There it is. Another thousand miles go by. Time for that meal. But as always I’m feeling a little stingy. But I do feel like my usual Wagamama. Perhaps I should take my little one with me and make a day of it.
The speedo is starting to wear out though. I mean where it clicks into the thing on the handlebars. And I’m not cycling as many miles as before. But sure enough the next millennium will roll on. Anyway, here’s to riding fixed.
Here I am again on that bench next to the canal behind what used to be Hanwell Asylum. From where I’m sitting I can see the bricked up opening where the boats would bring coal into the Asylum. It’s a cloudy but hot June evening and it’s my last evening here at Comer Crescent in Southall. This will be a combined report and review of my time here and also a review of the first half of the year.
Since my weekend trip to Sweden last October for my birthday I realised that I didn’t need to wait until I had a better job to get a bigger place. Getting a proper job also meant a big change in my lifestyle and I didn’t really want that. What I wanted was to be able to keep my current lifestyle at least while Maya was still small before she was at school or nursery. But the prices I saw for flats in the ads meant that there really wasn’t a way to earn the amount that I needed with my yoga and web design. So I signed up for a course in programming thinking that it would lead to work. It would take a lot more than a few evening classes to get to a level where I could be employed but at least I was grasping the fundamentals, more so than my attempts at self study last year. My plan was to remain at Comer Crescent for as long as it took to get my programming skills up to a state of being employable and earning a good wedge.
But during the ten weeks of the course I secured more yoga work and an opportunity to rent a flat came along. It would stretch me to the limit financially but as they were more than just acquaintances, they knocked some money off the rent. That was in March. I went to see the flat and decided to take it. It was ideal. Two bedrooms, a garden and close to Maya. I secured more web design work and more classes so it was looking as though I could more than survive financially. I decided to continue onto Part 2 of my programming course even though it was no longer a career path. But I didn’t want to lose the momentum because at some point I will need a proper job in order to get a mortgage. But Part 2 was harder, a lot harder. But without the time I had previously to read and study I began to lose interest. I kept going along to the classes even though I hadn’t been doing the homework or read through the notes. The last class is next week so I don’t know what I’ll do then. I’ll talk more about that when I get to the specific goals and projects. But with extra classes to teach, more websites to do, wheels to build and preparing for the move there hasn’t been much time left over for study.
At the same time as I realised that with a small increase in income I could get a place on my own I also realised that the separation process was reaching a certain point as well. That this was my life that I am single and see my daughter once a week and would not in any way consider going back to my wife even if she would have me. Being forced to see her each week speeded up that process I think and deal with my feelings more quickly than I perhaps would have done had I not been obliged to confront her each week. This feeling of knowing that I was on my own now gave me a sense of confidence in myself, that I had made the right decision and that there were no regrets. Well, one perhaps, that I don’t see Maya very often. But now that I’m moving closer and she can stay at my place, all that is going to change.
So the two factors above, knowing that I wouldn’t be going back to my wife and knowing that I could now afford to rent my own place gave me itchy feet and caused me to see the cracks in the walls. Even though I had appreciated the fact that my friends had taken me in and let a room to me I began to feel very cramped in my room and found sharing the flat with others to be more and more difficult. I don’t like TV but it was on most of the time when the others were at home. Having only one shelf in the fridge began to lose its student day nostalgia. And when I did actually want to watch something on TV or DVD the washing machine was roaring away and drowning out the sound. Getting caught up in minor house politics didn’t help me to focus on my projects and I could hardly ever relax and take a bath if the others were at home knowing that they might need it. Over the final few months this resulted in a minor falling out and a distance between us. And more by coincidence than by design we stopped having meals together too. Without that point of contact the distance became even greater. But this was actually a good thing leading up to my departure. I’m over dramatising a minor situation but was a shame that our friendship didn’t grow as I thought it might from us living together. Perhaps I should be glad that we didn’t fall out completely as that is what seems to have happened with most of the other tenants. I could go on and list other minor niggles that seemed to appear a lot bigger than they were but they all added up to the main niggle which was that I wanted to live on my own. And that was what I had wanted when I had first moved. But in a way perhaps it was a good thing that I couldn’t afford it because it gave me that transition period in which I could come to terms with what had happened.
From general let’s move to specific and go through each of my goals. This is also the time of year when I tend to drop a goal or take up a new one. (This second part of the report is from the garden of my new place.)
During the month of June I was again clocking up considerably more than my 120 mile quota. What will I do now that I no longer have 40 miles on a Monday? I don’t think it will be a problem. By my count I can still get up to 115 or so. Which means I only have to get another 5 miles somehow. All this riding has meant that my bike wears out more quickly in terms of brake pads, tyres, tubes and even the saddle is wearing through. The headset bearings are worn out and the chain is in dire need of replacement. And as for cleaning you can imagine can you not. But now that I have a garden and a place to work I might address some of these issues.
Still doing a few minutes after my morning pages but often it is a cursory 5 minutes rather than a full ten. Now that I have my yoga room we’ll see if anything changes.
This year my class number has doubled from four to eight. And I’m happy to say that apart from one they are all privates. I’m enjoying it again and have even thought about training teachers. That would suit me very well indeed. I’m looking forward to teaching from home and re-engaging with my own practice. Especially now that there is a room dedicated to yoga in my own home.
I haven’t done too badly on this front in spite of being busy. Part of it was sort of saying goodbye before I left my last place. So it was another curry out and also a trip down to Brighton. I actually took an extra day off for that and it was very worthwhile. It was nice to drop work completely and just hang out with friends. Now that I have a place that is more conducive to entertaining I wonder how things will go?
I had a great opportunity to clear out a lot of stuff but didn’t. So there are things that I have owned for a very long time that never got used during the whole time that I lived there. It was a shame that I didn’t seize the opportunity. In spite of this people commented on the fact that I didn’t have much stuff but now that I have a bigger place I’m pretty sure that I will accumulate especially in terms of furniture. But the opportunity is not gone just yet. While I’m taking things out of boxes and putting them away, they could just go straight into the bin you know. Well, not everything but some things at least.
A little xbox but playing the same level over and over again. Only one walk along the canal which was on my final night. No baths. But did have some nice meals out and savoury snacks in Southall. But it was difficult to schedule time out when I was so busy. There was the trip to Brighton though. There were a lot of goalless activities during that trip. I watched the whole of the Wire Season 4. But the main thing that transpired about goallessness this month was that I was sort of stealing time in order to get my leisure. That means I’d grab an hour here or an hour there and there were certain things that I would do during that time. Things like watching movies and TV shows, drinking beer and eating crisps and some aimless internet surfing. Now these aren’t the goalless activities on my list such as walks in the park etc but nonetheless I seem to be gravitating toward these activities in particular without any prompting. How would I fare if they were added to the list? Would they no longer be so attractive?
This month I had to miss two sessions from my course and really did lose some interest. On the one hand I have been busy so the study did get a bit marginalised but on the other hand the course has been quite a lot tougher than the previous one and it has been easier to avoid study than to take up the challenge. This 2nd part of the course has assumed full knowledge of the previous one and each class has built upon the one before. A little bit too fast and in depth. But luckily I haven’t lost interest altogether and to get up to speed should be a simple case of reading through all the course notes and doing the exercises. The course text books also contain a lot of exercises. So if I can be steady and systematic and also pace myself according to my track record this past year or so then I should be fine. I do feel positive about it even though at the moment it seems I’m losing the plot.
I think that this project is a prime candidate for a project that starts halfway into the year. It was something that I thought about before christmas but even though I sketched out a brief outline I was not able to fully implement the plan due to so many things going on. My biggest hurdle was lack of space and lack of access to the kitchen. Or at least this is what I told myself. But now that I have a greater control over my space and time I can think more about what I eat and about the exercise that I do.
Writing about what went well didn’t go well at all. Lots of things did go well but somehow I seemed to have a mental block about writing about them. I mean when it comes to writing a Facebook or Twitter update about things that went well I seem to have no problem at all. So what’s wrong with my blog? Well I think the thing is that when I have done it I tend to write a lot more than a 160 character Twitter update and then I feel that I have to live up to that standard. And often I just don’t feel like it. So the fun part is then taken out of the picture when I feel that I have to write something rather than looking forward to it. Forcing myself to do it goes totally against my non-violent principle of not forcing myself to do anything and thus finding true and genuine motivation in what I do. What I want to find then is why I like this idea and yet don’t do much about it. Perhaps I need to do an outcome frame exercise or look at why I really want to keep this up and why I think it’s important.
After what must be a year of playing this game I’ve finally managed quit Evony. I was going to write a whole post about the game itself and how helps you to look at life but maybe another time. This post is more about the negative side of the game and its addictive nature. How I got dragged in and spat out the other side.
I suppose I started playing Evony in April or May 2009. I’m not exactly sure of the start date. Their advertisements are everywhere and as I had never played one of these online multiplayer games before I found the whole concept intriguing. The only thing that I had heard about these games, particularly World of Warcraft was how all consuming they could be. It was once parodied in the sitcom Big Bang Theory where the character Penny gets totally hooked. Fear of getting hooked and dying of starvation in front of my screen did keep me away. So I clicked on the ad with the big boobies and signed up.
Not having to pay was a big incentive and gave me the opportunity to try before I buy. But the full title of the game was Evony Free Forever. So in theory one could continue playing without ever paying. There were paid options such as buying items and special treasure chests could only be opened with keys which had to be purchased. But I wanted to see if I could do it without paying. So I started building my buildings and worked my way through the quests but once your beginner protection expires you are exposed to an attack. So I joined an alliance and that was when the fun really started. Suddenly you met a whole community of real people who were also playing. More experienced members of the alliance were full of tips and tricks with links to resources. So now when I wasn’t playing I was reading about it. All the amazing things that could be achieved when a player became more experienced in the game. Of course it could be a done a lot faster if you paid.
The leader of our alliance was very experienced and helped our alliance to grow. He set up a forum for alliance members and schooled each of us in the art of the game. We had nights when our alliance would declare war on another alliance and have crippled the other alliance by the end of the evening. It was the same with defence: our alliance really stuck together. You really felt that you were part of a team and when nothing much was happening we got to know each other through the forum and through the chat. There was always something going on and so it became more and more time consuming.
Soon my other projects started to suffer as a result. I thought that I had it under control and that I could and would quit at any time, but that wasn’t the reality of the situation. If I didn’t play for a day I would wonder about my troops, my alliance members or if I’d been attacked. But I made things worse. Not only was it a multi-player game but it was a multi server game. Your account is allowed to access many servers. Having read articles on different kinds of town set ups I decided to start on a new server and try out some ideas. But before you know it the same thing had happened again on another server. Oh dear.
What I did was to trick myself into taking a break. I told myself that I wasn’t going to quit but simply take a short holiday. (There is even a paid holiday option where your account goes into freeze.) I asked one of my alliance members to look after my account till I came back. Initially it was two weeks and then it extended to two months. By the time I came back I was no longer in the alliance, nearly all of my troops had died but in theory I could recover. My other account was still going strong, albeit small.
In early November 2009 I decided to see if my account was still active. The first one was gone thank heavens but the second one was still going. I decided to see if I could rebuild it and grow a little. My plan was to play a low key game so I joined a small alliance with no thought of moving to a bigger one. That suited me fine. I was now the experienced player. But I couldn’t stay low key for long. I played all through christmas and some more experienced players came and joined the alliance. This stepped up the pace a bit. Then it all became quiet. Which is what I wanted really. Just to log in and play for half an hour a day without any fear of getting attacked or doing any diplomacy. Our alliance split into a smaller elite bunch after the server merges and then things got really boring.
My work life was getting busier. More classes, more clients but still I devoted hours to Evony. Somehow I managed to get my work done and play Evony. I was keeping it under control I kept telling myself and that it was fun and that I was enjoying myself and that I needed that. But I couldn’t see the point any more. I was logging in and farming to maintain my troops and then logging out again. Just this basic maintenance would often cost half an hour. But somehow I wasn’t enjoying it any more. It felt like a chore. Just general maintenance but without any real purpose. Where was it all heading? I considered the Restart Game button many times but never got to that point. In the end I gave my account details to another experienced player and said my goodbyes. I’m out. But life is a little strange without it. Who knows how long I’ll last till I’m back in again.
Achieving my goals by writing publicy about them. See my About page.
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