Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Journaling

It's been a very busy week. Today was supposed to be my day off but I went to the dentist for my 6 monthly cleaning and checkup. Everything is ok in my mouth. Scott, my dentist, likes to hear about all my trips abroad. It seems every 6 months I have something new to tell him. How did this happen? How is it I can make so many trips abroad? By saving very hard. I haven't even worked any extra shifts. It's mostly by being very very frugal, nothing but. I always pack a sack lunch to work. I cook once or twice a week and eat leftovers all the time, even when I go to my brother's house for dinner. I bring leftovers home and I could eat for days on it. I don't drink Starbucks coffee. It's too expensive, I make my own. I don't go to the mall at all. My biggest expenditure are books but they last forever. A book is a gift you can open again and again. A stack of books did arrive for me yesterday, 3 of them from Dan Price about journaling. I found out about him from Danny Gregory's books; 2 were about China. I'm preparing to visit China next fall. I just finished "Opium, a history" by Martin Booth. I have 2 more on China, "The Taiping Rebellion" and "The Opium wars". Why Opium? I'll write about Opium when I have time. I came back from the dentist and an indication light came on on my dashboard. I called Marina Del Rey Toyota, they tell me I have a blown taillight bulb. I was going to run over there to have them fix it for probable $100 when I saw my neighbor working on his RV. He said he could fix it and he might just have the right bulb for it. He did and I paid him $20. I washed the car and I'm now writing this blog. Next I'm going to cook dinner and go through some of the books that came. Dan Price's books are a lot of fun. It'll keep you busy for a very long time. Nothing in your life will be trivial; you will be more observant; every relationship will be important; you'll notice every leaf that falls- I'm exaggerating. After reading Danny Gregory's books, I notice I don't have the patience and lack concentration. To do more detail artwork requires focus, discipline and concentration. I now know I lack these qualities. Not that I can't change. I can and I want to. It's almost like being lazy. My writing initially was superficial and it's a sign of laziness. So I'm changing. I'm forcing myself to write more details. To do that requires sitting longer at the computer and requires reading a lot more. Phew! I'm only blogging! I guess a lot of us have become lazy. We prefer to unwind in front of the tube where all we do is watch. To participate in life requires involvement and work. It's hard after working at a fulltime job but I'm forcing myself to have a life after work instead of lying on the couch and watching the TV screen. I've cut my TV viewing down a lot. There's nothing on TV, I don't have cable but I've seen cable shows, there's too much superfluous programs just to fill up airtime. So I read some more and save and travel. I have a trip to London coming up and I'm writing down all the things I'm going to do there, food I'm going to eat and places to see. I've been there many times. I love shopping in London even though I can't afford anything. I love the British style; it's more chic than anywhere else.

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