Stack It Up Again

–! I just knocked over a 2″ high stack of coins (which I stacked up earlier this morning). Heh. And then I restacked them into 2 1″ stacks. Small wonder I can’t manage my time. Have I mentioned? That’s how I spend my days. Stacking… destroying… stacking…

Apparently, cheating is a big problem here in Thailand. Talking to my History of Western Art prof yesterday gave me a little insight into why the profs here are such anal authoritarians when it comes to taking tests… they have to be. In my art class, apparently two students turned in surprisingly similar papers. My prof read the first one, thought “ah. This is a good paper,” gave the student an A, and went on to the next paper. A few papers later, however, he found himself saying “gee, I’ve read this before.” In fact, he had– some of the paragraphs were identical, word for word. Apparently, unbeknownst to each other, the two students had both approached the same student who took the class last year, and asked for a copy of his paper, and, well, you can imagine the rest.

From what I’m told, there’s a British expat here who makes her living by writing papers for university students. Sheesh.

Here’s something crazy: the requirements to get Thai citizenship. To start with you need twenty years of residency. *ahem* yes, twenty. And then– tell me if this makes any sense– you need to be able to show proof of an income of at least 30,000 baht per month. Er, rather, if you’re married and have children, you need an income of 30,000/month, but if you’re single you need to show an income of 80,000 baht per month. Yeah. How ’bout that. Why would someone want Thai citizenship? Well, for one, you can’t own property in Thailand unless you’re a Thai citizen, which means if you want a house… your options are 1) create a “ghost” company and imaginary shareholders (foreigners can own up to 41% of a Thai company), 2) get married and give your wife the money (yeah, and when the relationship goes to shit, you think that Thai divorce judge is going to give you a damn thing in the settlement? Psh. Forget about it.), or 3) hang out for twenty years and get a lucrative job. So yeah. It’s funny: it’s easier for a Thai to become an American than an American to become a Thai.

In other news… it looks like I’m getting another motherboard. The last one lasted about a week before the status indicator lights (caps lock, scroll lock, num lock and power) started making like Christmas lights– *blink!* ON! … OFF! … CAPS LOCK ON! … POWER ON! … OFF! *blink!* It’s rediculous. It doesn’t impair the funciton of my laptop any (yet), but when I tried to explain to the Thai tech support guy that I just wanted to document the case, and that it wasn’t worth replacing the motherboard (unless other things start screwing up, as has happened in the past…)… well, Yeah. How do you say that in Thai? So I’m getting another new motherboard. All I can say is that I’m glad I’m not invest in Dell. Here comes number… three? Four? God, I’ve lost count.

Anyhow. Life as normal in Bangkok. Mass transportation, class, mass transportation, food, mass transportation, guitar, sleep, repeat… knock over that stack of coins, stack it up again. “i gotta testify / come up on the spot, lookin’ extra fly / for the day i die, i’m g’na touch the sky.” and so it goes. Over and over again. Oh, sometimes I do laundry. That’s nice. The sun never rises. The sun never sets. It just gets lighter, and then darker, and then lighter… always the same, overcast sky, the same oppressive heat…

I crave seasons. Change. And mountains. And crisp, fresh, clean mountain air. Air “new-made from snowy mountains high beneath a dome of stars…” Snowy. Snow. A snow flake.