The Good News, and The Bad News Isaan Thailand.

The good news and bad news, so let’s start with the good news. Nong Ja, my Thai niece who lives with us had been sick with a flu. After seeing the pediatrician at the hospital we finally got her back to her normal self. Some nights we didn’t get much sleep as she coughed through the night. So this is great news having her back to her happy self. One thing that did help with the coughing was Vicks Vapor rub. I searched and found the remedy on the internet. You clean the feet and then put a nice layer of Vapor Rub on the bottoms of the feet, covering them completely. I was really happy the third night when her coughing was reduced by 80%.

Baby Ja

Baby Ja



I have been so lucky helping raise her as she is amazing. Yes, I am biased but she is the apple of my eye.

The bad news, my six new rabbits are driving me crazy as they are eating heaps of food, but this also means a lot of pissing and shitting. I have to spend a lot of time each day cleaning their room. So I am going to move the mother and her babies out to the village but set up a pen for them. In another 4 weeks when they will be weaned off their mother’s milk and then they can be given away. They eat a lot of fresh greens now and also carrot and hay, but still have their mum’s milk each day.

More good news, I have had some time to catch up on some friend’s blogs, still not enough but have enjoyed reading what people have been up to.

Bad news getting better: Retired in Thailand and Loving It, Malcolm and Ciejay who started blogging about his retired life in Kanchanaburi Thailand, had been pretty sick but has turned the corner and I wish him a speedy recovery. If you are a prayer, send some prayers his way as he is a bloody good bloke.

More bad news, I am a computer tragic. I like to think I am a bit of a tech guy, a do it yourself fix or try to fix anything. I have been successful with many things but also failed at others but I enjoy the searching to try and find a fix for a problem.

The bad news is I killed my desktop computer; I still have my two laptops, one which I am typing from now. I am currently fixing my other computer but am trying to do it without losing the information I had stored on the drives. I do have (most of) the information backed up. It would be easy to format the drives and reload all my programmes but I want to see if I can fix the problem and also keep the information on the drives.

I buggered it all up as I was trying to fix a flashdrive, and I had used many different types of fixes but nothing had worked. I was trying another fix and after no luck shutdown for the night and went to bed. The next afternoon I booted the computer and a message came up saying. “NTLDR is missing. Press CTLR+ALT+DEL to restart”

So now I have burnt some disks and will try and run the fix maybe tonight but I will see as I am a little tired and still have a bit of work to do. So maybe the desktop will be working tonight or maybe tomorrow night.

More good news, my mum and dad are loving retired life, like they have for the past 5 or so years. They are again escaping the cold weather of Melbourne for 2, 3 or 4 months and currently in sunny Queensland, where the days are mid 20’s to 30ish and nights mid teens. They are playing plenty of golf, and also lawn bowls as well. I spoke to them the other day and it is great to know they are having a ball after working so hard all their lives, looking after myself and three brothers, even when we had well and truly left home. Knowing they are happy and doing what they love each day is such a good feeling to have.

And also things here in Isaan Thailand are good, work is work. It can still be frustrating at times but also so rewarding as well. Most of the frustration comes from outside the classroom, people telling what we teachers have to do. At times certain people think they teach your class with the suggestions they make when it comes to grading or giving students marks.

But the reward of hearing young students, use what they have been taught in the class, or having older students take a real interest in what has been taught to them is rewarding. If I am having a bad day, because of frustrating or lazy students, I try and forget them and I focus on the kids that I know want to learn. I am teaching for them. They become my motivation which is hard some days.

I give all students a chance, many chances to show me they are trying. If you genuinely try you will be rewarded and helped. But this is hard for young learners, especially 6 or 7 year olds. It is the parents that you feel like throttling at times. When you see a student who is struggling, just way out of his depth and is drowning and just getting deeper into the shit you could say, and unless this student is supported from home they will just fall further and further behind.

You write in their homework record book (parents are meant to check these and sign them) that you need to see the parent and have a discussion as there are some problems (all translated into Thai) and the parent never comes. You write this not once, twice or three times but maybe more and the parent who must be a piece of absolute crap, not to care about their child’s schooling never shows up or rings the number for the Thai teacher given. This sucks and gets you down.

Then you just have to cut this kid free as you have more than 30 other students who need your attention as well. You still try as hard as you can to help them but not above and beyond anymore as you don’t have the time and usually the mental strength to do it. It is just so mentally draining and this I believe is worse than physical tiredness.

Anyway, I am rambling now and my first test disk (repair disk) looks like it failed, so I am going to turn my attention for an hour to the desktop computer before hitting the hay. Also I am getting stiff, in the legs and arms but this is also from my stupidity and my own fault, thinking I am a mid 20 year old, and not an ageing fool. But that can be a blog for another day.

Brunty