Run away from the zeitgeist I don’t know what’s going on And again once it’s caught up It’s a lifetime on the run
Hiding under self-made shelter Cocooned in homegrown truth It’s no conspiracy theory Or trappings of religious youth
Bored by irrelevant gossip A talk show in every pub The drawbridge to my castle Bars entry into my club
Still sympathetic to the circles Of a society I’m sat outside Deliberately contrarian But sharing my space to hide
Full of personal contradictions To care and not to care I don’t know what I’m doing here Or what you’re doing there
I’m happy inside my castle, in my head, in my home. I welcome others in, especially in sympathy/empathy, but there will always be a time when I will usher them back out in order to be alone again.
It was a missing tooth Some wayward hair A smudge of a nose That almost wasn’t there
It was a crooked smile Dry cracked lips An inch too much Sitting on her hips
It was a minor lisp One leg longer A scarred wrist Now grown stronger
No, she’s not perfect As far as all could see But it’s all those little faults That has attracted me
Today I’m feeling:
Pretty good. I did some chest and arm exercises this morning, trying to avoid straining my shoulder and also hanging for a minute to stretch myself out. Had my first cold morning shower of the year, which was a bit of a challenge but sure woke me up properly.
Today I’m grateful for:
Nong Ploy for saying that she wishes I was still her teacher because she enjoys writing in English the most, which is something I like to have the students practice. And then have them read from what they’ve written.
The best thing about today was:
The winding down and relaxing feeling of the end of the semester.
I was trying to put myself in my student’s shoes about how they must feel each day, being amongst their friends at school all day and then going home to their families each evening. They obviously enjoy being at school and being with their friends but suffer the having to study part of that.
I was trying to remember what it was like for me at their age. Usually, I was excited to get out of school because when I got home I was usually out again after eating dinner and having even more fun with my friends.
The situation here feels different both because of the family set-up in many homes and the availability of mobile phones and internet. It makes for an experience that I only understand as an adult, not as a growing child.
Something I learned today?
“OpenAI’s latest model takes text prompts and turns them into ‘complex scenes with multiple characters, specific types of motion,’ and more, the company said.
The text-to-video model allows users to create photorealistic videos up to a minute long – all based on prompts they’ve written.”
As AI improves, and it seems to be doing so quickly, this could go either way. Folks could create and post anything that conforms to their narratives.
For example, the BBC could post footage of concentration camps in Xinjiang, where they keep insisting they exist. People could easily believe it, especially when it is reinforced with pictures and videos.
However, I also want to look on the positive side that due to this new capability journalists will be forced to detail, verify, check and double-check and be held legally accountable for what they publish. It’s optimistic but that is the way it must go.
Review your acts, and then for vile deeds chide yourself, for good be glad. — Discourses 3.10
At the morning flag ceremony KanomBang was crying heavily as her beloved dog had died. She was inconsolable so I just put my arm around her and gently patted her arm. Other students were still laughing and playing and I’m not sure what they were saying but Nomsen gave her some sympathy and support too. She was ok by the afternoon and showed me a picture of her dog and told me it had been hit by a motorbike which is a common occurrence here unfortunately.
I called and messaged Khaofang as her jumper was in the classroom where she lost it the day before yesterday. When she came to collect it she was very appreciative.
What was peaceful about today?
It’s difficult to find peace when you are surrounded by thousands of students. So perhaps the first hour of the day, having just woken up and quietly brushing my teeth before going to exercise, feeding the cats and then hopping into the shower, all the while the sky slowly lightening into the morning bloom. Then I eat some breakfast whilst reading a little and the sun finally appears over the mountains and it’s time for the peace to end.
At the end of the day, post-shower and into bed. Amy on her side, me on mine and Cap swapping between us, Amy quietly scrolls through Facebook and I read books and comics until we both give in to the joy of sleep.
25 THINGS ABOUT LIFE I WISH I HAD KNOWN 10 YEARS AGO – 18. Give Without Expecting Something in Return. Don’t keep score. You will become a bitter person if you do that. Give solely for the joy of giving. If you get something in return, great, if you don’t, great.
I may not give out too much but I expect and want little from anyone else.
Over the last few years, I have started giving out gifts as random acts of kindness and my only hope would be that the receiver will pass on the kindness to someone else.
Whether they do or not is out of my control.
What was my Ween discovery timeline?
I had read about Ween often in Flipside and was curious when their first album God Ween Satan came out so I picked up a copy. It started off well and punky with You Fucked Up but I was unprepared for everything else that came on the rest of the album. Slowly it worked its wackiness on me and I enjoyed its eclecticism over time.
So when the second LP, The Pod, came out I was looking for more of the same and it didn’t deliver for me. This seemed like weird droning moaning music and so I gave up on them, even selling both discs.
I occasionally heard them on the radio when I was living in Australia with their ‘hit’s Push The Little Daisies and Voodoo Lady but didn’t think on much further about them.
Around 2010 sometime, my friend in Melbourne, James McGauren had met and fallen in love with a Swedish girl and was making the move there and he decided to sell off a big chunk of his music collection. He had all the Ween albums.
Fuck it, I thought, I’ll give these guys a go again and picked up the whole catalogue for cheap. Slowly I worked my way through each album and fell in love with them all. I scoured the internet to find quality live shows and all their demo recordings and ended up with about 50 discs worth of Ween to enjoy.
Listening back to The Pod these days, I can understand why I didn’t enjoy it at the time but now I rate it as a favourite.
I never saw them live but have their live DVD and whilst I appreciate their entertainment abilities I prefer the quirkiness of their records.
I took this picture because this old man was looking relaxed when I got home.Fatman report
We still have to teach the Gods to be human They should bend to our will, not us to theirs First, we have to understand ourselves And an idea of heaven that everyone shares
Today I’m feeling:
I didn’t sleep well but felt ok at my alarm. Two hours into the day though and I’m feeling a little low and flat. My eyes are sore again and the cloudy grey skies feel depressing.
Last night Paen (Baitoey) contacted me again feeling depressed and suicidal. I don’t know how much more I can give her. I know she doesn’t have the skills but it seems like she doesn’t want to do the hard work and is always looking for the easy way out. She needs some guidance to turn her thinking around and I’m not the best person for that.
Her struggles weigh me down too.
Today I’m grateful for:
Payment coming through today as I was just about to run out of money. It meant I could pay the gardener who came today and can also order some more cat food now too. I still have money put aside for the aircon fix and hopefully enough spare for the plumbing fixes. Not sure if there will be enough for the guttering though.
The best thing about today was:
Many interesting conversations with my students outside of class. They usually remind me about things I went through when I was their age.
Also, Champ was back from Australia for a quick visit and he was telling me that he had to do some part-time work to be able to afford to stay there whilst studying. He’s working at a school teaching grade 5 kids. He was comparing the difference between the education systems in Oz and in Thailand and that he now has a clearer understanding of us farang teachers when we work here and get frustrated at the way things work. I’ve adapted myself now but it does feel like a little vindication.
What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?
When I got home I could see that the gardeners had been. I’m thankful to them for tidying up our home but also can’t help noticing what a bad job they are doing. After asking them to clear the weeds properly along the driveway last time, this time they made no attempt at all. Worse still was that they cut the avocado tree that Bruno gave me last year, cut at the trunk! It was just starting to grow well and looked like it would develop into a nice-looking young tree. Fucking careless.
Something I learned today?
The great Chinese spy balloon incident is over. The US admitted that they found no evidence of anything beyond the weather instrumentation that the Chinese told them it was. The US is in the hands of adults acting like 5-year-olds.
How did I practice kindness?
Today I sat down with Paen and listened to her grievances about her life and what help she would like me to give her. She actually didn’t say much, I did most of the talking. I challenged her a lot because I can see that she is just running away from the real issue which is her own self-esteem, insecurities and problems at home. I can see that the things she wants me to help her with are not long-term solutions.
I have shown her a lot of kindness and tried to help her many times. I can’t fix what happens in her head but I will support her as best I can.
I also ran into Preawa during the day and she was having some kind of problem with her boyfriend who was following her around forlornly. I messaged her this evening to see if she was ok and she said she was and appreciated my concern.
I think one of the reasons that the kids like me is that the can feel my empathy towards them even as I might be berating them for being lazy. I may not be the best teacher in the world but I think I’m a pretty good human.
What do I want to focus on today?
It looks like I will have to focus some time on helping Paen to see if she can change programs back to English. I see this as a band-aid solution for her because the problems are coming from within herself. I’ll try and find her the school counsellor and also find out why she stopped taking her meds. She seemed to be doing well in the first couple of weeks of the new semester.
I took this picture at the weekend because I’m loving seeing the freshly planted rice paddies. Is this a Thai spring?
He understands me Says the right words to care He says he loves me But hides something not to share His true intentions Are on cards held close to chest He uses my feelings To ensure he comes out best He compliments me Yet somehow his words feel fake He always points out My every little mistake Always a people pleaser To get everyone on his side The power rises against me I have nowhere left to hide I meet his needs Through his mental manipulation And he walks away happy From every situation His use of guilt Always bends toward his will Once I am discarded He’ll be doing it still He uses humour Everyone laughs at his jokes But it’s me on the receiving end Of his vicious little pokes He whispers lies In believable words of deceit His crown never slips He already has me beat And it is no irony I recognise myself in him That’s how I spotted The dark empath within
Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
Franz Kafka
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful to not lie in this morning, get up and see a fierce red sun in the sky.
I got a resolution for you Do little, do less, do nothing Unfocus, unwind, chase nought See what results that will bring Success is for the losers Stuck forever within the grind Missing out is my success And gives me peace of mind
As you approach the same age as your parents when they had you, you gain great empathy for them, realising that like you, they were just kids trying to figure it all out along the way.
Cole Schafer
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful to be able to watch my students mature and improve their learning. I’m grateful to be part of that journey with them.
I cannot close my eyes to the injustices I see; unable to make a difference, it’s just frustrating me.
Whilst others suffer, happiness is an illusion; I can’t wrap my head around this disappointing conclusion.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for the availability of almost any book I desire to read. If I can’t buy a physical book I can usually find a digital copy.
Reading ‘The King Never Smiles’ is a saddening experience. Each night, I read about 10 pages, and I am enlightened more and more about the reality for Thai people. They have been totally manipulated and tricked into submission – not even submission – it’s like Stockholm Syndrome.
They have learned to love their captor. Every protest and uprising in the last 100 years has amounted to exactly the same thing – a useless government hamstrung by palace politics and corruption. Governments can barely last a few years, sometimes not even making it to their first day. It’s so frustrating that it makes one wish for private fighter jets to go and eliminate evil.
Whilst mine and Amy’s lives here are beyond comfortable, we are struggling through empathy for the rest of the population, deluded and ignorant or not. When Amy says she wants to leave, I can’t help but feel it is a case of wanting to stick one’s head in the sand. If it can’t be seen, then it has no effect.
Unfortunately for me, I have always felt empathy for people around the world suffering in this way, no matter where I reside. I have been, and still do, enjoy my time here, and the suffering I see for the people here doesn’t lessen my concern for those suffering in Brazil or the USA, anywhere else.
With the rules and laws here, though, trying to fight back against them is very dangerous if you live here. The ones desiring radical change are forced overseas to speak their mind and often lose the local population’s confidence by being abroad. A catch-22 easily exploited by the powerful. It’s sickening and saddening and pushes one to the dark corners of nihilism.
There seems little hope for humanity despite these comparatively good times we live through.
Five exhausting days down. Early starts, late nights, big digs and frequent fights. Building a house isn’t stressful, right? Even though I’m not physically doing the building there’s much to consider every day and without the local language, it’s an extra stress on Amy to translate and sometimes even decipher, as she doesn’t know some of the correct words and phrases for things in either language.
Language and its meaning have become an issue from time to time as, from what I can feel, Thai is quite vague about things and, of course, English likes to be precise. Words like soon, here, now, not sure and the ubiquitous yes and no can all be interpreted in many ways.
Amy has gotten used to the more precise language of English but I’ve noticed her falling back into vaguer terms which in the end frustrates me. Sometimes, she’ll get annoyed when Thai people do the same to her too. When it is other people, such as the workers building our house or Amy’s friends trying to arrange things etc then it doesn’t bother me too much but somehow when it’s Amy doing it to me and then she gets frustrated with me then it can escalate quickly depending on the moods we’ve woken up with. (This paragraph seems vague to me now on re-reading so maybe I’m adapting too!)
This week those moods have been tested by many things. The set of workers who have been here for two months have moved to a new site, dismantling their temporary shacks. We (Amy and her mum really) organised a big meal and beer and juice for their last night but that morning we had to run around to fix up a few things that the workers had broken or messed up that by lunchtime Amy and I were both getting hangry with each other.
Finally, we got some lunch and slowly our moods improved particularly after our builder dropped by and tried to help out with fixing things. Late afternoon soon came and we both couldn’t wait to start on a cold beer and we prepared tables, chairs and food.
Although most of the workers are Burmese and don’t speak Thai, and none of them speaks any English, we’ve come to know and appreciate each other whilst working together here. We can see that they are not professionals and they are doing their best, they work really hard in pretty rough conditions. If we look closely at their work we can see things aren’t straight or haven’t been done quite to the standard we might expect in the west, or the standard we might actually desire. We have to accept that you get what you pay for and this is what we can afford right now.
Honestly, we really do appreciate the work they’ve done and it was great to see their happy faces as we tried to talk with each other. We found out that they are all from Yangon and only get back home once every 2 years and it’s a three-day bus ride. We told them that we could understand how they feel, being displaced in another country. Amy has to chastise some of her friends who sometimes make derogatory comments about foreign labour ‘taking our jobs’. Yes, it’s the same here as anywhere else in the world. She reminds them that she was in the same situation for ten years in Australia and had to face the same kind of intolerance from people too.
After a few days of stress, we were somewhat more relieved at the arrival of some doors and windows. Even though we don’t have them all yet it gave us a small sense of security and a feeling that this is ours. Despite all the minor faults here and there, most of which can be fixed, we can see our home becoming more real. Now, if we can just get the final doors put in, maybe we can stop the rats and hairy worms from invading.
Talking of visitors a local dog decided to drop by and christened our new driveway gate before continuing on his way. A cat seems to have left its mark in our dining room too, something we’ll have to clean up smell-wise before we move our two in here and they decide to start doing the same thing.
This dog certainly made an impression.
We also need to start investigating what types of trees to plant to entice more birds to come and visit, in the hope that they eat more of the bugs that are hanging around. We’re on a big learning curve with the garden and due to its size just taking care of it is very time-consuming. Currently, watering takes a couple of hours. Yesterday I borrowed Amy’s dad’s strimmer, called a lawn mower here, and set about attacking the weeds and long grass that have sprouted pretty much everywhere. The strimmer uses a metal blade and our land is littered with hidden rocks and stones and I didn’t even make it halfway before the blades got messed up and the internal rotor decided it had had enough of my heavy-handedness and the thing fell apart. Looks like an easy fix but only for someone who knows what they are doing, ie. not me.
Luckily, many things seem to grow easily here. I mean, besides the weeds. Check out the size of our first mango below.
1994ever 