GammaGlobulin

14 hours ago, atpeace said:

I was offered as well as other farangs.  I'm near the Thai Lao border and well into the "sticks". They put me down for Aug 15.  Think it will happen but not holding my breath.

Please do not hold your breath.  You need to breathe.  In..and ....out.  If you can keep doing this, then no need to worry.

24 minutes ago, RichardColeman said:

I have three answers to this.

 

1. The first time I went as a single person to Pattaya - 2003 - the kid indulging in the sweet shop syndrome. Soi 7 and 8 were packed. 

 

2. The year I met my wife, married her and moved full time to Thailand - 2015. For me, if you're gonna get married, make sure you get it out of your system first.

 

3. The year I eventually get back to the family after getting stuck in the UK and everything gets back to normal

As you just said, without family, life can never be normal, but always abnormal.

May you be reunited, soonest.

What I tell anyone who will listen to me is that, so very honestly speaking, the place I live in Thailand is, with zero doubt, the best place I have ever lived in my life.

I have lived in a few places, such as Canada, Hong Kong, China, Japan, and some of the most beautiful places in the US. I mean, I am not from Oklahoma.

Thailand is, by far and away, the very best of all. Or, I should say....NONE OF THE ABOVE!

When I first arrived here, I thought that the shine might wear off.

As everybody knows, living in a new country goes in definite stages.

First you love it.  Then you tolerate it, And then you are sick of it.

So far, this has not been the case with me and Thailand.

If anything, I love it more now.  And, I am just very nostalgic about the beautiful times I recall during the first year I arrived.

Or, I should say, the second time I first arrived.

I first arrived in 1971, just for three days.

My next visit was many years after this.

Although I still very much love China, just as I do Japan, and as I also love Canada and the USA, and even Taiwan, there is truly no place like Thailand that I love so much. Go ahead and crack your jokes about my love of Thailand, even more than any other country. But my love of this place stems mainly from my love of the culture and the people...that is the crux of it all.

After a decade of loving living here, I would be surprised if my feelings for this place were to change much during the next century.

Hard to change a culture such as that of Thailand.  And hard to change my opinion about this place.

As long as the culture remains the same, then my love of this place will remain constant.

And so, I wish to leave everybody here with this condensed thought from sonnet 116, as Shakespeare wrote about my love of Thailand:

 Love is not true if it changes with time; true love should be constant, regardless of difficulties.

I know you guys might think that I am being less than honest when I proclaim my love.

But, you should not doubt my constancy.

(Is Thailand, at least for me, better than any place I have lived?  I can only tell you what I honestly believe.  The answer is YES.)

Of course, if one has no experience with solving simultaneous equations, then this simple problem might be difficult.

Probably, my guess is the reason that the Chinese students were so easily able to see the answer is because they had used this method to learn the how to solve simple simultaneous equations using symbols other than Hindu-Arabic symbols.

And, maybe this is a good way to teach.  My guess is that it is.

However, when we get to the solution for 3 equations, then using random symbols is more difficult.

Using smiley faces for symbols, might not be so elegant, and far more cumbersome.

4???? - 3???? + ???? =  -????️

OK, CALSinCM, I will not rationalize this.

However, I wonder if anyone here has taken and passed the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT), because....you gotta be smart in order to ace it.

And so, one can surmise, anyone intelligent enough to pass the FSOT must look upon us less gifted folks as Zeus looked upon mere mortals, or even zoo animals.

Joking aside:  It is easy to see, if you have had any interaction with embassies, that taking care of the needs of individual citizens is probably not glamorous enough for these eggheads.  Probably, most of them dream of signing some important treaty with their name on it.

Or, why else would they go into the foreign service?

Here is a quote from POLITICO Magazine, for example...

Recently, a colleague of mine from the Foreign Service told me about a former U.S. ambassador to Sweden who, some years ago, had passed out in the snow, too drunk to get up. He had been partying hard during an outing in the countryside. Fortunately, an embassy officer found him in time to save his life. America’s boozy man in Stockholm was a non-career political appointee—no surprise. The fellow who saved him was a professional diplomat. And the roles the two men played that night is emblematic of a familiar routine.

....I have no doubt that many of the professional diplomats are talented men and women.  I do not doubt this.

However, are these the smart guys who set policy?

Or, is it the guys in the State Department who sometimes are too drunk in the snow, and need to be saved from their own stupidity?

Many, I guess, are political appointees, too stupid to pass the FSOT.

2 hours ago, FolkGuitar said:

Correction:  The Japanese Embassy in Bangkok IS now providing limited doses to Japanese citizens IN BANGKOK, but not yet in Chiang Mai.

Pretty amazing, I think, that the Japanese Embassy can do what the US Embassy cannot do.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

And, the Japanese government has the will.

I guess that we can glean from this that American power and dominance is waning in the Pacific, and the Japanese sun is rising, which I have no opinion about.

Except:  One might say that if a country, such as the US, cannot take care of its own citizens in this region, then why would any "foreign" country trust such a Super Duper Power?

As Trump said, "It is what it is".

It is actually not difficult to find a very quiet condo anywhere in Thailand.

It is even possible to find a condo which is virtually without noise/sound of any kind detectable by the human ear.

Step One:  Buy the condo building.

Step Two:  Dig a cellar in the building, down to about 20 meters. And, make sure you use a diaphragm to stop water leaks intruding from underground water sources, especially from encroaching sea water in BKK.

Step Three: Use a minimum of one meter of concrete slab above your underground condo suite.

Step Four:  Install  a light transport system, such as heliostats, light pipes and fiber optics to bring sunlight to your underground suite so that things will not get too dark.

Step Five: Enjoy your peaceful existence underground.  And, say, "Bye-Bye" to the sounds of roosters, all the livelong day.

Step Six:  Invite your noisy friends for an underground rock concert.

NOTE: Without any facetiousness, whatsoever, I dream of a quite space such as we see in this image.  I am sure that there are many in Thailand would would be happy to move to a place like this, tomorrow, or even tonight.

2 minutes ago, Doctor Tom said:

She is a Greek Scholar 

The Greek scholar Socrates is my hero.

Where would we be without the Socratic method, even at Harvard Law School?

On 7/27/2021 at 11:57 PM, ukrules said:

Indeed, I was about to ask for clarification, is that a letter O or a Zero but for the answers given it's obviously not a zero.

 

So the answer is b, which is 3.

Sorry, it was obvious that the triangles and the circles were just symbols unrelated to the Hindu-Arabic number system, just at a glance.  The problem with the post is the implied correlation between cultural background and native math ability.  I think the OP has not yet collected enough data to draw any conclusions, just by his at-home field research.

16 minutes ago, Doctor Tom said:

Meaningless.  If you do wish to do a comparison study, even a simple one, do like for like.  Maths puzzles with math graduates, science questions with science graduates. My Daughter-in- Law doesn't know the first thing about maths, but she is a Classics Professor, go figure. 

When you state she is a Classics professor, I assume she is teaching classical physics involving classical mechanics, thermodynamics and electromagnetism, same as Michael Faraday, who was a classic.

On 7/27/2021 at 11:57 PM, ukrules said:

Indeed, I was about to ask for clarification, is that a letter O or a Zero but for the answers given it's obviously not a zero.

 

So the answer is b, which is 3.

Yes, of course.

This is probably the stupidest "math" question I have ever seen.

And, this guy says that Thai university students were not able to solve this "problem".

Probably they knew, but were too polite to say what they were thinking.

Also, I do not enjoy cross-cultural comparisons concerning "intelligence", as is seemingly implied here.

Nonsense.

Wishing Good Health to All:

During this lockdown, and possible future rolling lockdowns in the offing, I have come to the realization that the best choice for me might be to just hunker down and do another 150-page thesis edit for a deserving/perfectionist grad student in Thailand.  If I did, then there would be no need to leave my house for three months. And, no time to think about COVID.

I have done a fair number of these long and time-consuming ESL-type edits in recent years.  And, due to the projected effects of COVID, I believe that several more time-consuming and worthy projects would be a win/win proposition.

Obviously, I do not expect that any grad student worth her salt might be reading this forum while completing her thesis research, and so this is not an ad.

Instead, I had hoped that just one or two readers here might provide me with some pointers concerning how to quickly find ESL grad students in Thailand who might need my help.

ESL thesis editing is actually not typical editing as most editors might know it. ESL editing is more a matter of careful interpretation, plus editing. The task is to preserve the meaning of convoluted paragraphs while making them readable. And then, to do a second edit, and maybe even a third edit after thesis defense.

I have edited theses written by students from Burma (Myanmar), China, Cambodia and Thailand. It’s always the same, and the process from beginning to completion requires about three months as students proceed through the thesis writing process. This is what I am seeking. I usually work 12 hours per day, 7 days per week, on a good thesis edit, and rarely feel the need to think about the world around me or come up for air. True, I listen to JS Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier and Bach’s cello compositions while editing, and this keeps me going with very few breaks.

These days, and this next year, I am considering doing one or two, maybe three, more thesis edits, and just hope to let the world go by outside my house, and be able to happily subsist on food delivered outside my door. Such a thing as this will be good for students, and good for me during this unique time in history.

Most likely, the worse the virus gets, and the more the virus adapts, the more theses I will wish to gladly edit in a meticulous way.

THEREFORE, I kindly ask any knowledgeable reader here to provide me with a few pointers concerning best ways to quickly find deserving Thai grad students in need of thesis editing help.

I work hard, and I am a perfectionist about such things as transition from one paragraph to the next, in order to create a more logical flow of ideas presented throughout each chapter. 

I prefer helping a student who has chosen a topic in the Natural Sciences. However, if/when I agree to edit a thesis in the Social Sciences, then the topic should be worthy and should not be boring, but should broach something new and interesting.

In case anyone might wish to know, I am an IVY grad from a top university on the east coast of the US. Think Benjamin Franklin.

I exercise much patience and do my best to be supportive of students during the extremely stressful writing process as they complete their thesis and defense.

In Conclusion: 

There are some serious people on this forum who are also smart and resourceful; I know.

How can I find a good and caring student who needs help?

What is the point in being in lockdown for many more months without using this time to help a student, if one might? Why waste this time???

Please feel free to send me a message if you have any thoughts.

Or just reply on the forum, even better.

I do not exactly expect I will find the answer to my question here, although I just might.

And so, it is worth a try to ask such a question in this space.

Thank you.

Note:  Of course, most thesis edits are normally done between the months of April and June. Still, due to the pandemic, maybe timing, and our times, have now changed.

Tks, again.

(If this turns out to be a double-post: Sorry. Not intentional.)

Just now, lanng khao said:

I use to pay a agent to barfine for me, next day he would report back with a thumbs up or down,if up I knew she was worth me taking on the transaction and not being disappointed. True story..

I do not doubt it.

Agents reduce both risk and stress, and benefit clients.

Nobody likes uncertainty.

10 minutes ago, dabhand said:

On a related subject. I was working in Egypt in the late 80's about 80kms west of Alexandria. A recent edict meant that work permit applications required a negative HIV test. So, a doctor plus a couple of nurses turned up at our project site and proceeded to take the necessary blood samples from the 50 or so expats.

 

However, our Brit Project Manager was not available. All was not lost as our local Admin Manager volunteered as a stand in and provided the necessary sample. Luckily it came back negative!!

 

No doubt similar dubious practices will still be available in certain parts of the world.

 

Your dreams may yet come true......5555   

Unfortunately, as is true in dentistry......

There is no way to pay an agent to have root canal therapy on one's behalf, and benefit by it.

Some things must be done firsthand.

Money only goes so far.

I mean, you cannot hire someone else in order to accomplish that which one must do oneself.

There is very little benefit gained from paying someone else to learn to ride a bicycle if one's purpose is to ride a bicycle.

This same logic applies to the vaccine.

No matter the hurdles, still one must have a jab in the arm, even though some might wish this were not so.

Reality is not the same as dreaming, I suppose.

50 minutes ago, FolkGuitar said:

My wife is Japanese. She has NOT received any word from the Japanese Embassy or Consulate about Japanese citizens receiving vaccinations. She is on their list when alerts get sent out.

 

That said, the Japanese 'community' HAS banded together to see to it that its members will get vaccinated at Lanna Hospital, at the cost of 3,000 baht, and my wife is registered for that.  At present, that registration is full.

Social cohesion in time of need is a wonderful thing. I have lived in Japan, off and on, since 1971.  I have seen a bit of Japanese culture in places like Kyoto, and I have seen it evolve over many years.  Yet still, there is this strong bond, as you say.

(Give my best to your wife.  Please tell her I loved the tea in Nara, decades ago.  And, I loved being the only farang drinking tea. We drank from cups which were old, rare and expensive.  Never drop your teacup there, because it could costs you tens of thousands to replace.)

Please keep this thread informed about what is REALLY happening concerning news from the Japanese embassy, regarding possible vaccinations for Japanese citizens in Thailand, which is of much interest to many here, no doubt.

((In times of crisis, Americans head to the nearest gun store.  What does your wife say that Japanese tend to do during times of crisis?))

Last night as I slept a fitful sleep, I dreamed that I had hired a vaccination agent to be vaccinated for me.

She told me that she could visit the vaccination site on my behalf, and that I could stay home comfortably sipping piña coladas by the pool.

She said, "I will be happy to wait in line for you."

She told me that she was willing to be jabbed in my stead, and that I would thereby receive full protection from all possible future virus variants.

In my logical dream, this turned out to be true, and I spent the rest of my sleep until daybreak totally immune from COVID.

When I awoke this morning, I had a bounce in my step, and had a huge breakfast which went down so well.

Do you think my dream will soon come true?

Do you think I can be jabbed by proxy, just by hiring a vaccination girl to get jabbed for me?

But, how can this be?

All that I know is that....IF it can be......Then it might be.

Grammar is important.

The vaccination agent of my dreams told me she loves getting jabbed, and she told me it's not painful, at all.

In fact, she said, "Sometimes, I find myself actually enjoying it."

When dreaming, almost anything can happen.

And when disappearing down a rabbit hole,

Some jabs make you big, and some jabs make you small,

But the worst jabs mother gives you,

Don't do anything, at all.

If you don't believe me,

Go ask Alice.

I think she'll know.

10 minutes ago, flare said:

Thanks for the advice, but I've actually looked into it (and the part about my wife was just basically 'throwing it out there', as there are probably others who've heard the same thing from their own spouses)- while Sinovac is likely better than nothing (though it's effectiveness against the Delta variant is suspect at best), I'm leaning toward not get it now to avoid potentially being denied a more effective vaccine later should one become available due to my status as having already been vaccinated.

 

Yeah, it would be great if the US were doing something more for its citizens (I'm American), but that's not happening, so I'm looking at it from a practical angle.

I understand your logic, which seems valid to me, and I will consider this after just now reading your thinking.

Also, what about getting the Sinovac now, and then having the option to PAY FOR a Pfizer vaccine when and if it becomes available in the somewhat near future at a private hospital, maybe towards the end of the year?

Additionally, I also consider the hospital setting in CM hospitals when/if we were to visit them for our vaccination.  Would this be a setup where there was very low risk of potentially being exposed to the virus while waiting in long lines, for example?  This seems like one of the important known unknowns that I do not yet know.

IF I knew that I could just pay for the Sinovac, and get in and out of the vaccination setting, within about 5 minutes, after an appointment, and without waiting in line, then I would not hesitate...I think.  However, if I am required to go to a vaccination site, and then wait in line for a few hours, I will definitely not take part in such an arrangement.

Anyway...thanks for your reply.

By the way, since we know that vaccines in countries such as Thailand, Australia, and Taiwan are in such short supply....

It does not seem reasonable that foreigners should be vaccinated ahead of citizens of countries in which they live.

The local citizenry should be vaccinated first, and this seems so obvious.

Therefore, as implied above, perhaps, the UK gov should make provisions to vaccinate its citizens abroad, where feasible, and the US government should do likewise.

Doing this would help protect the home countries when expats return to their beloved countries, as they surely will, from time to time.

This is only logical, and an approach which abides by the Scientific Method.  

7 hours ago, flare said:

Yeah, I'm really on the fence about it- right now I'm a 'no', though I'll be giving it a lot of thought over the next few days before my scheduled appointment.  My wife (who's Thai) wants me to wait as she doesn't trust the SV vaccine.

Do you not think that it is better to trust Science, rather than to trust one's Spouse, if the findings of science disagree with the beliefs of the spouse?

Therefore, what does the best science say about Sinovac?

For example, is it low risk?

For example, does it provide some benefit?

And, for example, does a Vaccine Cocktail show promise of providing quite good protection?

==========

However, this is NOT to distract from the implied question posed by the OP.

Which is, why we farang are not getting shots/jabs from our respective countries of citizenship?

It seems to me that, if one is an American, then it would behoove the US government to vaccinate all American expats living abroad, as much as possible, before having them return to potentially spread overseas variants of the virus...BACK to the Homeland, or as CSNY once sang:  Back to the Garden.....

If Americans were vaccinated while abroad, then there would be less potential for them to carry the virus back to Woodstock and Yasgur's Farm.

Vaccination of American expats, while abroad, is a very important policy for containment of the virus.

Get the Expats vaccinated....BEFORE...they fly back to American soil.

Or, in other words:

We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden,

AFTER vacc....sin......A....tion.

You know..... Although Mark Twain often criticized the US gov in his essays, sometimes in a very biting way, this does not mean that he was not a great American. He is beloved by Americans, and many around the world, as well.

I am quite sure that all of us deeply love our respective home countries, at least I do.

There is always room for improvement, and President Lincoln did utter the advice: "Always improve".

It is a valid point that the US gov should have made provisions for vaccinating Americans abroad at the earliest possible opportunity. And, even though I do not know what the causes and reasons, still, it seems that the US gov has failed at making the necessary plans, and then taking action to get this important job done.

This should have been done, just as some other countries seem to have been able to fairly easily accomplish this.

Maybe someone dropped the ball, or was preoccupied with other more important things.

Or, as i mentioned, this just might be due to cultural differences between Japan and the US, and a different philosophical point of view.

2 hours ago, Bruno123 said:

Not a great way to be thinking, IMHO. Some things may change, but some things stay the same. 

 

Think back to when you were a child. You would create things out the materials that you had at hand and fill in the parts that you did not, with make-believe.

It's up to you to create the world that you want to see. If I believe people mostly care about each other; then I act in a caring way, mostly. ????

Not liking the world is only a reflection of your state of mind. There are billions of amazing people out there.... I'm sure ????

 

 

 

In fact, most people do care about one another. We know this to be true.

5 hours ago, canthai55 said:

If most Americans love to be self reliant, none would get a vaccine, unless they cooked it up in their bathtub

They LIKE to believe they are, but really ...

Being self reliant went out the window many many years ago

I had been thinking the same thought.

Why should Americans collaborate, anyway.  Making one's own vaccine is part of the fun of being a self-reliant American.

As I recall, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote some sort of essay about self-reliance.

And self-reliance is the myth that has become a religion in America.

The reality is complete interdependency, but the US government tries to fool Americans into worshiping self-reliance in order to keep medical costs down, and feelings of desperation up.

Anyway, medical care is about the same both inside and outside of America.

Medical care is excellent if you can pay for it.

And, it is a rare case that expats abroad get a helping hand for much of anything.

No Americans left behind when it comes to providing vaccines by the US gov for Americans abroad?

Doubt it....

Because, doing this would just be......UN-AMERICAN!

The Japanese society is different in terms of their views concerning self-reliance at all costs.

There may be deep-seated sociological reasons why governments such as the US feel no need to provide vaccines to Americans living abroad.

Sometimes it is better to suffer independently rather than become overly reliant on government handouts.

If the US gov wanted to provide vaccines to Americans living abroad, it would not be beyond the means of such a wealthy country.

However, would this not overly encourage dependency  for things such as basic medical care?

It is better to just let nature take its course, rather than trying to intervene and allow all citizens to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

Most Americans love to be self-reliant.

And, you would not wish to have Americans denied this valuable experience.

I am sure that this is the basic reason why American expats have not been provided with COVID vaccines, so far, by the US gov.