A day in the life...

[armstrong]

Looks nice. Great to have a computer area separate from the bed otherwise they never leave. You could maybe put a bookcase/shelves as a sort of wall to give the two room feeling while still being her space.

[Reg Dingle]

[Reg Dingle]

[Reg Dingle]

[Joe 90]

[Mendip]

^^ FFS... you must have something better to do?

Please don't encourage him, Joe.


However, in a rare morsel of pertinence contained within one of Reg Dingle's posts, yes, the aircon is indeed now under size.

Of course, I am already all over this. When I recently moved up two never-used aircon units from downstairs, one went into the daughter's bedroom and a stupidly large unit went into the identically sized room next door. All I have to do switch them over, job done. I reckon I have until next Feb/March until we'll be using aircon again so will get this done in due course, when the units are next cleaned.

Looks nice. Great to have a computer area separate from the bed otherwise they never leave. You could maybe put a bookcase/shelves as a sort of wall to give the two room feeling while still being her space.

Yes, this is a good idea. In many ways I am against the daughter having a pc set up in her room but she needs a quiet area away from the blaring tv downstairs to study, and so much of the homework seems to involve online these days. Some kind of division between the two areas is in order and I trust the daughter not to abuse having a pc/devices in her room and not let them interfere with her sleep. At some point you have to pass on the trust as at the end of the day, with me being away so much I can't enforce everything although I do keep a discreet eye on her screen time and reign her in if it becomes excessive.

The daughter may in fact change school and start boarding in a year's time, at the start of her iGCSE option years. This horrifies me in many ways but her current school has such restricted iGCSE options which do not including any of her favourite subjects; art, history & geography to name but three. If she doesn't take the iGCSE subjects that interest her she will be denied those subjects at A Level which I reckon could severely affect her future. She is well aware that an education is her ticket out of Isaan and so far she's onboard with this, in fact remarkable keen. But anyway, that's probably for a thread all of it's own.


Is Isaan really so different to other places?

My Isaan life followed me all the way to Somerset in the UK recently, when my mum asked me to try and catch a rat in her garden. She has had to stop feeding the birds as all the dropped food had attracted rats and her useless dog, Bella, just barks and wags her tail at them. Yogi would have sorted this problem out in an instant.



A healthy, clean country rat is quite a cute animal and had the wife joined me, I am sure she would have been licking her lips at the prospect of roasted garlic rat with Aunt Bessies. She always claims that the rice paddy rats she likes to eat are a different species to the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus, that inhabit sewers and occasionally my chicken run, but I'm not so sure?

I ran out of time to deal with this one, but found these bird feeders that stick onto the windows and at least limit the dropped seeds for the rat to eat.

[DrWilly]

Start with the end in mind. Will she be doing art, history or geography at Uni? If not, she doesn’t need them for A levels, and thus doesnt need them for IGCSE.

Then you get two more years with her before she moves.

[Joe 90]

Art is a massive ballache with loads of time consuming coursework, it put my talented artist of a daughter off art.

[cyrille]

I was put off in 1975 by my dismally poor rendering of a recumbent deer's arse.

[Mendip]

^ Deers have notoriously difficult arses.

Start with the end in mind. Will she be doing art, history or geography at Uni? If not, she doesn’t need them for A levels, and thus doesnt need them for IGCSE.

Then you get two more years with her before she moves.

The way things are looking she will probably end up doing some kind of an art course for further education... although of course this is my hope. She may end up meeting some lowlife meth dealer and work a Korat noodle stall to pay his habit, but I like to look on the positive side.

Art is a massive ballache with loads of time consuming coursework, it put my talented artist of a daughter off art.

Yes, we are under no illusion that art will be an easy option, quite the opposite, in fact.


It's not just that by staying at the current school she will be denied many options, but also that to get a suitable number of iGCSEs she will be forced into taking options that she will struggle in. The options at her current school are so restricted. English, Maths and Thai are mandatory, but she will be forced into taking the three sciences, Chinese (which she shows no aptitude for at all) and Computer Science... there's not much else on offer. She struggles with Maths but with a lot of hard work she is now in a position of generally getting good passes for most tests/exams, and of course she needs a Maths IGCSE to go anywhere. But Physics she really struggles in, has no interest in, and it seems a shame to make her take some subjects (which she may fail) when another school offers so many more suitable subjects that interest her.

But of course... it means losing the daughter in a years time... we lose her in three years time anyway since her school doesn't offer A Levels, but that seems a long way off. She could come back weekends of course but it would be a lot of travel.

Would I even bother coming back very often between work trips if the daughter wasn't at home? Much as I love my dogs, they don't provide a full social life.

It's a lot to think about. One positive may be that if she was away, it would free me up to concentrate doing a lot more work during term time and maybe even bring retirement forward a few years, before I'm 80? I've been limiting my work for several years now for the daughter's sake.

We shall see... it all seems very complicated... when I were a lad I just stayed at the local Comprehensive until the age of 18 and naturally moved on to escape the villages. For now I'm initiating contact with a new school and we can take things from there.


Anyway, maybe she won't want to leave her swanky new bedroom with curtains hung and furniture re-arranged?



This will be her 'study' area... yeah, right!

I'll have to sort this bit out in four weeks when I return.



And a message for Dirk... once you get established and can commute back and forth from Thailand, take dried chillies and chilly powder to work... the cooks (and your colleagues) will love you for it. Most of this little lot will be heading to my new Filipino night cook next week.

[Stumpy]

Nice Job on your daughters room Mendy.

[Mendip]

^ Thanks mate, the finishing ain't great close up, but I'm used to that in Thailand and it no longer bothersme so much as it used to. The strip of tiles where the old wall was, also don't match. They're leftovers from the same batch when we built the house but the tiles have obviously faded in the daylight over 18 years.

The extra door may or may not get bricked up in due course, but to be honest I favour 'not'.

The project ended badly with an LTI so I am keen to declare it finished.

[moose65]

An LTI ?
FFS next you will be talking TIFR's etc

[Joe 90]

The project ended badly with an LTI so I am keen to declare it finished.

I feel your pain.

Bodge it and scarper.

[Mendip]

I saw some discussion last night from Nidhogg about a kid having a computer in the bedroom, but can't for the life of me find it now.

I thought long and hard about this, pros and cons, etc. The daughter has an old pc downstairs that she will continue to use for playing with mates. She's not really properly into 'gaming' but has a great time in the evenings playing Roblox and Minecraft with her classmates while yelling into open group chats using whatever app they use for that these days. It's not ideal, not like playing football on the street as I did, but we don't live in a place like that and visiting mates is impossible on weekdays, with her friends scattered about the city and the awful Korat traffic.

Anyway, she's still very keen on doing a couple of art GCSEs and needs a decent pc for this. She also needs somewhere upstairs to study, away from the blaring tv downstairs. I'm always going to be away for several months a year, so will trust her to use this area wisely.

It's also looking as though she'll have to board from August for four years to get her GCSEs and A levels, so I wanted to get one set up to see her through the four years.

Her bedroom is finally finished.



Better use of the area than the 'spirit room' I reckon.



I went with a laptop, with docking station and monitor. The idea being she will have the laptop at boarding school, but when she comes back can just dock it into the work station, for her art work, of course. She did a lot better than me this Christmas.

At the moment the monitor displays a duplicate of the laptop screen. How can I get it to display a separate screen?

[DrWilly]

Display settings.


I know you love your dogs, but have you considered moving the family to live somewhere different that has better schooling options? It’s not like you or the wife have work in Korat…

[Reg Dingle]

At the moment the monitor displays a duplicate of the laptop screen. How can I get it to display a separate screen?

Not sure what version of Windows you're on... but you want to be looking for 'extend screen' rather than 'duplicate screen' if you need to shut one screen down quickly and look like you're working...on hearing someone running up the stairs....I'd imagine.

[Mendip]

The wife will never leave Korat and I will always be working offshore for a few months each year, so we'll muddle on for the time being.

To be honest, when you work away it does change things. It's not easy just to relocate somewhere, be it elsewhere in Thailand or in the West, and then disappear offshore for six weeks.

For decent international schooling in Thailand, I think the only options would be Bangjok or Pattaya and I wouldn't like to live in either. I don't think it would really be fair to drop rhe wife in Bangkok, away from family and friends, and then disappear working for a few weeks. Offshore workers prerty much always end up living where their wives come from.

I don't particularly like Korat, but I'm not sure I'd ever want to settle in the West again, I just don't feel comfortable there any more.

[Mendip]

^^ Windows 11

I want to be able to have different displays, so I guess extend screen would be better. I'll investigate, once she gets up.

Bladdy teenagers.

[DrWilly]

Not sure what version of Windows you're on... but you want to be looking for 'extend screen' rather than 'duplicate screen' if you need to shut one screen down quickly and look like you're working...on hearing someone running up the stairs....I'd imagine.

He’ll want to make sure he hits the mute button at the same time.

[misskit]

^^^ Chiang Mai.

[DrWilly]

The wife will never leave Korat

Have you asked her? It would only be a few years…

[Reg Dingle]

but have you considered moving

Have you considered someone viewing Casa Mendy and actually putting a bid in?

Only kidding mate

[DrWilly]

I think the dog bollocks on all the surfaces have put me off.

[Reg Dingle]

Imagine just having viewed Stumpy's place and having held back on tabling a bid because you've got an appointment with some guy called Eddie from Cheddo's Realtor in Korat to view a beautiful 2 bedroomed starter chicken farm