Tag: Maeve

Just Words – 3rd August 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 12 Comments

I just want to play with words
Fumble them around my mouth
First, seconds and thirds
North, East, West and South

No serious poem is this
Just a pleasure for me to write
Pen on paper is bliss
Without them there is blight

The Week That Was – 31st December 1978

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the avocado season here, providing lots of fruit for us to eat. Hopefully one day our own trees do the same.

4th Dec 2025 – both our trees died, eaten by some unknown bugs. We have a new one growing but it will be years before it may ever fruit.

Tonight I have no extra online teaching classes as Maeve will do her IELTS exam today. She is very good at English but I think she will fail the exam. I am not really an IELTS teacher and don’t really want to be seen as one. I much prefer just to have conversations so that the students feel more comfortable and familiar with the language. This is what I’ve been doing with Ashley. After a couple of cancelled flights to Australia, it seems she may suddenly be able to go there tomorrow. We’ll see. Especially as Australia is locked down and China may be headed that way too.

I was thinking how much I enjoy speaking with those two and why I am more comfortable to chit-chat with younger people in general. Perhaps I’m envious of their naivete and the possibilities they have for their futures. It’s why I want to push my students in the classroom to be the best they can be and I hope I can follow their lives into the future and watch all their stories unfold.

Most people around my age, and even a couple of decades younger seem stale, boring or dead! Or, sometimes like myself, feel so superior in our hard-earned wisdom, feel we are better than everyone else.

I love to teach my students how to find the answers to questions, rather than giving the answers. This skill will serve them better in the future.

In sad news, Mee’s father passed away from Covid at the weekend after being in a coma for a week or two. The cases of death are having less degrees of separation from my life and it is a confusing time. I would like to be locked up in the world of my home, just to venture out for supplies rather than having to come to school each day. Even with no students here it just all feels risky. Along with the vaccines – who knows how that will play out.

It feels like we are living through real history right now but we fool ourselves that we weren’t always doing that before. History is what’s happening, as they say.

I really must try and compliment someone today. I try to see so few people that it has been difficult for me to compliment others. I don’t count complimenting my students, baristas or Amy. That would be too easy. And I’m not about the easy!

We got that attitude! – 31st March 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I am so happy and grateful that there is a local vet nearby where we can take our cats in the case of small emergencies. Last night we had to take Kim Chi to get some wounds cleaned up – looks like from fighting. She’s much better already

Just had another good class with Maeve in which she commented she feels much more fluent in her speech already. She did very well.

I then worked out my abs – which has made me feel good. And today at school I managed to work out a way to complete my 20 lessons plans, not just quickly and easily but also with a good method.

George is so off with me now that it is actually amusing. Dylan follows him around like a puppy but even he pushed back a little today too, light-heartedly commenting that George isn’t happy when Dylan doesn’t do what he wants.

Two days until a month’s break. Happy.

What does it matter to a cat? – 30th March 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Yufu, Maeve, nonsense in my head, breakfast ready, ache in neck, birds chirping, lesson plans, write, read, coffee, holidays, alcohol.
Kim Chi, lazy Kim Chi, are you boy or girl and does it matter to a cat?
Work those abs.
What are you grateful for today?
Get nonsense out of your head.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for this awesome breakfast Amy has prepared for me. Set me up for the day. Gotta start eating before it goes cold.

The best thing about today was when I was asked to attend a meeting with all teachers and the presenter was an hour and a half late and I dealt with it by meditation and thinking about other things that I wished to do.

Previously I would have been upset by situations like this and thought of them as a waste of time but now I can occupy my mind instead and let any frustration ease away. This is a sign of my growth.

So much for blue skies, what about the future? – 24th March 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Woke up today with huge indecision about the future. Last night Amy and I discussed what we might do in the future and whether we are happy where we are at this time.

Amy’s reverse culture shock has been getting her down a lot and she is itching to go back to Australia – whether just to visit or to make more long term plans. She says once her parents have passed that she has no compulsion to stay in Thailand.

Combined with news that our school’s budget has been cut and we will have to teach more classes, containing more students, it’s a somewhat depressing look ahead. I would be happy not to work at all. I can ‘be’ in any place or country and the advantage for me here is that I don’t necessarily have to work, whereas in Australia it would be a must just to survive.

The current plan is that Amy goes to Australia for 3 to 6 months once there are less travel restrictions and I carry on teaching (or perhaps stop – to be considered) and then when Amy returns we start doing some sort of business on our land and see how that goes. If that keeps us both happy, then we stay and if not then maybe we have to decide to pack up and think about our options in Australia.

I started this post with these pictures of the summer garden taken a couple of weeks ago, but bigger thoughts have taken over. Let’s see how our garden grows.

Our mulberries have gone mental this year – everyday I can pick a new bowlful.
These tall branches reaching into the sky now have so much fruit that they are bending to touch the ground. I don’t know if this needs to be cut to grow differently or if it’s best to just leave it the way it is.
This Jacaranda currently has more flowers than leaves. Our four Jacarandas all seem to flower at random times throughout the year. I just hope that they can live and survive a lot longer and grow as big as the ones in Australia. Love these trees.
This is a weird bush, plant, tree (?) that reminds me of fractal theory – it looks like each ‘branch’ separates off into two and on and on.

24th Mar 2023 – The plan I discuss above is still in progress. Amy will have been in Australia on and off for almost two years by the end of this year and will come back then and again consider doing some business on our land. Things are a little more normalised after the 2 or 3 years of pandemic restrictions. The mulberries are going crazy again this year too. I wish the sky were as blue today as it is in these pictures. Today’s AQI is 224 (Very unhealthy).

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for our wheelbarrow. Yesterday I used it to move a whole heap of rocks to the other side of the garden. Without my wheelbarrow, this would’ve been a real pain. I’m also grateful for our big shovel too. this helped me get all the rocks into the barrow. They are both bright orange – like lots of garden equipment here in Thailand.

The best thing about today was getting a gift from Am and Tee. It’s just a mug but I liked Am’s explanation for choosing it.

I taught Maeve online again tonight and that was really a pleasure – she’s a bright and enthusiastic learner so time went quickly.

I tried to practice guitar after that but somehow my fingers and brain aren’t quite connecting. That happens sometimes. If it’s not coming together after ten minutes, put it down and try again tomorrow.