Tag: Paulo Coelho

When All Else Fails – 1st February 2023

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

There’s a new gun in town
Throwing weight around
Scared of the open gate
When all else fails….escalate!

So diplomacy has failed
The ship of peace has sailed
Not gonna sit around and wait
When all else fails….escalate!

There’s a plan in place for winning
A great reset, a new beginning
The hawks will thrive on hate
When all else fails….escalate!

Today I’m feeling:

Happy and content

Today I’m grateful for:

The small teacher’s room that I’m able to use for my students to come and read, practice and discuss things. The room has, at times, been full of equipment, junk and other teachers. It is now quite clear of things so I’ve taken advantage of its availability.

The best thing about today was:

As mentioned yesterday I was frustrated with one class and had an idea for today which involved using the teacher’s room.

Instead of standing at the front of the class and instructing I started by asking the students to recall things we’d discussed this week on the topics of hobbies and clothes. I then split them into five groups and asked each group to come into the teacher’s room where we first discussed the activities they enjoyed or found boring and secondly to discuss what they thought about school uniforms which they got more animated about.

They used a lot of Thai and I used a couple of the top students to help translate but a few of them were also able to articulate their thoughts in English too. I

t went well for all five groups and I think everyone enjoyed this approach. I only wish it was possible to carry out classes like this all the time.

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

Despite my best efforts to keep food and drinks (except water) out of my classroom students still smuggle them in and left a lot of garbage and spilt drinks today. I handled it by cleaning up a little and thinking about how to make it better in future.

Something I learned today?

I watched a documentary about Paulo Coelho and wondered if I would like him in person or not.

I’ve only read one of his books so far and enjoyed it a lot but I was thinking if this person was explaining similar things in direct conversation then would I react the same way? Maybe I find it difficult to separate the words from the personality in conversation.

I find the spoken word can be overbearing whereas the written I can ruminate on without other influences involved.

I know some people in my life have given me their wisdom in conversation and I initially rejected it because of other things about them.

It’s all a reminder to find my own way and that even the worst of people can offer useful words sometimes. Take it all in and filter out what I don’t need.

What do you love most about yourself?

I’ve recently been looking at my diary from 1981 and see comments like ‘I am great’, ‘I will win’ etc and it reminded me of the positive attitude I had towards myself at that time. That was all well and good but I never learned how to deal with failure properly which was part of my downward spiral in the coming teenage years. I was even conscious of it at the time but didn’t know how to manage it.

Anyway, these days I am more confident again, with occasional lapses, and feel pretty good about myself most of the time. I love that I still have the determination to improve myself and not rest on my laurels.

I took this series of pictures because I was trying to capture the beautiful sunrise this morning as it was happening. It never looks as good in a photo but I wish I could’ve sat and watched it for longer but I had to get to work.

And then you start to enjoy it, take all the plugs out – 30th January 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 2 Comments

Do you find it normal that there are daily demonstrations by ________? That women in love run away from their Prince Charming? That people dream about farms rather than love? That men and women sell their time, but can never buy it back again? And yet, all these things happen, so it really doesn’t matter what I believe or don’t believe; all these things are normal. Everything that goes against Nature, against our most intimate desires, is normal in our eyes, even though it’s an aberration in God’s eyes. We seek out our own inferno, we spend millennia building it, and after all that effort, we are now able to live in the worst possible way.

– Maria, Eleven Minutes – Paulo Coelho

Certain passages just jump out at you when you read them. Resonate with your thoughts and feelings at that particular time.

In the text, the blank is ‘Kurds’ in the first sentence, but this day I’m writing, or this day you are reading, you can fill it in with anything. There are sure to be daily demonstrations somewhere in the world, about some injustice or other, and so that we have spent millennia building this reality and despite all our efforts we end up living in the worst possible way – and that is what we perceive as normal.

The picture attached is not connected with this thought in any way. I took it this morning, riding around after finishing reading Eleven Minutes at my regular weekend coffee stop. The newly planted rice looked weak and vulnerable deep in the water. Though from the angle of the photo it looks much more cohesive.

There is a cafe in the middle of the fields, working the photo opportunity whilst the rice is growing. Rice is life here. Other fields are burning off their waste, ready for the next season.

The shack at the corner, a shield from the sun for tired sweaty workers to take a breath. It is a romantic structure, though I will never find myself in need of its use.

The big tree behind the shack looks strong at base yet scrawny at height. It looks climbable, it looks liveable – build a treehouse and live above the land.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for Amy’s yoga mat which I have been able to borrow and use in the mornings before going to work. Before I would slip and slide around on my rug.