Tag: eyesight

Aspirations – 2nd July 2023

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

We invented the Joneses
Something to aspire
Keep on the treadmill
Tweaking on desire

Bold, beautiful and rich
A mansion in the hills
Chasing after a life
Defined by constant thrills

Today I’m feeling:

Yesterday I felt like I was on a bit of a high but today feels the opposite. I can’t quite figure out why. I slept well enough but perhaps not long enough as I ended up back in a deep sleep from 11:30 until 2 pm. Since then I’ve not been enthused about anything and passed an hour or so pulling up weeds.

Today I’m grateful for:

Noey’s coffee. Now she is capable of making a perfect cappuccino for me. I like to think that I contributed to her improvement by always allowing her to make my coffee so that she can get more practice, though in reality there is obviously more to it than that.

The best thing about today was:

It’s almost 6pm and there is nothing of any real highlight except for Noey showing off her belly button with the clothes she was wearing. Or the satisfaction of a square metre of the garden weed free for a week or two. It’s not been a bad day either. Just not much of anything.

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

I’ve been getting an aching pain in my eyes. Also a vague toothache around my jaw. Maybe I’ve got some sinus problem or perhaps even just a bad tooth that is causing pain elsewhere in my face. It could also just be looking at too many screens. I should probably go get my eyes tested at some point again. I don’t feel like my vision has gotten worse but a new pair of glasses might help. 

When I look at my glasses I always see a speck on the left lens from when they dropped on the floor in Kimi’s bathroom not long after I first got them. 

Something I learned today?

Watching Little Chinese Everywhere as she(Yan?) travels to Tibet and the second-highest hotel in the world. The highest being in Peru. The scenery in Tibet is quite amazing.

What is a fear that I would like to overcome?

I suppose I still have plenty of fears but not sure I feel the need to overcome them. For example, my fear of spiders is not particularly life-threatening or would be life-changing if I overcame it.

I was chatting with Ellen yesterday and she had just been tandem skydiving in Sichuan province. I’ve thought about doing that before but feel afraid. The fear is not of the height or hitting the ground, the fear is about losing control, fearing fainting or heart attack or something like that.

Still though, it’s not like a fear of skydiving is holding back my dreams in any way.

I took this picture yesterday because I’ve never been on this side of the dam at the university before. The whole university grounds environment is exceptional but doesn’t seem to get much use. It’s too hot or wet most of the time and you need a motorbike to get around. The only thought I did have is that there are many places you could go for a romantic walk, talk or view. I don’t know how much of that happens here though.

Crop Rotations – 6th June 2023

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Living happily as hunters
Roaming around with a herd
Someone planted a seed
And no one said a word
Toiling away ever harder
For a minimal return
There’s no going back now
We will never unlearn
Now our tribes grew bigger
Each and everyone breaking backs
And then foul weather ensures
You’ll never again relax
An arrogant virus we are
Thinking to tame this land
We made ourselves slaves
Without it ever being planned

Today I’m feeling:

Good, all day. My annoying students were annoying but didn’t annoy me. Annoying adults didn’t annoy me and annoying technical problems didn’t annoy me. I feel satisfaction today.

Today I’m grateful for:

My eyesight and the fact that I didn’t go blind from the gunk that hurt my eyes last night.

The best thing about today was:

Nothing stands out above anything else really. These are the best kinds of days and I would like more of them!

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

I feel stuck for words today. Everything has gone well today and that doesn’t mean that everything went the way I wanted but that anything that didn’t I could mentally accept and not let it bother me. As my air con didn’t work last night I still slept ok but didn’t feel so refreshed when I woke up in the 29-degree bedroom. Abs exercise soon woke me up. I was so into what I was doing in class this morning that I forgot it was only for one hour, thinking that we had one more to go! Considering my skin felt like it was burning and was actually blistering by the time I got home I didn’t even really think about it throughout most of the day.

Something I learned today?

Good days sometimes creep up on you unawares.

What is the greatest life lesson I’ve learned?

Patience. When I was younger I was patient with some things and then wildly impatient with others. As I’ve gotten older I have managed to get almost everything I might have been impatient for before under control. It is hard to teach patience to children. They are not designed to comprehend it yet.

I took this picture because this is the tree/plant that has covered me with its sap that is now burning my skin everywhere. An uncomfortable night last night as the aircon stopped working again and the two fans I was using were next to useless in keeping me cool, even whilst sucking in cooler air from outside.

Hometown Postman – 12th April 2023

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

A town all snowy white and middle-class
The drunks tell stories often repeated
Shufflers trapped in a cul-de-sac torture
All plans for their children defeated

A week in the sun by the sea
Swap cardigans for sunburned backs
Strange behaviours set tongues wagging
Is this the life that everyone lacks?

Enter no more the green and pleasant
Ruined by the hardest-working poor
Facing fists of fury on walking home
All desperately banging on the door

The drizzle drenches the pavements grey
Children too bored to stomp in puddles
Tugged by the leashes of all that glitters
Out of reach of all of these muddles

Excitements distract along the terrace
Dogs fight cats, cat fights dog
A word of wise from the blinders
Submit oneself to pointless slog

13th Apr 2024 – Shared to Weekly Prompts Weekend Challenge – pointless
10th Oct 2024 – Shared with Word of the Day Challenge – hometown

Today I’m feeling:

A little more positive and upbeat. It’s not time that heals our grief, it’s the forgetting.

Today I’m grateful for:

Sight. My eyesight is suffering a little these days perhaps from the dodgy air, lack of sleep and constant looking at screens. But I can still see. If I had to choose between losing my sight or my hearing I would choose losing sight. I would miss reading but could still listen to audiobooks. I think I would really struggle emotionally if I couldn’t listen to music though.

It still feels like yesterday that, as children, we were all warned about listening to loud music would damage our ears so much that we would go deaf in our old age. And that watching too much TV would lead to early-onset blindness. I had to start wearing glasses when I was around 26 years old and my mum had to wear hearing aids from perhaps her 50s onwards. So I guess I’m doing all right so far.

The best thing about today was:

Brushing Cap and Tig whilst they purred in pleasure. They have been getting more attention from me now Kim is gone. They are still fussy about being touched or picked up but if they are in the right mood it does seem as if they are reciprocating my love.

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

Right now Netflix isn’t working for me. Just as I’d like to settle back and watch some more of the series Dark. It’s not like there is nothing else I can do so this is only a mild annoyance. I’m aware it’s also a very first-world problem too.

Something I learned today?

Apparently, there is a weird law here in Thailand that makes it illegal for politicians to sing and dance on stage during an election. This came to note because someone called out the current Thai PM for doing exactly this recently. The annoying thing about the article discussing this was the fact that there was no indication of why this was a law. Presumably, it made sense at the time it was implemented. It may even make sense now if it was explained. Like any law in Thailand, it is fairly flexible and depends on who broke it as to whether any action would be taken.

What are 3 things that bring me joy?

Nothing is really bringing me joy right now. My positive emotions are not that strong I guess. The emotions of grief and sadness are much easier for me to tap into. I’m bouncing back slowly but it does make me think why can’t I be prone to happiness and joy instead? They are all just emotions.


I took this picture because this is our infamous red sun as it sets behind our blooming frangipani. For most of these days, the smoke is so thick that if the sun can be seen at all it can be stared at directly without a problem. That’s something I’d prefer not to be able to do for the sake of a clear sky.