Month: September 2021

We’ve Come A Long Way – 10th September 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Distress and diapers, simple needs
Toilet trained, beginning self feeds
Walking, falling, knowing when to run
Crying, laughing, every idea is fun

Language acquired, enemies still friends
Playground traumas but the drama always ends
Personalities shine, divide into cults
Future decisions based on grade results

Jogging memories, now rattling around
Thankful to have made it off the ground
We’ve come a long way, we’ve come along
We’ve come a long way

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to the people who invented the drain-cleaning twisty pipe thing which I was dubious about to begin with.

Well, to celebrate today – this new 0.7 pen! Nice and fluid on this paper. Also last night, I got an accidental workout using this weird pipe tool thing to clear out the fat from our drain. My shoulder is hurting now.

I managed to force myself up at 6.30 this morning, after failing yesterday. Did my usual mini workout and feel pretty good again today.

Tomorrow morning we have to go to Amy’s parents as they will have a ‘housewarming’ for their new kitchen and karaoke room. Just another excuse for eating! Though I’d rather relax at home, it’s OK, something different.

Amy forgot about some fish she was steaming yesterday and now our house smells of fish. I could finally turn the tables on her, as she is always calling me stupid for forgetting things.

Owned It – 9th September 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Scouring her memories, she recalled all her faults
The stupidities of youth launched her verbal assaults
But she stood by her actions, owned her mistakes
The beds that she lay in were the ones she makes

He too examined his past, it still made him mad
Could never forgive himself, not even the slightest tad
Those times replayed had become his obsession
Dragged past anxiety down into deep depression

Forgive yourself, she said, to make him feel better
But something inside him just wouldn’t let her
Help him to see the brightness he’d once seen
To pull him back from the darkest extreme

She’d tried her best but saw a lost cause
Left him alone to heal his own flaws
He still cries for her, even these years later
Telling himself that he will always hate her

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to share some of our passionfruit and will take to school for Dylan, We have so much we can’t eat it all.

I like the thought-provoking newsletters I’m signed up for. Some are fun, practical, others political. Today, I read a fun one about deciding what to celebrate each day.

Today I forgot to bring my lunchbox from home, so I’m celebrating getting my yummy lunch from Oasis and the chilli burning the inside of my cheeks will remind me of this all afternoon!

I’m also celebrating going to Central to buy a new one, and then coffee and reading! Woohoo! Every day is a celebration.

Thoughts Of Mine – 8th September 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I spent a lot of time not thinking
And at the time that was OK
Sometimes I fall back into it
Although I’d rather not be that way

The more I know, the less I know
Is what I think all the time
Never ignorant and not much blissful
I question these thoughts of mine

The eternal search for answers
In the minutiae of each minute
No longer wanting to be out of it
I’d rather spend my time within it

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to the 2 guys who cleaned my car yesterday. They did a good job and I was happy to pay and tip them.

New pen – 0.4, maybe a little too fine for this book. Perhaps I look forward to another pen shopping expedition. Pen lovers will know the feeling.

I’ve managed to get myself up and out of bed on time successfully for the past three days and do a little exercise in the morning, and it has paid off today with a fantastic feeling of bodily relief. Not quite the feeling of youth but at least some extra flexibility that seems to make it even easier to breathe. Let’s see if I can force myself up tomorrow morning!

I savoured my coffee after my first class this morning. It’s fucking hot and humid bu there was a light refreshing breeze of cool air as I sat outside House stroking Tokyo’s soft furry head as she dozed. A few minutes studying Thai, a couple of quick poems dashed off and then an hour-long drive into the lives of an Afghan girl in the book I’m reading – A Thousand Splendid Suns. It’s a very spacious novel, perhaps enjoyable for me as I can fill in the gaps with my own knowledge. A lot can happen in a short few pages and it feels immense. Especially when I think back to the mundanities of my own youth, a million of those mundanities would happen in just one day. With age, everything seems to take so long!

I bought a MIDI keyboard more than six months ago and I enjoyed fiddling with it for a while but I know that I need to set aside a serious amount of time to really get further with it. Last night I also felt like I’d hit a wall with playing guitar, but that one I feel I can overcome.

I also chatted online with Mungo a little yesterday, too and I talked to him about how he manages being so far away from his oldest kids. His kids seem a bit more settled than Hayden at the moment, so he’s not so concerned with how they are doing.

Anyway, Mungo highlighted to me not to project myself or my feelings onto Hayden, which sometimes is difficult, as he isn’t very open about what is going on with him a lot of the time. But it’s a point well said – I shouldn’t fill in the gaps.

Mungo also offered Hayden a job for a while if he could get himself to the UK. That would be an awesome opportunity for him and I want to sound him out about it. I would help him get there too if he needed.

Yeah – I’m not digging this pen – will pick up a 0.7 tomorrow.

Stick In The Mud – 7th September 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I love the adventure more than you
Sidetracks make me curious
But not knowing where we’re going
So often make you furious

I love to find dead-end tracks
Just to see what’s there
It doesn’t matter we have to turn around
I don’t really care

When roads turn to tracks of dirt
My curiosity begins to rise
There may be nothing there but
I want to see with my own eyes

Yes, I got stuck that time
But adventure is what I had
Eventually, I got out of the mud
It wasn’t really so bad

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for my stupidity and smarts. Yesterday I took a shortcut home in the car and got stuck in some mud, miles from anyone (stupid). I broke off some branches and leaves to get traction under the tyres (smart) and with some brute strength and will, managed to get out again after 15 minutes (strength).

Took the car to get washed inside and out today after my little adventure getting stuck in the mud when trying to take a shortcut home. I was quite pleased with myself at getting out of it though.

Amy would have been very pissed off if I had to leave the car there and call her Dad! Just thinking about the scenarios while writing this is making me chuckle a bit. Anyway, our car looks good now.

Two classes today – pretty easy time at the moment, lots of reading; A Thousand Splendid Suns. I’m really intrigued about Afghanistan, especially with it being in the news so much right now. I doubt I’lll ever go there so I’ll just be content with watching documentaries or reading more.

On It’s Way – 6th September 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Dragonflies litter my driveway
Drowned in torrential rain
Once happily fluttering about
But never to fly again

Snails are stuck in my driveway
Sudden sun drying all around
Some crushed under my tyres
Their bodies smushed into the ground

As I drive to work this morning
Black clouds are moving away
The roads in front are empty
And the future is on its way

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to Hayden for calling me out of the blue yesterday. He sounded in good spirits.

Looking back through my 1979 diary and watching videos of popular songs at that time is really stirring up my memory. I didn’t write much of any importance back at that time and I’m conscious that sometimes writing and photos become the only remaining memories.

With all this looking back though, random memories do keep popping into my mind – soon pushed back in the brain, but there somewhere. Big chunks of time seem to be missing but it’s in there somewhere – going to extract it out like a science fiction comic book operation. Excellent. All the events, all the pieces, mundane or exciting, make me the person writing today.

I’m not putting this together for posterity – will anyone care? Perhaps some sociology student of the future? This is my own exercise in understanding, my own investigation into now by investigating the past.

I was pleasantly surprised by a call from Hayden yesterday evening and he sounded quite bright and chirpy, more so than me; I was still tired, perhaps from the vaccine. Anyway, I hope we can talk more often and I can encourage him to think a bit more and talk to him without any judgement.

Walking Backwards – 4th September 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Where are you headed, young lady?
Doomed to repeat mistakes
You’re only paying attention
To ones your mother makes
Can’t see what’s in your future
Cos the present hurts so much
You’re endlessly running towards
The first thing you can touch
Holding on to another’s dreams
Thinking that’s where to go
Walking backwards into disasters
Comforting for you to know
Waking up in a hundred years
Realising what you’ve done
Close your eyes one last time
With a peace to be at one

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for a good sleep last night and for our three visiting dogs today – Richie, Leo and Tangmo. A lot of noise and a lot of bad smells.

Secrets of Hosseini – 3rd September 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

“Tell your secret to the wind
But don’t blame it for telling the trees”*
Like a mynah bird in your hands
Slacken your grip and away it flees

*Khalil Gibran
These two lines (modified slightly) appear within a few paragraphs of each other in Khaled Hosseini’s ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ and stood out immediately to me for their poetry. I take no credit, really, for jamming them together.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have gotten an appointment for the Pfizer vaccine today. Let’s hope it all goes well.

Well, I surprisingly received an email late yesterday afternoon with an appointment to get the Pfizer vaccine – something I registered online for a few weeks ago. I wasn’t really expecting anything much to come from it but the appointment was for this morning! Typical Thai last-minute information!

Anyway, everything went smoothly with getting the vaccine at the hospital in the city. I was even in and out before the actual appointment was scheduled. No undue side effects that I notice and I go back for the 2nd job on 1st October.

I assigned work for my morning class to do and quite unexpectedly ha;f of them did it even though we didn’t have an online meeting. I’m in the middle of my afternoon class and they are all working surprisingly well too. Except for Dew.

Dew cannot understand English at all and shouldn’t really be in this class. Last year, he frustrated me in class a lot, not because he didn’t do the work but because he would always be talking to other students and disturbing them. And not just talk and stop but like an unbreathing radio DJ.

With studying online now, it is easy to mute him, when he even bothers to attend.

But I must admit, I like him a lot. He’s pretty funny and when I asked him to sing a song, he would do it. I think we understand each other well enough. We both accept that he is no good with English. Let’s see if he stays quiet when he’s back in the classroom.

The Old Ways – 2nd September 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

The belief that this way is the best
Completely fails when put to the test
Just because it was always done this way
Doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to stay

Instead of walking, why not run?
There’s other ways to get things done
People power can produce the change
One day to find the old ways strange

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that all 3 of our cats are healthy again. It makes me smile inside to see them relaxed and playful.

Amy was tired yesterday after making two batches of cinnamon buns and was looking forward to resting today but just as she came to bed she got a message that Utopis sold out theirs immediately and wanted more! I chuckled and know she is also happy but not used to working on demand.

I’m looking forward to getting out for afternoon coffee and some book reading!

Dust – 1st September 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

We are dust under the dust of the feet of the king
Now unsatisfied with the problems that you bring
Rising up to challenge centuries-old traditions
That led the country into these downtrodden conditions

What made sense once no longer really applies
The world has gotten smaller for information supplies
The dust, the people are not prepared to let it be
They are motivated to be the change they want to see

7th Nov 2024 – Shared with Ragtag Daily Prompt – dust

Weight: 78.0kg
Resting heart rate: 48

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to get through another month mostly healthy – just a little pain. Let’s see what excitements September brings.

Stuck at school all day but that’s ok as I can keep myself occupied wherever I am. Having pen and paper, a book and internet help and the two coffees I picked up this morning have kept me charged up well.

I’ve updated things on my blog, written my daily poem, played guitar for ten minutes – I brought my shitty guitar to school just for this purpose and bought a better one a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve taught three classes, marked their work, which I can feel is always improving; helped another teacher with their work – warning them not to ask questions that they themselves cannot answer!

Only thing I haven’t done yet is read some of my book, which I normally do at the cafe. I have read a bunch of articles online, though. My eyes are a bit blurry from staring at the screen.

The best thing about today is seeing my students ‘ improvements through the semester. For some reason, these things stood out a lot today. Anyway, it makes me happy. Some kids are sneaky and try and trick me but it’s out of laziness more than anything. I think I catch them most of the time.

The Week That Was – 25th March 1979