Tag: Progress

Nothing For Good – 16th August 2023

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

A genius level of stupid
I always knew you would be good
At something no one needed
And remain misunderstood

A stupid level of genius
Makes for far too few friends
And alliterating the point
Is unlikely to make amends

Today I’m feeling:

It’s late afternoon and it feels like I haven’t thought about how I’ve been feeling today. That’s kinda good. Some emotional stability maybe?

It’s been a good day with little stress and if I do stop to think about it, I feel happy.

Today I’m grateful for:

Fon sending me more sourdough bread again. I had to stop myself from eating it all immediately so that I can enjoy it tomorrow too.

The best thing about today was:

Today was one of those smooth pleasant days without any real highs or lows. I was happy that I was inspired to write a couple of poems in my break though.

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

Yesterday evening passed so quickly, with two hours being taken up with taking Tig to the vet, that I dropped my streaks in my language apps. I didn’t even realise or remember until this evening when I saw a notification about it.

Something I learned today?

I learned that it is August’s (the dancer) birthday on Friday. I only know because I just happened to see it in LINE when I was clicking around. It also may not actually be her birthday.

Anyway, will I remember it on Friday? Even if I ran into her I think I would still forget. I’ll set myself a notification but even then I may not see it. 

Knowing so many kids it seems like there’s a birthday every week. 

What is a compliment I’ll never forget?

As I’m trying to remember a compliment, I’m reminded of a time when I was in my early twenties and there was a cute new girl hanging out with one of my groups of friends (though I forget who). Anyway, thinking she was cute and interesting I was quite taken when I came by our mutual friends one day and she said ‘Here he is, the enigmatic Shaun.’ 

I thought of this as a compliment, thinking, hoping that she liked me though as I’ve gotten older I think enigma has a little bit of a negative connotation, like a little difficult or standoffish. I guess between young adults though it would still usually have positive connotations.

In the end, I think I only met this girl three or four times before our lives span off in other directions.

Otherwise, I believe I have forgotten all the compliments I’ve received, though knowing that I have received them. 

I’m not a fisher for compliments and as alluded to above, perhaps I can be perceived as standoffish. I’m happy to accept a compliment but soon dismiss its importance. 

If I receive compliments I just assume it was for something that was just the right or good thing to do.

Quote: Devote the rest of your life to making progress – Epictetus

I can feel my rate of progress slowing down these days, which is quite natural but also slightly disheartening. I’m not so much in wonder of things going on in the world or my life, having done my small share of exploring it already.

I do still go off on tangents of discovery but notice that processes are much the same from one subject to another. Maybe I’ve been looking at too many philosophy texts and have boiled down life to its essence. 

This reminds me again of the lyric, which I’ve probably quoted before, by Built To Spill, ‘Life goes on long after the thrill of it has gone.’

Having said that I do never want to stop reading, learning, and progressing even if it appears I may be just spinning my wheels. I can fool myself easily.

I took this picture because Tigger was at the door waiting to be let in and padded around the table and looked up expectantly, ‘Lie down so I can sit on….quickly!’ So I did and so he did.
Fatman report

History Now – 8th June 2023

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

You don’t need to worry about the future 
If you made your foundations solid today
Soon this day is done, there’s only looking back
And reflecting on how you got along this way
Say to yourself that you work and you exist
And it’s some kind of history you’re making
What’s done is done and all is set
That’s the future that you’ve been creating

Today I’m feeling:

Struggled to get up as sleep was interrupted a little by being too hot but once I settled in to exercise my body started to feel good and ready to go. My mind followed suit. I’m writing this as I’m stuck up on stage waiting for this ceremony to finish but I’m not resentful or bothered about being here. Rather than feeling like a waste of time I can read or write in relative peace. The two quick coffees I downed before getting here probably helped a lot too.

Today I’m grateful for:

Kru Karn dragging me up onto the stage for the ceremony today. Although I didn’t understand anything it was nice to watch the traditional Thai dance and the beautiful song that was sung. And then Kru Karn asked if I wanted to leave as she said she had class so I managed to escape before it got too boring. A nice way to start the morning.

The best thing about today was:

In the morning, my body feeling good after exercise and my brain feeling good after coffee. Hearing the song the children sang and chatting with Kru Karn, meeting many of my students in a slightly different setting than normal outside the classroom.
In the afternoon, enjoying dealing with my last class for the day and at least making it a little enjoyable for those that are still struggling to understand. Even the students I mildly punish left smiling. Chatting with Kru Fluke and Kru Fang and then gossiping with some of the students before enjoying the drive home listening to a podcast about Killing Joke’s first album.
In the evening, before running out of energy, I enjoyed revisiting the rest of the day.

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

When I got home around 4 pm I dashed out to go and get the fried fish from the walking street that I usually enjoy but they either weren’t there today or I was too early so I came home empty-handed and had a quick microwave spaghetti meal which wasn’t really enough so I had some pomelo and then some raisins with rice crackers. Even then I didn’t feel sated. 
Around 7 pm I suddenly ran out of energy and feel exhausted and spent. There are a few things I’d like to be doing but feel like I may have to just go to bed. I don’t feel sleepy, I kinda don’t feel anything.

Something I learned today?

I learned that some states in the USA are suing Hyundai and Kia (I think) for their cars being too easy to steal! Now those companies have to keep some hundreds of millions of dollars in reserve for possible compensation claims.  Totally ridiculous!

Where did I make progress?

I made a little progress with my Thai learning and also with my classes. A little progress with working my abs and hanging for 15 seconds a couple of times a day. This progress is slow and steady and is the best type of progress.

How has my personality changed or evolved over time?

I would say I have followed a fairly traditional evolution of personality, gaining wisdom through reflection and not being in such a hurry as in my youth. I’ve learned better control of my emotions, though that has been a long hard road to navigate.

I took this picture because today is ‘respect the teachers’ day and although I was going to skip out I ended up getting dragged up on stage with everyone. I watched the beautiful dance but better still was a choir who sang a really nice Thai song. It made me think about learning some Thai songs to help with language learning.

The dearth of new ideas makes us wallow in our shame (The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #16) – 14th December 2019

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been considering what content I can put here as some of my personal thoughts and feelings about this particular place I am now living (and enjoying) could cause me trouble. It’s funny how Thailand is known as the Land of Smiles but often times it feels like the Land of Fake Smiles. Having a couple of years experience here now, I understand these reasons but cannot fully support a positive attitude towards it. This is the balance I am trying to find in my world.

Perhaps that balance has always been there even in the other places I have lived but I haven’t noticed it so much and oftentimes found myself in difficult or at least odd situations. I don’t ‘play the game’ very well still but I’m getting there. If this sounds like generalised waffle, I apologise. I will try to make an orderly composition of my thoughts at some point.

Out of one of the most difficult times I’ve had in Thailand I found myself keen to focus some energy into something personally (and somewhat selfishly) fulfilling. In what little downtime I had when I was pushing myself too hard preparing lessons for my grade 5 English class I would throw my iTunes playlist on shuffle and found myself quite enthralled at the collection of digital music I collected.

The randomness reminded me of those late school nights furtively listening to John Peel’s radio show under the covers, falling asleep as I lay hoping to hear the latest and greatest punk tunes in amongst all the other genres being pioneered. This exposure to many different styles of music laid the groundwork for events many years in the future when I was organising shows for bands in Sydney and subconsciously decided on mix billed being the best way for people to hear new music. Never a way to a successful financial business model, it kept my brain satisfied and able to calmly appreciate music I didn’t particularly enjoy, anticipating music that I would.

So it was that iTunes on shuffle kept popping up a classic tune (classic to me), a dodgy old punk demo, an experimental noise soundscape and a 60s garage rocker, with many things in between. Nothing really modern mainstream though. It’s amazing some of the music from my youth was considered mainstream back then. It shits all over what is mainstream now.

Anyway, digging this vibe I even ended up downloading a bunch of reggae and African music that Peel always used to play – just to try and get that reminiscence in full force. Things I may not listen to as a full recording of suddenly make a lot of sense squished in between things I was more familiar with. I ended up down many paths of discovery of experimental music from around the world – as opposed to ‘world music.’

With need of some distraction, I decided to put together a ‘radio’ show and upload the result to the Mixcloud platform. I mostly take the tracks as they were shuffled through iTunes and do a bit of back announcing. I also decided to play around a little with some of the songs and introduce some moments where I could read a paragraph or two from books from my shelves.

To give this odd mix a little focus I decided to target my audience to the university students at the local uni which is less than a kilometre away from where I am. I roped in a few of my student friends from there and also from my favourite local coffee shop, to do a bit of speaking and to have their pictures taken. So was born The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour and the push for musical world domination.

The tenzenmen music library
Gus, Mink, Nu and Aing – in the music library.

Understanding that my tastes are almost niche beyond niche I would not expect a huge audience for what I’m doing but really that is not the purpose. I do it for myself. I really enjoy putting it together and messing around with things, trying to come up with some new ideas for presentation. I’m contemplating how to do this mix in a live setting and finding a place to do it but I don’t have much time to practice that part as well as not having a completely reliable equipment setup. A new laptop is a little out of reach at the moment.

So, if you’ve read this far you may be curious to hear what these shows sound like? Or scared to find out. Either way, it seems like this is a good vehicle to post links to each show and also force me to write at least once a week as new episodes appear.

“Remember life on earth is but a flash of dawn
And we’re all part of it as the day rolls on”

Music from Ween, Magic Mushroom Band, No Babies, The Ebonettes, goat, Andy Partridge, Acanthus, Banned, Hebosagil, The Yellow Payges, Bad Brains, Daniel Striped Tiger, Martin Archer, Teenage Depression, Mudhoney and Donovan.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that I could do so many things yesterday and keep going even though I was so tired by the end of the evening. I kept a good attitude and wasn’t so anxious about things that I wanted to do compared with some things that I had to do.

Did it list

  • Encouraged Fern to learn to make my coffee at Utopia.
  • Got my haircut.
  • Uploaded TCRAH podcast.
  • Recorded new TCRAH podcast.
  • Prepared and executed a quick fun game for my two students today.
  • Got through a little of the never-ending sorting of music, on computer and CDs.
  • Wrote another blog post and enjoyed the process of writing.
  • Got passport photocopies done.
  • Rosie offered to do quick drawings and send them out as postcards. What an awesome idea so I asked her to do Jochen, Lachlan and Kyaw Kyaw.
  • Finished reading Lonely Boy