Permission by Degree?

[fast eddy]

Yes, this is Thailand and though having a lovely piece of paper proving your BA in 'Early Byzantine Church Organ Music in the keys of Bb and F# and their influences on post Thatcherite Middle England' might give you a sense of being 'legit' - the reality is very different. I say to the poster who started this thread "Go and get a teaching job and get some experience and you'll be fine." It's not rocket science!

As long as you are moderately professional in your conduct and appearance in our eyes you will shine in Thailand. Turn up on time with a healthy, positive frame of mind, a sense of fun and don't take yourself too seriously (its hard to take yourself seriously on 35,000 bt per month.) The reality is that Thai degrees don't stack up to much when compared to their western counterparts so you really aren't at any disadvantage, educationally. Furthermore, the Thais have chosen not to apply standards to their education - tea money is paid for grades rather than the more professional 'application of the students to their tasks and exams' route. Moreover, teachers are threatened with loss of job (yearly contract not being renewed) if they don't pass any who fail and 'upgrade' those students with a certain amount of clout! So don't fool yourselves into thinking that its necessary to have a degree to teach English - far from it. Good luck and go for it

[Sean Moran]

Eddy, I'm sorry that I missed your post last year. It's partly that the active topics link on which I usually hang around in in forums isn't running here anymore, but it may have also been my own business and negligence.

Your referral to 35,000/m would have been a dream come true for me back when I was teaching as my average monthly expenditure in all my time in Thailand is well-documented still even down to the last laundry bil to 32,000/m but yet the best salary I have been promised was 30,000/m and out of seven different employers over two years, I've been paid by only two. It's good business for agencies to hire people like me to fill up the quotas and never have to pay them at the EOM.

I hope that when the admin gets the active topics link working again, we can continue this discussion if required, but I know that you have your own school, so salaries are merely an academic issue if you can excuse the pun. I'd try to find a way to fix up the forum's problems with the search.php problem, but that is more of a serious admin dilemma than I should try to help with - MySQL requires complete admin FTP access to the forum's web server, and I cannot dream of asking for that, so I'll concentrate on the troll prevention for now, which only requires admin access to the phpBB forum, but not the entire web server.

Thank you for some inspirational advice, although I've been so long on the reply. I wish I'd been here to further our discussion when you posted because we might have helped each other out, especially me.

[fast eddy]

Whato Sean,
I didn't realise that we were posting on two different topics. I posted my response before we hooked up on the other. Sean, always happy to help in anyway that I can. Are you thinking of coming back out to teach then? If so I think that I may be able to help you out.

Good luck

[Sean Moran]

by fast eddy on Tue Jan 13, 2009 1:37 pm [124.157.222.xx]

Whato Sean,
I didn't realise that we were posting on two different topics. I posted my response before we hooked up on the other. Sean, always happy to help in anyway that I can. Are you thinking of coming back out to teach then? If so I think that I may be able to help you out.

Good luck

Sorry Eddy. We've been having a couple of indepth discussions on another topic as well, and we've had some interesting buffalo races if I remember, but I've come to the conclusion that you're more of a craftsman than a tradesman, like a few other mates I've met in this place, so I'll keep in touch about when Ive bought the ticket and renewed my International Drivers Permit, and it would be my honour to buy you a Chang in Ban Chang as soon as we get the chance to explore Sukhumvit beyond Ekamai.

From the start of my Don Muang landing strip it has been May 1st, (Mayday - International Labour Day - no kidding), and I started just after the tsunami and tested the hypothesis again in 2006, but have failed these last two years for IT-related reasons and a little TagAlog, selamat. (E&OE)

I was meant to start teaching in 2548 and I haven't finished yet. Just check out that greyhound bus thread if you need evidence that not all Kon Thai are as multilingual as the job requires to foreground the Amazing wonders of Thailand to the masses of unilingual tourists, although I could be wrong there - never asked.

I'd like to hear more about your teaching endeavours when you get the chance, and I when can afford to buy the Chang. Regarding proper edu-tainment practice, can you play guitar and sing like Paul McCartney? I reckon I'll be back this year, hopefully on International Labour Day for the hat-trick.

I bet you 50 satang my Happy DTAC number works before I even before I make it through customs, just like it did the last time I had to leave the country for a few months. I'll let you know the outcome in May.

[fast eddy]

Cheers Sean

Look forward to bending the elbow with you over copious quantities of amber nectar. Do give me a shout when you land or if you want to lay down plans to kick in as you arrive. I'm happy to report that the cold snap has gone way beyond expectations and we are currently enjoying 15 degrees C. Had to brake out my winter draws and my Mrs is in director knickers.

I've a feeling that it will be third time lucky for you - happy trails

Fast Eddy

[Sean Moran]

Cheers Sean

Look forward to bending the elbow with you over copious quantities of amber nectar. Do give me a shout when you land or if you want to lay down plans to kick in as you arrive. I'm happy to report that the cold snap has gone way beyond expectations and we are currently enjoying 15 degrees C. Had to brake out my winter draws and my Mrs is in director knickers.

I've a feeling that it will be third time lucky for you - happy trails

Fast Eddy

15 degrees C ! North of Loei, all I can fall back on is the 2004 Lonely Planet (p. 23). The place I go first is this:

http://www.geocities.com/smoranean/img/ ... tnum42.jpg

Natnum hong see-nueng-kao (419) in Mabkha: Smells like rat-dung; attracts stray venomous fruit bats at night, but they have HBO and air, and the views of the jungle off the balcony are spectacular.

http://www.geocities.com/smoranean/img/gall/view07.jpg

Mr Daeng who owns the place is a teacher. That smell is actually something you get used to after a while, even though the girl who showed me through the room that day made a point of commenting that the room was 500 baht a month cheaper than the others because of the smell. I pulled up all the furniture and cleaned the floor of all the rodent droppings and urine that had accumulated over the decades, but years later, (must be coming from the ceiling)... Almost come to miss it, like Roberts wrote in Shantaram (p. 4) about the smell of Bombay, as the worst good smell in the world.
Natnum is always my first stop. It's a constant, but there's not much work around there. I'll be paying nightly rates this time, not monthly.

Nonthaburi is the other place I have to do some catching up with, but they have Internet cafes not far from both these apartment blocks, both of them run by some really good people that it would be a surprise to walk in after three years with 15 thb to sit down and login to the forum here and work out some kind of itinery. Good chance both cafes and the forum will still be operational for the next few months. If it's that cold where you are right now, it sounds like either a long bus-trip or a leisurely bike ride up in the North, but that's the only region I've never been yet, so it would make a worthwhile excursion. Might even be fun to do it on the tredley?

Is Ban Chang, Rayong more than an hour's ride south of you, or am I using an outdated weather report in the lonely planet?

Anyway, there's a lot further to go from here to 419 than from 419 to Chiang Rai. I'll let you know when I make the first half of the trip.

[fast eddy]

Sean, I wore an old rugby shirt this morning with a polo shirt underneath socks trousers the lot (no fan or aircon on) and I was still cold! I'm halfway between Bangers and Pattas! Maybe being by the sea helps!

[Sean Moran]

Really? Does it get that cold this time of year around there? I should consider whether you're meaning 15 deg days or nights, but anytime of day would be out of the ordinary. I've never been there in January though. Maybe I should find a web site somewhere on the Internet and check the local weather every now and then.

The sea breezes might make the days cooler, but I'd expect they'd keep the nights warmer compared to the mountains or desert. I honestly thought you'd be up in Chiang Mai or somewhere. I won't get anymore specific here about locations, but that whole coastline would not usually get that cool at night, would it? Or does it happen this time of year?

Maybe we learn something new every day.


---o0o---

FInally I decided to have a glimpse at the newpaper homepage. Now I think I get the idea of the 15 degrees a little more. I never would have thought of it as likely, with the cold weather. It's not a very happy story linked below.

News » Local News
Long, chilly nights at Sanam Luang
It's hard to sleep out there, but homeless still left in the cold.

By: Surasak Glahan
Published: 15/01/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/9 ... anam-luang

[stilljustbrowsing]

It is also cold at the moment in Bangkok! Not used the aircon or fan for nearly a month, sorry, what kind of degrees were we talking about?
The training school I work at is "controlled' by the ministery of transport, BTW.

[fast eddy]

Stillbrowsing, why do I get a sense of deja vu after reading your last posting?