Shouzer

There was a holiday in Thailand last weekend called Loy Krathong. Here’s a link to a Wikipedia article about it. I’m not going to offer an explanation about it because mine will only be inferior. Don’t worry, that one is really short.

My Loy Krathong celebration started last Friday. My regular school had a hand, foot, and mouth epidemic so they canceled. I begged my way into an outing to another school where they were celebrating the holiday. They had games, a traditional song and dance, this hot air balloon/kite, and of course, they floated Krathongs onto the swimming pool.

On Saturday, I went with a bunch of foreign teachers and one Thai to the main festival in Bangkok. We started out at a temple which is close to the canals and fairly close to the main river. I’m really not sure why we were there, but there were tons of people in the area. It had a carnival type feel to it. There were stalls all over the place selling everything imaginable as well as a few carnival rides and games. The more notable things were a freak show, a show where monkeys were all dressed up, and 2 dunking booths with “beautiful” girls ready to get all wet. Most of them didn’t look that happy to be there, incidentally.

After the carnival/temple, we headed down to the main river. There, people were floating their Krathongs. There was also a parade of much larger boats and some fireworks. It was incredibly packed here as well. Most of the action seemed to be on the other side of the river, but the bridge crossing was jammed with people so we just stayed on our side. Afterwards, most of us were pretty tired, so we headed back to our area for some dinner and chilling out. I floated my Krathong on a canal near the beer garden where we were. My candle went out pretty quickly. I think that means I’m destined for a short life. Then again, I’m also destined to meet a beautiful woman because I’ve taken the last piece of food from a dish at a community meal. So I guess I’ll have a short, but happy life.

I’m posting this because I haven’t seen this story on Google News or Shortnews, which are the two news outlets I see most. I’m curious to know how many of you have actually heard about this before as it doesn’t seem to be getting much media coverage. I haven’t even seen CNN International covering it, though to be fair, I rarely watch that channel. I originally saw the story a few days ago in the Bangkok Post, but this one from Yahoo is much better written and informative. Anyway, here’s the link:

Link

This story on CNN was just crazy. I mean seriously? People are allowed to get away with this shit? Good thing our government is all buddy buddy with the Saudi royal family.

Just found this out today, but apparently four patients received organ transplants from an Hepatitis C and HIV positive donor. See this link for an article that ran in the Chicago Sun-Times. One transplant occurred at each of the three university medical centers. I can’t remember where the fourth transplant occurred.

According to the article, the questionnare the donor filled out said that there was engagement in high-risk behavior. However, the screening tests for HIV and Hepatitis were negative, so the institutions proceeded with the transplants.

Talk about shitty.

I’ve got a considerable bit of student loan debt. In addition to the federal loans I took out, I also had to get a number of private student loans to pay for school. I never gave much thought to it, because it was generally just what I had to do. I simply wouldn’t have had enough money for school otherwise.

Now it’s come time to try consolidate, as seems to be the norm. You hear these things all the time about how you can save hundreds of dollars a month by consolidating. My experience so far is that it’s little more than a lie. Federal loans aren’t an issue, but even then I’m not saving hundreds–try tens.

As for private loans, that’s an entirely different story. So far, it seems like the best consolidation loan I would be able to get would give me a higher interest rate than any of my existing loans. How does that make sense? They tried to convince me it was based on credit, but that’s obviously a lie, because so were my initial loans. And in the case of two them, the interest rate they’re offering is actually 2.5% higher. Not only that, but it would be over the course of 5 more years than what I’d currently be paying.

In short, I should have started a fucking bank. Making an automatic 160% percent on every dollar I give out? That’s not a bad deal at all. Yeah, that’s right. I give you $10, you give me $26. Booyah.