Name Server (Not) Forwarding

I spent much of Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning tweaking Baan Jochim only to have the DNS name servers suddenly stop forwarding. I don’t know what happened; all the settings were correct and I didn’t have any problems at all until about noontime today. I have now re-entered the forwarding information at Mad Dog, where my domain is registered, to point the site to my host at 000Webhost.com. According to the email they sent me, the changes may take 24-48 hours to take effect. I can’t even access my admin area since cPanel and the wp-admin are all on the hosted domain. At least until the forwarding starts up again, I won’t be tempted by the website and can concentrate on more school-related ventures…
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Baan Jochim.com

Almost a year ago, I registered the baanjochim.com domain. I finally decided to use it to host my WordPress blog; their “Famous 5-Minute Install” turned out to be a bit more complicated than that but I finally got it up-and-running to my satisfaction after most of an afternoon of trial-and-error and various tweaks. I decided, for now, to let the blog run in the root directory meaning that it’s the first thing you will encounter when you visit.

Tsunami Alert Lifted

From The Nation, published 21 February 2008:

Thailand lifted a tsunami alert for Phuket and five nearby provinces, saying there was no longer any danger following a powerful earthquake Wednesday off Indonesia’s Sumatra island.

“The National Disaster Warning Centre has investigated and analysed more information, and found that there was no tsunami that could affect Thailand,” the centre said in a statement.
“Therefore we want to lift our alert warning as of 4:40pm,” the statement said.

The alert was issued for the six provinces on the Andaman Sea where the Indian Ocean tsunami struck in December 2004, when 5,400 people were killed in Thailand. About half of the victims were foreign holidaymakers.

The quake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 7.6, struck under the island of Simeulue off the western coast of Sumatra island.

Thailand Issues Tsunami Alert for Phuket

From Thaindian.com, published 20 February 2008:

February 20, 2008
by News Desk

National Disaster Warning Center, Thailand has issued a tsunami alert for Phuket and adjacent provinces after a powerful earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 rocked Indonesia’s Sumatra island .

The tremors were felt in certain regions of Thailand also including Phuket and Bangkok. According to some reports, Japan’s meteorological agency has informed that India’s Andaman and Nicobar island chain was also at risk.

Religious Activities Take Off In Earnest

From The Nation, published 20 February 2008:

Buddhist activities to mark the Makha Bucha Day on February 21 started yesterday and will continue until tomorrow at Bangkok’s Wat Saket Ratchaworamahawihan.

Religious Affairs Depart-ment chief Sod Daeng-ied said besides the evening ceremony, in which Buddhists pass lighted candles clockwise around the temple’s Golden Mountain three times, an exhibition on Buddhism by His Majesty the King and his elder sister HRH Princess Galyani Vadhana would be held at Wat Saket.

Sod praised the princess’s support for Buddhism and for her role as honourable chairperson for the launch of the world’s first Romanised edition of the Tripitaka.

Makha Puja Day

Today is Makha Puja (วันมาฆาบูชา) which is considered one of the most important celebrations on the Buddhist calendar. It refers to the worship that takes place on the full moon of the third lunar month to commemorate the day on which Lord Buddha recited the “Ovadha Patimokkha” (the Fundamental Teaching) to his disciples. This teaching laid down the principles by which the monks should spread the Buddhist teachings. In Thailand, this has been dubbed the “Heart of Buddhism” and can be summarized into three acts, i.e. to do good, to abstain from bad action and to purify the mind.

The Home Stretch

With the end of Term 2 rapidly approaching (only 14 more teaching days, INCLUDING “review week”), there are so many things that need to be accomplished. I spent much of this past weekend writing the comments in my students’ permanent record books (which have to be full of praise, even for the most underachieving children) and writing final exams. I also need to finish the photo slideshow DVD’s I plan to present to my main class of P3/Yellow.

This was a busy weekend capping off a oddly hectic school week, despite a serious reduction in actual teaching time. A number of classes were canceled for various reasons including nationwide Thai testing on Tuesday, an elimination round for a talent show on Wednesday, and the school’s academic fair on Friday. Actually, the preparation for this fair had stretched back several weeks but because of a delay in obtaining materials, we had to take valuable classroom time on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons to create our displays for the booths. In the midst of this, our layouts for yearbook pages needed to be relatively finished as they are due tomorrow (luckily, I only had to create one of the three pages that I’m involved with — the special P4 ESL class, the reading “department”, and P3/Yellow).

Living the FantaSea

From Stuff.co.nz, published 13 February 2008:

Sixteen decorated elephants parading together on one theatre stage is all part of FantaSea, a spectacular night’s entertainment in Phuket.

Thailand’s national animal, a vehicle of war in olden times and still a beast of burden in the logging industry, is better known today in the tourism and showbiz industries.

Elephant rides figure in most visitors’ itineraries, and they’re also on show at places such as the Maesa Camp near Chang Mai in the north where the jumbos frolic with each other in a river, play soccer and paint pictures with their trunks.

March 13 is annually proclaimed Elephant Day throughout Thailand, with the huge pachyderms and their human admirers celebrating in various ways together.

They say that elephants never forget, but at FantaSea it is the visitors who will never forget the spectacle of the jumbos, eight of them standing in line tail to trunk on their hind legs, and performing with their mahouts and a cast of hundreds of dancers, singers, magicians, acrobats and comedians, lavishly and colourfully clad with gold, silver and reds.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Close Watch on Teens on Day of Love

From The Nation, published 14 February 2008:

As Valentine’s Day unfolds, authorities will be keeping a close watch on teenagers out of concern that their expression of love will turn sexual.

Published on February 14, 2008

“We will check entertainment venues to prevent children from having pre-marital sex,” Akradej Sukrachart, an education official in charge of monitoring student behaviour in Khon Kaen, said yesterday.He said premarital sex could lead to many problems.