Shouzer

There were several questions posed to me in my last big update post which I felt were better answered in another post. Namely, Jared was curious as to how living in Thailand for a year has changed me. I’m not sure that I can adequately answer this question to be honest, but I will do my best. I am sure that many of the changes have taken place on a nearly subconscious level though.

I would say one of the main advantages of living and working abroad is it increases your flexibility. Within the first week or so, I found loads of little things in my new environment that bothered me. I had to learn to adjust to a new way of life that mimicked the local people. For example, I had a serious problem with taking taxis before I came here. I saw them as a gigantic waste of money, and I avoided them as much as possible. In Bangkok, that is nearly impossible, and it is foolish. Taxis are cheaper than alternative modes of transportation in many cases.

Living abroad also decreases dependence. This was not a major problem for me this time around as I had already lived in Sydney for a while, but I just thought I’d mention it for the general case. Two examples of this for me are Mt. Dew and NFL. I miss them both here, but I’ve learned to live without them.

In more specific terms though, I have changed the way I look at work and living. When I was at Rose, school consumed my entire life. Yes, I had some outside fun, but it was always there in the back of my mind. When I was looking for a job last year, I felt that I needed to find a career opportunity that would completely fulfill me. This, obviously, proved to be an impossible task. My list of requirements for a job was probably longer than my list for a wife.

Working this year as a teacher, though, has been a blast. I have loads of fun most days, and I have greatly enjoyed my life here in Bangkok. Having said that, I have several major complaints with my current company, and I could never see myself working here for a long period of time. So what gives? Well, I’ve simply learned that there is more to life than work, and a job doesn’t have to be perfect to be enjoyable.

Juvers asked me if I had any plans to work on alternative energy. Sure, I would like that opportunity, but if it never happens for me, I’m not that bothered. I used to feel that my work needed to impact the world, but I am more relaxed about it now.

Being more relaxed is another major change from this year. I am pretty content to sit on my balcony and stare at the view in the evenings, I do not get in as big of a rush as I used to, and I have more patience in general. Thais has a phrase, “mai ben lai”, and it means no worries or no problem. That pretty much sums up the culture. They just don’t get their panties in a bunch about anything, and I like that. Imagine Timon and Puma from the Lion King singing “Acunamata”, and you’ve pretty much got a grip on Thai culture. (That’s a vast oversimplification, of course.)

I feel like I’ve made strides this year in terms of social confidence as well. It’s obviously impossible to quantify this, but I just feel more comfortable meeting new people and interacting with others. It’s good to get away from engineering for a while.

I feel like there should be more, but I honestly can’t think of anything else right now. If I think of something, I’ll try to write another post.

In other news, my flight is arriving in St. Louis on June 3. I’m starting work in the Detroit area on June 16. If anyone is in the Herrin area during that time frame, let me know.

Now, I can say this without talking badly about myself because I don’t really drive my car that much.  When I awoke this morning on a nice lovely day I thought about all my plans: laundry, grocery shopping, relaxing with Scott, maybe going to a park or something.  It all came crashing down when on our way to the grocery store we got to my car.  Some wanker hit my fucking car and then didn’t have the decency to stick around and own up to it.  So we call the police, and they won’t send a cop out to make a report because the car is still drivable.  That’s bull shit.  Stupid CPD doesn’t wanna get off their ass and do their damn job.  Then the cop woman at the desk makes me feel like shit for having to make her stop reading her damn magazine and do her job!  What a major bitch.  I gotta run, have to go pick up another car….I’ll finish this rant later and put the pics up of the damage.

Check this shit out.  The last link on on that page is to Shouzer.  The image in question actually generates a lot of traffic for us every month, and I don’t even remember where it came from, hehe.  I think I grabbed it from somebody signature on a forum a few years back.

Evidently, Duke professors have figured out what the appendix is for.

I wore this shirt yesterday, and this one today.

you know how when something good is coming up in your schedule, but you have all this time beforehand, and it seems as though the good thing will never actually come to pass.  that’s right now.  christmas break is good.  two weeks of studying and tests is bad.  inevitably, the next 10 days will move along like 30, and the feeling that gives me just hollows my stomach.  i’m so done with school.  did you hear me?  i’m done.  not in the sense that i’ve accomplished all my class objectives, but in the sense that i stopped caring weeks ago.  while that might seem to relieve pressure from finals, it does just the opposite.  because of my noncaring ways, i’ve left myself in the position that my performance on said finals will go a long way in determining the grades i receive this semester.  i try not to ever put myself in that situation, but once in seven isn’t so bad, i guess.  back to the topic, time is slowing down.  christmas break won’t be coming soon.

Story

Hollywood has finally decided to start selling movie downloads, and it is about time.  I would have thought they would have caught on several years ago.  The problem is they are charging way too much.  They want to sell movies at $20-30 each.  Who would pay $30 for a movie download when you could buy the DVD for cheaper than that?  The video quality will not be as good, there will be no special features, and you won’t be able to play it in your DVD player.

So what are they thinking?  Do they really expect people to pay more for the right to download stuff?  Itunes is so popular because the music is fairly cheap and the service is convenient.  Downloading a movie will hardly be convenient because it will take so long, and $30 is far from cheap.

They also say that the movies will be around 1Gb.  Most of the DVD rips I’ve seen are around 700Mb.  I have to wonder whether they are positing good quality videos or not.

But still very cool.

I made it with 1.5 hours to spare.  Good thing too, the withdraw symptoms would have been horrendous.

Shot of the southern end of Manhattan from the boat to the Statue of Liberty.

Do you guys want me to continue doing this?  Or have I become that annoying person that makes you sit through a slideshow of his vacation?

This is one of two ice skating rinks in Central Park. It is the famous one that you see in all of the movies.  You can see the Plaza Hotel in the background behind the tree.  They were doing construction on it so there was scaffolding all over it.

We did go ice skating in this rink.