the color of its countries

The driver was a dashing young man named Lai. His English was about as good as my Thai, which is to say that between us, we got on like very charming cavemen. Luckily for us, one of the main underwater attractions -- namely, the clownfish -- has already seared its place into the vocabulary of the global media and can now transcend language barriers. He very helpfully pointed out all the spots where we could expect to find "fish Nemo," and the rest flowed from there, with even my rudimentary Thai kicking into gear: anemone became "house-fish-Nemo," for instance -- baan-plah-Nemo in Thai. I was even able to articulate our excitement at discovering several little Nemo families, complete with paired adults and smaller juveniles living in the same host anemone. "Look! Have mother-Nemo, father-Nemo, child-child-Nemo!"

In short, Koh Phi Phi was a delight.

My good friend Bill once noted that when his online life goes dead, it pretty consistently indicates that his real life is flourishing. I'd like to think that's the case here. It's been a terribly busy couple of months this summer, and I'm just starting to pull out of it -- work, love, and family lives all miraculously intact, I'll note gratefully. Social life, not so much, but I don't honestly mind.

I'll have some pictures to post in a bit of a 10-day visit from my lovely parents, but in the meantime I wanted to note that a new link has been added. You can find it in the bar to the right: it's the class website I created for my Matayom 3 (Grade 9) English class. If you happen to still be following me here and are interested in the voyeuristic thrill of watching 143 Thai students panic about their final exams, dive in. It's a nice glimpse of what I've been covering with them and what they have to say about it, charming grammar slips and all.