Balance and friends

Well it’s been a while once again, I’m sorry to everyone who’s been sitting eagerly on the edge of their seats waiting for another blog entry from me. No need to deny it kids, it’s natural, I am undeniably, pretty freaking awesome.

So anyway, now that my ego has had it’s fun let’s get down to business. What have I been up to? I’m not really sure actually.

I am most definitely still in Chiang Mai, that I am sure of. I still have my little flat, although the bathroom is now starting to smell a little bit because the only cleaning products I can find are: nothing, or extreme hydrochloric acid which literally burns the soles of my feet when I use it to scrub the floor. So at the moment it’s nothing except a bit of a wipe down every now and then which isn’t quite holding the slightly dank smell at bay. But that’s OK, I am a boy.

I have of course still been programming, although I’m finding a lot more balance in my life at the moment, which incidentally doesn’t seem to make me less productive. Plans are still under way to write games or die trying, with regular Skype meetings with people back in Oz and whatnot. My work friends/colleagues were recently seen at several indie games and mobile development conferences around Melbourne which is exciting. I still program into the early hours of the morning sometimes, but I’ve certainly noticed that staring at a computer screen after the sun goes down causes me serious sleep issues no matter how tired I feel and I’ve become a fair bit more disciplined about it.

I may have written this already, but I’m currently doing Kung Fu 3 times a week. It’s fantastic, for a while there I was the only student and so got 1-on-1 training, now there are 4 students and 2 teachers so the numbers are still pretty good. It’s really fantastic for my health, I’m feeling much stronger and healthier now than I have in years. I also think martial arts are just generally good for you. Like many such exercises, they help you become aware of your body, your strengths and weaknesses, and your balance. Plus I think it’s good for boys to channel competitive behaviour into something disciplined like that, I’ve always enjoyed a good rumble and it’s great to be able to fulfil that without hurting anyone else.

Actually, my life has really turned a corner in many ways. Months ago I wrote a lot about things that I had noticed about myself that I didn’t think were healthy and how difficult I was finding it to change them. Well for the most part I’ve made all of the changes. The only time I have drunk alcohol in months now was when I found a German brewery in Chiang Mai, but even then I was really aware that I only felt like a small amount and stopped fairly naturally after 2 beers. I’ve got my food situation under control, I rarely eat too much anymore, I avoid sweet and fatty things pretty naturally now and when I do eat them I’m conscious of the fact that it’ll likely cause me stomach pain later. I meditate for about half an hour every day which is probably the most broadly beneficial habit I’ve made, I think it’s certainly very synergistic with the others. I’m also finding more balance with social life, previously I would interleave massive work stints and big party stints, neither of which is healthy. Now I’m really enjoying hanging out with people and programming in fairly equal measure, and as I said previously, it doesn’t seem to make me less productive even though I’m spending less time actually on the computer. Somehow it keeps my brain on track and makes me function more efficiently when I do work. Or perhaps that’s the meditation, I’m not sure, probably a mixture of the two. Anyway, balance is the word. I feel like I’m finding a lot of equilibrium at the moment and really putting a lot of things into motion which I’ve been consciously or unconsciously working on for a while.

I’ve got a really great bunch of friends at the moment too. My gaggle of girls, or frank’s harem as they occasionally refer to themselves. It’s an interesting thing that I make friends with girls far more easily than with boys, and that I generally feel much more at home and natural when I’m hanging out with girls. Here’s another pointer, people’s mother’s invariably love me, and as a child and young adult I was always afraid of meeting people’s fathers. That doesn’t hold so much anymore, but it’s still interesting. I don’t believe it has to be “one or the other”, that people can only be good at male OR female socialising. Interestingly enough I’ve met plenty of people from both sexes who agree to a greater or lesser extent that they get on better with the opposite sex because it feels like there’s less bullshit stuck in the middle. I do think there’s a subtle shift there as I get older however, I have always had some close male friends, and I think I get better at it with age. But anyway, yeah a really lovely bunch of girls whom I have a lot of love for and hope I’ll see more of in the future (a couple are Aussies and the others are planning to or already have tickets to come to Oz).

My dear mumsie is coming to visit within the week, which will be lots of fun. I’m looking forward to a couple of weeks of quality mum time, although she’s organising a bunch of things to do on her own which is probably a good idea too. It’s always more rewarding not to be dependent on people. But that will be great.

OK, that’s probably enough for now, it can become difficult to write about new and exciting things when you’re not doing new and exciting things all the time. In general I’m just enjoying the quiet life over here.

Love to you all, Frankie.

P.S. Here are the obligatory photos:

My kung fu friend Yutt and his wife at Wat Chediluang, a really oldschool Wat here in Chiang Mai with one of the biggest old stuppa's around. You can see some of it behind us.

My friends Sky and Alila. Sky is an Aussie who has now gone back home, Alila is a crazy Thai lady who seems to adopt random travellers and loves to talk. She's fantastic :-)

A giant scorpion I found on the side of the road in the middle of Chiang Mai. You can see the size of the bottle top next to it. The picture is blurry because I was trying to simultaneously watch to make sure the thing didn't charge me while trying to work out my camera in the dark. I snapped this as I was freaking out that it had started running all over the place.

Some of my Chiang Mai girls, and me making a funny face while trying to hold the camera steady. I love these guys.

Some pre-pubescent bananas growing in the heart of Chiang Mai. This is what a banana flower looks like. Incidentally I found some wild banana palms in the jungle one time. Those bananas were interesting, they had massive seeds so there really wasn't much flesh on the bananas, and they tasted a lot more tangy rather than sweet.