January 2008 Archives

A man from Myanmar who claimed to be a convict on the run was arrested on the tarmac at Bangkok's international airport after having slipped through security, authorities said Friday. Police said the man, who identified himself as 28-year-old Zu Aung, was found Tuesday aboard a Turkish Airlines jet ....

Read more.

This is a sad news, actually. It shows that ordinary Burmese citizens are not happy with their own country and are trying desperately to get out in search of better lives. Yet, they end up in jails in neighboring countries.

Outgoing Myanmar envoy plans retirement life in RP

And educated people do not even want to retire in Burma. How sad it is?

The outgoing ambassador of the Union of Myanmar, Thaung Tun, said that he and his family plans to stay in the country [Philippine] once he retires.

Read more.

Greetings from across the ocean! I just want to wish you a happy new year! I am sending my greetings only now because I don't want to compete for your attention during around Christmas!

The year of 2007 went past fine for me. Most of 2007 was spent writing my Master's thesis proposal. I am working on the task of aligning English sentences with their equivalent Thai translations using various approaches in computer science. (I don't want to elaborate on that :)

I am still working at the Center for Research in Computational Linguistics (www.sealang.net) in Bangkok. I am learning so much about the field that I want to go on to a PhD program. If I ever do a PhD, I would like to work on Burmese word segmentation.

I also travelled to Chiang Mai (a northern Thai town). I visited Saw Htaw and Kelly, my college friends, who are now living there and working for the Summer Institute of Linguistics. I had a wonderful time there with them and their adorable son, Jeremiah.

Lwin and Jeremiah

Chiang Mai is a lovely small city. If you are thinking about early retirement, it's the right place. The living cost is so low that you will probably be able to retire without working until 60. :) And, of course, you will have an opportunity to help the helpless and needy people from Burma, who, instead of working in poverty-stricken Burma, came to Thailand in search of better lives.

I hope that 2008 will be a prosperous and happy new year for you. Thinking about you now at this time of the season for family and friends!

With love,
Lwin Moe