So, after weeks of what seem to be Life happily wreaking havoc upon my schedule, I am finally getting to a long hoped-for productive position with my practice, and lo and behold! I am just about to really get into drafting my final Masters Thesis, and not long after that my trip home.

To be fair I’ve been horribly stalled, and without much enthusiasm or motivation to drag myself out of the stalls, between the bouts of: sicknesses, food poisoning, a Visa run, and other things I care not to mention here – which have all beset me in recent weeks.

At first, I typically berated myself and considered my lack of productivity a byproduct of personality deficiencies, a familiar old cognitive behaviour pattern – I wasn’t maintaining motivation, I was choosing to procrastinate, I was never going to finish my project, I was not being productive enough, etc… Suddenly, though, I feel that in reality I have to slough off these misgivings and simply rise again into the saddle and continue with my work, however it moves forward! I may have been less productive than I would have liked in recent weeks (often for actual, valid reasons even), but I can choose to not let that get me down and perpetuate the cycle of inactivity and negative thoughts; I can choose to keep working and do my best to remain active and happily practising my craft.

I am reminded as well of the continual refrain I have in the back of my head, “Just do it!”, from an old co-worker who perhaps saw my muddling, overly pensive form of inactivity long ago and used the popular Nike ad campaign-cum-sage advice to motivate me.

In fact, I have found many times recently that, in truth, things seem worse when viewed with forlorn eyes before the start, and not nearly half so bad when seen at mid task. It is an annoyance, though, that it seems a harder trick to remember than to learn. One of many, truthfully. ;-)

Happily, my head feels clearer and my body feels more immune to the typical malignancies of life in BKK, which has given rise to better cognition and probably to this change in tactical attitude. Knowing that I have a flight home – a definite, one-way departure to my time in Thailand – also gives me more vigour.

I’ve finally booked my flight home! I will be leaving BKK on Sept 1st flying to Vancouver. I’m going to hang around in Van for a few days before flying back to Ontario and home to Cambridge. :-D Will be great to be home again. I am really looking forward to it. Sucks to be leaving behind numerous things here in Thailand that have been great, like friends and beaches… but it will be good to finally move on. It will be 3 years less a month that I’ve called Thailand home, more or less. Which has honestly been long enough. Lately the heat and pollution and various other factors have been causing me stress and health issues. I’m not naive enough to think that everything will be perfect wherever I end up next, but just being home for at least a while will be fantastic! :-D

I’m back from a three day trip to Laos and I’m Gold again until September with another Tourist Visa. Feels good to get the last one finalised and off my mind. I had a nice rest in Vientiane as well which happily cleared up a couple nagging health issues that had been plaguing me for a while. Another thing I will be glad to leave behind in BKK when I leave…

Unfortunately the preparation for my trip and the trip itself were an extended exemption from my games work and also my MA that is not so great. Once again, I really have to get back into the swing of things, which is getting increasingly more difficult. The count down has already begun ticking in my head and my schedule. Only three months left now – well, just a snidge under. I’m afraid to say that my motivation has been lacking lately, for various reasons. Really, I’m just going to have sit down and examine the ones I think are inhibiting my work and try and clear them away.