thailand is what Americans would call a Del Sol. Our CRX is a 2 door hatch.

Anyone who says they are for girls has not seen one tear up a SCCA course. Nor have they seen a flyin' Miata turbo kit on one, or a Ford 5.0 302 or Chevy LS1 dropped into one of these.

If the price was right I wouldn't mind a 1.8L Miata in CM, would have to be a steal for the 1.6.

I worked in a Government school which had an EP program and felt this was a much better deal than most private schools.

I was not qualified enough to work at an international so private and Government were my choices.

I was paid 25,000/month

Sign in before 8am and can leave by 3pm

I taught three hours a day, the same class 1hr of English, math, and science for 5 days a week. So I taught 15hrs weekly

I never had more than 35 students in a classroom

I did not have air conditioning, but now the school does have it.

I had off almost the entire month of October, from mid March to early May and was paid. I was allowed to travel home at any time during my off days

I might have had to put in at a maximum of 3 weekend days per year. (Camps, Sports day etc)

Hassle free work permits because school administrators were friends with those issuing the permits. So they sent off the paperwork a head of time and then you took 45 minutes to walk in and get it done.

Now, I could have earned 5-10k Bhat more at a private school.

about 7:30 to 4 or later, no exceptions.

20-27hrs of teaching time a week

Most jobs at the time were for roaming only

Some offered on campus housing, but don't roll in at 2am unless you want it to be the latest rumor for the next three days

Less Holidays, some only allowed 1 week in October and mandatory check ins during the summer. I had friends who had to be there, even if it only meant reading a book.

I made an extra 20K/month through private tutoring and still put in less hours than the private schools around me wanted. but I did sacrifice free time.

Now, not all Gov't schools are like mine, in fact the Non-EP teachers taught 3-6 different classrooms with upwards of 50 kids. But they did not teach more than 15hrs either.

Now, no matter what, you are going to run into some crazy scenarios and will have pluses and minuses ate each school. Check them all out and then make a decision that best fits your own wants and needs.

My wife constantly cleans, she likes to rearrange her closets etc when she has free time. Whenever I turn around there is laundry being done.

one thing I loved about living in Chiang Mai was that every Saturday morning she would bring loads of fresh flowers into the house.

I feel guilty sometimes because I don't do enough!

Her mother is the same way mind you.

If I tried my damnedest to get away from all of you by coming to Thailand, why would I want to confined in an enclosed space with you?

I keed, I keed, it would be something amazing to see fruition of some of these ideas.

I had a waterproof camera case come from Japan off ebay. paid $100 for it and had a 200baht tax from Thailand.

I had a crystal bowl come in, estimated $100 (by Thailand) and they wanted 2300 baht.

The moral of the story is: They charge whatever they want for it and if Somchai thinks it might be nice for himself or any of his own, expect a nice tax.

The real bad guys are the higher ups who have not encouraged greater infrastructure and a push for Thailand to stop being 10+ years behind other SE Asia countries technology wise.

BTW anyone seriously interested in these models, expect to chew through tires. The camber setup is setup so poorly (and nonadjustable I believe) that many people have to replace tires every 10-20k miles.

If I do a good deed to then only brag about it on the internet, doesn't it defeat the purpose of this thread?

just having a laugh

My wife sent my wallet in my pants to the cleaners. it had 8000 baht in it. When she went to get the laundery they handed her my wallet with 8000 baht in it.

The cleaners is right across from Wat Nantaram, the motorcycle shop on the corner are good friends as well. P' A. (No English)

Those are two more honest places of business for all of you.

And while I'm at it, up the street Kow Mun Gai Nataram is fantastic (same as the vendor in the foodcourt upstairs in Robinson)

No, it sounds like when he entered the term there was a blank slate and he had no idea where to go from there. So he is doing the same.

Withholding grades in Thailand means nothing, they were probably going to doctor the grades you gave no matter what!

You can't give Pingpong that grade! His dad owns a gold shop and is very rich! "But he didn't do any work and failed all the tests!" Ok, ok then give him a B.

Best thing to do is just tell fellow teachers in your area to avoid it. But if they are replacing teachers with Filipinos they will never have a problem. They get shit on worse than anybody but still stick at those jobs because of the screwed up philosophy of what makes a good teacher...