ANSWERS:
ROUND 3 (Drug Quotations, you name the person who said it):
1) "Turn on, tune in, drop out." TIMOTHY LEARY
2) "You see, I think drugs have done some good things for us. I really do. And if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight. Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. 'Cause you know what, the musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years were rrreal fucking high on drugs." BILL HICKS
3) (Commenting on the song 'One Toke Over the Line' playing on the radio) "One toke? You poor fool! Wait till you see those goddamn bats." (I GOT THIS! Despite never having seen the movie). They wanted the movie: FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
4) Can't remember, didn't write down.
5) "Just Say No" NANCY REAGAN
6) "To Alcohol! The cause of--and solution to--all life's problems." HOMER SIMPSON
Round 5 (Tell me how they died):
1) Michael Hutchins (INXS) AUTO EROTIC ASPHYXIATION
2) Cliff Burton (Metallica) BUS CRASH
3) Ian Curtis (Joy Division) DEATH BY HANGING
4) Joe Strummer (The Clash) UNDIAGNOSED CONGENITAL HEART DEFECT
5) Sonny Bono SKIING ACCIDENT (TREE)
6) Marvin Gaye SHOT BY FATHER
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Trivia
An ancient and hallowed tradition for half of my family is to go to Old Chicago's on a tuesday night and play Trivia. It is one of the things that I miss, the competition and fraternity, and so I was quite surprised when I read on Wikitravel:
"Le Pub, 175/22 Pham Ngu Lao, located on the small road which connects Pham Ngu Lao and Bui Vien. Always busy after 6PM, famous for its western strength drinks, daily dollar-specials (e.g. Tuesday $1 for vodka mixers all night) and friendly staff. It has the same owner as Le Pub in Hanoi. The Pub Quiz (almost every Tuesday) is very popular with expats, especially the english teachers. Get there early or it's too packed to find a place to sit down. Indoors and outdoor tables available."
Yes, that is right, Tuesday Night Trivia in Ho Chi Minh City. How exciting.
Of course this is U.K. style Pub Quiz, rather than what we're used to, so it was much more multimedia. The theme for the evening was 'Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll'. The first round was pictograms that added up to rock star names, the second was songs where we had to name what Michael Jackson song they sampled, the third was quotes about drugs, can't remember the fourth, the fifth gave us the celebrity and we needed to name the cause of death, and the sixth were pictures and we had to decide if the person was in pleasure (in a porno) or in pain (as an athlete).
ROUND 3 (Drug Quotations, you name the person who said it):
1) "Turn on, tune in, drop out."
2) "You see, I think drugs have done some good things for us. I really do. And if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight. Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. 'Cause you know what, the musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years were rrreal fucking high on drugs."
3) (Commenting on the song 'One Toke Over the Line' playing on the radio) "One toke? You poor fool! Wait till you see those goddamn bats." (I GOT THIS! Despite never having seen the movie).
4) Can't remember, didn't write down.
5) "Just Say No"
6) "To Alcohol! The cause of--and solution to--all life's problems."
Round 5 (Tell me how they died):
1) Michael Hutchins (INXS)
2) Cliff Burton (Metallica)
3) Ian Curtis (Joy Division)
4) Joe Strummer (The Clash)
5) Sonny Bono
6) Marvin Gaye
Round 6 was strange. They gave us a super close up of the face, and we had to guess if it was a porn store getting laid or an athlete in the throes of exertion. And somehow we managed to get every single one right. We felt very dirty afterwords.
We came in sixth, and it was a blast. I wish that I was going to be here next week, I would do it again in a heartbeat. And I count it as one of those unique opportunities in my life; plus some combination of codeine, tylenol, colchicine and alcohol made my foot bearable, so I'll try shotgunning my codeine, tylenol and colchicine tomorrow morning to go be touristy.
Matt
An ancient and hallowed tradition for half of my family is to go to Old Chicago's on a tuesday night and play Trivia. It is one of the things that I miss, the competition and fraternity, and so I was quite surprised when I read on Wikitravel:
"Le Pub, 175/22 Pham Ngu Lao, located on the small road which connects Pham Ngu Lao and Bui Vien. Always busy after 6PM, famous for its western strength drinks, daily dollar-specials (e.g. Tuesday $1 for vodka mixers all night) and friendly staff. It has the same owner as Le Pub in Hanoi. The Pub Quiz (almost every Tuesday) is very popular with expats, especially the english teachers. Get there early or it's too packed to find a place to sit down. Indoors and outdoor tables available."
Yes, that is right, Tuesday Night Trivia in Ho Chi Minh City. How exciting.
Of course this is U.K. style Pub Quiz, rather than what we're used to, so it was much more multimedia. The theme for the evening was 'Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll'. The first round was pictograms that added up to rock star names, the second was songs where we had to name what Michael Jackson song they sampled, the third was quotes about drugs, can't remember the fourth, the fifth gave us the celebrity and we needed to name the cause of death, and the sixth were pictures and we had to decide if the person was in pleasure (in a porno) or in pain (as an athlete).
ROUND 3 (Drug Quotations, you name the person who said it):
1) "Turn on, tune in, drop out."
2) "You see, I think drugs have done some good things for us. I really do. And if you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight. Take all your albums, all your tapes and all your CDs and burn them. 'Cause you know what, the musicians that made all that great music that's enhanced your lives throughout the years were rrreal fucking high on drugs."
3) (Commenting on the song 'One Toke Over the Line' playing on the radio) "One toke? You poor fool! Wait till you see those goddamn bats." (I GOT THIS! Despite never having seen the movie).
4) Can't remember, didn't write down.
5) "Just Say No"
6) "To Alcohol! The cause of--and solution to--all life's problems."
Round 5 (Tell me how they died):
1) Michael Hutchins (INXS)
2) Cliff Burton (Metallica)
3) Ian Curtis (Joy Division)
4) Joe Strummer (The Clash)
5) Sonny Bono
6) Marvin Gaye
Round 6 was strange. They gave us a super close up of the face, and we had to guess if it was a porn store getting laid or an athlete in the throes of exertion. And somehow we managed to get every single one right. We felt very dirty afterwords.
We came in sixth, and it was a blast. I wish that I was going to be here next week, I would do it again in a heartbeat. And I count it as one of those unique opportunities in my life; plus some combination of codeine, tylenol, colchicine and alcohol made my foot bearable, so I'll try shotgunning my codeine, tylenol and colchicine tomorrow morning to go be touristy.
Matt
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Fragments
The Ideas that are still percolating, or images that are not enough to make a full post yet:
AYN RAND:
I have been thinking about doing a post on Ayn Rand recently, given her rising prominence in the Republican Party book list. And I still might, try for a piece about enlightened self interest and the limits therein, and I kind of already have in my piece about poverty. So we'll see. But nothing I can say sums it better than this, a quotation I saw in a piece I forgot but was inspired to copy and paste.
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its' unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
HE STILL WOULDN'T LIKE YOU
I saw the strangest thing on the Skytrain home from CentalWorld the other day. I was standing and looked over to see a young Indian man who had the look and shakes of a meth head going through withdrawal, shaking as he sat there and staring at his hands from time to time. Very thin, kind of out of it.
He had a bag with him, which looked normal, messenger style. Except that I was drawn to a pin that he had put on it: A swastika. Yes, a swastika, on a white background, with a red circle around it. Now my first thought was 'Ok, he doesn't know, and just thinks it's the Buddhist peace symbol'. But then I thought 'No, those go the other direction, and how do you not know? The Nazis are hard to miss'.
The more I thought about it the more ridiculous it got, until I was staring at this guy saying in my head 'No matter how much crank you boys do, Hitler will never look at you and say "You know what, dark skinned person, you're alright. Let's bounce.' Just not gonna happen."
GOODBYES (FOR NOW)
Even though they drive me crazy and I cannot guarantee you they actually learned anything this year (and I'll be seeing a couple of them for summer school in a week), I was sad to see my kids leave today (last day of the school year).
Matt
Uji
The Ideas that are still percolating, or images that are not enough to make a full post yet:
AYN RAND:
I have been thinking about doing a post on Ayn Rand recently, given her rising prominence in the Republican Party book list. And I still might, try for a piece about enlightened self interest and the limits therein, and I kind of already have in my piece about poverty. So we'll see. But nothing I can say sums it better than this, a quotation I saw in a piece I forgot but was inspired to copy and paste.
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its' unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
HE STILL WOULDN'T LIKE YOU
I saw the strangest thing on the Skytrain home from CentalWorld the other day. I was standing and looked over to see a young Indian man who had the look and shakes of a meth head going through withdrawal, shaking as he sat there and staring at his hands from time to time. Very thin, kind of out of it.
He had a bag with him, which looked normal, messenger style. Except that I was drawn to a pin that he had put on it: A swastika. Yes, a swastika, on a white background, with a red circle around it. Now my first thought was 'Ok, he doesn't know, and just thinks it's the Buddhist peace symbol'. But then I thought 'No, those go the other direction, and how do you not know? The Nazis are hard to miss'.
The more I thought about it the more ridiculous it got, until I was staring at this guy saying in my head 'No matter how much crank you boys do, Hitler will never look at you and say "You know what, dark skinned person, you're alright. Let's bounce.' Just not gonna happen."
GOODBYES (FOR NOW)
Even though they drive me crazy and I cannot guarantee you they actually learned anything this year (and I'll be seeing a couple of them for summer school in a week), I was sad to see my kids leave today (last day of the school year).
Matt
Uji
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Somewhere Gregory House is Weeping
or
Reverse Utilitarianism
The philosophy of utilitarianism says that you should strive to do good for the greatest number of people possible in a situation. It is the classic Spock in Wrath of Khan philosophy, that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. He goes in to the reactor to satisfy the needs of the writers, who outnumber him, to have an easy hook for a sequel.
And this generally makes sense. When presented with equal chances of victory a General will go with a plan that gets 10 people killed rather than 10,000, or even 10 over 100. We expect that in any situation some people will not benefit, and that we should generally go with situations that minimize harm and maximize benefit.
So the FDA is considering limiting the dosages available for the drug acetomenaphin. If this sounds familiar that is because it is what makes major painkillers from Tylenol to Vicodin tick. Currently available in a maximum dosage of 500 milligrams pure, it can be combined with other drugs to make the super painkillers vicodin and percocet.
So following the philosophy of utilitarianism, an FDA panel looked at usage (in perscriptions and purchases) versus people killed/admitted to hospitals each year due to overdose on acetomenaphin. The numbers are 42,000, 400 and 100,000,000+ respectively, and I want you to match each number to it's category, given the knowledge that the panel voted to ban vicodin and percocet, and limit acetomenaphin dosage.
You would think the government would only do such a thing if the numbers went thusly:
1) 400 killed
2) 100,000,000 hospitalized
3) 42,000 number of prescriptions.
But that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, how can more people be hospitalized than take the drug, and if something is hospitalizing 1 in 3 Americans how is it only killing 400? But...it doesn't make sense any other way. Surely if 42,000 people (A little over 1/100th of the US population) are hospitalized each year out of 100,000,000 (33.3 percent of the US Population) the Government won't do anything. Right? RIGHT?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/health/01fda.html?em
Read it, I'll wait.
Yeah. And for the record if 400 people die per year that is a little over 1/1000th of the U.S. Population that the panel recommends the FDA work furiously to save at the cost of inconveniencing the one out of every 3 Americans that statistically need the pills every year. Oh, and that one hundred million only applies specifically to Vicodin and its' generics, not Percocet (one of the other most popular pain killers in the world) and Tylenol (which needs no explanation).
As you no doubt read (seriously, I waited for you) they recommend (in addition to banning Vicodin and Percocet) lowering the maximum pill size from 500 to 325 milligrams, and lowering the maximum daily dosage to under 4,000 milligrams. Ok, fine, let us suppose that .0001 percent of the population getting themselves killed is worth the million dollars the panel spent on this and the disruption of pain management of a third of the country. But lowering the maximum dosage seems to me to lead to a scenario, which I hope you will follow me on.
Scenario 1) John J. Johnson (the J. stands for Joshua, not John) has a headache that feels like Dwarves of Norse Legend are fashioning an incredibly tiny Mjolnir inside his cerebellum, and he wishes to serve them a pharmacalogical eviction notice. He used to take two 500 milligram pills to get 1000 and subdue them. Now he looks at the bottle and realizes that it has been lowered, so instead he takes three, which gives him 975 milligrams. So the FDA has made him waste another pill and lowered his risk of overdosing by...25 milligrams. Now I don't have the numbers here, but according to the Parker Institute of Common Sense and Outright Fabrications, 25 milligrams doesn't seem to be a major overdose risk. Marilyn Monroe did not sit on the floor looking at the pills and saying 'Damn, 25 mg over...' Especially since everyone knows Robert Kennedy strangled her with a garrote made of 100 dollar bills.
Between myself, Dad, Andrew and Spike we necessitate 8 other people not taking Vicodin each year, as we are proscribed acetomenaphin medications for our head, shoulders, knees and toes. I am not sure what I would have done for my initial gout attacks if I hadn't had a pain killer, so maybe I'm a little bit sensitive on the subject, and maybe I'm being greedy as one of the 33 instead of the .00013. But damn, I want my drugs, and I don't have the money to start up an import business of the stuff from Thailand to get in before any sort of ban picks up. If I get back to the states and get a gout attack and I have to settle for 325 milligrams of tylenol and a fond wish from the government, I might have to research if throttling people to death due to lack of acetamenophin would help raise the fatality number.
God I love this picture.
or
Reverse Utilitarianism
The philosophy of utilitarianism says that you should strive to do good for the greatest number of people possible in a situation. It is the classic Spock in Wrath of Khan philosophy, that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. He goes in to the reactor to satisfy the needs of the writers, who outnumber him, to have an easy hook for a sequel.
And this generally makes sense. When presented with equal chances of victory a General will go with a plan that gets 10 people killed rather than 10,000, or even 10 over 100. We expect that in any situation some people will not benefit, and that we should generally go with situations that minimize harm and maximize benefit.
So the FDA is considering limiting the dosages available for the drug acetomenaphin. If this sounds familiar that is because it is what makes major painkillers from Tylenol to Vicodin tick. Currently available in a maximum dosage of 500 milligrams pure, it can be combined with other drugs to make the super painkillers vicodin and percocet.
So following the philosophy of utilitarianism, an FDA panel looked at usage (in perscriptions and purchases) versus people killed/admitted to hospitals each year due to overdose on acetomenaphin. The numbers are 42,000, 400 and 100,000,000+ respectively, and I want you to match each number to it's category, given the knowledge that the panel voted to ban vicodin and percocet, and limit acetomenaphin dosage.
You would think the government would only do such a thing if the numbers went thusly:
1) 400 killed
2) 100,000,000 hospitalized
3) 42,000 number of prescriptions.
But that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, how can more people be hospitalized than take the drug, and if something is hospitalizing 1 in 3 Americans how is it only killing 400? But...it doesn't make sense any other way. Surely if 42,000 people (A little over 1/100th of the US population) are hospitalized each year out of 100,000,000 (33.3 percent of the US Population) the Government won't do anything. Right? RIGHT?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/health/01fda.html?em
Read it, I'll wait.
Yeah. And for the record if 400 people die per year that is a little over 1/1000th of the U.S. Population that the panel recommends the FDA work furiously to save at the cost of inconveniencing the one out of every 3 Americans that statistically need the pills every year. Oh, and that one hundred million only applies specifically to Vicodin and its' generics, not Percocet (one of the other most popular pain killers in the world) and Tylenol (which needs no explanation).
As you no doubt read (seriously, I waited for you) they recommend (in addition to banning Vicodin and Percocet) lowering the maximum pill size from 500 to 325 milligrams, and lowering the maximum daily dosage to under 4,000 milligrams. Ok, fine, let us suppose that .0001 percent of the population getting themselves killed is worth the million dollars the panel spent on this and the disruption of pain management of a third of the country. But lowering the maximum dosage seems to me to lead to a scenario, which I hope you will follow me on.
Scenario 1) John J. Johnson (the J. stands for Joshua, not John) has a headache that feels like Dwarves of Norse Legend are fashioning an incredibly tiny Mjolnir inside his cerebellum, and he wishes to serve them a pharmacalogical eviction notice. He used to take two 500 milligram pills to get 1000 and subdue them. Now he looks at the bottle and realizes that it has been lowered, so instead he takes three, which gives him 975 milligrams. So the FDA has made him waste another pill and lowered his risk of overdosing by...25 milligrams. Now I don't have the numbers here, but according to the Parker Institute of Common Sense and Outright Fabrications, 25 milligrams doesn't seem to be a major overdose risk. Marilyn Monroe did not sit on the floor looking at the pills and saying 'Damn, 25 mg over...' Especially since everyone knows Robert Kennedy strangled her with a garrote made of 100 dollar bills.
Between myself, Dad, Andrew and Spike we necessitate 8 other people not taking Vicodin each year, as we are proscribed acetomenaphin medications for our head, shoulders, knees and toes. I am not sure what I would have done for my initial gout attacks if I hadn't had a pain killer, so maybe I'm a little bit sensitive on the subject, and maybe I'm being greedy as one of the 33 instead of the .00013. But damn, I want my drugs, and I don't have the money to start up an import business of the stuff from Thailand to get in before any sort of ban picks up. If I get back to the states and get a gout attack and I have to settle for 325 milligrams of tylenol and a fond wish from the government, I might have to research if throttling people to death due to lack of acetamenophin would help raise the fatality number.
God I love this picture.Tuesday, June 23, 2009
De-Laosing 2: Home Sickle
My two times in to the country now it has struck me that Laos seems to have a very specialized industry. While it is true that a lot of countries rely on tourism to support them, Laos seems to have carved a very specialized niche for itself: It caters to the Visa run. As the closest foreign country to Bangkok according to maps I may not have looked at too closely, it seems like the number one reason why anyone goes to Vientiane is so they can go back to Bangkok for a while longer yet.
Laos is an interesting country. In people and food it is so mingled with Thailand and the Thais to be fairly indistinguishable, the two people (and languages and foods) sharing common ancestry among the Khmer and later Kingdoms. Vientiane could be a spruced up Thai city in one of the provinces, large but certainly not Bangkok. There is an almost charming feel of having not left...
Ok, so there might be a couple of differences.
One gets to Vientiane from Bangkok one of several ways. Driving, whether in one's own automobile or in a bus (which I did the second time), taking the train from Hualampung Station in the city, or flying out of Suvarnabhumi airport. This also ends the spelling test preparation, make sure you took notes and have studied the words for Friday.
The first time I went I took a 2nd Class sleeper train, which left the station at 8 PM. On a 2nd Class sleeper train you sit on seats normally until you (or the other person you share a berth with) want to sleep, at which point the magic happens. The two seats fold together and get a mattress over them to form the lower berth, and the top one pops out of a compartment on the ceiling. Maybe all sleeper trains are this magical, this is the only one I've been on as an adult. Magic I sadly do not have a picture of.
But I do have a picture of the train so you can get an idea of the layout I'm talking about. Which is really necessary, unless you generally know what a train looks like and having a fairly good imagination. Ok, so entirely unnecessary, but still: Photo time.
Picture Related. Haha.
My two times in to the country now it has struck me that Laos seems to have a very specialized industry. While it is true that a lot of countries rely on tourism to support them, Laos seems to have carved a very specialized niche for itself: It caters to the Visa run. As the closest foreign country to Bangkok according to maps I may not have looked at too closely, it seems like the number one reason why anyone goes to Vientiane is so they can go back to Bangkok for a while longer yet.
Laos is an interesting country. In people and food it is so mingled with Thailand and the Thais to be fairly indistinguishable, the two people (and languages and foods) sharing common ancestry among the Khmer and later Kingdoms. Vientiane could be a spruced up Thai city in one of the provinces, large but certainly not Bangkok. There is an almost charming feel of having not left...
Ok, so there might be a couple of differences.
One gets to Vientiane from Bangkok one of several ways. Driving, whether in one's own automobile or in a bus (which I did the second time), taking the train from Hualampung Station in the city, or flying out of Suvarnabhumi airport. This also ends the spelling test preparation, make sure you took notes and have studied the words for Friday.
The first time I went I took a 2nd Class sleeper train, which left the station at 8 PM. On a 2nd Class sleeper train you sit on seats normally until you (or the other person you share a berth with) want to sleep, at which point the magic happens. The two seats fold together and get a mattress over them to form the lower berth, and the top one pops out of a compartment on the ceiling. Maybe all sleeper trains are this magical, this is the only one I've been on as an adult. Magic I sadly do not have a picture of.
But I do have a picture of the train so you can get an idea of the layout I'm talking about. Which is really necessary, unless you generally know what a train looks like and having a fairly good imagination. Ok, so entirely unnecessary, but still: Photo time.
Picture Related. Haha.In that picture you can see a guy from England whose name I forgot in blue, and a hot Canadian who didn't seem particularly interested in talking to me in the red shirt. So, being barred from hitting on the hot Canadian or her friend (apparently Canadians, like Geese, travel to warmer climes in flocks), I instead drank beers with the Brits.
They were a hoot, and the evening passed well. What would ultimately cause my second trip out was the two hours we spent waiting at one stop, doing nothing except...waiting. Daring eachother to walk across the tracks to the 7-11...and waiting more. We were told we were waiting for passengers, which I feel fairly unaccountable unless the passengers were Jesus and Buddha coming back from an all night bender. Given the unlikelihood, I think there must have been another reason unknown to us.
When you pull in to the border town of Nong Khai you then make your way to the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge (or the Lao-Thai FB, depending on the side), which is exactly what it says on the tin: A bridge across the Mekong river. You get your passport stamped on the Thai side, and then arrange taxi or take the shuttle across the border in to Laos.
The Mekong is not an unimpressive river to say the least, and that picture was actually snapped on the way back to Thailand (in the interest of full disclosure), not having been in a position to get a good picture going across the first time. Once in to Laos you go to Lao Immigration where you pay them 1,500 baht (40 bucks) to get in to the country for up to a month, plus one dollar (35 baht) if you are not there between 8 AM and 4 PM. If you are actually staying a month 40(41) dollars doesn't seem bad, but for three days it seemed somewhat excessive.
You then drive in to the city, and are at liberty. It takes 2 business days to get a Visa, you drop off morning A and pick it up afternoon B, and that was the problem with waiting two hours for Jesus and Buddha's All Night Party Train: We didn't get in before they stopped taking Passports for Visas that morning.
Like many formerly colonial countries Vietnam has a great deal of foreign heritage still left in it. A part of French-Indochina before they gained their independence, they have a great lingual legacy still lingering in their streets and avenues. The palace for the former French representative is now owned by the state, and the street signs come language enabled for your convenience.
Hos in different Country Codes...
My French classes come in handy.
They were a hoot, and the evening passed well. What would ultimately cause my second trip out was the two hours we spent waiting at one stop, doing nothing except...waiting. Daring eachother to walk across the tracks to the 7-11...and waiting more. We were told we were waiting for passengers, which I feel fairly unaccountable unless the passengers were Jesus and Buddha coming back from an all night bender. Given the unlikelihood, I think there must have been another reason unknown to us.
When you pull in to the border town of Nong Khai you then make your way to the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge (or the Lao-Thai FB, depending on the side), which is exactly what it says on the tin: A bridge across the Mekong river. You get your passport stamped on the Thai side, and then arrange taxi or take the shuttle across the border in to Laos.
The Mekong is not an unimpressive river to say the least, and that picture was actually snapped on the way back to Thailand (in the interest of full disclosure), not having been in a position to get a good picture going across the first time. Once in to Laos you go to Lao Immigration where you pay them 1,500 baht (40 bucks) to get in to the country for up to a month, plus one dollar (35 baht) if you are not there between 8 AM and 4 PM. If you are actually staying a month 40(41) dollars doesn't seem bad, but for three days it seemed somewhat excessive.
You then drive in to the city, and are at liberty. It takes 2 business days to get a Visa, you drop off morning A and pick it up afternoon B, and that was the problem with waiting two hours for Jesus and Buddha's All Night Party Train: We didn't get in before they stopped taking Passports for Visas that morning.
Like many formerly colonial countries Vietnam has a great deal of foreign heritage still left in it. A part of French-Indochina before they gained their independence, they have a great lingual legacy still lingering in their streets and avenues. The palace for the former French representative is now owned by the state, and the street signs come language enabled for your convenience.
Hos in different Country Codes...
My French classes come in handy.This also comes out in the food. This is the view of Nam Phou, the city Fountain, from the view of Le Provencal, a very lovely French/Italian fusion kind of restaurant right on the fountain square.
And this is a view of the Fountain itself.
Of course, that is not to say that there is not Asian heritage or blood running through Vientiane's streets. As with the other countries in the region Monks walking down the streets are not uncommon, and the temples are also major tourist attractions. Ho Phra Keo is a temple, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, although the Emerald Buddha was taken back (re: swiped) by Thailand some centuries ago and now resides in Bangkok's Wat Phra Kaew. I have been there, I went with Nathan, but unfortunately like many major Buddhist relics it is considered rude to snap pictures of said viridian enlightened one.
Also, a quick primer on Buddhism. If I say 'Buddha', what do you think of. If you answered 'a rotund gentleman, frequently in gold, who does not look like he has ever starved himself let alone done so until the secrets of the Universe were revealed'...
The Good Life
Then I have bad news for you. The fat guys are totally different Bodhisatvas, enlightened ones. The real Buddha is not a chubby grinning man, he is a much more wise looking skinny fellow of an Indian aspect...
Who is not afraid to show off a little bit of nipple. Now Buddha is a big part of Southeast Asia, and they are a little bit less shy about showing him than Christians. Which seems remarkable, given Churches do not exactly shy away from the Iconography. But one of the temples in Vientiane, Wat Sisaket, puts them to shame. It is like the International Headquarters of Iconographical Overload (IHIO? So close to a functional acronym).
Consider the following picture:
Now first off, yes they have dressed that Buddha. One of the ways in which Buddhists (at least in this area) make merit (good deeds for good karma) is to play Buddha Dream House with the statues and clothe them, and leave them offerings (as the bottle of Guiness two posts ago). But pay attention to the nooks behind them: Each one contains two smaller Buddhas, just kind of hanging out. Now take a look at this:
Now imagine the whole temple, every outside wall, covered in the big Buddhas and the small Buddhas in the nooks. Rather than make you try to torture though the math, I'll give you the approximate figures from Wat Sisaket themselves:
In ur templez, Enlightening ur peoplez
10,136 Buddhas all chilling out in one place, staring at one another and hi-fiving when no one is looking. Think they're a little Buddhist?
And this is a view of the Fountain itself.
Of course, that is not to say that there is not Asian heritage or blood running through Vientiane's streets. As with the other countries in the region Monks walking down the streets are not uncommon, and the temples are also major tourist attractions. Ho Phra Keo is a temple, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, although the Emerald Buddha was taken back (re: swiped) by Thailand some centuries ago and now resides in Bangkok's Wat Phra Kaew. I have been there, I went with Nathan, but unfortunately like many major Buddhist relics it is considered rude to snap pictures of said viridian enlightened one.Also, a quick primer on Buddhism. If I say 'Buddha', what do you think of. If you answered 'a rotund gentleman, frequently in gold, who does not look like he has ever starved himself let alone done so until the secrets of the Universe were revealed'...
The Good LifeThen I have bad news for you. The fat guys are totally different Bodhisatvas, enlightened ones. The real Buddha is not a chubby grinning man, he is a much more wise looking skinny fellow of an Indian aspect...
Who is not afraid to show off a little bit of nipple. Now Buddha is a big part of Southeast Asia, and they are a little bit less shy about showing him than Christians. Which seems remarkable, given Churches do not exactly shy away from the Iconography. But one of the temples in Vientiane, Wat Sisaket, puts them to shame. It is like the International Headquarters of Iconographical Overload (IHIO? So close to a functional acronym).
Consider the following picture:
Now first off, yes they have dressed that Buddha. One of the ways in which Buddhists (at least in this area) make merit (good deeds for good karma) is to play Buddha Dream House with the statues and clothe them, and leave them offerings (as the bottle of Guiness two posts ago). But pay attention to the nooks behind them: Each one contains two smaller Buddhas, just kind of hanging out. Now take a look at this:
Now imagine the whole temple, every outside wall, covered in the big Buddhas and the small Buddhas in the nooks. Rather than make you try to torture though the math, I'll give you the approximate figures from Wat Sisaket themselves:
In ur templez, Enlightening ur peoplez10,136 Buddhas all chilling out in one place, staring at one another and hi-fiving when no one is looking. Think they're a little Buddhist?
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Absolutely Killing Me
or
An Interlude of Politics
Before I go any further let me first establish my liberal credentials. I voted for Kerry in 2004, I voted for Obama in 2008, and I have never voted for a Republican in a local, municipal or national race. I donated money to Howard Dean in 2004, and then Obama this last year. I was at the DNC when he gave his speech, and I was moved when he won in November.
I think that George W. Bush was one of the worst Presidents in recent memory, and I disagree with the stated platforms of the current incarnation of the Republican party. I am pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and pro-welfare. I believe in the truly conservative value of the government not being able to tell me who I can or can't have sex with, not being able to tell me I have to pray in school or listen to prayers, and not being able to post any kind of religion in any kind of state building. I opposed George Bush's policies on almost every front, except for the one time I applauded him: When he raised veteran's benefits and made that change retroactive to the beginning of the invasion of Afghanistan.
So I cannot tell you how angry I am at my fellow liberals at the moment because they put me in the very awkward position of having to defend the man. But here I go:
If I hear one more person whine on the internet about how the Iranian Presidential Election scandal is exactly the same as the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election, I am going to have to open up a can of Grade A Whoop-Ass, ok?
Told you it was Grade A
I was as pissed as anyone when the Supreme Court handed down a ruling in Bush v Gore. I felt like the election had been stolen, like the voices of the American people had been silenced by cronyism and vote buying, like fraud and corruption had replaced freedom and democracy as the catch words of the American Republic.
But let us all look to Iran and realize that we didn't, even for a moment, know what a stolen election looked like. It's like when you get your first tooth ache and think there is no pain greater than this, and then you get your wisdom teeth out and realize you were wrong. And then you get shot, and realize that once again you had no idea what you were talking about. But the 2000 U.S. Election is not the tooth ache to Iran's being shot; it is the paper cut to Iran's being hit by a bus after being shot.
At the end of the day the 2000 election still came down to the corrupting of 500,000 votes in one state. George Bush by himself, with only the regular corruption inherent in politics, managed to get 50 million, four hundred fifty six thousand and two people to vote for him on nothing more than his own dubious credentials. Out of roughly one hundred million voters, any fraud or coercion in our election came down to half of a percentage point of the total number of voters in the election.
Estimates vary in Iran right now as to the spread of the corruption, influence or lies with the official party line of course being that there were none. However a large number of scholars and journalists have come out and made varying estimates. One estimate, from a professor at the University of Hawaii, estimates that the numbers could be off by something like six million votes, our of a total voting population of 38 million. That is over 15 percent of the total votes cast, if they are true.
In the weeks leading up to the election there had also been campaigns of direct and possibly targeted censorship, which many charge were at the directive of the Government. Wikipedia cites Al Jazeera English charging that the Iranian government forced them to " change their editorials or their main headlines". The BBC had a reporter arrested and his files stolen, and several other nations suffered similar harrasment to their press and correspondents working in Tehran.
Furthermore the government cracked down on sites such as Facebook, which the opposition parties were using to form rallies and protests to gather support for the election. Once again from the inimitable Wikipedia: "On 13 June 2009, when thousands of opposition supporters clashed with the police, Facebook was filtered again...mobile phone services inluding text messaging also stopped or became very difficult to use. Specifically, all websites affiliated with the BBC were shut off, as were ones with The Guardian. The Associated Press labeled the actions "ominous measures apparently seeking to undercut liberal voices." The restrictions were likely intended to precent Mousavi's supporters from organizing large-scale protests."
This is in addition to the already standard censorship in Iran, where anything related to 'counter-revolutionary' ideas (democracy, women's rights, freedom of religion, words you can make from the letters in Ahmadinejad) are routinely deleted or forced to change. In the 1980s a death sentence was given for the creators of a radio program in which a female caller said she most idolized a Japanese soap star, rather than the daughter of Mohammed. So this is not a country that is new to censorship, which makes these acts even more blaring. And most ominously Ahmadinejad said about the protests over the censorship: ""[d]on't worry about freedom in Iran... Newspapers come and go and reappear. Don't worry about it."
I genuinely feel like the voices of a lot of Americans were left out during the 2000 U.S. Presidential Elections, and I genuinely feel that there were a lot of wrong decisions made and terrible consequences that came from them. We were left worse off for the election, in my opinion, and it cast a shadow of illegitimacy over our government and even made it's way to the forefront during the 2004 election. An election was decided by the courts, not the people, and that is never a great situation.
And yet they were decided within the bounds of the law and the Constitution of the United States. In the end the merits and flaws were debated over by scholars, and the men charged to be independent of their parties in the interpretation of our laws; and while I may not agree with the decision, I do not doubt that they were the legitimate source to decide it. I disagree with the interpretation, not the interpreters. While the election might have been given away and might have damaged our nation, we can not say it was stolen.
A stolen election is 15 percent of the votes disappearing or changing sides. A stolen election is when the government decides to keep itself in power, and violently suppress opposition to that move. A stolen election is when any media source that dares to side with the opposition is silenced, blacked out, or arrested. We had no concept of what a stolen election looked like in America, and we still have only ever maybe had the one (the Corrupt Bargain that ended Reconstruction).
So dammit Liberals, don't ever put me in this position again. George Bush did not steal the 2000 election, he blundered his way in to the Oval Office. And Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not a George Bush that speaks Farsi, he is an entirely different animal. Let us not sully our own politics and our own history with the comparison, and let us not be so blind to the realities of the world and the suffering of our brothers and sisters a world a way.
And please, please don't ever make me defend George W. Bush again, alright? I'm wearing a red shirt today and defending George W. Bush and it just doesn't feel right. And if you make me do it again, you know what I'll have to do.
or
An Interlude of Politics
Before I go any further let me first establish my liberal credentials. I voted for Kerry in 2004, I voted for Obama in 2008, and I have never voted for a Republican in a local, municipal or national race. I donated money to Howard Dean in 2004, and then Obama this last year. I was at the DNC when he gave his speech, and I was moved when he won in November.
I think that George W. Bush was one of the worst Presidents in recent memory, and I disagree with the stated platforms of the current incarnation of the Republican party. I am pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and pro-welfare. I believe in the truly conservative value of the government not being able to tell me who I can or can't have sex with, not being able to tell me I have to pray in school or listen to prayers, and not being able to post any kind of religion in any kind of state building. I opposed George Bush's policies on almost every front, except for the one time I applauded him: When he raised veteran's benefits and made that change retroactive to the beginning of the invasion of Afghanistan.
So I cannot tell you how angry I am at my fellow liberals at the moment because they put me in the very awkward position of having to defend the man. But here I go:
If I hear one more person whine on the internet about how the Iranian Presidential Election scandal is exactly the same as the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election, I am going to have to open up a can of Grade A Whoop-Ass, ok?
Told you it was Grade AI was as pissed as anyone when the Supreme Court handed down a ruling in Bush v Gore. I felt like the election had been stolen, like the voices of the American people had been silenced by cronyism and vote buying, like fraud and corruption had replaced freedom and democracy as the catch words of the American Republic.
But let us all look to Iran and realize that we didn't, even for a moment, know what a stolen election looked like. It's like when you get your first tooth ache and think there is no pain greater than this, and then you get your wisdom teeth out and realize you were wrong. And then you get shot, and realize that once again you had no idea what you were talking about. But the 2000 U.S. Election is not the tooth ache to Iran's being shot; it is the paper cut to Iran's being hit by a bus after being shot.
At the end of the day the 2000 election still came down to the corrupting of 500,000 votes in one state. George Bush by himself, with only the regular corruption inherent in politics, managed to get 50 million, four hundred fifty six thousand and two people to vote for him on nothing more than his own dubious credentials. Out of roughly one hundred million voters, any fraud or coercion in our election came down to half of a percentage point of the total number of voters in the election.
Estimates vary in Iran right now as to the spread of the corruption, influence or lies with the official party line of course being that there were none. However a large number of scholars and journalists have come out and made varying estimates. One estimate, from a professor at the University of Hawaii, estimates that the numbers could be off by something like six million votes, our of a total voting population of 38 million. That is over 15 percent of the total votes cast, if they are true.
In the weeks leading up to the election there had also been campaigns of direct and possibly targeted censorship, which many charge were at the directive of the Government. Wikipedia cites Al Jazeera English charging that the Iranian government forced them to " change their editorials or their main headlines". The BBC had a reporter arrested and his files stolen, and several other nations suffered similar harrasment to their press and correspondents working in Tehran.
Furthermore the government cracked down on sites such as Facebook, which the opposition parties were using to form rallies and protests to gather support for the election. Once again from the inimitable Wikipedia: "On 13 June 2009, when thousands of opposition supporters clashed with the police, Facebook was filtered again...mobile phone services inluding text messaging also stopped or became very difficult to use. Specifically, all websites affiliated with the BBC were shut off, as were ones with The Guardian. The Associated Press labeled the actions "ominous measures apparently seeking to undercut liberal voices." The restrictions were likely intended to precent Mousavi's supporters from organizing large-scale protests."
This is in addition to the already standard censorship in Iran, where anything related to 'counter-revolutionary' ideas (democracy, women's rights, freedom of religion, words you can make from the letters in Ahmadinejad) are routinely deleted or forced to change. In the 1980s a death sentence was given for the creators of a radio program in which a female caller said she most idolized a Japanese soap star, rather than the daughter of Mohammed. So this is not a country that is new to censorship, which makes these acts even more blaring. And most ominously Ahmadinejad said about the protests over the censorship: ""[d]on't worry about freedom in Iran... Newspapers come and go and reappear. Don't worry about it."
I genuinely feel like the voices of a lot of Americans were left out during the 2000 U.S. Presidential Elections, and I genuinely feel that there were a lot of wrong decisions made and terrible consequences that came from them. We were left worse off for the election, in my opinion, and it cast a shadow of illegitimacy over our government and even made it's way to the forefront during the 2004 election. An election was decided by the courts, not the people, and that is never a great situation.
And yet they were decided within the bounds of the law and the Constitution of the United States. In the end the merits and flaws were debated over by scholars, and the men charged to be independent of their parties in the interpretation of our laws; and while I may not agree with the decision, I do not doubt that they were the legitimate source to decide it. I disagree with the interpretation, not the interpreters. While the election might have been given away and might have damaged our nation, we can not say it was stolen.
A stolen election is 15 percent of the votes disappearing or changing sides. A stolen election is when the government decides to keep itself in power, and violently suppress opposition to that move. A stolen election is when any media source that dares to side with the opposition is silenced, blacked out, or arrested. We had no concept of what a stolen election looked like in America, and we still have only ever maybe had the one (the Corrupt Bargain that ended Reconstruction).
So dammit Liberals, don't ever put me in this position again. George Bush did not steal the 2000 election, he blundered his way in to the Oval Office. And Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not a George Bush that speaks Farsi, he is an entirely different animal. Let us not sully our own politics and our own history with the comparison, and let us not be so blind to the realities of the world and the suffering of our brothers and sisters a world a way.
And please, please don't ever make me defend George W. Bush again, alright? I'm wearing a red shirt today and defending George W. Bush and it just doesn't feel right. And if you make me do it again, you know what I'll have to do.
De-Laosing Part 1: Penang
Ok, so I did manage to get one more Laos joke out of the way, but I really do think I am spent now. So here are more pictures, although I still haven't gotten around to doing New Year's Eve in Bangkok yet. That will either be later this week or next, and I apologize for the anachronistic order. Fortunately a large number of my readers are comfortable with anachronisms. Har har.
But first...on February 25th I had to do my first Visa run, and rather than doing the normal destinations of Vientiane (Laos) or Phnom Penh (Cambodia), I found a special on Air Asia for round trip tickets to Penang, one of the major cities in Malaysia. I figured I would have ample opportunity to visit Laos (which I now have, excessively) and Cambodia later. So I hopped on a plane and winged my way to the island of Penang.
Malaysia was a fascinating trip. Like most of the other areas in Asia that had been colonies to Western powers it is an intriguing mix of cultures and histories co-existing. On one street through Georgetown, which is the capital of the island, there are two Mosques, an Anglican Church and a Chinese clan/spirit house. Proximity to China, the English colonization and the fact that according to the government all ethnic Malays are Muslim lead us to a fascinating confluence of cultures.
Of course one of the fun things about going anywhere outside of the U.S. or England is having fun with local signs translated into English. Of course there are no doubt blogs out there with people from Mexico laughing at the warning sings in Spanish we have posted in the U.S., so it all tends to balance out in the end I suppose.
I don't have any pictures of my hotel room, because it's kind of what I like to call 'Generic Cheap Chic'. Four white walls, a fan and an ugly bedspread is all it takes to get me in for the night when I'm on the road. One of the delightful benefits of being 23 is that without a significant other or child to plan for I can just book in to a cheap shack and be out the next morning to get the show on the road. Of course sometimes morning means 11 AM...but that is still morning, darn it.
I also don't have any pictures of the Thai Consulate because...yeah. The Consular section was boring, and they don't let you in to the pretty parts. So after spending Thursday morning getting my Passport submitted for a Visa, I went to play the part of the tourist. First off I hit the Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi, the Khoo family Clan House. It is quiet, with a sort of restrained elegance, a subtle air about it.
Uh...
Or not. It is pretty awesome, though. If your clan's spirits are going to live there for all eternity and watch over you and their other descendants, you might as well bling up the place. This is the Chinese Buddhist equivalent of spinning rims and big gold electroplated crosses. Penang, gangster style.
It is pretty impressive, however. Part temple, part shrine and part booster club, it also serves as part graveyard. Tucked away in one of the other buildings to one side of the Palace de Bling up above, is the memorial to past members of the family.
And here is a close-up on them:
It is actually very interesting to be in. You pay 5 Malaysian Ringitt to get in (about $1.50), which does give it a mildly mercenary feeling, but there is a lot of history here. Some interesting paintings that were too large to get any kind of good snapshot of, shrines and pictures and incense to be lit and all sorts of history going on in the building.
The Eight Immortals
One of the most unique buildings I have been in, and I am quickly racking up unique buildings.
Next I went to a couple of mosques. As I said there were two on the street that the Khoo Spirit house and the Anglican church. I didn't get too many pictures of the first one because it was not architecturally interesting. I walked up to a gate and let myself in to this small mosque on the end of the street, and the two old men inside paid me absolutely no notice. They wandered around for a bit, and then went to sleep. I took this as a sign that it was ok to explore, rather than that this tubby white boy wandering around was so boring as to drop them in to a coma.
Part of the Muslim service involves ritual cleaning before prayer, and mosques have pools set up for the faithful to do this in (segregated in to different pools for men and women). This is the pool at the first mosque.
The second mosque I went to was advertised on WikiTravel and in local pamphlets as being the mosque that handles tourists, a must see to stop by on the way so I went to do so. I managed to get one good picture, and about only one good picture. Not because it wasn't architecturally interesting, however.
I thought that was a particularly compelling and interesting feature to be set up in the windows of a mosque. You can't see it, but those windows wrap all the way around a kind of central dome raised from the roof of the mosque. From memory I would say there were about sixteen of the windows, sixteen green tinted Star of David windows letting in light to Penang's premier mosque.
Now I did say that I only got the one picture, and not because of a lack of interesting architecture. I only got the one picture because shortly after taking it I was very politely thrown out of the mosque. Apparently the central area that I was traipsing through is reserved only for muslims at this locale. I later found a tour through the rest of the mosque, but I can still say that I have been escorted out of a mosque which is fun. It is also interesting that the tourist mosque wouldn't let me wander around willy nilly and had a security guard, but the out of the way 'non tourist' one had two sleeping men who didn't care enough to not take a nap about my wanderings. Life is fun.
So then I wandered down to the Anglican church. The oldest Anglican church in South-East Asia (which seems, upon reflection, to be similar to claiming to be the richest white Jew in my apartment building, but sounds more impressive), it was...church-shaped and surprisingly boring. For a church that came out of decades of bloody fighting and on the backs of several decapitated Queens (Crown, not drag) they seemed to stick to pretty austere buildings.
After this I did stop by a couple of Buddhist temples, in a couple of different locations. My apartment was right in Chinatown, so I was literally next door to one and there were several on the street that included the mosque and the church.
One of the unique aspects to Buddhism, which it shares with animistic religions, is the nature of the offerings to Buddhe/the spirits. While Jews once sacrificed bulls in the temple and Christians and Muslims give to charity and donate to the church for spiritual means, Buddhist offerings different. They are actually concerned with giving the Buddha or their ancestors comforts from the real world, things that they would have appreciated while they were here. Offerings of food are common, in case they got hungry I suppose.
But at the Buddhist temple right next to my hotel I saw the best thing ever. I almost converted on the spot right there, simply on the promise that someday one of my descendants might leave me this offering, to help ease my soul in the afterlife and let me know that they were thinking of me. It was a religious experience. It stood there like some kind of divine artifact, drawing me in.
Yeah baby. I think I'm a convert.
Ok, so I did manage to get one more Laos joke out of the way, but I really do think I am spent now. So here are more pictures, although I still haven't gotten around to doing New Year's Eve in Bangkok yet. That will either be later this week or next, and I apologize for the anachronistic order. Fortunately a large number of my readers are comfortable with anachronisms. Har har.
But first...on February 25th I had to do my first Visa run, and rather than doing the normal destinations of Vientiane (Laos) or Phnom Penh (Cambodia), I found a special on Air Asia for round trip tickets to Penang, one of the major cities in Malaysia. I figured I would have ample opportunity to visit Laos (which I now have, excessively) and Cambodia later. So I hopped on a plane and winged my way to the island of Penang.
Malaysia was a fascinating trip. Like most of the other areas in Asia that had been colonies to Western powers it is an intriguing mix of cultures and histories co-existing. On one street through Georgetown, which is the capital of the island, there are two Mosques, an Anglican Church and a Chinese clan/spirit house. Proximity to China, the English colonization and the fact that according to the government all ethnic Malays are Muslim lead us to a fascinating confluence of cultures.
Of course one of the fun things about going anywhere outside of the U.S. or England is having fun with local signs translated into English. Of course there are no doubt blogs out there with people from Mexico laughing at the warning sings in Spanish we have posted in the U.S., so it all tends to balance out in the end I suppose.
I don't have any pictures of my hotel room, because it's kind of what I like to call 'Generic Cheap Chic'. Four white walls, a fan and an ugly bedspread is all it takes to get me in for the night when I'm on the road. One of the delightful benefits of being 23 is that without a significant other or child to plan for I can just book in to a cheap shack and be out the next morning to get the show on the road. Of course sometimes morning means 11 AM...but that is still morning, darn it.
I also don't have any pictures of the Thai Consulate because...yeah. The Consular section was boring, and they don't let you in to the pretty parts. So after spending Thursday morning getting my Passport submitted for a Visa, I went to play the part of the tourist. First off I hit the Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi, the Khoo family Clan House. It is quiet, with a sort of restrained elegance, a subtle air about it.
Uh...
Or not. It is pretty awesome, though. If your clan's spirits are going to live there for all eternity and watch over you and their other descendants, you might as well bling up the place. This is the Chinese Buddhist equivalent of spinning rims and big gold electroplated crosses. Penang, gangster style.
It is pretty impressive, however. Part temple, part shrine and part booster club, it also serves as part graveyard. Tucked away in one of the other buildings to one side of the Palace de Bling up above, is the memorial to past members of the family.
And here is a close-up on them:
It is actually very interesting to be in. You pay 5 Malaysian Ringitt to get in (about $1.50), which does give it a mildly mercenary feeling, but there is a lot of history here. Some interesting paintings that were too large to get any kind of good snapshot of, shrines and pictures and incense to be lit and all sorts of history going on in the building.
The Eight Immortals
One of the most unique buildings I have been in, and I am quickly racking up unique buildings.
Next I went to a couple of mosques. As I said there were two on the street that the Khoo Spirit house and the Anglican church. I didn't get too many pictures of the first one because it was not architecturally interesting. I walked up to a gate and let myself in to this small mosque on the end of the street, and the two old men inside paid me absolutely no notice. They wandered around for a bit, and then went to sleep. I took this as a sign that it was ok to explore, rather than that this tubby white boy wandering around was so boring as to drop them in to a coma.
Part of the Muslim service involves ritual cleaning before prayer, and mosques have pools set up for the faithful to do this in (segregated in to different pools for men and women). This is the pool at the first mosque.
The second mosque I went to was advertised on WikiTravel and in local pamphlets as being the mosque that handles tourists, a must see to stop by on the way so I went to do so. I managed to get one good picture, and about only one good picture. Not because it wasn't architecturally interesting, however.
I thought that was a particularly compelling and interesting feature to be set up in the windows of a mosque. You can't see it, but those windows wrap all the way around a kind of central dome raised from the roof of the mosque. From memory I would say there were about sixteen of the windows, sixteen green tinted Star of David windows letting in light to Penang's premier mosque.
Now I did say that I only got the one picture, and not because of a lack of interesting architecture. I only got the one picture because shortly after taking it I was very politely thrown out of the mosque. Apparently the central area that I was traipsing through is reserved only for muslims at this locale. I later found a tour through the rest of the mosque, but I can still say that I have been escorted out of a mosque which is fun. It is also interesting that the tourist mosque wouldn't let me wander around willy nilly and had a security guard, but the out of the way 'non tourist' one had two sleeping men who didn't care enough to not take a nap about my wanderings. Life is fun.
So then I wandered down to the Anglican church. The oldest Anglican church in South-East Asia (which seems, upon reflection, to be similar to claiming to be the richest white Jew in my apartment building, but sounds more impressive), it was...church-shaped and surprisingly boring. For a church that came out of decades of bloody fighting and on the backs of several decapitated Queens (Crown, not drag) they seemed to stick to pretty austere buildings.
After this I did stop by a couple of Buddhist temples, in a couple of different locations. My apartment was right in Chinatown, so I was literally next door to one and there were several on the street that included the mosque and the church.
One of the unique aspects to Buddhism, which it shares with animistic religions, is the nature of the offerings to Buddhe/the spirits. While Jews once sacrificed bulls in the temple and Christians and Muslims give to charity and donate to the church for spiritual means, Buddhist offerings different. They are actually concerned with giving the Buddha or their ancestors comforts from the real world, things that they would have appreciated while they were here. Offerings of food are common, in case they got hungry I suppose.
But at the Buddhist temple right next to my hotel I saw the best thing ever. I almost converted on the spot right there, simply on the promise that someday one of my descendants might leave me this offering, to help ease my soul in the afterlife and let me know that they were thinking of me. It was a religious experience. It stood there like some kind of divine artifact, drawing me in.
Yeah baby. I think I'm a convert.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Unbe-lao-vable
Ok, I'm really stretching these name jokes aren't I. So I am safely ensconced in the Lao People's Democratic Republic. My hotel is neither the five minutes from the city center it promised nor does it have wifi, and the train was late so I couldn't get the Visa I wanted. Fortunately I can get the minimum Visa I need (30 days) and get an extension to last me until Ho Chi Minh City, where I can get a 3 month or (God willing) my one year multiple entry.
Coming from Bangkok, Vientiane is definitely sleepy like the guidebooks describe it. It is a fascinating contrast, I think. The taxi broke down on the way to my hotel, further guaranteeing I wouldn't make the cut off time for passports, and we waited an hour while he tried to fix it for another cab. In Bangkok I can be reasonably certain of walking no less than a block in most places and finding a cab more than happy to take over. In touristy places they are even playing my favorite game of 'Honk Honk', where I see how many taxis and tuk-tuks will honk at a white guy standing there in hopes of taking his money.
I'll post more about my Laos experiences when I get back to Bangkok Sunday morning, and post some pictures. Just wanted to let everyone know I am safe, and happy for varying definitions of happy, in Laos.
Matt
Uji
Ok, I'm really stretching these name jokes aren't I. So I am safely ensconced in the Lao People's Democratic Republic. My hotel is neither the five minutes from the city center it promised nor does it have wifi, and the train was late so I couldn't get the Visa I wanted. Fortunately I can get the minimum Visa I need (30 days) and get an extension to last me until Ho Chi Minh City, where I can get a 3 month or (God willing) my one year multiple entry.
Coming from Bangkok, Vientiane is definitely sleepy like the guidebooks describe it. It is a fascinating contrast, I think. The taxi broke down on the way to my hotel, further guaranteeing I wouldn't make the cut off time for passports, and we waited an hour while he tried to fix it for another cab. In Bangkok I can be reasonably certain of walking no less than a block in most places and finding a cab more than happy to take over. In touristy places they are even playing my favorite game of 'Honk Honk', where I see how many taxis and tuk-tuks will honk at a white guy standing there in hopes of taking his money.
I'll post more about my Laos experiences when I get back to Bangkok Sunday morning, and post some pictures. Just wanted to let everyone know I am safe, and happy for varying definitions of happy, in Laos.
Matt
Uji
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Look Out Be-Lao
By the time most of you read this Rontu and I will be on a 2nd Class Sleeper train bound for Nong Khai, the Thai town across the Mekong River from Laos. It is a 12 hour trip to Nong Khai approximately, taking us to the North-East of Thailand. From there I take a bus to Thai Immigration (Exit), then to Laos Immigration (Enter), and then take a tuk-tuk (three wheel open air taxi) for about twenty minutes into Vientiane. All told this costs me about 27 dollars (23 for the train ticket, 2 for the bus, 2 for the taxi). So...54 dollars round trip, plus another thirty for the hotel. My total cost for board and transport is then about 84 dollars to get to a foreign country and stay for a couple of days. Not too shabby.
I'll post info about Laos either when I get back or, if possible, while I'm there. Until then,
Excelsior,
Matt
Uji
By the time most of you read this Rontu and I will be on a 2nd Class Sleeper train bound for Nong Khai, the Thai town across the Mekong River from Laos. It is a 12 hour trip to Nong Khai approximately, taking us to the North-East of Thailand. From there I take a bus to Thai Immigration (Exit), then to Laos Immigration (Enter), and then take a tuk-tuk (three wheel open air taxi) for about twenty minutes into Vientiane. All told this costs me about 27 dollars (23 for the train ticket, 2 for the bus, 2 for the taxi). So...54 dollars round trip, plus another thirty for the hotel. My total cost for board and transport is then about 84 dollars to get to a foreign country and stay for a couple of days. Not too shabby.
I'll post info about Laos either when I get back or, if possible, while I'm there. Until then,
Excelsior,
Matt
Uji
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Lao-nging Around
or
Travels, Expected or Otherwise
Visa Run. The words are exciting and dynamic, they bring to mind vivid imagery of guns and women and fast cars and women and climactic kung fu battles on moving trains. And women. And now, once more, I get to take part in this wild adventure. So I provide, in case you wonder about my adventurous international lifestyle.
One suitcase, second hand.
Three pairs of underwear, fortunately not.
Three shirts, black red and purple.
Three pairs of pants, long. Since I have two legs, not suitable for shorts.
Two books, highly fictional.
One laptop, non-sartorial.
One AK-47, Russian made.
True story. Except for the gun. Yes, my Visa expires next Friday and so I am out to the charming Lao People's Republic next week, a Communist paradise amidst Communist paradises. Where the Mekong laps lazily at the river banks, the women are off limits to foreign men and the money is terrifyingly worthless (1 USD = 8,500 Lao Kip. They pretty much only take USD and Baht).
I am actually looking forward to my unexpected vacation, as Laos is one of the countries that I was looking to visit in my time here. Laos and Thailand have a long history of beating the tar out of each other, the kind of history only an almost shared language and background of marriages can produce. Vientiane, the capital, is also supposed to be a remarkable counterpoint to Bangkok, sleepy and quiet with remarkably little traffic as compared to Bangkok which is neither sleepy nor quiet, and can never be said to have little traffic.
So I am going to seize this opportunity to explore, even though it is spending money that would be going to my Vietnam trip. An opportunity to wander strange and exciting new streets is an opportunity to explore strange and exciting new streets, and I do not intend to look this gift horse in the mouth but ride it all the way out of this silly metaphor.
Excelsior,
Matt
Uji
P.S. So I will post pictures of Malaysia this weekend, and take pictures of Lao next week. I am going to try to be better about posting them, rather than waiting months and months. Which means my New Years Eve pics, the Semi Fabled Quasi-Mythical Second Picture Post, is forthcoming as well.
or
Travels, Expected or Otherwise
Visa Run. The words are exciting and dynamic, they bring to mind vivid imagery of guns and women and fast cars and women and climactic kung fu battles on moving trains. And women. And now, once more, I get to take part in this wild adventure. So I provide, in case you wonder about my adventurous international lifestyle.
One suitcase, second hand.
Three pairs of underwear, fortunately not.
Three shirts, black red and purple.
Three pairs of pants, long. Since I have two legs, not suitable for shorts.
Two books, highly fictional.
One laptop, non-sartorial.
One AK-47, Russian made.
True story. Except for the gun. Yes, my Visa expires next Friday and so I am out to the charming Lao People's Republic next week, a Communist paradise amidst Communist paradises. Where the Mekong laps lazily at the river banks, the women are off limits to foreign men and the money is terrifyingly worthless (1 USD = 8,500 Lao Kip. They pretty much only take USD and Baht).
I am actually looking forward to my unexpected vacation, as Laos is one of the countries that I was looking to visit in my time here. Laos and Thailand have a long history of beating the tar out of each other, the kind of history only an almost shared language and background of marriages can produce. Vientiane, the capital, is also supposed to be a remarkable counterpoint to Bangkok, sleepy and quiet with remarkably little traffic as compared to Bangkok which is neither sleepy nor quiet, and can never be said to have little traffic.
So I am going to seize this opportunity to explore, even though it is spending money that would be going to my Vietnam trip. An opportunity to wander strange and exciting new streets is an opportunity to explore strange and exciting new streets, and I do not intend to look this gift horse in the mouth but ride it all the way out of this silly metaphor.
Excelsior,
Matt
Uji
P.S. So I will post pictures of Malaysia this weekend, and take pictures of Lao next week. I am going to try to be better about posting them, rather than waiting months and months. Which means my New Years Eve pics, the Semi Fabled Quasi-Mythical Second Picture Post, is forthcoming as well.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
I am not sure that I can ever really have sympathy for the homeless people on street corners in America any more. Sure, they look scruffy and needy, some of them even manage to look thin like they haven’t eaten (or are living on a liquid diet). And so they stand there with signs proclaiming they need work, or they’re disabled, or that they just want to drink so we will give them a dollar. And we pass them by, with this little thought in our mind that it doesn’t get much worse than that, how humiliating.
Going in to the mall at Seacon Square today I passed a man with one arm begging on the street. I don’t mean he was missing an arm, I mean that was all he had: One arm, and zero legs. He didn’t need a sign, in any language, telling us what his problem was. I watched him taking the money from his cup and carefully putting it in his fanny pack, which rested on stumps just below his hips. He didn’t need to tell me what was wrong with his life, it was pretty obvious as I put 5 baht in his cup that he had issues that even drinking wouldn’t solve. Like getting back down the stairs; I’m not certain, he may sleep there.
We don’t have a comprehension of what poverty is in America, not the same way they have it out here. We think poverty and we think of the homeless people out on the streets, of shelters for women and children, of the occasional story buried in the back of a local newspaper about a hobo freezing to death. It is out of the way, we know where to avoid so we don’t have to see it and we avoid it. But there is no avoiding it out here.
It is the great paradox of Asia, or at least South/Southeast Asia, that you can walk five minutes from the gleaming metropolitan towers of Central World (Bangkok’s Mall of America, on crack) and see poverty the kind we really like to look away from. A ten minute drive can take you from shining spires of modern or post-modern elegance to veritable shantytowns by the riverside, where people live under sheets of metal that can only be called a house out of a sense of pity or a very loose definition of the word.
Ask someone what they think of when they think of Asia and they’ll likely think of spit shined opulence or teeming masses of sweltering humanity. And the people in one category want to go to Asia, and those in the other don’t want to go to Asia, each thinking the other is foolish. And each, in their own way, totally correct. It struck me first in Hong Kong, but then more than anything it came home to me in Bangkok and Malaysia. There is the true culture shock, where not just one city but one block can hold such a study in whip lash as you walk from a super modern hotel to someone crawling on the ground with their palsied legs trailing behind them begging for help, see children standing next to their aging grandparents in rags.
It is eye opening to walk from one end of the city to the other and go through these different zones, because more than anywhere I’ve seen in the United States they really do seem to be different worlds. The financial district, the Broadway, the slums, the tourist areas, the areas where tourists dare not tread…how can they be on the same planet, let alone the same city? These images get burned in to your mind, one next to the other until it leaves you struck with the wonder of human experience; that this is not something you see in Europe or America, this jarring jam of contrast. It is too dirty, too unplanned, too wild and unpredictable. Too much of a paradox to see in a world of people who like their rich on one side, their poor on the other, and their middle class uncomfortably keeping the two apart. You can’t put all of those things together and have it come out anything resembling sane.
And yet because of that, because there is no distance except for the distance away from the super ordered regimen of the West and the rest of the supposed ‘first world’, because of that paradox and because of that insanity…it seems, in the end, that much more a human experience.
Going in to the mall at Seacon Square today I passed a man with one arm begging on the street. I don’t mean he was missing an arm, I mean that was all he had: One arm, and zero legs. He didn’t need a sign, in any language, telling us what his problem was. I watched him taking the money from his cup and carefully putting it in his fanny pack, which rested on stumps just below his hips. He didn’t need to tell me what was wrong with his life, it was pretty obvious as I put 5 baht in his cup that he had issues that even drinking wouldn’t solve. Like getting back down the stairs; I’m not certain, he may sleep there.
We don’t have a comprehension of what poverty is in America, not the same way they have it out here. We think poverty and we think of the homeless people out on the streets, of shelters for women and children, of the occasional story buried in the back of a local newspaper about a hobo freezing to death. It is out of the way, we know where to avoid so we don’t have to see it and we avoid it. But there is no avoiding it out here.
It is the great paradox of Asia, or at least South/Southeast Asia, that you can walk five minutes from the gleaming metropolitan towers of Central World (Bangkok’s Mall of America, on crack) and see poverty the kind we really like to look away from. A ten minute drive can take you from shining spires of modern or post-modern elegance to veritable shantytowns by the riverside, where people live under sheets of metal that can only be called a house out of a sense of pity or a very loose definition of the word.
Ask someone what they think of when they think of Asia and they’ll likely think of spit shined opulence or teeming masses of sweltering humanity. And the people in one category want to go to Asia, and those in the other don’t want to go to Asia, each thinking the other is foolish. And each, in their own way, totally correct. It struck me first in Hong Kong, but then more than anything it came home to me in Bangkok and Malaysia. There is the true culture shock, where not just one city but one block can hold such a study in whip lash as you walk from a super modern hotel to someone crawling on the ground with their palsied legs trailing behind them begging for help, see children standing next to their aging grandparents in rags.
It is eye opening to walk from one end of the city to the other and go through these different zones, because more than anywhere I’ve seen in the United States they really do seem to be different worlds. The financial district, the Broadway, the slums, the tourist areas, the areas where tourists dare not tread…how can they be on the same planet, let alone the same city? These images get burned in to your mind, one next to the other until it leaves you struck with the wonder of human experience; that this is not something you see in Europe or America, this jarring jam of contrast. It is too dirty, too unplanned, too wild and unpredictable. Too much of a paradox to see in a world of people who like their rich on one side, their poor on the other, and their middle class uncomfortably keeping the two apart. You can’t put all of those things together and have it come out anything resembling sane.
And yet because of that, because there is no distance except for the distance away from the super ordered regimen of the West and the rest of the supposed ‘first world’, because of that paradox and because of that insanity…it seems, in the end, that much more a human experience.
Monday, April 20, 2009
In the Streets Tonight...
For some reason I have Phil Collins in my mind. After a moment of thought I can see why, given the lyrics that I'm hearing. "I can feel it coming in the air tonight...oh lord..." Although I always thought he heard them calling in the air, and at the moment I'm not sure which is more appropriate.
I used to think that U.S. politics were divisive. You hear things all of the time about how the country is tearing itself apart, red state blue state, that there is a divide between Americans that cannot be bridged. I have to say to everyone in America tonight that we know nothing of divisiveness, and for that we should be eternally grateful.
100,000 men and women marched in the streets on Thursday night, protesting what they call an illegitimate government, mirroring the protests that took Suvarnabhumi Airport back in November, a lifetime ago. Then it was the yellow shirted People's Alliance for Democracy; now it is the red shirted United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorships. Then it was protesting the Somchai Wongsarat government's ties to exiled leader Thaksin Shinawatra. Now it is Thaksin leading protesting against Abhisit Vejjajiva's government, saying that members of the government were responsible for the military coup in 2006 that ousted him. In November the government dissolved itself and held elections, while this one shows no signs of doing the same.
It is the Thai festival of Songkran, the New Year and the water festival. Songkran is a time when the old and dirty is washed away to cleanse the soul, to take in the new year fresh and ready to do better. Men, women and children take to the streets and hurl water at eachother, or go to temples and cleanse images of the Buddha to make merit. To be better.
There are tanks in the streets of Bangkok tonight.
The Prime Minister has declared a state of Emergency, and the army has moved tanks in to key positions to keep order in the city. The Army has said it is not in charge of enforcing the decree, only to work with the police to keep the peace. Vejjajiva has referred to the red shirt protestors as enemies of the state, and promised that if they are not peacable there will be retribution. The last several protests like this have ended peaceably, and yet there is always a first time.
There are tanks in the streets of Bangkok tonight.
Men and women pour out to face the police, flowing in their red shirts like the blood of a wounded democracy. But who has wounded this ancient Kingdom? Five months since the last protest, less since the last election; is it Democracy if, when outvoted, you take to the streets to try to bring down the government? Thaksin calls in from afar saying to his followers 'bring your children' while his have just left the land. Vejjajiva has called in tanks and decried the very same tactics that put him in power, that he supported when they were bringing down those on the other side.
There are tanks in the streets of Bangkok tonight as old foes play games of brinksmanship and politics with eachother, with all the people in the Kingdom as their players and their prize.
There are tanks in the streets of Bangkok tonight as a city quiets, holding its breath and stilling the normal explosive life that haunts its' winding roads.
There are tanks in the streets of Bangkok tonight as a million people hold their breath and wonder if they will see use when the sun comes over the city on Songkran, and one farang sits in his apartment holding his breath with them.
I can feel it coming in the air tonight...oh lord...
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Things That Make Me Crazy
or
The Ways in Which I Am More Like Andrew Than I Am Comfortable With
One of the things I learned very quickly is that, in many ways, Glory (my school) needs me more than I need them. But more on that in a moment.
We are a small school that is trying desperately to expand, even if the expansion pushes us to the utmost limits of what our school/staff/sanity can handle. But this expansion doesn't seem to be based on anything resembling an objective judgment of our academics, curricula or the quality of our staff. No, it is instead predicated entirely on the inanity, useless standards and chicanery. We have lies and damn lies, but no one seems to actually care about the statistics.
For several weeks we have been working on making the school look better for prospective parents. If we were in a rundown building, or had problems with dirt, that would be one thing; but our 'beautification' is putting up cork boards with good looking student works. So I have to take good hand writing and colorful things and put them up, even though everyone on both sides of this equation knows that I am not going to put up the ugly things. Shouldn't it be more important to see how well children who have been taught at Glory speak English, or can actually perform mathematics?
At one point my principal attached four extra sentences for one of the children to write on a piece of paper they colored so it would look more full. So now we're not only not showing off anything real from the students, since they have already been so edited it resembles actual student work as much as a McDonalds McNugget resembles a chicken, but we're actually just showing off what the Principal can do. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Chu is a good writer, but for god's sake.
And now I'm being asked to, after school is technically over, go and mingle with the students. So that people can see the white teacher walking around, talking to students. So now not only do we have plagarism, but prostitution. If we throw in 'plotting against public officials' we can hit the "Get You Kicked Out of College" Trifecta.
Thats what schools are bought and sold on here, this veneer of academia shoddily plastered over a churning world of business and profit. Our school, like nearly all of them, has investors; am I the only one who sees the job of 'investor', which is to maximize profit, as being totally at odds with the job of 'educator'? And we are not bad teachers, and Glory isn't a bad school, but how do I look at parents who only care about the superficial things (and the token farang) and think that they have their student's best interests at mind?
And yet these are the schools that have the best chance at giving their student's the best chance, even if they are choosing it with a method that contains less academic honesty than a dartboard with school names on it. So does it matter how the parents choose, as long as they choose something? I have students going back to Thai schools from time to time, because they do not want to keep up with the rigors of a tri-lingual education, and students who want (and whose parents want) to have the opportunities in life cherry picked and handed to them simply because they went to an 'International' school. Is making the choice, regardless of the reason, better than not?
Perhaps. And maybe this is inevitable globally, that schools will move to this business oriented model. Glory will, if it follows the formula, make money; the more money it makes the more and better teaches it can hire, and the more prestige it can gain, which makes it more money. It is not necessarily a bad system, just a frustrating system to work in from the perspective of someone who wants things to be based on facts, rather than farces.
The plus side of this is, however, that once you get enough experience and some certification (which I hope to get this summer), a white teacher falls in to the situation of being needed more than needing a particular school. There is a reason why Glory was willing to take a chance on an untested honky, after all. So we'll see if that doesn't increase my socio-economic status some here in the coming months, as I rise to that plateau.
This whole sordid affair makes me feel close to my brother Andrew, who has rallied for such things all his life. And I know the score, and I know how to work the system for my benefit and for the benefit of the school, but at the end of the day it still bothers me sometimes. Bothers me that school ends at 2:30 and I work homework club until 3:30 which is when everyone leaves, but that I am still asked to go hook myself for the passing masses so that we can strum up some joh...I mean students. Why can't we put our brains and degrees out there to attract the best and brightest rather than trying to entice them with a glimpse of pale flesh behind a 100 baht tie? it causes me to to think at times. And at those times I have to pause and say "Gee, this must be what Andrew feels like all the damn time." I know I can't change it, I know it isn't even necessarily wrong, but there is a cognitive dissonance between reality and my view of how it should be, and I want that to go away.
But it doesn't, and so for now I am the token white teacher cum prostitute for the school, seling my appalling whiteness first and my academic credentials second, in order to pay the bills and keep myself in Pocky money. I knew it would be like this but you can know with God's certainty something is coming, and still be disappointed when it does.
Matthew
Uji
or
The Ways in Which I Am More Like Andrew Than I Am Comfortable With
One of the things I learned very quickly is that, in many ways, Glory (my school) needs me more than I need them. But more on that in a moment.
We are a small school that is trying desperately to expand, even if the expansion pushes us to the utmost limits of what our school/staff/sanity can handle. But this expansion doesn't seem to be based on anything resembling an objective judgment of our academics, curricula or the quality of our staff. No, it is instead predicated entirely on the inanity, useless standards and chicanery. We have lies and damn lies, but no one seems to actually care about the statistics.
For several weeks we have been working on making the school look better for prospective parents. If we were in a rundown building, or had problems with dirt, that would be one thing; but our 'beautification' is putting up cork boards with good looking student works. So I have to take good hand writing and colorful things and put them up, even though everyone on both sides of this equation knows that I am not going to put up the ugly things. Shouldn't it be more important to see how well children who have been taught at Glory speak English, or can actually perform mathematics?
At one point my principal attached four extra sentences for one of the children to write on a piece of paper they colored so it would look more full. So now we're not only not showing off anything real from the students, since they have already been so edited it resembles actual student work as much as a McDonalds McNugget resembles a chicken, but we're actually just showing off what the Principal can do. Don't get me wrong, Mr. Chu is a good writer, but for god's sake.
And now I'm being asked to, after school is technically over, go and mingle with the students. So that people can see the white teacher walking around, talking to students. So now not only do we have plagarism, but prostitution. If we throw in 'plotting against public officials' we can hit the "Get You Kicked Out of College" Trifecta.
Thats what schools are bought and sold on here, this veneer of academia shoddily plastered over a churning world of business and profit. Our school, like nearly all of them, has investors; am I the only one who sees the job of 'investor', which is to maximize profit, as being totally at odds with the job of 'educator'? And we are not bad teachers, and Glory isn't a bad school, but how do I look at parents who only care about the superficial things (and the token farang) and think that they have their student's best interests at mind?
And yet these are the schools that have the best chance at giving their student's the best chance, even if they are choosing it with a method that contains less academic honesty than a dartboard with school names on it. So does it matter how the parents choose, as long as they choose something? I have students going back to Thai schools from time to time, because they do not want to keep up with the rigors of a tri-lingual education, and students who want (and whose parents want) to have the opportunities in life cherry picked and handed to them simply because they went to an 'International' school. Is making the choice, regardless of the reason, better than not?
Perhaps. And maybe this is inevitable globally, that schools will move to this business oriented model. Glory will, if it follows the formula, make money; the more money it makes the more and better teaches it can hire, and the more prestige it can gain, which makes it more money. It is not necessarily a bad system, just a frustrating system to work in from the perspective of someone who wants things to be based on facts, rather than farces.
The plus side of this is, however, that once you get enough experience and some certification (which I hope to get this summer), a white teacher falls in to the situation of being needed more than needing a particular school. There is a reason why Glory was willing to take a chance on an untested honky, after all. So we'll see if that doesn't increase my socio-economic status some here in the coming months, as I rise to that plateau.
This whole sordid affair makes me feel close to my brother Andrew, who has rallied for such things all his life. And I know the score, and I know how to work the system for my benefit and for the benefit of the school, but at the end of the day it still bothers me sometimes. Bothers me that school ends at 2:30 and I work homework club until 3:30 which is when everyone leaves, but that I am still asked to go hook myself for the passing masses so that we can strum up some joh...I mean students. Why can't we put our brains and degrees out there to attract the best and brightest rather than trying to entice them with a glimpse of pale flesh behind a 100 baht tie? it causes me to to think at times. And at those times I have to pause and say "Gee, this must be what Andrew feels like all the damn time." I know I can't change it, I know it isn't even necessarily wrong, but there is a cognitive dissonance between reality and my view of how it should be, and I want that to go away.
But it doesn't, and so for now I am the token white teacher cum prostitute for the school, seling my appalling whiteness first and my academic credentials second, in order to pay the bills and keep myself in Pocky money. I knew it would be like this but you can know with God's certainty something is coming, and still be disappointed when it does.
Matthew
Uji
Monday, March 02, 2009
Safe Return/Future Trips
Hey everybody. I'm back in Thailand safe and sound, got in last night (for me) at about 6 PM. I'll do another post about Malaysia later tonight, after I pick up replacement chargers for the stuff I fried (more later).
On the further trips side I just booked another flight for July 4th till the 11th. Yes, after the U.S. spent years trying to get out of it, I need to get a Visa to get in to Vietnam. I will be spending the 4th of July in Ho Chi Minh city.
Uji
Hey everybody. I'm back in Thailand safe and sound, got in last night (for me) at about 6 PM. I'll do another post about Malaysia later tonight, after I pick up replacement chargers for the stuff I fried (more later).
On the further trips side I just booked another flight for July 4th till the 11th. Yes, after the U.S. spent years trying to get out of it, I need to get a Visa to get in to Vietnam. I will be spending the 4th of July in Ho Chi Minh city.
Uji
Friday, February 27, 2009
When I think of...
I was sitting in an Indian restaurant on one of the main roads in Penang drinking teh tarik, an either Indian or Malaysian tea sweetened with condensed milk, when I realized that of all of the people in my life the one I wanted to share that particular moment with was Llamrei.
Llamrei is Sir Titus, my knight's, wife. And while I was a fan of tea before I started gaming with them, it was Llamrei who really started inducting me in to the cult of the leaf. We would always have at least one pot of tea with gaming, sometimes two pots of the same tea or two pots of different teas, and people would bring in exotic teas to drink and chocolates to eat with the teas. And as I was sitting drinking sweetened tea I thought that I would love to share that moment with Llamrei.
And it got me thinking about the situations that make me miss the people back home. There are certain things that will make me miss people at home, certain situations that will make me think of them. And I decided to try to list them. As I said, when I drink tea I think of Llamrei.
I probably miss Sean the most of anyone because when I'm dealing with my students I tend to think of Sean, especially the third graders, and especially the third grader named Freddy. Since I see Freddy every day, I end up thinking about Sean a lot.
While dealing with the students makes me think of Sean dealing with the teachers makes me think of Mom. While it isn't the exact same situations she has to deal with, when I get frustrated I think of the things she talks about at school.
Tuesdays and 3:30 PM every day make me think of Dad. Tuesdays make sense off hand since Tuesdays were the night that we would go play trivia. But the bells at school don't actually make the sounds of bells, they play little songs or make the generic grandfather clock noise. The ending bell, at 2:30 and 3:30 (when Homework Club ends), is the Jeopardy theme, which reminds me of watching Jeopardy with Dad.
The temples remind me of Spike (my step-dad), because of his interest in Buddhism. I remember almost fighting with him about how would get to keep the book on Buddhism from our hotel room in Hawaii. I think I won the fight in the long run not because I got to keep the book, but because I'm here lighting incense in Buddhist temples in Malaysia.
Tourists and bad movies make me think of Nathan, Andrew, Felix and Cory, because I don't have anyone here to make fun of either with. That actually saddened me greatly the other day when I realized I don't have anyone to willfully and knowingly go to bad movies with me, only to make fun of them. My embassy friends are close, but there was always something special about making fun of stupid people and stupid movies with the guys.
So I won't say that I don't miss people, a lot, or that there aren't times I'm not tempted to cash out and get on a plane to see a person. And sometimes it is hard, when the feeling is particularly strong; but that will make it even better when I do come home again. And I can go almost a whole day now in Bangkok without stopping to say '...I'm halfway around the world.'
Matt
Uji
I was sitting in an Indian restaurant on one of the main roads in Penang drinking teh tarik, an either Indian or Malaysian tea sweetened with condensed milk, when I realized that of all of the people in my life the one I wanted to share that particular moment with was Llamrei.
Llamrei is Sir Titus, my knight's, wife. And while I was a fan of tea before I started gaming with them, it was Llamrei who really started inducting me in to the cult of the leaf. We would always have at least one pot of tea with gaming, sometimes two pots of the same tea or two pots of different teas, and people would bring in exotic teas to drink and chocolates to eat with the teas. And as I was sitting drinking sweetened tea I thought that I would love to share that moment with Llamrei.
And it got me thinking about the situations that make me miss the people back home. There are certain things that will make me miss people at home, certain situations that will make me think of them. And I decided to try to list them. As I said, when I drink tea I think of Llamrei.
I probably miss Sean the most of anyone because when I'm dealing with my students I tend to think of Sean, especially the third graders, and especially the third grader named Freddy. Since I see Freddy every day, I end up thinking about Sean a lot.
While dealing with the students makes me think of Sean dealing with the teachers makes me think of Mom. While it isn't the exact same situations she has to deal with, when I get frustrated I think of the things she talks about at school.
Tuesdays and 3:30 PM every day make me think of Dad. Tuesdays make sense off hand since Tuesdays were the night that we would go play trivia. But the bells at school don't actually make the sounds of bells, they play little songs or make the generic grandfather clock noise. The ending bell, at 2:30 and 3:30 (when Homework Club ends), is the Jeopardy theme, which reminds me of watching Jeopardy with Dad.
The temples remind me of Spike (my step-dad), because of his interest in Buddhism. I remember almost fighting with him about how would get to keep the book on Buddhism from our hotel room in Hawaii. I think I won the fight in the long run not because I got to keep the book, but because I'm here lighting incense in Buddhist temples in Malaysia.
Tourists and bad movies make me think of Nathan, Andrew, Felix and Cory, because I don't have anyone here to make fun of either with. That actually saddened me greatly the other day when I realized I don't have anyone to willfully and knowingly go to bad movies with me, only to make fun of them. My embassy friends are close, but there was always something special about making fun of stupid people and stupid movies with the guys.
So I won't say that I don't miss people, a lot, or that there aren't times I'm not tempted to cash out and get on a plane to see a person. And sometimes it is hard, when the feeling is particularly strong; but that will make it even better when I do come home again. And I can go almost a whole day now in Bangkok without stopping to say '...I'm halfway around the world.'
Matt
Uji
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Greetings from Peninsular Malaysia!
Ok, so for those of you who knew, I made it to Malaysia just fine and am currently sipping coke in the cafe attached to my guest house. For those of you who didn't know: I went to Malaysia for a visa run. Had to leave the country to go to one with a Thai Consulate and get my work Visa, and the Thai Consulate in Malaysia is on the island of Penang. I was trying for the one year multiple entry but apparently for whatever reason I could only get the 3 month single entry, and have to extend it to a one year multiple back in Bangkok. I assume the people working at the Thai Consulate here know what they are doing, and if I have to do a trip to Laos within the next three months because they were full of crap...well, I'll do what I have to.
So far Malaysia is fascinating. I'll do some posts about it when I am more awake and can put pictures in it, as well as have some time to put my thoughts together. But so far I have been to three Buddhist temples, a Chinese spirit house, an Anglican Church and a Mosque while I'm here. Tomorrow or Sunday I am going to try to get up the hill to see the city and go to a light house. Yes, even though I find them boring because I want know certain members of my family will enjoy it I will go get some Hot Lighthouse Action.
Matt
Uji
Ok, so for those of you who knew, I made it to Malaysia just fine and am currently sipping coke in the cafe attached to my guest house. For those of you who didn't know: I went to Malaysia for a visa run. Had to leave the country to go to one with a Thai Consulate and get my work Visa, and the Thai Consulate in Malaysia is on the island of Penang. I was trying for the one year multiple entry but apparently for whatever reason I could only get the 3 month single entry, and have to extend it to a one year multiple back in Bangkok. I assume the people working at the Thai Consulate here know what they are doing, and if I have to do a trip to Laos within the next three months because they were full of crap...well, I'll do what I have to.
So far Malaysia is fascinating. I'll do some posts about it when I am more awake and can put pictures in it, as well as have some time to put my thoughts together. But so far I have been to three Buddhist temples, a Chinese spirit house, an Anglican Church and a Mosque while I'm here. Tomorrow or Sunday I am going to try to get up the hill to see the city and go to a light house. Yes, even though I find them boring because I want know certain members of my family will enjoy it I will go get some Hot Lighthouse Action.
Matt
Uji
Friday, February 13, 2009
The Semi-Legendary, Quasi-Mythical, Wholly Extraordinary Picture Post Part I: Hong Kong Nights. (LONG)
Alright, it is finally time for you all to see some of my travels. So we are going to travel back in time to December 29th to December 31st, as this first picture post concerns my time in Hong Kong, as well as a discussion of the plane flight over. December 28th was a Sunday and I had my final night at Mom's house before I left, which was fairly tear filled. I have to confess that I almost lost it as I walked out. That was the third of four times I almost lost it walking out of someone's home.
The first was when I left Titus and Llamrei's house a week before, the Sunday after my graduation. We had done a gaming session the night before, gone to brunch at a cool place in Ft. Collins, hung out and played games at their house before I got to leaving. One of the greatest honors and joys in my life is the time I have spent as a member of that household, gaming and making fun of Titus and drinking with Llamrei and hanging out with everybody. It was really hard to go get in my car and leave, knowing that I won't be able to do that for a year.
The second time was when I left Helene and Gabbie's house, Rose Manor. I have a number of very close friends and confidantes in the SCA both in and out of my households, for which I am incredibly thankful; but no other house has had as many wild plots or or evil schemes hatched at it then Rose Manor (simply for longevity, been going to RM longer than Titus' house ;) ). We went out for Mexican food and then hung out doing what we all are so good at, namely talking. And then I left, having to force myself to get in to the car and drive.
If I thought it was hard to leave Titus or Helene's house, leaving Mom's was worse than both. No offense to either Helene or Titus but I've known Mom longer. It was very emotional, and very difficult. I forced myself to get in to the car and drive on my way. Nathan and I had this plan of staying up all night and sleeping on the plane so we could maximize our time in Hong Kong, which we proceeded to execute. We left with Dad and Ann in the morning and drove to the Air Port where we had a nourishing breakfast of Burger King.
Finally we had to leave, as they couldn't come with us any further. And I almost lost it as I looked up at them standing on the bridge overlooking security. I've never wanted to abandon a plan and run away more in my life then right before those last few seconds before I went down the escalator and into the future.
I promised this would be a long post but we will get to the pictures. The plane flights went from great to awful. Out to San Francisco we were in an emergency row and had lots of leg room to stretch out and relax in. Of course this was the two-three hour flight, which meant that while nice we would have preferred to switch it as on the flight to Hong Kong we were in Cramp City. Way back of the plane right where it curves in so we had less room than normal on a 14 hour flight. We had three boring movies (a horrible romcom with the same premise as The Sixth Sense, a foreign film that was incomprehensibly art neuveau and The Duchess). So 14 hours of cramped, uncomfortable boredom with bad food.
And so finally we arrive in Hong Kong, and we come out expecting to see a brand new world, a gallery of different things and I am expecting it to be terribly Chinese. And we see...
Yeah, so much for that 'terribly Chinese' idea. That is sort of heartwarming in a way, I guess, a reminder of home. But come on, Starbucks? Totally deflating my sense of being in a foreign land here. So we wander through the airport, go through customs, get our stamps, and then head out in to the train system. As always click the pictures to see a larger version!
If you look very carefully at the map above you can see a familiar pair of mouse ears, which indicates how you get to the Disney World in Hong Kong. Had I had more time and more money I might have checked it out just to see what the differences are. We actually took a different train that runs in to the city directly from the air port, but I didn't get a picture of it except for an advertisement on it.
Hong Kong is fascinating because it has so little space, and that lack of space creates a very particular mindset. That mindset being that every single inch of everything should have something on it. If it isn't at least four stories tall it needs to be bigger, if it doesn't have a restaurant on there throw one on. It seems to be a particularly asian mindset, and I'll talk about Bangkok's version about it later, but it was fascinating. I couldn't get any good pictures of them but there are restaurants that exist only on the fourth or fifth floors of buildings. I know these things exist in the States, we even had one (the Tattered Cover's Restaurant) in Denver that I know of; but they are everywhere, on every building in Hong Kong. And the signs, we saw signs for Maseratis and BMWs and Aston Martins and everything was packed with shopping.
You could spend a month in Hong Kong and never hit 1/100th of all of the shops, or even eat on the ground floor. Everything is so big, and filled...
Except the room we stayed in, which is smaller than my 23 square feet apartment here in Bangkok. There are three beds in that room, the other one is out of the frame off to the right. Why there are three beds in this room I have no idea. Two would have seemed a little bit cramped, but three is silly. Especially since the one on the left is literally the hardest bed I have ever felt. Holy God that thing was like a sheet of rock with some set dressing. It wasn't too expensive though, which was nice.
We didn't spend a lot of time in the guest house because, you know, we were in Hong Kong for 12 hours and wanted to rock out. So we went out and wandered the streets. Like I said, Hong Kong doesn't go in for small except for my hotel room. Everything else is super sized. We passed this building...
Which is hardly even close to the tallest building in Hong Kong. It would be pretty awesome just sitting in downtown Denver, but in Hong Kong it is pretty much no big deal. A much bigger deal is the next building, which I have a fuzzy picture of here and then you can see better when I get to the skyline picture.
Movie fans may recognize that as the building Batman jumps off of in The Dark Knight, or at least the best picture of it my poor little cheapo camera could take. It is a very impressive building, jutting like a magnificent claw from the land scape. This is the building Shredder from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles should live in, or Wolverine should have a battle in front of. No wonder they picked it for the movie.
Hong Kong island sits at the base of a 'mountain' which overlooks the whole area, and offers visibility into mainland China; we're not talking Pike's Peak, but it is pretty impressive. Nathan didn't go up Mt. Victoria last time and I may not get a next time, so we went all the way to the top. At the top of Mt. Victoria is...a shopping center. I told you they put shopping on everything.
But at the top of this very tall mall, past all the restaurants and the shops and an EA game arcade (which was closed or Nathan would have been very angry at me) is an observation deck which offers you an unparallelled view of the island. And the view is absolutely, indescribably brilliantly amazing. Words can barely express how amazing the look out over the island of Hong Kong is. I have some pictures of the shore line which I will post in the next picture post, but the night time skyline is magnificent, and I'll leave off with that.
I love that skyline; that is the most amazing skyline in the world I think. It totally ruined me for Bangkok's which is impressive not because of its' height but because of its' width. Hong Kong is a forest of massive buildings growing on a tiny island, while Bangkok is moderately sized buildings but an ocean of city that stretches on far beyond what you can see from even the tallest building (and I've been on the tallest building).
That's Nathan in front of the skyline, in what I thought was a pretty damn good picture. It is hard to get the skyline properly on a low end consumer camera because any shake causes a lot of blur, and there is so much light. The one Nathan took on me didn't come out as well, which I claim is because I'm a better photographer than he is, but for some reason he doesn't agree with that assesment. Don't know why. He took one of me in return, where the buildings are less visible. But still...
That is me. In Hong Kong. Pretty wild, huh?
Matt
Uji
Alright, it is finally time for you all to see some of my travels. So we are going to travel back in time to December 29th to December 31st, as this first picture post concerns my time in Hong Kong, as well as a discussion of the plane flight over. December 28th was a Sunday and I had my final night at Mom's house before I left, which was fairly tear filled. I have to confess that I almost lost it as I walked out. That was the third of four times I almost lost it walking out of someone's home.
The first was when I left Titus and Llamrei's house a week before, the Sunday after my graduation. We had done a gaming session the night before, gone to brunch at a cool place in Ft. Collins, hung out and played games at their house before I got to leaving. One of the greatest honors and joys in my life is the time I have spent as a member of that household, gaming and making fun of Titus and drinking with Llamrei and hanging out with everybody. It was really hard to go get in my car and leave, knowing that I won't be able to do that for a year.
The second time was when I left Helene and Gabbie's house, Rose Manor. I have a number of very close friends and confidantes in the SCA both in and out of my households, for which I am incredibly thankful; but no other house has had as many wild plots or or evil schemes hatched at it then Rose Manor (simply for longevity, been going to RM longer than Titus' house ;) ). We went out for Mexican food and then hung out doing what we all are so good at, namely talking. And then I left, having to force myself to get in to the car and drive.
If I thought it was hard to leave Titus or Helene's house, leaving Mom's was worse than both. No offense to either Helene or Titus but I've known Mom longer. It was very emotional, and very difficult. I forced myself to get in to the car and drive on my way. Nathan and I had this plan of staying up all night and sleeping on the plane so we could maximize our time in Hong Kong, which we proceeded to execute. We left with Dad and Ann in the morning and drove to the Air Port where we had a nourishing breakfast of Burger King.
Finally we had to leave, as they couldn't come with us any further. And I almost lost it as I looked up at them standing on the bridge overlooking security. I've never wanted to abandon a plan and run away more in my life then right before those last few seconds before I went down the escalator and into the future.
I promised this would be a long post but we will get to the pictures. The plane flights went from great to awful. Out to San Francisco we were in an emergency row and had lots of leg room to stretch out and relax in. Of course this was the two-three hour flight, which meant that while nice we would have preferred to switch it as on the flight to Hong Kong we were in Cramp City. Way back of the plane right where it curves in so we had less room than normal on a 14 hour flight. We had three boring movies (a horrible romcom with the same premise as The Sixth Sense, a foreign film that was incomprehensibly art neuveau and The Duchess). So 14 hours of cramped, uncomfortable boredom with bad food.
And so finally we arrive in Hong Kong, and we come out expecting to see a brand new world, a gallery of different things and I am expecting it to be terribly Chinese. And we see...
Yeah, so much for that 'terribly Chinese' idea. That is sort of heartwarming in a way, I guess, a reminder of home. But come on, Starbucks? Totally deflating my sense of being in a foreign land here. So we wander through the airport, go through customs, get our stamps, and then head out in to the train system. As always click the pictures to see a larger version!
If you look very carefully at the map above you can see a familiar pair of mouse ears, which indicates how you get to the Disney World in Hong Kong. Had I had more time and more money I might have checked it out just to see what the differences are. We actually took a different train that runs in to the city directly from the air port, but I didn't get a picture of it except for an advertisement on it.
Hong Kong is fascinating because it has so little space, and that lack of space creates a very particular mindset. That mindset being that every single inch of everything should have something on it. If it isn't at least four stories tall it needs to be bigger, if it doesn't have a restaurant on there throw one on. It seems to be a particularly asian mindset, and I'll talk about Bangkok's version about it later, but it was fascinating. I couldn't get any good pictures of them but there are restaurants that exist only on the fourth or fifth floors of buildings. I know these things exist in the States, we even had one (the Tattered Cover's Restaurant) in Denver that I know of; but they are everywhere, on every building in Hong Kong. And the signs, we saw signs for Maseratis and BMWs and Aston Martins and everything was packed with shopping.
You could spend a month in Hong Kong and never hit 1/100th of all of the shops, or even eat on the ground floor. Everything is so big, and filled...
Except the room we stayed in, which is smaller than my 23 square feet apartment here in Bangkok. There are three beds in that room, the other one is out of the frame off to the right. Why there are three beds in this room I have no idea. Two would have seemed a little bit cramped, but three is silly. Especially since the one on the left is literally the hardest bed I have ever felt. Holy God that thing was like a sheet of rock with some set dressing. It wasn't too expensive though, which was nice.
We didn't spend a lot of time in the guest house because, you know, we were in Hong Kong for 12 hours and wanted to rock out. So we went out and wandered the streets. Like I said, Hong Kong doesn't go in for small except for my hotel room. Everything else is super sized. We passed this building...
Which is hardly even close to the tallest building in Hong Kong. It would be pretty awesome just sitting in downtown Denver, but in Hong Kong it is pretty much no big deal. A much bigger deal is the next building, which I have a fuzzy picture of here and then you can see better when I get to the skyline picture.
Movie fans may recognize that as the building Batman jumps off of in The Dark Knight, or at least the best picture of it my poor little cheapo camera could take. It is a very impressive building, jutting like a magnificent claw from the land scape. This is the building Shredder from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles should live in, or Wolverine should have a battle in front of. No wonder they picked it for the movie.
Hong Kong island sits at the base of a 'mountain' which overlooks the whole area, and offers visibility into mainland China; we're not talking Pike's Peak, but it is pretty impressive. Nathan didn't go up Mt. Victoria last time and I may not get a next time, so we went all the way to the top. At the top of Mt. Victoria is...a shopping center. I told you they put shopping on everything.
But at the top of this very tall mall, past all the restaurants and the shops and an EA game arcade (which was closed or Nathan would have been very angry at me) is an observation deck which offers you an unparallelled view of the island. And the view is absolutely, indescribably brilliantly amazing. Words can barely express how amazing the look out over the island of Hong Kong is. I have some pictures of the shore line which I will post in the next picture post, but the night time skyline is magnificent, and I'll leave off with that.
I love that skyline; that is the most amazing skyline in the world I think. It totally ruined me for Bangkok's which is impressive not because of its' height but because of its' width. Hong Kong is a forest of massive buildings growing on a tiny island, while Bangkok is moderately sized buildings but an ocean of city that stretches on far beyond what you can see from even the tallest building (and I've been on the tallest building).
That's Nathan in front of the skyline, in what I thought was a pretty damn good picture. It is hard to get the skyline properly on a low end consumer camera because any shake causes a lot of blur, and there is so much light. The one Nathan took on me didn't come out as well, which I claim is because I'm a better photographer than he is, but for some reason he doesn't agree with that assesment. Don't know why. He took one of me in return, where the buildings are less visible. But still...
That is me. In Hong Kong. Pretty wild, huh?
Matt
Uji
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Breaks, and the Honkies Who Can't Buy Them
Me and Doctor House are like this. Why, you ask? Why we're both cane wielding maniacs who like pain killers. Or at least will like pain killers as soon as I can get my hands on them. Yes, honky just can't buy a break this month as I move from being ill in the stomach to having my gout act up. Hopefully I'm using up my whole quotient as it is a pain to do all the walking I like to do here to lose weight when I'm limping, and cursing with every step.
Fortunately most of the teachers at my school are fairly well convinced that I can get not just alopurinol (anti-gout) but bloody Vicodin over the counter here in the Kingdom. Which I must say would be awesome. I mean easy to come by almost morphine in a Kingdom that really isn't thrilled with heroin just strikes me as delicious irony. And thus ends the Paragraph of Sentences That Will Concern my Mother. For now.
I'm hoping that this will conclude my period of suck and I can get back to having a relatively pain/sickness free existence here. Not that these things wouldn't happen in Denver, of course, but as long as I'm in a still new and exciting place I would prefer my thoughts not be solely concerned with where the nearest facilities are or how much pain I'm in.
Matt
Uji
Me and Doctor House are like this. Why, you ask? Why we're both cane wielding maniacs who like pain killers. Or at least will like pain killers as soon as I can get my hands on them. Yes, honky just can't buy a break this month as I move from being ill in the stomach to having my gout act up. Hopefully I'm using up my whole quotient as it is a pain to do all the walking I like to do here to lose weight when I'm limping, and cursing with every step.
Fortunately most of the teachers at my school are fairly well convinced that I can get not just alopurinol (anti-gout) but bloody Vicodin over the counter here in the Kingdom. Which I must say would be awesome. I mean easy to come by almost morphine in a Kingdom that really isn't thrilled with heroin just strikes me as delicious irony. And thus ends the Paragraph of Sentences That Will Concern my Mother. For now.
I'm hoping that this will conclude my period of suck and I can get back to having a relatively pain/sickness free existence here. Not that these things wouldn't happen in Denver, of course, but as long as I'm in a still new and exciting place I would prefer my thoughts not be solely concerned with where the nearest facilities are or how much pain I'm in.
Matt
Uji
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Strange, and Awesome
I'm really spoiling you all with three posts in 24 hours, but this one is too awesome to ignore. I was surfing tvtropes.org, which will ruin your life by making you surf it all your waking hours, and came across the trope of 'Everything's Better with Penguins', about the inclusion of Penguins in film and television media, etc. At the bottom is the 'Real Life' section. I follow a link, and bam:
Norwegian soldiers of the King's Guard at Edinburgh Zoo, saluting a Penguin. And you know what, you damn well better salute that penguin. That is Sir Nils Olav, who was made a knight by King Olav V. And that insignia on his arm: He's a Colonel.
As Wikipedia notes unironically: He is the first penguin to receive such an honour in the Norwegian Army.
So salute! You're viewing a Knight of Norway, Colonel-in-Chief of the King's Guards.
Also, for the SCA folks, you think he showed Knightly Quality? I think he's just a hot stick.
Matt
Uji
I'm really spoiling you all with three posts in 24 hours, but this one is too awesome to ignore. I was surfing tvtropes.org, which will ruin your life by making you surf it all your waking hours, and came across the trope of 'Everything's Better with Penguins', about the inclusion of Penguins in film and television media, etc. At the bottom is the 'Real Life' section. I follow a link, and bam:
Norwegian soldiers of the King's Guard at Edinburgh Zoo, saluting a Penguin. And you know what, you damn well better salute that penguin. That is Sir Nils Olav, who was made a knight by King Olav V. And that insignia on his arm: He's a Colonel.
As Wikipedia notes unironically: He is the first penguin to receive such an honour in the Norwegian Army.
So salute! You're viewing a Knight of Norway, Colonel-in-Chief of the King's Guards.
Also, for the SCA folks, you think he showed Knightly Quality? I think he's just a hot stick.
Matt
Uji
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