Tag: impatience

Three Nights – 15th June 2024

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

It can’t come quick enough
I’m made of impatient stuff
It was 24 hours of tough
Yesterday

Arrived without knowing
Reality rapidly going
It’s a wild wind blowing
Today

Next up, what’s in store?
Is it worth waiting for?
I can’t wait to explore
Tomorrow

Submitted to Ovi Challenge – tomorrow and Weekly Prompts Wednesday Challenge – Impatience. Title borrowed from Black Flag.
27th Nov 2024 – Shared with Ragtag Daily Prompt – patience

Today I’m feeling:

Tired but awake with a headache. My sleep was much disturbed by aches in my shoulders and arms due to my exercise this week, so I skipped it this morning.

I have a few things to do today connected with the SpeechOdd Malay tour and the Minnesota release and hopefully will play some guitar too. I didn’t make it to my room often last week.

Today I’m grateful for:

My village and the folks therein.

The best thing about today was:

Being able to keep going after a filling lunch and resisting the temptation to lay down.  Before that, I had already gone to Sinthanee and got a new battery for the bike and picked up the fish at Betagro for Amy to cook for lunch.  My two morning coffees seemed to keep the lights on in my body after waking up tired but not sleepy.

Lunch could have finished me off, though.  My eyes were feeling heavy as my body was breaking down the fish and rice.  I drank a bottle of soda and knew it was a bad idea to lie down with all that bubbling around inside me so decided to walk around the garden and on seeing our dirty car I decided that I could take it to the garage to be cleaned as we will drive to meet Mei and Hagen at Singha Park tomorrow for lunch.

Also, I thought it might be a funny catalyst for some rain as it hasn’t rained in the four days since we got the gutter replaced, so we still don’t know how effective it is.

On the way to PTT, where I normally get the car cleaned, I dropped into Utopia and asked if they knew a local shop that could fix the puncture on my car, and they told me that Art recommended the shop right next to the PTT.  Easy.  And I picked up another coffee, too!

At the PTT, they couldn’t clean my car immediately as there was a truck delivering fuel, and they said they could only do it after that had finished.  No problem, I’ll go and get the puncture repaired.

In the shop the guy there got straight to it and within about ten minutes had fixed everything and delivered me a screw that had caused the problem.  And only cost 150 baht.  The fish this morning was more expensive!

As it was so quick, I went back down to the car cleaning place next door to Sinthanee, and they said it would be about an hour as they had a couple of cars in already.  No problem. I could go across the road and talk with Baipad for a bit.

At Baipad’s, her mum was finishing off a customer’s hair, and NamHom was playing an online game and talking with the other player, her friend, on her mobile phone.  Kids these days!  So lucky.  Her mum kept telling her to go and get Baipad from upstairs, but she was too engrossed, so I watched her playing and scoffed when she failed at the quest she was trying to complete, which, to my surprise, she was completely unbothered by; she just kept starting again without complaint.  I would have thrown the phone down in frustration many times if that had been me when I was younger!  So, I’m not sure how I feel about that.  Is she not frustrated due to resilience or to a lack of emotion?

Anyway, the customer left, and mum forced NamHom to go up and get Baipad, and I asked her mum if it was her car outside and if she would like me to teach Baipad all the things inside, without actually driving anywhere.  She said that that was fine but that Baipad was probably too scared to drive anyway and shook her head.  I think she would like Baipad to step up a little bit with taking action.

And so talking of which, NamHom came back downstairs and started playing again, saying that she knocked on the door and told Baipad to come down.  20 minutes later, and no appearance.  Her mum said that she was probably playing on her phone all last night and was still sleeping now and had locked her door.

She sighed, I sighed, but whatever.  I walked up to Lotus and got some Curcumin drinks and went back to the car wash and sat in their waiting room from where I called and chatted with Hayden for a while.

Once the car was done, outside, inside, underneath and another 250 baht gone I felt pretty lively and inspired to keep going so, once home, got into my room and sent off a message to Unite Asia about the Speech Odd tour, wrote to Johnny in HK about the Bennu 12”s and whether he’d be interested in the Minnesota Pocket Circuit release.  I also set up a Facebook event page for the Speech Odd tour and started to feel like I was really getting connected back in with things.

I was tired and dizzy but inspired again.  I practiced guitar for a little while and then played along to a couple of songs until my amp cut out from playing too loud.  Time to go back inside and relax.

What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?

I was unfazed about things today, even Amy telling me to do this and do that, I looked at her with a fun mocking face.

Review your acts, Good and bad.

I told the puncture repair guy that Art at Utopia had recommended him so that they both got some recognition within our community.

Day 8 and eyes open

You may think you don’t need teaching but you’ll need it when you’re old – 17th December 2019

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been spending what free time I have reading a lot this year and really getting into it.  English books are a little hard to come by here – there’s just one guy who sells secondhand books from his house here.  He’s a character – and not always particularly pleasant but his bigotry and short temper cracks me up more than offends.  When you hear another foreign immigrant being racist to other people (who don’t live here), it kinds of shines a different light on things in some ways.  Being English and white in this country is a double-edged sword – for me and for people judging me.  It’s an unusual situation to be in.

One time I was sitting in his shop chatting with him when two early 20-year-olds, backpackers, had been browsing and brought two books to him to ask the price. They then spent what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was only about 30 seconds, discussing if they could buy both and carry both. I could see our bookseller getting more and more agitated and eventually he grabbed the books off them and shouted at them to stop wasting his time. He handed one book back and said ‘Give me 100 baht for this one and get out of my shop!’ I couldn’t stop laughing.

The girls were discussing whether they could afford to spend another couple of dollars or be bothered to carry two books instead of one. It was a very inconsequential decision that they just couldn’t arrive at. To have someone unable to make this decision when an extra 100 baht would really make a difference to this guy was obviously frustrating. They also weren’t to know that he was late to take care of a friend of a friend who was dying of cancer. Something done out the goodness of his heart. Humans are complicated.

Anyways, I’ve been stocking up books, trying to build a library of my own.  Inspired by a friend’s room of books and old wooden shelves, which I always loved being in – to browse, to consider, to wonder, to breath in that mysterious air of hidden words.  I once went into an antique bookshop in Albury and immediately told the owner that I wasn’t going to buy anything but I just wanted to look and smell the books.  He was quite agreeable.

When moving from Oz to Thailand I grew accustomed to letting go of things that I had held with some regard.  Of course, the things I held really dear I shipped over.  It’s a good catharsis to sell or gift things that you own though.  It’s not like we can keep them forever anyway.

I also remember a quote from a writer, maybe Marquez, along the lines of ‘one must die with a library of mostly unread books.’  Not sure my wife agrees with this philosophy but that’s probably why my office/library/man cave is in a room outside my house.  I look through the books contemplating what I’m going to read next and can get excited with the possibilities. I turn my head as I’m sitting here and thinking about All Quiet On The Western Front, The Grapes of Wrath or Lord Jim?

On the iPad, which I use to read comics mostly, I’m thinking to start on Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. It was the bookseller who got me interested in this as he mentioned it was banned in Thailand for some reason I forget now. He described the story a little bit to me and the idea seemed cool enough for me to give it a go. How can a country ban books these days when it’s so easy to transfer them digitally? I sent a copy of Animal Farm to a friend in China. Easy enough (and they’re still alive and free!).

The book I have been enjoying most is Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. I’m not sure where I saw a recommendation for this, though I’m guessing it was from The Daily Stoic. I’m guessing this because as I read it I see those philosophical themes throughout. The characters are fascinating in their different beliefs and ideas and Tolstoy makes you feel sympathetic with everyone of them.

I was never a big reader when I was younger and I was thinking that a younger me would have dismissed ever trying this book. Why would I want to try and understand about Russian aristocracy from over 100 years ago? What did that have to do with me and my life now? Ah, the stupidity of youth. I’m often envious of those who have found this beauty in the world at a younger age than myself. Why am I late to the wisdom table!?

I can only hope that in my teaching I can inspire the kids to get there quicker than I did. When I look at all the ‘trouble-makers’ in my class I only see my own stupid face reflected in their eyes. Ah, the stupidity of youth. But I wouldn’t really wish it any other way – and what would be the point?

“And so from school to the outside world these morals you will take…”

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for my dreams. I can meet old friends, people who are no longer in my life. They stay close to my thoughts and experience.

To-do list

  • Email to Aaron and float the TCRAH idea to him
  • Give more positive reinforcement to the kids
  • Compliment one of the other teachers
  • Follow up with Andrew about Indra
  • Check on the IEC lesson for the New Year’s week, maybe plan something else

Did it list

Wrote email to Aaron.
Made some arrangements with Indra for shows in Yogyakarta.
Up to date with Anna Karenina cliff notes.
Read 4 chapters of Anna Karenina.
Did 30 squats and weightless shoulder presses.
Posted to 1994ever blog.
Survived one testing class today!
Updated lessons to allow for the 2-day week at New Year’s.
Cleared some emails and Chrome tabs.
Brief online talk with Cake.

My regular English class were very testing today but I realised that my lesson plan was not so smart – the ideas were good but the execution was not so much.
I don’t really know how to get the class to settle back down again after some excitement. I think to improve I need to be more aware of the class dynamic and arrange my lesson accordingly. Don’t shove too much into it.
My other class went well though I still see room for improvement – it gave me an idea though, that hopefully makes the next lesson easier.