Tag: time

I got buckets full of time, I got nothing but time – 26th May 2018

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

“Time is such a deceiver.”

So, it’s been a while.  Who knows where the time goes? That was the original tagline but I got sucked in by the Leaving Trains instead.  In fact, there’s any number of songs that could be quoted for this post because… it’s been a while!

After the mad rush of Songkran, sobriety took hold out of necessity.  It wasn’t that I wouldn’t like to have had a drink it’s just that there wasn’t time.

I was secreted off to a rural location on the outskirts of Chiang Mai for a month of intense training in the arts of teaching English (CELTA – look it up).  Of course, being entirely ignorant of the subject, beyond speaking it for the past 49 years or so, I arrived early to get a little refresher on the witchery that is English grammar.  It was not nearly enough preparation.

I had been put to sleep many a time whilst opening a grammar book or watching videos on the subject.  Luckily we had a teacher who was a female version of my old pal back in Southampton, Rob Callen.  She was precise and accurate and even modelled some of the lessons that we would end up learning in the coming weeks, without realising it of course.

So, I said we.  I was joined by Tom, a recently retired American looking to support himself a little beyond what the pension there pays so he could spend six months living in his new house in Portugal.  Tom was also from an IT background so we bonded quickly enough around the bullshit that that involves.  We were both concerned about our abilities to be able to complete the course, knowing how intense we heard it would be.  Along with us was Victoria, from London, whose grammar knowledge shone in comparison.  Mid-30s, deciding on her future possibilities, whilst travelling to vacations and friends’ weddings around the world, she was a bright and bubbly counter to the two old blokes.

And so it was for the first 3 or 4 nights as we did a couple of days of grammar refreshing, in which I was mostly bewildered but also provoked.  English grammar does seem like the kind of thing I could get deep into and become the ‘grammar nazi’ amongst my friends.  Though considering we are about to learn how to teach English as a second language in a foreign country though, my relaxed attitude is more inclined to take precedence.

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Location, location…..

Our facility is structured like a resort hotel.   There are teaching rooms, a reception and a restaurant.  More importantly, our personal rooms are cleaned daily, there’s a laundry service and outside my balcony, there is a 50-metre swimming pool.  Oh yeah, there’s aircon too.  For some reason, the keycard in my room didn’t work properly so the aircon stayed on even when I wasn’t there.  What a blessing.

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With no pressure and performance ratings around the grammar refresher – we studied, we learned, we swam and we ate.  It was the calm before the storm.  Our little world was about to be shattered when all the other students would arrive.

And talking of storms.  One arrived about five minutes after I made it to my room on that first day.  There was a lot of damage to the surrounding gardens and it took the internet out for a while too.  Both storms and internet outages would become regular occurrences during my time there.

I guess the grammar refresher paid off a little as I can recognise myself switching in and out of different tenses as I write this but they seem to make more sense to me as I write them.

Anyway, the quiet was broken as other students started arriving, as well as our teachers too.  And this is where things sometimes got confusing as we were students, and we would be teachers so we had students as well.  On top of all the learning our brains were being jammed with, it was sometimes confusing to be calling home and talking about teachers (teaching us), teachers (us), teachers studying (many people on the course were already teachers), students (us) and students (who we were teaching)!

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Confused? You will be!  In the next episode of….. (Prizes for knowing where this quote comes from*)

* there are no prizes.

Nobody passes the test of time – 19th January 2018

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Time is short.  Our time is short.  Have you done everything you want to do yet?  What do you want to do?

Do you already look back at a life fulfilled?  Will anyone remember who you were once you’re gone?  Next year,  next century, next millennium?

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The week has been ok.  It’s my last day of six twelve hour shifts, the last four as night shifts.  I’m tired and slightly out of it.

We are often reminded of our fragility.

There’s always a lyric that can be found to echo my thoughts.  Often, from Nomeansno.

Thin voices call out of thin air
“Do you really care?”
“Do you really care?”
There is no reason to be afraid
All of the bodies have been laid to rest
Nobody passes the test of time
The long climb
Into thin air
Thin air
There is no one there

You think you have time
You have no time

An image may be left in place
Of what was felt there is no trace
In words recited without a sound
By voices buried underground
There is no meaning to be found

 “Do you really care?”
There is no one there
You think you have time
You have no timeThere are no castles without ghosts
And no spirits without hope
But nobody passes the test of time
You stand in line, you have your place
Then in the space of moments fall
From again and again and again
To not at all
From again and again and again
To not at all
I do not fear the buried sounds
Of words that echo underground
A memory is a loaded gun
And I remember everyone

I remember you..

“Do you really care?”
There is no one there
“Why are you scared?”
There’s no one there
You’re clean, strong, and free
Like you always wanted to be
You’re alone, alone, alone
There is no one there

Here we are in the New Age… – 7th January 2018

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a long time between drinks.  Around 23 years or so.  1994 was a life-changing time and then life took over and now I’m looking at another transitional period.

Life changes daily though.  It seems slow but every detail matters somewhat, and if you care to remember it.

Right now I’m sitting in an office, getting paid and doing very little work of reward.  The kind that is emotionally unfulfilling.  But right now, I’ll take the money, thank you very much.

Somehow, over time, you learn that working for ‘the man’, as opposed to working for yourself, is something that must be exploited to the full.  I managed to get myself into a position at one point of not doing any work-related activities at my job and started doing my own hobbies in company time.  Somehow I was also well paid for this.  It was always slightly precarious and eventually, it came to an end.  Then it happened again – and with the same company to boot.  I do thank you, although I wish it could’ve been more rewarding for both of us, to our mutual benefits.  Perhaps I feel guilty.  I know I would sometimes get annoyed when I actually had work to do that was interrupting my personal time and that’s not a good place to be.

The more depressing it became, the more I strove to distraction.  I ended up being very productive.  I could never make that jump though, to make money from doing the things I enjoyed.  I am envious of people who have been able to position themselves in this way.  I’m lacking in artistic talent, not through want of trying.  Often lacking in concentration, born on the cusp of distraction entertainment as I was.  The advent of new technologies only makes this worse and now that even they have surpassed my knowledge and I am like the old man programming his first VCR with only a 3-button remote, I sometimes pine for those days again.

My nostalgia is aligned with depression.  I was deeply unhappy for periods of time that I now reminisce.  That depression was an artistic motivation, a driving force.  The actions often more thrilling than the results.

Right now, I am biding time again.  In this strange period of inertia, the feeling of anticipation is immense and I am highly conscious of the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence.  Hence to take time enjoying the moment, the present, the now.  I visualise vividly a relaxing future whilst aware of the constant need for ‘work’ whether in some paid variety or just the work of remaining alive and managing the mundanities of life.  I hope to derive great pleasures from the digging of weeds or painting of walls but worry that I will start to ignore the dust that settled in the corners many years before.

Luckily I have an outside motivation, my wife, Amy.  Could I do it without her?  Probably, but without so much pleasure, enjoyment and fulfilment.

The bones of the tale are this.  In 1994, I relocated from small-town England to small city Australia. Sydney and thereabouts.  In 2018, I will relocate from small-city Australia to small-town Thailand.  In 1994, I documented my time in transition. I have not looked over those diary entries since, but the intention is to add them here alongside current musings.  Let’s see how they compare.  Let’s see if I have really gained some wisdom in the intervening years.

No Time – 21st August 1994

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I’ve got no time for the cynical
They’re destined for sad, lonely deaths
With only their neighbour attending their funerals
Out of politeness

I’ve got no time for the bitter
Resentment is a longer word for regret
When forgiveness is so far away
Things are sometimes better left unsaid

I’ve got no time for the close-minded
Their emotional fascism and the fact
That I could never be right
Or allowed to be wrong

I’ve got no time for the stubborn
I’m not joining them at their wall
My head already hurts enough now
But things are never that bad

I have time for all the rest
To fill my heart, to feed my soul
To conquer those set to divide us
From our goal.

18th Jan 2026 – shared with Poetic Blessings #577

The time is so little, the time belongs to us – 28th June 1994

The Chase
~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

What a sad affair yesterday’s entry was but now it is written the emotion has passed. If you’d like to know, writing things down helps you to sort things out, makes things clear – hell, you probably know all this already.

But now let me tell you about the sky. Oh sweet sky, sapphire desire. Last night I happen to glimpse the sky at what must’ve been a quintessential moment in time, just as Saturn went through Jupiter (or some such nonsense). I could see miles onto the horizon where the blue was hazy, light and white, like a faded blue, sunbleached by time. And up, slowly becoming substantial, deepening, a brief flurry of fluffy white and on and up til oh, so deep the colour, like eyes, big, deep pools of the vivescense (if there is no such word – imagine it, goddamn) and my breath was taken away. I looked and looked and loved and my attitude changed. I filled up on good feelings and daydreamt about Australia and blue and water and life. Soon these dreams will turn into reality – easy!

Well, besides these things I can tell you the following that destiny threw at me and I faced proud and strong (god, Shaun, you are dramatic). Here’s some tiny things I did!

Munched out at the Thai restaurant with both the women in my life, my sweetheart and my mum! Being the only customers, we were waited on hand and foot by the whole staff (could have been the whole family) and served up delicious delicacies, beers and dessert. But remember to speak slowly and in sign language or better still, learn their language. They were sweet and willing though.

Of course, there’s been fucking tons of football on and I’ve been watching as much as possible. Too much to tell you about here – buy the video!

Broni fell off her bike in the middle-of-the-road – luckily not the busy one but I watched in despair as she keeled over unable to put her foot down, her laces being wrapped ’round the pedal and so sweet, her baby crying face as she sat, dumped on her back, on the tarmac. A couple of bruises to show now. You know, she bruises so easily – I have to be very careful when I pick her up and turn her upside down.

I was thinking anyway, about us, and fuck, there’s magic between us. I think some of the more cynical of you out there might think we’re like soppy sloppy teenagers but I reckon you just haven’t come across this feeling before (and fuck I love this feeling, I just want to suck it all up, more more more). But you know, you’re all okay too. You can guess we’re both still madly, badly in love with each other. If that makes you sick, you make me sad. I still have faith in the human spirit. Some of my friends out there give me that faith.

Hell, went to see ‘The Chase’ too, with Henry Rollins playing some meathead cop (total fucking irony – who said Americans don’t understand irony!), with a soundtrack featuring NOFX, Bad Religion, Down by Law, Rancid and a ton more. You know it’s punk to go to the cinema, don’t you! Yes, it’s true – everything you do with your life is punk.

You know me, I probably did a million other things though now I’m not in such a fucking hurry. Taking it easy up until launch date – no stress for me and my baby. As always will keep you informed.

Time – 13th July 1993

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Oh sweet gentle time
You tick on by
Restless as the wind, your movement
Forever trudging onward
Breathing life’s soft sigh

You wait for no man it’s said
Your passing is forever
A memory of a moment
Of a second, a thought, a blink of the eye
Is gone in no time

Time is moving on leaving us behind
Now you are my obsession
To catch up, to keep up
To run with the wind
And hold onto you forever