Tag: teaching

The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #56 – 19th September 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-nm8g8-ec1738

Highly curated, carefully selected and specifically ordered for your listening edification by world-renowned DJtenzenmen, who has over 50 years of experience in this business.

This week there’s music from Meat Wave, Melted Ice Cream, The Ex, Grippers Nother Onesers, Django Bates, The Lies, Flin Flon, The Victims, Funkadelic, Red Kross, 5uu’s, Sebadoh, Rolo Tomassi, Tafo Brothers, Rutles, Le Singe Blanc, The Angels of Epistemology, Orthrelm and Realtors.

PLAY IT LOUD! Find us on Twitter and Facebook too. Tell us if you like it, tell us if you don’t.

Intro and background music by Utotem.
Incidentals taken from the Church of the Sub Genius Hour of Slack.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that I have some spare money from teaching that I could buy a guitar and happy that I have some free time to be able to try and learn to play. No pressure, just fun.

The Chiang Rai Alternative Hour #55 – 12th September 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

From now I’m going to tell you that these selections are highly curated, carefully selected and specifically ordered for your listening edification by world-renowned DJtenzenmen.

I tell you this because these kinds of things sell!

The truth is that the music is randomly selected by iTunes – but as the iTunes library is already carefully selected with only the best top quality material from 50 years of research then satisfaction is surely guaranteed!

This week there’s music from Shield Your Eyes, Cecil Buffalo and the Prophets, DJ PicaPicaPica, Invisible Ghost Luigi, Mutants, Butthole Surfers, PFM, Sun City Girls, Gelbart, Ne Zhdali, The Freeze, Massacre, Cypress Hill, Deep Turtle and Orthrelm.

Intro and background music by Utotem.

Brain dump (by mouth)

Attempting morning pages exercise using dictation with phone (Samsung)

Your post goes against community standards
Who was the man in the castle?
Ride around MFU placing stickers – advertising podcast – my stickers are tiny – maybe some people will see, will notice
Utopia this morning – met Pim, Fern’s friend
Woke up late – decided to turn off alarm in the middle of the night – My plan schedule now out of whack
Soon I will read Hendrix – Maybe sort out some more music – Do yoga – Meditating – some more reading – Maybe record some more podcasts in the evening
Try to relax
Teaching English online – I don’t look forward to it but enjoy it when it happens
2 o’clock already
Big rain – big sun big rain
Next week not many hours – How to make use of the time – Always things to do

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for my cracking neck these days. Hopefully, it is cracking more because it is becoming more flexible with doing more stretching and yoga. It feels sore but better than before.



I’m alright, I’m alive – 20th August 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys? Where did that come from?

Building myself up to do my five minutes of exercise, tired this morning – don’t want to, want to sleep more – push through.

Crazy Kim was here trying to climb to the highest point. What is in the mind of a cat?

Go to Hill tribe school today – hope it’s okay – worry the kids can’t understand what to do. What’s Plan B?

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have Dad’s truck so I can drive to the hill tribe school today.

To-do list

  • Laugh and enjoy the day ✅
  • Make sure others enjoy their day too ½
  • Compliment new people (anyone really) ½
  • Another blog post when you get home ½

It’s a week later already. I have managed to fill my time up with many things including converting old DVDs, pushing and promoting the podcast, watching interesting TV and documentaries along with most of the usual things I’ve been doing such as school and online teaching.

I’ve been working with a girl called Kelly who has taken a few lessons to warm up but I was very heartened to see her become more confident and sure of herself in her speaking. That made me feel like my effort was worthwhile.

It can be the opposite at school where you can feel you are getting nowhere. I think I have successfully managed to understand this scenario now though and it will be a very long and slow process for things to improve.

Currently, there are lots of student protests in Thailand – more free and democratic government, less corruption and more equality. This too has been going on for nearly a hundred years. Things change slowly here.

I’ve been happy with myself recently and been able to deal with sudden changes and minorly stressful situations. I think I’ve become a better person and always looking to move that forward.

Tomorrow is my long teaching day – including in the evening but I’m looking forward to going to Mae Sai on the weekend and also dropping by an orphanage for girls to see what we can do for them. I hope that I can get involved in some way.

I think you’ve noticed that I don’t want to be a bad guy anymore – 14th August 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Mid-August – up-and-down. Nice dreams last night but can’t remember at all now.

Yesterday went well. Today has six hours teaching but I hope it will be fun – it’s Friday so it should be okay.

Kimchi is with me protecting me at the door. Take journal back inside because I haven’t been writing it. Don’t really know why.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for my busy Friday teaching for 6 hours. It makes me happy to see kids learning.

We got that attitude! – 6th August 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I am so happy and grateful for enjoying being at school and even a little disappointed that I’m not teaching today. But that is good too. Tomorrow I have to teach a lot!

To-do list

  • Awards x3
  • Compliments x3
  • Listen….speak (if necessary)

Now it’s the 15th of August and this journal has gone by the wayside for no real good reason that I can discern. It feels like it’s a time issue. Now that I am teaching on a more proper schedule maybe things feel a little more secure. I’ve not had or made time to think too much about things so some of the habits I’ve been trying to forge haven’t quite stuck yet – such as the awards.

I do find myself reminding myself about complimenting and I have been doing well with morning routines. One thing of concern is that though I have mostly been feeling extremely happy there have been a couple of occasions that I have felt extremely down too. I can think of specific incidents that caused that feeling but frustrated that I understand that they are minor and not in my control but I’ve been unable to control my own reaction and behaviour.

The plus on this is that I am well aware of my feelings and though I might tell myself that living is pointless, I know that these feelings will pass soon enough – and they always do.

I’ve moved this journal back to the bedroom in the hope I will write more often again – even if the entries are briefer. I know doing this practice is helpful.

We got that attitude! – 5th August 2020

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I am so happy and grateful that I have more energy these days. It helps me make better decisions.

To-do list

  • Awards – why is this hard? ½
  • Compliment two people ✅
  • Remember that thing about listening ½
  • Clear some emails ½
  • IELTS and TOEFL check ½

An enjoyable day as I only had to teach for 2 hours and it was with 1/9 who are the best students. I felt more grounded today and I was looking for opportunities to do the things on my list but often they came to my mind at times when it was too late to action. I want to keep on trying to form the habits of the first 3 things on my list – I feel like they are important.

Kru Fluke helped me with some printing today so I gave her an award of my favourite teacher of the day but after that, I forgot about any other awards. As I was writing this I also remembered that I told Dylan he was a good guy for helping me with something too – so that’s my two compliments.

I helped Dylan a little in his class too so I’m going to cross off my Random Act of Kindness achievement for today. I’m actually finding it difficult to stay out of other classes because I just enjoy being around the students and helping out.

With nothing much else to do for preparation for work I could spend all day reading or listening to podcasts or watching vides but helping out is making me feel happy. I’m really enjoying working here and I have to thanks George a lot for that.