Back to normal

Hello! Mid-terms are over, I've finished grading stacks and stacks of mid-terms, and I'm back to getting up at 5:45 every morning. I had NO idea how long it could take to grade writing mid-terms! However, after grading 4 classes of writing mid-terms, I have NO idea why college professors in America assign long papers. Reading them for pleasure and reading something to grade is definately two different things.

Ting and her friends are really busy as their senior projects are coming due in the next couple of weeks. They are all working on a computer programming project. Ting's project is really interesting. She's creating a talking phone which will help blind people identify unknown objects by pointing the phone at it and having the phone identify the object and tell the blind person. Her other project is a GPS system in a phone which will help blind people get around more independently. I admire her desire to use her gifts to help those less fortunate or handicapped.

On January 2nd, the king's sister died. It has been interesting in Thailand. For 15 days, everyone is wearing black, gray, and white. It is nice to see their respect, but I need color! The other day I wore black, white, gray, and some pink! I needed some color! This will continue until the 17th of January. They have also cancelled KU Fair, which is a fair held at the university I teach at. It is a fair which allows common people to come on campus and sell their goods for an entire week. There are also some fun things going on, but the main part is to help the common people make money. But apparently there is not supposed to be anything fun going on during this time, so the university decided to cancel it. Everyone is frustrated because we get a week off and everyone really likes the fair and it helps the common people so much. We'll see what happens.

I've added some pictures from my New Year's celebration. I flew back to Bangkok around 9:00pm on the 31st and then went to Central World Plaza with a friend. Tons of people, music, activity and FIREWORKS. We took a video of the fireworks, so I don't have many pictures, but they were fantastic. Enjoy!

This says Happy New Year (Sawatdee Bee Mai 2551). Thailand starts it's year from Buddha's birth.