Tag: coffee

I’m making my case against a stack full of comics – 19th March 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

At my school I made friends with four university students doing their internships here. They are young and vibrant people and have a youthful idealism that I still seem possess, so it was easy for me to be drawn to them.

Today is their last day with us (unless they decide to stay here and work on the pitiful wages they would receive) and I made them each a special card. Unfortunately I forget to take a picture of each card but the front features the sketches attached. None of them are perfect but they should be recognisable to themselves I hope!

I really enjoyed the process of putting the cards together and having to come up with ideas for me, somewhat inspired by Austin Kleon’s artistic trials.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for all the movies I downloaded over the years. I can watch almost anything that I ever found of interest whenever I want. I can remember when the only option was to wait for the Friday night special of the Saturday horror double bills. That made movies more special but now I can find movies that I choose from anywhere in the world.

I usually do my drawings at House where the coffee is particularly addictive. I can taste it now – almost 6 hours since my last cup. In the mornings, I can’t wait to get there and take that first sip.

Anyway, Mei, who is a pretty lady who works there has seen me drawing every day and today she sidled up to me and in her best English, her vocabulary quite limited, asked if I could draw a picture of her. At first, I was a little surprised and then a little delighted – my first commission! I told her though, that she mustn’t be upset if she doesn’t like what I produce!

Subsequently, she added me in LINE and sent me a picture for me to use – I’m only at the stage of copying from pictures.

Doing all these face drawings has been an interesting challenge and I’m kinda excited to know that I will move onto other things to draw in the future and try to improve my skills all round.

I had another good online teaching lesson and I’m at home alone as Amy has gone with Takky for the weekend for a housewarming event. With no one else around I feel a lack of tension. I don’t need to think about any verbal communication unless I want to tell the cats something. Either Xbox, YouTube or comics in bed beckon.

Tomorrow I’ll be up at a reasonable time to take Dylan up to a hill tribe village for a morning walk. Good exercise.

Senyawa – Alkisah – 21st February 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

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.

No other prisoner shall enter and get through – 16th February 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Finish ab workout and yoga stretching – feels good, a little tired – less than seven hours sleep – dump thoughts and meditate.
What thoughts now? With pain in hand thoughts are difficult – when trying to meditate thoughts come easy.
Sat by the river with George yesterday – not much time tho but was pleasant, talked about how different countries have different cultures. When it comes to community, family and sharing things. I mostly recall the sunlight on the river.
Anyway highlighted some of our differences in behaviour which we all have to accept and understand – sometimes forgive.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to our neighbour’s dog Tangmo who came to visit yesterday morning before I went to work. He was running around full of energy and ran away from Tigger. I tried to get him to follow me out so I could close the gate but he kept running back inside. It made me smile for the whole day.

Yes, today was pretty good too. Spent a good morning at House – drinking coffee, sketching and reading. I feel like I’m on top of many things at the moment.

The best thing about today was helping students with some difficult L and R tongue twisters – it was fun and they didn’t give up.

Started reading Sartre’s Age of Reason and also completed another sketch.

Then it’s not if I win but how I play that matters, right? – 8th February 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

We all have to start somewhere. I was always interested in art at school because it appealed to the part of my brain that could utilise imagination rather than drier subjects that required adherence to some sort of order. Weirdly I did well enough in those subjects though. Anyway, art just felt like the easy pass.

Of course, painting wine bottles and flowers didn’t really appeal and I wasn’t mature enough or my imagination broad enough to conjure anything worthwhile. I think I actually ended up doing more artistic things at home more than in class. Two pieces particularly stick in my mind and I don’t recall doing either at school. My most prominent memory of my three years of art class was finishing off a bottle of vodka and leaving the bottle in the classroom for other people to draw in the future. That was first year of high school – we were 13 years old. 1980 or 1981.

Like the other times I’ve had to draw on my education, such as Maths and English tests when applying to University, I’ve been able to dig deep into my memory and apply myself somehow. So, now I’m sketching when I have the chance and I’m digging into those art lessons I honestly don’t remember anything. What I learned about perspective I got when studying photography back about 12 years ago and watching YouTube videos about pavement artists and force perspectives.

Now, what I really learned, and learned from punk rock and my mother, is about just doing it. Getting on and doing it. When I look at these sketches again I can see the imperfections, the incorrect spacing etc. But when I look with kindness I think, wow, that’s pretty good (for me!).

Rather than set my expectation too high and demand perfection or failure, I choose the middle ground. Do it, finish, move on.

These sketches are from my morning coffee spot, House. My enjoyment with these was due to the very strong perspective of all the straight lines in the room.

First sketch

After making each drawing I gave them to Guey, the owner, and, if working from a photo I took, deleted the photo so all I end up with is a digital file of my sketch. I will do the sketch within 30 minutes, not as a rule but more that I have found the feel and if I went any further I would be getting down into detail that would take it beyond a sketch. Through these 3 sketches (over 3 or 4 days) I could feel improvement each time and they made me really happy and gave me a small sense of achievement.

Second sketch

When I find some more free time and inspiration I will do more but I think I’m done with House now, though they have a cute dog and a challenging garden that would be fun to draw. Hmm….ok – tomorrow!

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that I have been able to continue this gratitude journal app every day for more than a year now. I will switch to writing in a diary from now.
I am so happy and grateful for the unusual big rain today and the fact that our roof holes that I plugged have held up fairly well – just a few leaks. Our plants will be happy for some water.

The best thing that happened today was being able to read whilst eating my lunch. I was late to eat so there was no one else around.

Other little nice things included many students being smiley and happy with me and trying to communicate as much as they could.

There’s a big storm hanging around today and there’s been a lot of rain. It’s funny – the dull drabness of the sky reminds me of England. Here it is a nice interlude to sunny warm days. In England, it would feel much more oppressive as those days would last for weeks on end.

We got that attitude! – 27th January 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I am so happy and grateful for all the future dreams I have ever had and achieved. I am hopeful for the future now, for myself and the people around me. I hope that the people within my sphere of influence can learn something from me and my story.

No electricity or water at school today so that was a bit of a challenge. In some ways it meant taking pressure off – because it was a different working space to usual, I relaxed and adopted and luckily the students were willing to enjoy this freedom without exploiting it.

I sat and helped Dew a lot in his class – the work was easy for the others so it meant I could try and help him more – rather than getting upset with him for disrupting the class.

The best thing about today was drinking four fantastic cups of coffee, whilst reading Dostoevsky and thinking about sketching. I’m enjoying sketching at House and just giving the sketch to them. I take a photo first.

These past two days I have been reading more and ignoring my phone.

We got that attitude! – 18th November 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I am so happy and grateful to listen to Bill Stephenson on the You Don’t Know Mojack podcast this morning. He talked about being in a group of about ten punks at school and reminded me a lot of my youth. His stories make need smile and laugh as I was driving to school.
I am so happy and grateful for all the good baristas in the world. I have been in a lot of places where it was difficult to get good coffee so it’s great when you find it.