Author: shaun tenzenmen

Australasian DIY music specialist and practising poet, amongst other things

Eggs Of Evolution – 13th January 2022

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We are mutating faster than ever
Elongated thumbs and extended necks
Are we becoming more stupid or clever
As we homogenise into a single sex?

Reversal has never been possible
The eggs have already been fried
So we must hold ourselves responsible
And measure all the things we’ve tried

Paradoxically or not, great ideas come more easily from people who are not paid to have them.

Iain McGilchrist

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that my body tells me when to slow down and that I am able to rest when I want.

Feeling pretty good again today. It’s definitely helped by the reaction I get from students. When they are disruptive and noisy, I guess maybe I’m taking it as a failure, although I do understand that all my students also have their own things going on in their young lives.

Anyway, this morning, I could feel quite a few students really getting to grips with understanding some of the things I’m doing with them. That absolutely improves my mood. So my task is to not take it too much to heart when the opposite occurs.

This afternoon we have our second club meeting and I need to prepare some things in the hope that it goes smoothly.

I put my Launchkey keyboard on my desk last night with a plan to study about it for a few minutes each night. Still thinking about the room arrangement at the moment.

Busy getting work permit stuff together so not sure how much free time I will have. Let’s see.

Man Lives In Fear – 12th January 2022

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The Woman’s Era has been dawning
For more than a hundred years
Held back by the arms of man
And his resistant fears

Equality means inclusion
And ending this fickle game
To treat each other as human
To see each other the same

Embrace all our differences
Enrich our lives together
For the sake of all humanity
Wherever, whoever, whenever

Submitted to WDYS #228

Without urgency or panic, make the necessary time and make much of that time.

Mason Currey

My midweek chill was rudely interrupted last night when I suddenly lost my energy and good feeling. I was so exhausted and feeling dizzy and sick that I went to bed at around 7pm and was soon asleep. In the night, I felt hot and I’m also feeling hot now, though the temperature check just said 36.5 for me and the crappy ATK I bought shows a very faint line that I’m OK. Difficult to say if it worked or not.

Anyway, I woke up not feeling too bad, still a slight headache and not 100% but ok. When I read my messages, I had to cover Dylan’s class this morning too – which is OK but meant I was teaching all morning. I’m going to dash off now to Fascino to buy a different ATK and will check again tonight. I don’t really want Covid right now as it will fuck up all Amy’s plans. Faaaar out.

I’m following this 12-step course of creating new habits, this is from James Clear, whose book, Atomic Habits, I’ve read and used to some degree. I’ve developed many good habits already and considering what I should do to create a new one. I’ve been good at exercising, studying Thai, learning guitar and those things do take up a bunch of my time already.

One thing that I do want to get back to, is learning Ableton and using the keyboard I bought and to create music. Before I create music, I really need to understand how these things work and hold together. An early step in forming this habit is to make a two-minute rule, a very simplified version of just starting the habit, not necessarily completing anything. So now I want to figure out what I can do to get down to a simple two-minute rule so that I can start forming this. I think I need to have the keyboard set up and Ableton open and ready to go, maybe then, just study one part of the manual for two minutes and then begin to understand it well.

I need to fit this in with my routine in the evening, which is usually to write a blog entry or two, use Yousician for at least ten minutes, play guitar to some songs with Capo, which can take up to 45 minutes, after that, I usually go inside and watch some TV so that I can wind down.

I’m still not quite happy with my set-up in my room and don’t feel quite comfortable in there. Clear some space? Rearrange again? It’s quite a good working environment for all the things I’m doing but some days I just don’t want to go in there! I’ll figure it out I guess.

18th Dec 2025 – I still haven’t figured this out. I still have many days where I just don’t feel like going to my room. Maybe I have set it up in my mind that it is like my old bedroom, a safe space away from the world, and somehow it doesn’t quite live up to that expectation. The Ableton keyboard has been sitting on the desk since this entry and has collected dust for most of the time. Perhaps reading this today will give me some incentive to get back to it.

Never Give Up – 11th January 2022

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I gave up smoking when my son arrived
And eventually, the drinking on which I thrived
Drugs were out and I never did the casino
One thing I’ll never give up – that’s my cappuccino

When you try to extend your reach outward, it’s much better and more appropriately directed inward.

Ryan Holiday

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that I got my laptop working as I needed it at school yesterday after having many problems.

What Will It Take? – 10th January 2022

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The spiritual super-humans waiting
To breed out the lesser specimens
To what end these missions
With their hyperintelligent regimens

When the cities submerge under seas
Destroying the parasitic subspecies class
What will it take to live together
Before this disaster shall come to pass?

The things you do often create the things you believe.

Benjamin Franklin

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to see the weird orange colour of the sunrise before seeing the sun in the morning. Soon the sun will be up again before me.

I tested myself this morning by telling Amy not to get up so I could see how long it took me to do everything when she is not here. It looks like I can do it if I get up at 6.15, though if I want to increase my workout, then will need to be 6 am.

Further tests came at school when I tried to use my new laptop in class and had all sorts of problems. The IT guy came and looked like he fixed the internet cable for me but the projector wouldn’t connect properly. I dashed down to get my old laptop and then that had problems too!

I restarted everything and suddenly my new laptop started working. Started the class late but we got everything done. Everyone was happy.

I came out to House to see a message that no one can leave school again – just like prison!

At least this time, I followed the supposed procedure and signed the book to leave. We are threatened with contract termination if we break these rules. Ho-hum-so-dumb. Anyway, all these things have the potential to wind me up or get me down but I’m feeling ok to deal with it. For now.

Looking Good – 9th January 2022

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This shiny apple, so appetising
Fools your sense without realising
Inside, the maggots, breeding more
In fact, it is rotten to the core

We sold the apple, sold it well
From the outside, no one can tell
This analogy can be multiplied
Across your beautiful nation wide

Within is decay, or already dead
No matter all the pretty words said
A conspiracy in which we all take part
Only the truth can fix this heart

Fuck the fuck off back to where you fucked on from.

Ricky LeFleur, Trailer Park Boys

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to the lady that gave me a 2-hour massage yesterday. It was painful but awesome and I’m still in pain now, but awesome now!

I slept super well last night after a spoonful of kratom and feel great this morning, though I’m too early for Tha Sut and no cafes are open yet, so I’m back here writing.

Yesterday was relaxed but the time disappeared quickly. In the morning, Amy and I took Na up to the university cafe for her English lesson and it was good to go somewhere different. Na was very sweet when she said that she will miss Amy.

After lunch, I watched the Youth Brigade/Stern Brothers documentary, which was pretty inspiring and reminded me that I also wanted to start a Better Youth Organisation in Dorset. I didn’t know what I was doing, just as the Sterns admitted but I wonder turn my life would have been like if anyone had responded to my leaflet to do something more like that.

After that, it was time for a deliciously painful massage that loosened up a few places in my body and made me contemplate my future with my hips. Will I need some kind of operation at some point? What can I do now to delay that possibility?

I left Amy in the city to meet her friends and came back to watch some TV bits and pieces and chill out with kratom and before you know it, the day’s gone.

Today we’ll go shopping and hopefully not much else. Life is great.

I Am Nobody – 8th January 2022

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Nobody, no one, stuck outside
Looking in, is not interesting
On the margin, in dark edges
Don’t force steps into the light
Nobody, no one, give no invite
Denied the dull-somebody life
Living in the corners and alleys
Where stories are made of air

You might have achieved what you wanted, but are you sure you learned the lesson?

Slash

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have coffee options around me. Art has closed Utopia for the weekend to go camping and I went to Black Smooth and had a nice coffee there and read some more. I feel good.

Projects – 7th January 2022

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Put it together, pull it apart
A lesson is a work of art
Things to be responsible for
A world to discover more

Give them a wooden stick
Balanced on a broken brick
Trial and error, many a blunder
A world filled with natural wonder

Put in water, then dry it out
Let’s see what it’s all about
Neurons link, making able
A poem written at this table

People don’t take your power or make you invisible. You do that.

Andrea King Collier

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for my positive attitude to helping the kids try new things, to grow and develop themselves.

Well, yesterday was excellent with the afternoon club going well despite Kartoon and Nampan’s reservations but I can feel that they are just lazy – it’s not that they aren’t capable.

I went home quite excited and upbeat though a little exhausted. I was expecting to have trouble falling asleep with thinking too much about what to do next with club and classes. However, after about 10 minutes I was out of it until my alarm went off at 6.20.

I joked with Amy that I had such a good day at school that it wouldn’t last and some nonsense would come along to knock me back down again but this morning was great too.

2/11 (grade 8) have been very good recently – I think starting to comprehend the class method, whilst perhaps not understanding all the English.

2/9 were reticent when they saw the work I wanted them to do today but they all settled down to it and I could clearly see them understanding and learning how to do my work. It made me feel very proud and I told them all how great they were doing.

One more class before the weekend – the dreaded 2/10, though even they have been showing signs of maturity lately, too.

It’s getting closer to Amy leaving now, though there is still a lot of doubt about whether it will actually happen, due to Covid. Could be a last minute decision.

How has getting older affected your sense of yourself, or your identity?

I have become more comfortable with who I am as I’ve gotten older but I think that has only happened more recently.

Moving to Thailand 4 years ago forced a re-evaluation of my identity, much as it did when I lost my job (my big, expendable income) in 2013. The trying times I have had since then have been things that have tried to force me outside my identity and there was clearly a period for me last year, when I made the call to chat with Jochen, that I knew that I was part of a particular tribe that doesn’t exist where I am, as such. I’m fine with that, in that I don’t need to be close to my tribe, I know that I am still a part of it and can always find my way back, if necessary.

I do not identify with many people around me, though I can recognise them. My instinct is non-adaptive to a degree. I am friendly, kind and understanding but I don’t want to hang out and talk about your mundane shit.

When I was younger, this may have bothered me a little. Sometimes I thought I should do more to fit in, or I would wonder why people don’t like me. I’m comfortable enough with myself not to care what other people think of me. Like it’s said – it’s not my business.

I quite admire the odd eccentrics of yesteryear who maybe sat around philosophising in drawing rooms, with brandies, into the early hours, whilst normal people went about their normal lives. I’m not a part of that but I do romanticise it somewhat.

As I age further, will my identity modify further or will I become a narrow-minded fuddy-duddy? No matter, it’s not for me to say but I try to keep my mind open for all new experiences that may be offered or sought.

Insight – 6th January 2022

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Somewhere deep down
The solar plexus?
Requires time and space
Do nothing
See the clouds wander
But don’t look
The passing river
Thoughts in motion
You don’t have to do
But do nothing else
Dare to be bored
Remember that

Learn to accept your mediocrity.

Jerry Seinfeld

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to the happy friendly kids who all want to talk to me at school. They fill me full of joy.

Excellent fun with my class this morning. Most students seem to understand what I expect from them and we are all getting more comfortable with each other.

This afternoon Champ and I start our first class with the TED-Ed students. I think all the grade 11 students will be OK but I’m not sure about my grade 8 students. I hope that they feel inspired enough.

No time to think this morning but whenever I’m away from a pen and paper I have lots of thoughts I would hope to put down and many of them disappear, for a while or maybe forever.

The slight anxiety I had yesterday went in the afternoon as no one mentioned anything to me about not being around in the morning and I even got an apology for the short and indirect notice I received to teach. So, I worried about nothing – or people may be talking bad things about me that I don’t hear and I can’t control that and don’t need to worry about it either.

I’m noticing I’m starting to feel the wind down into the April holiday already, even though I’ve made myself busier than ever. I’d love to keep on teaching these students but also happy to leave it all behind.

Dissolve – 5th January 2022

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I dissolved myself into nothingness
Reverse engineered my being
Back to the womb, the sperm met egg
A cluster of molecules
Formed by random atoms
I saw my place in the infinite
My space and time, nothing
Dissolved

We’re all born listeners, so try to adapt a child-like listening mode, set aside expectations and really just be there.

Gordon Hempton, On Listening

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the chickens that laid these two eggs I’m eating, the farmer that collected them, the drivers that drove them and the shop that sold them.

Having free time in the morning, I clocked in and headed to House to read and relax. As I was talking to Fui, I got a couple of LINE messages that I was supposed to be covering Dylan’s class. An indirect message had been sent at 8.31 that I hadn’t seen – it was now 9.10.

Anyway I rushed back, a little flustered and had a great class with M1/6 (grade 7) – it was actually better that it was rushed. We got down quickly and it was fun.

In my head I’ve been thinking about what to say if anyone asks me why I wasn’t at school but the more I think about it (and thankfully I’ve had time to think about it) I should just say nothing. No need to be defensive or to make excuses.

I’m in Le Paradis right now, not risking going out again! As I was sitting here, 3 grade 8 students came in. They are not in my classes but have been chatting with me whenever they see me. They are upbeat and positive and I like to put in the effort to talk with them. We communicated through our poor second language skills and translation and I could feel tired trying to communicate in a second language, just as my students must feel in my classes sometimes.

It’s worthwhile to connect with them though. Give them a confidence booster and me a little conversation practice.

What has ageing given you? Taken away?

Easy answer: Wisdom/youth.

Ageing has also given me more of an insight into how short our time is. The things I think I will enjoy, because I enjoyed when I was younger, do not always correlate with how I feel now. Is that something that has been taken away?

It’s also given me a better understanding of all the old people in my life, or the people who seemed so far away old. I was just contemplating this morning that it is over 30 years ago that my grandparents passed. And my cousins, Sharon and Ken are around the age my grandparents were when I first went to live with them. These times feel so short, so fast.

Hayden is 25. It’s strange to see him in a grown-up body. My picture of him is still as a two-year-old.

As many have often thought, age brings confidence and wisdom to talk with the opposite sex but now we’re too old to take advantage of this knowledge with the members of the opposite sex as we would like. Not without being creepy anyway.

Here Come The Good Times – 4th January 2022

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Shuffling through the bodegas
Listening to all the chatter
Words of many are mundane
Though convinced they really matter

Seeking that perfect sandwich
Waiting in endless lines
Everyone is saying it now
Here come the good times

Lots of people suffer so much that perhaps they would have died of sorrow if they couldn’t dream something nice in between all the sadnesses.

Ceclia, Through a Glass Darkly by Jostein Gaarder
Analysis of the lyrics to A Good Day by Smart Went Crazy

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that all the kids are back at school today. Hopefully until the end of the semester.

Two full-on classes as a welcome back this morning. As I was teaching in the second, I looked at the students, they were not really concentrating and full of beans but I only wanted them to do some writing, so once they had finished, it was difficult for them to maintain any concentration. Rather than try to push them to remain quiet, I walked with a few of them one-to-one instead and found that they could understand the work well enough.

Now I’m in the cafe and reading about the idea of longsight. I have to remember this when in class. Think about longsight for those kids and the bigger picture. I can only push them so far before they explode.

Dylan tested positive with an ATK yesterday and is at hospital getting a PCR test this morning. Covid creeps ever closer.

What is surprising about being your age, or different from what you expected, based on what you were told?

I don’t think anyone ever told me what to expect. I grew up in my teenage years around my mother and her parents and to my young self I could never imagine being their age and likewise I could never imagine them being my age.

I had gone to Australia and was away from my mother as she went from middle to old age, so I was only ever exposed to that on infrequent visits.

I am perhaps surprised at myself for not feeling old, not feeling what old people looked like. My mother had told me she felt like this too – even as she was in old age. She cursed her fading body but was proud to have kept her marbles.

So it’s surprising to me that I seem to be finding time to improve my fitness, perhaps a little too late but it makes me feel better anyway. I thought that I would keep on drinking my nights away but now don’t find the pleasure anymore. This may be typical for many older people but for me it was unexpected. I’m grateful I’m not so bloody-minded to keep pushing my liver to extremes like I was 18 or 30 again.