otherstuff1957

My school has reduced the hours for teachers drastically, cancelled summer camp and we are planning online/remote lessons for next term in case we cannot open the school in May.

How has Covid-19 impacted your school?

The Democratic establishment is determined to keep Sanders out of the White House, even if it means giving Trump another 4 years! 

Biden would have been an OK president back in the 20th century, but this is the 21st century and a lot of people are fed-up with 'politics as usual'.  Despite 'conventional wisdom' I believe that Sanders has a better chance of actually beating Trump than an establishment hack like Biden.

Trump and Sanders are opposite sides of the same coin.  They are both addressing the issues that really matter today, but Trump is trying to roll back the clock 50 years, while Sanders is trying to plan for the future.  Both could be surprise winners over more conventional candidates.

The revised version of Focus follows the 2560 revision of the Thai Sci. Curriculum.  The quality is pretty uneven though.  Some chapters are OK, others are difficult to teach.  I actually preferred the older version, though it had a lot of the same problems.

I generally don't go for conspiracy theories, but here is a study from Harvard U. that casts doubt on the official numbers from Thailand and several other SE Asian Counties:

 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.04.20020495v1.full.pdf

It's now more than a month out of date, but it's an interesting read, especially this graph:

If we extrapolate from this data, we can see that Thailand should have at least 4x as many cases as Singapore. Yet current figures are 130 for Singapore and only 48 for Thailand.  I suspect that 130 x 4, or 520, is probably closer to reality than the official figure.

BTW, other Harvard studies lauded Singapore as having the best organized response to Covid-19 of almost any county in the world, so their figures are probably more accurate than most.

^ A genderless Godmother is one thing, but Please God NO, not a Ginger Prince! ????‍????????‍♂️

I have about 3 co-workers who have used the Nottingham PGCEi to get a 5 year TCT teaching license. 

I skipped a couple of pages, so this point may have been made before. 

Until the early part of the 20th century, communication and transportation between Bangkok and various parts of Thailand could take weeks.  This meant that local rulers had much more autonomy than regional governments have now. 

The Kingdom of Siam was not really a country in the way that we think of a country now, it was more of a collection of fiefs where the local ruler sword personal fealty to the King of Siam and paid a yearly tribute.  This was especially true of the parts of Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia that the maps show as being part of Thailand.

It wasn't until King Chula's reign that Siam became a modern country with an official language, school system, etc...

If you live overseas for more than 1/2 the year, the first $100,000 you earn is us tax exempt. 

It is highly unlikely that he ever had to pay any US taxes.

Including the Songkran (summer) break, the Midterm (October) break and a week and half at New Year.  That is 6 & 1/2 weeks of paid vacation per year. 

12 minutes ago, Artisi said:

And when was the last execution by firing squad? 

2003.  Though they didn't use a full firing squad, they had a single man with a rifle pull the trigger.  The book The Last Executioner is an interesting read, though the title is a misnomer, as there have been several executions since he retired.

After that, they switched to lethal injection.

On 2/22/2020 at 1:55 PM, Somtamnication said:

I taught history to these Thais. They have no clue about WW2 or Japanese internment camps in Kanchanaburi or the holocaust. Only about mobile phones and the usual brainwashing that is so pervasive within their education system. I showed a year 9 class pictures of the holocaust; they fell out of their chairs laughing!

The Thai police came to our school last week with a presentation about Cyber Crime.  In included several videos, one of which showed a sobbing man being tied to a cross and executed by gunfire (as is done in Thailand).  Some of the P5 boys were almost pissing themselves with laughter at the sight.

6 minutes ago, Nakmuay887 said:

The closest station would be victory Monument. Closest to my work. 

 

5 minutes by walking 

I used to live in that neighborhood.  Everything you needed was nearby - restaurants, pubs, shopping, etc...  I had a big, cheap room at Ratchaprarop Tower Mansion. 

1. ajarn dot com

2. Find a better school.

My landlord had to give us a signed copy of the rented house tabian baan, his tabian baan and his Thai id, in addition to signed copies of the rental agreement.

I noticed that it is rather difficult to get firm, current numbers of those infected and of fatalities just by doing a quick google.  Few media outlets bother to hire a writer with a scientific background, so most new stories a light on facts and heavy on political (i.e. worthless) quotes.

Here is a link to a website with some good, hard numbers:

 Johns Hopkins/WHO Coronavirus tracking

Taking a look at the number of infected from Jan. 26 to Jan 29, where the data levels out to a nice straight line, we can see that the number of infected roughly doubles every 2 days.  There are almost 8,000 reported cases on the 29th, with 170 deaths.

If this trend continues, and it takes another 30 days to develop and distribute a vaccine, we could easily get up to 50 - 100 million cases and 2,000,000 deaths (the death rate for this virus seems to be about 2.5 - 3%, or the same as a bad flu).

The number of cases and deaths in most epidemics can be graphed in a bell shaped curve.  I suspect that we are entering the steep, upward part of the curve now and will peak in a month or so, depending on how soon an effective treatment or vaccine can be developed.

Meanwhile Phrayut is talking about banning cars in Bangkok and closing schools.  He is either an idiot or just doesn't want to end his payoff from the sugar company!

A friend's mother is a retired teacher.  Her pension is 30k per month, but 18,500 is taken out to pay the interest on her depts.

Of course, that is just what she owes the banks.  The loan sharks are another matter!