Tag: Australia

Someone Else – 20th November 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Confident and handsome
A mirror, to make smiles
Smart enough to understand
Dumb enough to be ignorant
Wanting for nothing
Always in control
The best of health
Someone else

How much pain have cost the evils which have never happened!

Thomas Jefferson

Today I’m feeling:
Tired but happy
Today I’m grateful for:
Little Amy being her usual happy self. Her own energy rubs off on me and pushes me even though I’m tired. I need it. I need to move my body despite everything inside me telling me not to.
The best thing about today was:
Cleaning, moving, cutting, planting things in the garden with Amy and enjoying the fruits of our labour.
Does your family make any special dishes for the holidays?
My family? Who is that these days? Amy will make special dishes but doesn’t need a holiday to do that. This app like many things one might come across on the Internet is US-centric and is referring to Thanksgiving but this annoys me really. Most of the world does not live in the US or celebrate Thanksgiving or the genocide of indigenous populations. I felt the same in Australia when people always talked about the seasons not thinking that half the world doesn’t follow the same seasons! So, in general, in short, I guess my answer is no. With a cherry on top.

I took this picture because my student Anchan took my phone and replaced my Gloomy wallpaper with her selfies so I had to find some new Gloomy wallpaper images. I love Gloomy, and Anchan too!

All About The Underdog – 4th September 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes bad weather seems better
Maybe you’ve got no coin in the game
A baby born without hope to survive
Maybe rooting for us just the same
Take a shot at the moving target
And it becomes the best you’ve ever done
Everyone has forgotten your name
But to us, you’re the one that won

Run in the opposite direction of any expert or guru proclaiming to possess a secret formula for success of power.

Robert Greene, the Daily Laws

Today I’m grateful for:
A weekend of being able to watch the AFL. Four amazing first-round finals. All of them were fantastic thrilling games and they reminded me of weekends of drinking and hangovers in Australia. Winters of football and summers of cricket.
The best thing about today was:
A big drink of cold water at about 8pm. Today has not been very eventful but that water sure made an impression. No doubt I will be reminded of it at about 3am too!

I took this picture because it represents hope and growth. Many of our pumpkin flowers don’t turn to fruit or fall off quickly before having chance to take. I don’t know how far this one will go but it’s looking good right now.

Thankstaking – 19th August 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Dump all your bananas on the bull
The real world still exists and it is full
Close your eyes and a utopia appears
Build a new life away from all your fears
Blue lives matter on the merry bus
Turn in, tune out, drop off and join us
Presented to you, a technicolour better way
We’ll get it right this time is what they say
If we can get it right in a world that don’t exist
We can do it in this one if we still persist
A diversion, a revision, a life full of pranks
Let us play together and praise ourselves with thanks

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gather wisdom.

Isaac Asimov

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that I can get the same toothpaste here in Thailand as Australia as it helps my sensitive teeth.

Straight Line – 4th February 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Going straight isn’t always the best
Sometimes you gotta bend to pass the test
Life is not linear, the path may be curved
You made it here by the way you swerved

As the crow flies sure is so fast
But the lesson, maybe, does not last
If you don’t adapt, you can break
That’s a mistake you don’t want to make

What exists, exists so that it can be lost and become precious.

Lisel Mueller

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that Amy is going for two job interviews already! She hasn’t even been in Australia for a week yet.

Last night I had a couple of spoonfuls of kratom powder and got really dug into creating some music, though I ran out of time to play guitar. It was only later, when I was feeding the cats and talking with Amy, that I realised how hungry I was and I was even feeling a little nauseous as I was eating some salmon I had bought.

After watching some TV, I was feeling tired and had a shower and couldn’t even read much before falling to sleep and it was a deep, long one. I don’t remember waking up at all. I’ve started using a sleep app, though I don’t have a watch for monitoinrg and the app told me my sleep was only 69% quality, so I’m a little doubtful how well it is actually working.

Amy has two job interviews lined up today, which is crazy. She hasn’t even been there a week! Fern also advised her about a position available where she works too.

My morning classes were excellent. I tested 2/9 (grade 8) with a really difficult text and they were so happy and shocked when I told them it was for a grade 12 level. I was teaching them not to be scared of difficult-looking things and that their skill level is very good.

I’ll take it easy for my last class in the afternoon and then have to psych myself up for the weekend. Vacuuming and washing need to be squeezed in along with all the cat and garden maintenance. Also have to take the car for service, which will give me the opportunity to walk a bit until it’s ready.

Revenge Bedtime Procrastination – 2nd February 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Working stiff, time is sucked away
Beer o’clock, a chance to play
Reclaim the day, sleep when you’re dead
Tomorrow’s here with a throbbing head

Power through with a mindful meditation
Revenge bedtime procrastination
An ever-decreasing circle of frustration
Revenge bedtime procrastination

The office runs, so take a rest
Getting paid to sleep is the best
Pretty soon it’s time to go again
Waiting for the whistle of 5pm

16 more hours without destination
Revenge bedtime procrastination
Chase away time with dedication
Revenge bedtime procrastination

When you’re young, dumb and energetic, your greatest asset is that you’re young, dumb and energetic.

Cole Schafer

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that Amy arrived in Australia safe and sound. It was good to see her in our old house last night.

17th August 2023 – Amy’s old friend Anna and her husband still live in our old Chatswood apartment and offer us space to stay if we ever need it and I still receive bits and pieces of mail there so I can use it as an Aussie address still if necessary.

Damn, those kids were noisy in class and I can see that for some, they are not interested to study. So, I’ll just continue to focus on the ones who are trying their best. The sad thing is that the ones not interested could actually do the work. It’s not difficult. There are just too many damn kids in the class.

Anyway, I kept it as fun as possible and everything was OK. I floated around for the afternoon, pretty much just waiting until 4pm to go home.

I couldn’t tell if Amy’s parents had come and watered, so I did it again, which was pleasant and relaxing. I made it to my room but didn’t do much on Ableton and the keyboard; instead, I got sucked into the guitar, which has fallen off the last few weeks, so my fingers are a little soft. I played until they hurt too much to carry on.

In the middle of this, Amy called from our old home, where Anna and Big Boy now live and Amy felt so happy to recall all our memories from there. She was already excitedly talking about new plans. I’m glad she’s feeling good, though I can (and she can) already feel how expensive everything is. 100 dollar taxi from the airport!

(Later) Just the one class today, which was fine, though the kids were a little restless. It was still fun. I got my pay cheque today, which I’ve been hanging for and not just have to wait for it to clear.

I went over to Matt’s and he surprised me with a huge bottle of wee tincture, some dried wee and some mushrooms. Awesome! A pity I have to take the car for service on Saturday morning but maybe I can take a dose when I get home.

Matt and I talked a lot about getting older and being happy not to be surrounded by friends for friendship’s sake. We’re happy with ourselves.

Do you still have a deep dark secret?

I don’t think I do. There are perhaps certain things that I wouldn’t tell certain people but ultimately, there’s nothing really so secret in my life. There are things I’ve done that I’m not so proud of but they are all in the context of growth and development. In the end, I hope to put down everything here (in this blog) and some things may upset certain people if they ever saw them but they are generally intended without judgment and just a record of events and feelings of those moments.

I don’t think I’ve ever had any kind of dark secret.

Sacred Solitude – 29th January 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I must nourish myself to face the world
I’m always on the way to my home
I’m happy to have myself as my best friend
I’m never lonely when I’m alone

6th Mar 2024 – Submitted to Moonwashed Musings
11th Sep 2024 – Submitted to Word of the Day Challenge

All it takes to get better at something is first a willingness to be bad.

Austin Kleon

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to all the people, technology and coordination that enable Amy to fly from here to Australia this weekend. It is not that long ago that this would be difficult to imagine.

I’m at home now, alone. Amy will be in the air on the way to Bangkok. The first hour at home. Have rearranged the living room and bedroom furniture a little as I will exercise in the bedroom in the morning now. Save a minute of time as I figure out a new routine for the working week.

It feels weird to have some freedom, or almost complete freedom (except for financial). Have I gotten used to the pseudo-authoritarianism of a loving relationship? Of course, whilst I’m free to do whatever I like, I will not do anything that would damage my and Amy’s relationship.

After saying goodbye at the airport, I dropped by Big C and bought some pomelo and had forgotten that there’s a B2S there and so splashed out on two new pens to replace those that ran out or broke last week. An 80 baht extravagance. I have to get carfeul with money. I’m already running coffee credit at House and Utopia until I get paid again. Need petrol for the bike and the car. It’s a test.

25th Feb 2026 – 4 years and a month later, I’m still running credit at House and Utopia – though not the same one. I do pay it off every month.

Coy Maids Yield – 23rd November 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

A peach, not yet ripe, hangs tempting
Soft fur on skin clear and pale
Untouched by the hands of fate
A heart grows older, lamenting
This light will never be the same
When summer arrives, the crow is late
And so shall end this game

The gravity tugs at all the fruits
Suspended like puppets, dancing on the wind
The ripened fall among the flowers
As the strings begin to yield and bend
Gently whispered words that sour
As hungry wolves gather sniffing
In search of fresh fruits to devour

No new ideas found under Newton’s tree
What is gone will bloom again
Forbidden fruits in gardens green
Cherries picked, hummingbird and bee
Seeds spread to await cold rain
The coy maids’ pollen floating free

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that we found a little scratch on Cap’s belly last night so that we could treat it before it might get infected. It was because I love to pet our cats that I usually find scratches and cuts that need attention.

All good things must come to an end? Whilst I’m happily working away, thinking up more and better ways to encourage my students to learn, I got told that the school has received complaints about me from parents. It’s not clear to me exactly what these complaints are yet but giving students assignments to work on when they are not in class (ie online teaching times) was mentioned.

As I think about it I wonder if these complaints are actually not so much about me but about the students, their children. Some are so far behind that they would struggle in even primary classes.

Tomorrow I will talk to Champ and Kru Nu and I will think of questions that I want to ask them. In particular, now, my two questions are what are the specific complaints and what do you want me to do? When I was talking with Champ, I just got the vague response of ‘make the complaints go away.’

I know that George will be shaking his head if he knows about this. He always keeps everything smooth and makes everything as easy as possible for his students. They can cruise through his class. I see the Thai teachers doing this too.

Ah – I’ve written this all here before. I want to push the students, make them curious and interested to learn. Each class has such good students mixed with others who have very poor skills. I prefer to teach to the middle-top rather than be bored with teaching such simple stuff.

But maybe I should change my thinking, have the simple life, make it easy and care less about the outcome for the students. It feels like such a cop out to me. Should I even be a teacher? I’m anxious and confused now. I want to defend myself but I should just try and keep my mouth shut. In the meeting tomorrow I should take notes and just work to what they tell me.

Gah! Even as I’m writing that my head is going ‘but…but…but.’ Do I care too much? I love all these kids, even the poor students. Even the ones who don’t like me.

Along with all this we’ve been trying to sort out Amy’s name change for her Aussie passport and that can of worms continued to grow but now we’ve sorted it out and will have to deal with all the Thai paperwork when she’s back from Australia again. That was stressful and it’s still stressful knowing that we will have to revisit it again in the future.

In another 11 years (or is it 15?) I will be able to get my superannuation from Australia. Where do I want to be? Where will we want to be? Should we sell up and go back now? Could I survive in Australia again? Could I do it without working? Where is the easy life I was searching for?

Haha. I make myself laugh. I’m always telling myself that it is better to suffer in life. To know that you are alive. Life is pain. And that’s ok with me.

The Week That Was – 25th February 1979

Sleep Alone – 22nd November 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

We can’t share this dream together
Each world, a darkness of our own
The waking world we have in common
Born to us after our sleep alone

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for Dave Drayton in Australia who sent me his book of poems. Today I will send him something in return.

Yesterday was a beautiful blue sky day, which Amy tuts at and means that people will start burning again now, and then we’ll be back to a smoky sky. What she says is true but I’d rather just take in the beautiful sky as it is, right then and there. She warned me that she was pre-menstrual, so I didn’t say anything!

We went to visit Bruno and Nut and had a good lunch through to dinner, chatting about everything and anything. Bruno and I did a quick dash into the city to meet an acquaintance of his who has just opened a coffee shop at their house. His name is Run and his English was pretty good.

Back at Bruno’s, I ate lots of hot pot food and took part in drinking all their ‘weed whiskey’, which didn’t taste like either and didn’t have much of either effect too, but it tasted nice. I had a good time even though I didn’t get a chance to practice guitar. I’ll make up for it tonight, hopefully. I’m starting to feel a little tired now.

This week is no-kids week for me, so I’m at House, marking their work as they send it and preparing for more weeks for 2/9. My ass is getting sore from sitting on these stools for too long.

At some point, I want to sit and listen to a CD and write about each song, to try and practice my writing and get down how those sounds make me feel. I really wanted to just listen to the Leopold CD I just bought. I heard it last week and really liked it and wanted to take the time to concentrate on it a bit more. I ran out of time though.

Ten Plagues – 7th November 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I got my ten plagues coming
They’re gonna put me straight
Find a path to victory
And I’ll never forget this date
Struggled through the sandstorm
Rivers of blood were spied
Soldiered through the pestilence
Frogs and flies all denied

Found a path to my heaven
The journey was a reward
Through three days of darkness
My life has been restored
The tragedy passed over
I did it on my own
I am my own god
And I’ll never be alone

I asked my students what topics they wanted to study this semester and one of the Christian kids wanted to learn more about the Plagues of Egypt. I didn’t really know anything about this story myself and after digging into it I wrote this poem.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that Australia has changed their rules to allow Sinopharm vaccinated to enter without quarantine. This means that Amy can plan to go and visit now.

I slept through my alarm, dreaming deeply, watching kids play instruments, a boy holding a note on a trumpet until he collapsed and I woke up.

It’s a beautiful sunny, clear day and I’m listening to crazy industrial music whilst weeding and res-stringing my guitar. Last night Amy found out that Australia now accepts the Sinopharm vaccine so she can return to Oz without quarantine, so she is busy working out everything so she can go next month.

Just Words – 3rd August 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 12 Comments

I just want to play with words
Fumble them around my mouth
First, seconds and thirds
North, East, West and South

No serious poem is this
Just a pleasure for me to write
Pen on paper is bliss
Without them there is blight

The Week That Was – 31st December 1978

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the avocado season here, providing lots of fruit for us to eat. Hopefully one day our own trees do the same.

4th Dec 2025 – both our trees died, eaten by some unknown bugs. We have a new one growing but it will be years before it may ever fruit.

Tonight I have no extra online teaching classes as Maeve will do her IELTS exam today. She is very good at English but I think she will fail the exam. I am not really an IELTS teacher and don’t really want to be seen as one. I much prefer just to have conversations so that the students feel more comfortable and familiar with the language. This is what I’ve been doing with Ashley. After a couple of cancelled flights to Australia, it seems she may suddenly be able to go there tomorrow. We’ll see. Especially as Australia is locked down and China may be headed that way too.

I was thinking how much I enjoy speaking with those two and why I am more comfortable to chit-chat with younger people in general. Perhaps I’m envious of their naivete and the possibilities they have for their futures. It’s why I want to push my students in the classroom to be the best they can be and I hope I can follow their lives into the future and watch all their stories unfold.

Most people around my age, and even a couple of decades younger seem stale, boring or dead! Or, sometimes like myself, feel so superior in our hard-earned wisdom, feel we are better than everyone else.

I love to teach my students how to find the answers to questions, rather than giving the answers. This skill will serve them better in the future.

In sad news, Mee’s father passed away from Covid at the weekend after being in a coma for a week or two. The cases of death are having less degrees of separation from my life and it is a confusing time. I would like to be locked up in the world of my home, just to venture out for supplies rather than having to come to school each day. Even with no students here it just all feels risky. Along with the vaccines – who knows how that will play out.

It feels like we are living through real history right now but we fool ourselves that we weren’t always doing that before. History is what’s happening, as they say.

I really must try and compliment someone today. I try to see so few people that it has been difficult for me to compliment others. I don’t count complimenting my students, baristas or Amy. That would be too easy. And I’m not about the easy!