Category: 2003

There are many paths dripping dark so dense – 24th May 2003

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

What is wrong with my body? Does my sick mind hurt my body too? I get sick a lot – I don’t know why. But this feels different – could just be some weird virus – hopefully nothing more. But what if….?

I feel dizzy or weird when I move my eyes or head and feel sensitive to noise sometimes. The thing is I don’t feel sick – not ill or anything – but it seems my body wants to shut down – I don’t feel like doing anything in particular – just resting or the things I normally do at home. I don’t have the energy to get out really. It’s been like this for about two weeks.

23 Apr 2022 – In 2009 or 2010 I got glandular fever which knocked me around for about 3 months and ever since then whenever I’ve had the symptoms described above, I always put it down to a reoccurrence or triggering of it again. As I was writing this in 2003, it seems like it must be something else that has been causing these symptoms which still bother me even now.

It may be connected with my sertraline medication, which I started taking in 1999 and still take now. I could try and get off it but it’s such a small dose one doctor suggested it may just be a placebo for me. Every time I’ve tried weaning myself from it though, after a while a situation would get me down so much that I would end up taking it again. It’s always worked so I’m a little reticent to stop taking it. I have very little stress in my life now though, so it could be worth thinking about again.

Sometime around 2000 or 2001, I went to an allergy specialist to see if it might an allergy issue but they didn’t find anything in particular, just a pretty general allergy to dust and which I doubted anyway. A highlight of going to this specialist though was the beautiful and friendly Burmese receptionist that worked there. At the end of the day, I would’ve preferred a resolution to my problem but I took what I could get and tried to make the best of the situation.

I often wonder about people that I’ve had brief connections with and what they ended up doing with their lives. These people were usually serving staff in favourite food shops. Mami at the coffee shop next to where I worked in Help Street, Chatswood. Emma, at my favourite Chinese takeaway (Shanghai Gourmet) in the Mandarin Centre, who taught me how to order my favourite dish in Chinese. That may even be Emma in the attached picture. Eun Bi at the Sushi shop. Mikiyo at another coffee shop. Sue from another coffee shop who I was close enough to to hang out with occasionally. After Sue went back to South Korea I became friends with Jenny too. I would meet these friendly people at least once or twice a week for many years in some cases and it certainly paid off to be nice to them as I would often end up with freebies and extras.

And then there was also Jenny, Peter, his wife Nancy and Nisha who all worked at the sandwich shop I would frequent whenever I could. I watched Jenny grow from a quiet 18 year old, unsure of her future to a business owner and now mother. She even asked me for advice about the guys who chatted her up in the shop, eventually asking for more advice about one in particular who she ended up happily marrying. After moving to Thailand she was the only one of my friends who called me to see how I was doing. I remain very grateful for her thoughtfulness and we still stay in touch.

You see, you feel, you know…you’re waiting – 17th April 2003

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Hayden came over and walked into the living room which had been changed around since he was last here. He then checked out my bedroom which had also changed. This though, upset him because his own room was still the same.

I explained that I didn’t want to move his room around without him being there and now we could move it together, however he wanted it. That cheered him up a little.

The initial pessimism though was a real highlight – I want to help him look at situations as a positive instead of negative.

15th April 2022 – Hayden was six years old by now and his personality already developed to some degree. This attitude to change has become even more obvious as he grew up. Ironically, or perhaps not helped by the fact that he has had to undergo quite a few major changes in his life. Somehow it feels as if Bronwyn and I were never able to provide the skills for him to deal with change very well.

He struggles with making his own changes and feels at home in his comfort zone. For me, that feels like it’s holding him back. But I guess I was like that somewhat too, even until my late 20s and making that uncomfortable decision to leave all I knew behind and take a chance in Australia.

I’ve been thinking about this a bit more recently as I’ve been putting lessons together for next semester. I want to open the student’s minds to the possibilities out there for them even with all the societal restrictions in place that may be too overwhelming for them.

I wonder if I feel a greater responsibility to my students than I ever had to Hayden? Is that just my own self-doubt?

Have you ever realised you must love yourself, If you don’t then how can you love anybody else? – 12th April 2003

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Well, the last few months have been fine. Just recently though I have not felt so good but hope to start writing some more – will look back through some old notes – remind myself who I am – what I have become.

I don’t want to be lazy but I don’t know what real motivations I have at the moment. I started my Chinese studies at Uni in March and that has been going well though I sense I’m not ‘getting’ everything and really should study much harder.

God – I don’t want to give up on this – I’m sick of giving up – only being half good at anything – I want to be a genius at something! Haha!

5th Apr 2021 – In the early 2000s there was some way to do individual units of Uni courses for a very cheap rate, or at least affordable for me. Having become fascinated with China more and more since arriving in Australia and visiting in 2001, I thought I should give learning the language a go. Macquarie University was within walking distance from home and even though I didn’t understand how universities work I enjoyed walking around the campus and visiting the library when I was bored, especially I would now be able to check out books and videos, of which they had some classic fourth-generation director VHS tapes of movies that I hadn’t yet seen.

The class (Chinese Language 101) had about 20 students and I soon made friends with a young group of high school graduates, a couple of girls and a couple of guys. There was Lina, short, skinny and cute and Emma, plain but attractive and smart. There was Lina’s boyfriend, Paul, also plain and intellectual and then another handsome effeminate guy whose name I forget but was actually the most entertaining of the bunch. He reminded me of me when I was that age. Cocky and unsure with wild mood swings.

At one point during our classes, a pretty Chinese girl joined. Strange, as she could speak Chinese already. Some quirk of the system that allowed her to stay longer as a student and work illegally is my guess. I made friends with her immediately and pursued her as a girlfriend but the language and cultural barriers were too much and I wasn’t brave, smart or emotionally stable enough to figure it out. In short, I was an asshole. (Later in life I could identify this behaviour in some guys who would try and pursue Amy.)

I felt desperate and ended up chasing her away. I was really upset by it and felt worthless and hopeless for a time. Still constantly echoing in my head, TLJ’s words that I always needed to have a girlfriend and couldn’t be alone by myself, ie I didn’t love myself yet.

I always figured a twelve year age gap between male and female should reasonably align with maturity, as was the case with TLJ and me but actually she was still far more mature than me about the things that really mattered.

I can see from this writing I am able to express myself but still not able to find any solutions for myself. Right now, I think I’m blaming my alcohol consumption at the time as a default fallback self-medication.