Mousehound

I went to Uni to do a BA at 53. I had a ball! Great to be with loads of young people. I had a much stronger work ethic than most and found it very easy. Go for it.

I should add I had my own business at the time. I needed about 20hrs a week for study but often found I put in more as I was enjoying it so much.

Thanks for that. Good on you.

When I was at uni first time around there were several older student (or mature student to give the official UK term, haha, seriously- like the average students are all immature)

Was the in Thai or UK- US?

I expect about 20 hours total inc self study ; maybe more. But time on campus or actually in lessons is the question as Thailand might be different to our western type lecture and self study and course work approach.

Guess I'll just have to pick up the phone or visit them in person

We only had about six hours a week of lectures over two days. Rest was up to me. I went to Curtin Uni in Perth, Australia. As a kid I got offered a place at Cambridge to study literature but could never have afforded to go. At the time I also wanted to spend a couple of years traveling the world. I regret not going. So I guess finally going to University was a dream fulfilled. So all the sweeter for that. Even if it wasn't Cambridge I enjoyed the experience.

I went to Uni to do a BA at 53. I had a ball! Great to be with loads of young people. I had a much stronger work ethic than most and found it very easy. Go for it.

I should add I had my own business at the time. I needed about 20hrs a week for study but often found I put in more as I was enjoying it so much.

This is the Australian Noisy Miner. Found along the East coast of Australia.

Small Bird , Asian Minor Bird , I think .

Damn that little Fuji !.....

Nothing out of the usual boring birds for quite a while now.

This is 1 of 2 fledglings from an adult pair that hangs around my backyard.

This guy scored a nice breakfast.

I really like these Oriental Magpie-Robins. They are a flycatcher of course and not a Robin or Thrush, as originally thought. In fact not enough is really known about the "boring" bird species. Everyone wants to just look at the rare stuff.

..

Thanks for the link. Very interesting option I have never thought of before.

I see there are some comments on this post referring to Lion Air. When I look them up the flights come up as Air Asia between CNX and BKK. Is this a new service and their Website not up to date?

Northgate jazz for a cheap and fun, cheap evening, and a lot of people to meet there.

Looks like the "Common Indian Crow" Euloea core godartii

Beauty and the Beast.

Any idea what this creature is and it's location?

WARNING !!!!........Move on to the next post if you are eating or of a light stomach.

Ok then,but I did warn you

This little chap paid me a visit whilst I was giving my little boy his morning bottle of milk.

My camera was close by so I reached out and grabbed it,half expecting the butterfly to

fly off and be on it's merry way before I could turn on my camera and grab hopefully one shot.

As you can see by the photos below my little friend was not camera shy and ended up staying

quite happily on my big toe for a couple of minutes.

The hard part was trying to contort myself into a position where I could get the best shot of my

visitor......so that meant one of my legs was raised and twisted cockeyed ,camera in one hand

and bottle of milk in the other still feeding my little one.I only wish someone would of had a

camera to take a photo of me trying to take a shot of the butterfly whilst still feeding the little one.

Who said Men can't multitask ........

P1030769.JPG P1030770.JPG P1030772.JPG

P1030774.JPG P1030776-001.JPG P1030777.JPG

There is also a metal merchant on Sridonchai - about 10 meters from where Sridonchai Rd soi1 meet - on the left if you are going toward the moat.

You can see it on Google maps streetview but I can't get a coordinate I'm afraid.

There are many types of termite and Ants. From the pics you have the wings are about the same size as the body which would most likely be Ants. Not all termites eat house timber by the way. You really need some of the bodies and take them to the Museum of Insects or somewhere else for clear identification. I wouldn't panic yourself into drastic commercial spraying until you know what you are dealing with. If you do spray then find out what they use - some of it may protect your house and, in time, kill you instead.

Tourist areas in the old city pay 30-40Bht/K for washing only. I have seen signs for as low as 20Bht/k around town. Plenty of signs about if you look.

Sometimes they even change the water.

Good one!

Tourist areas in the old city pay 30-40Bht/K for washing only. I have seen signs for as low as 20Bht/k around town. Plenty of signs about if you look.

Map is good for me too. I also got the wrong Pun Pun. Thanks.

I don't spend much time with lists of words. I find that phrases are better. Also I am coming to the conclusion that the duration of parts of words is possibly more important than the tones for me.

What no one wants to hear: There are only 5 tones, mastering them is easy. To use them is tough. The only way to do that, is to get out and speak. Thats the toughest part for me as I don't like being corrected (go figure), but it's truly the only way to learn the language.

I understood that Central Thai has five tones and the Northern dialect six tones. Most people learn the Central Thai dialect but I found that the person teaching me was actually from the north but lived in Bangkok. Interestingly she found it quite hard to understand the local Bangkok dialect. So I now speak a mixture of both - so no one understands me at all. The fact is I think you need to find someone who speak Central Thai as their first language and stick with that at least until you are proficient. Also if you learn to read the language it does help a lot with the pronunciation.

As said buy the parts you want. Buy a case with the power supply unit already inside and the rest is a breeze. You also get the satisfaction of booting it up for the first time knowing you did it all

I agree. not hard to build a PC up. First work out your requirements and build in some advances in tech. So realise you need a system that will cover you for say two to four years depending on what you do with it. I imagine that as you don't seem to be super tech savvy you are not an extreme gamer for instance. Then talk to the Goodspeed people about a quality motherboard. I always recommend getting a really good case. It make building a breeze and comes with quitter and better quality fans etc. Don't go cheap on the case. If you are into photo editing or graphics I would suggest you get a motherboard that requires a separate video card. This way you can in effect upgrade your system down the track by adding RAM or even upgrading the video card rather than the whole system. When assembling or doing any work it is a good idea to wear an earth strap so that static is not a problem. YouTube has heaps on all this stuff. I doubt you will save much on assembly but you will learn a lot and it does free you up to buy components from different sources and you will possibly get better componentry - do your research online.

Fleas bite in a row also.

Fair comment about lack of wing detail. In fact the size of bill and although not definitive the lower beak colour is an indicator. I got much better views and am 95% confident it is an Arctic. I have had one in the hand (I got it on the North Rankin oil rig off the NW cape of Western Australia - where it expired) and identified it after much deliberation as an Arctic. I gave the body to the WA Museum here in Australia and they confirmed it as an Arctic. As a result I was really keen to see one live and found this one in the CM Uni grounds.

They are a nightmare I agree. I used to think the waders were tough until I started seeing these guys.

Tablets don't cure education illness.

When I first saw this little fella I had to look twice to see which is the head end.

2 heads.JPG

Looks like a "Silverline" There are several very similar sp.

My bet is on The Club Silverline - Cigaritis syama

Got a few pics from my last trip to khao yai and Doi Inthanon if anyone is interested. there are a couple of unidentified sp to challenge you as well.

http://stevekeeling.smugmug.com/Category/Thailand/Thailand-2014-Birds/i-D5ZpbFP

Would anyone like to confirm this as an Arctic Warbler or otherwise?

I like to say "poot pasaa Thai, dtair mykoidee thao rai." I speak Thai but not so well.

Transliteration is a curse so I have been learning to read Thai. It makes a huge difference and I would suggest you read as well as get the speaking bit going. Sadly I have been out of the country for over a year and my speaking has gone downhill. But I am confident it will pick up pretty quickly when I get back. I have every "Teach yourself Thai book ever written and each has their own transliteration form but have found "Complete Thai" by David Smyth (www.teachyourself.com) easily the best laid out and best value book that also comes with CD. With this I like to use a rather poorly printed book called "What You See is What You Say Thai Phrase Handbook" by Bua Publishing. In addition I have tried to pick up some of the dialect used around Chiang Mai - at least as far as directions and a few other words go.

I do use the slightly rolled "R" in khrap if first meeting someone and if they are high status - don't really know why but for me it is actually easier as I have a Scottish mother and spoke German as a small child. It may be a bit snooty to do so, but I have never had a khon Thai tell me it is wrong - including a couple of my teachers.

I am just a beginner and I am not naturally good at learning so I really take into account some of the excellent comments from TV members that are really good at the language. I guess my comments are really from the point of view of someone possibly a little further along the journey than you seem to be but is in no way proficient. I am finding the duration of sounds that make up a word are becoming more important than the tones. I used to be too hung up on the tone thing and it was slowing me down a lot. As I started to recognise words being spoken I naturally started to copy the tones but found that I was clipping the words short or too long which was creating problems.

As previous posters have said, it will make your life in Thailand so much richer if you can speak and read even a little of the language. Also, I am sure that the Thai people you meet really appreciate that you are making an effort.

There is a very good forum on TV about Thai language and the Ajarn forum also covers some useful stuff.

Good luck.

I asked Dave Sargent of North Thailand Birding and he believes it is a female Pale Blue Flycatcher.

Looking at the book I use (Nawk Muang Thai) it looks pretty good, there are some photos on his site.

Looked at OBC and there are only 2 photos of the female P B F one of which looks right.

Range looks to be pretty scattered.

OK, but I would be curious to know what rules out Chinese Blue for him. I don't have field experience with either, but one of your pics clearly shows some orange in the throat area. I don't have my Robson with me right now, but Round's "Birds of Thailand" makes no mention of any orange on throat or breast of female Pale Blue (and i don't see any in photos on OBC) but his description of Chinese Blue in "Birds of BKK Area" says "whitish-buffy to pale orange throat..." and pics of female Chinese Blue on OBC show same.

Could it be a Hill Blue?

Is Nana Screw on tanon Sri Phum ?

I don't trust anyone when it comes to money. I even steal from myself! Can't tell you how many times I have pulled out my wallet to find it is short of the ten bucks I was sure was in it. Put it down to a life experience and move on.