They say the darndest things...

It appears my worst fears have come true, as my hard drive is now useful only as a paperweight. Gone with it are all of my music, academic (most of which, thankfully, I backed up,) and photo files. A couple of the photos lost I had intended to post on this blog, but they'll have to wait, I guess. It has been replaced with one that has about half of the memory, which is unfortunate. However, I'm pleased that I at least have a computer to use, which means that not all is lost, and I can still use my digital camera. So that is some consolation.
There was terrible flooding last week up in Chiang Mai and other points in Thailand's Northern regions. Hopefully the remainder of the rainy season will be kinder to this area (and to us here in BKK.)
Now for the title of this posting. As many of you know, I studied Thai for five semesters at the University of Wisconsin, and while I'm not even close to fluent, I am functional and can understand a fair bit of what people are talking about. Most of my students aren't aware of this fact, or at least they weren't until rather recently. Because of this, I've heard my students saying some funny things that they most certainly did not want nor expect me to understand. For example, one of my students proclaimed that she wants to marry me, but doesn't think that she can because she's too ugly. Another girl, after a grammer lesson, thought that the class wasn't terribly entertaining, and announced that the class was boring. So I turned to her and told her in Thai that I would think the class would be even more boring if she had to repeat it two or three times. The look on her face was precious...
And in English, these Thai kids say things that never cease to amaze me. It seems that Thais are rather blunt when assessing each other, and regularly make jokes about their friends' appearances. For example, there is one girl who is looking to go on a program that will allow her to work in the US for a summer, and was asking me for advice about where she should go. The jobs are mostly food service and housekeeping. Some of the positions were working at McDonalds in New Jersey. I told her to steer clear of that one, as working at a McD's on the Jersey turnpike would not be my idea of a good way to see America. There were also posts at various theme parks, such as six flags, and at Harrah's casinos. However, the most attractive ones, at least in my eyes, were to work at either Yellowstone National Park or The Grand Canyon. I told her that she should go to Yellowstone, because she could see bears there. Her friends said, "are there elephants?" and all started laughing. As I was looking confused, they explained the joke. They call their friend "elephant," as she's supposedly fat (and believe me, she isn't by any stretch of the imagination.) The girl who was the target of the joke was laughing away, too. I just stood there with a shocked look upon my face.
Hail progress!

Crash

Apologies for the long time between postings, but my computer is in the shop now. It's been having some troubles, and I fear the worst, so it may be a while before I can post any pictures...

One of my favorite activities here in Bangkok has been going to movies. I don't know why I love going to movies so much here. Perhaps it's because a ticket only costs 100 Baht ($2.50,) or the anthem to the king where they make him appear as a semi-divine being (i.e. - they seem to imply that he's responsible for bringing the rain, as this short film shows a farmer standing in his parched field as a downpour begins,) or perhaps it's the sweetened popcorn they sell at the concession stand. I'm not sure what it is, but I love going, and in my 10 weeks or so that I've been here, I've already seems something like seven movies, including some really bad ones that I wouldn't dream of seeing back in the US, such as The Longest Yard, The War of the Worlds, and The Island. However, I've seen some pretty good ones, too, such as Crash and The Machinist. Yesterday, the Thai movie called Tom Yam Goong opened, and I was there. (Tom Yam Goong, by the way, is a very spicy Thai soup with shrimp that has become one of my favorite foods here - I eat at least four bowls every week.) This is a sort of martial arts movie staring Tony Ja, the star of Ong-Bak, who is Thailand's Jackie Chan. Some pretty impressive fighting sequences, but the plot was rather ridiculous.

No classes today, as it is the birthday of Her Majesty The Queen Sikrit here in the land formerly known as Siam. The Thai people use this day to express their appreciation to their mothers. So, I'll do the same. Love ya, Momma!

Other than that, just correcting papers and trying to stay ahead. Hail progress!