This article was originally posted on WomenLearnThai.com.
Birds come and birds go…
The Wednesday before last, my housekeeper came running into the living room all excited (I know it was a Wednesday because it is the only day I have someone in to clean).
นกมา! นกมา!
nók maa! nók maa!
Translation: Bird come! Bird come!
Waving her arms for me to follow, we went to the back of the house to see. And yes indeed, a bird had come, depositing two spotted eggs as well.
With the excitement over, I settled back to work. Soon after, I was notified again about the status of the bird.
นกไปแล้ว! นกไปแล้ว!
nók bpai láew! nók bpai láew!
Translation: Bird go already! Bird go already!
The whole day was rather fun actually, with us going back and forth looking at either the eggs or the bird on the eggs.
A Thai bird day in Bangkok…
When my Thai teacher showed up the following day, she also became excited about having bird eggs around, so the bird became the focus of our lesson.
Note: To see the English transliteration, scroll your mouse over the Thai script (pretty nifty, yes?)
มีไข่นกสองฟองอยู่ในรังนกบนต้นปาล์ม
mee kài nók sŏng fong yòo nai rang nók bon dtôn bpaam
Translation: There are two eggs in the birds nest on the palm.
เเต่ตอนนี้เหลือแค่หนึ่งฟอง
dtàe dton-née lĕua kâe nèung fong
Translation: But now there is only one egg left.
เเละมีลูกนกถุกฟักออกมาหนึ่งตัว
láe mee lôok nók tòok fák òk maa nèung dtua
Translation: And then the egg hatched and we have one baby chick.
ลูกนกเกือบหล่นเพราะว่าร้งนกเอียง
lôok nók gèuap lòn prór wâa róng nók iang
Translation: The nest tilted and the baby bird almost fell out…
เเต่แมวก็ได้ทำรังให้ตรง
dtàe maew gôr dâai tam rang hâi dtrong
Translation: … but I fixed it.
Stay tuned for more as the chick grows wings and takes flight (hopefully)…
And please feel free to suggest corrections to my Thai, ok?
Well, as a matter of fact i learned the hard way in my early days of trading that going by your intuition and second guess will throw your money to thin air. If one wants to trade profitably and take losses as a simple nature of trading, one must use a solid system that doesn’t count on emotions or mere feeling. There are ways now to limit the trader’s loss per trade, it’s called “stop loss”. I can toss you some useful E-books on this subject on E-mail i don’t want to irritate your readers with more trading related comments. I know if you get me started about trading i might not be able to shut up lol.
Cheers to you Cat.
.-= Medo Joe´s last blog ..Bird Cages | Small | Large | Wooden Bird Cages =-.
Not too long ago, you could bet for stocks to go down too, but they’ve stopped all that fun. I’m just not sure I could get by the losses. If they’d gradually make me too gun shy to go with my gut.
See this exactly is why i never approach stocks. I hate them. You can only win when stocks go up. But in currencies, you can make money if either a currency pair goes up or down in value, And yes i had bad days trading them but i got used to it (the loss) because trading involves both loss and profit. The catch is to make your total profit exceed your total loss at the end of the month, thus, gets you a decent net profit.
.-= Medo Joe´s last blog ..Bird Cages | Small | Large | Wooden Bird Cages =-.
Tempting (and sounds exciting). Do you ever get into bad trouble selling currencies? I’ve been through two black days on the stock market, and they were not fun to watch. People close to me lost a bundle each time.
It’s okay it’s achievable as long as you still own those websites.
Yeah this is a case where timezone difference can be a bliss. I never traded stocks though, i sell dollar in exchange for euro and vice versa then take the profit/loss from the rise/fall of either currencies. The best part about trading currencies is market keeps open 24/5 a week. It only closes on saturday and monday. it’s an advantage people can trade whenever they want during the day.
How come your wink was cooler than mine?
lol cheers.
.-= Medo Joe´s last blog ..Bird Cages | Small | Large | Wooden Bird Cages =-.
I have a couple of sites that would benefit by more than a bit of skyrocketing. They were all good ideas at the time, but my life became complex after I moved to Thailand. Ditto for those working with me.
Day trading is interesting. In SE Asia, day trading on the US market means staying up until 4am. So those doing it could have a day job too.
You are right. The banners on WLT at the moment support the learning Thai community, not the other way around. And you are again correct on the time problem. So… wink wink..
I mean guestposting, removing broken links, socializing and promoting internal pages etc..Generally, anything that gets an old site back to life.
Yeah i know some people doing it very well too, and i was hoping you realize that i was sarcastic by calling myself “unique” in this business because i’m not lol. Just a waterdrop in the ocean. Day trading online is a way of trading any financial instrument and currencies are amongst so yes you got that right.
You know i have a habit. It’s when i enter a blog that i never been to before and the first thing i try to figure out before i read anything in it is its pagerank and how many advertising it serves. And when i got here i looked around and realized maybe you don’t put any ads at all. I see banners but their links didn’t look like ads to me. That’s when i knew this blog is one of your hobbies and teaching material no strings attached and i was glad it is a success. Ofcourse a part in me wondered why you didn’t monetize it by selling stuff or publishing some ads on it, but i thought maybe your time is full and you don’t have much of it to think about this whole internet business thingy and no one can blame you for being busy. But if in any moment you decided:”hey, why not?” I will be more than glad to help you learn about making money with it. Won’t be hard anyway… wink wink.
It’s good that you mentioned the resource page, i really didn’t pay attention myself. Now i do.
To your health and success.
.-= Medo Joe´s last blog ..Bird Cages | Small | Large | Wooden Bird Cages =-.
Skyrocket – I guess that means ghostwrite?
I know a few guys out here doing quite well on the internet. And they work awfully hard for it too, always coming up with something (most of their ideas work). Trading currencies – I’m not sure how that one works, similar to a day trader I guess.
WLT was supposed to be a small blog where I saved learning Thai resources while I was busy studying the language. The evolution to what you see now was gradual. And as I’m having a blast at it, the lack of making money is not an issue. Not that I’d ever figure out how to do it anyway.
Thanks for liking WLT’s FB page. FB is coming in handy for all those resources I find. New resources do go straight into my resources page. But unless someone is paying close attention, they don’t know what’s been added.
Lol you welcome mi lady.
yeah we start making sites and blogs and we forget to ask ourselves this important question: “How in the world can i sustain all those at once?” Accordingly some if not most of them become aged then we forget about those. i thought of hiring someone to skyrocket my old sites but i can’t see a potential in spending money on them yet.
BTW that was one good FB page. So i simply “liked it” lol, obviously i wasn’t the only one. I’m going to read it tonight.
Yeah money, sorry i forgot to introduce myself, i’m a unique guy that is as same as “millions” of other unique internet marketers on the web lol, promoting products and services produced by other merchants. Also i trade currencies online which is my passion and it really brings more money than any internet business i ever dealt with. Many bloggers hate to go for the Moolah but this is who i am, i don’t just spend my time on internet surfing and writing content, i have to make it all worth the effort sometimes. So some payoff every now and then makes you feel you’re not wasting your time. Plus, i like the idea of making the internet itself pays for my internet fees and domains lol. It even sounds fair don’t you think?
Cheers to catherine.
.-= Medo Joe´s last blog ..Bird Cages | Small | Large | Wooden Bird Cages =-.
Thanks for the tip, I’ll log sharm el-Sheikh away for when I’m in the area next (I googled… nice!)
I have other blogs now lacking in updates lately too. My hat goes off to those who can handle that and more. I cannot.
As promised, WLT’s FB page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Women-Learning-Thai-and-some-men-too-/122223084459712
Money? You get money? 😀
I love Luxor! i love sharm el Sheikh even more. Next time when you come you should really go there for a while.
Yeah, combining all these efforts at once must be tough i agree. One post a week is reasonable anyway and no one could flame a blogger for it. Sometimes i leave my blogs and sites with no updates for a month or two. Life is a spare-time stealer.
You’re most welcome. gimme the FB page or i’ll chase my garden birds away :p Dunno how this could be a threat to you anyway but you get the idea. ofcourse you should pass me the page link.
And hell yeah, we love the web, what else can give us friends, supporters, virtual properties and money?! it’s only the internet lol.
Cheers to you.
.-= Medo Joe´s last blog ..Bird Cages | Small | Large | Wooden Bird Cages =-.
Yes, I did the tour of the main bits, as well as Luxor and Sakkara. And one day I’ll go back. Promise!
I would love to do more than three posts a week but I have a problem. When I’m writing, researching, and coding in posts, I’m not studying my Thai lessons. Difficult, as you can imagine.
Thanks for grabbing my RSS. And if you have a hankering, I have a Facebook page for WLT too (posts as well as resources get sucked into FB – gotta love the Internet, yes?)
Catherine, Good to know and i’m flattered that you liked it. I assume you managed to visit the pyramids and Mr.broken-nose “Sphinx” lol.
Come’on i’m sure you can steal some time for those posts and i will be the first to read. 🙂 Or maybe i can grab your RSS right now so that i read whatever you have to say in the future. Yeah, that sounds good to me.
Stay safe & cool.
Medo
.-= Medo Joe´s last blog ..Bird Cages | Small | Large | Wooden Bird Cages =-.
Medo, Welcome to WLT 🙂 I was only in Egypt a short time, but it was an amazing visit and I’d like to go back.
Birds are everywhere in this big city. I have more bird posts in the wings… but… time…
Oh Catherine and i thought that Arabic was the most confusing language ever (which is my native one btw lol). Now i knew that i’m not alone in this. I would love to visit Thailand and i would love to learn how to pronounce Thai letters as well 😀
Congrats for the new birds coming to life, i know the feeling actually. I can’t stop working on attracting those young fellas myself.
Thanks for the good share. Your new friend from Egypt
.-= Medo Joe´s last blog ..Bird Cages | Small | Large | Wooden Bird Cages =-.
Pete, you came up with a much better title than I did for the coming post (it goes live tomorrow).
Btw – The baby chick knows who I am now, so it no longer jumps up and down squealing for food. It just sucks its head into all those new feathers and pretends I’m not there. Should I try a long stick instead?
‘Am I off the hook yet?’
Well, if you must… 😀
No, seriously, I really mean it. There is some great work in the portfolio at Katz Designs 🙂 😀
(Am I off the hook yet? 😉
Back on topic, I’m still waiting for the Thai version of “Shook tree. Baby didn’t wake up. Shook tree harder. Then…” 😉
Thank you Pete. And now my face is all red 🙂
I would just like to take this opportunity to say what a MAGNIFICENT designer Catherine is…
😉
So true, so true.
its not the normal birds i watch in bangkok but a few of us could get into a lot less trouble with this kind of sport he he
Thanks Amy, I got the idea for the popups when I was playing around with putting a children’s reader online:
I just need to get permission from the powers that be before doing any more…
Robins are gorgeous, and I’ll bet the baby robins are much better looking than this poor little thing I have here!
Talen, you are going to just love the iPhone. My maid drags it out so we can find the different words I don’t know. She prefers the iPhone over my computer for some reason. A pity she isn’t here more as we have fun together (and I’d be pushed to learn faster).
And btw – I have not forgotten that post on learning Thai with the iPhone. Myke Hawke’s bits came up and it gobbled up my free time. The rest of the series will go live as soon as the Thai gets double-checked by a Thai language guru (soon, I hope).
I am SO looking forward to reading your coming post. I’m sure it’ll get people thinking a little deeper than what they are used to 🙂
Great photo Catherine and I have to chime in and say I love the pop up transliteration as well. I think I have to get an i phone now so I can cheat too 🙂
P.S. Still working on what we were talking about…had some family issues the past week but I think I have a handle on it and will post it soon…I think…
Gosh, what a well done post, Cat. I love the pop-up transliteration and I’m very impressed at your Thai writing. It’s new birdie season over in CA too. Just last week I watched some baby robins getting fed by their doting parents, it was neat to see!
Hi Lynn, the pop up is easy to do (just time consuming). And no, I don’t know how to spell all the complicated Thai words. But hey, my English spelling is cacca too (thank goodness for all the tools we have available to use these days). And now I have an iPhone with Thai spelling… hehh hehh… I love to cheat…
I have a hard time thinking of you all the way over there in Canada too. Pooh, I’m always thinking, ‘I’ll just get my butt off this computer and call Lynn to go and do something fun!’ And then I remember that you are not here anymore 🙁
One of the hardest things about being an expat is when your dear friends move on to other lives elsewhere.
HUGS!!
Hi Cat, what a neat thing to do: learn Thai and watch a momma (I think?)bird and her baby at the same time! I love it!
I’m amazed at the quality of your photo’s; you’ve come a long way from ‘Auto’, haha!
Your pop-up transliteration is really amazing stuff, girl! I won’t ask how you do that..too much info for me. I am just glad you put everything there, right at my finger tips, just in case I need or want it.
When I’m chatting online with a Thai/English speaker, the transliteration actually comes in very handy, believe it or not!
I can’t spell Thai worth a hoot, so sometimes I have to rely on the T.T. (terrible transliteration) method to make myself understood, as does the Thai person I’m chatting with. I know, as you do, quite a few Thai words and phrases by ‘ear’, but who knows how to spell them? (you probably do, but you won’t tell anyone,:)
Sometimes it’s hard to believe I’m sitting at my laptop in Canada, not in Thailand!Big Adjustment. Thanks for bringing Bangkok back to life for me; baby bird/nest watching (while learning Thai) is great fun!
When it was snowing heavy wet stuff so thick you couldn’t see across the street two days ago, I was really missing Bangkok! Mostly I miss my good buddy..
Thanks for the phone call, it was so good to hear from you!I’ll be watching for future developments on the chick’s progress..and learning some ‘fun’ Thai, too!
I didn’t realise that squirrels took chicks. Darn. I assumed that only the eggs would be in danger.
There are several families of squirrels on the other side of my condo. They come right onto the balcony, walking along the bannisters. But I’ve never seen them along the front (not that they don’t go there though).
When I renovated, the sparrow nests made from coconuts had to be taken out in order to paint. I’ve never put them back, and after reading about your experiences, I’m torn as I’m not sure how good of a security guard I’d make.
That is sweet of the sparrows to show their appreciation to you. I have a rooster down below, so I feel for you.
A family of sparrows (นกกระจอก) live above our balcony and their antics are always interesting.
On one memorable occasion, there was a huge commotion when a squirrel (กระรอก) snatched a chick from the nest and ate it. I had always imagined that squirrels just ate nuts or something but it turns out that they can be voracious carnivores when it suits them.
Since then, I’ve been acting as the sparrows’ unpaid security guard and they express their gratitude each day by waking me up at the crack of dawn.
Pete, that’s coming in the next installment where I show just how far a nest can slide on its side without a chick falling out 🙂
Catherine you missed one phrase out before “the nest tilted and the baby bird almost fell out”…
Did you have trouble translating “I shook the tree to wake the hatchling up so I could photograph it”?! 🙂 😀
Hi Martyn, that lesson was done when I hadn’t slept the night before, or I would have jotted down all the details on why the individual words were used. When I get my teacher over here next, and if we have the time, I’ll ask and be sure to take notes to share here.
Or, if any advanced Thai learners are reading this… please pipe up 🙂
The chick is doing great! It is slowly gaining feather cover for its body (a relief).
I’m looking forward to taking photos of the attempts at flying (hopefully my photography skills will be up to it by them).
I clicked on the link and tried a couple of words, most useful and I’ve bookmarked it, thanks for that. The first two phrases in your post I amazingly knew, Bird come and Bird go already, after that I was completely lost. Nice story and lets hope the chick makes it to the runway.