Tag: guitar

Teacher’s Day – 23rd June 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Oh, the pretty girls must perform
The majority sweat to conform
Candles lit and incense burned
Bless today for what was learned

Rigid rows and rigid rules
Sets the tone within the schools
Passive acceptance, the cultural norm
Here’s Pavlov’s children to perform

31st Oct 2024 – Shared with Ragtag Daily Prompt – rigid

Unsolicited advice is the junk mail of life.

Bern Williams

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to find the Yousician offer to upgrade to play loads more songs cheaper than my current subscription – how good is that!?

The Week That Was – 9th September 1979

Make It – 17th May 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

Yeah, we’re gonna make it
But only by the skin of our teeth
Possibly we’ll break it
But somewhere we have to find belief
Maybe we’ll mistake it
For an eternity all too brief
Probably we’ll fake it
Wallowing in an illusion of relief

The more you have to lose, the more fragile you are.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for an extra day off school. I could get a lot of writing, reading and guitaring done. Bonus.

The Week That Was – 15th July 1979
The Week That Was – 22nd July 1979

The Dark Empath – 9th March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

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

I almost snoozed on this morning but forced myself up and stretched my aching hips again. I’m not sure what I’m going to do today. I clocked in at school and came out for coffee. I’ll go back and walk around the school a bit and then, maybe today – massage!

I want to buy some light bulbs and maybe some new stationery too. I mowed the rest of the back of the lawn yesterday which was fun. Fun? Maybe not, but I was happy with the resulting chopped weeds. Should be good for about six months now I hope. My whole body was vibrating afterwards and I struggled to practice guitar later – but persevered for 10 minutes at least. I’m really not good at guitar but I do really enjoy practicing a little every day.

My neck is totally sore from holding the grass cutter so this may finally convince me to go for the massage today! Back to some English Lit study and article reading, crank out a poem and savour the morning.

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.

In Tune – 11th December 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Maybe you’ll never get old
Death attained so soon
Treat each day
In this way
And live your life in tune

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have the app Capo that gives me a good idea of the chords to play guitar for any song I have. So yesterday I spent a couple of hours playing – enough to cramp my hands!

Yesterday I took advantage of an extra day off. Got up late, drank coffee at Utopia, reading more of the fun Slash biography, got a quick haircut at my usual local auntie hairdresser, had a quick pep talk with Na, Amy went out for lunch so I picked up some friend rice and veggies at the aharn damsang in our soi and tried out the Busabee wheat beer, which was delicious, though I struggled a little with it and having to go to the toilet all the time was annoying!

Sat in my hammock under the passionfruit until it got too hot and then slowly kept drinking in my room and ended up playing guitar for a couple of hours, trying to play along to familiar songs, got hand cramps, then switched to listening to Nomeansno really fucking loud, which was great and something I don’t do enough of.

Listening to music loud is the best way to appreciate it.

At the hairdresser, the auntie used a razor to tidy up my ear hair and it struck me what a weirdly intimate act it was, though enacted in a professional environment. I compared it to sex work – an intimate act that for the worker is just part of the job. Yes – I’m comparing sex work to a haircut! Why is sex work so demeaned?

Due to my own upbringing and environment, I don’t understand or comprehend the rationale behind people who want to adopt the profession but at the same time, it’s not my business and as there is a huge calling for work of this sort then workers should be treated with the respect they deserve.

The abundance of online pornography available should change attitudes towards sex and find a way to make the whole thing more equal and less exploitative. Less religion – more openness.

Tall Tales Told – 16th November 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

The stories we tell always change
To suit the audience being told
Fake news has been around forever
The preposterous tales of old

Legends live on in our minds
To moralise for the present
Made obvious for the new generation
Who is bad and who is pleasant

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to the two guys who make the You Don’t Know Mojack podcast as they have introduced me to good music that I would maybe never hear otherwise.

I don’t know how many months now that it has been that I have been trying to play Scarborough Fair 100% accurately on guitar. It made me mad and then I got all ‘whatever’, thinking that one day it will come. I’m still waiting for that day. The chord change from Dm to F was/is the main stumbling block and when I do manage it I end up not quite nailing something else. Never give up. I do fucking hate this song now though.

I’m out in my room and can hear Amy screaming inside. I don’t mean screaming scared but just drunkenly emoting loudly on the phone. She does get excited after a couple of wines.

Good classes today. Some testing students but not too bad. I’m pretty calm most of the time now.

The Gift – 14th September 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Your head games and offensive words
Spewing out your hole like stinking turds
The two-faced smiles and stinking breath
Your finagling towards friendship death

Daggers raised at those honest necks
A passive-aggressive sweep of the decks
The bitter change of heart so swift
Beyond the tears, you gave me a gift

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have a nice deep sleep totally missing the storm that blew everything around in the night. Feel good this morning!

I forgot to mention yesterday that I finally managed to play the first part of Scarborough Fair after what seems like months of trying! Changing from Dm to F was so difficult and it was getting so frustrating. I was so happy to finally do it on Sunday. Now I have to complete the next two sections and advance to Level 6. It’s all starting to get a little more difficult now but I’m still enjoying it. I will try and find more old punk songs that I know to play along to. I think that will keep up my motivation.

Today I can celebrate Matt selling me his stash of Kratom and also giving me the rest of his weed tincture. I never tried these before, so let’s see what they are like.

I’m happy today. Tuesday is my easy teaching day and giving the student work ahead of time makes the class go quicker, although it kinda spreads the work out for me, making it longer. Anyway, I’m enjoying it at the moment. I am still looking forward to a break though.

Remembered – 18th August 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

Dull light, half awake, in lucid dreams
Words arose to poem make, remembered as
‘An intimate melody to my ears reached
Through downy feathers, softened so
Was the tune of my fucking alarm clock!’

26th Aug 2024 – Submitted to Word of the Day Challenge – remember

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to all the people who help keep our electricity supply constant. It is something I had always taken for granted but now that I live in a place where it can be unstable I must remember all those who made it happen and continue to make it happen.

Struggling to savour, I notice. Maybe forgetting how good everything is, or the constant good feeling I seem to have these days, is becoming too normal.

Spent a lazy morning filling in the visa forms and reading, while drinking coffee. Arranged for my morning class to do work ahead of time so that they could skip my class if they wished, which freed me up!

Re-connected with Big Tom, who is still living in Adelaide, though no longer working at DXC – made redundant due to offshoring. Good to chat with him even if only through Twitter messages.

Trying to nail Scarborough Fair on guitar so I can complete the level in Yousician is driving me crazy and torturing my fingers. But never give up! It’s cool to think that by moving some fingers on some strings that nice sounds can emanate.

Looking forward to more Louis XIV tonight and comparing it to our current situation in Thailand. Also, reading about being a ‘good’ Dad and considering how I have lived my life has affected Hayden. He is struggling with addiction and depression, and I can’t help but consider my role in that. He is going to have a difficult time ahead.

Fall From Grace – 9th July 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

That time everyone worked together
Fighting for what was best
Made us leaders, held us up
A shining example to the rest
So it goes, the group divides
And no longer meets the test
From leaders to losers now
Others are no longer impressed
The fingers point at each other
As if each had so been blessed
Outside the insular echo chambers
The faults are easily guessed

Comment on the pandemic situation in Thailand, once kept well at bay and since gotten out of control.

You are just wandering around the goal with your monkey mind. Always looking for something without knowing what you are doing. If you want to see, you should open your eyes.

from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that there is a guitar shop in town where I could buy the little tool to help pull out the plugs on my acoustic guitar. I enjoyed looking at the guitars there too.

We got that attitude! – 18th March 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I am so happy and grateful for my guitar and app for learning to play it. I’m feeling very positive about learning that even when something becomes very difficult I won’t give up and I’m even starting to remember some songs and practice them without the app. My aching hand and fingers remind me how much enjoyment I’m getting from it.

The best thing that happened today was finishing a drawing of Fern and Amy that I had really struggled with yesterday. It’s not perfect but it does at least look like them now.

I also started one of Jess and Amy which is going well. I plan to a jpg to each of Amy’s friends so they can send to Amy on our anniversary – now, if I could only remember the exact date of our anniversary! Is it the 9th or 11th? I just realised I can look in this diary or perhaps to my blog for a clue….Looks like the 9th – haha!