I’d like to write an entry to counteract the negative theme of my previous entry. This will involve trying to ignore the smell of what is either dried squid, or bad breath. It’s hard to tell, I’ve been on this night bus for 7 hours now and the majority of my senses have shut down to ensure I survive the experience. I’m not a great fan of night buses as I can rarely sleep. The seats are designed for short people, and thus do not support long backs and necks as they should. Still, I did manage to drift off for about half an hour. Otherwise it’s been a case of time killing: writing my blog, listening to my iPod.

Sometime last year, or possibly earlier this year, a DVD called “The Secret” was released. The first I heard of it was in the form of an email from a Japanese friend pointing towards the 25-minute trailer on the internet. Having listened to / read quite a number of (audio)books on the theme of self-development this year, I was not put off by the somewhat ridiculous intro; I watched the whole thing and found it to be about the Law of Attraction, a central theme of many self-development books.

I was impressed by the author’s marketing ploy – calling it “The Secret”, and having all guest speakers refer to it as “The Secret” – I think it was this title more than anything that got me interested.

I thought to myself that it would be nice to watch the whole thing, or listen to the audiobook version, but I was reluctant to fork out a lot of money for it having recently spent quite a bit of an audiobook version of Feel The Fear and Do it Anyway, the classic by Susan Jeffers, and also a 2 hour version of Anthony Robbins’ Awaken the Giant Within (only really useful as a reminder of the main points of the book once you’ve read that).

When my usual sources of cheap audio came up with a blank, I set my search aside, and decided to think over how I would get hold of a copy. By this time I had decided that I definitely wanted it.

It was a few days later when, unbeknownst to me, the law of attraction swung into action. The first that I got wind of it was when I was listening to my favouritest-ever podcast, This Week in Tech (TWiT, which is more rathole than tech!), and a mention was made by Leo Laporte of the audiobook company that he uses for his regular monthly listens. He also mentioned something about a discount for TWiT listeners; intrigued, I surfed on over to their site.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any form of TWiT discount, and The Secret was as expensive there as it was elsewhere. Oh! But hangon! What’s this? Sign up for a monthly subscription and get 2 free downloads! And that’s how I got my free copy of the 5-hour audiobook version of The Secret, which I have been listening to tonight (and incidentally, I then phoned that company’s London office and cancelled my subscription!).

I believe it was the Law of Attraction that brought that about. As was my meeting The Rambling Bureaucrats half way up a mountain 2 weeks ago. I’m also increasingly unlikely to agree with people when, on hearing my voice on the phone they say, “I was just thinking of you! What a coincidence!” It happened only yesterday in fact, when I sent a Skype message to someone who I have never contacted like that before – his response: “I was just about to try and call you!”. That was no coincidence my friend!

Listening to The Secret this morning (the sun is now shining in between the curtains as we near Osaka), and thinking about what Susan Jeffers had to say yesterday as I made the most fabulous curry rice I have made to date, one thing that strikes me is the need to remain positive, and loving. These are two areas where I have fallen down lately in the face of situations that have resulted in me opting to feel stressed. As *Twinkle* and I continue to become forever more familiar with one another, it is vital that we do not start to take one another for granted – bit this is something that I feel has occurred of late, with me being the perpetrator. It’s not easy living in a one-room apartment (and a small one-room at that), with us both having wildly differing timetables that can create feelings of resentment. Sometimes I have chosen to deal with the stress by running away from it, rather than tackling the root cause – never a good thing. It’s important that I continue to study and work on my attitude; whenever I do I am reminded by just how blessed I am that *Twinkle* came to England 2 years ago to find me.

There’s one result of this year’s study that I am particularly pleased with, and that is my strengthening conviction that I will achieve whatever I want to achieve. I do believe that we will become wealthy enough for me to realise my awakening dreams of working in the charity sector and making a big difference to the lives of those who are less well off. I KNOW that I will acquire an iMac in 2008/2009 in order that I can expand upon the audio/visual work I’m doing now, something that gives me enormous pleasure. I am sure that we will live in the countryside in the future, and that our children will grow up eating homegrown organic vegees.

(Speaking of which, we have our first flowers on the tomato and aubergine plants that I bought a few weeks back! Very exciting!)

As I start to plan my journey back to the UK, I can’t help but think what a tremendously valuable experience this year has been. I find it somewhat ironic that despite this being a “Year Abroad”, i.e. I’m here due to the fact that I’m a Sheffield Uni exchange student, university has actually played a relatively minor role in my life these past 9 months. It got me the visa, and allowed me to live here for a year without working – the dream I had in 2003 came true! But of course it did. Why wouldn’t it?

The next thing I need to utilise the Law of Attraction for is new knees. They are not in good shape. Last night I suddenly became involved in an emergency mission to try and get a 2GB video from the UK to Japan in the space of 12 hours. Not an easy task when the Broadband is about as wide as the diameter of my little finger. This involved quite a lot of running for reasons I won’t explain here, and ended up with me regressing to the state of Mr.Limpy. Whether this is a long-term problem or not I don’t know.

I have New knees. I have New knees. I have New knees.

Hurrah! Bus is pulling into Osaka. Must be time for a nice bit of brekkie in our favourite organic restaurant (that opens very early), and some chocolate.

Tarra.