I came across an article in a Thai Magazine about computer, if you think it’d be a male or female, which I think it’s a bit funny. I’ve never given much thought about mine, it’s a black Dell that I bought over 6 years ago and it’s still working fine but I did recently upgrade my monitor to a 19 inch flat panel LCD which I guess one might say it’s now a female. [Updated 10/4/2008] This old one died, I recently made a new purchase, another Dell with a 22 inch screen, instead of looking like a female as my previous one, now it’s looking a bit more masculine.  This is what the article in Koosang Koosom written in Thai Language said,

A group of all male computer scientists announced that computers should also be referred to as being female. Their strange 5 reasons are: no one but the creator understands their internal logic; the native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else; the message of ‘Bad command or file name’ is as informative as, ‘If you don’t know why I’m mad at you, then I’m certainly not going to tell you’; even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval (so true); as soon as you make a commitment to one, you’d find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessorizing it (high maintenance).

However, another group of all female computer scientists thought that computers should be referred to as if they were male. Their strange 5 reasons are: they have a lot of data, but are still clueless; they are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they are the problem (totally agree with this one); as soon as you commit to one you realize that, if you had waited a little longer, you could have obtained a better model; in order to get their attention, you have to turn them on; big power surges knock them out for the rest of the night (same as the English version here).

After reading this, I couldn’t help but to laugh, silly things that people would come up with. Then I thought to myself, what about my blog? What do people think of it, male or female?

I started writing blog during the time that my mom was diagnosed with cancer and needed to keep my mind focused. I spent many hours sitting with her while she rested, therefore had plenty of time to read Thai magazines and found many interesting articles that I thought others might be interested in reading, and that’s when it all started. My mom passed away in early January of this year, and here I am, still translating and still spending many of my sleepless nights writing; it helps me deal with my loss and still be focused.

My oldest sister and I came up with the name, Nye Noona; Nye pronounced ‘nine’ means mister or boss in Lao or Thai, and Noona means mouse, so it’s Mr. Mousey, a bit old fashion and sounds like a mouse in a rice paddy field, but since I’m a blogger, let’s think of it as a computer mouse. My intention was to write like a guy, I thought it would be so cool; then one of my friends asked me to do story on fashion. I thought to myself, that shouldn’t be so bad and the traffic was incredible (for me anyway, for some might think it’s that all?); then I thought to myself, may be they’ll think I’m a gay guy or something. Then One day, Darly of Laoplanet.net was kind enough to do a little write up to introduce my blog to the Lao community and it read,

There is a new blogger in town and her name is Nye. Nye is a Lao lady with an appetite for words. She is an avid writer about matters of the daily life, Laos (of course) health issues, food and many translated articles from Thai media.

Nye Noona is a blog that you should not miss when you do your daily round of Lao internet sites. Add Nye’s blog to the list, if you like thoughts that might make you itch!

That was so kind of her, but it did hurt me a bit, the ‘Lao Lady’ part totally destroyed my image as a male blogger. The thought of me continuing to write like a guy went down the drain, but if anyone missed this write up, then they might still think I’m a gay guy. Some people think that my writing is a bit weird, especially one of my co-workers; she once asked me ‘Where did it all come from?’ ‘What?’ I asked. I didn’t think it was very weird, but I didn’t want you all to think that my blog represents who I am. I’m very normal and average, but I do have to admit that it’s becoming a part of me now, and my voice might at times comes through my writing. Okay, the more I’m trying to explain, the more I think I might have confused you even more.

I truly think that a blog should have a gender; sometimes I can tell by entering someone’s blog, for many obvious reasons, but other times, I’m clueless. I think Nye Noona is more of a female now, but I like to think of her as a tomboy. :)