I am so happy and grateful for my nice pen and writing books. They encourage me to write down my thoughts.
The best thing that happened today was helping out in JJ’s classroom and helping Irene with her work. She’s a smart girl but will leave the school at the end of this semester to go to an engineering school because her family has a building business.
She told me she is the firstborn so she has to take over the business. I think that she is capable. It made me happy to help her and some others in that class.
I am so happy and grateful to be reminded how lucky my life is now and how much I owe to my mother for all her hard work. I will try not to complain about anything.
I have not managed to achieve much of the 4 goals I had this week though achieved other things instead. Those goals have been on my mind and I have got some ideas but time sort of ran out over the weekend. I didn’t even play much Xbox.
The best thing that happened today was enjoying reading Dostoevsky quietly in the office before I had to teach. After that, I had photocopied documents for my work permit, and then I still had time to go for a blood test and get new photos in the afternoon.
My work environment is very enjoyable at the moment. I’m going to stick with the same goals as last time and hope to start on drawing soon.
I am so happy and grateful for our washing machine and the sun! Amy was smart to buy a big washing machine that we can put our doona’s in. It was a cloudy day yesterday but eventually, the sun came out and managed to dry them in time.
I am so happy and grateful for Cappuccino who threw up on my bed this morning which means I have to wash my sheets today, which also means I will have beautiful-smelling sheets tonight. Hooray.
I am so happy and grateful when I see the happy kids welcome me when I see them. I know not every kid will like me but hope that I can have some positive influence on as many as possible.
We had a 4-day holiday over the new year. For 2021 I have made a half-hearted resolution to play more video games! Last year I rarely played anything at all. In fact, I have many things I could, can and will do but I thought it was amusing to make a resolution often seen as negative.
So for much of this 4-day holiday, I gave myself a backache by playing new games on my old Xbox One.
An exception to this was the evening of the 31st December where Amy and I enjoyed a spicy hot pot with the last packet of sauce my friend Ellen delivered from China last year (or the year before….when was it!?). We also sipped on yoghurt-flavoured shoju but Amy gave up around 11pm. We had watched the Sydney Harbour fireworks at 8pm and that is when Amy considers the new year to have actually started for us, her heart still being there. I carried on building cities and shooting monsters and was up again pretty early the following morning.
On the Saturday a few of Amy’s friends and I got together at a cafe on the way to Mae Sai. It was busy there but we all ate our fill and lazed around, Amy knocking back a few Heineken’s and getting a little louder as she likes to do.
We decided to visit her old friend from Sydney who has a cactus farm nearby and he kindly gave us a couple for Amy’s collection.
We had to stop at a shop on the way home so that Amy could grab another beer and she organized herself to head on into the city for more food and alcohol! My sweetheart the drunk!
I left her to it but she came back much earlier than I expected, mentioning about some of her friends who insist that good luck only comes from going to the temple – something that particularly rubs Amy the wrong way. Amy believes in herself and all good and bad comes from within. Thai people are still very superstitious and like to put blame and benefit on things outside their control. Obviously, I agree with Amy’s point of view but I don’t let other people’s ideas like this rub me the wrong way, though I also don’t have to listen to them complain about their lives either!
Before this holiday I thought I’d like to do something artistic again and started off with sketching. I have more ideas for continuing this than I have time currently available – it could be a battle between sketching or video games. I hope to balance this effectively. So, I was quite happy and proud of my first sketch – just looking up from my little floor table where I was working.
Brain dump
Post-yoga workout, meditate. Thoughts focus on relationships at school and people’s personalities. Stop comparing, you are you and you are fine – you don’t have to be like George or Dylan or anyone. Being yourself is fine.
Tigger cries in the morning. My middle back aches, work on core. 10 Burpee’s was tough! Getting up was tough.
Little Kim sleeps next to my butt. So much time – enjoy it – use it. Feel good. Feel strong.
Gratitude Journal
I am so happy and grateful for my body to struggle through doing 10 burpees this morning. It was slow going but I made it. I must carry on.
The best thing that happened today was to watch a student’s face look happy when knowing that they had learned and remembered how to say a word correctly. This always makes me happy.
I am so happy and grateful for the few acquaintances I have here in Chiang Rai.
To-do list
Work out what you can do for First and JJ as a leaving present ½
More drawing
Another remix and Ableton learning ½
What can I do for Amy?
2020 has been a rough year for most people and I also lost one of my closest friends but in general things have gone very well for me. The sporadic nature of recent entries has shown that I haven’t needed to put down so much of my thoughts onto paper. There was also a dip near the end of the year where I realised that perhaps I should be writing out more as I still struggle to let go of things without this process of writing. Perhaps it is just the way I have learned to do it.
So I hope to get back to this a little more regularly – starting off slowly though – just once a week – aiming for every Monday at the moment.
Damn – reading my entry for this date last year has reminded me how quickly this last 12 months has gone. Also that some things I was guilty of then I am still guilty of now i.e. I’m still a little lazy around the house – I am often just thinking of what I want to do when I get home from work and not thinking much about Amy and what she would like to do.
I am so happy and grateful for the freedom I have to sit around all day and enjoy time in any way that I please. I’m working out what to do with my time when I don’t have any goal to aim for.
1994ever 