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Story and picture by Wanphen Sreshthaputra

NATTAWUD Daoruang, a 14-year-old student at Satri Samut Prakan School, has been addicted to the Internet for four years. But this addiction agrees with him. The young student has turned into an impressive webmaster, with fans all over the world. To find out what all the fuss is about, log on to his site at <www.thaistudents.com/nattawud>. “Hi! My name is Nattawud Daoruang. My Nickname is “Gor”. Welcome to my homepage. I come from Thailand. I am 14 years old. My birthday is on the 3rd of July, etc.” Next to the introduction on Nattawud’s welcome page, you can see him smiling radiantly, in front of a bed of flowers and leafy trees.

The young boy seems simply delighted to introduce you to his homepage, and it seems people enjoy reading it as well. The site has garnered more than 18,000 hits.

The extensive site is an interesting, humorous look into the teenager’s world. It offers information on everything from his family (his dad Kanit is a government official, his mom Narasinee is an employee at National company, his brother is named Kittikun) to the contents of his pocket (a plaster, his hospital card, his ID card, the stub of his last movie ticket, a picture of his girlfriend). Buttons on the site will lead you to his house, his life at home and at school, as well as to pages of his diary. Slowly you will get to know and see (through pictures) everything, maybe more than you wanted, about Nattawud.

You will learn that the lad likes to tease his little brother at night about ghosts (which makes his brother run to sleep with his parents), that he likes to exercise on a big machine at home because “he wants to have a lot of muscles to look handsome”, that he usually gets up at six o’clock to wash the dishes and that he loves to chat with his girlfriend on the phone, often very late at night.

Nattawud’s site also features very practical information about Thailand (including a map), Buddhism, Thai holidays, new films, sports and Japanese cartoons. His website is especially popular with foreign students wanting to find out more about Thailand and Thai teens. However a glance at the website guest book will prove that his audience is much wider.

Whenever Nattawud is online, which is everyday, you can talk with him in his own personal chat room! The enterprising fellow has even rigged his homepage with a green light that flashes to let people know that the master of the house is online and is available for a chat.

In short, the 14-year-old boy, is amongst a very new generation of kids who have put the Internet right at the centre of their lives. It is part of their daily life; it’s one of their closest friends.

So is there more to Nattawud, than the dedicated webmaster and Internet surfer? Yes, and his website shows it. He is a teenager, an M2 student at Satri Samut Prakan School, a former student of Sriwittaya Paknam School and a fluent speaker of English. “I like to listen to the radio, play games or sports,” the young man explains. However the Internet is his passion and Nattawud spends around three hours a day on the computer, updating his homepages, answering email or surfing the net in search of new tricks and gadgets to display on his site. “I am very busy working on new pages and researching. There is always something new to discover on the net,” Nattawud says, busily creating reflections from the sun on a picture of the sea for his homepage about the movie The Beach.

With a GPA of 3.9 last term and an indisputable fondness for computers and high-technology, one isn’t surprised to learn that the creative student wants to be a computer engineer. But he didn’t need to tell you that, you can find out all about his plans on the Internet!