Tag: Revenge

Screaming Seagulls – 28th November 2024

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 17 Comments

I lost my mother
When the screaming seagulls fell
Our house now a mausoleum

–

Rebuilding a life
A family of my own
Will be my only revenge

This mondo shared with #TankaTuesday Poetry Challenge: Silver Linings. Image found at Palestine Will Be Free Substack
6th Dec 2025 – Shared with Poets and Storytellers United #206 – everybody scream

Today I’m feeling:

Surprisingly good. I slept ok until my dream, which was disembarking from an airplane and then searching for a bathroom and never managing to find one.

I was approaching consciousness and wondering what time it was and whether to get up to pee. I decided to look at my phone and it was only 4 minutes until my alarm, so I got up and took advantage of the extra few minutes with my exercise and hanging.

Health:

Physical: 7
Mental: 7

Today I’m grateful for:

An unexpected windfall.

Last year, sick of my student Kwang never having a working phone when I was constantly having students utilise their phones in class, I brought in my old Samsung for her to use. To be honest, I never really expected it to come back, knowing what Kwang is like.

At the end of last semester, I kept asking her to bring the phone back but she always had some excuse about it. I asked Kru Karn to ask her parents and grandparents about it too, but all to no avail.

Due to her poor performance in school, Kwang was due to switch schools for this semester but needed all the paperwork sorted at our school first. Kru Karn used my phone as a hold over her being able to go to a new school, asking her to either return the phone or pay for it. I have no idea how much it was worth and just came up with 6000 baht off the top of my head.

Kwang’s mum asked for a discount to 5000 baht, to which I readily agreed, still not expecting anything to come of it, but this morning suddenly, I was 5000 baht richer!

I have no idea what ever happened to the phone, my guess is that either Kwang or her mum sold it already, maybe for more than I was asking. I don’t care, it doesn’t matter.

I liked Kwang, though she was obviously fucked up by her family situation. She has chosen a path that I tried to steer her away from but I hope that one day she will be mature enough to figure her way back, as she is smart, too.

As I told Kru Karn, I tried my best for her.

The best thing about today was:

Coming across a great lesson for my grade 8 classes today. It started with writing out a simple text with some highlighted words and those words they had to translate. This is usually the first two parts of a reading class that I will do, usually followed by asking them to read for me and answer some comprehension questions.

As this was a very simple text and they had seen it before with Kru NumNim last semester, I thought to try something different.

They had 11 highlighted words or phrases, which they could understand because they had already translated them. Then I asked them to write a sentence for each word but, the first sentence must be three words long, the second sentence four words long and so on.

This task got everyone settled down into figuring out proper sentences with this restriction. I advised them that they could use Google Translate (or ChatGPT) to help but some had a go at it by themselves.

As a follow-up to this, I will take their phones from them tomorrow and ask them to do the task again.

These two classes are usually stressful for me but this lesson really worked well. These kinds of lessons come along every now and then and I think I have to utilise the idea a few more times in the semester.

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

I strained my lower back a little bit today but it was my own fault. In my morning exercise, I did Swimmer-Superman, which engages the lower back and the strain feels nice.

In the afternoon, I wandered into monkey Sarah’s class and she came and played with me. To playfully punish her, I picked her up around the waist and turned her upside down. She screamed and laughed and I let her down again.

A few minutes later, I felt a twinge in my lower back. I asked her how much she weighed, as she is pretty skinny and probably not even 5 feet tall. She said that she was 48kg, which is more than some of her friends who are taller than her.

Anyway, I will be more careful about who I pick up and play with next time!

Something I learned today?

(See above!)

Charites – 29th July 2024

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 13 Comments

Joy, belligerent and hypnotic
Cast a shadow of charity
Over the long promontory
A fat man, roly-poly round

Abundance in a city of kindness
A broad island for a little boy
A fungal cloud, a phoenix
A beautiful desiccation

Radiance rose from the river
That molten river of fire
Gratification of vengeance
Narrows victory to defeat

Charity bestowed from wings
Of fury fanning the skies
Attendant to the goddess of love
Love shall burn all

This poem was inspired by the story of Richard Feynman and a phrase taken from his story about three students/assistants that became known as the Three Graces. Researching the Three Graces led me back to Greek Mythology (hence the title and theme of the poem). The image of the phoenix rising is then tied back to the science of the nuclear age and the events of August 1945 in Japan. Nagasaki means long promontory and Hiroshima means broad island and also sometimes city of kindness. The bombs were called little boy and fat man. The phoenix rising highlights the rise of Asia since those events.

Submitted to No Theme Thursday (and the attached picture), Weekly Prompts Wednesday Challenge – Hypnotic, Weekend Writing Prompt #374 – Belligerent (though a little more than the 68 words specified), Ragtag Daily Prompt – fire, FOWC with Fandango — Narrow and Word of the Day Challenge – gratification.

Today I’m feeling:

Pretty good, getting up at 8 am and soon out for coffee.  Whilst at Utopia, I worked on some poetry which came out pretty well, I think.

Without any other real plans for the day, I got myself into my room in the morning and started adding more old 1998 and 2009 entries to the blog.

Revived with lunch, I got back in there and did more, all the while listening to music I’ve downloaded in the past 12 months or so and deciding to either keep or delete.  Finally, an hour or so of guitar playing too.

Today I’m grateful for:

My former self for being smart enough to keep some of my old emails that remind me of times past.  There is a lot of other stuff that is no longer accessible, though, unfortunately.

The best thing about today was:

Getting a poem highlighted on AllPoetry.com, which was nice to find this morning and generated some extra commenters.  I’ve been happy with what I’ve been writing recently and it’s nice to get some positive feedback.

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

This morning I also watched the mini-match of the Swans game and it was obvious within a couple of minutes that it wasn’t going to be a good day for us.  

Still top of the table but with 4 losses in the last five games, our form is not inspiring confidence as we come towards the difficult end of the season.

Something I learned today?

Part of the problem with Australia’s high-priced housing is that not enough houses are being built for all the people who are either moving there or looking to move out of their family homes.  I was surprised that there were just 170,000 homes built in one year.  The lack of availability pushes up rents and house prices.

The average income required to buy a house now is 250K per year but the actual average income is only 120K.

It’s making me wonder where I might end up.  Australia is still the most appealing place in the Western world, though.  New Zealand may be an option at some point, I suppose.

I took this picture because this new flower in the garden stood out as I walked back into the house this morning.

The Horror – 2nd July 2024

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Unrecognised alive
Ash and dust
Swirl around your eyes
As the grim sun starves
Flies start investigating
The first on-scene
To witness the horror

An unrecognised state
Take a breath
Before the bullet
Where revenge rises from the shadows
Books and bodies burned
On the wrong side of the fence
The olive trees have no branches

One day, one day
God’s wrath will flood the earth again

Inspired by Palestinian poet, Noor Hindi.
Submitted to Weekly Prompts -The One-Day Prompt (3)

Today I’m feeling:

Happy, though a bit undecided.  I woke up with a start, enjoying my sleep and a sexy dream (with Amy) and struggled through my first 20-minute video exercise, which made me feel good but also on the edge of over-exertion.

At school, the kids that I regularly visit in the morning were all in pretty good moods, and we chatted and played a little.  Now I’m waiting for the first coffee to kick in before heading back to school early to help Kru Tang again, and then my first class of the day with my grade 8s.

Today I’m grateful for:

Gui for allowing me credit again last month and then for getting paid and being able to pay off the debt.

The best thing about today was:

I felt a bit rushed today but still got a few things done. I got to Kru Tang at 9.30 and whilst waiting for her students to arrive, my grade 11 students were doing an online speaking exercise that instantly gave them a CEFR and IELTS score. 

I tried to help them a little bit and also thought it would be a good test to do with my other students too.

Something I learned today?

As I was leaving school yesterday, a car drove by and a shout came, ‘Hey, Teacher Shaun’.  I looked around and waved back to see ShinChan driving an old car.  This morning I saw him and asked him how old he is, to which he replied, 15!

He told me that he lives with his dad and they have a motorbike and a car.  Sometimes his dad will take the motorbike, so he has to take the car to get himself to school.

He has a motorbike license, but I don’t think he can get a car license until he is 18.  He knows to be careful, but could get caught out if someone crashes into him.

It’s good that he has taken some responsibility at an early age, and I have to chuckle a little at the way things work here.

Review your acts, Good and bad.

I caught up with Anchan briefly this morning and found out that her mum should be home in a couple of weeks’ time. That’s great news for her if it happens.

Sitting with Baipad and Fahmai this morning, Fahmai said that Baipad is smart and beautiful. I told him that Baipad doesn’t think that she is and asked him why he thought that might be. He said he couldn’t understand that, and she quickly stated, ‘I’m not confident’. Hopefully, these kind words her friends say about her are remembered and will accumulate to bring her confidence in the future. Fahmai said that he is smart and beautiful, demonstrating his confidence.

Later on I was chatting online with both of them and I asked them about whether they did anything kind today which they both found something to say about each other. Well, that’s a start.

Kids playing together, July 2024. Earn, Dena, Namthip, Nicha and Fah, my old students, now grade 9.