Tag: feet

Pick Up The Gun – 23rd August 2023

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Can no resistance be explained?
The water surrounds the rocks
Doing nothing is still doing something
That can’t be explained to the jocks

To pick up the gun is enticing
But ultimately is an excuse
It’s the escalation required
To break through a lasting truce

The wisest study the art of war
Their patience is to be admired
While the provocateurs will eat themselves
Without a single shot being fired

inspired by the titular Bill Hicks bit

Today I’m feeling:

With doing extra exercise in the morning I’ve been falling asleep a little earlier these last couple of nights and with no meals yesterday after breakfast, just snacks, yesterday I woke up tired and sleepy.

I pushed through exercise this morning despite feeling like I could give up. I’m glad I did that. My body feels good and my brain, despite telling me I’m tired, exhausted, sleepy etc, is feeling good too.

Today I’m grateful for:

My little plastic toe separator for my left foot’s big toe, trying to push it back into line and hopefully ease the pain in the main joint. I’ve tried a few others but they have ended up being painful to wear for long periods. This one I can wear all the time (except when wearing shoes).

The best thing about today was:

A sudden feeling in my feet that was free of pain. It was really noticeable though only lasted for a couple of seconds. I will be pleased if this is a sign of moving towards pain-free feet. I know this is an odd thing to list as the best thing but I was shocked when I felt it. In my negative thought mode, I wonder if perhaps my pain receptors are turning off instead!

Something I learned today?

Thaksin came back to Thailand after 15 years in exile and went straight to jail. He’s 74 years old and has health issues and the talk is that he will have to serve 8 years in prison. This all happened on the same day his old political party made a deal with their foes to form a government without the party that won the election earlier this year. There’s something tricky going on for sure!

What am I curious about?

Hmm.. I feel a lot less curious about things these days. As with the quote from the other day, I’m aware that there is so much I don’t know but I’m also not concerned with it either.

Maybe I’m curious about how long I will live and be able to ward off senility and fragility. I’m not really fighting against it but trying to maintain what health I do have. Ultimately it doesn’t matter.

I’m less curious about music these days as I have so much backlogged that it’s overwhelming. If I was still involved in a scene I would be more motivated to keep looking for new things. I kinda miss that but enjoy other things instead.

I’m curious about how I feel when I fly to Australia in October. This will be my first time in Australia for a short holiday, much like we would do every couple of years from Australia to Thailand. I’m not looking forward to the prices though!

I took this picture because it took me a moment to realise what this was from inside the door. This beauty is bigger than my hand.

Old Smelly Goat – 7th October 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

The old smelly goat can always be found
In an honest conversation
The bush is eaten, not beaten around
Never requiring explanation
And so the room is full of his stink
At least in your imagination
The truth doesn’t care about what you think
Your position or situation

He who has endured most suffering, most privation, will awaken in the afterwards most keenly alive.

Lev Shestov

Today I’m feeling:
Happy and satisfied.
Today I’m grateful for:
Watching the sunset from the middle of the valley, across rice fields and the big wide sky. I felt at one with the world.
The best thing about today was:
Discovering a whole new part of the valley to explore when I have more time. I didn’t want to go out in the afternoon as I’m already sunburnt so I decided to go at 5pm and I raced down to the airport only having a rough idea of where I wanted to go and so I found lots of nice villages and rice fields and good riding tracks and with lots of wide open space with tracks going off everywhere. Not much jungle here in the valley.

I took this picture because this sums up my days recently since it stopped raining. I spend time in the hammock reading and looking at the home around me.

We got that attitude! – 15th May 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I am so happy and grateful for my ankle straps. They can’t fix my feet problem but they are helping a little bit.

To-do list

  • Relax into your role (in the role-play game and as a teacher) ½
  • Greet everyone – can you say more to them? ½
  • Offer your help ½

I neglected to write here over the weekend and pushing myself to do it now on Monday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday and even today were all extremely breezy.

On Friday we found out all the work we had been doing that week wouldn’t be used and that we won’t even be teaching online – just the Thai teachers will do that. No problem – I’m not thinking about the time I wasted – I still learned a few things doing it so, whatever.

And then today we turned up at school with a message that the videos we were due to make today are pushed back to Wednesday so now we have nothing to do at all!

We went for coffee for a couple of hours. Nice.

Saturday, I listened to music most of the day and Sunday, we went to Mae Sai and the big Japanese second hand shop in the morning and our first lunch out for a couple of months, It was very nice to do that and Amy and I enjoyed ourselves.

In the afternoon I started on the jigsaw that Amy had finished whilst listening to the Inner Engineering audiobook.

Ellen in Nanning has suggested using Zoom and maybe working online together.

I’ll talk with her more about that tomorrow. I sat with the Uni student teachers for lunch today and talked a lot with them. The other Thai teachers are all nice and friendly and mostly keep to themselves. It’s definitely a better feeling than in the Primary departments I worked in before.

The Week That Was – 8th April 1979

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 3 Comments

Record of the week: The Members – Offshore Banking Business
Highest Entry: Wings – Goodnight Tonight – 25

3rd Mar 2022 – The Members were knocking out classic singles and Offshore Banking Business was even surpassed by its b-side Solitary Confinement. The lyrics summed up what I assumed was in store for me as an English teenager in the forthcoming decade. I didn’t know it at the time but I spent all of the eighties avoiding it to some degree.

Coincidentally, The Members vocalist Nicky Tesco passed away this week. One day all my idols will be dead. As you, as I.

I’m sure some folks remember and enjoy the Wings tune. I have no recollection though.

8th April 1979
Would be able to stay up to watch That’s Life but it’s not on
95p
2p

3rd Mar 2022 – That’s Life was actually a good introduction to the cruelties and absurdity of being alive. It was funny but in a typically dry English way. I used to enjoy the Last of the Summer Wine which was on Sunday nights too I think. Though I ended up so fucking annoyed at the miserable characters in that show even though they did overcome their weekly dramatic obstacles. But why were these shows on a Sunday night, priming people for the misery and absurdity of a working week!? So typically English. Is it any wonder we are fucking miserable people!

I didn’t get everything that was featured on That’s Life but knew that it was funny. I would laugh along with my mum even if I didn’t understand why something was funny. My mum influenced me quite a bit as she enjoyed absurd humour such as Spike Milligan, Michael Bentine and Monty Python etc Even kids’ programs were pretty out there, influenced by the drugs, excesses and changes of the sixites, not that I knew it at the time. The Americanisation of kids’ TV is disappointing.

I remember my grandmother as being quite Victorian, though it would have been her parents that lived during that time. By contrast, my mother seemed to be a fifties and sixties girl, growing out of the post-war grind. It was only when I was in my twenties or thirties that she told me that my dad was her second husband! It wasn’t something that she hid from me but she didn’t think it was that an important thing to tell me.

On one hand, I can understand her thinking, though I’m curious now. At the time she told me I only asked her a few questions and didn’t investigate further and of course, now it’s too late to ask. I wonder if there are things I don’t think are important for Hayden to know that might surprise him in the future when and if he finds them out?

9th April 1979
I was buttering up my bedroom wall today – looks fab
2p

3rd Mar 2022 – My guess is I didn’t quite know the meaning of buttering up unless the meaning has changed a little in my short life. I think at this stage I was still just putting up posters and pictures cut out of the music magazines and papers that I was collecting through my mother’s benevolence.

10th April 1979
Got a new pair of trainers. And I got two pads now.
2p

3rd Mar 2022 – The ongoing fucked feet saga. I still haven’t gone to get them checked again. Not that I’ve been waiting since 1979.

11th April 1979
Matthew’s coming down
Went on common
European Cup Semi-Final (1st Leg)
Forest 3-3 Cologne
2p

3rd Mar 2022 – Pre the mega money-spinning sponsorship of football I don’t recall ever seeing European football matches on TV, not even highlights. The scores just appeared occasionally on the news and in the papers, which I would sometimes check out my grandparents’ stash. They got the Guardian and the Observer delivered to our oversized letterbox that sat snugly in the privet hedge by the gate along with the morning milk, twice-weekly bakery goods and the mail.

It’s difficult for people to comprehend these days just how difficult information was to come by. There’s a reason Encyclopedia sets were a popular door-to-door sales item though the one we had we had to sell so that we could live. Food was more important than knowledge at that stage. We were never destitute but it always felt like it wouldn’t take much to push us in that direction.

12th April 1979
1. Art Garfunkel – Bright Eyes
2. Squeeze – Cool For Cats
3. Racey – Some Girls
4. Village People – In The Navy
5. Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive
2p 10p

13th April 1979
Jean came today
2p

3rd Mar 2022 – Jean was my mum’s school friend. A hard-drinking, hard-smoking lady who always wore too much perfume to hide the fact she might’ve been enjoying whiskey breakfasts. I think it was on a visit to her house back in Carlisle that I stole my first cigarettes from her many packets and took that first step into bad boy teenage smoking rebellion. I don’t remember much about any of the visits, her coming to us or us going back up North. She and mum were always off to the pub. These times were my mum’s only holiday time in the year.

14th April 1979
Do bricks
Norwich 0-1 Ipswich
2p

3rd Mar 2022 – I wasn’t a Liverpool fan but did much prefer Ray Clemence to Peter Shilton. I hated Peter Shilton’s hair!