Tag: rain

Other World – 23rd March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Grass still green, succoured by recent rain
Sprouting from the dusty clay
Freshly unfurled frangipanis
Bursting brilliant, reflecting sunlight under your chin
The silent hills, jungle-covered green and khaki
Teems with little lives unseen
Sun smothers, bleaching the air white
The living and the inanimate
Thirsting for the next sunset
In the starlit night
Your body wears a shirt of humid air
Breathe deep the day gone
As fireflies pulsating dance
Attracts the eyes of confused dogs

Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalising animal.

Robert Heinlein

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that we finally got some rain overnight. Temperature is better and my garden can enjoy the water.

Winning In The Attention Colosseum – 8th March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

You got there first
Tweeted it out
Smugly watching
Everyone shout
Follower explosion
You, the reliable source
Never involved
In meaningful intercourse
Keyboard warrior
Promoted to king
Yet an empty bag
Is all that you bring

If people remembered all of the Significant Events they had forgotten in recent years, they would perhaps realise that they were actually not that ‘signicant’ at all.

Mark Manosn

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the rain last night, saving me from watering today and cooling down the night for a good long deep sleep.

Shadows – 1st November 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 7 Comments

Within this oppressive system
The dividing line, it grows
The wealthy control the time
Whilst we’re living in the shadows

Try to climb this shit ladder
But the dividing line always grows
A blind eye turned towards
Those living in the shadows

How did it get to be
That the dividing line, it grows?
And the ninety-nine percent
Remains living in the shadows

There is no vision of caring
As the dividing line, it grows
The underclass just eats itself
Living in the shadows

The one percent destroyed the world
And the dividing line is gone
No one left to remember the names
Of the ones who claimed they’d won

Inspired by a classic late 80s Peter Milligan story ‘Shadows’ originally printed in 2000AD
29th Mar 2024 – Submitted to OLN 359 at dVerse

First day of the new semester and everything is the usual mess but I’m more used to it now and can accept it. Had a good chat with Champ in the afternoon about his beliefs about the future of Thailand. He isn’t happy with the current system but is optimistic about the elections next year. I don’t think it will be much of a change but I also can’t get a feel for the mood of the country.

I moved back into the teacher’s room and sat next to George again. He is still only politely communicating with me and won’t look me in the eye. What I have noticed more about myself is that the things that I read about stoicism and thinking, I’m always framing it into a comparison with me and George. He is good at many things that I would hope to emulate but I’m always classifying it as insincere when it comes from him. I don’t need to be thinking about how what I’m reading relates to him – I need to be concentrating on how it relates to me.

I do feel that I am behaving more as myself these days as opposed to trying to fit in with everyone there, to keep a good vibe. I don’t know how to describe this properly. The vibe is good as I am. I am polite and enquiring and take part in work discussions. I don’t, or no longer, really take part in what I guess could be called bonding exercises. I don’t really feel a need to bond with people on a superficial level. Playing Uno or Kahoot together is ok every now and then and maybe brings a good feeling at that moment but I feel like there’s no depth to it.

Sure, I may not be good at connecting deeply with people myself but I really detest the time wasted on superficial connections. I don’t want to be friends with everyone or care if people I don’t really like don’t like me either, but I will make the effort to make deeper connections with someone I feel great affinity with.

That’s difficult with this group of people due to language issues but I am interested in Champ’s values and thinking as he also seems to be interested in deeper concerns than having time for another round of Uno.

Have I talked myself around? Perhaps not yet. My thinking is something I’m still working on and something I will always need to work on.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the long sleep and pleasant dreams I had last night whilst it rained so hard.

Weight: 76.6kg
Resting heart rate: 52

112 Reasons – 11th August 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Laws to maintain, silence any dissent
Manipulated by a corrupt government
There’s a real jail cell for you to fear
If you’re lucky enough not to disappear

Pureblood power, losing all relevance
Inbreeding has diminished their intelligence
But 112 reasons, enforced and brutal
Ensure a society medieval and feudal

Lies become truth once revealed
They cannot forever remain concealed
All dynasties rise and fall in time
It’s your choice to ignore this crime

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for the sound of the rain this morning. Not so heavy to be distracting but just the right amount to be meditative.

Bruno has led me down a rabbit hole with a link he sent me yesterday, with a lot of English articles which follow on from the book about Thailand that I’m reading. I’ve been digging in and will spend more time reading a more honest history of this basket case of a country.

Anyway, feeling good today. Coffee kicked in very well this morning, all today’s classes are planned and going well and to top it all off, tomorrow is another holiday.

It’s been cloudy and raining all day – humid indoors but perfect outdoors. ‘Lovely’, as mum would say.

Life To Rise – 28th May 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I love to watch the mountains in any season but in the breaks of rain, it’s fantastic to watch the clouds drop down into the valleys to give more depth and definition to the peaks on the horizon. It’s lovely to watch the rain out of the window.

The mountains advance from their cover
Mad swirling whispers rise and grey
Filled to dripping with lumps of water
The jungle climbing up trees to sway
The streams are full, crabs are caught
In plastic buckets and crowded net
Paddies complete for more life to rise
First came the sun and now the wet

We got that attitude! – 28th March 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I am so happy and grateful for the big rain a couple of nights ago which meant we didn’t need to water the garden yesterday. Today I will be grateful for the 41-degree temperature and sunlight that will inspire our plants and trees to shoot up. Balance of nature – power for a long time – longer than I will be alive.

Sometimes, days off start with many possibilities but then by the end of the day, you wonder what you did. My morning and afternoon were happy – watching Sydney play well in the AFL, winning the game, working out in the morning, reading and drinking coffee, eating a beautiful buffet lunch at Le Meridien.

But I can tell Amy is in a feisty mood – inspired by the elections that are happening today. With her grandmum not well and her brother being a typical uncommunicative and uncaring person – all this makes the words out of her mouth in the negative – and even if they may not be, I am reading them that way because it has become the norm.

Some days I can deal – usually just by shutting up, but today, this evening, I just wanted to lock myself away. I picked up my guitar and after a few days with no practice played worse than before – got myself frustrated and into a funk of my own.

I did a bit more exercise and that brought me up a bit but now I’m going back inside the house and out of hiding here in my room. Let’s try to be positive.

You know there ain’t no street like home – 19th February 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I woke up briefly from a nice dream and thought to myself, wow I must remember this and now I’m awake I just remember doing this but not what the dream was!
Sounds like a little rain outside – weird.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for my interesting dreams where unusual things come to visit my imagination and I wake up and wonder what they mean, at least for the few seconds I can remember them. I remember trying to get away from something or avoid something but what was it?

We got that attitude! – 31st January 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I am so happy and grateful for my enthusiasm to learn new things. It seems unbelievable to me that I am learning to play the guitar, learning to sketch and preparing to read War and Peace! My 20-year-old self would be sceptical and amazed.
I am so happy and grateful for the rain yesterday. It was a surprise and I thought it would never come. Now our plants are nourished again after about 3 months of dry. They will green up again before going back to yellow and pale for the next few dry months. There’s a beautiful cold fog this morning.

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.