Tag: Boyan

If you can fool yourself, you can fool anyone – 3rd February 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

I have all the character strengths I need at my disposal but there are some I need to practice more and improve.

Perspective: Being able to provide wise counsel to others; having ways of looking at the world that make sense to oneself/others.

I see myself on a journey where the destination is wisdom and contentment. My challenge is to acquire these attributes before I die. My default assumption is that everyone else is on the same journey whether they know it or not. Many have already met their challenge whilst others are still travelling. So I sometimes find myself being able to provide counsel for others and other times go in search of that counsel myself.

Social Intelligence: Being aware of the motives/feelings of others and oneself; knowing what to do to fit into different social situations; knowing what makes other people tick.

This is one I really need to practice more. I have gotten better at this since I was in my 20s but even now I just avoid social situations if I feel they don’t suit me. This is slightly compounded by being in Thailand where some situations may mean I’m the only English speaker or there may be myself and one other English speaker, almost forcing us to be sociable with one another. Then there are other times I may only be surrounded by other teachers, where our only connection is our profession and conversation devolves into complaining about our schools, which becomes unproductive and boring. Finally, there’s the rest of the ex-pat community who I generally remain suspicious of, mostly through negative experiences when around them previously. Well, I guess it’s a fertile ground for improvement at least. Must push myself. (Today I just want to shut down and sleep.)

Spirituality: Having coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of the universe; knowing where one fits within the larger scheme; having beliefs about the meaning of life that shape conduct and provide comfort.

I believe life ultimately has no meaning so we must give it our own meaning somehow. These days I am doing a lot of thinking around all these ideas but it is becoming time to put things into action (shaping my conduct).

I remember one time when I was working at the check outs in a supermarket and a regular customer I would chat with was contemplating out loud what the meaning of everything was, to which I responded that life is pointless. She readily agreed but we understood each other that this was a motivation for giving it meaning rather than giving up on it. I have definitely changed my view on this over the years. When I was younger, with lots of time ahead of me, I sometimes thought life was pointless so just gave up on trying to do anything. I’m questioning this statement even as I write when I consider all the many things I actually achieved during that time. But no matter, those negative thoughts were in my mind.

Kindness: Doing favors and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care of them.

Sometimes I don’t give myself enough acknowledgement for doing this. I perhaps consider kindness as being normal so forget to account for it. But there are definitely other times when I think back to times when I could have been kinder and offered to help someone with something that they were doing, rather than concentrating on my personal tasks.

Teamwork: Working well as a member of a group or team; being loyal to the group; doing one’s share.

I wonder if this characteristic is an issue for most only-children? I’ve learned to rely and depend on myself, even more so having been raised by a single parent. I do prefer working alone but also happy to be part of a team so long as instruction is clear and meaningful. When part of a plan doesn’t make sense I just won’t do it. Perhaps I am sometimes thought of as cantakerous because I am not afraid to speak my mind. See next point!

Prudence: Being careful about one’s choices; not taking undue risks; not saying or doing things that might later be regretted.

Me and my big mouth.

If you’re led around by your nose
You’ll never get to see how the garden grows.

-Volcano Suns
Cool hidden cafe. On the edge of Burma.

I am sometimes good at doing these things but often get wrapped up in myself too much instead. Perhaps people who know me would be surprised at these choices; perhaps they would see me differently. That would be nice to know but ultimately there’s only me that has to live with my thoughts. Only me that can think, and then act, my way to improvement.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to be invited for a bike ride by Boyan this morning. I was quite surprised. I think he feels a little more comfortable to talk with me now. I’m happy if he feels that way.

Testing, competing with and criticising others weaken and defeat you.

Morehei Veshiba

To-do list

  • 5 kind things you did today?
  • Catch up on emails and articles ✅
  • Think again before speaking – do not complain ½
  • Write blog entry – take new pictures ½
  • Gym after work

I forgot about Mondays being tough. I think I realised as soon as I stepped into school and my energy levels suddenly decreased dramatically. My annoying students certainly lived up to expectations and it wasn’t until eating some lunch I started to feel better. So I didn’t have much kindness within me.

I did catch myself speaking and complaining before thinking when chatting with Kevin and Said. I have to think of those situations like a game to play. Not to win but to stop from losing by complaining.

By the time of getting home, the students had drained me so much that gym was out of the question, despite me knowing these are key moments that need to be pushed through to make real change. Instead, I watered the garden which was a much more pleasant pastime.

Tomorrow I will be in the city – oh, as I’m writing this, plans have changed. Now it seems I may be able to get to the gym tomorrow – something I will aim for.

Things I will try to do better tomorrow are to not let the students push my buttons so much and calmly deal with them if necessary. Tuesday is a much easier day too. I will endeavour to remind myself to play the listening game when talking with others and look for opportunities to be kind.

Slumber still won’t visit thee – 8th January 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

What is something you would love to learn?

I really want to learn to meditate in an effort to calm my mind. My mind is no longer busy with negative thoughts but quite often with useless thoughts. I just want to calm those down if I can.

I also want to learn to practice the things I have been reading about and put them into action. This is far more difficult than expected and I’m hoping that just by continually being exposed to them that it will rub off on my day-to-day actions.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to be able to manage myself and my time and be adaptable to sudden changes. Today I got given an extra class which could have been annoying but it was perfect as it is for a class I will miss on Friday so having to do the class now means those kids won’t be behind.

From commonplace book

Without knowledge of what I am and why I am here, it is impossible to live.

Levin, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, pg 908

To-do list

  • Think, then speak.✅
  • Do something nice for someone.
  • Start putting together exam questions.
  • Help Boyan with ideas for English camp. ✅
  • Practice gratitude about the school. ✅

I caught myself a couple of times and chose to stop talking and let the other person speak. At the meeting yesterday I was pleased that Boyan chose to want me to work with. He’s not an easy person to make an impression on so i felt a little flattered that he felt I was OK enough to work with. He came primed with an idea in the morning and by the end of the day we had it all fleshed out and ready to go.

I spent a good bit of time writing out why I’m grateful for the school. That was tough but I managed to fill a whole (small) page.

Ran out of time for exam questions but have everything else for the semester completed now. I also picked up the grade 6 books and have challenged myself to write a week’s worth of lessons from those (at least). Even if I don’t end up teaching that next semester it is still good to keep planning.

In the morning I got given an extra class which became quite fortunate as it meant I could complete the full week of regular English classes which wouldn’t have happened as planned as I’ll be away on Friday. This potential negative turned out to be very helpful and I handled it well. The students were really happy to see me too which made me feel good.

My general negative thoughts from yesterday have all disappeared today and I have noticed myself being more comfortable around the kids again. In some ways, not being able to hug or touch them has created a little distance which has made me care a little less about them. Maybe by care less, I mean more detached. This is probably a good thing for now.

Today I also wrote a little more to Lachlan and received audio files back from Jochen – it was nice to hear his voice again. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to edit it all yet but I’m looking forward to the challenge.

Just by chance, as I was reading Anna Karenina a perfect passage stuck out to me and became my first entry in my commonplace book (see above).

Tomorrow we have some sort of Buddhist ceremony event and I’m not sure what we are required to do and if it involves doing some sort of ritual thing. I’m undecided about whether to refuse or not. I asked George about this a couple of weeks ago and he said he would just do it – who cares? I read today to copy the actions of people you respect so thinking that that’s what I will do.

I also hope to clear out a bunch of emails that I’ve had sitting around. They are not important but challenges that may take a little time to do – I’ll see if I can print them out and do them that way.

Yield to the right of way, stopping at a four-way sign, someone else’s rules, not mine – 18th December 2019

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I’ve started talking to my phone. I thought it might be a good way to get ideas out more quickly. It’s quite difficult though. The action of talking seems to interrupt my thought processes and I feel like I’m performing thinking and trying to keep things linear. Of course, as soon as I put the phone away I had two thoughts that I believed I could use for writing and now have forgotten. Well, luckily one just popped back into my head but it’s likely I’ll forget it again by the time I finish this paragraph.

I’m sure I can make use of the speech-to-text on the phone – it just needs practice and more habitual use. I probably need to just push out the thought for fleshing out later rather than trying to run with it at the time. It’s an interesting exercise though it feels weird having a one-way conversation into the phone. I see quite a lot of other people sending audio messages but I’ve never been comfortable enough to do that. Same with instructions for devices, like using Siri or Bixby etc. It makes sense to make use of that functionality but feels dumb talking to your TV or whatever.

Here’s the stream-of-consciousness spew I came up with:

Last night I had a dream and I was in the school and was complaining with a tie teacher about the activity we had to do actually we just stand around doing nothing no one told us what to do this is quite common having quite a lot in my classes in my schools and I knew that I was going to have to do something similar today and now here I am standing here but nothing to do just babysitting children despite this so nicely I’m having a lot of fun at least it’s something different not sitting in the classroom I actually I was looking forward to sitting in the classroom and reading and stuff but now we’re outside and kids just pretty much playing some games actually quite fun but sunny 11 could I go in till 4 so he nice
Sara Bareilles camp Camp I would just basically in the area looks like a note template or something behind the school in the fields with lots of trees randleman is nice and shady and cool kids are scared to go to the toilets because they think of this ghosts around very difficult I’m feeling great 5-10 year olds stool I guess you believe in ghosts maybe anyway it’s a really nice walk at the back of the school what do you call a housing estate the back and then can you record any more Minnesota twins in the first time I’ve been talkin into the funds I trying to record my thoughts but the actual process of speaking seems to be interrupting the source and feel like I’m trying to write a narrative rather than just letting thoughts come freely you not go all over the placeas I’m walking back to the sky suddenly going quite white hiding the the trees in the mountains in the distance and I can rice fields here smouldering away I’ve been burned off cat simulator with to sleep the sky is full of on the way down to the ground I can smell it now the smell reminds me of when I was a kid in it’s stopped little grass flies hedges no edges of them and banquets and places like that one time one got out of control and we had to run away we could see the fire which city smoke from the fire when we got home it seems like it was a long way away but you know it wasn’t so the relative sizes of different when you were a kid conrado Munoz nowholy smoke is pretty good actually I think I’m going to get my 10,000 steps done today that I’m think I’m going to drive back afterwards little bit hot after working in the Sun as I shake where I am this program is funny the conversion from speech to text isn’t quite as fantastic cuz I’m the Mack this is just on the phone Android phone remember to watch out for snakes where I amit’s very very quiet where I am at the moment I can see houses and buildings and stuff but I know it’s just a few crickets as birds fluttering around in the grass lawn grasses nice to know that this is he just being us like houses along the main road and then behind the house it’s just nothing

I think I could make sense of most of this but there’s only really two thoughts contained within.

I was trying to describe that, as a 6 or 7-year-old, myself and the other kids on my street (for some reason I rarely hung around with kids on the next street) went off to the railway embankment and walked up to the top of the hill where there was a park. At the edge of the hill and park we set light to the grass for some childish fun. It quickly got out of control and we all ran like hell back home. From our street we could still see the smoke billowing into the sky even though it was what seemed like far away. It probably wasn’t that far but distance is relative when you’re still only three foot tall. When we heard the sirens we all ran inside.

And the smell of the rice field burning today reminded me of that day. Burning the fields is normal here unfortunately. Chiang Rai had the worst air quality in the world for a few days earlier this year. A brief smell of smoke such as I had today makes for a nostalgic romantic memory but when you are choking on the smoky sky it’s not so much fun. This year it lasted for about two months and it was awful.

The other thought I was trying to articulate was that I had an anticipatory dream last night. It’s not a very surprising dream and was really just a prediction. I think it did help me in some ways though.

I was dreaming that I was at school and it wasn’t the normal teaching day as there was some event that we had to help the kids with. I was standing around with the other teachers and we were all complaining that no one had told us exactly what we were supposed to be doing. I mentioned that one of the Thai teachers told me that we just need to make sure the kids don’t hurt themselves and I had laughed ‘oh we just need to babysit them then?’ Babysitting was a common phrase used by one of my old Thai colleagues and as ‘teachers’ it was a little frustrating, especially when we might only find out about these events the day before they happen.

So, last night I had made a note to be mentally prepared for a disorganised day today. It was Scout Day. I knew that we had to walk somewhere outside school and this morning found out that we would leave at around 9am. That happened and us obedient babysitters wandered along behind them without any clue what was in store for us. Sure enough when we got to where we were supposed to be no one told us anything else and we just sat around, wandered around, sometimes worried that we should be doing something. Exactly as my dream, mentally prepared, I took the opportunity to have as much fun as possible with the kids which is really preferable to sitting around complaining about the situation. I ended up having a great time. The kids seemed to be enjoying what was pretty much a day off school for them too. I’m not sure if they learned anything today but some days when I’m teaching I feel the same too!

Something I learned today
Black and white is always gray
Looking through the windowpane
I’m not inside your brain

In an effort to try and get the kids to at least learn or remember something, I would steal their hats and demand that they use English to ask for it back. They all eventually got their hats back – took a while for some of them.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that I have the motivation and determination to get things done. This morning I weighed myself and the app on my phone tells me that I now have a normal BMI and no longer overweight. I’m proud of myself but the task is not over. I still need to lose a few more kilos and get more exercise. I know my weight will go up and down but I can keep heading in the right direction.

To-do list

  • Check if possible to record speech to text on phone
  • Mentally prepare for a disorganised day
  • Don’t forget to go to hospital
  • Compliment one of the other teachers
  • Positive feedback for the kids

Did it list

  • 10,000 steps today.
  • First time normal BMI.
  • Had fun at what could be a potentially boring day.
  • Challenged a few students and complimented them when they did well.
  • Tired speech-to-text on phone with minor success.
  • Talked with Boyan, Said and Kevin more than normal today and feel that they are comfortable talking to me.
  • Did not shout today!
  • Studied some more Thai.
  • Helped the staff at Wynn’s coffee shop to carry in their stock items.

It was interesting to talk with Boyan, Kevin and Said today for different reasons.
Boyan generally just talks about himself so I led him on a bit and can start to understand him a little bit more.
Kevin also likes to talk about himself but is more conscious of it and will try to get you into the conversation too. Again, I could understand him a bit more.
Said and I seem to be on a similar wavelength and I feel like we agree on many things.
One thing I do want to be conscious of though is not to get too much into the negative talk that everyone falls into. I need to take a second longer to think, which is quite difficult when everyone wants to say their piece.

We got that attitude! – 7th November 2019

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to Kru Noon for helping me with things in this first week here. I was also happy and grateful to Boyan for checking that I was prepared for assembly this morning. That was appreciated.

24th March 2021 – Boyan also worked at my previous school. He’s Dutch, into Muay Thai, often racist, misogynist and homophobic and the only thing he ever talked about was himself. He was a complete caricature and that was the only way I could like him – if I could view him as not being real.