Tag: Hayden

*Sore – 10th September 1998

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Email with TLJ

T: my bottom lip is really sore from natalie kneeing me in the mouth yesterday….so i’m pouting more than usual, and i’m having a really bad day already. so cheer me up babe.
love you sweety, hope you got plenty of sleep last night. sorry for waking you, tlj

S: I’m missing you so much sweety. I wish I could kiss your ailments away – maybe you could do the same in return. I’m really down about my financial situation. I sent a cheque to the Credit Union but they haven’t received it yet – it’s for 370 dollars -I could really do with some of that. I’ll be miserly til I get paid again except I have to pay for HJ’s birthday lunch on Sunday. You really mean so much to me – I feel closer to you every day. I hope yr day will get better – try to stay calm and concentrate on yr study and on doing the best you can. I dint get to work til 9 – I slept in! Glad to speak to you last night cos I miss you so.
Love from yr biggest fan

T: love you baby, i’m really missing you – oh, and i finally found out who Chris Han was, although i didn’t speak to him – it was Chrishan!!!!! – my friend from school, and my dad wrote the name wrong – pretty funny huh?
anyway, i knew he was having a dinner for his birthday that night but didn’t think i was invited. I think he must have rung me up to invite me. everyone was going to joo’s party after as well – see the night i missed out on!!!
oh, and in case you didn’t get my last mail (i sent it to .com.au – does that matter?) i’m trying to open it in version 6 word 95.

S: Well, my name is Shaunhems Lee. haha.
csc.com or csc.com.au all comes to my Lotus Notes now. Don’t send to the hotmail account if you want a quick reply though – there 150 mails there waiting to be read! I’m sorry you missed out on that big night – I feel responsible and will make it up to you somehow. I answered yr question already – although you prob dint like the answer.

T: but none of the other word 97 documents i’ve saved have specified that it’s a msword document.

S: What do you mean? I would think you’ve saved all yours as word6/word95 so you can open them in word 95. This document you’ve been given has prob been saved as a word97 doc.

T: it’s not mine by the way (the kid i mean).

S: What do you mean?????

T: but i’ll give it a try. thanks babe. tlj

S: Well, thank you my little Chinese angel.

T: ok, so it worked – you are the greatest babe – and no the document was not mine!

S: Thank you thank you thank you
No – you are the greatest…..

*Make up – 18th August 1998

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Email with TLJ

T: with a cherry on top – I love you – truly, madly, deeply – you seen that movie? it’s pretty good.

S: Not sure – don’t think so…

T: Just finished typing in everybody’s timesheet details into a spreadsheet only i don’t know how i should set it up.
Anyway, finally remembered what i was gonna say to you after you got the milk at the corner store but forgot when you came back – i was just gonna say that when Notorious BIT (topdeq, ice-D, Futang et al) have their meeting, Sue-pergroove and hammerDogg (jeff) sit at the front because they’re the project leaders. I was just gonna say how i’d absolutely hate the project leaders actually displaying their leadership, but remembered that our project leaders do that as well (but not as obviously).

S: Power always goes to the head and initiates the search for more power and so on…

T: oh well, we’ll never make it to the top will we.

S: It depends on how you look at it. we could already be at the top (of what we want) other people just want more and go further than we have – but happiness is more important – wherever you are. Us, together, we are at the top, sweety.

T: we just have to work harder and give them all the glory.

S: Yes, this is the thing that shits us below – where we were happy the people above seek to make us unhappy to make themselves feel better – arseholes!

T: i hate project leaders as a rule. don’t become a project leader babe, cause then i’ll want a divorce.

S: There are good leaders too I’m sure. (Ok, I haven’t met one either…)

T: saw Sandie’s snow photos the other day, and all her friends. they all got on really well (except for Jackie’s friend and her boyfriend who were real tight-arse)

S: What’s the goss?

T: and are planning a summer getaway. i really want to get away with friends as well. my school friends (laura and michelle etc) wanted to go to the Hunter Valley this winter, but i guess none of us really had the time. also wanted to go to the central coast for the summer – but I forgot i might be going to Taiwan. also, everyone seems to be going their
separate ways for the summer hols

S: I think that is kinda what happens after leaving school and those close relationships kinda disperse. I hope you keep close with your friends – they are very important – I realised this myself, after losing most of my friends. I’m still kinda jealous of you you know! I wish we could go away. We have to one day all right?

T: like Thailand and stuff. actually, i’m not so sure i would want to go to Thailand anyway – not yet, cause I wouldn’t want to go with Laura and Gerard’s friends – don’t think that much of them – they’re very elitist – Laura doesn’t think much of them either. we refer to them as the ASM – Asian Supremacist Movement. ok, so it’s very immature i hear you say.

S: She must like Gerard a lot…

T: Mich rang last night. she’s going to return my Jeff Buckley video this afternoon cause i’m meeting her at markets.

S: I don’t think you ever told me about a Jeff Buckley video did you (but then you know what my memory is like)

T: only prob – i haven’t got her the rest of her b’day present yet. there’s also a free BBQ as part of union week here at the uni. so i don’t think it’ll be hard convincing the fellas doing SDD to take a lunch break (you should see the size of some of
them). Dan was saying how much Yuri likes crackling (so do i) and how Trent just eats hot dogs). anyway, it beats Bar Broadway for lunch. told Mich if she wanted Jeff Buckley dubbed, i would try. do you think you could set up your video to dub, or would that require another power socket that you don’t have?

S: Call me Chief Dubber MC Hemsley. Course I can. Just gotta find the leads and set it up.

T: had great fun with you and Hayden yesterday – he’s a real groovy babe.

S: Hey, what about me???? We both had fun with you too. Thanks for taking the time to hang out.

T: was good to see you parenting as well – that’s another side of you I haven’t seen before

S: What did you think? Am I too slack or too overbearing. I like to let him explore things and figure out for himself what is good and bad. I think it’s cool to let him run around looking at things where other folks like to keep their kids on a tight leash. Let’s face it they really can’t do much harm and it’s fun to watch them open up cupboards in Grace Brothers or pull things off shelves. Wasn’t he cute when I would say Let’s Go and he would say it too!

T: except when you father me!

S: Sorry if I was bossy with you yesterday. It’s pretty important that HJ has his routine of an afternoon sleep – you saw how tired he was.

T: are you seeing him tonight?

S: No, but I saw him asleep last night – he was cuddling Winnie the Pooh as he didn’t have pillow and snuggler. Can’t wait for him to come back.

T: send him my love.

S: I think he felt it yesterday – thanks again.

T: anyway, if you have reached the end of this email, i’m very sorry it was so long.

S: At last a long email from you…

T: i just had plenty of time to kill and nothing much to say.

S: You’re fun, you’re the best…

T: anyway, i hope this makes up for all the mails i haven’t sent and for the rest of the week.

S: Er, no it doesn’t!!

T: love to you baby, tlj

S: And to you too sweet angel

*This morning – 9th July 1998

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Email with TLJ:

S: My princess, this morning, this cold morning I pulled out of the driveway and onto the road to prison, my personal prison but my day would not be clouded by these dark thoughts. In the dullish light of the day, a beautiful silver-leaved tree shone out to me and spoke in a way I hadn’t seen in a long time. It spoke the whispered words of love and light and life. Without doing anything at all the tree made my day. Within that thought was a vision of you. Thank you.

T: thank you sweety.
S: Anytime (when I get the time – that’s a song by the Descendents – ‘When I get the time, I write a little rhyme – for you’)
T: i was just thinking the other day “how come shaun never writes me any poetry any more?” i suppose it’s because the wooing is over……..hmmmm?
S: Are you wooed? The poetry isn’t over – it’s being written every day.
T: i haven’t seen anything you’ve written lately, which is a shame, cause i was hoping you’d never stop writing.
S: I promise to never stop.

T: i remember when you started writing poetry when i first got to know you. you wrote this poem because hayden
had fallen while on some play equipment and about how worried you were – you told me about it.
S: Hmm..I don’t remember that – but a lot has happened since then.

T: i’m really sorry about what you and your wife and hayden have had to go through over the past week.
S: It’s been rough but I’m really glad Bronwyn and I have been able to still be parents for HJ despite us being separate.
T: thank you so much for your support too – it has been much appreciated. i really hope your wife gets to england and hope hayden’s 200% better by then.
S: I do too – it would be excellent for them both and everyone in England.

T: it’d be great for her to catch up with everyone. it’s only a shame you can’t see your friends and show hayden
off together.
S: We’ll take him when we go shall we?
T: and you really need to see your mother – she’ll sort you out!
S: She got me into this mess in the first place!!
T: missing you,
S: Not as much as I’m missing you sweety
T: i really hope hayden gets better soon,
S: Me too
T: and that you get to england soon,
S: we..we get to England.
T: love you, tlj
S: LoveUtoo sh

The Carpenter’s Go-fer – 15th October 1984

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Sawing and chopping
Planing then stopping – and saying
Go-fer the tape, go-fer the screws
Go-fer the coffee, that’s what I could use
Having a rest, drinking his coffee
Just enough time to bite on a toffee
Before
Planing and chopping
Sawing then stopping
And saying
Go-fer the wood, go-fer the square
Go-fer the nails, go on – over there
I went for the rope
And put it round his throat
And pulled it as tight as I could
You know I think he wood –
Go-fer

6th July 2023 – I did a couple of days of work with a builder who was a friend of someone in the family in some way. I only remember moving bricks and sand around in a wheelbarrow but it’s probable that this experience inspired this verse. I guess I also did a pretty shit job as I was never asked to come back again.
To be honest, I felt pretty useless. I didn’t really understand how things worked at all. Common sense was still a way off for me. I was a late learner in some things. When Hayden shows signs of this too, I have to remind myself about how I was even up until my thirties.
When I consider how Thai students are coddled through school here and learn some of the stories of behaviour once they leave it’s a wonder that many can even dress themselves.