The Beginning

2009-03-03T21:56:00.003+07:00

I'm typing with my right hand while my left is stabbing at bits of tuna left over in a tinfoil take-home dish. A new Thai-owned French restaurant just opened up on the corner of Soi Preedee 15 on Sukhumvit 71 Rd. in between a few air conditioner repair places and seedy karaoke joints. Odd because it's an odd spot for a restaurant to open and a very odd spot for a restaurant selling soups, salads, crepes, and ten types of red and white wines. Seems to be busy though.

I'm busy too. Just finished midterm exams and my first solo advertising shoot last week. I've been bragging about the ad shoot to everyone who'll listen because it seems exciting to me. Exciting in that I didn't screw up or injure anyone in front of a room full of people.

Last Saturday, the 4th years of BUIC's student government/fraternity had a going-away party for the younger years. We're not really going anywhere just yet, but we did have a budget surplus and this is the time of year when 3rd year students take the wheel. Dinner was at a riverside restaurant and was a lot of fun. The 3rd year students gave us all personalized awards too, I'll post a picture.

Yesterday, I met up with P'Oun, then stopped by the MRD concert at Moon Star Studios in Lardprao. Didn't expect the huge crowds. I had my new Canon with me so P'Oui and I took advantage of spare 'technician' passes and crawled around in front of the stage. Besides the television cameraman's cable-carrying assistant repeatedly trampling over me, it was a fun evening. More pics below.

This week I'm on "spring break". I plan to make some plans before the end of the week. Need to figure out what the hell it is I am doing this next year..

Next week will be busy too. Back to school and 16 environmental portraits of the (fixed) "Teachers of the Year" for the university news magazine. It's a lot of work but I shouldn't complain because this is exactly the type of work I need to be doing right now.

A New Year

2009-01-07T12:14:00.007+07:00

I haven't posted in several months. Shame on me.

Late November, I was attacked by a gang of trade school students who though I was a student a rival school. It's been a sore subject (ha) which I wasn't particularly excited to blog about. I'm better now, albeit rather swollen. No permanent injuries; got lucky. I've also been very lucky to have the constant support of my family, friends and teachers.

Lots to do.

Today was the beginning of my last semester at BU, which means I'm very close to being catapulted off a cliff into the real world. I'm ~~terrified~~ slightly intimidated by the task of finding a place to live, work, eat, and a way to pay for graduate school.

I photographed students for BU News Magazine's annual Student of the Year issue last week. This is exciting because this issue will be printed in color with big photos. BU News had previously been the 1950's television set of school news magazines and the university is trying to change that. This morning we shot some awards that students had won, which will hopefully be the cover for this issue.

Last month I photographed a couple graduation ceremonies. Tomorrow, I have a graduation party to shoot in the evening. This should allow me to save enough cash to make a new batch of business cards and postcards, for promotional mailings; which will (fingers crossed) lead to more work.

In the next couple weeks I'm going to need to find a graduate school and a way to pay for it, then apply. Not sure how I'm going to take GREs and prepare paperwork/portfolios in time for application deadlines though.

Have to file insurance claims too. This requires translating police reports, hospital receipts (a friend's family paid), and medical certificates. Need get my back and ribs examined too. I'm so bored of hospitals, police stations, and medicine right now. I'm sure Mai is too; she's been with me at alot these appointments. She says she's there for moral support but I'm almost certain she's probably secretly kicking the asses of corrupt policemen and unorganized hospital employees behind-the-scenes.

I'm teaching now. I was asked by the BU Language Institute to teach a four-week program of conversational English. I'll teach two sections from 10.00-12.00 and 13.00-15.00. I hear class sizes will be 30-40, which will be be something very different for me. Should be interesting...

2008-10-29T11:35:00.003+07:00

A high school friend Renae sent me this video link in an email this morning. I'm not sure if I'm honored or terrified that they used my name. Some people just don't seem to understand satirical news and may actually think the election has already ended and I messed it up for everybody.

I disappeared for a month because I was on midterm break. Didn't get to Cambodia as I'd hoped, but I did get a lot of work done which was nice. University classes began again yesterday so I'm back to my regular schedule.

Band practice is happening again. We've been united again by a mini-tour contract with The Mall, Paragon, and Emporium shopping malls. We'll be playing at each branch, once our audition video is approved.

A professor called me last night to say a Japanese graduate student would like to interview me for his doctoral thesis on cultural integration and globalization. Cool.

...Again, sorry for the sporadic updates. "I forgot" says Depew.

[update] I just realized that video is customizable. Genius on MoveOn.org's part; very creative thinking. But terribly embarrassing.

2008-09-22T00:18:00.003+07:00

Wish I'd known about this place earlier. I first heard about it last week, when one of the students I was photographing suggested his team take a group photo at TCDC. "TC what?" I have to admit I was tired and pushing for the deadline (more in a bit..) so my brain wasn't too excited when some suggesting packing up, traveling, and re-shooting in a shopping mall. So, I filed the place's name somewhere in the back of my head with all the other jung, figuring I'd check it out the next time I was at the Emporium.

Today, P'Oy and P'Oun asked me to drop off a package their design company needed to send to this same mall. I said sure, because it's pretty close to my house and they said it was urgent. Around 4pm I re-read the instructions on the package:

TCDC. 6th floor, Emporium
Name Card Festival 2008 Application
Three Dot Design

Sweet! So I googled it, then ran like a mad man to MBK and found a shop to print the required 300 cards. Print quality wasn't too hot, nor was the price, but I was 2 hours from the entrance deadline the package from Three Dot's marketing deptartment still siting in my backpack.

I turned in both applications in time and received a discount on a 15-month membership (600 baht) at the TCDC Library... which is something every student should have access to. This library is actually quiet, comfortable, has interesting books and periodicals, and should be a wonderful place to study. I'm excited to take my Media and Society slides and read at the TCDC tomorrow evening.

Midterms are near. Wednesday, Thur, Fri, Sat, Fri. Odd schedule. Bad news is that there's one week of class between the end of midterms and the midterm break. Also an odd schedule, but I think I'll make it through.

The BU News deadline that I mentioned above isn't as close as August and I had thought. No news is good news? The September and October months are a single issue, which we had thought was a October/November issue. Which means that I just finished the November issue's story and I have almost two months to prepare for the December issue.

I think I'm going to try and head to the village this Sunday and return Tuesday night. It's been too long and I'll have several days to kill before the last exam on the 3rd. Looking forward to fresh air/food and familiar faces.

2008-09-10T00:17:00.006+07:00

So much to do.

Tomorrow, I'll be conducting interview for the October issue of BU News Mag, with four students who took part in an internship pilot project last month. There have been many scheduling conflicts, so it'll be nice to get this one finished. The September issue is out and it looks pretty nice, if I may so myself. A printing color set I joked about when I started writing for the school news, pink and white, actually looked OK.

PAD protest gallery is up with a few pics: www.danieldepew.com/PADprotests

Some silly shots with friends too:
www.danieldepew.com/friends

Business cards are coming and a "cute" domain name too. ShootwithDan.com will link straight to danieldepew.com but should be easier to remember. Please let me know what you think.

And, I've finally started the personal project I'd been promising myself. More soon..

PAD Protests

2008-09-04T19:51:00.003+07:00

The People's Alliance for Democracy have been in the news all week. Last week was the beginning of "the final war" protest against the corruption of the current administration. 200,000 protesters have taken over the government buildings, government TV station, and major airports and roads throughout Thailand. Many PAD supporters are groups who have come from small villages and provinces by bus to protest. Labor unions are also coming to Bangkok for the protests.

All of the streets leading to the government compound have been barricaded with tires and, ironically, metal police barriers. The barriers are overlapped and lashed together for strength. The only way inside is through security check points or hopping the fence while "security" holds your bags.

On the inside there are two types of people. The majority of PAD supporters lay on lawns, sidewalks, under tarps, and inside tents, listening to speakers on the main stage set in the middle of several city blocks. There are many smaller stages, with projection screens and speakers, catering to the overflow supporters who arrive by evening. The second type of supporters are those who rest next to sticks, pipes, golf clubs and helmets. They stay near the outer edges of the area under PAD occupation, at various "posts"; Intersections or small streets where opposing protesters, police, or army troops could enter from. However, these guards aren't just middle-aged men: elderly women and college students too.

Protesters injured during the Monday night fights, started by allegedly hired thugs of the Peoples Power Party, return to their old posts still wearing hospital gowns, as if they were returning home to see family. They are heroes. People rush to take pictures and ask for autographs.

In some cases, they are returning to family. Dozens of families are living under tarps or tents in gardens and lawns of government buildings.

Who do I support? I'm not sure. Some of the "peaceful protesting" wasn't. But they don't have much of a choice... PAD was written off by politicians as a few powerful people who were all noise and no fact. What amazes me is the way Samak has handled the situation. Not once has his administration commented on Samak's 80 million baht profits or why Samak continues to consult former PM, PPP/TRT spokesman, and crininal Thaksin, or about known cases of vote buying during the previous election. If I was innocent I'd at least try to explain... PM Samak has yet to give any answers; only threats to those who protest.

2008-08-24T21:06:00.006+07:00

First two weeks of the new semester pasted smoothly. I'm very happy with my classes, and my professors. The fourth year classes seem to have some substance in the subject matter and are generally more exciting.

I'm just finishing tomorrow's advanced digi photo homework. The assignment was to create a self-portrait that represented us. I knew I wanted a photograph that showed I'm someone who's different; that I could fit-in, even in places I wasn't supposed to "belong".

The Western equivalent to being a "morcy" might be a pizza delivery boy or grocery store cashier. It's something people do because they don't want much (ironically) responsibility, or can't find work elsewhere. At least that's the stereotype... I've met some very interesting drivers over the years. But "morcy" drivers are almost never college grads, business owners, office workers, fair skinned, Bangkok-born, or very young (with some exceptions). I want to do a personal project on this stereotype soon..

I had a motorcycle taxi vest laying around, left over from a school event, that I had been wanting to feature in a photo. So I did. Thanks again to Mario and Shai for the much-needed assistance.

Talking with some friends the other day at the uni, we came up with an idea for their upcoming album cover. They asked for samples of a pretty girl with a blindfold, so Pat and I got to work two days later:

I hope to do a personal project soon. The subject will be social status in Thailand. A glass ceiling for people born with dark skin. More soon...

2008-08-13T22:50:00.003+07:00

Laos was beautiful. On a whim, I jumped on a train with two high school friends to Laos ~~last~~ two Saturdays ago. After a 14-hour train ride and a bit of visa "prepping", at a local visa service shop, we crossed the friendship bridge from Nong Khai to Viengtieng. We spent two days there exploring, then headed to the "next" town on the way to Luang Phapang: Vang Vieng. This town was beautiful. Tourist population was only high in one part of town, which consisted of 6-7 beer gardens/restaurants which played episodes of Friends all night, every night. The trip to Luang Phapang was spectacular, but you wouldn't notice that looking at the pictures I took.. I just didn't have a lens wide enough to capture it all. The city of Luang Phapang itself was very pleasant. I had a lot of fun and enjoyed spending time with Chey and Sam. They'll continue to explore Laos for another couple weeks, then move on to Cambodia or return to Thailand for a bit before moving on. My trip took 8 days and $160/5000฿/1,250,000 Kip.

If my writing is lame, un-concise, and brief; it's because I'm returning from a 16 hour day shooting a graduation ceremony.

Earlier this week I interviewed Dr. Jared Dorn, our Vice President. Very interesting and kind gentleman. Tuesday, I transcribed and the interview and did my best at writing an article. I took some pictures of him too. Bought a white umbrella cover and made myself a makeshift soft-box the night before... and it worked! Soft indeed.

Wednesday, I registered for first semester classes. The winners are: Organizational Communication, Critical Analysis of Messages, Conflict and Negotiation, Media and Society, Comm. and Development. I hear the last two are being taught by a part-time professor who has very good reviews...

Tomorrow I'll fill out more forms and wait in a few more lines to register for the Computer Graphics and Multimedia major's Advanced Digital Photography class. I went to the class Monday and was very impressed. The professor is an American indie feature film director who knows his stuff and promises assignments every week. I'm excited about this one too.

More soon...

2008-07-14T08:45:00.004+07:00

Wanna know what I've been doing all summer? OK, fine, but pretend you do, cause I'm gonna tell ya.

~~Mr. Myagi~~ Tim Matsui has been teaching me in the office, and as of last Monday, in the bar too. I might have learned more over Bleu Burgers and IPAs than I did anywhere else, all summer. Tim and I talked about what I want to do, what I need to do, and how I'm going to do it. Those questions aren't crystal clear yet, but what is? Our consensus was: a good portfolio is even more important than a good education to clients. So I'm gonna quit school and shoot full-time.... nah. When I start senior year in two weeks, I'm going to find something that interests me, a story I want to tell, that I'll work on for as long as it takes. Show what I can do, show my style, and show what I like to do. Easier said than done.

Leo Lam had me assist a fashion shoot for a new designer label. Good fun. Learned lots.

Brian Smale took me to an architectural shoot in West Seattle. Interesting to see Brian working.

Last week, I spent seven days in Portland, OR. I stayed with family there, John and Cathy, who are the world's nicest hosts. Besides leaving me, someone they couldn't remember if they'd met or not, with their house key while they went to the coast, John and Cathy also fed me MacandCheese w/ hotdogs, helped me with maps and directions, and beat me 3-0 in ping pong. They'll be a rematch this week.

Lincoln was the first photographer I met with. He talked to me about the need for some business classes and self-marketing ideas, and learned some nifty post-processing techniques later in the week. I was reminded by our talk about mailings that Bangkok has an abundance of cheap printers which could pump out a box of promo cards for cheap.

The next photographer I worked with was Daniel Root. We ~~shot~~ photographed a lawyer for a SoCal law magazine. They wanted to photoshop the subject into a 60's war movie poster, so we setup a studio in a warehouse, matched the lighting to the poster, and only needed to spend 10 minutes actually photographing. Next job was a golf course: "Best golf couse for non-golfers" for Portland Monthly's upcoming "Best of Portland" series. That night we shot a bar which had the interactive video game and karaoke machine Rock Band, projected on a 10' screen; complete with stage lights and a fog machine. The morning after we covered "The best place to send your kids for the summer"... a rock climbing camp at a downtown climbing gym.

I have 2 minutes battery remaining and I'll be too lazy to write later, so this all for now. Stay tuned...

2008-07-14T08:30:00.002+07:00

Planes, trains, ferries, airports, and bus rides have always been exciting and interesting to me. Whenever my family went on vacation I would pack my backpack and suitcase one month in advance, savoring the details of our travel plans. I dreamt of airplanes, airport and hotel features, plane food, and of course little plastic wings a flight attendant would pin on my chest. I also remember wanting to ride buses as much as I could. Traveling alone gave me a sense of independence and a chance to get away from life at home. Subways were particularly fascinating; a form of mass-transit neither Florida nor Washington states had. I used to plan bus schedules a couple days in advance, maximizing the number of vehicle transfers I'd make, increasing the number of buses I'd get to ride in. No mini-van rides and parental escorts for me. I was free. I could only imagine how much fun grown-ups must have traveling whenever they wanted to.

I have fun traveling. I still get a bit excited about transpacific crossings when I haven't flown in more than a few months.

However, too much of a good thing... I forget the proverb, but that's not important. My relationship with travel is ironic. When I haven't traveled in a while, I still have the same childhood urge to hop on a bus across town and back for fun. But when I travel as much as I have in the last 6 weeks, I find I'd rather eat splinted balsa wood than step on another plane or train.

Right now I'm on my second delayed Northwest Airlines flight of the day and it's driving me crazy. I slept most of the first flight, but the Detroit-Seattle leg I'm choosing to get some work done. At 9.30pm I'll arrive at SEATAC, a half-hour bus downtown, half-hour ferry, and hour long car ride home. One days rest then: bus>bus>ferry>bus>train......>bus>bus. I shouldn't complain though.. my mother's a transit driver.

I'm returning from Ohio BTW. It was a three and a half whirlwind trip to visit family and scout Ohio University, a grad school I'm considering. It was great to see family and spend time with with everyone.

Yesterday, cousin Josh, Grandma Colleen and I made a trip to OU, Athens, OH. Nice campus. I wonder how'd nice it'd be mid-winter though. I enjoyed my meeting with the director of the Visual Communication school (VisCom offers both Photojournalism and Commercial Photography). Terry explained that OU became know as one of "the top 5" school for photoJ because it found a niche: mid-carear students. Over 90% of their accepted applicants are 5+ years into their career. He suggested I also contact the other top schools including Syracuse, Missouri, Illinois, S. Kentucky, NC, RID, and U. of Lincoln (a partner of Bangkok University!). They all have niches and do one thing better than the others. Syracuse is mostly students fresh out of school, and leans towards commercial/magazine photography... interesting.

I'm back in town for a day, then back to Portland for a week, returning to WA on the 19th. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I'll be on a commercial advertisement with photographer Daniel Root shooting for a sportswear giant (one that's known for it's logo, a greek god, and sweatshops). Might also be assisting for a Nike youth soccer shoot too. Both of those should be great fun. I've never seen how full-scale ad shoots work and I love watching soccer. Friday I'll be working with Lincoln Barbour on an editorial shoot for Portland Monthly.

I'll be in an airport waiting for a 16-hour flight back to Bangkok in another two weeks. Can't wait...

2008-06-10T06:25:00.003+07:00

Darn. I just got off the phone with the executive editor of Peninsula Daily News, to whom a staff writer/friend suggested I write a letter, applying for a summer job at the photo desk.

The Ed. said the vacationing photographer fill-in position was cut a year ago when the vacationing photographer retired. He also said PDN had two staff photographers already and didn't need any more interns. Damn.

Tomorrow Uncle Aaron's gonna drive me to the 6:10am Amtrak to Los Angeles, so I can make an 11.30 flight to Seattle, arriving at 2pm. Then I take a bus, a boat, and two more buses to get home.

Huge thanks to Aaron for giving me a place to stay and showing me San Diego. Had a lot of fun.

2008-06-03T22:31:00.003+07:00

Washington is chilly and quiet. But I'm beginning to adjust.

I went to a great slideshow, about human trafficking in SE Asia, by photographer Tim Matsui last Wednesday. I enjoyed Tim's work and the after-party too. We talked about what I needed to learn most and what Tim could teach me this Summer. We decided to do a bit of wax-on wax-off off work, Mr. Miyagi style...

First off, I'll be learning post-processing techniques. This is something I need badly. I tend to import everything I shoot, leave it on my hard drive, and I don't have a system of editing in Photoshop. So... looking forward to doing that with Tim this Thursday.

Friday is even more exciting. While searching for a camera on Craigslist last week, I found a wanted AD for a photographer owning a Nikon D200 and available to shoot in LA. Sounded fun to me and I was almost a D200 owner, so I gave it a shot. I talked to the photographer, who lives in New Jersey, and booked my flight to LAX. The deal was I'd be paid $300 to shoot alongside her for the day. This would just cover the cost of my flight and one night in a hotel.

Mixed results. I can't say much right now, because I'm not sure what will happen. All I know is I have a non-refundable ticket to Los Angeles this Friday, and I'll be lugging a bunch of camera gear no matter what. After this morning's "news", I hope the bride's feet warm up quickly. Otherwise they'll be paying for a photographer who'll be relaxing on the beach in San Diego. It'll be an adventure.

I've sent a letter and mini-portfolio to the editor of a local daily newspaper. Fingers crossed. Brian Smale just returned to Seattle, so I'll be giving him a call today.

2008-05-27T01:11:00.004+07:00

This is going to be short because I'm only half-awake.

Tomorrow I'll be on a China Airlines flight to Seattle, Washington. I've said (most of) my goodbyes but not packed any of my bags. Big to-do list for tomorrow morning and afternoon... Only I haven't exactly written the list yet; it's all floating around in my head.

I'm sad, happy, excited, nervous, and a bit crazy right now. All I know is I want to enjoy myself, learn, spend time with family, and pass the time quickly.

Here we go!

2008-05-22T15:14:00.002+07:00

Where'd I go? The short answer is that I moved to a new apartment, went without internet for a month (gasp), then got an internet service provider and 10 major school and personal projects at the same time. It's been busy.

I'm going the USA soon. I hope to be assisting for Seattle photographers, freelancing a bit, and with luck... working as a photographer at a daily newspaper.

Here's the ~~bad~~ exciting part: I leave Tuesday, May 27th. That's less then one week! I plan on being gone the whole summer and returning either late-July or mid-August, depending on whether or not I'm working at a newspaper.

I should be excited to go so soon, and I am, but it feels very sudden. I'm taking leave from the school news magazine, student government, skipping summer school, and disappearing for two and half months.

It should be a lot of fun though. I'll get to hang out with family, work with some really cool photographers, learn a lot, prepare for graduate school application, and possibly earn some pocket change too.

2008-03-22T02:16:00.002+07:00

All I can say is yessssss, even though it's past 2am and my eyes have big black bags under them.

I just finished my midterm assignment for photography which is due today at 11.20. The only thing left to do is pick up the prints from the local Fuji store when he opens at 10.00.

Today I spent an hour at Wat Po shooting things that would fit into the assignments "Contradiction" theme. I already had a shot of the drink vendor at Wat Arun and needed a vertical from Wat Po to finish the project. These are the final two. Captions are on the Flickr pages. :)

I'll begin packing this Sunday. Moving day is Friday next week, hopefully.

My deadline for the Dr. Suthinan interview got moved up to next Friday as well. Have to do that Sunday too, I guess. In a meeting last week my editor said he really liked the environmental portraits but needed to tell me about the school paper's printing process. Every month the newsprint color changes. Purple, black, green, pink. Photos are printed in the same ink as the the articles so... my beautiful portraits of the school's dean could be printed in pink and white, depending on the May issue color scheme. He said he'll put in a request for black. I'm also supposed to get some "symbolic shots" of BUIC as small page fillers.

Loststado.

2008-03-15T18:54:00.004+07:00

A 2000฿ deposit reserved me my new apartment today. I'll go back to sign the contract and move in on the 28th.

Moving is a lot of work and expensive too. I'll have to pay a two month deposit in addition to the first month's rent, 2000 baht charge for "wiring" in order to use the internet, and another 1000 baht? for Buddy Broadband's March special (a waved installation fee until March 30th). I'll also need to pack everything and move it across the road, and call the electrician to help remove and re-install my in-shower water heater. Call it a luxury, but that water heater is very nice in the winter and at 6am before Monday morning classes.

The new place is worth the trouble though. There's no karaoke bar downstairs to blast music at 3am, but there is a church band that practices down the hall in the afternoon. The room itself is twice as wide and three times as long as my current apartment. I've figured out that there will be enough room to setup my own mini photo studio, recording studio (the old practice studio by the uni is donating bags insulation foam), and office. Yes, office; the room has a desk. Electricity and water are only 66% of my current place, which makes up for the difference in price.

Yesterday, I completed the first stage of my article on the Dean of the international college for the May issue of the school newspaper. There's no April issue because of Summer break, so May is coming soon. The interview took about 20 minutes and was a lot of fun. Afterwards, we shot just over a hundred frames of environmental portraits in the BUIC building. Now comes the hard part: writing the article. I could do a question and answer style; easy to read for the majority of Thai students, or a bit more in-depth article.

The midterm break is over. Starting Monday, we'll have four weeks until the Songkran holiday week, then three weeks until final exams.

I need to finish my photography midterm project before next Saturday morning. The theme is Faith, Contradiction, or Release. Choose one topic and find it in two of four temples on a list. Last Wednesday, Shy, Mario, and I went to Wat Po and Wat Arun for the afternoon. Wat Arun was wonderful at sunset that day. This photo of Shy was one of only a few keepers. The lighting idea likely came from me reading the excellentStrobist.com so much. The project's topic is tough. I got one picture of two men who sit drinking in front of the temple everyday but nothing from Wat Po with "contradiction" in the photo really. Next week I may have to re-shoot.

Dany Dog, the dog with mange that I took a picture of two weeks ago, was rescued last Monday. I took the vet and catcher to the dog, and after several hours of searching, loosing it, getting the wrong dog, waiting for the rain showers to stop, and searching again, Dany was tranquilized and taken to the hospital. It's since been flown to the resort of animal hospitals on Koh Samui island.

2008-03-04T15:15:00.002+07:00

The photos I shot of a Soi Dog in Klong Saan a week ago found their way to Baan Samui Animal Rescue who have found a sponsor for this dog.

Dan, we named the dog Dany.

Could you possibly check up on him if he is still alive? And possibly give him some food?

I am trying to have him checked up medically as soon as possible. Worst case he will be shipped to Samui. Unfortunately the lady from the rescue center in Bangkok has not answered yet and I need her to catch the dog and to ship him in a flight box to Samui with Bangkok air.

I hope that Dany holds on until then!

A sponsor for Dany's future is already found. If we are successful bringing him to Samui and he survives, he will have a happy life.

Many many thanks Ulrike

2008-02-28T17:56:00.004+07:00

i probably sound like a weirdo stalker, huh?
-yaya

Yeah, a bit. But thats ok. My records show Yaya being my only regular reader who comments too -*-. Thanks Yaya. A way of replying or a link to your blog would be nice though. That would make your interest in my daily life seem less like a weirdo stalker.

2008-02-27T17:21:00.005+07:00

The half-mark was my Corporate Relationship Management exam today. This leaves me with two subjects left to study for: Mass Media Law and Ethics, followed by Marketing Communication on Saturday.

Today's exam was hard in that the questions were very ambiguous. I wasn't sure if my idea of a correct answer was what my teacher's would be. I think I did OK. One thing's for sure: I would have done a lot better without the girl turning around asking her friend for answers every minute.

First year students always seem to assume the only way to pass an exam is to copy off of the friend that studied. "It's just so hard." they'll whine when asked why they don't try reading a bit before the exam. This particular girl had worked out a winning technique. She would turn her head and lay her chin over her right shoulder while keeping her short and plump body still. It looked like she was sneezing every minute, only she would sneeze "What's 32?" then "33?" followed by "Isn't 34 B?" To a male friend sitting next to me. I don't mind people peering over each other once in a while. It's part of the culture. Copying every single multiple choice question on a 50+ questions exam is just... dumb. Not as dumb, however, as the professors proctoring the exam. Male prof. #1 was busy using his cupped hand to chat on his cell phone. Male prof. #2 had iPod headphones in his ears the whole period, silently rocking out at the front of the room. Or maybe it was jazz he was listening to. Either way he seemed relaxed and unconcerned.

Did I snitch on them? Nah. Almost. About 10 minutes before students were allowed to leave they began passing answers on an eraser. I was pretty annoyed but didn't fancy making a scene.

I finished my last answer 1 hour 30 minutes into the exam. I picked up my bag and walked outside, chatting with friends about the questions. I was leaning against the railing when I saw it. The cheating girl had forgotten her bag of pens, pencils, erasers, and student ID card in front of the exam room. Life's surprises are just great.

My friends and I had lunch as I told them about this first year couple. The eraser still had answers and messages in blue ink. Instead of returning it to the office, we decided to have a little fun. Paula had the best handwriting so we had her write on a small piece of paper in Thai "Cheating or any form of academic dishonesty during university exams will result in immediate six month suspension, an 'F' grade in all subjects during that term, and possible expulsion." I put the slip inside the bag and headed up to see if I could find the girl. Instead I walked past the male student, her partner in crime. I held up her I ID. "Do you know this girl?" I wasn't sure it was the same kid, good to check. The look on his face said he knew her quite well. "Yes. Is she in trouble?" I gave him the ID and told him the bag belonged to her. He took the bait. hehe. I walked back to the table and watched as the kid took the bag back to his friend's in the cafeteria, within eyesight. We all kept from laughing as the whole group read the letter aloud. They were noticeably tense. He actually came over to our table and asked if a teacher had said anything when they gave me the bag. I said I found it in front of the exam room. I'm pretty sure they think they were caught but the administration is giving them "a second chance" to straighten up. Study more, cheat less.

Last night I was looking through graduate schools again. Between daydreams of interesting classes and jobs after college, I noticed that almost all the schools I was considering required 3-10 pages of scholarly and/or published writing. I've only had one writing class at BU. Although Prof. Kibor taught me a lot of useful tips for writing leads and using correct punctuation; I haven't had any practice writing scholarly.

I went back to reading books until I noticed a copy of the university newspaper laying on the floor. Within minutes I had the names of all the writers and editors using the school website's search function. I couldn't believe it. Bangkok University, the number one school in Thailand for Communication Arts (most journalists graduate from here), has a student paper with not one student writer for the English section. In the past some students and teachers have been asked to contribute but never wrote on a regular basis.

So... I emailed two editors and the head of the Comm. Arts. dept.

Hi,

I've always enjoyed BU News and wondered how our school newspaper works.

Major Thai universities such as Chulalongkorn, Thammasat, ABAC, Mahidol, and most large schools around the world have student-run newspapers, written and edited by students to inform other students of news and interesting features of the school.

I would like to know how I can become a part of BU News. As a third year student in BUIC's Communication Arts major I would like to gain journalism experience before going on to study at the graduate level next year. I would be happy researching and writing about any assigned topics and have a background in photojournalism.

How can become a part of my school's newspaper? :)

Sincerely,
Dan

The next morning I received a reply from the International Affairs Office:

Hi Dan:

Thank you for your email. We are happy to know that you are interested to participate in the English section of the BU News magazine. The English section is produced for our foreign students and faculty and for Thai students and faculty interested in reading English.

We do invite students and faculty to contribute, however, so far not many have shown interest to write articles. You must have read the articles from mostly BUIC students on their student exchange experience, and there have been only few teachers writing articles.

Normally we focus on Thai culture and the culture of this region, education and universal topics in general.

The English section is produced every month by staff of International Affairs Office. You are welcome to pass by to discuss your possible contribution in detail. It is good to know that you like to expand your journalism experience by contributing to BU News.

If you would like to come this week, our office is open from 9 to 5 with lunchtime during 12 - 1.

Best regards,
August

August Timmermans
Staff, International Affairs Office

After teasing the cheating freshman I walked up to building 9 a few minutes before five o'clock. On the 11th floor I met with August and we sat down and talked about the paper. August is a nice man from Holland who has been single-handedly writing the English section of the paper. He told me he had once tried to get the BUIC students, administration, and dean involved but nobody ever wanted to be involved.

Enter -- me. I hope to be writing monthly, as the only student writer/photographer/editor for BU News. August will be the senior editor and help me with layout issues. March is a post-exam break, with students returning mid-month. Because of this March and April are lumped into one issue which prints this week. My first article will be in the next issue, the May issue, and will feature something the paper has never done before. It will be a two page interview with the dean of the International College. I picked the dean because he's seen by students as such a mysterious and powerful man who spends most of his time tucked away in a corner office of the BUIC building. Hopefully, I will be able to learn a bit more him and give people an idea of who their dean is. He and I have scheduled a meeting tomorrow morning to talk about scheduling.

This also gets me a model for my digital photography homework due Sunday by midnight: a portrait using fill flash.

I have Mass Media Law to study tonight so I'm at the library again, enjoying it's silence and the university's blazingly fast and free wireless connection.

Saturday night I found a Thai Flickr Meet group on Flickr. Sunday morning I was waiting at the Taksin Bridge docks to go on a photography trip. It's a neat once a month gathering of Bangkok photographers. Sunday we went to the other side of the water and visited the temples and small streets of Klong San. Poor animals.

Oh..about the landlord with the crappy "one-year or loose half your deposit rule"... the old lady downstairs mentioned this morning that the he graduated from... Chula, in the Faculty of Political Science's Master of Arts International Development Studies, or MAIDS. The program only accept 20 applicants a year and it's top on my list at the moment. Small world?

2008-02-23T17:29:00.003+07:00

I'm in the middle of midterm exams right now and feeling pretty good about them. Besides only having four exams, versus the normal six, I'm not exactly sure what has me in such a good mood.

The library has been a great remedy for my boredom of being an apartment dweller. Wednesday and Thursday I found a table there and studied with Lek, until the 21.00 closing time. I think I was the last person there. The change of location seemed to help though; my Special Topics on Communication exam seemed relatively easy. The Bangkok University library is particularly quiet or well-equipped so I think the reason for me reading so well is probably just from changing things around a bit.

Last week the band had two auditions at two night venues in town. We decided we need more practice before doing any more.

This got me thinking a lot about grad school applications which will be coming up in a year. Ohio University and Columbia both have great journalism programs... but Chula's MA International Delevopment, or MAIDS program, is most interesting to me. It's a really cool program, would be really interesting and fun, has the best professors in the country, and would only take a few years to pay off after graduation. Why is researching colleges so much fun? Is it the excitement of planning that I like so much?

I think I'm gonna move again. Last night, an 80-year old woman repeatedly informed me how dumb I was for forgetting my key inside my room (Yes, again), and reminded me that moving out before the one-year contract (unsigned, still in my closet) ends, the owner will keep half my deposit if I decide to leave. There's no arguing this one because he has the money and theres only one month left on the calender. Last month my electric bill was a 2300฿ almost twice a normal bill, meaning something isn't right in the accounting department. The Karaoke/bar girl rental place on the first floor has always been an annoyance too. They're supposed to close at midnight but the cops are usually drinking and singing there until 2 or 3am. Not sure where I'll go... deal with that later next month.

Today the nice old lady sent up a maintenance crew for a yearly air-conditioner cleaning. I filmed a timelapse video while the three men: cleaned, fixed, broke, and re-fixed the AC. It's very cool (temperature) now but I'm afraid to turn it on in fear of my upcoming power bill next week.

Speaking of movies: The Life of Henry Gale with Kevin Spacey was really good, as was Runaway Jury staring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman.

That's all for now folks. Corporate Relationship Management on Wednesday, Mass Media Law on Thursday, and Marketing Communication on Saturday.

Oh, and... props to Washington Mutual for giving back my overdraft fee.

2008-02-12T23:01:00.000+07:00

I haven't gotten far on my photo essay. Today I spent an hour or more shooting birds in the cafeteria. Was eying the fan and florescent light patterns as well. I think a lot of people thought I was crazy. But the catch of the day was right at sunset,while I was walking to the other side of the campus.

This is all I have from the first day. This may be the image I use to demonstrate color balance (not the walls and balls type of balance). Lines are decent in this one too I think. It's certainly a candidate for the top three. Then again, I may not get more than three keepers by Friday afternoon...

The teacher I'm always wining about gave another clear example of bad teaching today. At least she made it clear though... I quote "Uhm. I know the slides are all blank but that because I like to talk. You know? I just say whats in the book. You can read at home if you like." This lines pretty well sums up her classes. Immediately after this clarification of her teaching style, half of the class gathered their things and walked out. This was the last class before the midterm, the third of the semester that she showed up for, so a short pre-exam review would have been nice. Nope. She didn't even tell us what types of questions would be on the exam. I'm guessing 3 essay questions asking about random subjects from the first half of the book (? is there one?).

2008-02-10T09:53:00.000+07:00

My sister is out of the hospital. She taking meds to help with the seizures and MRIs to monitor what doctors are calling "the thing". I'm really glad I made time to get back and see everyone. Now that I'm back I wish I could have spent another week or two hanging out.

It's odd traveling in such a short time. Feels like I was gone much longer than eight days. At the moment my mind is floating between the two places like some sort of time warp. I think it might be an organizational issue; I just need more things on my schedule to feel busier and active.

My trip back was relatively uneventful. I had to get on my knees and beg a bit to keep my guitar from being sent down below. The problem came from using a full size hard case instead of a common guitar-shaped soft gigbag. The later is half the size, a quarter of the weight, and eight times easier to get past gate managers looking to save overhead compartment room. Besides all this, I nearly destroyed the guitar by not paying attention on a S-gate escalator in Seattle. The width of the escalators happens to be 1" smaller than the width of the case. I managed to get the case wedged and almost snap it in half.

I just opened my calender for the first time in almost two weeks. This next week is the last week of classes before the midterm. I'd known my midterms were on the 22nd, 27th, 28th, and 1st but I hadn't realized next week was the last before exams. I should really think about buying the textbooks and studying...

A mini-project was assigned in class yesterday. It's a 3-photo photo-essay using various color/contrast balance and composition techniques. The theme is urban patterns. At least I think that was it. Our professor doesn't give access to her PowerPoint slides like other professors. Luckily, my class is full of Computer Graphics students and a abundance of digital cameras: someone takes a picture of each slide then distributes them to the rest of the students later via email. I'm not sure what my subject is going to be yet but I need to finish shooting mid-week if I'm going to get prints done in time.

*Anyone using the Firefox browser (hopefully all of you) should really really check out one of the coolest add-ons there are: PicLens. Once you click the link, download, and restart Firefox, visit my Flickr page. Rest your cursor on a picture and click the play button. Or use it to browse Google Images. Great stuff.

2008-01-30T18:55:00.000+07:00

I'm in Taipei. I should be in Seattle, really. My sister is going to have some brain monitoring done this week and I just happened to have a plane ticket to Seattle on the 30th. Great timing.

Actually the timing wasn't as good as I'd hoped: China Airlines aparently canceled the Taipei-Seattle leg of my flight months ago but I didn't know that until I got here. Don't worry, there is a later flight, but it mean sleeping on couches until 11pm tonight. Oh well. Tough it out.

One I get in to SEA-TAC I'll take a bus to the hospital. Not sure which bus, but I'll worry about that later.

2008-01-20T11:36:00.000+07:00

Abusing trust or power is something no person should ever do. Stories about the notorious corruption of Thai police always seemed distanced to me; I had nothing to worry about. Usually the people in these stories are high school tough kids, motorcycle racers, or just about anyone breaking the law but ready to pay for police protection. This story is about me.

You may have read in my blog about my band practices every Tuesday and Friday evening. Every week, after class on Tuesday, I change clothes, grab my instrument, and take the BTS Skytrain to Victory Monument (อนุสาวรีย์ชัยฯ) station. Then I take either a bus or motorcycle taxi to Suan Oy where the practice studio is located. Last Tuesday I got to Victory Monument at 5:50 which meant I was going to be a few minutes late if I took the bus through dense rush-hour traffic. Motorcycle taxis are great for these situations if you don't mind bumping elbows against review mirrors a bit. There are too ways into Suan Oy, a street with restaurants and apartments for Ratchapat Universtiy which sits across the road. One end comes off the main road and turns into Suan Oy. The other entrance is from a small side road which our studio is on. Motorcycles come in the back way because they can stop, get paid, and return to their posts without having to dodge traffic and university students. This is a normal routine for me.

This Tuesday was different. As soon as we made the turn off the main road on to the small side street, we were stopped by five or six men in dark clothes, waiting between a pickup truck and a stone wall. As they surrounded us, I could tell they were wearing the standard dark green police uniforms. Police road blocks are a normal procedure here, and a good one I feel, as they help to stop many from drinking and driving. I certainly had no problems answering a few questions and moving on. Tuesday was different. They formed a circle around the bike and asked us to get off and park the motorcycle. The road was barely big enough for two cars to pass without scraping against eachother. One officer asked "Ai nong, what are you doing in this area?" Coming in the back way, eh?" Police split the driver and I up. "Been doing any drugs today?" I explained I was on my way to practice, at the end of this same dark alley. "You can go" they told the driver. They looked at my guitar bag as if I had a riffle in it. "What's in the bag?" I'll give you three guesses. Now isn't the time for sarcasm. I opened the bag to show my guitar. The bag was taken out of my hands. I could tell there was one boss leading the gang here. "Open it all up, it's here for sure." The motorcycle guy was asking to be paid now. I paid him and he started his bike and sped off onto the main road. I didn't mind the police checking my bad, I had nothing to hide, but why weren't they setting things up under a street lamp with big STOP signs like they normally do? "What's this?" They had found a rolled up ATM receipt in the smallest of 7 pockets on my case. The boss stared at me in the dark. "What's this? Nervous now aren't ya? That's it for sure, open it." They opened the crumbled up receipt. My stomach was starting to turn. If this had taken place during the former PM Thaksin's "War on Drugs" I could be shot in the middle of this alley, without a trial, if these policemen wanted to meet their quota and plant drugs on me. Nothing. The receipt was just a receipt. "Sir, I'm just coming to play music like I always do. I'm not interested in selling or buying drugs." This time I was speaking. The boss looked disappointed had me zip my guitar back up and put all my tools and things back in the pockets. "You just keep your mouth shut. He's got some on him for sure. Make him piss." What? Was this a road block or what? These guys wanted me to be someone I wasn't for sure. Did I want to take some roadside test in a dark alley, run by 6 guys who obviously needed to find something? One police officer took my arm and lead me to the wall only a few meters away. He pulled out a plastic kit, removed what looked like a piece of pH testing paper from my old days in chemistry class, and handed me the plastic wrapper. "Do it quick." I was supposed to fill the plastic wrapper while the cop watched. I was praying my friends, a few hundred meters down the road would somehow walk down to help me. I wrote my name on the wall, and put only a little into the bag. I turned around and went to give the bag back. A hand grabbed my arm and I was asked to tilt the bag. One officer shown a flashlight, another dipped the tester and swirled. They held the stick up, now green, and shown a light to it. "135." Not sure what that meant, but everyone shown a light into my face at the same time. "Are you even from here?" asked a policeman who hadn't said anything earlier. "No, I'm studying at Bangkok University. I honestly came to play music officer. I'm not who you think I am." The boss looked stunned. "You mean your not even Thai?" After looking at m student ID and drivers license. The "good cop" said I was free to go. I set my urine bag against the curb, picked up my guitar, and made the walk to the restaurant where our studio is. It was great to see familiar faces again. The owners were sitting out front drinking together and playing games. "Yeah, the cops in this area are a shady bunch. You're not the first."

I've never had a problem with police officers. They are here to protect us, not intimidate us, right? In the last few days I've noticed I feel differently. I know there are both good and bad officers out there, but every time I see one I feel afraid. The thing is, I've never felt like that before. The only time I felt scared of cops was when the good guy was about to be caught by one in a movie. Now I feel like I have to watch my back everywhere I go. It's a feeling I think will wear off over a few weeks, but I just don't like the whole thing.

Something else I wasn't happy about was the Special Topics in Communication class I talked about in my last post. The professor? Same one that gave me a good grade if I would shut up and forget about ever failing the three question midterm. Her first class was last week, because she didn't show up the first week. This week was also canceled because of personal schedule conflicts. In last weeks class, I was singled out in a small speech she gave. Along the lines of: "If you have a problem you know. I will fix it for you, you don't need to talk with the office." This angers me a bit, not because she was talking about the 3 students who wanted to know why the midterm results were kept from us, but because this teacher promises a bad grade for anyone who asks questions. I thought good learners were supposed to ask questions. I want to graduate, so I'll go along with it, but I'm sure this won't be the last post about her.

To top off a great week. I have a small cold. I had a bit of a fever and stuffy nose the other day, but I'm feeling better now. Sleep, water, and paracetamol.

Tomorrow I have a job taking graduation pictures all day. Wish me luck.

2008-01-12T17:13:00.000+07:00

I'm liking my class schedule for the new semester.

Monday morning is Mass Media Law and Ethics which should be exactly what it sounds about. The professor is from the university's law faculty and will teach us about what mass media can and can't do legally. She'll also cover last year's new Thai constitution, which was removes many of the old loopholes and makes it harder for businesses and government officials to interfere with journalists.

On Monday afternoons I have a class I think I'm really going to enjoy. Corporate Relationship Management is taught by Dr. Peeraya, a BU and Ohio U. graduate, who has spent the last 15 years helping BU to become the best school for Communication Arts in Thailand. For this class, our professor will advising as our whole class forms a team to plan and run a public relations plan for the college. This means designing media, writing press releases, purchasing advertising, and planning a promotional event: meaning the students are in charge of the schools PR activities.

Tuesday was canceled last week. I guess the professor couldn't make it. Special Topics in Communication sounds very interesting and possibly interactive, but I'll have to wait a couple more days to know for sure.

Seminar in Communication, Wednesday afternoon, is very interesting but I haven't had very good luck with this professor. Last year she gave my group's 30+ hours of interviews, library research, and 20 page paper, a D+ because we didn't have pretty pictures. I'm suspicious of professors who give grades on looks not content, but eh, I'll just try to spend more on leather bindings for my report this term. Seminar in Comm. is 5 seminars that groups from the class will plan and produce. We can contact anyone from the communication arts community: meaning journalists, political campaign managers, actors, advertising agents, public relations officers, and anyone else really. Each group has positions like secretaries, photographers, even caters! My group elected me to be master of ceremonies for our seminar; the last one of the semester.

Marketing Communication, on Thursday afternoon, is hands-down the most boring class on my schedule. Marketing communication is an important skill and should be very useful in a business environment, but something about this professor and classroom makes it hard concentrate. We spent half our first period doing hand counts of what majors everyone was from and whether or not they had ever studied communication. The professor later explained he knew his class was a required Comm. Arts course, but just wanted to make sure they're weren't any Marketing kids there by mistake.

Saturday (today) was a little complicated. My original class, Global Perspectives on International Issues, was pretty cool but nobody else thought so. Having only 4 students enrolled, the class was frozen. But not before we got one lecture out of it. An official (His Excellency) from the European Union spoke to a class packed with "dummy" students about EU-Thai relations specifically economic ones. I'll post the speaker's full title here once I find the correct spelling. The trade agreements and official positions he talked about were rather monotonous; it was the questions period that was most interesting.

The speaker explained the camps on the Thai-Burmese border where the EU spends approx. 40 million Euro a year to house Karen refugees, because Thai politicians want nothing to do with them. "This is a serious human rights violation that Thailand chooses to avoid". I found it most interesting that the EU Commission chooses not to talk publicly about this issue, to protect the image of Thai politicians. Another problem is the instability in Southern Thailand, where native Islamic groups want out of Thai-government rule. "What instability? Everything is perfectly stable." insist Thai cabinet ministers. Very interesting lecture, too bad there won't be any another.

With Saturday free and a 4,600 baht refund to put towards tuition, I popped into the Computer Graphics and Multimedia major's Digital Photography which my pals Ton and Ying are taking. The class was an extra $140, the professor is an attendance Nazi, and the computer lab could have been one of the nicer ones, but I am thrilled I finally get to take a class I've waited 3 years for. The class has no midterm and only final weighted at 10% of the total grade. Most of the grade is photo assignments and projects. We should have a field trip at some point too.

The 26th, 27th, 28th, and 29th of this month I may be shooting photos of a corporate seminar for a major Thai Bank (can't say the name) more details later. Mid-February I may have a job on the other side of the lens, as an extra in a Korean war movie being shot in Thailand! Ha. That would be fun.

2008-01-06T16:48:00.000+07:00

2008!

New Years Eve Pong, Jik, Ben, and met up at May's house on Rama 2 Rd. After getting beat 12-1 in a Playstation soccer match, we a barbecue on the front porch, then caught a cab to Siam. We walked down the Skybridge to Central World where all the beer companies have beer gardens with concerts everyday until New Years.

I've been in some pretty tight crowds before. Packed buses, the Skytrain after 5pm, airport terminals. Nothing compares to New Years Eve at Central World. The only path between stages and exits was one strip between the flagship Central department store's impressive glass wall and fences of the beer gardens. This was only 3-4 meters wide and almost 300 meters long. When we came, we were able to float with the river of people moving through this gap, pushing a bit to get to a door to the stage for Bodyslam. No big problems. Security were friendly and pointed us to "our" table in the back.

Our friend Sai had come early and reserved a table at the Singha area. Once we got to the table we received a less than pleasant greeting from the other people sitting at the packed table. The six of us certainly weren't going to fit. May stayed, Jik, Ben Pong, and I jumped the fence and headed back to Siam Paragon where Potato had a table we could hang out at.

Bad idea. The river of people had stopped flowing by this time and was becoming near violent. At first people could move a bit by pushing through the crowd. We did a pretty good job of sticking with each other by diving through gaps of people when we could find them. Then it got scary. A surge of people coming in met people leaving. Both sides packed with people who couldn't go anywhere. The pressure of people in front and behind made it had to breath. Pong and I have to lock arms to keep our dwarf-like friend Jik's head in the air. Sometime before midnight people started to get restless and began pushing in unison -- from both directions. This was more frightening than I can describe. The feeling reminded me of the team building exercise where everyone packs in tight and sits on the knees of the person behind them. Only this was a wall of hundreds of people being pushed backwards. Once you fell back, you were thrown back the other way.

We didn't get trampled. The only people I saw hurt had all fainted in the crowd but couldn't be carried out. We ended up counting down together from inside the mass of people: wedged between the sweaty bodies a couple hundred strangers.

Other than this whole bit, New Years was nice. No bombs this year, despite rumors. After the 1am we met up with May and headed back to the house. We played cards together; substituting chips for glasses of beer, until we couldn't say awake any longer. New Year's day we went to the ocean (but not a beach) to eat seafood and visit a temple famous for giving good luck on Jan. 1st.

After the 1st, I had a few band practices, and a party Friday night for Jan at Fam's house. We had an indoor barbecue, fondu style. The Potato crew came, AB Normal, and Blackhead friends, as well as P'Oun and P'1, my adopted brothers and travelmates from the 2007 New Year's trip to Phu Gadueng mountain.

Tomorrow is my first day back to school. It's been a short week-long break, but a good one nevertheless. My schedule is (currently):
Monday: Corporate Relationship Management
Tuesday: Special Topics in Communication
Wednesday: Media Communication
Thursday: Marketing Communication
Saturday: Communication Planning and Policy
Wednesday is the Add-Drop period, which I think I'll use to drop my Saturday course in exchange for a Wednesday afternoon class, and add a Monday morning class a lot of friends are taking.

I was careful, and lucky, in my pre-registration this year to get all my classes to start mid-day: a true challenge. This was done in anticipation for playing music a few nights a week. This means I'll have plenty of sleep before school and free days Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (after a successful Add-Drop period.

Although the Add-Drop starts Wednesday, I'm going to go to tomorrow morning's class even though I'm not yet part of it. Hopefully I'll have better luck adding courses than in previous years.

No set dates yet, but there may be a reunion trip with P'1 and P'Oun to the North around the 10th (next week). P'Ohm and Jan would drive they're cars and we'd leave on a Thursday night and return Sunday, which means I wouldn't miss any class.

Our band is getting better quickly. Por has started playing with a metronome in the practice studio, which takes some getting used to, but makes playing together feel very tight. Feels just right. In a few weeks we should be ready to take auditions.

2007-12-19T21:36:00.000+07:00

It starts tomorrow... my third year of first term final exams. The schedule:
12/20 Dan vs. Writing for Public Information
12/21 Dan vs. Critical Analysis
12/22 Dan vs. International Communication
12/25 Dan vs. Communication Consulting and Training
12/26 Dan vs. Political Communication
12/27 Dan vs. Public Relations

Thailand should have a new prime minister this weekend. Preliminary exit polls from last weekend show the Thai Rak Thai party, Thaksin's former party, with over a 30% lead, followed by the Democratic party leading all the smaller parties by at least 20%. Should be interesting to see how this election ends. The last one brought out the tanks and friendly generals.

A week ago I saw Lions and Lambs with Robert Redford, Tom Cruise, and Meryl Streep at Central World, alone on a Friday night. My friends weren't interested in "political flicks" and Central World was the only theater in Bangkok, with only one showing of the movie a day. There were only ten people in the theater. Might have been the one of the best movies I've seen in the past 5 years. I wrote a review on IMDb about the film.

Back to the books. Tomorrow's exam is at 9am!

2007-11-29T00:07:00.000+07:00

It's getting noticeably colder in BKK. Morning showers are shocking and a bit painful. The breeze feels great though. Today some friends and I tried out a new (to us) cake buffet after class. It's actually a large Italian Cafe hidden in the back-sois of Sukumvit 33; but we call it the cake buffet. 150 baht per person gives you your choice of mouses, cheese cakes, various fruit cakes, cream cakes, and four or five types of chocolate cake. It's a small restaurant on a spacious piece of land nudged in between large condo and office buildings. Half of the cafe is a large deck, under a terrace arches covered in mangrove trees that block the sunlight and funnel a nice breeze through the place. It's built like a Tuscan winery with a large field and a farm house; only it has a parking lot and sits in West urban Bangkok. We sat outside the farmhouse and had the place to ourselves. The five of us a great time stuffing trying different deserts, salads, and bread until we started to get sleepy from all energy we had drained lifting our forks.

I nearly cried last week when I successfully pre-registered for the second term this year. This is the first time in three years the computer hasn't refused my status as a student, citing my 6 transfered courses from my high school days. I almost screamed in the joy I felt when I saw the conformation email. So.. I think I'll be taking:

รหัสวิชา.	.กลุ่ม.	.ชื่อวิชา.
ICA317	5431	CORPORATE RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
ICA427	5431	SPECIAL TOPICS IN COMMUNICATION
ICA419	5431	COMMUNICATION PLANNING AND POLICY
ICA327	5331	MARKETING COMMUNICATION
ICA225	5232	MEDIA COMMUNICATION

Seats may be full, or sections changed, so nothings for sure yet.

Political Communication was an interesting course today. Not really. The teaching style was the same as always: reading the text book to us, pausing for poorly translated memories, having nothing to do with political communication. Two and a half hours of these stories went by as they always do (without a break or a change in PowerPoint slides) but today ended differently. Afte 4 weeks our teacher has finally released the midterm grades of all fifteen people in the class. This was the midterm which had no review, only three questions, but was easy if you read the book. My grade? 18/30. I wasn't too satisfied with my grade as I was next to the lowest in the 15 person class. Even some of my next-to-illiterate friends managed a B. I decided to find out what I was missing in what I had been studying.

The result of my consultation with my professor left me confused and depressed for the future of BU students but hopeful for my grade. I asked "Next week, can we look over my mid-term together? I'm not sure why I received such a low grade." She replied "Oh no. I can look for you but I can't let you see your paper now." !?!
I really wanted to see what combination of marks I recieved to have gotten 1.2 questions wrong, and BU allows students to request to see their exams. Drops of sweat started to pour from my teacher's brow. I couldn't understand why she wanted to keep this paper, one of the worst in the room, from being seen. All I got was a repeated "Oh no. Against policy." I replied politely that BU's policy allows this and if she was worried about policy conflicts I could speak to the dean myself. Apparently this was too much! "Just accept that you can't always have good grade because you are speak English. This is my way. I am not like other teacher. Do you think you can do better" Pardon? At this point we had reached a humorous yet scary level of communication. I didn't understand what was going on, and she obviously felt threatened. I decided best to answer her questions, play the obedient student role, and talk to the dean myself.
"Yes. I though I did better than this because I knew the answer to all three questions." Did this make things worse? No! :)
"Oh! You think you should have better grade?"
"(You're &%#* right I do!!) Yes, professor. But mostly I am worried about making the same mistakes again."
"Hmm. If you want a better grade, I'll take a look at your test for you. Sometimes I make mistakes."
Ahhh. So I might be getting a boosted score as long as I don't talk to the dean? What's wrong with letting me see the marks on the paper? Do they exist? Other prof.s are happy to tell you what you answered wrong. Eh. I don't have time to worry. If I get a bad grade in this course I and 14 other students will be walking up to the deans office to have a word about all this. -*- but for now taking it easy seems best. From what I hear 5-6 people complained about the poor and confusing grammar on the midterm which had the teacher worried about keeping her comfy job.

Spring break 2008! Means I may be taking a trip to the states. Almost a 3 week break this year, 4 weeks if I miss one day of each class.

Yesterday was the first band practice in almost two weeks due to school concerts for Bank and Boat. Felt like months. Might be because it's been a while since I learned 11 songs at a time. A lot to remember. But it went well, Saturday's practice should be even tighter if I don't mix up the solos to different songs again. Another month and we should be getting close to lining up a schedule for next year.

P'Ekk signed me up for some cool free seminars the other day at Central World Siam. They were sponsored by Mac and GenX Academy. Famous artists and directors came and taught techniques for movie production. The most interesting to me was movie sounds. I never realized that so much has to be done to exaggerate
door closings and clothing shifting on the body. I also thought Foley was the name of a character in Black Sheep. Animation showed the design of a robot/fax machine destroying cars downtown, a popular commercial for a paper company. Special effects was amazing. How much time and money (millions of dollars) just to make the sails of Pirates look believable, let alone the ghosts and canon balls flying around. Overall a great workshop and fit perfectly in to my budget.

P'Bom Potato isn't with Potato anymore. This is sad news as P'Bom and P'pee, the deceased brother of my friend and band mate Por, were the two who started the band. P'Bom has always looked after me and treated me like a younger brother and has always been the most professional member of the band. Which makes it odd for a GMM Grammy producer to announce that after five #1 albums, P'Bom is no longer good enough for the band. Even more surprising is the replacement drummer pulled out of somebody's hat in no less than two days. Ready to play all 25+ songs used on tour. The official word is that P'Bom made the decision to study drums with renown jazz drummer Lek T-Bone for a while and take a break off tour. At the moment he's in a nearby province being a monk for a while. When he's ready to come back he'll think more about where he wants to be drumming.

The good news in all this is that P'Bom has agreed to teach Por everything he knows. I'm slightly jealous, but P'Bom doesn't teach guitar so: tough. Haha.

I've been thinking I may look into Chula's graduate school. It is after-all the best graduate school in South-East Asia for liberal arts and medicine. International Development Studies seems like it might be a very useful thing in the next 30 years in Asia.

2007-11-17T21:20:00.001+07:00

Things are going well.

In the last week I:
Held a training seminar on making scented candles for a group project.
Gave a presentation on bias of major news media in the United States and Middle east.
Walked home from the Skytrain three times.
Sold my PRS guitar.
Bought another one.
Watched a concert from the side of the freeway.

My head cold is getting better but it's not over yet. Last Wednesday I was miserable. Slept the whole day, drank lots of water, ate soup, and felt a lot better Thursday. The weather was really cold this last week which didn't help. Whenever I took a shower at night I would have to drink hot tea while showering. Weird huh? Well I didn't drink tea the first night and came out of the bathroom feeling as though someone had welded my nose and throat to the back of my skull. The mucus was so think I couldn't talk. Keeping my sinuses warm helped keep things moving.

The Annual New Years Trip might come early this year. There's a 5 day holiday early next month which P'1 and P'Oun are looking at. On the way back from last week's AB Normal tour in Chiang Mai they stopped to survey Pai [1] [2] [3]. Not sure what we'll do yet but this group is always fun. The waterfalls might be a bit cold right now but rafting to mae hong song, hot springs, and cruising around sound like fun. Should be a nice chance to relax before final exams come.

2007-11-10T07:38:00.000+07:00

I made a huge mistake last night when I closed the door behind me. I assumed I wouldn't need to lock my door because I was only going to check the laundry machine downstairs and walk back up. It was my lightning fast reflexes and impressive muscle-memory that got me into trouble. As I was swinging the door shut behind me, flicking the light switch and grabbing my keycard in one swift movement... I locked the door. This wouldn't be a big problem in the middle of the day but after midnight there's nobody around to help you.

I considered crawling out the window of the hall, onto a ledge that led to my open sliding window. I would need to keep my balance a ledge no wider than my shoulders, cross an air conditioning unit, move some PVC pipe, duck under a piece of metal, and backslide through my window. After almost an hour of pacing around considering how likely I was to fall three stories I decided to wait until morning and call the landlady P'Eat. I tried sleeping in a sitting position in front of my door but it was just too uncomfortable. How was I going to sleep on a tile floor in the hallway of an apartment building? I needed some help so I walked to a nearby restaurant and ordered a large plate of food and a bottle of beer. By 3am I plopped down in front of my door using one hand as a pillow. I could feel the draft from my air-conditioner, still running in the room.

I woke up with a sore throat and pain in my legs at 5.30 when two women were talking outside a door at the end of the hall. They didn't say anything but did give funny looks. I wasn't sure what to say either. I'm sure they though I was crazy. At 6.30 and called for help from a phone booth on the street. 15 minutes ago (7.30) a key arrived. It felt so good. Having a key to my own room again.

Today is now a rest day. I was going to go to the first day of Fat Fest, the annual indie and book festival by Fat Radio, but that's not happening. Tomorrow has most of the big acts anyways. Sleep. The one thing on my mind right now is sleeping. Sometime tonight we'll have band practice.

Ah. That's all for now.

2007-10-27T16:45:00.000+07:00

I bought a new wallet. This one has a tab to attach a lanyard to and was on sale so I bought it. Haven't found the old one yet.

Exams are over! for now. Midterms this term were mixed. As always bad grammar on the professors end was sadly the hardest part of some tests. I should know the results within the next couple weeks. This last week was not supposed to be a break, but ended up as one. Both professors and students were absent all week. The unofficial end to the midterm break is set for this Monday (I assume). In the next couple weeks most of this semester's term projects will be turned in, then we'll wait to start final exams in mid-December.

I was at Por's house yesterday when Fam from Potato called me. Fam told me he had talked to a concert promoter from Singapore about our band. I thought he kidding but he wasn't... "Bubble" the concert promoter and manager called me and talked about meeting up to take pictures of our band. She would send the pictures to her boss in Singapore and discuss flying us to audition there. If we got the job we would be opening for the former top ten Thai-pop band Senorita at Thai music venues in Singapore and Malaysia. Apparently there is quite a demand for Thai music there. We'll take pictures together this week and talk about details with Bubble.

Nothing is for sure yet but there is a chance this would mean missing some school. If the five of us went it would likely mean missing a couple weeks of school. This brings up a bit of a moral dilemma for me. Since my freshman year of high school I have been repeatedly cautioned about my family's history of taking time off of school to pursue other interests intending to return to school. At the moment I see this as a wonderful opportunity. Normally only the top few bands in Thailand get an invite to play in another county. If it's not more than a few weeks, I will try to work out something with my professors and fly back in time for exams. One great thing is that it would only be a short flight back and forth (3000 baht round trip) which would be covered in our expenses. In the next couple of days we're planning on sitting down for a meeting about what we want to accomplish together. Gob, Bank, and Boat are going to graduate after this term ends. Por and I have only a year left.

I'm trying to keep myself from getting too excited right now. There's a good chance things just might not happen. If we don't get the job, oh well, keep working towards finding jobs closer to home.

Yesterday I went and saw Oppatikka, the mega budget Thai action film which has gotten insane amounts of publicity. Bad bad film. Bad graphics, bad acting, and a terrible story. Please don't go to see it. Not worth the money.

2007-10-14T21:49:00.000+07:00

I had been waiting a month and a half for a good writing-mood to come but it just never came.

Right now I am in the middle of midterm exams my friends: three down, three to go. Writing for Public Information, Critical Analysis and International Communication weren't very difficult except for a mistake on the final question on my Writing for Public Information exam and horrible grammar on the multiple choice questions for my Inter. Comm. test. The writing part was a small mistake. Thinking the testing period was near an end, I squeezed out a one paragraph essay about loosing my wallet. The result was a short essay most junior high students could have written better. I cringed while doing a final proofread. I couldn't believe I had done the exact opposite of what the professor had explained to me so well: Concise writing is more interesting, if it doesn't serve a purpose, don't write it. Instead of explaining why loosing my wallet was going to cause me so much trouble, I rushed to write "I lost my wallet. I was so bad. Really really bad." Oh well. I won't rush until I hear the 10 minute warning next time. Tomorrow I'm going to go study at the uni because my bed is simply too warm and comfortable. I know I'd read for 15 minutes, get something to eat, then sleep the rest of the day. 16, 17, 18 and the last exam days.

On the way to band practice last week my wallet fell out in one of the vans that run from Siam to Pinklao. Damn. As if I didn't have enough banking problems going on already, requesting ATM cards that never came in the mail and canceled credit cards. I went back the next day and talked with all the van drivers, looked in the vans, I just hope the person who picked it up turns it in. They can keep the money inside. Luckily I pushed the "withdrawal everything you've ever saved" button by accident on an ATM the night before loosing my wallet. Should have enough cash to pay rent and eat for a while until the new card comes. If not I'll be selling stuff.

I'm not sure I mentioned the new band in my last post. A week or two into the new term my friends and I got the chance to audition at Ice Bar Thonglor. If we got the job we would be playing an hour long set one or two nights a week. On the day of the audition we found out that professional musicians bring their own equipment to work: entertainment venues therefore do not provide snare drums, bass pedals, or instrument cables. We borrowed them from a band auditioning after us, played 6 songs and sat down with the owners of the pub. We passed, but the male singer didn't. We needed to buy our own equipment (second hand would be fine), practice and come back. Enter P'Bom: I called P'Bom about finding decent second hand instruments. He pointed out that second hand wasn't worth the hassle of having to fix constantly or repair on stage in the middle of a concert. The next day P'Bom, my friend First and I went to Werng, an area of town selling only musical instruments. P'Bom's talked with his sponsors about us our situation and got us a 25% discount on anything we need. Por, the younger brother of P'Pea the deceased singer of Potato, was also on a shopping trip with us for the same reasons. The next day First called to tell me our singer was having girlfriend troubles and didn't feel like singing anymore and First's family wanted him to help with the family business. This was really discouraging. P'bom advised keeping my friend's band as something fun to do with friends after school. If I was serious about learning to play and make music better, I should find people that felt the same. He suggested I call up Por, who came with us shopping, and talk to him about what styles of music he liked.

Por is great. He became interested in music after his brother died in an accident a few years ago. We both started talking about looking for a band that was serious about going somewhere together and bringing new ideas to Thai pop songs. Por invited me to come play with his band for a practice to see how we played together. It felt so different. Playing with people who were serious about playing together. The bassist (Gohb) is the only bassist I have ever heard say "I felt the bass was too controlling tonight. Just a bit too loud." The singer (Boat) brought a notebook of alphabetically listed songs with him and didn't seem to have any "girlfriend problems". Playing with Bank (Por's neighbor) is like playing guitar into a mirror. I can't explain why we both think and play the same style but it feels that way. He's also an incredible sound engineer, in his fourth year in Mahidol University's music faculty. Por is incredible. When he isn't drumming or listening to music, he's thinking about how what to better what he just played or listened to. We practiced twice a week for 4 weeks and played our first job last night. The job was an AFS Prom Night at the Miracle Grand. Things went great. We had a lot of fun playing, and the 200-300 students that came were jumping up and down singing along. We'll practice again this Fridays after Por and I finish exams. The next challenge is to select and learn 40-50 songs together so that we have a nice mix of songs to choose from when we start accepting restaurant and pub jobs early next year. Two months of practice should feel great. I'm very happy things worked out this well.

I hope that wallet finds it's way back to me. I'm buying a wallet with a string attachment this time. Tomorrow is a study/rest day. Then exams in Consulting and Training, Political Communication, and Public Relations for Communication. I also need to pay rent... the caretaker has been in the hospital for the last month so we're supposed to wire money into the landlord's account. I'll see if I can figure that out tomorrow.

2007-09-01T11:53:00.000+07:00

Busy, Busy, Busy, Cough.

School has started again. The first term of '07-'08 is in it's second week. My take on the classes I'm in?

Public Relations as Communication Management - A true PR course. One group project and occasional homework.
Writing for Public Information - "Journalistic, creative writing, in advertising and public relations contexts." Lots of writing and test, but sounds like fun and a chance to improve a bit.
Political Communication - Entire 2 hr. period spent reading a PowerPoint course outline slide (singular) aloud to us and explaining the meaning of words we wouldn't understand. A waste. 4th year students tell me it won't get any better.
Critical Analysis of Messages - Graduate level reading assignments. I needed almost an hour to get through the one page handout. Dr.K loves to remind us how well-read she is. I'll learn a lot.
Communication Consulting and Training - Learn to host training and consulting seminars! Yahoo! Prof. is very good and course work should be very informative. Group project.
International Communication - Group project is huge.

Looking at pictures in Flickr you'll see that Ton, Ying, Nes, and I went on a trip together to kill time before school started. We went West to the Mae Klong river and stayed at a home-stay on the river. Then we came back East, past Bangkok, and South to Koh Chang. The bus broke down and we ended up at Koh Lan (Thousand Island) instead. We stayed in another home-stay, rented motorcycles, cruised around and took pictures, crashed the motorcycles, and came back to start school.

I took some pictures of my new apartment as well!

2007-08-10T09:55:00.000+07:00

I showered, dressed, gathered all of my baggage and made my way to the lobby of the hotel all within a 10 minute period. At 11.25 a short, rounded man with a large hat opened the door the to a 1990's minivan which Red Roof Inn calls their Airport Shuttle. My Dad got to say a brief goodbye and light up a cigarette before I was ushered to the dark van and asked to sit inside. I was the only one inside, sitting in the very middle of the van. Why does an airport shuttle minivan need tented windows anyways? Sitting alone in this dark, noiseless minivan, watching from a distance as my father casually sucked down a whole pack of Marbros. The beginning of my trip home had already begun.

Airports are pretty boring, but they are better when you have a new toy to kill time with. Mine and about 10 other people's new toy at our gate was an Apple MacBook. I played around in Photoshop and charged my battery. Throughout the whole trip not one person asked me about gate-checking my guitar. It stayed next to me or above me the whole time.

After getting off the plane in Bangkok my phone ran immediately. P'Oui had come to pick me up and was waiting on the other side of a half-hour long customs line. We drove back to my place and carried the box and bags up to the third floor. I put the key in the door, turned, and it opened.

I spent a day unpacking and sleeping. The next day was the beginning of Rub Nong or freshman team building/hazing. A group of friends and I went down early in a van to setup things before the group of 80+ freshman arrived. The location wasn't as nice as last year. Both places were beaches close to Hua Hin. This particular beach was unique in that it was covered in piles of dead jellyfish. This meant swimming was out of the question.

The next day we got up early and started setting up stations for the day's activities. The largest was bai see, a game where people crawl through a long tunnel made of bamboo sticks and garbage bags. Sounds fun right? On the sides of the tunnel are holes where upperclassmen wait with buckets of wet flour dyed with food coloring which is applied to the face and hair of everyone racing their way through the course. After we finished everyone headed back to the cabin to shower before the buses came.

The rest of the day went by fast. Kids were split into teams of 10 and rotated through stations. Soda chugging, banana eating, fun with ice, and relays went on throughout the day. The trouble began with one kid who jokingly gave a sarcastic reply to one of the staff members. This sort of thing happens all day long and is a way for freshman and staff to laugh together and bond a bit. This particular incident began when a team complained why they didn't get points for a dropped banana. Bird told the leader of this team that he wanted to see the kid's underwear on the outside of his swimming suit within one minute. He could change on the spot, run to the bathroom, or change in the water. Second year Bird ordered all of this remembering he had done this the year before. What Bird didn't remember was the jellyfish problem on the particular beach. The kid came out screaming. Not because he was upset about having his underwear on the wrong side of his shorts, he was laughing about that. He was screaming because he had been stung repeatedly by jelly fish while changing clothes underwater. I left the station and took the kid up to the head of the beach to see what was going on. Luckily, only the backside of his leg had been stung but was spreading as he itched it. I gave him some cooling cream which stops swelling and sent him back to his room to change clothes. If he felt better we wouldn't go to the hospital, if it still stung we'd go. After all of this a local told me a simple splash of soda stops jellyfish poison. Ironic, because the station where he was stung require the group to drink a 2-liter bottle of Coke in under a minute. We had stacks of our sponsored product sitting close by. I thought one medical emergency would be all for the day but I was wrong.

Later in the evening the tradition is for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year students to preform skits for freshman to watch. This year my two good friends First and Sharp gave their rendition of a Four Mod song which can be found by searching Youtube for "เด็กมีปัญหา". Seeing the two macho 3rd year students dressing like teenage Japanese girls made the new class a bit less intimidated. After the preformances, we blindfold and lead them down from the hotel to the beach where a ring of 30+ candles have been setup in the middle of the beach, in the dark, far away from any lights. Each staff member sits on the outside of a candle with a pack of cotton string. each one of the 80 freshman stops at various candles and sits with the staff member one-on-one. The upperclassmen tie a string on for good luck while we give any advice that we think will be important for them in their first year. After finishing, people make their way back to their rooms to prepare for the night. Being a 3rd year student I looked for some fourth year candles to get some time in before everyone had. This is when my night became exciting. Somebody shouted out that a kid had feinted walking back to the hotel. I decided to finish talking to my fourth year adviser, as the kid who feinted had woken up by now and would likely be taken back to her room by friends and fed some water. What can we expect after being in the sun all day and not drinking much water. Before the string was tied on my arm a 2nd year student came running asking "P'Dan where is the medkit?" Ah. This is where things got exciting.
Foureyes, a second year student who was lovingly given a nickname which he could be recognized by, was laying on a beach chair along side the pool, with a crowd around him. Nobody seemed to know what to do or even knew what was going on. Foureyes was breathing but looked like he was in pain. Trying to breath hard, eyes shut, and laying back. His head kept falling to the side, lifelessly, and P'Gap a big fourth year guy had his arms under Foureye's back, pulling his chest up which was allowing him to breath. At first I though he might be choking. Maybe hit a rock and punctured a lung? Heat stroke? He was certainly shaking a lot. All I knew was that he was shaking a lot which meant he was going into shock. I had P'Gap keep his legs elevated while Bird and found out what had happened. Somebody said there was a hotel van which would take us to the hospital. Bird and I each grabbed a side and took him to the front of the hotel and into a small van. I jumped right in along with Waiwai. I remember somebody handing us a cell phone and asking if I had my phone. Off we went. I've never seen a short, stubby van go so fast. We did 150 km/hr all the way there. Foureye's head was on my lap, feet on Waiwai. I tried to keep him awake asking if he had eaten anything odd that day or hadn't had any water. He could barely talk, but whispered that he'd felt sick before he feinted. Then his head went heavy and his eyes closed. I was just praying Foureyes wasn't going to stop breathing in my lap. I kept a hand on his chest and artery, and he seemed to be doing fine. At one point his eyes opened and he reached up and pulled my neck down so I could listen. Last words? Something he remembered he ate? allergies? Nope. Foureyes wanted to say "P'Dan, I don't need to go to the hospital. I don't want to go." Hmm. This was confusing. Did this mean he wanted us to circle the hospital a couple times and let him go honorably? I just kept asking him questions and we arrived at the hospital within minutes. There was a stretcher waiting, and we wheeled him into the ER. This hospital was one room. The nurses responded as though they weren't the least bit worried or rushed. They put an oxygen mask on him and wheeled him to the middle of the empty ward. I stood close and told the nursed what I knew.

He fell, passed out, woke up, has trouble breathing, shakes, didn't feel well a couple hours before passing out. Nurses asked for Foureyes full name which he couldn't say loud enough for them to hear. I about to be confused again. Foureyes pulled me close and said "P'Dan please don't let them give me any shots I'm allergic to a lot of things." OK, good tip. When the nurse went to take his blood sugar level our freind Foureyes spoke right up, with the energy of someone who should be able to say his name clearly. "Please no needles, I'm allergic," the nurse told him the needle had no medicine and was only used to get a single drop of blood for the test. At this point I was as puzzled as the nurses. Why does somebody this sick not want to be at a hospital, being treated? The oxygen eventually made the guy under the glasses fall comfortably asleep and the nurse diagnosed him with "bad stress". The cure? Don't get so stressed. After an hour of monitoring we walked him to the van and headed back. I think Foureyes was embarrassed at this point. Every time he looked at me there was a sense he was begging me not to tell anyone what had happened this night. My diagnoses? Foureyes is by far the smartest kid in his class, but is also the most easily stressed person. After getting really stressed out, I think he took a bit of a dive into the sand. Not for attention, but for sympathy. After he was helped up people felt sorry for him, but also very worried. I think he was looking for people to care for him, but not necessarily a team of nurses with needles and bills. All of this must have made him pretty embarrassed. Waiwai bought into the "over stressed" bit, which worked out well. When anybody asked what was wrong with him, we had an answer to give them, even if it wasn't the real one.

The next morning everyone woke up hungover and stiff from the drinking and sleeping on sofa cushions the night before. We had breakfast and loaded into the 3 tour buses. On the way back everyone played cars and sung to songs on the radio. Everything was going great until a kid in a blue shirt woke up from his nap and made his way towards Beer, First, Bo, and I in the back of the bus. What was happening? He was obviously woken by a strong need to use the bathroom. If you have ever ridden a tour bus, Grey Hound, or other large bus with an inadequate system of waste disposal, you while understand this next part. At first, it came as a bad smell. Everyone ignored it. At this point in time the road had changed into a strip with continuous bumps tilts. A couple minutes later came the second burst. This one was more than a smell, it was like having your head forced into the toilet itself. Everyone was running to the front of the bus to escape it. This was not the sort of exaggeration you would see from, perhaps a bus full of fifth-graders, everyone was trying their best to be polite and understand how the person in the bathroom must feel. This second burst of gas however pushed all of that understanding right out of the bus. People were running and literally jumping over each other to get away from the smell. Finally, the smell reached the driver who immediately pulled the two story bus into a small gas station. People poured out of the bus only to find the smell on the other side! Splat, splat, splat. Raw waste was pouring from the back of the bus onto the pavement. We let the bus air out for a while, but the sewage tank was obviously full and busted. From the gas station to the university was only another half hour, which everyone spent giving the kid in the blue shirt the evil eye.

Once we got back a few of the staff members decided to celebrate finishing finals and the rub nong trip by going to Icebar that night. Good times.

Wednesday I met up with P'Fam to help out setting up a Potato concert. Universiade is a the Olympics of universities and is held every two years in a different host county. This year Bangkok hosted and paid Potato to play 6 songs in the center of the football stadium. It was nice to hang out with the crew again. All of the crew for many GMM Grammy bands share apartments in the same building, which means everyone is very close. So, when it came time to start the show, nobody is ever shy about asking me to help them get things done quickly. Wednesday the band ended up on the opposite side of the stadium from us when the loudspeaker decided we were ready to play. Win and Ohm ended up standing in the middle of the stadium with no guitar or bass. Nid took the bass, I grabbed the guitar and ran out towards the middle of the field. What happened next caused me pain both physically and emotionally. Because the track events are held on the same field as the night's football game, the 15m wide track was covered with a thick white cover. This cover was what I had to run across to get to Win. I ran, and ran, until I was 1/2 of the way to the grass before I realized what I was doing and some part of my brain told my legs to be more careful and walk not run. I listened to that voice in my head and slowed down, just enough for my momentum to take me sliding across the other half of the cover. I actually slid, hold a $2000 guitar in my hands, about 5m before both my legs slid out from under me and I landed flat on my back as 20,000+ people watched. The crowd roared in laughter. The band fell down laughing. I sat up with the breath knocked out of me and handed the guitar off to Golf who was running right behind me. The whole thing was telecast around the world. Defiantly was a memorable experience.

Only a week has passed by since I came back from the US, but so much has happened. I guess it's the unpredictable things that make living so much fun.

An End.

2007-08-01T09:24:00.000+07:00

Tonight's ride on a complementary hotel shuttle will be the end to my summer in the US of A. It was a great summer, one I'll never forget. The last two times I came to the states I left feeling a bit anxious to get back on my own, looking for excitement. But this time around I'm leaving feel as though I'm being dragged back to school by a giant calender, which threatens to punish me if I don't obey. It might have been the amount of time I spent in town this summer. I feel like staying. The weather is beautiful, family flocking to visit, friends coming home, jobs starting to pop up. In a sense I feel like I'm flying away from the action versus going to it.

T.S. Eliot once wrote: "... To make an end is to make a beginning: The end is where we start from." Tonight, for me, is the type of end the he was talking about. A closing to my summer and a fresh start to my new year.

At the moment I'm writing from a dark room at the Seattle Red Roof Inn. Two thick, musty curtains are blocking our window view of the SEATAC graveyard and airport control tower. My Dad just returned from the lobby with a watered-down mocha from the free coffee machine, sat down and smoked a couple cancer sticks, pulled the curtains shut and crashed on the bed next to mine. His flight will leave early tomorrow morning. It's ok. I'll be out soon I guess. I plan on wheeling the cart with my cardboard luggage to the front desk sometime before 11.30.

2007-07-19T05:26:00.000+07:00

All is well. Things are good. Happy as clam (whatever that means).

My work schedule has changed a bit. Lanza's didn't have any work left for me to do, which means no more getting home at 2am. 1-2-3 Thai did have some work for me to do and called me a day before my last day at Lanza's. Working there is just great. Laid back and not too overwhelming. I will work tomorrow night, then all day Friday and Saturday. Cooking at the Bayview Restaurant is still a morning thing. 7am-2ish. I'll work tomorrow morning and again Monday and Tuesday.

I only have less than two weeks left. Wow. That went by quickly, in a slightly negative sense. I feel like I spent most of my time working or hanging out in the house. Sunday bowling dates and hot tub parties with Elye have been nice, but I besides those two things, I haven't really spent time with anyone outside of work. In the two months I've been home, I have eaten a meal with my mom only a couple times. Tonight my dear Aunt and Uncle John and Dar are coming from Iowa to stay a week. My cousin Josh, from Ohio, will be coming in too. Next Tuesday night I will drive into Seattle with Renee to pick up my Dad at the airport. Then it's only another 6 days before we all go our separate directions. Oh... my young uncle Aaron will be popping in for a visit as well next week. A busy end to a short summer.

I started writing this post this morning. Then I got distracted by something and forgot. I just returned a second ago to finish what I started. Tonight I raced (sailed) Vanguard 15's against some old friends. Rangy and I took out a boat together. Pretty fun stuff.

My computer came. Works great.

2007-07-05T13:03:00.000+07:00

Happy Independence Day.

Having work off (at least my night job) really made my 4th of July this year. I enjoyed the fact that today was a public holiday and (some) businesses closed so that everyone could enjoy the day with their family and friends through barbeques, picinics, alcohol, fire, and arial explosive charges. After I finished work at 1pm I walked home, played on the computer for a bit, then slept until four.

Here's my cry for sympathy: Yesterday I woke up at 6am and was on my feet, working, until just before 2am last night. I walked home, showered, then slept, and woke up in another 4 hours to go back to work. Poor baby. Its hard to explain what 20 hour days do to me. Maybe I'm just weak, but sleeping so little and running around so long really makes me sick. Yesterday I noticed I was getting bloody noses and feeling faint. This morning I was getting stomache cramps and headaches. I've been getting enough water so I think it is either not enough sleep or some sort of cold.

Last Sunday was the highlight of my week I think. Elye and I went bowling in Silverdale with a friend of Elye's who lives near there. $8 bought us unlimited bowling until midnight. We decided this will be a weekly thing. In our last 4 weeks in PT we'll at least have to spend a couple Sundays practicing our left-handed bowling and nacho-eating techniques.

Checks come out tomorrow at Lanza's. I want to order a new computer so badly, but not a single credit card has arrived in the mail. Ironic, in fact, because as a college-aged student I normally recieve 3-4 cards in the mail a day from creditors begging me to owe them money. What happens when I take up one of them on the offer? No card show up for weeks. I'll be running home on my break between jobs to dig through the mail looking for that ticket to a replacement computer.

It's 11 o'clock now and I should really get some sleep before doing this all over again. Tomorrow is the last day of the week then I'll have Friday, Saturday, Sunday off.

2007-06-28T12:46:00.001+07:00

I'm going back! On the first day of August. Today my mother and I pooled our penny banks to produce a collective $1000 USD. China Airlines seemed offer the best "deal" so I snatched it up. Hopefully this will put me back in BKK in time for รับน้อง activities.

Its been busy. The last couple days I woke up at 6am and walked to work at one restaurant by the water. That shift lasts until 2pm. Then I take a nap before my 4:30-2am shift at a different restaurant. It's worth it I think. I now have a ticket home and am working towards a working computer.

Last weekend Elye came back. Seeing a good friend helped bring my sanity back a bit. We went on a camping trip to the natural hot springs up in the mountains. Spent the weekend soaking in hot baths and next to campfires. It was a great trip. Two weekends ago my sister Renee and I went sailing and then camped on Whidbey Island. We slept in the car together which wasn't as comfortable as the trip Elye and I did. Both were fun though.

In the last two weeks I've sat down hoping to write some of my experiences down but failed to do so each time I sat down in front of the computer. Sitting down just felt so good it. I would just sit and eventually forget why I sat down in the first place.

I've applied for a credit card to buy a MacBook. Thank you to the person who insisted computer problems are universal. I appreciate the tip but I think my decisiveness is driven by my mistrust for PC's. Just had too many problems. I'll give Mac problems a try for a while. Free printer and iPod sounds appealing too. For now it's: work work work.

2007-06-10T11:55:00.001+07:00

Dead.

My computer has died again. My computer and I have always had a relationship that has seemed like playing a video game.

My machine and I have fun chatting, surfing the web, listening to music, editing pictures, and even writing the occasional term paper. This fun starts to decrease in increments, or "level stages", of playing difficulty. Some days I have to loose my place in the game, needing to restart after a BSOD crash. As time goes on the level of difficulty builds, making playing the game even harder. Windows freezes, corrupt files, blue screens and crashes coming more frequently. In the last 4 months my computer has failed and refused to start again, no less than 5 times. Using system disks and driver files, I have been blessed with 5 extra lives; the computer game terminology for gifts of brief immortality and a chance to continue working towards the next level of difficulty in the game.

Why play? This is the question I'm asking myself now. My lives, or chances to start again on the previous level are all gone on this machine. I will now need to format Windows, erasing all of my music, pictures, work, and programs for the third time in the last three months. Why? Because I would like to repeat this whole process again, wanting to play the game longer. The idea of finding a new level of difficulty, with secret dungeons of problems I never new existed. Wait a second... Now I am just starting to understand why Mac users always extend their tongues at PC users clinging to their comfortable machines in hopes that things will get better in time.

I'm fed up. At the moment I am writing in the dark from the PC in my grandparent's basement. My ACER Notebook is now a Windows-based paperweight just awaiting another cycle of erasing and re-installing programs. I'm not doing this anymore. I plan on working for 6-7 weeks and buying a Mac and selling my old computer. This page sold me. It is going to take a lot of work for somebody to convince me that spending time and money fixing my PC and keeping it up to date is better than buying a used Mac Notebook off of eBay.

Ahhhhh. Maybe a couple of days will cool me down a bit. I'm just so annoyed by computer problems at the moment. Mostly angry at myself for playing this game. Oh well.

Tomorrow morning Grandpa and Grandma are going on a business trip to Colorado. I'll probably do the same thing I did today: get up for breakfast then go back to sleep, wake up around 2pm. If it's warm I'll walk over to the soccer field, if not... well, I'll stay in bed.

Yesterday I got a call from a restaurant asking me to fill in for their no-show dishwasher/bus boy/prep cook. I jumped out of bed and raced over to the restaurant in 20 minutes and worked for the day! Nice eh? Combined with another 4hr. shift I had I now have 11.30 hrs. at this barbecue joint. Thursday I applied at T's for a bus position and am really hoping I get the job. It would mean steady hours during the busy season of June and July, the owners seem very professional and nice, and the tips would be $40+ each night I think. Fingers crossed.

Using lots of hyperlinks tonight aren't I?

If I get over my pissed-off at my computer mood, I will try to write more from the basement soon. Goodnight.

2007-06-06T03:28:00.000+07:00

I am now one full week into the month of June and am still unemployed. There are two restaurants that took interest in my application: a barbecue restaurant on the other side of town and a Thai carry-out place on the same end of town. Neither has expressed any desire to hire me quickly but both seems interested at least. I'm enjoying some time to relax after finishing finals and flying here. Having fun. But I really need a job... and soon.

The last two days have been depressingly gray and rainy. A couple nights ago we actually had a lightning storm (odd for this area). I sure hope the weather goes back to sunny with a light breeze, and soon. I can't take much of this dark sky stuff.

I've been looking for things to keep my mind busy during the last couple weeks. I have been running around with Renee, practicing guitar, reading a bit, and watching movies. What movies? I knew you'd ask. Blazing Saddles, A Scanner Darkly, An Inconvenient Truth, and the fourth season of Scrubs. Next weekend my grandparents are going on a business trip for more than a week which means I will be bored and l o n e l y . Hopefully I'll have a job before this weekend. If not... House Party!! Nah. Just kidding G'pa and G'ma. I'm not sure who I would invite anyways all of my friends are still away at different colleges and don't seem too keen on returning home. Why? Because the weather is bad and jobs are hard to find.

Wish me luck!

2007-05-30T07:29:00.000+07:00

Talking to a friend of mine, Sandra, reminded me of something that I just love about being back in Port Townsend. My family? Friends? The countryside? No. Well, yes. But most of all: warm blankets on cold mornings. I haven't yet figured out what I like so much about this pair, but I believe is has to do with getting warm, while in a cold place. Hot showers, down comforters, fireplaces... heaven. Being warm outside is nice too. But being warm and cozy, in cool weather, is particularly satisfying.

Today I went and applied at, guess what, a Thai restaurant! I almost applied at another restaurant as well. I pulled into the parking lot, wearing headphones listening to Zeal's ไม่รู้ทำไม, drove right next to the tables parked out front and put the car in reverse to park in the back. The car slid from Reverse into Neutral and I revved the engine until people started staring. I would have stopped, but I had headphones on and couldn't figure out why everyone kept staring at me. I felt too embarrassed, so I just went home.

One thing I've noticed in the last week is that the colder weather makes me eat and eat and eat all day. luckily, I'm pretty skinny. But what's up with the increased apatite? Maybe its all the good food around.

2007-05-27T20:00:00.000+07:00

I'm in the US now. Nice to see family and some friends again. The weather has been ok, but a little cold for me. In the last 3 days I have walked around and looked for jobs at local restaurants. It's been very hard at times when I'm missing Thailand. Everywhere I go there's something that reminds me of this year and how much fun I had there. The only good part about getting your heart broken is that it makes writing songs easier. I plan to do a bit of that and keep my promise to P'ake and P'oon.

The morning of the airport went without too many problems. Nammon fell asleep while talking me through packing my bags haha. I felt sorry for her. We we're both really tired. We both have I-Mobile phones too. Nammon's phone turned itself off and was turned back on again at 9.00 about a half hour after I took off. The taxi driver didn't have change, the airline counter wanted a 700 tax fee, I had no money. Oh well.

I just started raining. It is 6am Sunday morning and I am underneath my blanket in the attic. Last night I drank some wine with dinner and just c r a s h e d until midnight, when back to sleep and just woke up. I miss Nammon a lot. I almost cry every time I see her online or want to call. I just can't talk to her right now, still too weak.

I'll know Monday if I have a job yet.

2007-05-23T02:46:00.000+07:00

I'm off. It's 4.10 am and in another hour and I'm almost ready to leave for the airport. I really don't want to leave this summer.

Today Nammon and I went to see Next, with Nicholas Cage, then went to eat Japanese food at Fuji. Fuji was way better than the movie. We ordered 5-6 dishes for the two of us. A last day binge I guess. The wasabi was a great counter measure to the head cold I developed in the last two days. The day ended in a not-so-cool fashion when an ex-boyfriend showed up.

After eating dinner together I went home, grabbed P'Bom's bass drum pedals and took the skytrain and a taxi to the practice studio. Came back... started packing. Tomorrow I plan on crashing on the airplane. Out. Like a light. For the length of the flight (minus meals).

2007-05-20T11:23:00.000+07:00

Wooooo!! Finals are over. Some were OK, some were awful. I'm just trying not to think about it.

Yesterday and today were 3 hour long blocks of band practice. Tonight we went and looked at the stage where we'll play tomorrow. It'll be interesting to say the least.

I wrote the above paragraph before my computer crashed last night. It was a long night. Nammon called to explain how her ex-boyfriend took her out to eat and explained how he is going to be a better person and can't stand being away from her. Ouch. Anyways, I woke up to another blue screen of death, started the computer, opened Firefox, and there was the paragraph I'd written! Thank you Firefox and Google for relieving the stress.

Today I'll need to do a sound check at 2pm and setup everything. Tonight we are scheduled to start at 10pm. Nammon can't come :( her Mom and Dad want to have the ex-boyfriend over to celebrate. It's going to be a hard night for me.

Three days left until I leave for the US. Woooo?

2007-05-07T21:13:00.000+07:00

Here it comes.

Tomorrow I begin my finals exams at 9am. This next week will be back-to-back examinations with little time to study in between. I've studied a little bit in the last few weeks leading up to now, but not nearly enough I fear. The schedule for my slow, painful end to the semester is: Mathematics, Publicity and Publication, Public Opinion and Propaganda, Theories of Persuasion, Ethics, and Jurisprudence.

On top of this school schedule, I'll need to move all of my things to my new apartment. The new place is down the street just a little ways. I moved because I wanted to try something new, and a little quieter. The building is a bit older and the room is a little smaller, but I can make do. Some change is good. Moving will give me a new beginning.

I also need to finish learning the songs which we'll have to play for the prom event on the 20th. Last week P'Art came to see how we were progressing and wasn't too impressed. I felt embarrassed. Nammon came to watch and said that it was ok, but I felt we played horribly. Largely my fault. I was stressed and came super late, not time to warm up, and no guitar pick! Forgot nearly every song I've played in the last 4 months. Tomorrow is our next practice.

Yesterday I met up with Pong, Tip, and Jen at Starbucks, Ekkmai, to finish up our 15 page report on Siam Cement Group. Other group members blew off the meeting but.. eh.. they never really shared in the work anyways so no big problem.

Today Nammon and I tried chasing down a teacher at the U. in order to retest some in-class assessments. Didn't work out. We gave up and came back to study for exams at my place. I rode with her back to her side of the river and just got back a half hour ago. Figured I should write now, before I loose all my energy in the weeks busyness.

6 exams, moving, prom, a girlfriend and friends to keep up with and only 16 days until I go back to the US. 2 months will be a long time, but not super long. Keeping busy and getting through it week by week should make it easier.

2007-04-30T18:30:00.000+07:00

Getting close to finals. This means I have a lot of procrastination to do... errrr A lot of hard studying to do. My first final is on the 8th of May. Nammon and I have both been lucky enough to have finals everyday of the week, with no breaks in between. This is unusual because most schedules allow a 1-2 break between each class's final exam. Oh well, at least we'll finish quickly.

Good news. The 2007 Prom is not this week, before finals. It is on the weekend of the 19th, after finals are finished. This means I have more time to study, relax, and practice before heading into exams.

I'll be going back to Washington State next month. I changed my ticket this morning for the 23rd of May. I plan on getting a job and working as hard as I can for 2 months. I think that I will plan on returning in the middle of July. I shudder at the thought of leaving for this long, but it's something I have to do, right? After all, I'm not going to be very far away from friends. We'll still have MSN, email, telephones, cameras, and postcards. 2 months should go by quickly.

The karaoke video Nammon and I shot a month back has just been released. Grammy Light Pack 3 and 4. I bought the first VCD, Nammon's Dad bought the second. I'll post some screen shots hehe.

Thinking about where to work once I go back to Washington. I will (แน่ๆครับ) go crazy if I work in a stressful place like before (I don't want to say any names but, Nifty F****s). Great money, but I know I'll go crazy missing people in Thailand all day. I think that working somewhere more peaceful would be good. Maybe in the Co-op Grocery Store or a store downtown. Jobs in restaurants are always nice, though. Tips make the stress worth while. Either way I've got to remember to chill out as much as possible. I'll need to make it back to school in Bangkok sane.

2007-04-24T21:37:00.000+07:00

My birthday was pretty laid back. Nammon didn't have enough money for bus fare and had a cousin coming to visit, and all of my friends seemed to have disappeared for the holidays. I just stayed in my room, slept and talked on the phone for most of the day. In the end my birthday was a good reminder that I'm not a little kid anymore. If I want to do things in life I need to be the one who makes it happen.

Songkran was more exciting, but not much more. I stayed in my room and slept during the three day holiday. Most of my friends were on family trips or afraid to leave the house in fear of getting squirt guns and baby powder shoved in their face all day. I gave in the second night and went out with P'Ek. Ek picked me up wearing a tank of water with a gun attached. I hopped on the back of the bike and we went on a tour of Bangkok's hot spots for water fights. First we went to Silom and watched Ek's younger brother play music with his friends, then we went to Kao San road. Kao San have already "closed" so the only people left over were there to drink or buy expensive touristy goods. Next we went back to Silom and fought our way through the crowds to park. We walked down one side of the road, faces white with powder girls and gays would gently smear on our faces, then walked back the other side of Silom Road getting buckets of ice water poured down our necks. Back on the bike and headed to RCA. RCA plaza had the normal scene of scantly dressed twenty year olds hopping between expensively priced bars, but also had a huge plastic tent that ran the length of the road. Inside the tent machines shot out foam bubbles which were chest deep. Ek and I had fun walking around, saw some friend's of P'ek and ate food. I missed Nammon a lot. She couldn't leave home and I had to tag along with P'ek alone.

Worked out ok thought. After Songkran we took Nammon's cousin Punch to Big C and sung karaoke together. Then went to eat at a barbecue buffet. Lots and Lots of food. The girls fought each other in order to get all the bigger shrimp heads, I was happy just eating shrimp. Afterwards, we bought ice cream at 7-11 then took a taxi back to the house. We looked at some old pictures then went to buy more food. Just hanging out at the house was a good end to the holiday. That was about it for Songkran. Laid back, easy, fun.

The university prom is coming up next month on the 5th. This means band practice at least twice a week. 30 songs.

Wish me luck. This month has been stressful already and I we're just now getting close to finals = twice as stressed. I need all the luck I can get.

2007-04-08T19:12:00.000+07:00

Every feel awful for making a mistake you know you wouldn't normally make? Even the smallest of bad judgment, or a lapse in good judgment, can snowball into big problems quickly. Making mistakes is easy, fixing mistakes is much much harder. This seemed to have been the theme of the month for March this year. Myself, and others, have found out that the only thing to do is to keep walking forwards and do the best we can.

Last month I was picked to take care of Peacemaker's guitarist during a special guest performance in Big Ass's concert at Thunder Dome Arena. One day was spent practicing and doing sound checks. During the 8th song of the show the lights would go black and the GMM Live team, P'nueng and I would have exactly 45 seconds to setup for Peacemaker to play along with Big Ass. The drum kit slides out on a 100 foot long platform on rails, P'nueng takes care of one guitarist's equipment, I do the other.

What exactly do I have to do in 45 seconds in a complete blackout? First, push. Push the guitar amplifier cabinet and head out onto the stage so that Big Ass's drum stage clears my feat and goes off stage. I then need to get the amp in front of the others and plug in the extensions cord which has been setup ahead of time. Next, I need to plug in the bass player's wireless receiver while I am still next to the amplifier stack. Running back to the offstage area, I grab the effects pedal board and take it out to the front of the stage. Connect the in/out and wireless send cables, then move the microphone to the front of the speaker cabinet. Turn on the amp and get offstage.

This is rushed, but not too bad. Today, however, the cable connecting the guitarist to the amp has been snagged and loosened a fraction of an inch. The sound cuts in an out, but can only be heard by the guitarist. I don't understand why P'Toe looks so confused and when I check the cables things seem ok. Finally I find the trouble-making cable and fix the problem. The guitarist has lost confidence in the cable and shouts that he wants me to pull the cable and plug in the guitar (versus a wireless antenna on his belt. I connect the wrong end and run back offstage. It took me about 20 seconds to realize that I had just made one of the stupidest mistakes I could and ran out to switch back to the wireless, which works just fine if the cable is snug. No big deal right? Well, when an entire arena watches a guitarist stop playing altogether, it becomes a big deal. We made it in time for the guitar solo, but I was too late to save P'Toe's embarrassment and anger. After the second song we did all the 45 second work in reverse and Big Ass was back into their 25 song setlist. P'Boy came by and patted me on the back, but nobody said anything to me the rest of the night. I tried apologizing for the miscommunication but got only a hand gesture in return. Later that night P'nueng informed me that during the set change the cable connecting the guitar and effects for the second guitarist had also been snagged and unplugged. Both guitar player couldn't hear anything through the entire intro piece. luckily a recording system in place meant that the audience had no idea, but both guitarists did. P'nueng is still with the band but I likely won't be invited to do much more work with Peacemaker. I still get asked to do AB Normal, Potato, and some other bands but schedules are full at the moment.

School is a much better subject. Midterm scores were decent, ethics being my lowest score, barely passing. The teacher latter told me that the highest grade was an 80% and didn't suggest dropping the course.

My mom came in Late February. We had a lot of fun traveling and living together. Got to go to Chiang Mai, Phapang, Hat Rai Lei, Koh Pi Pi, and my mother took a trip to Ankor Wat in Cambodia. Now that she's gone I miss her being here.

My computer finally died at the end of last month. After showing signs of bad health for months my Acer finally took it's last gulp of power then flashed me the blue screen of death one morning. I replaced the hard drive, installed Windows, then it crashed again. I wiped the hard drive and had a repairman install an illegal copy of Windows which seems to be working better. Still managed to get a couple blue screens in the last couple days. Maybe bad memory?

While doing the Big Ass concert I had someone invite me to play guitar in their music video. I managed to get Nammon a part in the video too. Neither of us have any acting training or experience so we just faked it. I was given a CD of 24 songs and 1 day to learn all the guitar solo parts. Near impossible. In the end I was told to just play along and fake it. I've never been so tired in my life. We arrived on the set at 8 am and were the only two people. Around 10 pm I though I was going to die. I'd shot music videos all day with only 5 minute breaks every couple songs. At 10 pm we still had another 10 songs to shoot out of the full 24. Nammon kept me going and I managed to make until we shot Palmy's Koon Jae Tee Hai Pai ไอ้กุญแจที่หายไป and finished about 2am. I thought I was going to be playing in the background of a couple songs and taking it easy. Wow was I wrong. The album is acoustic jazz versions of pop songs, and was written by various small GMM Grammy record labels. I hadn't realized that I had become the body to represent the album. This meant that every song featured me in the foreground playing god knows what chords while a small percussion group played along side. MORE THAN HALF THE SONGS I learned while shooting... 4 3 2 (1) Action. Just grope my way along the guitar neck and act like I had heard the song before. It was fun. The songs I knew I was actually able to play the solo parts for. Nammon got to be the actress in the drama scene of one video and a dancer in a couple other songs. Excited to see the finished product!

Last weekend Nammon and I went a highschool friend's birthday party at Lemon Bay. We all took a tour bus down and rented a two-story house right next to the beach. On Mo's birthday we ate seafood on the beach at night by candle light. All her friends made tee-shirts ahead of time which spelt H-a-p p-y B-i-r t-h d-a-y M-o when the stood together and turned around. Lot of fun.

The twelfth day of this month will mark my twentieth year of living. Two decades! The thirteenth will be the start of Songkran or the traditional Thai New Year. Last year I celebrated in Chiang Mai with May and other friends from school. This year I think Nammon and I will probably just hang out. I might go out for a day with friends but this holiday is brutal. Water fights are fun and all, but the heat is killer. Traffic is horrific.

2007-02-04T01:46:00.000+07:00

I'm tired as hell but too guilty to sleep just yet. I haven't posted in a couple weeks even though I had promised myself that I would.

Last week I did more work as a guitar tech for Peacemaker, with shows next to my house, then in the Southern province of Trang. I managed to loose my wallet on that trip too. I feel really sorry for the person who found my wallet. Instead of trying to return the wallet (they can keep the cash), they removed my BU Student ID, my drivers license, some photos of my friends, and who knows what else to get to the last thing in the wallet: my credit card. This pisses me off. When somebody finds a wallet what goes through their mind?
"Jeez, I bet this kid's really missing this thing, I forward it to his school because I would expect the same."
"Screw this kid. It's my karma that brought me this wallet and cash."
"Screw this kid. It's my karma that brought me this wallet and cash. I'm also going to empty his bank account."
What an asshole. My sweet Grandmother told me that a couple letters arrived informing us that the credit card had been used with a false keycode. I guess the person who found my wallet just wasn't satisfied with the 2,500 baht it had in it. I was more than เซ็ง all the way to and back from Trang because I had just lost my wages for doing this (22 hours total driving time) trip, lifting equipment, doing sound checks, and watching out for the guitarists. Oh well. I got to see Trung a bit.

After we got back, Fam and I went and helped out at the shooting of Potato's new video คนกลาง at their old elementary school.

Yesterday our teacher took us to the City Campus recording studio. I never knew this existed. It was like finding a secret door or passageway. Inside were several studios and technicians floating around in light brown shirts. While demonstrating the use of a mixing board the professor added that he was glad someone had sent him an email about how excited they were to be doing "real communication arts things" vs. the day to day English refreshers that have become ever so boring. This was my email (I guess).

I've decided to get back in touch with P'Ekk the producer/bassist that I was hanging out with last year. We live in the same neighborhood and are both serious about producing an album of our own with "quick" being the keyword. No fooling around, just writing music we like, recording, and hoping others like it too. If it doesn't work, we didn't waste any time. The drummer we've got our eyes on is P'Oon, who I went to Phugradueng with on New Years and did an AB Normal concert with. Oon lives just around the corner and is an excellent musician. He already has a band, about to make a national release, so we'll see if he ends up having time to work with us.

Midterms are coming up soon. As are my Sister and Mother.

2007-01-18T13:53:00.000+07:00

Update!!

Grades are starting to come out. I passed statistics.

ICA223 Public Speaking B+
ICA222 Modern Presentation Techniques B+
IST203 Statistics for Social Sciences (for BUIC) D+
IMA101 Fundamental Mathematics W
IIT201 Computer and Information Technology (for BUIC) B

2007-01-18T12:55:00.000+07:00

Last week was my first week of school this term. Took a couple hours to register, but things worked out ok. I'm taking Theories of Persuasion, Ethics Public Opinion and Propaganda, Mathematics, Law, Publicity and Publication. The last course seems like it will be the most enjoyable. The professor was teaching in our faculty many years ago when more money was spent on labs, equipment, and hands-on learning. In the course we'll be taught broadcast news techniques and editing skills, then use them in the lab our professor requested be setup at the city campus. The best thing about my new schedule is that I only have class four days a week.

Fam managed to get me some work as a guitar tech at GMM Grammy, which has been great. First was Potato in Ubon for Suzuki, then AB Normal at Roi Et for M150. I get to to different provinces with friends, play with expensive guitar equipment, do backstage work (which I've always loved), and work for my favorite bands. Yesterday, after class, P'Nueng did a Nologo concert together with the Playground crew. With only the two of us, and my first time taking care of both the guitarist and bassist, it was a bit stressful.

This weekend will be a long one. Tomorrow morning I'll go to Pattaya, setup and sound check, play that night, then drive straight to the opposite side of the country. 13 hours I think. Once we get to Chiang Rai it's the same order: setup, sound check, hang out, play, pack up. We'll drive back all day Sunday and I have Monday free to rest.

2007-01-04T19:56:00.000+07:00

Best New Year ever. Last year was pretty tough to beat. Going to Chiang Mai by train then driving to my friend's house on a mountain in Chiang Rai. Riding elephants and partying with the family. This year I again made it to the top of a mountain, but it took a lot longer.

I've known Fam for a while now. We toured around Thailand in minibuses during Potato concert tours, and hung out together when at home in BKK. P'1 (nueng) is tall and thin like me, only 7 years older. We knew each other from Peacemaker concerts back when I was running around with Tum. P'Nueng is older than Fam and I, but acts a lot younger. He and Fam wrestle and curse like siblings, but only because they have been best friends both at and outside of work for the last four years. P'Oon looks like a DJ with his nice tattoos, camo hat, and Hotwave FM T-shirt, but is really just a drum tech for AB Normal. We'd never met before, but I'm glad we did. All of us met at Mor Chit station at 5:30 am. We bough tickets and walked outside. Only a second after sitting down together, Fam, P'Oon and I noticed P'Nueng starring at the trashcan right next to us. We all agreed without saying a word, and moved inside. All 7 of the bombs that had gone off just hours before, were reported to have been placed in garbage bins. (By the way.. at 1am on the 1st a bomb was found in Suan Loom Night Plaza, where P'Mo, Sam, Drew, and I were sitting.) We bought water and played Winning Eleven together. Next to the video games was a man who P'Nueng aptly named the presenter for สสส's next "I don't drive drunk." campaign. At least his hands weren't on the wheel...

The bus ride to the Loei province was quick. I actually don't remember anything after listening to music and taking a muscle relaxant. We got off the bus around 2pm, ate some food, then caught a pickup truck to the mountain base camp. We rented a tent, blankets, and a clay stove from a restaurant which quickly became our favorite. That night two girls and their Chinese friend came over and sat with us. between our two tents we had a mat and a stove. The stove was to keep us warm, not to cook. When we woke up at 5:30, the temperature was numbing. We had breakfast of boiled rice and headed to the trail head.

I had no idea I would be climing 5,000+ meter tall butte. Phu Gra Dueng Phugradueng ภูกระดึง however you want to spell it. The top of the mountain is a flat plain, which is about twenty square kilometers large. The climb took us 5 hours+, stopping to eat only once, but taking many small breaks to take pictures, drink water, or just play around. Some parts of the climb are very near vertical. Once we reached the top we had to walk on one of the sand trails for about an hour until we reached the camp area. A good way to picture this mountain is an island that floats in the sky. We waited for our baggage to arrive then set up the tent. The man who carried our bags up on a pole over his shoulder was carrying a load of 10 bags and a propane tank weighing a total of 80 kgs or 176 lbs. He does this three times a week for a living.

After setting up our tents and tarps, we walked across the field to the restaurant area and ate dinner. Then I took the coldest shower of my life. It hurt. We threw our bags in the tents and walked another sand trail for 2 km to Mokdood Cliff ผาหมอกดูด to watch the sunset. We were about 10 minutes too late, but still had fun playing with our silhouettes using the shutter release timer on my camera and my backpack as a tripod. Then we sat in a candle-lit restaurant eating boiled eggs and meatballs. The walk back was chilly and dark. P'Oon bought beers and rented a guitar which kept us busy for the night. The next morning P'Nueng, Fam, and I managed to get up at 5 am again and walk yet another sand trail to another cliff for the sunrise. This trail had a sign warning of wild elephants, but I didn't see any tracks. The sunrise was beautiful I think. I couldn't bring myself to take off the wool ski mask I was wearing.

After walking back and having breakfast with P'Oon we put off visiting the waterfalls and a 9 km walk and slept instead. We woke up at 11.00 and scrambled to return tarps and blankets, check our bags, an take the 2km sand trail to the trail that leads down the mountain. The park rangers won't let anyone down after the 2pm cut-off which w barely made. They are afraid people may not make it all the way by sunset. We made the decent, running, in 2 hrs. 30 minutes. If you've never run down a mountain I don't recommend it. We all new we'd trip at some point. I tripped, just barely missed a rock and caught myself on a tree. Picked a tree covered in cm long thorns though... got one trough my right hand. We stopped and ate ice cream while a nice old lady washed my hand. After we made it down, we weighed our garbage and got certificates for making it down alive and bringing garbage with us too.

We went back to our "aunt's" restaurant and ate lunch and returned the tents. She offered to drive us in her truck to the bus station on the way to the market, but our bags hadn't arrived yet. We bought gifts then took another pickup truck to the bus station. Instead of a bus we got suckered into taking a minibus. We didn't know that the minibus was already half-full. Fam, P'Oon, and P'Nueng ride in minibuses nearly everyday, taking drum sets, amps, and equipment between provinces and bars. It wasn't all bad because we got to stop for bathroom breaks and eat a long dinner. We reached BKK around 2 am.

Today I slept in and washed me clothes. I heard they have found well over 10 more bombs. If it hadn't been for concert cancellations due to bombs going off behind stages, I wouldn't have gotten the chance to go to Loei and have such a great New Year with friends! Tomorrow I'll wash more clothes and plan my class schedule. At 4pm I have to go to Bitec Arena during sound check to give Fam a CD of pictures. I may stick around or come back early. Bangna is only a 10 minute bus ride.

I add courses for my next semester on the 10th.

These days I keep reminding myself that I have to be myself, because nobody else can be me. Life is something we all have but it is up to us to decide what we want that life to be. "You can do anything if you put your mind to it."

2007-01-01T03:33:00.000+07:00

Happy New Year! I ended up going out with Drew, Sam, and P'Mo who all just barely missed the bomb at the World Trade Center downtown. We went to Suan Loom and watch the Chelsea-Everton game together. Then we sat in front of the boy's guest house until a Tuk-Tuk came by. Another guest house resident paid for all of us to take a big circle around the neighborhood together. Pretty fun evening.

Fam called and said he has to go to the Loei province tomorrow, and offered for me to go take pictures. I said sure. I have to meet him in 2 hours at Morchit station to catch a bus. We'll be up in the mountains for a few days and come back by the 3rd.

Have a great year everybody.

2006-12-31T19:05:00.000+07:00

Bombs are blowing up all over Bangkok apparently. ITV reports that bombs have already gone off at Klong Toey, Vicotry Monument อนุสาวรีย์ฯ , Sapan Kwai, Payatai , and are being placed in trashcans all over Bangkok. It is 19:30 New Years Eve, so they're a lot of people running around town. Everybody be careful.

I'm over the flu now. Over exams too. Exams were making me feel worse than the flu I must say, but the flu wasn't much fun.

Yesterday I helped out setting up guitars and stage equipment for Potato and Peacemaker to help out a friend who wasn't feeling well. Nice to get out again.

Not sure if I'm going to get out tonight or not... Siam doesn't sound too safe. Maybe go somewhere nearby. I just saw that across from Sukumvit 62 just had a bomb go off as well. HM The King is now giving a speech on all channels...

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2006/12/31/headlines/headlines_30022985.php

2006-12-25T10:29:00.000+07:00

It is now Christmas morning. I celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ by sleeping in a little late and then buying lots of food.

Yesterday was a full day. Jik came by in the morning to borrow my Math textbook, then I headed off to meet Ton at the weekend market. I hadn't been in a long time and wanted to do some Christmas Eve day, last-minute shopping. After walking around for half the day bought a bunch of food and walked over to Railroad Park.

The weather in Bangkok is very cold at night (20 degrees Celsius) and warm in the daylight hours. Blue sky and a light breeze. I'm pretty sure I said this last year too, but I'm only half enjoying the weather. The cool weather is wonderful, but constantly reminds me that in only a few weeks the hot weather will push it's way back in. Then everyone has to wait another 10-11 months for the cool weather again.

Last Saturday I finished my 4th exam, Modern Presentation Techniques. Pretty easy. Computer was easy too, but a lot of questions. I think Statistics will be the only course I might have a problem with... again.

The holes in my mouth seem to be healing nicely. No more blood, not so much rancid ooze. I can eat pretty much anything now.

Not sure what to do in the next 3 days besides reading over my public speaking book.

2006-12-15T00:05:00.001+07:00

Our report on condoms went very well. Our scores were released for the last two presentations and our group was very pleased to have received 100% on both.

Yesterday, Jim and June Hoffman came into Bangkok and we met for dinner at their hotel. I've heard so many stories over the years but can't remember actually meeting them. Jim Hoffman and my grandfather, Jim Buckley, have been good friends since graduating from college in '62. Both Jim and June were really fun. They've come to SE Asia to visit Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Burma. Also on their list is the village they last visited 40 years ago when Jim was doing construction in the US army. Vietnam was receiving all the army supplies, so Jim hired local carpenters to make desks, chairs and things with hand tools. Before leaving Thailand he used left-over bomb crates and spare lumber to build a school house in the local village, followed by a road to the major highway with help from some borrowed heavy equipment. Today they were planing to go down again to see how things looked after 40 years of development around this area which has grown into modern Pattaya.

Today I got my last two wisdom teeth out. Oral icebergs. Top came out easy, bottom one took a nurse holding my head while the doctor pulled with both hands. That slow cracking feeling drives me nuts. I knew how to control the blood and pain afterwards this time which was a big plus. The holes have almost completely stopped bleeding.

Tomorrow I have my last speech and second to last class of the semester. Tuesday I begin finals, with exams on the 19th, 20th, 21st, 23rd, and 29th. I between the last two I may try to get up to the village. Still no plans for New Years Eve, but I did get invited to go with Big Ass to the beer garden concert at the World Trade Center. I don't really want to be in Bangkok for New Years, taking a trip with friends last year.

I'd like to wish everybody a happy and politically-correct Holiday Season and I apologize for sending gifts so late.

2006-12-09T00:25:00.000+07:00

I felt like Alice today when P'Noom, my mute co-landlord, lead me my Wonderland. He made me follow him up past the fifth floor where the staircase ends and showed me a hatch I never knew existed. The hatch leads straight up to the rooftop and is used to access the water tanks and banana's somebody seemed to be drying on a plastic rack. I've seen people hanging out and even sleeping on the tops of distant buildings before, but never thought we had access to our 6th floor. This evening I decided to take my camera and a sleeping mat up there and see what it was like at night. I never knew my neighbors had a full size movie screen out for people to watch movies of Friday nights. Tonight was King Kong I guess.

Considered sleeping up there (I left the mat up there) but I think I'll save that for another night (I need to go get the mat).

P'Momo got free tickets to a jazz/R+B concert at Kao Yai (Big Mountain) near Korat. She say's we'll take a 3 hour bus ride tomorrow morning and come back Sunday morning. The tickets say bring warm clothes because the mountain top and campsite is very cold! I don't know if we'll go for sure, but she said tomorrow morning...

2006-12-07T11:43:00.000+07:00

What is so wise about wisdom teeth? They're huge, obnoxious teeth which serve no practical purpose. They push their way in then slowly decay and interfere with the innocent teeth. This morning I went to get them cut out at the dentist in Siam Square. I sat down, had my teeth pulled, and was out the door in less than 30 minutes. All with a bill of 1,500 ฿.

It doesn't hurt much but the blood that keeps coming out is a bit annoying. I have to bite down on a swab which means swallowing the blood is difficult. Much like taking a large sip of water, clenching your teeth, opening you lips, and trying not to spill any water. Would be nice if the blood slows down a bit...

Next week I get two more of these useless things removed.

I've yet to buy a video cable for my new (free) computer. Hopefully I'll be able to do that tomorrow.

I need to start thinking about this presentation due Monday. Next week is our last week of school.

2006-12-05T20:17:00.001+07:00

The past few weeks have been busy. Blogger has been down for me, so I wasn't able to post for a long time. I'll try to sum up the big things but I may have forgotten some already. I do that from time to time. These days it's the daily surprises and changes that make things so enjoyable. I am so lucky to be having this much fun going through school that I almost feel ashamed sometimes. Am I supposed to be tired of school and long days? Shouldn't I have something to complain about? Is it right to feel more at home outside my apartment than inside it? These are things I always wonder about when I think of studying in the United States. Can I always have this much fun or does it stop after four years?

Drew Kurata and Sam Nowak, old high school friends, came to Thailand last week. P'Mo and I took a taxi out to the airport to pick them up and bring them back to my room for sticky rice and grilled pork/chicken. In addition to Drew and Sam was my new (HUGE) rolling suitcase. This thing is as big as my refrigerator. Inside was my new amplifier head, cookies, shoes for P'Pup and P'Ohm, and some t-shirts. The boys were obviously tired, as they slept the rest of the day on my bed and floor mat. After dark P'Mo took them to look at hotels in the Sukumvit road area while I rattled off a 30-page presentation for Modern Presentation class.

Boy was I proud of that presentation. What did I come up with when our group was asked to come up with a unique informative speech using PowerPoint? Goats. Goats produce milk and cheese similar to dairy cows, but many people allergic to milk products aren't allergic to goats' milk. Goat meat has a taste and texture of chicken meat, but with far less calories. Some types of goat skin can be non-allergenic. Cashmere is cool. Fainting goats are even cooler. All of that was combined with some pictures and a few videos of goats fainting when excited, then presented the next day. Full credit. We got an A+ on the last one too, our entertainment presentation.

Our final one (next Monday) will be to persuade our classmates why nobody should be embarrassed from buying condoms or confused about their use. We have a major problem here in Thailand that anyone who has a condom and doesn't look married should be stared at or scorned. High school and college aged kids having sex, will have sex with or without condoms! This simple fact, and senior-year 1-day long sex ed. classes, have to why teenage parents are so common. Kids don't know how to use condoms even if they have the courage to buy one. Parents are too shy to talk about condoms, the four of us aren't, so that's going to be our presentation topic.

Tuesday I don't remember well. I think we had band practice at a studio in On Nut. Afterwards, I took Sam and Drew to go eat all-you-can-eat sushi at Oishi. I love sushi. After eating, P'Momo met showed us her office and then we all went to Lumpini Park across the street. We all rode the ferris wheel together, I bought a t-shirt from an artist, then Sam, Drew, and I sat and watched soccer and the house band in the beer garden. Taxi ride home with P'mo.

Wednesday I took a test about networking in my computer class. Ahhh. That was the day we practiced at On Nut, not Tuesday.

Thursday I remember well. I woke up and turned my alarm clock off. Woke up again an hour later... one hour late. Rushed to the the Skytrain to see Sam and Drew sitting on the ground waiting. They weren't pissed, but I was pretty embarrassed. It's a good thing that I was late because this put us at Hua Lumpong train station after the express train had already departed. I bought the three of us 3rd class tickets to Hua Hin for a total of 130 ฿. We rode in the caboose, a wooden floored car with benches parallel to the tracks and large open windows. The car was empty except for the ticket puncher guy and a family of four sitting across from us. Great trip. Nice breeze, yet sunny the whole time. The 3 in. thick doors on each side of this 1950's era car were open, so we would sit on the step watching the fields, mountains, and bushes go by as we went. Once we got to Hua Hin station (Slow train = 4 hours) we took a taxi (read: pickup truck) to Kao Ta Giap or in English: Chopstick Mountain. Other than the thirty or so German sunbathers by the hotel entrance, the beach was ours. The Chopstick Mountain is a gigantic cliff that divides the beach from busy Hua Hin. The sand was powdery like the sand I remember on Siesta in Sarasota. We walked down the beach to an area of sand under some large shade trees. An old man was renting out his five lawn chairs and table for 60 ฿. We set our stuff down and went swimming for a while, then I went in search of a ball. I borrowed a ball from one of the huts on the beach and we kicked it around for a couple hours. Around 5pm we walked up to one of the huts and got some seafood and papaya salad. By 6pm the sun was starting to set and Drew, Sam, and I were sitting in our beach chairs drinking beer and chatting. The first train back was at midnight, so we just kept chatting. Throughout the evening we went skinny dipping, had ice cream, and built a small fire. It was great to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in a few years and even better to get away from the noise and business of Bangkok for a day. The beach by train was the perfect day-trip. At 23.00 I called the pickup truck that dropped us off and we went back to the Hua Hin train station. Bought tickets on the faster train (300 ฿+ and arrived in Bangkok by 4 am. Train ride home was packed and not as fun as our personal caboose/lounge, but it wasn't near bad enough to ruin our trip.

Friday I woke up at 1pm and went to my 2pm speaking class. After class finished I came back home and packed my bags. At 6pm I met Drew, Sam, and P'Momo at Mor Chit station and we took a taxi to the bus terminal. This was a 4 day weekend, so we were lucky to get 4 seats on a bus to Lampang. I don't even remember getting off the bus. I was fast asleep the whole ride I think.

I do remember P'Tam, P'Yui's older brother picking us up though. We got dropped off in the village at the house that is now known as "Robbie's house" named after our college teacher in Port Townsend. The house is empty most of the year unless Robbie and his students are there. In the morning we walked through the village to the gas station where P'Mo and P'Tukta were waiting with food. The village is the heaven for me. The food, old friends, P'Yui's family, people who know my name, very different from the city of 10 million. We hung out for the day. Played a little ball with the M.1 kids. After dinner at the restaurant we were invited to a house blessing party. A new two-story house had been built into the cliff on the hill facing the mountains. Easily the nicest house in the area. Stone and boulder (yes, boulder) inlays throughout the bottom floor. A rock garden bathroom upstairs. Japanese style sliding doors on the two rooms above the deck. Very nice. Everybody in town showed up to tour the house or just get to drink their whiskey and sing karaoke. The four of us hung out with A.Arwon, the school teacher who is like an aunt to me. The next morning we slept in pretty late. Arwon brought us some barbecue sticks, coconut milk, and sticky rice to eat at Robbie's house. The next door neighbor brought us a bunch of bandannas from her tree. Heaven. We hung out again, just like Saturday, until late-afternoon when everyone went on a little trip. P'Jos, P'Tukta, P'Tum, P'Mom, Drew, Sam, and five kids squeezed into the pickup truck and drove to the waterfall. We hiked up a ways to the third level of falls where there is a large pool created by the granite. The water was ice cold to me, but the others seemed to adjust quickly. P'Mo and I came back that night, arriving yesterday morning in time for work and band practice.

No school this week. Monday was canceled because of the Tuesday Father's Day break, as was Wednesday's class. Thursday is a day off but I have to get my wisdom teeth removed. I hadn't though about this long break last week when I committed to band practice for Monday.

Today was Father's Day, HM The King's 79th Birthday. 10 of our students were picked to represent Bangkok University at the King's Park. Thousands of people from all over came to light candles for HM The King. Bangkok University sat on the sidewalk for four hours waiting for things to start up. No worries really. There was a nice breeze and lots of food vendors, so everyone was happy sitting. Once the police secured the area we got to see first the "dummy" one, then the real cream colored Mercedes Benz limo. The queen and king drove by waving and smiling at the people lining the way holding flags. I couldn't stop smiling afterwards. Many Thais never have the chance to see HM The King in their lives. After the rest of the royal family and secret service went by, sprinted across the road together and jumped into a taxi as the light turned green. I've never seen such perfect timing. Six college students dressed in matching T-shirts rounding the hood of a taxi, one jumps in the front seat, one, two, three, four take running dives head-first into the back seat, and the last person jumps on somebody's lap while slamming the door shut. All before other cars noticed the green light.

We got to Siam Center quickly as the traffic jams were following the king. TV screens above Siam center had crowds packing in to watch the televised event we had just come from. The six of us looked at the Lamborghini's and Ferrari's on display then went to the food court. Then we all took the skytrain separate ways.

Tomorrow I plan to work on my new computer. An angry white guy at my apartment, fighting with his stereotypical dark-skinned North-Eastern Thai spouse, got sick of buying his cheating girlfriend expensive stuff and preceded to snap a Toshiba notebook over his knee. He was about to throw it off the balcony, but P'Noom my mute caretaker started waving his arms expressing his interest in this gift gone wrong. He brought the computer to me. Luckily the screen was open when the man snapped it, cracking the LCD screen, but leaving the body undamaged. Noom even managed to get the charger too! Hopefully I can buy a spare screen or a cable to use a desk monitor. We'll see. At 17.30 the senior student government is taking the underclassmen out to dinner.

Thats about it. If I didn't write all this stuff down I'd forget within a month.

2006-11-18T18:46:00.000+07:00

I've been sick, busy, and lazy the past few weeks and haven't written much.

Loi Kratrong has come and gone. This is a Buddhist holiday where we float krathongs, or small rafts with candles, for good luck. I went to the Rungsit campus with the rest of the BUIC staff to run our annual fund raising booth. What do we do to make money? We let people hit us with pie cream, for 10 baht a plate. It was great fun, but in over two weeks and a bottle of shampoo, I am just now starting to get the last bits of lard off my head.

That same weekend I passed up a soccer game to go audition for a motorcycle commercial This was my second time casting and possibly my last. I just don't have very good acting talent. Every time I've done casting I am dressed up in clothes I'd never consider wearing and powdered with layers of makeup. Then I'm told by two lady-boys holding a small video camera to turn in circles, jump around, and smile pretty. I just can't handle that part. How am I supposed to act "cool and appealing" while I blow bubbles and skip around in a small room. Afterwards I get yelled at for being too straight. I'd rather be behind the camera I think.

Or behind a guitar. I was warned by my Grandfather on my last trip home that I shouldn't spend my time on music and focus on school. I agree but disagree. At the moment school is pretty spaced out. I mean that in a sense of time. I have 6 classes a week, but really only a two-hour class a day. So I'm gonna have fun with music while I can and without stopping school. My fellow staff members First and Oh have decided to play music together and just see how we like it. No record deals, no bars, just trying things out for a bit. It's fun and when we're ready we could play in restaurants to make some extra money. A really cool thing in Thailand that the US doesn't have a "practice rooms". These are everywhere in Bangkok. A person takes a small room and soundproofs it, adds a drum kit, bass, guitar, amps and a mic, then rents the room to people for about $5 an hour.

I'm in student government I think! The huge speech I was worrying about a few weeks ago was done yesterday without any problems. My topic was student unions and BUIC's lack of one. We all pay student union fees but receive absolutely no support. While doing research I found that BUIC has an elected student government ! Bullshit. I've never voted for people to represent me and I'm quite sure my classmates haven't either. So who is this group of elected students??? BUIC "staff". ME. It makes a bit more sense now why we put on all the activities and attend so many meetings. Ah the power feels good. I'm going to refer to myself as co-president Dan from now on.

Last weekend I went to the 2006 Fat Radio Festival or FAT FEST. 2 days of non-stop music on 4 stages, and booths from all sorts of bands and magazines. Lotta fun! I got myself an Artist pass from Pancake and wandered around with a friend of mine. I met the Bhudda Bless guys who way nicer guys than I had imagined and Joey Boy who I'd ever got to chat with before. Pancake, Thaitanium, ผัดพริกแกงไก่ (you must buy this cd), Slot Machine, Paradox, and Silly Fools were really great too. Paradox was the best out of the 100+ bands that played I think. Their concerts are just so much fun for everyone in the crowd. I got to meet my guitar idol too. P'Ton Silly Fools. He let me play guitar while he was warming up and told me about how he writes songs. Very nice guy. Silly Fools are getting older now. Kids, wives, new singer. Only 2 songs :(

Last Tuesday was Co-Pres. Oh's birthday. He rented a room on Ekkmai above the Tuba restaurant which was really fun. Maybe 20 people in the room, karaoke on a projector screen, pool table, food and drinks, the works. We all had a lot of fun. Everyone started to leave by 11 o'clock so the people left went to eat noodles together. We all loaded in Opp's modified pickup which seats 8 but manages 10. Opp hadn't been drinking but was maybe going a bit fast. With an attitude of most taxi drivers in BKK, race everywhere... even if it is to get behind the stopped car in front of you, a taxi preceded to do this: Raced by our left side going twice our speed... on a curve, then swerves left to avoid the parked car he didn't see before he tried the stunt. Opp slams on his breaks and swerves away from oncoming traffic, skidding into the parked car, bouncing, then skidding further into the curve. This all happened in slow motion because we were skidding to a halt before the impact. I grabbed the girl next to me and First because I knew they weren't wearing seatbelts. Luckly the truck hit both the car and guardrail at a 45 degree angle which absorbed the impact and kept us all from whiplash. Nobody was hurt. Parked car was pretty banged up and Opp's lower-riding converted Nissan pickup lost all the front corner up to the wheel. The impact actually blew the tire out! We waited a good two hours for the car owner and insurance to show up, then took taxis home.

In Modern Presentation class we are required to present 3 speeches of different genres: entertainment, informative, and persuasive. I've learned my lesson with group projects and friends, so I picked the Chinese couple and my Nepalan buddy Shy. We all sat down and decided what we want to accomplish. All four of us saw that most Thai students were going to give mono-tone presentations about why smoking is bad for you or something we've all heard before.

We decided to take the taboo subject of sex and persuade students that they shouldn't be ashamed of or shy to buy condoms for protected sex. This is going to be challenging in that we might really embarrass our teacher and peers. But as my Chinese friend said while brainstorming "Fucking get a grip. You are 20 [yrs. old] and people have sex."

The entertainment speech will be a bit more lame. We were thinking of telling each of our life stories as super heroes. It's easy and it is easy enough language for people to understand.

Informative we aren't sure of yet. Has to be something crazy and not "Why trees grow" or something simple you would expect from this class.

I just aranged a meeting tomorrow afternoon to talk about how we'll do this stuff. It's 3am and I'm off to bed.

2006-11-01T23:16:00.000+07:00

I just got back from a rush to see the protesters in Sanam Luang. A first year student sent me an email saying he had heard that there were riots going on but the Thai news didn't want to run the story in fear that more people would come (Thai news media are all currently under military control). There was a protest, 20 people showed up, and it happened THIS MORNING many hours before my freshman informant said it was planned for. So much for that lead.

I did however get to see the Royal Palace area at night with all the lights and decorations left over from the 60th year celebrations. I also saw tons of rats running past me and prostitutes lurking in the shadows. That one caught me off guard. I had heard about the pull-up and roll down the window type thing in other parts of the city but never thought there would be that kind of thing happening in front of the Royal Palace, Tammasart and Silpakorn University campuses, and the military barracks. Interesting planning on the pimp's part. I noticed some guy staring cross eyed at me for a long time, sitting on his little bench under a dimly lit tree. I was talking on my phone and didn't get why he kept staring at me. Well apparently, I was on his turf. There were a lot of women just walking around slowly in circles, normal for Sanam Luang, but then they would walk up to parked cars to talk to the driver and finally get in the passenger side of the car. Ugh. Different crowd at night I guess.

Today I got damn close to being killed. A shirtsleeve length actually. Riding on a motorcycle taxi from the University to the Skytrain the driver and I very nearly got smashed by a police pickup truck passing us on the left (wrong side) at over 80. We were going 60kmh on the edge of our lane and these guys just zoomed right between us and a semi truck with no warning. Picture standing in the road with your back to the direction of traffic with a container truck a car's width to your right and nothing to the left. Now imagine a 2 ton truck doing 80 past you on your left side when you had no idea it was coming. The mirror hit my sleeve!

Tomorrow I need to get to la libriteca and find some books on god knows what. Haven't picked my topic yet.

2006-10-30T08:57:00.000+07:00

Things are back to normal. I've been seeing friends all around school, sitting in the same classes, taking guitar lessons, playing soccer in the evenings, and trying to clean up my room. Dekker, P'Yui, Charley, and P'Mo took me to dinner with their friends last Thursday, a last meal in Thailand type thing. Yui's younger brother Tum is now working at the new airport so he came to dinner too. He's staying right near P'Momo and I, so we're going be playing soccer together in the evenings and going out to eat sometimes. After dinner we went back to Dekker and Yui's hotel room and stayed the night.

Today I'll have class at two o'clock. Tonight there's a staff meeting after class I too; about Loi Krathong day. My eleven o'clock class was the math course that I used to have. Good news and bad news on that one. Even though I didn't get to take the exam, I heard that the teacher boosted all low grades to 40%. Bad news is I still should drop it: 40% isn't very good for a major test. So... November 14- December 17 is my withdrawal period. Then I get to pre-register on the 21st of November! (shouts to express feeling of excitement) That means I'll have to pay in early December. Which means I'll need the credit card I never got in the US. Bank of America (not the Port Townsend branch) is lacking on their customer support.

I need to pick a topic for my persuasive speech tonight. A good one. Controversial. In the next few days I need to do a reference run to the library. Friday afternoon I need to announce my topic and cited works. Then I'll have one more week to write the speech, and memorize it.

Grades are slowly trickling out. B's in both exams that came out. Computer Science and Public Speaking. Again, no help to the GPA. This means even with 100% on the final exam (impossible) I would still have a B+

I need to buy a print cartridge. At $30 a cartridge I may just buy a new printer that takes the refillable type cartridges.

2006-10-25T23:37:00.000+07:00

I'm back.

Every time I do the sixteen hour flight from Seattle to Bangkok it seems to get easier. I find myself thinking less and less of the flight. The the two day long flight takes me from one half of the world to another. The transpacific flight was a bully that stood in my way everytime I had to travel. The fight seems to have gotten easier or at least shorter. The same trip has started to feel more like a shuttle between my apartment and Seattle. No more exciting than getting on, putting change in the meter and waiting for the city bus to get close to your neighborhood. When you get close grabyour duffel bag and politely ask to get off. Or it could have been the sleeping pill I took that made it so easy. There's a good life lesson for me: drugs can solve my problems.

The United States of America. My trip was really very enjoyable. Just as relaxed as I had hoped it would be. I got to see everyone and relax with my family, which was just what I needed. Going between Seattle, Cinncinnati, Columbus, Massillion, Columbus Charlotte, and Port Townsend this time was very different. Seemed as though I was standing back watching it all happen. One of the big things was the cultural diferences. So many things are done, said, given, and taken differently in the states. Just different. Not bad, just different. I'm certain that I got a lot of good ideas from this trip, but for some reason I haven't been able to organize and sort those ideas yet.

I'll put some pictures up soon...

Tomorrow I spend the day getting my visa renewed and my stuff unpacked.

2006-10-03T10:06:00.000+07:00

This is so depressing.

I have been getting better quickly. Sunday went by without me throwing up: I made it through work and the wedding OK. Yesterday I only had a bit of a cough left as I did laundry and studied for my mathematics exam today. Today I feel about the same but much much worse. My alarm clock failed, and my body wanted to wake up at 10am, one hour past the start time to my math midterm. Not the end of the world I suppose, I now have to drop the class and won't receive any penalty for it. This means I'll be taking it again next year! On the brightside, this was a midterm. If this had been a final, I would have failed the course I think. So... Public Speaking on Friday, 9am, new alarm clock and lots of sleep.

I'll post some pictures of the wedding below. This was a lot of fun. Everyone from Grammy was there, which meant everyone we see on TV, hear on the radio, or see live, came that night. The wedding was held in the Sanam Pao convention center, which is currently help by military forces. They stopped my taxi and gave me directions to the reception. The rules at the wedding were that anyone gave a toast from the stage was allowed to call someone up to perform. At somepoint this meant P'Yod (Bodyslam) playing drums, P' Win (Potato) playing guitar, the guy from Pancake playing bass, and both P'Pup (Potato) and P'M (M the Star) singing. I helped out Fam (Potato/Big Ass/Sua Yai) backstage. The food was great too.

2006-10-01T00:33:00.000+07:00

It's 12:30 again. I'm scared of laying down and vomiting, so I'll write for a while instead. Why did I have to get sick now? I had a bit of an upset stomach the whole day, but everything started to get a little worse around nighttime. The taxi ride back I was nearly passed out from exhaustion. My sheets were wet with perspiration. Today I woke up at 6:30, took my Media Presentation midterm, zoomed across the city to Impact Arena to photograph a trade show, zoomed back to go to my guitar lesson (canceled), then headed home around 7:00. Since then I've had a fever, nausea, dizziness, and on/off stomach twitches. My experience told me to take water down slowly, but it makes me feel like it'll come back out soon. I don't have the energy to go buy food. Enough complaining. Tomorrow this should all have cleared up.

In my midterm, I ended up next to a girl cheating off her friend, again. This happened Wednesday as well.

Modern Pres. went by pretty easily. Computer Systems was pretty easy, but very long at 150 questions. Media and Society was easy but confusing: Four essays and no multiple choice. Wednesday is Fundamental Math and Public Speaking on Friday.

Tomorrow is more trade-show at noon. This is a job P'Dang got me. Should pay pretty well, and is relatively easy. Take pictures of all 200 booths and entertainment. After doing that, I'll try to catch the last of P'Hung's wedding.

Yesterday I went to pick up my phone and heard that it's pretty much dead. It can be brough back to life again, but that would cost nearly as much as a new one. So I bought a new one. I'm very happy I did. The price of $149 got me a phone that won't need service monthly (last one was serviced 7!! times), plays mp3, mp4, and radio, came with a free 256mb card and $50 Sony earbuds, and takes 2mp pictures with good quality. I can pay for this buy getting through tomorrow.

I'm gonna try laying down again.

2006-09-26T00:35:00.000+07:00

It's 12:30 and I've been reading the book all day. The book has only problems and no explanations, so I've been looking at Oxford, Cornell, and UW student pages for help and clear examples.

I'm going to study for another 30 minutes then sleep at 1.00. Wake up at 6.30 and be out of the room by 7.30. Breakfast and cramming before the 9 o'clock midterm. Wish me luck.

2006-09-25T14:22:00.000+07:00

Statistics just pisses me off. Everyone else in the class feels the same. Why would the last class before the midterm be spent giving us a 10% grade test over 2 hours, vs. reviewing what we have studied? Why? Because the entire test consists of material we have never been taught and is not in the book! How do we review!? This is the same as last year. A couple students called her on it and asked how she wanted us to learn the material. Her response was calling the entire class idiots for not having learned this in highschool. Hmm. That was it, she didn't try to help the idiots, just gave us a 10% closed-book test. I was only able to answer 40% of the questions, some of which had very ambigous grammar. I took some pictures of the question, but my phone is broken.

Friday night I went clear across town to Potato's band practice to setup my effects with P'Win. I was dropped by the taxi driver in the heavy rain across from the wrong naval building. So, I called them, then started walking to the studio which we must have passed. Once I got there I walked in on some band I've never seen in my life. Awkward. Caught a taxi back the other direction. Walked around in search of the other studio. Closed. At this point P'win is calling me, I pick up, but there is no sound. He can hear me, but I can't hear anything. I get in another taxi and find the studio wedged in between two buildings. Practice was over by then, but Win and I squeezed out a couple effect settings. Then I went to dinner with P'Bom and his fiance P'Pae (super cool), and P'Win. Around midnight P'Win and I drove back to our area of town and talked about guitar schools. Win highly recomended Peavey school, a shack, hidden in the far back of Siam Square. P'Ekk2 was the teacher and taught Win everything he knows since grade 8.

Saturday, after my suprise (major) test, I went to Siam and searched for Peavey School of Music. I found Cresendo School of Music, a huge place that looked very busy, but no Peavey. With no luck finding the school I crossed the road and took my phone to MBK. Should I go to I-Mobile again? Maybe I'll look around at the cheaper and quicker phone-fixers. Long story short: 1 hour fix time became one week, they aren't sure if it will work again.

Yesterday, P'Ekk invited me to go to Siam Square for the hell of it. That little tiny Peavey sign P'Win had told me about really is at the far back corner of Siam Square. We passed it on the way coming in. P'Ekk and I went to the 3rd floor of the building (Peavey office), and asked for P'Ekk2. There were only three people in the office: a secretary, a student, and some guy who answered "and who are you?" while smiling a big grin. "P'Win told me to come and talk to P'Ekk ครับ". P'Ekk2 seems like a really calm and friendly guy. The office is tiny didn't have a large number of students like Cresendo. These seemed like good qualities to me: 1. Not in a rush to get me taugh and out the door. 2. Experienced (walls are filled with signed albums of his students, some of which I know). 3. Friendly enough to spend time talking to me about styles, my interests, where I studied... seems patient enough to put up with me learning from him. So, I signed up. P'Ekk might too, for bass lessons. I went for two nights a week with P'Ekk2, at their new building in Sam Yan which is right across the street from Paradox's store/studio. 1,200 baht I think, I don't remember. Thats $30 a month for private instructions twice a week. I'm excited.

But not too excited. Today I study for my ONE HOUR!! Intro to Statisics midterm tomorrow. I have to google the subjects I need to know. Our text book upon close inspection is made up of double-spaced, large font questions, but lacks the answers. Can you imagine taking a class where the teacher only asked questions, then called you stupid because you didn't have anywhere to learn the material. To say this is frustrating would be an understatement. This is the second time.

2006-09-22T17:51:00.000+07:00

Last night was fun. I met P'Ekk at his workplace (a photography studio) and then took his motorbike to meet a band he is producing Pud Pik Gang Gai. We took a base guitar and went flying around the Din Dang to switch with another base guitar in the shared apartment/recording studio of Casanova, who Ekk also produces. I was introduced as "The new guitarist" for his project band. Gulp. If I have any freetime in Ohio and Washington I had better be practicing scales and guitar theory like mad. I have a lot of catchup to do. Casanova is great. The guys are one younger than me and we enjoy the same kinds of music really. The guitarist and I listened to some of there new songs on the computer they record with. Both were very good and I think would do very well.

Hopefully Ekk and I's band will too. No songs yet.

Flying around on the back of P'ekk's bike last night gave me an idea of how many soldiers there really are in BKK now. Busloads of troops coming in, and many in from of Channel 5, Taksin's buisness Skinwatra Corp., and all the government buildings. All had M16's with ammunition clips. Driving by Praram 4 again this morning I saw "my" soldiers. Now there are 4 at Praram 4 and a few more down the street by the bank. Few across the street now too.

Now for my political rant...

Today it hit me. I'm getting used to this. The guns, the uniforms, the new rules don't bother me or anyone I know really. 83% of the nation has said they welcome the coup. This is a horrible sign. This means democracy really doesn't matter to most of us, only getting what we want.

On the way to school I didn't care. In class, A.Daniel started with a passionate speech about the history of Thai coups. The bloodless coup now, but it may not end that way. In history they were all bloodless, they were all started to help the people out of a situation. The professor made something very clear to us: no matter what happens now, Thailand is the loser. Foreign investment is gone, Thai baht is plumeting. EVEN IF the coup gives up after two weeks, the new political party is likely to be a puppet. If the army doesn't surrender to democracy (doesn't that sound like a Ashcroft phrase?), the US has already said that all aid money that flows to Thailand will be cut. Farmers recieve no more subsitities.

Do the ends justify the means? Yes, people in BKK are happy about Taksin being gone, country folk are happy about the political snare being "solved", but all of this comes at what expense? Taksin's large majority is not in BKK. BKK is happy with the army for what it has done. But what has it done? The army just overthrew the entire country's democratic system. This is where Thailand is special now. People in BKK aren't going to stand up to the billionare-become-politician, it takes an army. Reports were scared shitless by Taksin's legal threats. "You repeat something I said in a negative way and I'll shut you down for 3 days." This happened so many times! Taksin has 2500 people SHOT without trials, just 4 years ago. Did Bangkok protest? No. Taksin sells a billion dollars worth of shares in one blow... tax-free. The PM does not pay taxes. Does BKK protest? Of course not. We all go with the flow. That's what I caught myself doing this morning on the bus, just giving up and refusing to question the situation.

What happened last time? Students (not adults BTW...) got pissed off and took back the country. Many where shot. Would that happen this time? Not me or my friends. Without kidding, my friends talked far more about the mall and movies today than the 8 guys with machine guns gaurding the entrance to our school.

"How is Thailand different from Myanmar now?"

Do the ends justify the means? Yes, we (in BKK) wanted Taksin out. Should we get the military to overthrow the government we dislike, or should we teach the rural villagers that 30 baht healthcare and care packages were total lies and Taksin doesn't deserve more votes or tax-free "chance cards". The first one is easier because we don't think about things in the long run. Just like daily life: throw your bottle in the river, burning cigarrete goes in the leaves, raw sewage heads to the fisheries... we'll worry about our problems whem they get closer to us.

On the way home I got off the bus early and went to talk to the soldiers at Praram 4. They've been there since the morning, releaved yesterday's guys. The guy I talked to was 3 years older than I was, finished highschool then had to join the army. I wanted to take a picture together but my phone battery was dead. I'll go back tomorrow. My friend sent me an SMS asking "I haven't seen you on MSN in a while. Did the troops grab you? (โดนทหารจับป่าว)" Tomorrow I'm gonna get one of the guys to "grab" me (on the shoulder) take a piture together, then send it to my friend. เราโดนทหารจับแล้วโว้ย I've been caught!

Todays class was embarassing. University is fun here, I learn a lot from some teachers, less from others, and the learning enviroment is VERY different from the US. Everyone of Prof. Daniel's students failed this speech until today. Why? Every single person before our class (of 250 students) either copied or didn't use a bibliography. 250 students, in 2nd/3rd year, used "www.xxxxxx.com" "A book i got in da library." "Interview w/ taxi driver." "Discovery channel" as sources. Really. Those are all real examples. No page numbers, no titles, they just used the material. Others googled their topic, copied, pasted in Word. 7 pages of words they've never seen before, about a topic they've never really researched. Sigh.

Our class had about 12 people who passed. Yes, I was one of 250 who passed? Why? Thank you Ms. Neilson grade 11 for teaching me MLA citing. I gave my speech, no problem. Finished 30 seconds early, got 2 extra points in the class. The 220? who failed? Re-write, nobody looses points. The prof. had no option really. How do you fail 95% of the class because they only know how to copy? That's how most Thai schools and universities really work. Really. Most teachers look the other way.

2006-09-21T14:46:00.000+07:00

Today was a regular day. Traffic is getting closer to normal, and my street had a lot of people walking around and buying food from vendors.

Last night P'ekk came over to listen to the new songs (not complete, or even close to complete). We greated eachother with a sulute, then went to get something to eat and talk about melodies.

What am I doing today? Starting to write my speech. I'll do the powerpoint slides tomorrow.

Sorry theres no big news. I haven't been shot, nobody has been shot, HM the king endorces the coup, and its being called the friendly coup and boodless coup now by the media.

Coups can be fun too!

2006-09-20T17:34:00.000+07:00

I thought this was a great summary of the current situation, off of 2bangkok.com's fourm.

Coup-land, the theme park!
Just got back from the area around Gov't House/Parliament etc. Large swaths of area are blocked off to car traffic, mostly using portable metal gates. There are soliders at many interesections and at all entrances to the blocked areas. Many of the soliders don't have ammunition clips in their rifles.

The mood is completely calm, somewhat comedic actually. Pedestrians are free to cross the traffic barriers and wander about on the closed roads. A fair number of people are hanging out, taking pictures and videos, posing with the tanks and the soldiers. The soldiers are very friendly, happily smiling for the cameras. People are putting their kids on the tanks to take their pictures. It's hardly what you'd expect from a military coup.

We saw no hint of any political interest from the people there - no clear cut coup supporters or protestors. People just seemed curious and somewhat bemused. The scene has become a tourist attraction. There's even a tuktuk based iced-coffee seller at one barrier.

I suppose we're in for a barrage of "democracy in peril" stories, as if Thaksin was some kind of paragon of democratic ideals. I hope somewhere the story comes out how this is really a battle between two personality cults, one using the rhetoric of electoral politics and free markets, the other using the rhetoric of religion and tradition while both pander to nationalism. But neither really cares much about the substance behind the rhetoric, using promises of salvation, whether material or spiritual, to command a following in order to increase their own stature. There are no good guys here - but IMHO, the current coup is a more honest reflection of Thailand's political rot, and therefore is preferable to the Thaksin administration which was more able to hide its authoritarianism under a veneer of electoral victory and liberal rhetoric.

In truth, neither side is really democratic in that neither is really interested in the people governing themselves. With the military/palace alliance at least this is obvious. Thaksin, for his part, ignores the civil liberty and checks-and-balances aspects of self-rule, creating instead a majoritarian dictatorship.

I'd say the biggest immediate issue is placating Thaksin's supporters upcountry. I hope this means an accounting of what he and his cronies have really been doing these past few years (similarly, an accounting of the Bush crew's actions would be nice to see). Of course this will be politically motivated, but perhaps ti might also be accurate.

I'll be very interested to hear the Thaksin apolgists take on the evidence as it emerges.

For the longer term, I don't think this coup makes much difference to Thailand's political, social or economic development. All of these are a disaster and has been so for a long time, though covered up by different layers of hype, supported by Thailand's immense natural wealth. The military is just as likely to institute real democratic change as was the TRT, IMO.

This is a step sideways into the light - not forward or backward.

I just came back from school. I went at 14.00 hours (yes, I'm using military time) to get my research materials from the library. In two hours I managed to collect enough information from about 10 different books, journals, and government studies on air and water pollution. Made copies and got out before today's 16.30 closing. There was nobody at school today. I saw maybe 20-30 people on campus. the university is open, but no classes. After checking out books I went downstairs and ate lunch in the near-empty caffeteria. On my way off campus I ran into my dean. "อ้าวววว น้องDan. You haven't gone home yet?" "I just got finished in the library, I'm headed home now ครับ" "Well hurry." Then he took off in the other direction. I came home.

Bangkok isn't very different really. Lot less cars. Lot less people walking around. I passed one soldier on the way to school and two on the way back. They are stationed at Praram 4 and Sukumvit roads with M16 rifles. They were mostly just standing, watching traffic and laughing with the traffic policemen on duty. On the lookout for some crazy counter-coup force on the way from out of town. The soldiers aren't particularly frightening. Crazy TRT supporters and left-wing lunatics are much scarier. These are the groups which cause the tention which leads to chaos and shooting.

I agree with the article above on the current political situation. In many ways today is no differnt than last month. Thai Rak Thai (Taksin's party) effectively covered up the last election's true results and has since held power despite cries of coruption from all other parties and even a few TRT cabinet members. The real key thing is how the release of power works. Thai generals don't have a great record of taking power then releasing it again.

Half of me wants to go take pictures. Not to sell or inform but just for the hell of it. Look! I was here when the military took over! type shots. Maybe take a group of friends. The other half, the sensible one, says my family would disaprove. Actually, my grandfather might be jealous that I get to be in the revolution while he has to work.

2006-09-20T07:36:00.000+07:00

Last night at 2:30 the general on all channels was relpaced with a more pleasent looking woman who announced the military's intentions:

First coup announcement:

In reference to the council's announcement of its power seizure earlier, for the sake of peace and order to prevail in the country, the council has imposed nationwide martial law. The council has repealed the state of emergency declared on Sept 19 at 9.05pm. This announcement is made by Gen Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, head of the Democratic Reform Council.

Second coup announcement:

The council has ordered that all mobilisation and movement of military logistics and manpower be prohibited. Military personnel are absolutely not to leave their units without permission from the council.

Third coup announcement:

1. The current constitution, drafted in 1997, is now repealed.
2. The House of Representatives, the Senate, the Cabinet and the Constitution Court are now dissolved along with the abrogation of the constitution.
3. The privy councillors will remain in their duty.
4. The courts of justice, except the Constitution Court, will retain their full power to adjudicate cases according to the law and the announcements of the council.

P'Mo called to tell me school is canceled.

For the latest news, http://2bangkok.com/highemer.shtml is best. Most Thai and foriegn media has been blocked to provent Taksin from making any orders or gaining support again.

The biggest danger is Taksin supporters who are daring enough to lauch a counter coup against the military. This is the reason for guns and tanks.

2006-09-20T01:22:00.000+07:00

The only news channel just lost audio. :(

Lucky they haven't shut down Thailand's internet... it all runs through one of two wires. The other is for the military.

Coup!

2006-09-20T01:08:00.000+07:00

A state of emergency has been declared by PM Taksin, who is in New York now.

The military has come into Bangkok in full numbers, with tanks. They have taken the government buildings, Taksin's house, and who knows what else. This means HM the King, in this 60th year of power, has also been overthrown. This is serious...

The army has taken over all the television stations, with a recorded message telling us that the army has taken control to end the several month struggle with election results from last April's suprise election called by Taksin.

I plan to not get shot. It has happened in the past. Nobody has any idea what will happen tomorrow.

I'll keep posting as long as I have internet.

2006-09-19T16:11:00.000+07:00

I have a lot of work to do.

I have midterms next week that I need to study for. Luckly these are spaced over two weeks time, so i'll have a lot of time between subjects.

I have a speech to write and do (documented) research on. Due Friday. Yesterday's presentation in Modern Presentation Techniques went ok. Quick. Easy. Professor Pennapar said anything goes, so I tried to make it simple.

I have 2 FULL songs to write before tomorrow. These are going to be sent to Fat Radio (104.5) and be played on the air. This means P'Ekk and will likely be playing at the Fat Festival in November. This is a huge concert which means band practice every day after I return from the US.

I never did get to P'win's house that night. I sat at the end of his street for a hour and a half because his cell phone battery went dead. I ended going home to sleep. Where gonna setup the pedal together at the next band practice for Potato. I talked to P'yod's guitar tech, Bank, who said this pedal is better than many $500+ boards but needed a lot of tweaking at first.

Want to know just how busy my next month will be? Here is a visual representation:

Study, research, write speech, write song 1, present, write song 2, study, midterm, midterm, midterm, practice song 1, practice song 2, study, midterm, midterm, recording song 1, study, midterm, recording song 2, to SEA, to CMH, to Massillion, to CMH, to SEA, to Port Townsend, 6 days, to SEA, to BKK.

After I get back I have to deal with Visa crap. I always feel uneasy about these things. It's easy enough to do, but getting suprised with "Ohhhhh! Yeah, you were supposed to get a special stamp 3 months ago sweety. Now you need to leave the country, pay 2000 baht and your first born child".

2006-09-16T16:04:00.000+07:00

I'm so busy. If it wasn't fun being this busy, my head would have burst by now.

I never did iron those clothes. Instead I washed more clothes and made the iron pile larger.

I was stood up by the fashion student. Never showed up at Starbucks. I waited nearly 2 hours. Wish she had called to say she wasn't going to come.

Bought an effects pedal. It's built like a US tank: some parts have armor, others need it. Clean sounds are mind-blowing. The ECC83 tube gives it great tone. Distortion is so-so. I'm not used to using effects pedals so I'm gonna take the whole thing to P'Win's house in a few minutes and have him help me. He's put out 3 best-selling albums using the thing, so he should at least be able to how me where the power switch is.

Gave a statistics presentation today. Last term I failed this one. My team did very, very, little work this time. We wrote the report an hour before class. Why? Because this is the secret to good grades in this teacher's class. Last term I spent a week with my English partner doing a 100 person survey on transportation, wrote a good report, and got 40% out of 100%. Why? We only had 5 pages of graphs. Most Thai students faked surveys (my friends), double-copied pages of raw data, threw in ten pages of tables, and printed out their entire powerpoint slides full-page. 50 pages. A.
So what did I do this time? A 30 person survey, quick and simple report, long presentation, and 40 pages of graphs that all show the same thing in 6 different ways. Matches every other report in the class. A.

Yesterday I got a call from Fam, a friend from Grammy. A bunch of friends I hadn't seen for months had a job at my university. They were setting up a HotWave radio event at the university. I went early and took everybody (including the sound techs I didn't know) to my favorite resturaunt for noodles. After class I came back and talked with old friends Kala and Paradox, who I hadn't seen since last year. P'Bank, Bodyslam's main techie was there too so we talked about the Zoom effects for a while.

Today I bought new shoes. Yes, I am broke, but being broke and having toes showing through your old pair of Asics is even worse.

2006-09-11T23:52:00.000+07:00

Monday morning math went by quickly today. After years of high school algebra practice, I seem to be grasping the concept of factoring trinomials. I swear I spent 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade doing the the same problems but using different textbooks. Now I have a chance to do all the once again, Monday mornings, eight-forty am.

Statistics has actually gotten to be educational (somewhat). Last week was actually the first time in my life that I really grasped standard deviation. Yay!

Despite my excelling math skills, I may not be able to balance my checkbook this month. All this invoice sending, guitar buying, amp selling, and wire transfers has me confused. All three papers I sold pictures to at the end of last month have said payment is being processed. No idea what that really means. My interpretation is that "payment is being processed" means the editor sits on my check until I send him enough emails.

Tomorrow I have a meeting at Starbucks with Inah, the Filapina-Spanish fashion student who contacted me about taking the pictures for her soon-to-be-launched advertising campaign for her new hip-hop clothing line. This job sounds like it should be interesting at least. The guy I sold my amp to within one night, P'Yu, called me up today to say he has a factory that wants me to come and take photos for promotional material. That sounds less interesting than the clothing line launch but I'll need to pay for this new guitar somehow.

Oops. Yeah.. My 1.5 year loan of a friends guitar is about up. I'll return it to her in the US next month and pickup my new guitar in Columbus. It was fairly cheap, got great reviews, was recommended to me by a few producers at Grammy, and is twice as expensive here as it is in the US -_-. $350 for the guitar and the hard case, it works and it's very cheap.

The next step is something to play/record through. This part isn't so cheap. If things go bad I can always sell here, break even and pay for the hassle of bringing it over. Zoom's new effects pedal is the most economical and won't break within a year. I can record with it, I can send it through amps, and I can play with headphones in my room. Sold. More money here ($290 vs. $250 in the US), but a month's worth of practice before leaving seems worth the difference. I'll think I'll head over to Bangkapi and listen to it again tomorrow, after the meeting at 2pm.

P'Ekk and I will be practicing/writing guitar parts after school/work three times a week until I get close to finals at the end of the month. At that point I need to rest and review notes.

I'm serious about resting and reviewing. Last year I didn't take that part so seriously and found myself crawling out of the last final.

I'll post again tomorrow night.

2006-09-06T18:48:00.001+07:00

Monday I skipped class and went to the Disney Land of Thailand, Dream World. After months of doing freshman planning stuff, a trip with the other staff members was a great change.

The other day I got an email from a fashion student in Bangkok who would like me to shoot photos for the launch of her new clothing line. I'm excited about the project as it should be a good chance to get creative shots for her advertising campain and my portfolio. We'll be meeting at Starbucks next week to discuss details. I love organization which is why I couldn't stop smiling after I was told the models, location, themes, and prep-work were going to be done for me. All I need to do is take the damn photos. So simple.

Today I cleaned my room after I got home from school. Then I ate dinner and birthday cake with the family next to Momo's uncle's house. Then I had a glass of beer with my uncle and talked about the recent theft problem at my apartment.

This has been somewhat of a problem. The other day everyone on the fourth floor had their locks hammered in. Some rooms were broken into, some didn't open. My room didn't get hit, but the college kids across from me did. The whole doorknob came off.

Security here is normally not a problem. We have an electronic lock door, the apartment is located in a quiet area, everything is well-lit, and people are coming and going all day and night. I'm not too worried, but I would be pretty depressed if my computer, guitar, amp, or camera equipment was stolen. What would I do at night!?

I don't have to worry about my clothes being stolen. I have a collection of un-ironed clothes sitting in a blue basket beneath my ironing board. They are clean, but look like something both my mother and grandmothers would agree to frown upon. I'll tackle that tonight, or at least claim that I will.

30 seconds ago somebody called me about playing guitar tonight. Somebody I met on my street a couple months ago. Hmm...

*I'm back.*
P'Ekk was the person who called me. Ekk is a photographer I ran into a while ago while he was shopping with his mother. He asked me if I was a singer and I said "No. I just play guitar." He's been in a few bands and knows a lot of the same bands I do. We turn out to have quite a few mutual friends. Last year his band won Best New Band for Thailand, but broke up after people started getting jobs and families. Now he's planning on doing producing work at Sony with Moderndog's lead singer.

How do I fit into this? The band needs a guitar player (second). I listened to the stuff they recorded and we talked about music ideas, it all sounds pretty good to me. I have to play catch up and learn their old songs, while writing new ones with P'Ekk and the other guitarist. Next month is the same competition GBOB (Global Battle of the Bands), which they won last year and got sent to England for the final round. Sounds fun to me! This will mean having to play a couple hours a night and a weekly band practice before November.

Nope. No sailing. Turns out you have to be a CEO of a major foreign company, be transfered to Thailand, then pay $2000 a year to be a member. That doesn't include renting your boat and regatta fees. Sailing will be a graduate school and/or retirement sport.

2006-08-29T22:01:00.000+07:00

The sound of the rain outside reminds me of how much I used to love visiting resivoir spill-overs, dams, or anyplace that released large amounts of water at once. The rain is coming down so hard off the two 500 sq.ft. carports that it really does have the sound of a large lake being drained through a small nozzel. The parking lot is what that big lake is spilling into, and it is getting deeper by the second. The dogs that howl and run around chasing eachother everynight are now swimming their way into territory belonging to other dogs. I enjoy it all. As I said, heavy water, falling, has always been been on my "likes" list, right next to lightning storms.

Today was a normal school day. The teacher spent an hour explaining the reveloutionary concept of media bias, while I daydreamed plans to do something with my life. When she finished explaining, I cut short my dream, then we both watched a five person group give a 15-minute presentation about the movie "Insider" Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer. I'd actually to see that movie, it looks interesting.

A quick optional computer lab was next. I went, because I enjoy the proffesor and was already at school. I had lunch then left to the Emporium shopping mall.

Today was the first time I have ever seen a movie alone. Either the movie "United 93" or the two Aspirin I took before watching it made me want to both vomit and cry.

Very good movie. I particularly enjoyed the filming style. There wasn't any normal Hollywood crap thrown in to juice up the story. No shots of the father leaving his kids to go away for a short business trip, no goodbyes at the airport gate, no terrorist camps or planning. United 93 just used the sequence of events and left out the slow, typical build-up of a Hollywood movie. And that made it very emotional. The movie used clever timing, the shock of a real tactical problem, and the overwhelmingness of that day in history to thrill and inform the audience. The best part in my mind was that the film doesn't try to bullshit anybody using special effects or actors. At all. The plain clothes, clean shaven terrorists are scared and make mistakes too. Air-traffic controlmen are pissed at the millitary, who are pissed at the FAA, who are counfused as hell because they only know as much as the air-traffic control guys. As the airplane is going down we can't see what is really happening in the plane because... we really don't know what did happen in the plane as it went down on September 11th, 2001.

It's not a fun movie by any means. At times I felt downright sick. Yet, it's movies like this I would love to see more of. In many ways I think my generation is half brain-dead and half asleep. If we can get the sleeping half to wake up through films that show how life is never certain, that means we'll have a half-functional society, right? Or maybe I've only got half my math correct. Either way I enjoyed this film alot because it was able to do so much using the audiance's emotions and chilling facts vs. computer generated animations and acting skills. The later is great, don't get me wrong, but the first is personally more impressive.

Sunday I went to BU's sport day rally at the Rung Sit campus. If you can imagine 100+ freshman sitting in perfect rows and columms of stadium bleachers, all raising their hands up at once in front of them. It looks like a display screen. Then they all turn 90 degrees to the left and clap, slowly but in-sync, three times. Then they all turn 180 degrees to the right, clap three times. The left half of the crowd turns back to the right while the right half stays perfectly still. Then the all pickup wooden boards that were planted infront of their knees. This is all from a distance so we can't see the image of HM The King until all the boards are flipped at once. Then flipped again to form a 100 by 200 foot screen saying "WE LOVE THE KING, ACCOUNTING, BU, 2006". Then everyone stowes the boards in-sync, turns quickly to the right and sends a 100 by 200 foot image of the accounting kids thrusting their rear-ends at the engineering department only a few feet away. This is the cheering we've been practicing, developing, and competing in for the last few months. You get points for all sorts of things: content, clarity, colors, decorations, costumes, staff, freshman behavior, originallity, loudness, ect. This may not sound too exciting, but having a couple hundred students clapping, grunting, singing, or just giving you the finger, from 200 yards away, in perfect unison is pretty impressive. The BU cheerleading team was pretty hot too. (Four of the cheerleaders live on my street, by the way!) Most of the cheers are fast paced onces that have been passed down by litterally centuries of students. Momo knows the same cheers I do. She taught them eight years ago, and I taught them two months ago.

Sunday was fun, but very long. 7am-8pm at school. I got: a เรารักในหลวง t-shirt, a medal (for winning the school soccer tournament last week), and a horrible sunburn. Everybody got the later. We didn't expect to be sitting in bleachers for 8 hours in the mid-day sun. My face is more red than I've ever seen in a carton of strawberries. Neckline too. Everyone who went is now bright red and black.

2006-08-24T15:13:00.000+07:00

A couple nights of lost sleep left me with a bit of a cold.

News of the World wants to give me 120GBP in exchange for the pictures they stole. Other photographers said 200-400 would be about right.

Other than those two things everything is pretty good. School is going. Classes are fun. Sport day is this Saturday which means the team will have another tournament to compete in.

After a little googling I found that there are Lasers in Thailand! I'm psyched. I'll try to rent a boat for Oktoberfest in September. I might rent a boat sooner than that just to practice. I haven't sailed a laser in years.

2006-08-19T14:13:00.000+07:00

I haven't slept in awhile. Last night I did go and take pictures of the hotel room/home of John Mark Karr. Mathew Scott, a British writer, called me around 11 and asked me if I wanted to shoot the JonBenette Ramsey suspect's place in Bangkok. Taxi ride 100฿. The staff told me photographers from all over the world had been marching in all day wanting to rent Karr's room and take picture, all were told no. I tried sweet talking and pleaing with the desk staff for a good hour. Police were done with the room, had locked the door themselves, and nobody had entered since the suspect was arrested.

The staff took me up to take pictures of the door. Then the bicycle that was left behind. All the police helmets laying around... finally a bell man came and asked me how much I would get for a job like this. I asked how much he would want to get for a job like this. He said a lot. I said 1,000. He said more. I called the writer. 3000฿, out of my pocket, I'll be paid back later.

I rented an hourly rate (yes it isn't too far from that area of town) room and went up. Getty had just put an image on the wire of a room just like mine, saying it was similar to Karr's room. It wasn't, but I still took pictures incase. The bell man called me and we met at the 2nd floor elevator. He told me he had gone in the room once, just to look around, this would be his second time. We took the elevator to the 9th floor, then sent it to the 10th floor so the staff below wouldn't suspect anything.

The room was clean. Police took the sheets and everything else. Only Karr's two beer bottles were left behind. The room was a typical hourly/daily/monthly rate room I suppose. PVC curtains, old aircondioner in the window, bed taking up the main room, small bathroom dimly lit.

I took pictures for 10 minutes, then we hurried out. Getting caught would mean much more than a light spanking for the bell man.

I went back to my room, locked the door, took the elevator downstairs, checked out, and said "Thanks everyone." The bell man smiled and held the door for me on the way out.

Another 100฿ taxi ride and I'm broke. I got home around 2:30am and started writing to the editors that were running the story. After some googling I found out these were mostly all tabloid papers. Mathew told me just that, "It's just tabloid fluff." Mathew got a bill out of the hotel staff yeterday showing phone calls. Many of the numbers were cosmetic surgeons giving bids for an opperation... thats my guess for the story line.

I didn't get any sleep but I did get lots of phone calls from the New York Daily News, News of the World, and Daily News. LA Times and Seattle Times said they were interested but had no story to go with the pictures.

I took the bus to school at 8am and then took the tour bus with the team to Rungsit. We played a 7 on 7 tournament and won in penalty kicks. We had another match at noon, but I got a call from an editor and had to rush back.

I didn't make it to Stats. Just as well: I know what the book is and remember last year's first Stats class being 15 minutes long.

2006-08-12T11:25:00.000+07:00

Rub Nong (รับน้อง) means accepting the youth. Saturday night O and Gaeb came to my place and slept over. Sunday morning we went to the university, loaded three tour busses with first year incoming freshman, and headed for Hua Hin.

In Hua Hin we went striaght into the good stuff. I had group number 3.

We blindfolded the freshman and had them grab on to eachother in a single file line. After leading them down the beach and through the water, we lead them up to a garbage bag tunnel. This tunnel had several possible routes, but all directions had portholes built-in, with upperclass (my upperclassmen) standing above or to the side. The freshman were unblindfolded one by one and sent into the tunnel. After all had gone, I had to go too! The trick was to crawl through the sand slowly, then quickly past the 3rd and 4th years. Upperclassmen were armed with a paste made of brightly colored dye, flour, and starch. After the paste is smeared on your face and hair it dries very quickly, leaving a plaster-covered face and stiff hair.

The next few stations included water gun battles, to knock Mickey Mouse ears off of the other team's head, eating competitions, clothes changing races, and obstacle courses. Around 4pm we checked into rooms, took showers and went to dinner. After dinner was over, we all gathered in the conference hall and played more games, skits preformed by 2nd years, and more games. The next part was a bit of supprise.

The lights were turned off, and the 3rd/4th year students gave a slideshow and a speech/song on how important it was to enjoy ourselves and have a good time as a student. We never did turn the lights on again. We lead our groups ourside again, once again in single file lines, and down the path to the beach. The path to the beach was lined with upperclassmen, still singing. The beach was lined with good size holes, about 40 of them, each with a candle at the bottom. 40 was the number of staff members on the trip, and was just enough for each of us to have our own hole and candle. Freshman were allowed to roam the beach, visiting all the candles. When a student would sit down infront of us, we would tie a string onto their wrist and give them a blessing and advise for the upcoming year. All of this was done at a near whisper. The beach was pitch black accept for our candles and the lights of all the fishing boats moered offshore. Once all hundred freshman had gone back to there rooms, staff members visited their upperclassmen for the same thing. I recieved some of the best advice I've ever had that night.

The next day was breakfast, pack, and leave for Bangkok. At some point we drew siblings พี่รหัส. This meant I have 5 freshman that I must treat like my siblings for the next few years. Help them when I can, take them out every so often. Likewise, they help out their older brother. I got some pretty cool siblings. I'll be passing out old textbooks next week, when school starts again, as presents.

After getting back to the university a group of friends and I headed for the Eastern Bus Terminal, bought tickets, and headed down the other coast, to another beach. This was a great trip. We got to Bang Saen around sunset and rented an empty house. We spent the night eating food, drinking (sorry mom), playing cards (more scandelous than drinking here), singing songs, and just having fun. Tuesday morning we walked over to the beach and had breakfast on the beach, then headed back to Bangkok.

Wednesday was the longest football/soccer practice i've ever done.

Thursday was freshman oreintation for the the foreign students. We went to the Buffalo Center in Supanburi. This was a fun trip, but very tiring and not quiet as personal as Rub Nong in Hua Hin.

Yesterday was more practice for freshman rallies and soccer.

Today I have to go somewhere for HM the Queen's birthday. Not sure where, but I hear it involves a lot of walking in the mid-day sun.

Tomorrow is my first free day in weeks! What will I do!? Buy school clothes and sleep are my guess. Monday is the first day of the first term in 2006. Fundamental Mathmatics and Presentation Techniques. 11.20-16.30, 7 hours.

2006-07-22T20:24:00.000+07:00

Extended course description: This is a course that will change how you write papers, and how you formulate arguments. We will shed shed our amateur apparel and don the suits of professional researchers--creating arguments based in rock-solid research and writing sentences so profound that they echo when you reach the period.

Okay, there are less glamorous moments that we will have to trudge through. Nevertheless, you will be able to use your newly acquired research skills to make birthday gifts and delicious vinaigrettes.

This course is designed to teach you how to write and research as a scholar. Our focus will be on the research practices of communication studies, although the skills we learn may be applied generally.

I just pulled that off of my professor's website, which I have finally been able to open. Communication Research seems like a much more exciting class in the syllabus. Classes end next week, before final exams in two weeks, and I haven't seen anything about vinaigrettes yet...

2006-07-22T00:18:00.000+07:00

Now I remember clearly what it is like to be sick. I had cramps, soreness, and lack of appetite until sometime tonight. The fatigue has yet to fade, unfortunately. Minutes ago I pad-locked my door and set-off in search for food, catching myself at the staircase shoe-less. That was the second time today I forgot I needed shoes. I'm not really sick-sick. Just half sick, half exhausted, from yesterday's Samut Prakan trip as an upperclassman / chaperone for the freshman orientation trip.

We went to Borahn City, an impressively large mock-up of Thailand. An amusement park that isn't terribly amusing. Pretty, informative, but more amusing. Most of the kids were dying of boredom and riding around in a trolley in the mid-day heat. Borahn City may well be the hottest place in Thailand, the trolley driver told me that.

Outside of freshman stuff, which is scoring big points with my dean, school is good. I am taking a Communication Research class. At the beginning of the course we observed commercials and PR plans but the second half has been and exact repeat of Statistics for Social Sciences which was a joke. Minutes ago, when I went outside shoe-less, I was going to meet a fourth year student who is in my research group. Ben brought 30 questionnaire surveys for me to translate and do something else with before Monday.

Tomorrow's plan: rest, drink electrolyte-enriched water slowly, and stay in my room.

Bangkok University won the Thailand Premier League this year. Not an intercollegiate cup, but the proffesional league. The equivalent of the Ohio State Buckeyes winning the Super Bowl I suppose. The trophy is now sitting in the middle of the campus on a card table. Students are free to lift it up, throw it around, and take pictures holding it with friends. Pretty cool. I'm now practicing with school team, but only the football team for my facualty, not the Premier League champs.

2006-07-02T10:33:00.000+07:00

A lot has happened in the last month. The world cup kept me pinned to a friend's house for 4 nights straight at the beginning of the month. Lots and lots of stuff to do for school. Midterm exam two days ago. Actually, not a lot happened in June, it just seemed busy.

Yesterday I crossed a footbridge and jumped in an uperclassmen's car, on the otherside of the main road near my house. We picked up two of my friends and another uperclassmen and headed to Hua Hin and Pechburi, the beach. We all voulenteered to survey possible locations for freshman orientation, which meant a long day of sleeping in a car, listening to music, eating seafood next to the beach, and taking photos of a bunch of beach resorts. This is one thing I really love about life these days: everyday is different.

The day before yesterday, Friday, was a monk's blessing and fashion photoshoot. Again, an early morning start. Elevated train, subway, bus, then motorcycle taxi to P'Dang's new business. He has opened his own modeling agency, so I applied. The morning was spent with 3 monks in the main room of the 3rd story condo. They blessed the business and us, ate food, and returned to the temple. We were blessed, ate food, and returned to working on the day's models. One of which turned out to be me. I'm a photographer, not a male model, but the other 6 staff members had left already.

The PT kids made it over. Interesting group. Seems like nobody knows much more than the names of the other kids. Rob skipped the key "team-building" months that brought our previous groups together. Which might work out ok. The group this year may not have set any expectations for people, before going in this year, which could be a good thing. I'm going to go check things out Thursday, I think. Thursday morning bus, arrive late afternoon, 2 days/3 nights in the village, then back to BKK Sunday morning.

2006-06-04T12:27:00.000+07:00

Yesterday was the big event. All of BU's incoming freshman wouldn't fit in any one of the universities gymnasiums or auditoriums, and just barely fit into the Tammasart gym (very big). We met at the Kluay Nam Tai campus at 8.00 and took tour busses to Rungsit. Once we got there, it was a full sprint to get everybody inside in time for the start. We packed into the 3rd level of bleachers in the back left corner, with other facualties on both sides and below us. We sat there for several hours watching various ceremonial dances, blessings, and speeches. Around one o'clock we had food and tied strings on freshman for good luck. This was a great way to get to know faces and names. The whole gym lit candles together, listened to another speech, and finally it was cheer time. This is the competitive part of the day. As staff, we've been preparing for this 15 minute period for several weeks. Daily drills with first year students practicing our major's cheers and the BU cheers. These cheers include a song and a dance which has to be done in sync by our 150 freshman. BUIC only has 150 freshman compared to the BU Communication Arts, with over 2000. Both majors spent the same amount of time preparing their cheers. Our goal: to show that we had the most cunningly worded cheers, best prepration, and be the loudest, yet smallest, department in BU. It worked. Most kids couldn't speak loudly for an hour afterwards. Our cheers were by far the funniest and most clever of all. We were proud.
Then came the fun part. Music. At this point we could all move around in our section of the stadium talking and tying more bracelets. The school rock band was fun, covering popular songs, and everybody was dancing together and having a good time. By this time we actually knew most of the kids, and they felt much much more relaxed. Potato finished off the day with an incredible 1hr show. Every single person in our section was standing locking arms with eachother, singing as loud as they could to songs everybody loved. It was a really great day. I'm now pretty pshyced about seeing my kids around school and at future events.

We took the tour buses back to Kluay Nam Tai. It was late, freshman went home, staff went to We-Za to celebrate. More dancing together, screaming our favorite songs, playing pool, and drinking.

I did get invited to go to the South tonight, with Potato. I've never been to the South before, so I might go. We would take a plane down and back.

2006-06-01T11:06:00.000+07:00

Yesterday I registered for summer classes. I have Methods of Communication on Mondays and Wednesdays. Firday I need to go back to add Critical Analysis of Messages, which was full yesterday.

This is the beginning of the year for BU, so it's freshman hazing time as well. Saturday is the official day, at the Rungsit campus. The university booked Potato to come and play as well.

2006-05-25T19:17:00.000+07:00

I didn't go to Chaing Rai. P'Tum called me at noon to tell me he didn't have to go anymore.

So, I spent the day fixing the water faucet with P'Noom, the mute apartment handyman/brother to the owner. After that was done we bleached my bathroom and patio to get rid of the soot stains that the air causes in this area. After that was done with I washed some clothes.

In the evening I decided to go take a look at other apartments. This apartment is pretty nice that I am in now. It's new. Food and supplies everywhere 24/7. Reasonably close to school. The downsides are the highish price and noise 24/7.

I went with one of the local motorcycle taxi drivers that is a friend of Momo's uncle. We checked out several places. Most were full.

The first available room I found was in a quite area not far from here. มีสุข Be Happy. Small building, maybe 20 rooms. The owner was very an old lady who was very cautious about who she let live there. She warned me about bringing lots of friends, booze, and smoking. The room was decent. No furniture, no big problem... thats cheap. The room had a high ceiling, big bathroom, porch, and sink! Good view, cheap price, quiet area. Possible drawback would be the long walk to buy things (ie. food) and the land lady seemed like she might take a while to fix things.

The second place was brand new. Not even finished with construction, really. I called and was told they had open rooms, decent price. The driver and I walked over to talk to the owners who were sitting across the road. The woman instantly tells the driver to translate that she doesn't accept my kind here. We were both shocked at what the hell that meant. He quickly spoke up for me, explaining that I was (lie) actually Thai, and could have my sister sign a contract (Momo). I explained that I was a student at BU and just needed a cheap room. No way. She says, looking straight at the driver, that I have to have a Thai wife. We both just looked at eachother. P'Ton says "Nong, you wouldn't want to live anywhere near this lady. Lets keep looking." Right on.

I don't know what to do. I'll just hope an answer comes to me. Everybody tells me that my current apartment is just too much money, for what I have available to spend in a month. I could move to Mee Sook, but it might be too quiet.

จะเป็นไรไหม ถ้าฉันจะนั่งตรงนี้ ใกล้ใกล้เธอ
ให้ฉันช่วยเธอ เผื่อมีอะไร
ก่อนคนนั้น ของเธอจะมา ให้ฉันนั่งเป็นเพื่อนไป
อย่างน้อยไม่เหงาใจ เมื่อไรเขามา…ฉันจะไป

อยากไปทะเลกับเพื่อนอะ

:P

2006-05-24T23:25:00.000+07:00

Yesterday I hung with friends watching movies and eating quietly in my room. We're all pretty burnt out.

Today I went and had lunch at lan daeng, then went to watch Poseidon at Major Ekkamai with May and some 3rd year friends of ours. Poseidon was ok. I would go nuts trapped in the halls of in an upside down, sinking cruise ship. Particularly nuts if people told me there was a way out through the BOW THRUSTERS!? That killed it. Why would designers put a hatch opening from the inside of the boat, at the very bottom of the ship? That would be very similar to installing screen doors as excape hatches on Boeing 747s.

I did end up making it to the Uni that day. Just in time to catch one of the records deptartment staff, who gave a very BU answer. I could easily submit Jik's papers for her, as she was in the hospital, but Jik still needed two more "extra copies" (BU doesn't have copy machines!?) and a few signatures: 1 Doctor 2 Nurses 1 Me 2 Random people. Jik told me at her appointment with the office they told her they will announce whether she fails or re-takes tests, sometime within one month.

My water spout broke today, on my porch. I turned on the faucet, tured it off, and watched water still gushing out at full force. My porch was starting to flood. I took a ceilingtile out of the bathroom and reached around for the shutoff. Now I have to flood my balcony to take a shower. :P That gets fixed quick or I'm moving.

P'Tam called me up today, asking if I wanted to go to Chiang Rai tomorrow and come back Saturday. Sure. I don't have school until Wednesday. I have no idea what we'll be doing there, but I like roadtrips.

I need to pack.

2006-05-18T16:24:00.000+07:00

FINALS ARE OVER! For me at least. Most friends still have a day or too left.

Today I did OK on Art Appriciation, and a pretty good on Jurisprudence, finishing up final exams. After Art Appriciation I found out Jik was in the hospital, with some sort of sudden illness. I jumped in a taxi with Golf, May, and Jan, and went for a visit before our 2pm Law exam. Jik stayed there over night and maybe be there one more night, with an IV drip and some drugs. She'll have to take her exams late I guess.

I did manage to watch the UEFA Champions League final between Arsenal and Barcelona, last night around 2am. Tiger and (the other) Golf came up asking to watch in my room. They brought food too, so I let them in.

Crap.. I just remembered I need to take Jik's hospital papers to the office. Crap. Motorcycle taxi...

2006-05-17T20:44:00.000+07:00

My Modern Presentation final went pretty well. Yesterday's PR final was OK. Tomorrow is Jurisprudence and Art Appreciation.

Last night was good break from books and tests. May, Jik, Jan, and I went and looked around Siam together, then looked around the (hi)gh-(so)ciety Paragon with P'Ohm,P'Da, and P'Pup. Ohm looked at Hot Wheels cars, Pup and I looked at action figures, Da and my friends shared embarassing stories about me. At 7pm we watched AB Normal and Peacemaker play inside the Paragon's, really well done, preformance arena, on the 5th floor. I saw everybody off to go home, then went back to see (Pota)to and get a ride home. Good couple hours to laugh and have a bit of stress relief before going back to finish off final exams.

Which is what I am doing now. I have several months of slides to look over for Jurisprudence. This means pages of law I need to memorize. Finish off a report for the same class. I also need to memorize 6 pages of art and the names of the artists/builders. All before tomorrow morning! It might be a late night! I have Oishi Green Tea to keep me awake. Luckly I did get plenty of sleep today. I'm gonna go grab some food first.

I did send an email off for advice with switching majors. We'll see how that goes.

Props to my dear Aunt Connie for emailing me to see "Wat sup". "NM (not much)," I replied, in standard American teenage abreviation, "U?"

2006-05-08T23:04:00.000+07:00

Let's just say I was busy...

I don't have any real reason for not writing in the last month, besides lazyness.

Now it's finals... tomorrow morning. Stressed. Hungry. Off to by some food at 11pm. One of the nice things about my neighborhood... food 20-24 hours a day.

I'll try to write more as finals progress.

2006-03-25T21:24:00.000+07:00

Visiting family in the states was worth the ticket. Glad I got to see so many people in such a short time.

On returning, it seemed like a lot had changed. Buildings were being completed, part of my school had been torn apart for construction, my noodle shop got new tablecloths and posters from the Pepsi corporation. It was nice to be back. The weather is hot. Humid. Combined with the paint fumes and puppy pin that are now hanging in the apartment's share of Bangkok air, the humidity really makes odd smells so much more intense.

Teaching English has been ok. The young teacher that runs the school is very good. Both other teachers are much more removed in teaching styles to say the least. I'm too shy to be a good teacher. 15 year olds scare the crap out of me.

ตัดผมแล้วนะเพื่อนๆ เราอยากตัดสักนิดๆเองให้ผมข้างหลังหัวไม่ยาวไป คนตัดฟังไม่ออกนี้ เขาเห็นด้วยว่าไว้ยาวๆดีที่สุด แต่ตัดผมให้สั้นมากๆ รู้สึกเหมือนเป็น a shaved poodle อายจะตาย
คงมีใครบางคนงงที่เราเปลี่ยนภาษา ทำไมเขียนสองภาษาล่ะ คืออยากพิมพ์ไทยเฉยๆ เบื่อเขียนเป็นภาษาอังกฤษแล้ว ถ้ายังงงก็กดตัว x ไปเลยครับ อ่านเรื่องอื่นน่าสนุกกว่ายังไง

2006-02-21T18:13:00.000+07:00

Today I had midterms again. First was Critical Reading, then Statistics. Both seemed pretty easy but both are widely know to be...unknowns. Both teachers wrote tests full of odd grammatical and spelling mistakes that could easily turn into the students "not understanding the material". Luckly I wasn't the only one feeling that way, so I may have some chance if I get a suprise grade. I won't even go into the "F" I got with my partner a few weeks ago on a Stats presentation.

This weekend was plesant. I watched the FA cup quarterfinal with friends at a pub across from the university on Saturday, then went to a big foreign band concert Sunday because Bodyslam and Big Ass had passes for P'Oui and me.

I have a new phone with a camera by the way...

Tomorrow I have a mild midterm on Modern Presentation Techniques. Should be anyway.

2006-02-14T12:44:00.000+07:00

Safe to say it has been a while since I last posted. Sometime in the last month:

Toured around the North with Potato.
Started getting into my new classes.
Cleaned my room a few times.
Invited Elye over to my place twice.
Contracted several computer viruses.
Went to a political demonstration.
Traded in my phone for a new one.
Lost 140 phone numbers switching phones.
Bangkok's winter ended.

Because I simply can't remember details anymore, I'll just talk about the weather and my new classes at school.

Very sudden changes in the weather. Cool and dry switched rapidly to hot as hell and humid. Just yesterday my area had its first rain (a sprinkle) in months (on my count). The horizon has been dark the past week so I assume other parts of the city have had a bit more. The news is already talking of floods in the South, and expected rainfall. It's not even that time of year yet!

Thai weather reminds me a good bit of Florida actually. The winters are beautiful. Perfect temperatures and blue skies. Summers are long, hot, and have daily showers from 2:45pm until a bit after 5, sometimes longer. Just long enough to get traffic gridlocked. Glad summer isn't here yet.

School is...OK. I have interesting classes and some downright angering ones.

2006-01-18T17:39:00.000+07:00

Oops. That A was in Study Skills, not the troll under the bridge- Intercultural Studies. I got a B+ in English. I have no idea why and I'm sighty upset at myself, but thats what I got. The worst is that Study Skills was only a 1 credit class, therefore gives very little weight on my GPA. Darn.

Still no real grade release yet. Everyone has been checking the records website for weeks. A dangling carrot was given when they showed us our previous semester classes followed by the number of credits and a spot for GRADE... but all it was just meant to tease at the grade column was filled with slash marks //

I haven't done my dishes in a while... need to do that.

2006-01-17T19:03:00.000+07:00

Many bloggers, when feeling guilty for a long absense, will write an opening to their newest entry that always sounds like this: "I know I haven't written in a while, but I've been really busy." I am just lazy and only slightly busy.

First thing interesting that happended to me in this period of time was recieving a freelance photography job from Buckley Rumford. If flew to Chiang Rai, photographed some nice fireplaces in nice houses, then flew back the next day. I learned a bit about lighting figiting with my light kit and now see the reason some photographers will have two or three assistants to handle them.

School registration turned out to be a bit of a pain. I couldn't register Wednesday morning as I had thought, and had to wait until Thursday to add/drop. I basicly got scraps as most classes at time I wanted were completely full. I'm still pretty happy with what I got. Principles of Public Relations and Advertising, Critical Reading, Modern Presentation Techniques, Prnciples of Public Relations, Jurisprudence, Badminton, Art Appreciation, and Statistics for Scocial Sciences are all spread between Tuesday night and early Saturday afternoon. And VERY spread I might add. I'll be hanging out on campus a lot now.

I got an SMS right before class tonight telling me I got an A last semester in Interculture Studies. This was the subject I hated because there were no books and a 7 page essay final with only 2 hours to finish. Apparently saved by the curve. The University still hasn't released grades for most classes yet, everyone checks online daily. This particular course was one I was worried about, so an A is pleasing.

A guy on a message board asked me to deliver some gifts to Pup, from Potato, as he was a huge fan. He was a Vietnamese-American from Southern California, who enjoyed learning Thai from Potato songs and wanted to "repay" the band. Certainly very generous. We met at Central, where his wife has a clothing store. I took P'Oie, a producer, along as well, mostly as a witness that I was making this up. Pup ended up getting some really cool clothing, imported drinking water, and 4000 baht in cash along with a really cool thank you note.

Bom, told me a boss from Music Cream in Grammy should be calling me soon as he is interested in images for the upcoming Potato release. Not a new album, but a special one with a few new songs I guess. He hasn't called yet, so we'll see if I get the chance.

2006-01-05T23:35:00.000+07:00

I saw "Narnia" with a friend yesterday. It was fun to see the book on screen, but like all books in movies, wasn't kind of thumbs down at times. We actually laughted at parts of the battle and "re-birth" of a dead lion as well as some pretty sore dialog. But it was fun.

What I want to see is "Dek Hor" (เด็กหอ). Looks like it should be well done. The producing staff are the same people who put together "Shutter" last year, at Phenomena Pictures. Shutter was wonderful so it'll be interesting how this compares. It will be released late next month.

Dek Hor http://www.dekhor.com/home.html make sure to click the little red arrow on the right.
Besides that main (Thai) trailer, there is this English one as well.

Oh, and its a Grammy film ;)

Chey, Rob, and now my sister Renee will be coming next month as well. Chey on the first, then Rob and Renee at the end of the month.

2006-01-05T20:18:00.000+07:00

Chaing Mai was wonderful. At 6pm I met two friends Ton and Ying at Hua Lumpong station and then we went to Zien's house. Ziens house is actually a storage warehouse barried deep in the depths of China Town. Her Father was extremely welcoming and sprung up from his workfloor desk and took to the second floor to serve us food. We hung out there for a while, took one of the elevators up to Zien's room and sleep for a while longer. Woke up at 9, Mom and Dad raced us back to Hua Lumpong for our 9:30 train.

After finding our car, and our two reserved seats, we waited another half hour to get moving. If you've never been in a third class car on the Thai government-owned railways, it's a real trip. I was very glad I had an adaquate dossage of menthol to drown out the smells that would seep from the stainless steel bathroom at annual stops. The car was packed with people. Makes you feel bad sitting on your paid-for bench as an 80 year old couple try to contort themselves to sleep on eachothers backs in the half-meter wide isle. Some people just sitting on family members. Actually, besides the bathroom, we were pretty comfortable. Zein's Mom had pushed a tote bag full of tubaware food, snacks, and water, and Ying brought blankets. Good thing too. About 2hrs out of BKK it gets cold. Near 15 degrees I would expect. Meter long seats kept us warm too. The designer contracted to build train benches, for some reason, used the odd formula butt+butt-20cm=bench length.

I can't say 14 hours flew by, but it did eventually pass. The four of us gave up on real sleep at about 8 am when we were near Lampang. Beautiful sunlight going through the back country at the time of the morning. At noon we reached the Chiang Mai platform. Ying's family, who live in Chiang Mai came and met us after a few minutes. Ying's Dad is a Christian pastor/van driver in BKK, so we had our own private transportation throughout the trip. We went to Ying's house, in-out showers, and back in the van after 15 minutes.

We picked up Ying's older brother P'Chay at his dorm and then went across town to pickup his girlfriend. They both brought pretty sizeable bags which confused me a little. We stoped and had noodles at a small place in the Mae Rim district. Chay and his girlfriend were nice, to me at least, but the two siblings were always exchanging arm twists, bad-mouthing, head slaps, and "who loves Mom the most" competitions throughout the trip. We finished, got it the van and started driving. After 30 minutes I started to wonder what was next, as the house wasn't very far from the noodle shop. After another few minutes a road sign ไปเชียงราย cause my eye. Oh. I guess we're going to Chiang Rai too.

It only took about 3 hours to get there. "There" is the church-owned retreat(?). I don't know what to call it really. The mountain top it sits on is fairly large, big enough to hold 5-6 buildings, a radio station, steple, and a campfire and field in the center of it all. We ate tons of food as soon as we arrived. Pork cooked on sticks (slabs, 2m sticks) over small fires, steamed veggies, spicy sauces, curries, good stuff. It was pitch black outside and there were 5 or so tables spread out around this large field, 6 people to a table. I didn't get to meet half of the people there both nights.

Afterwards we setup tents by flashlight. Ton and I got a big tent to ourselves which became the hangout spot for cards.

The next morning we had cake(!?) for breakfast and took off to the Mae Sai to the border. Shoped, ate, sat in the van, then went back to Chiang Rai. There we stoped an rode the elephants. Beautiful spot, i'll take somebody back for sure. Not as touristy as the Conservation Center in Chiang Mai or the Hospital in Lampang and a nice ride throught the small village. Of course there are the little hill tribe girls and old ladies pushing earings and jewelry like cocaine on the corners of the roads.

More food back at the old church grounds, then a campfire. At some point we all got in a large group of lawn chairs around the fire and listened to a peptalk/sermon about New Years.
- Apparently (I had no idea) the word January comes from the word Janus, which ment two ways. January was named so because it was a time to forget the cold winter behind and concentrate on its ending. I have no idea if this is true, could be totally buffalo poo, but if someone knows please tell me.
The main points to this talk were being a time for looking forward and forgeting the past. Personally I think that might just lead to "making the same mistake" and that remembering the past can be a really good thing but, eh, I'm not the guy's speach writer.

Later in the night we launched the Northern traditional hot air lanterns. Mine went up, dropped, nearly burnt down our tent across the field. Somebody ran and caught up with it, then it filled and went up happily. Not sure what that means for my luck this year.

The countdown itself wasn't too spectacualar. Twenty people eating rice stew and watching a 10" tv set with a Grammy concert in BKK. Clash was horrible. Embarassing actually. Everyone scrambled to send last minute sms greetings before 12pm. After cheering for a brief moment we all went back to playing cards in the tile floored church.

Ton and I woke up and packed or stuff. No cake that day. Just as well, I'm not a big fan. We loaded the vans then had Sunday mass. Not exactly a mass of people. Pastor, Zien, Ton, me, Ying, her mother, uncle, uncles kids (3), cousin, aunt, another aunt, brother 1 2 and 3, and the girlfriend all sat around a table that ran the length of this room. Two of the brothers fell asleep. P'Chay had glasses on so it was hard to notice but the head tilt and open mouth were dead give aways. Chay's girlfriend was also looking uncomfortble and elbowing him (I mean it) the whole time. More about looking to the future and a prayer for our journey home. More prays getting in the car, but thats another story. I was thanking God for the electric waterheater in one of the cabins. Water at 10c from the night before is something I wish upon no living soul.

We left at about 2 I think and got back to the house in Chiang Mai. There we watched mid-day television and entertained cousins. In the evening we ate lots of food again, but no fire pits and pig roasts. I enjoyed eating with some grandmothers and talking wih Ying's dad for a bit. Hes such a nice guy and very laid back. Much more laid back than any pastors I'd previously met. After cleaning up we piled in the van and went shopping at a market downtown. Not the Night Bazaar, but not too far away either. That was fun too. I scored some comics, noodles, and keychains.

We were all so tired at that point. Ton and I couldn't sleep on the matress, and agreed that the mats in the corner were a better choice. Pushed the matress up against the wall and slept. I slept very well and woke up about 9. Ton slept well too and woke up a half hour later. Lots more food for breakfast, finger food in large quantities. We loaded the van and dropped P'Chay off at his apartment, then started the drive to Bangkok.

Driving normally takes about 10-11 hours depending on traffic. We left at noon and got to Lamapang about 4:30 and stoped for gas. So many people at this gastation I didn't realize that I'd been here many many times before. I was only a few minutes from the village and in Thoen. We ate dinner and relieved ourselves slowly. Back on the road again by 5:00. The reason for all the people was the 4 day weekend given for New Years which meant a good portition of the Northern population living in BKK came home and returned at once. So many people. Driving was very slow, but dead stoped in Nakorn Sawan for about 3 hours around 9:00. We droped Ton off and then myself at 2:00am.

End of boring retelling of my New Years holiday.

Ying and Ton trying to sleep the first night

Ying's brother applying whitening cream.

Zein and Dan in the van

2005-12-29T09:54:00.000+07:00

The last week has been a long one.

Communicative English went fine. Economics was OK because I studied. Intercultural studies on the other hand was awful. I'm pretty sure most of the class failed, at least if it is graded as noted. Creating your own thesis and using qoutes from at least 5 authors (no required books) to support you for a total of 7 pages, is quite a few levels up from multiple choice grammar tests. Today, in 4 hours, I have Management. Should be a bit easier, but deffinatly one of my harder finals. I'll be studying some vocab before I leave.

The pictures are from the Paradox Christmas Show by Hotwave FM, last Sunday. One of the best shows I've ever been to. Balloons, toys, cool displays, 18+ songs!, and the 4-rodie (sp?) percussionists playing along side Joey. These are someone elses photos I stole from Atimemedia.com, the organizer. Besides taking pictures for the band, I put on a mask too. See me in the Scream ghost mask there (only person whereing a stage pass...oops). Running around squrting streamers and throwing presents was pretty fun.

Today, after 2 hours of Management, I think I am going to Chiang Mai with friends by train. I think so... Haven't heard much besides we are leaving at 8pm and not going home before leaving. Coming back in five days.

I got a water heater. $50 Christmas present from my Dad. Ohh is it nice.

2005-12-20T18:19:00.000+07:00

Today I had my first final. Just like the midterm. Same proctors who pace around desperate to correct un-tucked shirts, kids with too many pencils, and final resting orientation of the papers themselves. Same confusing answer sheets as well I'm afraid. Similar to the graph paper I used in middle school, only it had question numbers on the x-axis and A-Z on the Y axis. Some questions on todays Intro to Communication test didn't even seem to be questions.

"Thats fine, sweetheart." was one of them I can remember. I'll give something of value to anyone who can answer this question. Remember, you must use the answers A-Z.

Tomorrow is Study Skills, which historicly hasn't been too challenging. Friday is Communicative English, followed by Economics Saturday, Christmas Eve. I just want to whine about hving finals on Chrismas Eve. Really it isn't a very big deal, I don't think I'd do much that day anyways. Fianlly I have Tuesday and Thursday next week, Intercultural Studies and Management, the two big ones. I bought the Management book today. There is no I.C.S book, the proffesor makes it up as we go. Sadly that is true. I'm pretty sure we have to write a 3 page essay on his ideas for the test itself.

Dreamworld with P'Tum andhis girlfriend the other day was really a lot of fun! It was just the three of us roaming round the park. We raced go-carts, May and I pined eachother to the far back of the track and had to be rescued while everyone watched. Went into the Horror House. That really scared the hell out of May, I kept my distance thinking she might wet herself at anytime. Tum and I were equally scared of the rollercoster, but went anyways. All three of us. I haven't ridden since the traumatizing ride back in the day, with my Dad. I rode with some large kid, a little younger than me, but much larger. All I can say is that the force of gravity and one very large body kept me firmly in-place throughout the loops and turns. Space Mountain was cool too. The whole park had a lot of, obviously un-licenced, Disney material going on, but apparently nobody at Disney really cares. Fun day, glad to see Tum again and outside of Grammy.

A mini Tesco superstore opened a branch on our soi. Pretty cool. Basicly a compact Wal-Mart or Costco packed into a gas station store sized room. It will be interesting to see who still shops at the family stores to buy laundry soap and goods, vs. the enemy.

I'll post a picture of some friends over the next few weeks. The English speaking group, left to right: John, a Beatles cover band guitar player, quite possibly the smartest person in our major. Zia, fierce party boy from Bangladash, loves Indian stereotype jokes and the female sex. Shy, from Napal, has to stop people mid-conversation everyday to explain that he doesn't speak a word of Thai even though he has dark skin. Karn, Thai world-class swimmer who missed Olympic qualifying by half a second but still competes on the national (non-olympic) team. Seppo, good friend, very calm like most Fins. Rein from the Netherlands deserves a mention and/or shout out as well.