Statue

Mao Zedong ordered the take-over of Tibet in 1950, and after years of persecution and cultural destruction (see freetibet.org), a sickening half million pounds is going on a 35-ton memorial to the man himself, in a small town near Lhasa, Tibet. The activist side of me has admittedly not been too active in the last few months (since the glorious G8 in Gleneagles), but after meeting Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala, their plight seems closer to my heart.

On a lighter note, I had a great Easter, eating lots, sleeping lots, and reading lots.

Stress

Yawn! Monday morning and I'm in work early. Much to be thinking about here: ordering medical supplies for house surgeon's cars, ECT certificates to print-out, leave applications to approve, ROSTERS... but I'm enjoying the job, having a job that matters, and earning money.

The end of last week greeted me with the oh-so-pleasant news that I need to move house - AGAIN, but by yesterday I had a place sorted. Ironically, the room I first stayed in when arriving in Wellingon will be the one I live in now, several weeks, and all sorts of changes later. So I'll be back with some cool professionals in a beautiful house. Dan has a computer so I can put some photos up at long last, too...

The thought of more flat hunting stressed me out, and my work was stressful. I didn't try to maintain a non-attached calmness throughout all, but was present in the stress and after a good 11 hours' sleep last night I'm ready to take this week on.

And speaking to my friend Richard this morning who I met in North India, who is currently driving around Cornwall setting people up with health equipment and planning the next epic trip to Asia, motorbiking through Europe to get there, dreams of exotic places and people and experiences are whirling round my head again. Hurray for travel!

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And...

...I have a contract until the end of July. The salary is very good and I've decided to get rid of my overdraft. The student loan can wait till I'm a fully-fledged psychologist, but having an overdraft hanging over you is no fun, as they can (and sometimes do) ask for it back at any time. So my task is to save £2000 to get rid of that, £500 for the TESOL course, £400 for a flight from London to Bangkok (or wherever), and maybe another £2000 to live on before I start teaching English.

£5000!!!! That's $13,000, which is quite a lot, but hey, it's nice to have a target.

Life is getting simpler again. I had a shopping list with things like speakers and CDs and things, and as I walked into the shop to have a look, I knew straight-away it wasn't right. All of that just makes me feel cluttered - only a month or two ago I nearly gave away my camera and MP3 player because I felt too attached to them. It's good to listen to your soul.

Instead I'm really enjoying my Thai cooking (if you buy good ingredients it's still much cheaper than eating out, but you can eat very well), Eastern calligraphy, and am feeling more healthy. With a good diet comes better health all-round: I'm hardly drinking (alcohol or coffee), walking over an hour every day, feeling peaceful and sleeping well.


It feels so good to be living in a largely Western country, in many ways similar to England, but not going back to exactly how things were back in England. I thought that maybe the ways I've changed are only sustainable with a hippy-like backpacker lifestyle, but it turns out it's do-able in normal life too. It helps that NZ is breathtakingly beautiful on a daily basis, but it's becoming apparent that simplicity is not impossible to cultivate in the midst of the hurly-burly of Western life.

Hope.