Tag: email

Innocent Times – 29th April 2024

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 5 Comments

Dreams inspire as the sun descends
Holding hands in innocent times
Where we’re going all depends
On things decided in our primes

Memories inspire as winter ends
When once we had innocent lives
One by one we murdered our friends
And never caught for our crimes

Submitted to No Theme Thursday picture prompt and NaPoMo
24th Nov 2024 – Shared with Word of the Day Challenge – crime

Today I’m feeling:

Pretty good so far.  Setting my alarm for 15 minutes earlier each morning in preparation for my return to work next week.  I have a slight twinge in my left lower back from too much sitting around for the last couple of days and probably aggravated by the tree moving yesterday.  I got back to exercising today too.

Today I’m grateful for:

Our pumpkin!  The pumpkin that both Amy and I took care of to try and get it to a size and maturity that was edible, ended up in our spaghetti dish for lunch and it was great.  Well done everyone!

The best thing about today was:

Cleaning out my inbox.  It accumulates quickly and I don’t get a chance to follow up everything as I would like.  I will need to get on top of this when I start working again next week.  Get my priorities sorted again.

I’ve already started clearing out my YouTube Watch Later list by either watching in full or watching a little and deciding it’s not that important.

What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?

I decided to sort out a hotel room for myself for this coming Sunday in Bangkok.  Nampan sent me a link to one near the venue and through Google Maps it linked to an Agoda booking where it said the cost was just 419 baht.  Nice.  It also said that if I downloaded the Agoda app I would get a 10% discount, so I did.

However, once downloading and going through the same process the total became something like 600 baht!  So I went back to the original Agoda page and went to the checkout and the actual total was about 550 baht in the end!

Well, it’s still cheap enough.  Never trust the price of anything you see online.  Everything is a subtle scam.

Something I learned today?

When I got home from Utopia at around lunchtime (I was there so long cleaning out my inbox) I was happy to find that Amy had ironed all my shirts!  I gave her a big kiss but it was already too hot to hug for long.

Review your acts, and then for vile deeds chide yourself, for good be glad. — Discourses 3.10

Baipad messaged me after a few days of quiet and she mentioned that she was expecting a delivery to her house in the next couple of days but is still stuck out at her grandma’s.

I suggested that she contact a neighbour or her friend Butter to pay and collect it if and when they call, or failing that she could call me and I could sort it out for her.

I’m starting to see that she has not been raised, or pursued herself, with a mind to think about how to get things done.  Perhaps she’s spoiled a bit and I think the issue between her and her mum is that her mum doesn’t see any maturity in Baipad’s behaviour and actions at home, so she continues to treat her as a child that needs taking care of.

I suggested that she show her mum who she is and what she wants in her life and her mum might start treating her differently.

It reminded me of the time I asked Hayden who he was and how much he struggled with that question.  Many of us do.

Did you do something difficult or challenging today?

A couple of days ago I watched a video about a tongue exercise and I’ve been trying to do it once or twice a day.  It’s simply rubbing your tongue between your teeth and lips/cheek in a circular motion, first one way and then the other, 25 times.

It sounds easy, and it’s not really difficult but I soon started to notice how useless my muscles involved in this exercise are, particularly my neck.

I will keep practising and hope that it helps a little with my neck problems.

I took this picture because Tigger was chilling on the terrace in the late afternoon, perhaps waiting for a storm that never came.

A Tropical Wish – 8th February 2024

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 7 Comments

There is no spring here
Where I’m sitting warm
Tropical thunder
Crashes all year round

No icy mornings
I’ve never felt snow
One day I wish to
Wear a winter glove

To feel warm red cheeks
To see words in breath
A thick winter coat
Wet with cold, cold snow

Like two cats in love
We’ll keep ourselves warm
The bud breaks the bark
I’ll watch in wonder

Shared with Tanka Tuesday – Kigo words ‘cats in love’
10th Nov 2024 – Shared with Ragtag Daily Prompt – glove

Today I’m feeling:

A little tired again I think because whatever is giving me a sore throat is just taking a little out of me.  I don’t feel too bad but on the edge and it could go either way. 

I slept relatively early again and got up later, skipping exercise again.  There’s nothing to do at school today as all the kids go off camping and thankfully the high school foreign teachers don’t have to go like the primary teachers do. 

Coffee, writing and reading time and then back home. Hopefully, I can avoid an afternoon nap today though it is tempting me right now.

Today I’m grateful for:

Keeping track of various things over time, with the likes of diaries, emails and archives of things that I’ve kept. 

As I was on the verge of dozing off this afternoon I wondered if it was possible to get access to my old email account, pre-2008?  The idea forced me up and though I soon discovered it was impossible I started rummaging around my old Facebook archive and then even older emails and just reading through a little of those triggered more memories. 

I could even see that I was explaining things in 1998 about something that happened ten years earlier that I have since forgotten!

The best thing about today was:

What I mention above.  It has me excited to dive further into the detritus of my life!

Something I learned today?

A burning ban is due to start on the 15th.  So everyone is getting their burning in now.  It also remains to be seen if anything is actually implemented. 

There was also a newspaper article today which describes the government asking people not to burn so much paper money and incense during Chinese New Year!

Review your acts, and then for vile deeds chide yourself, for good be glad. — Discourses 3.10

I think I have only spoken with two people today.  Amy and Gui.  Not much opportunity for either good or bad. 

I did nod good morning to one of the other teachers when I signed in this morning. 

I gave Tokyo her daily snack for which she is always happy. 

I also replied to an old acquaintance from Sydney who contacted me to say hello and ask for music recommendations.

25 THINGS ABOUT LIFE I WISH I HAD KNOWN 10 YEARS AGO –  14. Learn Every Day. You’ve got to train your brain to stay alert. You don’t have to read a book a day to learn every day. Learn from your mistakes. Learn from the people around you—be open to what they can teach you.

I force a lot of stuff into my brain every day and as I find answering ‘what is something I learned today’ is often difficult it seems like much doesn’t stick. 

It’s going in, adding to my overall persona (input and output) but I often find myself in a conversation where I say ‘Oh, yeah I heard about that’ but don’t have the details; or think to myself ‘I wish I could recall the things I read to keep this discussion going.’ 

At least, I’m aware and know that I still know little about anything at all.  That’s why I ask myself every day, ‘What did I learn?’

When was the last time I felt inspired?

I reckon it was last year when I first heard SpeechOdd.  I really enjoyed their music and wanted to work with them.  By the end of the year the opportunity arrived.

In general, I am inspired every day.  I try to write poetry every day and I’m always on the lookout for things that may drive that inspiration and have found a couple of regular resources to keep me inspired.

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.

The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #19 – 4th January 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Music from R. Stevie Moore, Alamaailman Vasarat, Kustomized, Sun City Girls, The Monkees, Flesh Narc, Beastie Boys, Cheer-Accident, Milk Burp, Different I’s, Logic Circuit, The Skatallites, Rebel Truth, GIRTH, Mahavita, Toy Dolls, The Woolies, Angelic Upstarts, Lost Nation and Bleach.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for our visitors who fill our home with action and variation. It’s nice to be able to share our experiences with other people.

From commonplace book

I’m much more interested in being a hero than a professional.

Billy Childish

To-do list

  • Get out of your own head and talk to people ½
  • Compliment people ½
  • Do something nice for someone
  • Upload TCRAH ✅
  • Write to Kieran and Chrissie ✅
  • Write blog about making friends

A busy and productive day – time ran away too quickly.

Mam and her family enjoyed breakfast and within an hour we had students.

I feel more confident today and have mostly pushed the negative from yesterday out of my mind. This was helped a lot by getting down my thoughts when writing to Kieran and Chrissie.

I was happy to receive a reply from Jochen. Well-considered and thoughtful ideas to my questions particularly about children. I look forward to composing a reply. He has also agreed to do some recorded responses for the podcast which provides me with the challenge to prepare and execute that.

I didn’t manage to do all the things on my list today, perhaps overreaching. I need to take into account that recording a new podcast can take up to three hours.

My self-control was only minimally tested today when Amy wanted to go to a local shop to buy some clothes for the funeral tomorrow. I was fine with this, to be honest – it was necessary. I do feel a little that I am sick at the moment though but mostly just dizziness and not affecting my mood.

We have a 5 am wake-up tomorrow and I hope I can get some extra sleep on the drive to Chiang Mai. I’m somewhat prepared with things to listen to on my phone and things to read. I don’t anticipate any other free time tomorrow.

Something I could have done better with today would have been to help Amy more with things around the house. I’m very lucky that she cooks and cleans for me all the time. It gives me lots of free time and I often feel somewhat selfish for that.

Re: Memory – 15th February 1999

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Email with TLJ

TLJ: : ok, so here’s what I think. I think that it is trying to read the files because I specified for it to auto detect the log file format.

S: So, if you turn that function off – is it OK?

TLJ: – once it detects it (say by running a report or if you specify log file format) then it seems ok. Also, if you select auto detect the log file format, then it takes 12 log files (4085Kb), but when i put in the 13th (4537Kb) it started using all the CPU.

S: Any ideas why – is it the number of files or the accumulated size?

TLJ: Proud of my research and troubleshooting skills?

S: Of course – I never doubted you babe. How are the others though – the ones who count.

Pooh – 14th February 1999

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Email with TLJ:

S: I went to the library today and picked up some books for HJ. I also checked if they had The Tao of Pooh – the computer said they did but I couldn’t find it on the shelf. When they find it they’ll let me know. I did find though, the Te of Piglet, which is a bit of a coincidence cos on Monday Margaret gave me this print out of a Chinese word and it’s meaning – the word is De (the same word – different dialect/pronunciation). It means virtue and is part of Margaret’s name – Wen De. How’s that for coincidence? Hope your lunch was good and you had fun with your friends…

S: Hope your lunch was good and you had fun with your friends…

TLJ: was a bit shitty cause hari asked how i felt about people dating older men and i went on about all this shit about hating old men dating young women, and as usual, older white men dating young asian women. But then i felt really stupid, cause he was asking about ME dating older men, and I knew mich must have told him about me and you – She tells him EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!

S: Does that mean we are dating then? I thought I was just your regular root?! You know – how you tell me EVERYTHING!!!!!! So are they doing it or what?

TLJ: he was nice apart from that.
upset, tlj

S: Don’t be upset my little angel…come see me….

TLJ: Thanks for the cartoon baby, cheered me up – can’t believe you’re already sending me mail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (now why don’t you send me flowers????)

S: Well, you know I wanted to send you some on your first day – that’s why I asked you which floor you would be on. Of course, you weren’t too sure and I ran out of money…….but I still have ideas…..

TLJ: When i saw the CSC logo I thought they’d tracked me down and were going to make life hard.

S: What do you mean? Who’s they? Are you having paranoid delusions again….”I’m not paranoid – I know what you’re thinking….”

TLJ: Also, when I read the “watch out for this guy”, I thought it was the sleazy office worker

S: What sleazy office worker……????

TLJ: – every company has one

S: hmm???????????????

TLJ: Anyway, I’m feeling better now. Just remembered I have soccer tonight.

S: GO Team GO!

TLJ: Have a great day, tlj

S: Gets better with the first mail of the day from you…..

Sometimes I do – 13th February 1999

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Email with TLJ:

T: > could someone send out an email to all the bits telling them what our group is then…i’m not sure my email got out…our email server is a bit shitty

S: That’s CSC’s mail server by the way (as I’m sure you’re aware of)
the server’s been pretty good recently – you seem to get my mails pretty quick – could be something to do with socs.uts??

T: See, they assume I am in their group

S: What ‘group’ are they talking about?

T: – i haven’t said anything – I hate this – I don’t want to be in ANY group, although sometimes I do.

S: Haha!

T: Anyway, been doing some more Webtrends investigating – CPU usage goes up because it is trying to access the log files – which are about 10-12 mb, and this is using up all the CPU.

S: What size is the CPU, memory, and virtual memory? I wouldn’t have thought that it would spazz as much as you have indicated if the log file is on the same machine.

T : When i changed the name of the log file, and webtrends could no longer find them, CPU usage went down.

S: So – how doesit know which file to look for just when you start it up. You know – I think maybe it’s getting the log file and trying to shove it into cache (what they term the database) and once it’s done CPU may go down. Can you try it with a much smaller log file and see if CPU settles down quickly?

T: Also tried to change the name of the file when CPU usage was 100% (on a hunch) – and just as I had guessed, the folder name couldn’t be changed because it was being accessed!!!!!!!!!!!!

S: You’re smart!

T: How can I fix this dilemma?? Or get around this problem???

S: Do you need to change the filename while WebTrends is accessing it? I think this would indicate that there should be only ONE log file (perhaps per month – so you may have to shut WT down only once a month to rename files). Otherwise you’d have to set up some batch process to end the WT process, rename the file and start WT again (would it know about the new filename -does it pick that up automatically?)

T: Meeting mich and hari for lunch at 1pm.

S: Have fun babes -i want a full gossip report.

Webtrends (again) – 12th February 1999

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Email with TLJ:

S: Just a reminder about things to check today. Get the IP addresses and computer names of your machine, chris’s and the machine where you’ve installed WebTrends – oh and the intranet and internet servers would be good too. If you can find out which domains the machines are members of too (just NT), then cool. Also which domains they are actually logged on to. Check all the things that were in my last email. Check the size of the log files, do you still have the old log files you used on your machine – try using them on the one where you just installed WebTrends. Can you take the WT machine off the network? ie pull the cable out and log on locally – this might just rule out the machine doing some extra things on the network that is affecting the CPU. Try uninstalling the version of WT you have on your machine and install it again – see if it works – see if it still works OK on your machine. It does work on NT I guess? When you start Web Trends see which processes start at the same time in Task Manager. Hope you are feeling OK about work today. I’m sorry you had a bad day yesterday – I bet everyone is really nice to you today. Just be confident that you are doing a good job. I believe in you – now, you start believing in you.

TLJ: I’m really upset – I tried to check out that awesome cyber card you sent me, cause i got the email about it on the 3rd feb, which said the cards are kept for 7 days – only now I can’t get it. It can’t find it. Please send me another one.
please?
oh, and i forgot to tell you that dad and kath were on a current affair last night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tell you about it later

Slack – 11th February 1999

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Email to TLJ:

Hey babes, thanks for coming out last night. You’re a great person and good fun to be with. I was tired and hungry (and therefore cranky – keep me fed baby!) but felt much better later. The Necks where great – and I’m glad you enjoyed them too – I thought you would. Anyway, if you felt I was being slack to you then I apologise. I don’t wanna be slack to you cos you are a very important person to me and wouldn’t want to do anything to upset our relationship. I hope that you are OK today – not too tired and have a great lunch with Mich and Hairy (or whatever his name was!) What are you doing tonight? Would you like a ride home – if you can make it to Chatswood? Or just from my place? It’s always great to see you, talk and hang out. Love to you angel