In case you haven't seen me in a while...

To the left, me and friend denise on khao san a few weeks ago - the look of ennui on my face is priceless ;) i like going to khao san because it's not so pretentious (you don't have to doll up or anything), and relatively cheap. Travellers usually are more willing to talk about where they've been, where they're from... and voila! easy, entertaining conversation... (usually i head with friend lannie in tow, and this time with denise, the newest addition to my favored Pinoy crew! i like to describe them as the Latinos of Asia...i feel the kinship, hehehe!) 

  

 below, about 2 months ago (really? sheesh!) at the heart of silom, about 3 blocks from where i live... some will notice that i chopped my hair... it was a rash thing to do, and i still can't decide if i love or hate it - sometimes it's cute, other times (like, when i wake up in the morning!) not so much...! As  for that bear/squirrel/'munk-ish thing - nah, i have no idea what it is, but it's big, fuzzy and cute, right?

coming back to life...

i'll do my best to be brief in catch-up...

exams were what they always are - miserable, hehehe! but survived, i think (not sure what the final scores were yet) ... my brain is definitely getting more stubborn in its "ripening" age - i don't like to memorize things for the sake of memorizing - and yes, by the end of the term, there were things i just plain never quite figured out how to do, despite multiple attempts. like, calculating thermal comfort and drawing the shaded area of a window overhang based on the solar angle... just too many vectors for this brain... some things need to be accepted, at least until they come up again... and perhaps by then i'll have a better method at my disposal...

so, i suppose the big news is, I'M DONE WITH CLASSES!!!

the anti-climax to that is... i'm really not sure what's coming up next.

confident in my knowledge, not so much in my skills - i was hoping by now i'd have a better handle on exactly how much energy gets saved/produced using different technologies, particularly solar pv... but a systematic approach still eludes me... so i'm hoping whatever comes next will change that...

on a sidenote, i'm teaching english at the university :) after taking more than 70 college classes in my lifetime, i learned a thing or two about teaching, i think - and it's a refreshing change to be ON THE OTHER SIDE of things! i've been given free reign, which is also kind of nice - i get to develop my own stuff, so i'd say there's a fair amount of history involved...and trying to explain concepts like perspective, art vs. design (vs. engineering), expression, imagination, conflict/social change, rock & roll, satire, jazz, the media...hehehe! bits and pieces that have stuck from assorted lectures over the years...

speaking of which, time to finish off today's lecture/exercises...