Alex

Hello!

Two weeks have flown past already I see. Well I think I have well and truly screwed up my work/rest/play balance at the moment! I’ve been working a ridiculous amount, leaving very little time to play with Sooji and do any business, much to the annoyance of Sooji and my goals.

Although I have now decided that I’ll quit McDonalds in May and just work at Eagle Boys. It’s a shame, as I much prefer the actual work at Maccas, but as I have to choose between one paycheque and the other I’ll go with the highest.

View from the DriveThru booth at 6am

Business is going surprisingly well at the moment, despite a rather large setback. I don’t think I mentioned on here before that my income comes from affiliate commissions from selling Amazon products and from Google Adsense advertisements (which is paid on a per-click basis). Sadly, Google banned my Adsense account in February (along with 100,000 others I hear) – due to suspicious click activity. While I have done nothing wrong and could probably secure a successful reinstatement upon appeal I have decided not to work with them, and instead redouble my efforts with Amazon.

Profits from Amazon were $50 for February, and now $225 for March – due largely to the sale of a $1,700 fitness machine through one of my health and fitness sites. Sadly I have lost around half of my income (around £120 p/m) due to the Google closure, including the £100 I had already made.

All small money I know, but it is a start.

Life in Karratha is largely the same, although we did actually have some rain! For about 4 hours. It was nice to walk home from work bare-chested in the warm rain, although the swarms of flying ants that were born the next day and came into work to die all over the counters and work surfaces was a bit of a pain.

Speaking of bug problems, tiny little fire ants (which wee a surprisingly painful acid all over you) have taken to climbing up our washing line and covering all our fresh clothes. The first time this happened I put on both my shorts and T-Shirt only to rip-them off a minute later when I realised that the little itches I had all over were ants. Needless to say having ants-in-your-pants and being covered in tiny yet painful bites at 6am is not much fun!

On the plus side, me and Sooji are still having fun and planning our trip a bit more which is only around 4 weeks away now! And of course working so much does have its benefits in that I am exceeding my savings targets, which is great as I intend to use it to support myself for a fairly long while in SE Asia.

I am reading a great book at the moment that Joe shared with me, all about how visualisation, goal-setting and your thinking affects your life and achievements and I’m really enjoying it. I guess the main theme or thing to take from the book is that the effects that positive thinking has is profound.

More than just two people seeing the same situation in a good or bad light, it has the effect of actually creating those situations and opportunities that take you to where you want to go and closer to your goals, no matter how grand they may be.

A colossal iron-ore ship in nearby Dampier - this thing is giant! You can only see about a 1/3 of the hull here.

I read today that the UK, especially Northern Ireland, is having lots of icy cold weather again! I hope your all ok and things warm up soon. Personally I can’t wait to get down to wintery Tasmania where the scenic flight operator recommended to bring lots of warm clothes and a jacket! Aahhh, the opportunity to wear my jeans and hoody again…

All the best for now, Al