Tag: gratitude

Concrete Action – 3rd January 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Save the world by standing still
Triple and double the power of will
Only the world will live forever
It’s only ourselves that we can kill

Inspired by Brian Dunning’s Skeptoid piece on the concrete industry’s 8.2% input of world carbon emissions.

If you dwell with a lame man, you will learn how to limp.

ancient proverb

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have taken the time and made the effort to cut some of the grass today. The birds are here finding spiders and other insects to eat in amongst the cuttings.

Got up late, went off for coffee and a bike ride, which got me chilled inside. Even when I got back and sat in the sun, I still felt cold inside.

After a quick yummy lunch, I felt compelled to get the grass cutter and mowed away the long grass and now everywhere looks like a bad haircut. It’ll grow out soon!

Showered and now listening to one of the Pili Coit CDs I ordered recently. But I have a slight feeling of agitation – that old Sunday feeling coming back. Tomorrow – back to the familiarity if stress, the crazy kids, the cool ones, the lack of time (forcing me to fill the spaces appropriately). Keep my free time filled.

The Book Of Joy – 2nd January 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

The comedy of survival
Tutu and the Dalai Lama toy
With this universal index
With this book of joy

All artwork is stored energy. The art releases its power whenever a viewer becomes a dreamer.

Larry Bell

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for technology and being able to listen to my favourite music throughout the house now.

I was looking forward to a day at home, figuring out things to do as I go, when I woke up, Amy suggested going for a massage. As I went for coffee, fixed my bike number plate and worked out how to play music from my computer and into the kitchen stereo, my aching back and neck agreed that a massage is the best idea.

So, off we go.

The massage was of the relaxing type – not my favourite. I prefer pain for my money.

Mail Order Monkey – 1st January 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Your life won’t be complete
For the girl you want to impress
Get your mail order monkey
Put it in a pretty dress
Or how about a monkey skull
Comes from the same supplier
Stick it on your shelf
For your new friends to admire
Mail order monkies and skulls
It’s the weirdest thing I’ve heard
Is there a better way to impress
Without something so absurd?

Weight: 76.0kg
Resting heart rate: 41

There’s only one age: alive.

Agnes Varda

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to Apa for driving us up to Doi Chang yesterday and paying for lunch.

A long day yesterday. Amy’s dad drove us, with Oh’s girlfriend, her sister and mum, up to Doi Chang, which I hadn’t visited before. It was nice to have the opportunity to just sit and look out of the window and not have to concentrate on the road. Doi Chang has become well known for its coffee and now is turning itself into a camping lifestyle destination.

To be honest, there’s not much to do up there except enjoy the views but every second person seems to be building a cafe/homestay and it occurs to me that everything now is just a photograph – there’s no substance. Perhaps I’m jaded and don’t see much underneath due to cultural differences.

Anyway, I thought it’s not so far away and I’d like to ride my bike up here sometime. I’ll have to prepare for a sore butt doing that but I think it would be nice.

We had a late lunch at Singha Park. Busy but a pleasant time looking over the park from the restaurant. I try to take as much as I can with my eyes rather than taking photos. I could feel a sense of contentment rising from my stomach to my chest when I tried this.

I was flagging it by late afternoon when we got back to Amy’s parents’ house and dozed before getting up to eat a little bit of dinner, whilst everyone else geared up for drinking and karaoke. By 8.30, I lay down again and had wild, interesting, lucid dreams, punctuated by waking periods overhearing out-of-key singing to Thai tunes.

I knew it was getting late when I heard renditions of the Carpenters, Hotel California and Have You Ever Seen The Rain.

Lots of fireworks and cheering woke me again as the clock went past midnight and I got into a deeper sleep until Amy woke me at 1.30 and said it’s time to go home. She had a great time and I enjoyed everything too. I’m not big on drinking, partying and socialising and Amy understands that. We fell asleep content.

I managed to get up at 7 and, after feeding the cat,s wanted to use my aching body as I had spent most of the previous 24 hours sitting or lying down, so I walked to Utopia in the cool morning air, chatting on the phone with Hayden along the way. He may try to come to Thailand in April. Let’s see if that happens.

Lots of things I hope to catch up with today. My new MacBook Air arrived yesterday and I need to get that set up too.

Another See-Saw – 31st December 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Essential for self-knowledge
There’s a need to be negative
A freeing natural balance
A brain made regenerative
To be relentlessly positive
Is as toxic as its reverse
The bright days shine brighter
When we get through the worst

You have no responsibility to live up to someone else’s expectation of you.

James Clear

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have a day off and go to Doi Chang today with Amy’s family.

To-Do List Of Yesterday – 28th December 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

You’re never going to get to the end
But the end will find its way to you
No matter how hard you try to cross the list
Find satisfaction in whatever you do

I wish I’d thought more about how it is to live.

Cecelia, Through A Glass Darkly by Jostein Gaarder

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to Dylan for giving Amy and me some homemade Baileys for Christmas. It reminded me to give him the shirts that no longer fit me in return.

Yesterday, Champ told me that students will be in school full-time again next week. This made me revise my plans for my classes and last night I posted a short video asking my students to ask me anything and in this morning’s class, I got the students to make and send a video question, which was a welcome break for them and they enjoyed messing around with video filters.

It also, unsurprisingly to me, highlighted a lot of the students’ deficiencies when it comes to thinking and speaking! But that’s ok, I think I will incorporate more work like this to be included on the school’s English Program page.

I’m also looking forward to having the students back here full-time again, as switching between at-school and at-home study week by week is challenging for me and even more so for the kids. I don’t know how long they will keep kids in school, though. If another wave of Covid comes, which it surely will, everything may change again.

I don’t want to wish time away but I am looking forward to a proper holiday, proper as in not working – no plans to go anywhere, without thinking about school.

This afternoon, I will drop by Bruno’s and go for a quick hike somewhere close by. Need to work off some of the pizza and beer weight I put on this week. Doing 30 sit-ups twice a day now. Need to be careful with my back, though; my abs are still not strong enough.

The Week That Was – 18th March 1979

The Fantastic Four – 26th December 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

A family always on the edge
Fighting to hold itself together
Fear and doubt grows in the dark
And the fantastic four will be no more

Make your own bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to see the beautiful sunset over the cloudy mountains at Singha Park yesterday. The view was lovely and filled with warmth.

As I’m getting to the bottom of the bottle of weed tincture that I got off Matt, the effects are getting stronger. Today, Amy is off with her friends to celebrate Christmas, leaving me this opportunity to be home alone and get a little high..

Singha Park yesterday seems like weeks ago right now. In the end, I ate too much despite not finishing a third can of Wild Rose, drank too much. My stomach just couldn’t take it. I realised it soon after that the beer was just too gassy. I burped and farted the drive home. I took a minute at the park and savoured a divine moment watching the sunset to the clouds on the mountains. As the clouds were moving, the sun would peak out again and it felt like a special surprise and a secret message meant just for me. I’ll hold it in my memory more than any photo I could’ve taken as a reminder.

This morning has been righteous, with two good coffees and a few more pages of the Slash biography read. It has been interesting to me to see how their band worked (as people, not as musicians), think about how my bands worked and wonder how everyone deals with it differently.

I updated more blog posts and listened to the ..? album to write a review and that was fun, and the start of reviewing my CD collection – an impossible task, I know, and already this morning I could think of at least ten different, other, things I could be doing. This is life and I’m loving it.

..? – …! – CD review

I had downloaded this album back when I was living in Sydney and as I did with a few different albums I enjoyed, I burned them to CD and printed a cover and pretended they were the real thing. So something must have struck me about this album at the time but in all honesty, I have probably never listened to it since. I would venture to say that this album is more than 10,000 other album downloads ago by now!

Searching for this band (…?) and album (…!) is not google-friendly, to say the least. Luckily some of the track titles enabled me to find a little information that this was actually a one-man recording project and the music is described as avant-metal. 16 songs in 26 minutes apparently. Appealing to my short attention span.

Let’s see how it sounds on this slow, tired Sunday morning.

Goodnight, Folks
It’s a cartoon intro and vocals that recall Pentti Dassum from Deep Turtle. Ah yes, I can hear what pulled me into this. The first minute or so actually recalls a few Finnish bands such as Keukhot and Y.U.P. before a half-minute Darth Vegas/Mr Bungle bomp-a-long. Obviously, an ironically titled introduction that has me curious. I’m expecting the beginning of the next track to be bombastic.

The Band of Bald Mountain
Well, only for a second, a big booming crescendo before wandering off and then careering through all sorts of genres, this definitely has me smiling behind my serious lips. I like this middle section that hangs around for a relatively long chunk of time, until the end in fact. I like that balance and transition, from the crazed to the more straightforward and especially like the fact it doesn’t go back into zaniness as may have been expected.

One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten
Haha, this is a high-octane counting song that would be on my dream Sesame Street. The transition into single snare hits about three-quarters of the way through is very cute. The lyrics though… Well, I guess they are easy to remember. A favourite so far though.

3-2-3
More counting? It’s ominous, booming, and Emerson Lake and Palmer have arrived, then Slayer and it’s on. Fuck yeah. Yes, it’s that cartoon thrash that has been heard many times before, BUT, because it is cartoon thrash it’s never the same and I marvel at the musical dexterity of it all.

Moe and Mumbles
Ah-ha. The gypsy thrash song! And…..there’s the Simpsons theme tune thrown in for a couple of bars for good measure. Impossible not to smile at but feels a little filler here.

Tear Out My Eyes
What is this main riff, lifted from – it sounds familiar? I’m digging the pace of this one, a jaunty thing…oh – double speed and I’m turning the volume and pumping my imaginary double kick drums. And it’s over before I could even finish writing the first sentence. Dug.

Hello, Oh, Sweetheart
Is this the interlude? A show tune of sorts. It’s brief and serves as an intro to the following tune.

Mitch, The Bastard Id
Nice bass tone, nice guitar tone, this punks along before speeding off. Like a twisted cowboy song, the rhythm feels like horse riding. Weirdly, I think this is the first tune that has a repeated section before scattering itself all over the place. It’s good music, so why not?

Peeping Toms Make Good Spies
Yes, spy movies are brought to mind here, at least at the beginning. I like music when I have no idea where it is going. Of course, I also like music that is more conventional but I think I like to work a little when listening. I like things that most people would find testing. I’m gonna listen to this one again, right now.

Damn Gypsies
Gypsy? In a ska way. In a punk-ska way. Great chorus and again the pace is compelling. This is actually the most conventional song so far. I want to sing along and punch the air.

The Charmer – The Torture
A slow down, another interlude tune. Good to give the ears a little break from the nonsense-circus-core. Haha….and then…..great. Perfect. Yes – kill me!

Subservient Girlfriend
This intro reminds me of DI. A faster So-Cal classic punk bounce around which a swirling synth before a mad chorus that I wish I could hear the lyrics more clearly.

Siblings
OK – well, lyrically this one is straightforward and clearly understood. Sibling love.

Fireworks Away
A great speedy tune with uplifting tunes and some sweet percussion tingly away in the background. I’m liking that this one maintains a steady beat and not pounding off into double-time death metal mayhem. Another favourite.

X
Fuck, this recording is very nice, probably lots of time poured over each sound. I like that the distorted guitars are cut so cleanly into each section. Not attracted to this middle-end section breakdown but as with music like this, it’s not usually long before a change comes along.

Mania Love
Well, those recording cuts are even more overplayed at the beginning here. And I’m loving it. This farts around all over the place wildly and every moment is genius or thereabouts. And farts is the word as this crazy fun album blows off back onto the shelf for now.

That was a rad listen and I will check it again. I think the album has been looked over as it exists at spot #1 in my collection and so is not easily seen. Perhaps I should move to the D section (for dot).

Favourite track right now is ‘One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten’, I’m thinking purely because I have an idea how the lyrics go!

In The Alley – 25th December 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

There in the alley, the marginal spaces
The ministers mix with the drunk
Between the tavern and the church
Was the birth of soul and funk

Here lies the crux to save humanity
The bleed maintains the goal
Has heaven found its place on earth
Where angels delivered funk and soul?

Keep on pushin’, Minister Curtis
Not just shaking shaggy, do wow!
We got to find the rhythms of peace
And we got to find them now

adapted from a LitHub article about Curtis Mayfield

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for our palm trees, whose fronds Tangmo really loves to play with when they have fallen to the ground.

A pleasant morning, waking without an alarm and inspired enough to get back to the abs regime. I’ve just been doing two sets of 25 sit-ups a day, sticking my feet under the lounge as leverage. I’m hoping my muscles eventually become strong enough to pull my body up without having to use my legs.

Amy has been baking carrot cake as Christmas gifts and we first took one to Art at Utopia, which was enjoyed and they rewarded me with an awesome new coffee blend from Melbourne. Then, to Cafe With No Name to drop off their cake.

Back now for relaxing lunch and reading my first Samuel Beckett, which I now understand Sean Hughes’ fascination with. Looking at my book shelves, there are just so many great books I have that I can’t wait to read.

This evening we are off to Singha Park with Amy’s parents for a family Christmas dinner.

Conduit – 24th December 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

You’re just a filter for fine foods and wine
You get a hold of it and say, “it’s mine”
Consumers of more, you’ve got it all
And it’s lonely at the top of the fall

An empty vessel, a temporary fill
Sieved away and now it’s empty still
If you hold too long it becomes a block
Account your life by taking stock

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for my wheat bag and microwave to help me with my aching neck. It’s a comfort more than a help.

Now that the winter solstice has passed, it already feels as if the sun rises much earlier and the weather a degree or two warmer. The inertia of this rolling planet is building into the next storm of heat.

I talked with Amy last night about stopping work again and she joked (maybe) about in ten months, after the new laptop I’ve ordered is paid off. I only actually need the laptop for work. If I weren’t working then the computer I have would be fine. Anyway, I would love to stop working in ten months time – if not sooner!

I would miss the kids so much though and I would definitely miss watching them grow and develop into adults. Whatever they choose to do with their lives.

Tomorrow we will go with Amy’s parents to Singha Park to eat pizza. Maybe I’ll have a beet. That’s my Christmas!

I read an interesting interview yesterday from a blog called Oldster – talking to people about how they feel and deal with getting older. I am thinking about the same kind of things. The questions and the interviewees’ answers were very interesting. I thought I should try and interview myself and answer the questions here.

Is there another age you associate with yourself in your mind? If so, what is it? And why, do you think?

I think I really only associate myself with me as am now. Sometimes I remember things I’ve done and they feel like they happened to someone else. Like a movie or a dream.

There are two points in my life that profoundly impacted me and those memories are clear and strong but they feel like they happened to a different version of me (which they did, really). I can’t be that person again or would even want to be but I do feel nostalgic for the pleasant feeling I had during those times, which felt few and far between as they were happening during my teenage years. That is my first age (nostalgic age).

I was a ball of contradictory confusion. I was often miserable and uncertain about anything. Then I was also looking for happiness and was confident in my selfishness. I wouldn’t wish to go through those times again, except with the wisdom I have now.

The other age in my mind is from meeting Bronwyn around 1992 until around 2002. That age was really what I would say built on my foundations of youth. It wasn’t really until I came out of that that I truly discovered who I am. I’m still not always happy with that person but I found acceptance through all my experiences.

So these two stages are really my main growth stages and they stick out to me for that reason. Now, I feel that I am in a constant state of growth and it is not so much defined by a specific time. In my mind, I am still an adventurous 20-year-old as a somewhat wiser 54-year-old.

    The Week That Was – 11th March 1979

    Give Me A.I. – 23rd December 2021

    ~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

    Give me A.I., I’ll just be a brain in a box
    Ditch my body for complete neuron unlocks
    A twitching synapse controls my feeding tube
    Lord Elon can come and change my lube
    Devolution of thumbs, no longer required
    Finally, it’s our thoughts to be admired
    Give me A.I. and charge-free flying cars
    Let’s get on the rocket and fuck off to Mars

    Gratitude Journal

    I am so happy and grateful for the technology that means we can video call our friends around the world. It’s a far cry from the dial phones I grew up with.

    Last night, Amy and I had a long video and audio call with Aing in Bangkok. She was down and confused about her future and I learned a little bit about Amy as we talked. About myself too.

    I was conscious of not just putting my ideas forward or just telling what I would do because I can’t really put myself into her situation exactly. Amy and I both listened more than talking, asking questions where appropriate.

    Then Amy gave her some good advice. Aing felt better after this and we will try and help her as much as we can. She is a smart young lady with lots of potential. We would like to see her achieve her dreams rather than going along with what satisfies other people.

    Amy and I talked more about it afterwards and she has a method in this kind of situation, which I didn’t really realise that I was doing too. That is to let the person talk and to listen carefully before offering any advice. Be sympathetic before a solution provider. Amy is very good at this. George too. I am getting better at it and try more these days to put myself in someone else’s shoes as much as possible.

    Sometimes other people’s problems put more perspective into mine. Mine are all in my head. In fact, I would say most problems are just there. I try to put everything into categories of what I can control and what I can’t. That usually leads me to the way to the solution. Controlling my thoughts is the constant practice for the rest of my life.

    The White Torch – 22nd December 2021

    ~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 11 Comments

    Like a ray of moonlight through the window
    Sweet words fall like dew drops from petals
    Connected by vapour pulled through the air
    The briefest touch sends hearts spinning

    Pure eyes emanating light, lit large
    Her grace flows forth like a stanza
    This tree in blossom fights against her sorrows
    A brief affection, two bodies made into one

    A love cleansed by tears remains pure
    A single thought makes it so
    The flowers hidden in darkness
    Cannot hide that held in our hearts

    The universe trembles to this sweet music
    This delicious dance felt for the first time
    Love and fear fills the heart with joy
    The obstacles of doubt surmounted
    – Every minute now, a year of love

    Mangled from the titular chapter of The Broken Wings by Khalil Gibran and inspired by the attached picture of an old student of mine. I read this chapter and saw the picture on the same day and combined, they both took me back to enjoy that soft sick feeling in the stomach and chest of teenage love.

    3rd Mar 2024 – Submitted to Weekly Prompts Colour Challenge
    16th Aug 2024 – Submitted to dVerse OLN

    Gratitude Journal

    I am so happy and grateful that from today the daylight hours will get longer again. I say this as I saw the sun appear above the mountain this morning filling the sky with its orange light.

    I’m anxious and overthinking again at the moment. I need to overcome this feeling somehow. Yesterday I talked with Champ and I could feel he understood my frustrations with school but it became obvious that if anything happens down the line, such as more complaints from the parents, then he will not support me. Not necessarily by choice but just to protect himself. This is kinda disappointing really but I guess it shows me where I stand.

    I think I’ll make some changes with some small things in my life again to give me back more of a feeling of control again. I feel not strong enough to support my own beliefs, not arrogant enough to feel superior, not flexible enough to bend to the will of others.

    The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.

    There’s something to be said for thoughtless manual labour. Weak. Time feels like it’s running away but it’s not real – why am I insisting on making it real? Is this my midlife crisis? Gotta self-talk my way out of it.