Tag: gratitude journal

Stuff The Chicken – 4th March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Fixing the world at your barroom tables
Shaking fists at your agreeable fables
It’s simple in your circle of influence
To discount all the unsavoury elements

Warring in nations at your profitable leisure
Prodding the monkies to provide your pleasure
Your war is better than theirs, you beg
Stuffing the chicken back into its egg

9th Jun 2024 – Submitted to Ragtag Daily Prompt – stuff

When you have two choices, choose the more difficult one.

Stoic thought

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for everyone who helped me at the hospital. They made it very easy for me.

Woke up during the night with aching hips and starting to worry if I’m going to need replacements sometime! I got up with my alarm despite wanting to snooze more and did some hip stretching exercises which were tough but pretty effective. I hope the aching hips don’t become more of a common occurrence that disturbs my sleep.

Today was a repeat of yesterday in that I got to school and chatted with Dylan and the students. I had planned on teaching, at least with 2/9 but there were only six students at school! I ended up giving everyone their grades – some students were happy but others, less so. They all started to appreciate how lazy they had been with my work and I just hope it inspires them for next semester. Overall, I can see improvements in about 80% of them. I gave them all encouragement.

I got home again about midday after shopping and picking up my vaccine passport from the hospital. I rode there on my bike and felt 100% and started thinking about a long ass bike ride this weekend. It’s damn hot during the day though and the air quality is starting to suck again too. Let’s see how motivated I am on the weekend.

Excited that football season starts in a couple of weekends. Excited for Amy too, ending her first week in her new job with lots of positive feedback from her boss.

Let’s enjoy the weekend.

Sleepwalking – 3rd March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Meeting you, asleep, amongst flowers
I curse you for destroying my youth
You are my enemy, I could kill you
The misty veil cannot hide the truth

And I too, your daughter, sleeping
Wish that you could also be dead
Standing between my freer self and me
My life will not echo all you have said

The cock crows, dew evaporates
Eyes open to the love of daughter and mother
The human condition, the order of nature
There is nothing else to be placed above her

Based on another Khalil Gibran parable

Discovering you were wrong is an update, not a failure, and your worldview is a living document meant to be revised.

Julia Galef

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to find that I can get a booster vaccine at the local hospital this morning. Need to go early and queue up.

Yesterday afternoon I had a little snooze and felt much better afterwards – got in a much more positive mood. I messaged Aing to see how she was doing and she told me she got a booster vaccine at MFU hospital and suggested I get it there so that’s what I did this morning.

Got to school at 10 and chatted with students and Dylan before coming home again around 11.30! My good feeling continues despite only six and a bit hours of sleep last night. Also messaged with Hayden and Bronwyn. Hayden finally caught covid, had one day of feeling rough but felt better today. Hope it stays that way.

I want to make sure I stay in contact with my friend more (via messaging) just so I don’t get too isolated in my current solitary lifestyle. Still, feeling and happy again right now.

The Week That Was – 8th April 1979

Mere Man – 2nd March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Mother, I am a mere man
I will climb mountains higher than you can understand
To show what a human can do
Tut and scoff, weep and worry
Yet it is something I must do
I will attempt impossible things
Because in the death zone, I come alive
I will be strong
I will leave no brothers behind
You taught me everything
And this is to honour you

Written whilst watching 14 Peaks.

People get the mind and quality of brain that they deserve through their actions in life.

Robert Greene

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for this chocolate muesli to break up my normal breakfast eating. What a lot of work must go into making muesli.

It’s getting horrible hot in the afternoons and I have to have the fan on at night. I finished off all my grading this morning, then hung around a little with the kids, who were pretty happy not to be studying. Many, I didn’t see though, and I think they didn’t bother to come to school. It was a fun morning and I came home early again and snoozed for about 40 minutes but the heat woke me up again.

Amy is moving into a room in Century Tower in the city today. It’s expensive but she can walk to work, has her own room and will be able to meet some new people. She’s happy, though I’m not sure how long she will keep enjoying the work – it’s very different to what she is used to. I miss her a lot again today. I will cuddle our cats for her.

The Warrior Intrepid – 1st March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

My brain switched off, distracted
Just a second; my car, crashed it
Left it in gear, forgot the handbrake
Rolled on forward and smashed the gate

No real harm done, not this time
Scared one day I’m gonna get mine
Older, feeble-minded, decrepit
No longer the warrior intrepid

For mortals, the ‘easy life of the gods’ would be a lifeless life.

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for my guitars that I can pick up and play when I feel like it.

So the plan today was to go to school and hang around for a bit and then go to Central to get my booster shot. I was going to go yesterday but forgot my passport, which apparently is required. I woke up feeling pretty good, exercised and fed the cats etc. I did feel a bit absent-minded though and I was missing Amy more than usual.

So, I did hang around at school, doing grading and nosing around the ‘event’ – I don’t know what it was, an open day, but only open to students. Each program had a stall set up and all students were supposed to go to each and get a stamp on a sheet of paper. Something which could be achieved in under an hour, but will go on for two days.

It only just occurred to me, the absurdity of the program names. Something I keep reminding my students when they don’t want to work – this is the ‘Talented English Program’. We have lots of ‘Talented’ programs as well as ‘Genius’ programs but just calling them that doesn’t make them so! And there are programs such as Hospitality and Aviation or Japanese Business! Why?

I know my own education history is singularly English, 1980’s style and that it generally sucked and I couldn’t understand why we learned the things we learned and here I am on the other side of the classroom, not understanding still. No clues are given either.

I’ve mentioned before that the most contented teachers are those who don’t really care – just let the kids have fun, sing songs and play with their phones. But I can’t be like that. I want to do a good job, I want to inspire where I can.

I think about the Stoic phrase along the lines of ‘Get up in the morning and get to your work as a human. It’s your job.’ I have a job as a teacher, as a human, and I want to do it well.

Anyway, I went off to Central to find out they stopped the vaccine centre there yesterday! I was tired and running out of energy, not wanting to face going back to school and walking around the same stalls I’d already seen twice, earlier. So I drove home, a little dizzy and distracted. I pulled up at the gate and got out to open it, noticing the car was suddenly moving forward! It pushed the gate off the roller rail before I jumped in to stop it, knocking a hole in the gate panels. Argh! Fuck!

I cleaned up the mess, fixed the gate back on the rail, popped the car bumper back in and decided I needed more sleep.

I really don’t like these school days outside the routine. This shows me what I need in my life to be comfortable. I’m not normally a fan of routine as such but can recognise its advantages for me. If I stop working, I will have to build myself a new routine that works for me. I can’t just melt into the couch all day – tempting as that might be.

Dust – 28th February 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

‘I am a piece of fallen skin’
‘I am a broken hair from a spider’s leg’
‘I am from dirt the cat tramped in’
We three wait

In a corner close to the walls
Behind and beside the washing machine
We see the day come and go
And we wait

Ants wander by often, lizards, sometimes, too
The cat peers under the machine
About once a week
And we wait

One day the machine is gone
And all traces of worldly humans
Soon the plaster and brick will crumble
And we wait

We see the weeds encroaching
Pushing through every crack
The wind will never find us here
And the heat and cold bother us not
And we wait

Now there is only darkness
Every living thing has disappeared
We float away in space
Waiting for a reformation

7th Nov 2024 – Shared with Ragtag Daily Prompt – dust

The most important skill of a species intelligent enough to understand both their insignificance and their mortality is the capability for distraction.

Tim Urban

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the great variety of food I can find where I live. It’s still new and refreshing to me.

Pee dreams have been waking me the last couple of nights. I’m already contemplating how to manage when I’m too old to get out of bed fast enough! Less water in the evenings, maybe?

I’m sitting in the cafe doing grading this morning. 3 down and 5 to go. Should be pretty simple though. It makes me happy to think about my students and how they have changed over the last 12 months. Some are improving and those that aren’t I’m just encouraging to try as much as possible and not be lazy. Need a break now, though, my eyes are sore. Though my break will involve reading!

The Week That Was – 1st April 1979

A Meta Verse – 27th February 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Would you volunteer for a fatal addiction
To an electrical pleasure, brain implant
The sum of all pleasure, constant highs
A simple flick of the switch would grant?

Would you sacrifice your suffering
The demons and devils of your daily fight
The needles that give you balance
Just to die tomorrow in orgasmic delight?

We own our own minds – and together, we can take them back from the forces that are stealing them.

Johann Hari

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to be able to watch my garden grow and change over time. It’s amazing.

A contrast of days for the weekend. Saturday was a fantastic day of reading in the hammock, reading in the living room, watching YouTube and Netflix, playing guitar and savouring every minute as they appeared to rush by because it was soon time for bed. What a great day!

And this morning I knew a guy was coming to fix the camera setup around the house. He was due between 9 and 10 and he actually made it on time. Excellent, I thought. Can be done by lunch time and can take Aing and Now off for lunch and furniture shopping that Aing wants for her new shop. Through various mess-ups and requirements, we didn’t get out until 4pm and there was nothing much I could do except to be patient.

I took them into town to a few shops and we were all so tired after an hour or so that we came back and then it was time to bring washing in, do some watering and feed the cats. No reading yet, no guitar, no TV yet, and it’s almost time for bed. Still, it’s good not just to be enjoying every day to the max. Setbacks come from everywhere and it’s a testament to the nevermind attitude of Thai people that often annoys the fuck out of Amy and me but must also be practised often in order not to go crazy. I still enjoyed my day.

The Scarecrow – 26th February 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

The crows are building
Nests under my hat
I’ve thought long and hard
About this
And I’m no longer scared
To be alone

Based on the titular Khalil Gibran parable. I found almost every one of his parables poetically inspiring. More coming, I’m sure!
8th Feb 2024 – Shared to Weekly Prompts Wednesday Challenge Scary
2nd Nov 2024 – Shared with Word of the Day Challenge – scarecrow

…a fraction of atoms cohered into the elements necessary to form the complex structures necessary for life…the tiny improbable fraction of a fraction of a fraction with which we have the perishable privilege of contemplating the universe in our poetry…

Maria Popova, paraphrasing Alan Lightman

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have discovered Khalil Gibran’s parables and to be inspired by them.

Where Go You, My Friend? – 25th February 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 12 Comments

I am not what I seem
I have masks to protect you from me
I stay alone in my house
And it will this way forever be

I am simply understood
Because I am a mirror in my ways
Yet you should not trust my deeds
Or my thoughts that reflect your plays

I hide from you my darkness
My skies of purple shadow
As you ascend yourself to Heaven
It’s down to Hell that I go

Your steps are taken with caution
Whilst my madness removes my care
There’s direction to your movement
But I feel it’s not going anywhere

My friend, you are not my friend
But how shall I make you understand?
My path is not your path
Yet together we walk hand in hand

Inspired by a Khalil Gibran parable, with the last four lines lifted word for word. I found this short parable very affecting and particularly relevant to my thoughts on friendship.

25th Mar 2024 – Submitted to WDYS with the above picture prompt

6th Sep 2024 – Submitted to Reena’s Xploration Challenge #346

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to Oasis restaurant for making yummy vegan food in Chiang Rai.

Tired this morning. When I got home yesterday, I brought my washing in, ironed 11 shirts, watered the garden and fed the cats. It was about 7pm by the time I sat down and relaxed. The woes of being a working house-husband! I also somehow got a cactus needle stuck in my foot, which would wake me in the night if rubbed the wrong way on the sheet and further worsened by having music on too loud in the living room, so when I woke up, I would listen and it took a while to nod off again.

Pompam from 2/10 tested positive for Covid yesterday, so hope it hasn’t spread in the classroom – though I want to catch it now – before the holiday.

Choose Your Hurt – 24th February 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Do you believe you are hurt?
Did your mother rush to your side?
Pause, just for a moment
Just enough time to decide

A scraped knee from a bike fall
Or spiteful words screamed in hate
The response is always a choice
Is it a pain you can bear to take?

The bleeding body is real
But other situations require more thought
Are you just responding this way
Because that is all you were taught?

In my heart I laugh at thy love. Yet I would not have thee see my laughter. I would laugh alone.

Khalil Gibran, Me Friend

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for my mobile app trainer who reminds me to be grateful every morning that I work out.

I slept long last night, catching up. I couldn’t even read a page of a comic. I had music playing softly in the other room and occasionally stirred to some weirdness, finding my ears.

Felt good after some ab workout and ready for the day. As it’s the end of the semester in a couple of weeks and with the past two weeks being a write-off, the kids keep asking for free time. Weirdly, I think some of them don’t really want the free time, they just don’t want to think. But when they actually sit and start working, then they are very capable. I feel on a roll with my classes – all planned and primed. The good students understand the method, the bad students fall away, and know to be quiet.

Yesterday, I logged into my teacher’s Facebook account to find a message from Boss in 2/9. He was in the class I taught about sexual abuse but we also discussed emotional abusea and his message certainly indicates that this is happening to him at home. His English is poor so it’s difficult for me to talk to him and try to help him. I’m glad he felt comfortable enough to confide in me but now I’m not sure what to do. I’m talking to Amy and Champ, without giving his name away. I hope he can overcome this lack of care at home. No one deserves that.

Under Cover – 23rd February 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Well, what is it? We don’t know
Is it even within our control?
Like electricity, yet without flow
What is this thing we call a soul?

Based on a Ray Charles quote

The slickest way to lie is to tell the right amount of truth – then shut up.

Jubal, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have 5 minutes each morning to meditate. It’s difficult to control my thoughts but this exercise helps.

Last night I remembered I had weed tincture in the fridge. I’d forgotten all about it. It was a big jar – could probably last 3 or 4 months. And I dropped it on the kitchen floor, smashing the glass and spreading beautiful green oil across the room. It was so surreal – I just stood there. Many high nights disappeared into the soon-to-disappear paper towels. I’m not sure if it was connected but I didn’t go to sleep until late, reading comic after comic. My mind was awake, possibly reeling.

I woke this morning, up and at them, workout, feed cats, shower, muesli and yoghurt, drive to work, sign in, go for coffee. I met Fui, whom I hadn’t seen for a few weeks and he talked about his orchids blooming at his place. I had also noticed my orchids blooming in their pots, though now I’m thinking about moving them into the tree as Fui has them.

Back to school for an easy lesson with 2/11 (grade 8), discovering Natali has moved schools. After almost two years, unable to speak any English, I noticed last week she was able to finally say something coherent to me! And now, she’s gone!

It seems Boss will leave at the end of this semester too. The class will be down to just 15 or 16 students next year! I hope I can teach them. Even with a couple of annoying and lazy students, that number is great! As ever – let’s see.

The kids didn’t want to study but I made them – in a relaxed manner. I let them eat and take their time and maybe a couple learned something. I was going to go to the hospital to get my toe checked out but considering I may be waiting all afternoon, I decided to come home instead. Great!

I finished off moving stuff from my room into the living room and digging it this way right now. Can read a book, email, listen to music, play guitar or watch Netflix – all in this one room again. Amy won’t be happy – haha – but she’s not here!