“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” – Andre Gide
Stolen words, grabbed from shelves
Taken off pages with eyes aware
Returned to racks, no damage done
No theft, just a knowledge share
Inspired by Ray Bradbury describing stealing magazines from newsagents, reading them and then putting them back on the shelves.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful to have things to do this weekend. Yesterday was a little teaching and today we’ll visit Nut and Bruno.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for the coffee beans that came from all over the world to make my stronger coffee at 22 Grams yesterday. A really fruity flavour. I’m also happy and grateful to Bruno for paying for it this time.
A busy day running around, organising, getting everything prepared for my students to work by themselves next week so that they don’t need to attend class. I hope that enough students are self-motivated. It’s the first week so I guess I should give them a break but breaks are all they ever really get. I’d rather push them!
It’s great having students at school again. I love it when ones I don’t know try to talk with me or we can play around a little.
Lots of Covid cases around where we live at the moment. I don’t know what the future idea is. It seems inevitable that we will have to catch it one day. How do we manage that?
For instance, there have already been cases reported at school but there’s no protocol in place. Do we close the school? Close those classes with known contact? How many people have it undetected without symptoms? Have I had it already?
Of course, everyone is tired of the situation. Should we just get back to business as usual and accept the consequences?
Inspired by the picture and the American Military-Industrial Complex.
Shared to Word of the Day Challenge – naked
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful that yesterday I was able to spend time preparing work in the cafe and get out of school for the afternoon.
A very nice day again. There was a big storm in the morning as I drove to work and traffic was bad around school and as usual, the car park and entrance was flooding, so everyone was stepping carefully.
I clocked in and dropped my things and ‘dashed’ down to House for a couple of coffees. Stuck in traffic, I calmed myself, knowing that I could spend this extra time listening to podcasts. I still had half an hour before class was due to start and the baristas were late to arrive but I was still calm and it gave me extra time to pet Tokyo anyway.
I made it back to school with enough time to spare to collect a speaker I needed for a listening exercise for my first class and got there to happy children, in both my class, and the one next door, where many of the kids know me from teaching them in primary.
Classes all morning were successful and my experiment with 2/9 seems to be OK so far, delegating a little of the responsibilities to group leaders. As they have chosen subjects and given me texts/websites to work with, I now am under pressure to put together lessons and classes in time for them. But I can feel, as I read through, that I have ideas about what they can do and what kind of work I can create for them.
Scoffed some lunch and went off to pick up Bruno. Took him to 22 Grams as he hadn’t been there before and we sat and chatted together as well as with Donut. I savoured my coffees and my time this afternoon and, after dropping Bruno home, had an hour to kill back at school in the teacher’s room, so read a few things and ended up working on 2/9 lessons.
I’ve really enjoyed the day and feel powered by the energy of my students and friends and that can override any negative thoughts I still might have in my head. I can acknowledge them and let them float away. I’m excited enough about all the things I still want to do for myself.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for the opportunities we have – we can put some money into mutual funds to help us in the future.
A pretty busy but also relaxing weekend. On Saturday, we prepared for Bruno and Nut to visit on Sunday, although I must say Amy did most of the preparation where food was concerned. Actually, no – she did all of it!
On Saturday, I wasn’t feeling too hot, probably side effects from the vaccine and I slept in the afternoon. Luckily, I felt better by Sunday and when Bruno and Nut came, we had good food and a good gossip.
Bruno has managed to get himself a good bit of work on the Netflix film about the Thai Cave Rescue and seems to have met some interesting people there.
*So many things to be late for
How can anyone keep up?
Have you heard the latest
Gossip overflows its cup
It’s a big world of T.M.I.
Mindless work is just distraction
Just time for another meeting
To discuss avoiding action
*I read this line somewhere and was immediately taken by it and wrote it in a notebook. Then remembered it again when I was struggling for ideas and came up with this.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful to chat with Bruno and Nut at our house. It was a pleasant afternoon with food, alcohol (not me) and coffee and cake. Nut seems pretty down-to-earth and straightforward. Amy and I like that.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful to have dropped by to visit Nut and Bruno on the weekend. They seem really happy with their lives together.
A pleasant weekend again. Never long enough. I think all the things I enjoy take longer periods of time than when I was younger and that’s why time disappears so fast. I guess sometimes I wish I couldn’t concentrate and focus on things so that I could do many things each day.
Amy and I dropped by Bruno and Nut’s house and we gassed and gossiped for a bit. Bruno was covered in dirt, oil and grease – he’s always busy with something on his land. They have some Burmese workers laying foundations on the piece of land they own opposite their house but despite being cheap labour they’re also understanding that the quality is low too.
It’s tough here to decide whether to pay some people extra for better work when most people still just employ cheap labourers anyway. Even the pretty new estate houses look shabby if you look closely. They tried to hide it with fancy furniture and carpet.
I’m so happy Amy designed and oversaw the building of our house. If there is anyone to blame, then it is mostly us.
Indonesia’s intense, vital experimental duo Senyawa release their newest album Alkisah via a decentralised worldwide co-operative effort. An explosive, exploratory trip through Senyawa’s unique sonics, Alkisah represents these masters of unpredictable experimental music pushing their own boundaries.
Instrumentalist Wukir Suryadi performs on his homemade instruments, created from bamboo and other natural materials, offering a rarely explored link between the ancient, traditional, mystical music of South-East Asia and the contemporary avant-garde.
Vocalist Rully Shabara (also of tenzenmen recording artists Zoo) mines the human voice for its strangest and most challenging sounds, chanting, yowling and throat-singing like a chorus of demons in one song and an arcane, chattering machine in the next.
Rhythms skitter and crash around like gamelan, punctuated with trashcan drums or bulging plumbing percussion, while doomier moments (such as “Istana”) crush with seething waves of distortion and Rully’s mesmeric growls (a mix of Javanese, Bahasa, and other Indonesian languages). The record lurches from urgency to apocalypse, a twisting and twining story with animist mythology and hellish atmospherics.
ALKISAH can be translated as ONCE UPON A TIME.
This is that time.
SENYAWA
Wukir Suryadi: Custom Instruments
Rully Shabara: Lyrics, Vocals
Recorded and Mixed by Iwan Karak
At Eloprogo, September 2020
Soundscape of Eloprogo recorded by tesaran
Artworks by Sopeng
Minang proverbs on “Kabau” compiled by Taufik Adam
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for my tooth guard. Without it, I would grind my teeth down to the gums. I think my neck problem comes from doing this too. Maybe it’s because I drink too much coffee but I sleep well most of the time.
I met Bruno for coffee this morning and enjoyed a little ride around on the way there and I felt in a good mood when I arrived. As ever, we discussed our thoughts on teaching in Thailand, our frustrations with it and our solutions for dealing with it. We both feel much the same. We try our best because we want the best for the kids. We work hard for them whether they appreciate it or not. If we can make a difference to one student then our stress has been worth it.
Let’s hope I can remember this with my class tomorrow! Haha!
More importantly for me I brought up my feelings about George. I wasn’t sure how much to say to Bruno as George had said that they were good friends before but I could feel that something wasn’t quite there.
As it turns out Bruno has much the same problems with him. That he’s hiding something, or putting on a facade of happiness which makes us feel like he’s insincere, his patriarchal behaviour and upset when people don’t do what he wants or behave the way he would like. Neither of us dislike him but both feel less need to do things together (with him).
I always liked George for his positive and outgoing personality. He does deal with some things very well but if it is a facade then it puts sincerity in doubt.
I talked with Bruno about how we both feel that we know about our own weaknesses even when we can tell others the best way to deal with something, it can be very difficult to do as you say for yourself. I used the analogy of ‘the doctor who smokes’. And perhaps this has some similarities to my feelings about George. I know the way I should be with him – to let it go, don’t overthink etc but it keeps nagging at me unavoidably.
I also realise that I don’t say he is insincere or arrogant but that is the way I perceive him. That’s all I can control – but how? This is a difficulty for me.
We also discussed how Bruno had mentioned before that I seemed to have peace of mind but I explained that’s not so – as ‘the doctor who smokes’, I know the way to be but struggle so much to achieve it. I said that what my difficulty is is accepting who I am and why I am the way I am. When I’m happy – such as last Monday – nothing can hurt me but when I’m not quite right – such as Friday – I just can’t find that acceptance – though I do generally know that the feeling will go away again. At least I know now that I can accept myself – this actually feels like a recent event though.
And it’s weird looking back at old diary entries, seeing that even 30 years ago, I knew all these things, could say all the right things yet I still haven’t found real peace of mind. I felt good talking about these things and somewhat validated that it wasn’t just me being a bad friend to George and there was someone else having exactly the same thoughts as me.
I am so happy and grateful for the money I have behind me. I’m not rich by any means but have enough to do most anything that I want to do. Things would be a lot different if it wasn’t there.
I am so happy and grateful to have a friend with the same child-like wonder that I still have. We went for a long bike ride into the mountains, we didn’t talk much but were happy to be exploring the world with each other.
Make medicine free!
This week there’s music from June of 44, Zoogz Rift, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, Curse Ov Dialect and Kaigen, Psychos, P.F.M., Spratleys Japs, Asylum, Melt Banana, Patrick Fitzgerald, Spray Paint, The Black Sacks, Tactics, Rebel Truth, Attila The Stockbroker, Need New Body, Renaldo and The Loaf, Lifter Puller and Demikhov.
Intro and background music by Utotem.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful that I don’t have to teach this morning as originally planned. I can relax a little before we go to visit Bruno for his housewarming.
This lovely pup belongs to some workers at our school. He has a broken back and has to drag his back legs along the ground. He also can’t control his pee and poo. But he’s a happy dog still. The owner seemed to indicate it was himself who ran over the dog to cause its broken back, though we may have missed something in translation. Either way, he seems to be taking reasonable care of him now. His coat is clean and healthy at least.
I would still like to buy him some wheels though.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for these lovely plants in our teacher’s room. They give a great feeling of welcoming and sharing and comfort.
9th Aug 2022 – picture now lost to time (digital lack of care!)
Brain dump
Mid-June, mid-year already, all plans changed but life remains mostly the same. Hüsker Dü – I Will Never Forget You – I don’t know why. Why Hüsker Dü – why do I know all these obscure songs that no one is really interested in these days? Never mind – it’s my life.
Cooler days – wet days, rain. Sticky still – first mini exercise in days got blood flowing, heart rate up, under 80 kg. Can I stay? Get rid of belly fat – still too much. Get a belly like Bruno but that guy has so much nervous energy.
Yesterday was amusing. Life Of Brian reference into Life Of George. Critique of religion. Reluctant Messiah. What is the truth? Does it even matter? JFK. UFO. Three-letter acronyms describe our world. Stupid world? Maybe.
To-do list
Another day, another 1000 baht. At school, I managed to finish reading one of my books, learn more Thai and felt pretty chilled. I was holding some tension though so that I couldn’t quite savour the moment. That’s ok though. Despite being chilled it was (or felt) productive.
I even managed to start and finish my mini-zine for Aing, just in time for her birthday. I’ll try and do Nu’s over the next day or two. Pretty happy that I was able to incorporate something more creative in my day today.
Also – I just remembered – near the end of the work day a couple of bits of news came through. First, one of my videos got lost in a hard drive crash and will have to be recorded again in the morning. Under difficult circumstances, this could have been a chance of causing a negative reaction for me but now it will at least make tomorrow a little more interesting.
After that, there was some online discussion about having to work six days a week – again, could have had the potential for a negative reaction, but I was so involved in my book and wanting to finish it that I didn’t let it distract or bother me. At the moment it’s just talk and things change so much from day to day that it’s not even worth thinking about anyway.
1994ever 