Living in Thailand has made me appreciate a few things about living in the US. Simple things like just being able to flush toilet paper, drinking straight from the faucet and Walmart(finding towels shouldn’t take an hour in a store really. I also miss the “I’m going to get skittles but really I’m going to return with 10 bags of random stuff that I didn’t know I could live without until going into Wal-mart” aspect of Wal-mart). Really though outside of that, its not that big of a difference(aside from the language barrier).

One of the things that unites all nations though is the internet. I’ve recently realized that without it, I’m pretty worthless really. Can’t work, its hard to find information on stuff( I have to rely on these things called books? ) and I can’t get to Facebook. Well really Facebook isn’t that important, but its just one of those things you miss when the Internet is gone.

I suppose over the years I have become almost 100% reliant on the Internet to find any information on anything. Google makes it too easy to find things these days. Just like trying to find a Mall is so much easier when you can go to Google Maps and find it. We have some Bangkok books, but its just not the same.

If you really want to read a rant then keep reading, but really its not worth your time unless your a State/Fed employee and your time at work really is more of a “well I could do work, but this sounds more fun right now and I’ll work later” type of deal. Don’t lie to yourself, you know what I mean 😉

Anyways, I took on the endeavor of getting Internet into our apartment. I really didn’t think it was going to be that big of a deal. In the US you just call the Internet company and say I want tubes for my house and they do it and then hook it all up for you and your good to go. Well, I think its suppose to be that easy here, except when you are faced with a language barrier it becomes exponentially more difficult. I don’t know what I’m ordering other than the common MB/s numbers that I see on the pamphlet. They don’t know what I want even when I point at it. I really thought I could just point at some stuff on a piece of paper and then put my name and phone number down and it would all just work. Well, it kind of did except the technician didn’t speak English when he called me. Then when he finally got here he just gave me a box with a modem in it and walked off. The instructions were all written in Thai and then the lady that could speak English that I called at the Internet company told me that it was something to do with our Apartment complex and that I needed to talk to them. Well the people here didn’t speak English and sent a tech from the apartment up who actually spoke English fairly well. I had to restrain myself though when he was running diagnostics on the connection as I could clearly tell that the blinking light on the modem was not suppose to happen and he was playing with my laptop(I’m a CS major its like my precious car, only I touch the engine!) I finally just sat back and let him run through everything and finally come up with the conclusion that the blinking light on the modem was not good. Then another hour of him figuring out why the light was blinking and walla. I have tubes in the apartment.