Tuesday, April 25, 2006
"Noam Chomsky digs lesbian porn"
This was written on the wall in the men's bathroom in one of my favorite restaurants in Madison, The Weary Traveler Freehouse. Hmmm...
So I'm back in the US. After a day and a half in Chicago, I'm staying at the old digs in Madison, right next to the lake. In Chicago, I saw my fellow geographers and good friends K. Max Grinnell and Dave Waskowski, both of whom live in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on the north side. Had some good pizza, and some good times. I rented a car at O'Hare airport, as I figured it was probably not too much more expensive than taking a taxi into the city. It was a bit frightening at first, but driving is just like riding a bike, even in Chicago traffic (which was light, thankfully, that Saturday morning,) you don't really forget how to do it even after a long absence from behind the wheel.
Have come to Madison, where despite the lovely spring weather, I still feel a bit chilly. But readjusting to midwestern climate will take time, I guess. Tomorrow, I visit the venerable Dr. Kaiser, and will hopefully learn just how close I am to finishing the Master's degree once and for all.
Coming back this time has not been as weird as it was when I returned from Tokyo. In many ways, it feels like I never left, since it is only three weeks from the one year aniversary of my departure from Madison. So it feels like it's only been a week or so that I've been gone, and in many ways, the events of the past year didn't really happen. It's strange, but much better than the complete shock of my return from Japan.
So, I guess we'll see how things progress. Hail progress indeed!
So I'm back in the US. After a day and a half in Chicago, I'm staying at the old digs in Madison, right next to the lake. In Chicago, I saw my fellow geographers and good friends K. Max Grinnell and Dave Waskowski, both of whom live in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on the north side. Had some good pizza, and some good times. I rented a car at O'Hare airport, as I figured it was probably not too much more expensive than taking a taxi into the city. It was a bit frightening at first, but driving is just like riding a bike, even in Chicago traffic (which was light, thankfully, that Saturday morning,) you don't really forget how to do it even after a long absence from behind the wheel.
Have come to Madison, where despite the lovely spring weather, I still feel a bit chilly. But readjusting to midwestern climate will take time, I guess. Tomorrow, I visit the venerable Dr. Kaiser, and will hopefully learn just how close I am to finishing the Master's degree once and for all.
Coming back this time has not been as weird as it was when I returned from Tokyo. In many ways, it feels like I never left, since it is only three weeks from the one year aniversary of my departure from Madison. So it feels like it's only been a week or so that I've been gone, and in many ways, the events of the past year didn't really happen. It's strange, but much better than the complete shock of my return from Japan.
So, I guess we'll see how things progress. Hail progress indeed!
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Homeward bound
At 10:35 pm this friday, I board the plane to go back to the US for seven weeks. Am having mixed feelings about this at the moment - am looking forward to seeing everyone again and the new editions, such as Miss Elizabeth Storhaug, and to drink Wisconsin Beer and baseball and all of that, but I'm going to miss Thailand, and I'm not going to have much money - the Baht goes alot farther here than it does there. So I'm probably going to just spend a lot of time sitting around and being broke. And so it goes...
Today is an election day in Thailand. In the past two months or so, there have been massive protests calling for the resignation of Dr. Thaksin Shinawatra, who was Thailand's prime minister since 2001. He called snap elections for April 2 (Thailand has a parliamentary system much like the UK, so they can have elections at any time.) All the opposition parties boycotted the election, saying that Thaksin had an unfair advantage, so those opposed to him just voted "none of the above" (much like in 2004, those of us opposed to Bush voted for Kerry, but we could have just as well voted "none of the above".) Thaksin vowed that he would not accept the post of Prime Minister if his party got less than 50% of the vote. They did get a little more than that, but they had such a poor showing in Bangkok and all points south of it that, so after conferring with the king, Thaksin decided to not accept the post. So today is the other election that is not being boycotted. I posted a photo of one of the election signs, which are EVERYWHERE in the city.
The time spent on Ko Phangan was excellent - the bungalow we stayed at required us to ride in the back of a little pickup for an hour over little dirt roads going up and down over mountains and through rather thick jungle. So this place was remote - only had electricity for 8 hours per day or so, i think, and no cell phone signal. We spent most of the day floating in the water or sitting on our deck and reading. See the photos below.
Songran casualties were down this year. Only 393 deaths and just under 5000 injured in the water festival. Yikes!
Other than that, I hope I can see a lot of you when I return. Hail progress!
Today is an election day in Thailand. In the past two months or so, there have been massive protests calling for the resignation of Dr. Thaksin Shinawatra, who was Thailand's prime minister since 2001. He called snap elections for April 2 (Thailand has a parliamentary system much like the UK, so they can have elections at any time.) All the opposition parties boycotted the election, saying that Thaksin had an unfair advantage, so those opposed to him just voted "none of the above" (much like in 2004, those of us opposed to Bush voted for Kerry, but we could have just as well voted "none of the above".) Thaksin vowed that he would not accept the post of Prime Minister if his party got less than 50% of the vote. They did get a little more than that, but they had such a poor showing in Bangkok and all points south of it that, so after conferring with the king, Thaksin decided to not accept the post. So today is the other election that is not being boycotted. I posted a photo of one of the election signs, which are EVERYWHERE in the city.
The time spent on Ko Phangan was excellent - the bungalow we stayed at required us to ride in the back of a little pickup for an hour over little dirt roads going up and down over mountains and through rather thick jungle. So this place was remote - only had electricity for 8 hours per day or so, i think, and no cell phone signal. We spent most of the day floating in the water or sitting on our deck and reading. See the photos below.
Songran casualties were down this year. Only 393 deaths and just under 5000 injured in the water festival. Yikes!
Other than that, I hope I can see a lot of you when I return. Hail progress!
Bangkok miscellany
One rather shameful thing one sees a lot on the streets of Bangkok. People bring in elephants (mostly young ones, like this guy here) and walk them up and down the street and try to get people to pay them to feed the elephant. Here there are tourists doing it, but you see it in non-tourist areas, too. Very harmful to the elephants - as one cab driver told me as a very large elephant was blocking the road one night while I was riding with him, "Elephants belong in the forest." Prior to the 1997 economic crisis, when the value of the Baht went from 25B/US$1 to 50B/US$1 overnight, this was illegal in Bangkok, but now it's a way for people to make a little bit of cash. 
Monday, April 10, 2006
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