Week 5 - Some history and lecture prepping

Last weekend we had to go to Sukhothai as our car had reached 1000 km and to keep the warranty, it needed a check over. The drive is simple and about 60 km, so roughly 45mins. Sukhothai has an old ruined city from when it was the capital about 600 years ago. The car was not due in till 2pm, but we decided to leave early so we had time to look around the ruins for an hour or 2. The temples were beautiful and you could see they were very old as some of the stone pillars looked like Swiss cheese or coral, with pores and holes in the surface.  Jui only had the large lens for the camera as the normal lens broke while we were traveling here, with all the packing and unpacking of the hand luggage. So we couldn’t get as good photos as we would have liked, but as it is not that far away I definitely want to go again and spend more time their.

Work wise this week I have been busy preparing my lectures for the next semester, which starts in June.  As expected it has started off slowly with me thinking about the depth of content, course layout, pace, background reading and the general presentation of the slides.  I also finally find a good chemical drawing program that runs native on the mac, so this took a while to learn but this will make future work much easier.

 

The chemistry department held a party for the returning lectures last night, lots of food, plenty of alcohol and also some karaoke.  Im not really a fan of karaoke and thought I would get away with not singing due to all the songs being in thai, but they did have some english songs, so was forced into singing Oasis's don't look back in anger.  Have to say though the evening was fun, was nice to have a few drinks and the food was yummy!

RANT

The village leader lives not far from us and has a tannoy system that plays information to the village, this I don’t mind but why must it be played at 6am in the morning!! Houses here compared to the UK have zero sound proofing, it lasts for an hour and is just constant speaking with a low tone thats hard to block out. It not everyday or every other day just random and is sometimes even on the weekend. I’m hopeful, it will be just for the local election which is on the 26th. If its more long term I thinking the speaker wire maybe chewed thorough by mice with scissor sharp teeth. ;) 

 More photo’s from Sukhothai can be found here     http://flic.kr/s/aHsjyPgcfc

Week 4 - The fat controller

Work this week has been interesting as I attended some lectures as it was the last week of lectures before the exams.  The lecturer that was introducing me was a little eccentric but extremely nice and was keen to practice his English, as are most are here once they get over there initial shyness.  The first lecture threw me as I had no idea what to expect or what he expected of me.  After the 3^rd one I had a little routine to let the students (hopefully) understand me and not bore them.  The key to this was to stay where I was from (Birmingham - UK) and then with the UK being represented as a large blob on the white board ask the students where certain cities were in retrospect to Birmingham; north or south.  This seemed to amuse them when they got it completely wrong.  So after Birmingham, London, Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle were on the board, this linked nicely to football and some more interaction with the students.  I thought Manchester United would have the most fans, but Chelsea and Liverpool came out on top.  After this they got to ask questions, an interesting but not surprising observation was the one class which had a majority of girls was more out going and willing to make mistakes and ask questions (even if of a slight personal nature!!).  Another lecturer here has the habit of holding my arm as we are walking which is slightly disturbing to me and I have no idea how to stop it?!?!?

Also got a valentines tip from the mostly girl class; a white rose is better than red as it is pure love.....lol

Finally did some exercise this week, some of the lecturers and students play 5-a-side football on a Wednesday night for an hour.  Have to say I really enjoyed it and although I was soaked through with sweat (yeah, nice image I know) it wasn’t as tiring and hot as I thought it would be but the temperature was still low thirty’s.  Played a fat Paul Scholes role, I like to term this role the fat controller, scored a couple and created plenty also did plenty of running ;)

RANT

One note which annoyed me this week was my phone contract, for some reason they put a ฿1000 limit on the contract and rather than ring or text saying your phone will be blocked they just blocked it, also the same day the universities wifi was down. So I have no internet (and can’t ring anyone) which I hate not having, since its the only way I keep contact with the UK.  The only reason I had reached the limit was ringing home in the first few days before we had the internet set up. So had to get my fiancee to ring and up the limit, I said ฿5000 but we settled on ฿2000, not like it will be ever reached again.

Hmmm I like this rant feature so will make it a permanent part of the blog, I think driving standards may get it in the next one! Because I’m now legal and fully insured see below.

Ending on a good note....

As took a major step in getting settled here and got a Thai car license, it’s valid for 1 year then it can be converted to a 5-year license.  Did try to get a motorbike license at the same time but didn’t have the correct picture on my UK one, the license got printed and they were just about to give it me then didn’t.  Oh well better you learn how to ride Thai style and do their test.  (the cost for the car license was as follows: 12 passport photos - ฿120 (this was for immigration letter - ฿1000), 2 medical certificates - ฿120, driving license - ฿340) if that was in the UK the 12 pictures alone would have been more than the driving license!!

Summary of settling in....

This maybe a little boring but this is a summary of the first 3 weeks here in thailand (although I have prob missed a quite a few parts out).  I will update with photos and might go into more detail in certain areas, if I feel they are interesting enough.  I plan on updating the blog once a week or when any special occasions occur such as trips or points of interest 

Me and my fiancee flew from Heathrow on a direct flight with Thai Airways on the 16th January at 9.30pm, the flight was delayed 30 minutes but heathrow has plenty of shopping to keep us entertained.  The flight from London to Bangkok takes around 10-11hours, the flight was fine no turbulence, but would have liked an isle or window seat.  During the flight I went through the movies and noticed they had King Naresuan parts 1 & 2 with English subtitles, as this is the university where I was going to lecture, I thought it best to learn the history.  I have to say I enjoyed the films (although a little long) and reading the subtitles made me sleepy, so after the meals plus watching the two films I got maybe 3 hours sleep which was plenty as we were landing at 3pm local time.

After we landed we passed though immigration, the line was a little long and a smile / sawadee wouldn’t have gone a miss but other than that it went smoothly.  One of our friends had come to pick us up, we took the train into the city centre to our hotel which was located very close to the skytrain.

That evening we went out with friends who live in Bangkok for a meal, which was in a great location near the rama 7 (or 9) bridge, the food and company were both excellent.  We only had 1 night in bangkok, so the next day, my fiancee and her friend went to submit and report to the education office then we went to the british embassy to get a letter stating I was single and allowed to marry a thai resident.  We then found a local place that would translate this into Thai and also register it with the correct thai department which saved us alot of hassle and time, as later in the day we were flying to our home city of Phitsanulok.

For the first week after arriving in Phitsanulok we stayed in a hotel close to the university while our room and on suite bathroom was being finished at home, we also had to buy all the furniture and set up the most important things such as internet and satellite tv so I could watch the football.  There is more football coverage here than back home! every single game is shown live, pity that the commentary and analysis teams are the same as itv back home, which to be honest are not a patch on sky.  After about 2 weeks we had almost everything sorted, there wasn't a single day in which we had chance to rest and relax. (We did have one day but I was ill, as it seems there is one type of mushroom I am unable to digest - I believe the england name is a jelly mushroom) 

We ordered a new car and collected it on the 31st of Jan, a ford focus sport+, which I have to say for an automatic (which I have hated everyone I had ever driven) drives well and is usually in the correct gear.  I’m still driving on my UK driving licensee as I need a letter from immigration or a work permit before I can obtain a thai one, the same with a bank account which is annoying.

Work wise I had a meeting with the president of the university (plus the dean of engineering), which went well.  They had not decided which faculty I could best help, as although my first degree is in chemistry my PhD is in biomaterials, so I have knowledge in both areas of science and engineering.  As the faculty of engineering had no falang (foreigner) lecturers it was decided it would be beneficial that I start there but I can also interact and teach in the faculty of science if needed.  I was a little apprehensive at first as I saw myself as a scientist not an engineer, but after discovering the nature of the subjects I will lecture, I was happy.  The staff here have all been extremely friendly and helpful even though this is the busiest time of year for them with the final examinations only a few weeks away (20th Feb).

My official start date  was the 1st of Feb, I was moved into a temporary office while my permanent one is cleared and furnished.  The offices here are all very large as is the whole of faculty of engineering, there are four 6-7 story buildings plus 4 large workshops for labs.

NB since the first draft of this blog, I found a bank that would give me an account with just my passport and the non-imm visa (seems its a little pot luck) reported my address to immigration and got a letter confirming my address from immigration thus allowing me to convert my UK driving license into a 1 year thai license, which I will go to do hopefully tomorrow :)

First Blog

I'm setting up this blog to keep track and record my new life here in Thailand.....
In the next few updates I will post what has happen in the 3 weeks since I arrived here; it's been hectic!