Tag: vaccine

The Taste Of Words – 25th June 2024

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 8 Comments

The taste of holy waters
No longer tainted with words
A story as old as time
Perspective, the rule of thirds

A violin sublime in the subway
Passersby pass on by
Soars serene in isolation
When the audience will try

Every failure, new success
Taking the necessary steps
Once rained on, weeping
Onwards, the beat of the blessed

Submitted to Wordle 660 and inspired by a David Elikwu newsletter

The taste of holy waters
No longer tainted with words
A story as old as time
Perspective, the rule of thirds

A violin sublime in the subway
Passersby pass on by
Soars serene in isolation
When the audience will try

Every failure, new success
Taking the necessary steps
Once rained on, weeping
Onwards, the beat of the blessed

The taste tainted with time
Perspective sublime
In serene isolation
When will failure step on the beat

Submitted to Friday Writings #135: Less is More at Poets and Storytellers United

Today I’m feeling:

A little tired and gloomy, due to the weather and grey skies.  Everything is fine, it just looks a little off.  I have heavy eyes, perhaps from staying up too late last night.

Today I’m grateful for:

My umbrella, or more specifically for thinking of taking my umbrella with me from the car before my second class.  It pissed down about twenty seconds later.

The best thing about today was:

Writing what felt like a pretty good poem in between my two classes today.  I struggled for any inspiration earlier in the morning.

Something I learned today?

Julian Assange is finally free.

A lot of the grade 8 girls got a cervical cancer vaccine today and I only found out when I saw Palm crying and when I grabbed her shoulders to comfort her she started crying more!

Review your acts, Good and bad.

This evening I messaged Palm to see if her arm is ok now.

Armed with my umbrella I offered to share it with Ploy and Kaem as they were stuck in the canteen until I came along.  We all still got pretty wet though!

I took this picture last week because Tangmo brought along a friend one morning. Very friendly but completely subservient to Tangmo. They love running, rolling and play fighting.

Stuff The Chicken – 4th March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Fixing the world at your barroom tables
Shaking fists at your agreeable fables
It’s simple in your circle of influence
To discount all the unsavoury elements

Warring in nations at your profitable leisure
Prodding the monkies to provide your pleasure
Your war is better than theirs, you beg
Stuffing the chicken back into its egg

9th Jun 2024 – Submitted to Ragtag Daily Prompt – stuff

When you have two choices, choose the more difficult one.

Stoic thought

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for everyone who helped me at the hospital. They made it very easy for me.

Woke up during the night with aching hips and starting to worry if I’m going to need replacements sometime! I got up with my alarm despite wanting to snooze more and did some hip stretching exercises which were tough but pretty effective. I hope the aching hips don’t become more of a common occurrence that disturbs my sleep.

Today was a repeat of yesterday in that I got to school and chatted with Dylan and the students. I had planned on teaching, at least with 2/9 but there were only six students at school! I ended up giving everyone their grades – some students were happy but others, less so. They all started to appreciate how lazy they had been with my work and I just hope it inspires them for next semester. Overall, I can see improvements in about 80% of them. I gave them all encouragement.

I got home again about midday after shopping and picking up my vaccine passport from the hospital. I rode there on my bike and felt 100% and started thinking about a long ass bike ride this weekend. It’s damn hot during the day though and the air quality is starting to suck again too. Let’s see how motivated I am on the weekend.

Excited that football season starts in a couple of weekends. Excited for Amy too, ending her first week in her new job with lots of positive feedback from her boss.

Let’s enjoy the weekend.

Sleepwalking – 3rd March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Meeting you, asleep, amongst flowers
I curse you for destroying my youth
You are my enemy, I could kill you
The misty veil cannot hide the truth

And I too, your daughter, sleeping
Wish that you could also be dead
Standing between my freer self and me
My life will not echo all you have said

The cock crows, dew evaporates
Eyes open to the love of daughter and mother
The human condition, the order of nature
There is nothing else to be placed above her

Based on another Khalil Gibran parable

Discovering you were wrong is an update, not a failure, and your worldview is a living document meant to be revised.

Julia Galef

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to find that I can get a booster vaccine at the local hospital this morning. Need to go early and queue up.

Yesterday afternoon I had a little snooze and felt much better afterwards – got in a much more positive mood. I messaged Aing to see how she was doing and she told me she got a booster vaccine at MFU hospital and suggested I get it there so that’s what I did this morning.

Got to school at 10 and chatted with students and Dylan before coming home again around 11.30! My good feeling continues despite only six and a bit hours of sleep last night. Also messaged with Hayden and Bronwyn. Hayden finally caught covid, had one day of feeling rough but felt better today. Hope it stays that way.

I want to make sure I stay in contact with my friend more (via messaging) just so I don’t get too isolated in my current solitary lifestyle. Still, feeling and happy again right now.

The Week That Was – 8th April 1979

The Warrior Intrepid – 1st March 2022

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

My brain switched off, distracted
Just a second; my car, crashed it
Left it in gear, forgot the handbrake
Rolled on forward and smashed the gate

No real harm done, not this time
Scared one day I’m gonna get mine
Older, feeble-minded, decrepit
No longer the warrior intrepid

For mortals, the ‘easy life of the gods’ would be a lifeless life.

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for my guitars that I can pick up and play when I feel like it.

So the plan today was to go to school and hang around for a bit and then go to Central to get my booster shot. I was going to go yesterday but forgot my passport, which apparently is required. I woke up feeling pretty good, exercised and fed the cats etc. I did feel a bit absent-minded though and I was missing Amy more than usual.

So, I did hang around at school, doing grading and nosing around the ‘event’ – I don’t know what it was, an open day, but only open to students. Each program had a stall set up and all students were supposed to go to each and get a stamp on a sheet of paper. Something which could be achieved in under an hour, but will go on for two days.

It only just occurred to me, the absurdity of the program names. Something I keep reminding my students when they don’t want to work – this is the ‘Talented English Program’. We have lots of ‘Talented’ programs as well as ‘Genius’ programs but just calling them that doesn’t make them so! And there are programs such as Hospitality and Aviation or Japanese Business! Why?

I know my own education history is singularly English, 1980’s style and that it generally sucked and I couldn’t understand why we learned the things we learned and here I am on the other side of the classroom, not understanding still. No clues are given either.

I’ve mentioned before that the most contented teachers are those who don’t really care – just let the kids have fun, sing songs and play with their phones. But I can’t be like that. I want to do a good job, I want to inspire where I can.

I think about the Stoic phrase along the lines of ‘Get up in the morning and get to your work as a human. It’s your job.’ I have a job as a teacher, as a human, and I want to do it well.

Anyway, I went off to Central to find out they stopped the vaccine centre there yesterday! I was tired and running out of energy, not wanting to face going back to school and walking around the same stalls I’d already seen twice, earlier. So I drove home, a little dizzy and distracted. I pulled up at the gate and got out to open it, noticing the car was suddenly moving forward! It pushed the gate off the roller rail before I jumped in to stop it, knocking a hole in the gate panels. Argh! Fuck!

I cleaned up the mess, fixed the gate back on the rail, popped the car bumper back in and decided I needed more sleep.

I really don’t like these school days outside the routine. This shows me what I need in my life to be comfortable. I’m not normally a fan of routine as such but can recognise its advantages for me. If I stop working, I will have to build myself a new routine that works for me. I can’t just melt into the couch all day – tempting as that might be.

Ten Plagues – 7th November 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

I got my ten plagues coming
They’re gonna put me straight
Find a path to victory
And I’ll never forget this date
Struggled through the sandstorm
Rivers of blood were spied
Soldiered through the pestilence
Frogs and flies all denied

Found a path to my heaven
The journey was a reward
Through three days of darkness
My life has been restored
The tragedy passed over
I did it on my own
I am my own god
And I’ll never be alone

I asked my students what topics they wanted to study this semester and one of the Christian kids wanted to learn more about the Plagues of Egypt. I didn’t really know anything about this story myself and after digging into it I wrote this poem.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that Australia has changed their rules to allow Sinopharm vaccinated to enter without quarantine. This means that Amy can plan to go and visit now.

I slept through my alarm, dreaming deeply, watching kids play instruments, a boy holding a note on a trumpet until he collapsed and I woke up.

It’s a beautiful sunny, clear day and I’m listening to crazy industrial music whilst weeding and res-stringing my guitar. Last night Amy found out that Australia now accepts the Sinopharm vaccine so she can return to Oz without quarantine, so she is busy working out everything so she can go next month.

A Miracle – 9th October 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Marvel at the synchronicity
I was just thinking about elephants
But the cheapest form of miracle
Is, in fact, just coincidence

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to be able to order little cables and things online from Lazada. So cheap and easy.

Damn, I feel good today. Stepping out of the cool aircon of the car and into the bright, humid heat felt like jumping into a cooling swimming pool, enveloped in something smothering the skin. The heat soon burns away the cool skin feeling but the engulfment remains. A soft warm cocoon around my body that finds its way into my brain receptors, bringing comfort and safety.

A relaxing wake up yet busy beginnings with bedclothes washing and cat feeding. I pushed through the punishing abs exercises again, jumped in the shower and headed off to Utopia for coffee, reading more of the Rolling Stones biography but somewhat unable to focus for long.

Back home, Amy had already started teaching her two students, first time in seven months. Now she will be busy most weekends again.

I secreted myself in my room, intending to practice guitar but got swept up in more poetry blog entries and listening to more live Mission of Burma recordings, which I have found at archive.org. Before I knew it, it was lunchtime.

A quick filling Pad Thai before setting off to the city for Amy to get her first vaccine shot. The blue skies of last week now replaced with the smoky white haze again as the farmers burn everything for the next forced season.

As I’m driving, my mouth is contemplating the creamy milky coffee at House. They’ve turned me onto a signature drink they call a Dirty. It’s cold, fresh milk mixed with a good lot of cream and then a long, extracted shot sits atop. You sip and slurp the creamy milk through the shot and it is damn delicious. The taste is throughout my mouth as I’m writing and I’m contemplating a second but shouldn’t. Keep it as a treat.

Not sure what the plan is next but I’m looking forward to getting back to my room and listening to more music and hopefully playing guitar.

Oh yeah, I squeezed in a haircut too – finally. My hair was getting out of control. Need to shave and dye my hair sometime this weekend too. Perhaps I can maintain the deceit of still looking under 50 years old as the 54th approaches.

Sandcastle – 1st October 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Some revel in comforts
Others itch for change
Nest has been made
Now time to rearrange

Build a dream castle
Atop a mountain high
Next a beach paradise
Under this big sky

Settle down right here
The sun shining bright
Nothing lasts forever
Thus day turns into night

Weight: 77.7kg
Resting heart rate: 48

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have had my 2nd vaccine yesterday and didn’t have any side effects. Hopefully, it protects me well from Covid.

The beautiful cat is not here today. Probably for the best! Amy was happy to have finished the last couple of days’ baking work though she still has one more tray to do today. I think she is secretly pleased with the results of her work and is half decided on whether to pursue this further. She is equally happy to just do baking for pleasure and when she wants, rather than putting pressure on herself.

I had my second Pfizer shot yesterday with no real side effects that I could tell, except for feeling really good! I maybe a little achey but it’s hard to tell if that is just my normal state these days. Lower back and neck are always like this anyway,

No more classes now and I guess we start grading next week. Pretty easy and I’m able to fill my time, whilst having no work to do, with plenty of reading.

If the weather is ok on the weekend I may go for a ride into the mountains, though as I write this I’m thinking I should wait a bit until the ground dries out.

Secrets of Hosseini – 3rd September 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

“Tell your secret to the wind
But don’t blame it for telling the trees”*
Like a mynah bird in your hands
Slacken your grip and away it flees

*Khalil Gibran
These two lines (modified slightly) appear within a few paragraphs of each other in Khaled Hosseini’s ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ and stood out immediately to me for their poetry. I take no credit, really, for jamming them together.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have gotten an appointment for the Pfizer vaccine today. Let’s hope it all goes well.

Well, I surprisingly received an email late yesterday afternoon with an appointment to get the Pfizer vaccine – something I registered online for a few weeks ago. I wasn’t really expecting anything much to come from it but the appointment was for this morning! Typical Thai last-minute information!

Anyway, everything went smoothly with getting the vaccine at the hospital in the city. I was even in and out before the actual appointment was scheduled. No undue side effects that I notice and I go back for the 2nd job on 1st October.

I assigned work for my morning class to do and quite unexpectedly ha;f of them did it even though we didn’t have an online meeting. I’m in the middle of my afternoon class and they are all working surprisingly well too. Except for Dew.

Dew cannot understand English at all and shouldn’t really be in this class. Last year, he frustrated me in class a lot, not because he didn’t do the work but because he would always be talking to other students and disturbing them. And not just talk and stop but like an unbreathing radio DJ.

With studying online now, it is easy to mute him, when he even bothers to attend.

But I must admit, I like him a lot. He’s pretty funny and when I asked him to sing a song, he would do it. I think we understand each other well enough. We both accept that he is no good with English. Let’s see if he stays quiet when he’s back in the classroom.

Working By Yourself In Teams – 15th July 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes things don’t go right
The first time of trying
But to carry on without fixing it
Makes me feel like crying

Wasting time doing double work
Instead of finding a solution
Our so-called green administration
Contributes even more pollution

29th Apr 2024 – Submitted to Word of the Day Challenge – work

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful that I didn’t have to teach at school yesterday as the Thai teachers all went off to get the second shot of the vaccine cocktail and decided to cancel all classes. Relaxing day.