Excerpt from Journal - 25/5

Today was my turnaround day. With the echoes of yesterday's lack of direction still in my system, I found it difficult to find any more sense of purpose this morning after waking up around 10 am. Richard and I were both here, and we carefully avoided seeing each other, and both of us actually managed to shower and eat breakfast without seeing the other. I finally said good morning, and he quickly left for school, leaving me in my mode of hazed distraction for another hour or so before I shook myself out of it. Something interesting to note here though: I made a goal last Saturday that I wouldn't listen to any “normal” music until I went to the temple, and this morning, despite how distracted I was, I was still loyal to that commitment, which probably made it a lot easier for me to shake myself out of my state of distraction. I felt terrible after being distracted and directionless for so long though, and I made a series of short-term goals of things that I could do in the few hours before the May Ball, which I had to be at 6:30 pm at the Wandsworth chapel. I didn't do too bad either, although I nearly fainted after working out: a set of fifty-seven pushups followed by 120 crunches had me breathing hard, but the second set of forty-three pushups floored me (literally), and I hardly survived the set of forty-five second bridges that finished my four sets. Man, I am weak!! I left the apartment afterward and made my way across the street to pick up a Boris Bike to ride to Victoria station with my ears still ringing, and my whole body felt like I had just finished a track workout when I had actually completed a puny set of exercises. It was a good wake-up call though—I can't keep living my life in this lazy way or I'll be a dead man next time I try to heft any object heavier than a large book.

The ride on the Boris Bike to Victoria station was actually quite exciting. Driving on the left side of the road is really, really strange, but I found it strangely exhilarating to be on the road in such crazy traffic. It took me a good ten minutes to find my way around the bendy, unintuitive streets to the HSBC bank, where I got out 260 pounds to pay Carol for two more weeks rent. The way back was a piece of cake—just a straight shot down Charlswood Street. I wish I had figured out that path on the way over :P 

The rest of the afternoon had me doing my wash and cleaning my room, but most of it was spent working on a personal budget for the summer. First I counted up all my expenditures for the summer so far, and although I still ended up with about thirty pounds unaccounted for, I haven't kept a very good record of my expenditures. To be frank, I have never kept a good record of my expenditures, despite having attempted to do so at least four times before. I've just never had the time or the patience to do it, and I felt today that if I ever had time, I have it now, so I might as well do it and make a good job of it. I decided, in the end, on a $900 budget. That translates to about 562 pounds. With the days that I have left, that ends up being at about 5 pounds a day for every day except Sundays (when I don't spend money, of course), and excludes transport, which should be taken care of by purchasing season passes for each month until the last couple of weeks.  

Of course, this plan will only work if I'm committed, so that's part of why I'm posting this here today, as a part of that commitment.  This is going to work.  For the first time in my life, I'm going to live on a budget :)  So, although these first weeks haven't been characterized by perfect discipline or organization, I feel like I"m getting there piece by piece.  This budget is just one more piece.