Abac Musings: September 2005

Hof-Art and Fortune Arcade

Left the house today at around 0900 to take Sunee to the Hof-Art Gallery for an interview with a propective teacher. We arrived at around 1000. She talked with the instructor for about a half hour and decided to sign up for his classes.

I left and took the subway to Fortune Arcade. I needed to buy a black ink cartridge for my HP cp1700 printer. I just bought a yellow one and now I need a black one. The HP service center where I buy my cartridges let me spin and win free stuff (woopee). Last time I got a radio which did not work. I brought it back and found out that the earphones were no good. This time I won a personal fan. Hey, do not complain. These things are free!

Had to wait until 1300 to pick up the cartridge so I went shopping for movies. Found some.

On the way back via the subway, Sunee called and wondered where I was. At that point in time, I was walking up the steps of the Rachadapisek station about 100 meters from the Hof-Art building.

She will return to take some oil painting on Friday, so it looks like she has got herself an art teacher.

Returned home by way of The Mall, Bangkapi.

A Weekend in Hua Hin

Travelled to Hua Hin and stayed at the Majestic Creek Country Club and Resort. My wife and I took along Ajarn JD so we could have a break before the proctoring started. Waited most of the afternoon on Saturday to get going so we arrived near 9 PM. Long trip as we dropped my niece off at Thammasart U over by the airport. We were all exhausted so we all went right to bed.

Next morning we had a great breakfast and my brother-in-law took us to look at a lot of available land in the area. We stopped at around four or five sites with land for sale. It appeared that most of it was fairly undeveloped but some did have access to electricity. The land was all around 20 rai or so (10 acres). We even went to an area and got our 4WD jeep-like SUV stuck. It was a rainy day most of the day. We got back at around 4 and decided to call it a day. We had a good dinner at the club house and went to our rooms and crashed.

The weekend was not so relaxing as we travelled a lot by vehicle which was tiresome. Hey, at least we got out of Bangkok for a couple of nights. Oh, my nephew also came in from Maryland. He will be doing the monk thing over the next three months. We plan to go to his monk ceremony and I will capture the whole thing and make a DVD movie.

Today Ajarn JD and I got up and walked around the golf course for about an hour and a half, visiting mostly about school and students. It was a nice brisk walk and the scenery was beautiful.

We caught a bus back to Bangkok at 1100. It took 3 1/2 hours for the return trip. The bus ended at the southern terminal in the Pinklao area. We caught a taxi back to the house and I took it easy for about two house. Reviewed the movie Last of the Mohicans for my American Culture class next semester.

Smart Drugs Presentations

Ms. M wanted a picture together so I obliged. Also my last class of the week and semester requested a class picture so here it is.

The BusinessWeek article on Smart Drugs is the topic for this day's presentations.

Wat Jiang Lam Luk Ka

Left the house at 0900 to go to our wat school. We spent the morning preparing Sunee's portfolio as she has an appointment at a local gallery to talk about art lessons.

We arrived at our wat and found it had been completely flooded over the weekend. The water had gone but thinks were really muddy. Had to find a way to get into the wat without picking up a lot of mud.

Started class at around 0930. Sunee handed out the papers and went over the vocab and the meanings of the sentences. She then got the students to practice the questions. I helped her a little with the female students who were on the right side of the class. The two hour class went by very quickly.

We had lunch with the other teachers at the school and then got a taxi to the art gallery. Had a bit of a problem finding the gallery. Got some information and the gentleman who greeted us said he would find a really good teacher to teach Sunee. She will have to bring her portfolio again when she meets her new teacher.

We then took the subway (new experience) to Fortune Town where I bought some yellow ink for my HP CP1700 printer. I also picked up six DVD movies for my Aspects class next semester. We had another lunch (I had a bunch of pizza) and we then headed home, arriving at around 4 pm. Overall a very good day.

China verses India Presentations

This week the students in my reading classes presented the article from BusinessWeek entitled "China verses India"

The Last Orientation for Students 442-XXXX (01/2005)se

Left the house at around 0800 and traveled to ABAC Huamark. We are supposed to catch a van or some other transortation there to the Swissotel. The Last Orientation for all students with ID beginning with 442. This means I should have a lot of my students in attendants.

We met Ajarn JD at around 0830 at the teachers lounge. He had been on campus since 0810. Now where to catch that van? We checked around with little or no luck. Finally we met a student who told us where to go. We walked over to the van and ended up waiting until around 0945 before we left.

We arrived to the Swissotel just in time for the President of the University to arrive and we followed him in. As soon as he arrived, things began. The President gave a speech (which I thought was way too negative) followed by a couple of more admin people to include the Dean, Faculty of Arts. Her presentation was straight forward and inspirational. Appropriate for the gathering.

We then had lunch and enjoyed around two hours of student entertainment from each of the departments in the Faculty of Arts. Enjoy the pictures. These are "grabbed" from the video which I took during the gathering. The quality is just ok but at least you can get an idea of what a Last Orientation is all about at ABAC.