BANGKOK - Responding quickly to the H1N1 pandemic, Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai announced today that the FDA has completed fast-track approval for a special amulet which would protect all who wore it from catching the virus. The amulet is being manufactured by the Nakhon Si Thamarat temple, which gained notoriety a few years ago for creating the Jatukam Ramathep amulets which were believed to bring fortune to its owners. http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Thai-Fda-Approves-Production-Buddh-t285486.html
Teaching English every night from Monday to Friday, that is. It was my idea, of course, so I can't blame anyone else but me! It is more tiring than I thought it would be. I enjoy teaching English, but I think I am overstretching my schedule. Homeschooling all day, then an hour of reading Thai for fluency, then making dinner, then running off to teach English at 6 p.m. This past week was week #2 and I could barely do anything Thursday and Friday evenings. Thankfully, Dean's interns, Kory and Trevor, were there, too. They helped me out so much. After our Friday evening English lesson we have our cell group, Bible study, and I dozed through most of that. Kennedy was away at meetings 5 hours away in another town this past week, but he is back and when we start up this coming week I think we are going to have to switch off. Wonderwoman, energizer bunny, I am not. What was I thinking? I was thinking, this is what it is going to take for these kids to really learn English so they can
Santa's birthday, right? I remember one year, decades ago when I was about 13, we went to Hawaii to celebrate Christmas with our Japanese relatives. It felt so odd to be celebrating Christmas in the tropics. I remember learning to sing, "Melekelikemaka is the thing to say saying Merry Christmas the Hawaiian way" or something like that...don't quote me. Santa on surfboards, palm trees, pineapples and plastic Christmas trees. It all felt very odd. Fun, but odd. It is also odd to think that this kind of tropical Christmas, without the song, English as the spoken language or big region-wide celebrations among the populace, is what will be most familiar to my children. What is their visual world? Theravada Buddhism, with its thousands of temples, thousands of Buddha and Hindu statues, tiny spirit houses for the land spirits, and the house spirits, and spirit shelves and small shrines in nearly every home, every business. Here Christmas is celebrated by very few and is a We
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