Secrets of Hosseini – 3rd September 2021

“Tell your secret to the wind
But don’t blame it for telling the trees”*
Like a mynah bird in your hands
Slacken your grip and away it flees

*Khalil Gibran
These two lines (modified slightly) appear within a few paragraphs of each other in Khaled Hosseini’s ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ and stood out immediately to me for their poetry. I take no credit, really, for jamming them together.


Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have gotten an appointment for the Pfizer vaccine today. Let’s hope it all goes well.


Well, I surprisingly received an email late yesterday afternoon with an appointment to get the Pfizer vaccine – something I registered online for a few weeks ago. I wasn’t really expecting anything much to come from it but the appointment was for this morning! Typical Thai last-minute information!

Anyway, everything went smoothly with getting the vaccine at the hospital in the city. I was even in and out before the actual appointment was scheduled. No undue side effects that I notice and I go back for the 2nd job on 1st October.

I assigned work for my morning class to do and quite unexpectedly ha;f of them did it even though we didn’t have an online meeting. I’m in the middle of my afternoon class and they are all working surprisingly well too. Except for Dew.

Dew cannot understand English at all and shouldn’t really be in this class. Last year, he frustrated me in class a lot, not because he didn’t do the work but because he would always be talking to other students and disturbing them. And not just talk and stop but like an unbreathing radio DJ.

With studying online now, it is easy to mute him, when he even bothers to attend.

But I must admit, I like him a lot. He’s pretty funny and when I asked him to sing a song, he would do it. I think we understand each other well enough. We both accept that he is no good with English. Let’s see if he stays quiet when he’s back in the classroom.

A Thousand Sons – 29th August 2021

*A man’s accusing finger always finds a woman
They are the blamed and the blessed
There is no way to change this status
And no way to pass the test
A controlling power deep within the head
Passive, self-censored and abjugated
A thousand years of venoms spat
At the devils that man created

* From “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini


Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to be able to watch the football again this year and watch Sydney play well against the odds with a young team. Much better than the previous two seasons. We lost today and finished for this year but it has me pumped for watching again next year. Hopefully, I can.