Music from Pregnant Neck, The Fugs, 35mm Dreams, Tsushimamire, Skurge, Mudhoney, George Duke, Electric Light Orchestra, Lightning Bolt, Unknown, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Dennis Brown, Wild Youth, Vibrato Fetish, Spanish Dogs, beNt, Cockney Rejects and The Temptations.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for my shower in the morning, to cool and refresh, and prepare for the day.
To-do list
Continue video editing ✅
Enjoy Baew’s birthday party ✅
Record TCRAH if time
Find warm up video and then exercise
Read some more – I want to finish this book! ✅
I enjoyed learning the video editing software today. Amy was obviously in her monthly bad mood so it was good to be out of the way. She was baking cakes too. I find it hard to deal with her when she’s in these moods and even she knows that she is not herself.
She was happy when we got to Baew’s though and we started eating and drinking. I had to stop after a little bit though because I was tired and I ended up sleeping for a couple of hours!
Music from Curse Ov Dialect and Kaigen, Social Distortion, Bannlyst, The Fall, Unknown, Sun City Girls, The Misunderstood, The Crime, Rancid, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, The Slaves, Billy Childish and Dan Melchior, Itch, My Dad is Dead, Heavy Vegetable, Refused and The Rattles.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful that the men came today to look at our roof which blew away a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully, they can fix it. I don’t envy them, having to work on the roof in the blazing sun today.
Music from Pile, uSSSy, Melt Banana, Patti Smith, Cleaning Woman, Dancebeach, Lilliput, Eric and The Smoke Ponies, Show Business Giants, Arab On Radar, Cutty’s Gym, Peter Black, Steve Harley and the Cockney Rebel, Unknown, Zachary Thrax, Obat Batuk, The Homosexuals and The Fall.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for the brownie I was able to eat for breakfast. It was yummy.
To-do list
Record new TCRAH and finish upload ✅
Check out Google Sheets for school ✅
Check out Microsoft Teams
Meditate ½
Both Amy and I got nicely relaxed yesterday on our cannabis brownies – I had to eat six of them to get a good effect though and felt so chocolate-sick by late evening. It was a very nice effect though and I actually sat and just listened to music which I haven’t really done for a long while. So, I was a little bit too relaxed last night to write anything!
I feel OK to go to work again tomorrow and really want to crack on with the lesson writing so I can get a good head start for when all the classes start again properly in July
Music from Senyawa, Jamesy and Sean, Far East Family Band, Air Miami, Arcwelder, Flesh Narc, X_X, Deerhoof, Hidden Rifles, The Damned, Chepang, Lindsay Cooper, Tigermen, Fifty Foot Hose, Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, F, Younger Brothers, Shadow Minstrels, Cypress Hill and Eddie and the Hot Rods.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for my computer. It enables me to do so many things. I wonder if I could live without it? Of course, I could but I don’t think I want to.
To-do list
More 1994ever ✅
Record TCRAH – spend time on this one ✅
Watch less TV today ✅
More drawing
Today is Tuesday. I haven’t been writing in here because I have gotten myself absorbed in some good TV and by the time I come to bed it’s too late to turn on the light and write.
I feel like things are coming together more in my room – nearly got all the CDs in their cases – after more than two years! Now I’m trying to get rid of the CDRs and thinking about all the DVDs I have and what to do with them.
I’m hoping to keep up with all the backlog of 1994ever and other bits and pieces of writing. It’s been enjoyable to go through all those, thinking about the past. It still feels like it happened to someone else. Even brief glimpses of mundane things pop into my head and it makes me think about what times and events that I’m part of now will pop into my mind in the future.
Life feels quite mundane and predictable though I also feel quite happy and content.
High in the North in a land called Svithjod there is a mountain. It is a hundred miles long and a hundred miles high and once every thousand years a little bird comes to this mountain to sharpen its beak. When the mountain has thus been worn away a single day of eternity will have passed
Hendrik Willem Van Loon, The Story of Mankind
That little bird is our lives. Dwarfed by the magnificence of time.
We are small and insignificant. Not individual, not a group, nor a race. Not a society, a species or a thought from God. We are nothing.
The dinosaurs, the mammoths, the pharaohs, the sultans and kings, the inventors, the thinkers and philosophers, the builders, the masters and slaves, the writers, the historians, the celebrities, the murderers, the saints and the despots. You and me. Nothing.
What will you do with this information?
Our floating houses on molten granite Our liquid planet, it is a home for us all I’m firmly planted, my earth is solid I feel a presence but there is nothing at all I wanted something, down here is something It’s really something but there is nothing at all
‘Slowly Melting’ by Nomeansno
The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #34
Music from Tipographica, Keukhot, Chui Wan, 400 Blows, Lifter Puller, Mazaj, Geronimo, Unknown, Pell Mell, Opal, Child Bite and Debile Menthol.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for the space we have in our house and garden. We can move furniture around and reinvent ourselves, change our views.
To-do list
Talk to George ✅
Record TCRAH
One more lesson plan
Record more 1994ever for blog ✅
Write a short blog post ✅
Almost didn’t make it out to my room but somehow managed to motivate myself. I am slowly completing things, whether it is sorting out bits and pieces from my past, things I’d intended to do for a long time, reading books, watching movies and TV series, sorting out my CDs etc. So at least I have a sense of achievement.
I’m reminded of when I was about 10 or 11 years old and used to ‘race’ my Matchbox car collection and keep tables of which was fastest and kept all sorts of statistics about them. I was already organising my mind, putting things in order, sleeping everything straight.
I can pinpoint other instances of this at various times during my youth actually. Looking through old diaries has triggered some deep recollections which is interesting. I’m testing myself to see what else is hidden away in there.
Music from Girolamo Ugolini, Dragibus, Giant Sand, The Majic Ship, Bellini, Psychedelic Furs, The Sugar Shoppe, Sax Ruins, Beefeater, The Show Business Giants, The Hoax, Lindsay Cooper, The Afterglow, Amaxonas, Delroy Wilson, Dag Nasty, David Bowie, Christian Fitness, Beekeeper, Jackie Wilson and Negazione.
Music from Here and Now, Bob Drake, Orthrelm, Per Purpose, 20 Minute Loop, Shinki Chen, Tuxedomoon, Smog, POX, Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers, The Move, The Who, Unsane, Samla Mammas Manna, Unwound, Bob Dylan and Retox.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for these cushions where I rest my head on these lazy days.
Music from Cause For Effect, The Fall, All, Non Compos Mentis, Unwound, The Who, Black Flag, Beau Navire, Maximillian Colby, Sir Millard Mulch, Thin Pillow, Volcano Suns, Angst, And The Earth Swarmed With Them, Empat Lima and Captain Beefheart.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for Sichuan pepper. Numbs my lips and creates havoc in my stomach but it tastes so good.
Music from Unknown Gender, Chaser, Vibrators, Soul Junk, They Might Be Giants, Pfaff, Bob Drake, The Dils, Y.U.P., King Crimson, The Monkees, Universal Totem Orchestra, Meat Puppets, The Who, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Great Plains, The Wipers and Etron Fou Leloublan.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful that our house is a paradise that I can stay there all day, every day.
To-do list
Find more topics and lessons
Cancel anniversary booking ✅
Lazy and happy day again – but I have a weird feeling of dread and panic – not overpowering – I guess it is just the uncertainty of the current pandemic situation. In fact, if I did get sick it is unlikely to be a critical problem for me personally. It’s just the general hysteria around and I think it’s slowly seeping into me. It’s making me think twice about even working again next semester. That could just be my holiday mood and lack of motivation though.
Music from The Radwan Satellite, The Spielbergs, The Ex, Teenage Depression, The Dickies, Prince Francis, Nihilistics, The Ladies, Third Thumb, Mothboxer, Bare Grillz, Sakarin Boonpit, Blondie, Naked Raygun, The Satellites, Ambient Noise and the Sex Pistols.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for these masks that can help me breathe. Coronavirus and high AQI.
14th Mar 2023 – That looks like a pretty fine podcast. Sometimes I go and listen to them myself. I think they’re pretty good. The mix of music represents my madness. After having Covid last year I decided to stop wearing masks but with the summer burning season here again I’m wearing them intermittently when I’m outside.
To-do list
Record and upload TCRAH ✅
Install Powerpoint on laptop ½
Sort more CDs ½
Try to move more
Started off the day well then fell back into reading and watching TV. I do, however, feel much better today and much happier too. With holidays coming up, ie. not really having to work, I feel like I have lots of free time at the moment so I’m enjoying watching TV, though I do notice that time goes too fast.
Same with reading. I’m reading a lot more these days and before I know it, a couple of hours have gone.
Tomorrow is the end of quarantine and I’ll go buy coffee in the morning and we’ll stock up on supplies again.
In the 1970s, 80s and 90s, Arthur Deikman warned that many of the spiritual and utopian groups that had mushroomed out of the counter-culture were harmful cults…… He identified four signs of cult-like behaviour — dependence on a leader, compliance with the group, forbidding dissent, and devaluing outsiders. These four behaviours were particularly strong in cults, he suggested, but existed throughout society.
Jules Evans – The soulful psychiatrist (email newsletter)
When I read this I immediately became aware that the school system that I am working within in this country is cult-like. These are government schools where I work, so it makes some sense. Governments operate utilising these four behaviours too.
In this system, preferences are given to the leader, superior or elder, whether they are deserving or not. If they are found lacking machinations begin to move that leader along, often with a handshake to comfort the stab in the back.
Compliance within the group is essential. You must conform. Non-conformity will enable idle gossip, rumour and lies. This will dig deep into your soul until it becomes unbearable. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. (I am that nail, over and over. Yes, I am stupid but I hope to learn.) It is a culture clash that happens repeatedly as teachers come and go faster than they can be replaced. No one learns from this as each party shakes their fists as they walk away.
Dissent leads the same way. Any question is seen as dissent, any suggestion is dissent, opening your mouth can be taken as dissent. To make improvements trickster behaviour must be employed, backroom suggestions that may filter through as if the leaders had thought of it themselves.
And the old favourite – devaluing outsiders. In an environment of education, it seems like it should be essential for everyone to work together. However, here there is a palpable us and them. If you decide to follow the path of non-compliance and dissent you will be seen to have no value (‘you’re one of them, one of them’). The survival technique ensures devaluing yourself – it is too great a burden for many to take.
I am not filled with hope for education in this country. But I can hope that it is only my limited experience and that things are much better in private schools at least, but which unfortunately only the wealthy can afford.
The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #28
Music from Aburadako, Ween, The Fall, Ahleuchastistas, Steve Miller Band, Radio Palestine, Sajjanu, The Motions, The Letters, Abnorman Chaffy, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Girls Against Boys, Marmalade Butcher, Guzzlemug, Slight Seconds, Cinematics, Strange Changes.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful to watch our trees sprout new growth. To see the birds fly down from the branches and pick up yummy worms.
To-do list
Practice being nicer to everyone ½
Upload and record TCRAH ✅
Check files and start grading ✅
More CD sorting ✅
Xbox Dance today?
I woke up a little hungover today despite only having two beers last night. I’m really not enjoying drinking as much now, though I think I’m not really enjoying anything at the moment. It’s just a feeling that I’m sure will pass soon enough. I feel like I’m going through the motions mostly.
I did get a few things done today and starting to refocus myself a little and after six days stuck at home, I am getting a little itchy to just go for a walk.
I really want to get up tomorrow morning and start playing that dance game. I must do it. I should dance – in my own unstylish way. It will at least make Amy smile.
I got bothered today because Amy mentioned that when I write to school or TLC my words are quite argumentative, or could be perceived that way. I need to become more aware of that and be more amenable. I must think more about what I write and hoping that will transfer to the way I speak too.
1994ever 