December 15th

Election time again, All the hatches are battened and the next two consecutive weekends have been mandated dry, as the Thai people go out to vote, in a post Thaksin Thailand the names and faces may change but the political animal complete with imbeded corruption and nepotism will survive to fight another day. We bait our breath...

Last weekend to celebrate "constitution day" (read a day off school for a constitution written by the current military leaders who wrote it last year, but despite which the public holiday remains the same) my friend Tracey and I went out to Rawai beach and caught a boat to Coral Island, it was beautiful, you could walk into the ocean off shore where there is a reasonably sized coral reef and the water of course is clear enough for fabulous snorkelling, we lazed on the beach and read our books. Now with the arrival of tourist season proper there are so many falang around it's weird. The atmosphere of the town and the local people is changed everyone seems in that much more of a hurry and the focus has become more mercenary.

School is in the mad run up to exams and this final review week has been largely sacrificed to an event known as "provincial sports day" on any given day, half of my class were missing attending either Thai dance or band practice for this weekends opening ceremony (I kid you not) They are going to have the entire school (and every other school in the province) march the streets (read an hour in the mid day sun) then stand about in said heat for a further two and a half hours as the dancers etc do their thing.

Then of course there are the actual exams, I don't know if I have raved about this before but unlike America which is very proud of it's meritocracy (even though I have read arguments [Alain deBotton]that believe it is more of a luckocracy. Here in Thailand they embrace a mediocracy where it doesn't matter how badly a kid does in school they will never fail, they continue to sit the exam until they pass, even if that means giving the kid the answers. The government has in it's wisdom decided 50% is not enough, from now on every child in the country needs to achieve results of at least 60 preferably 70% one most conclude that if they keep going this way it wont be long before the kids themselves realise that even if they do nothing they will still achieve results closer to 100% than 0 as fat boy slim's T'shirt wearing fat guy said "why try harder".

One of my parents, after my persistent badgering has finally decided to get his kid checked for dyslexia, he is taking said child to an "eye doctor" for a check???? I have, as gently as I can, attempted to explain it's not a vision problem. I believe the boy is only mildly dyslexic and a bright kid who could do better if he could read more easily. My Thai teaching assistant has written a letter in Thai to go to the doctor, so hopefully the doctor will explain to the parent where he needs to go for the right kind of tests. We shall see...

Anyway Tracey's leaving party is tonight, her and her replacement Gizzy should be here soon, catch y'all on the flip side.

PS: those of you who had doubts about the opening ceremony will be thrilled to know there was a torch, there was a cauldron lit by it, there were fireworks it was extremely OTT.