Often when enjoying a pleasant excursion to a restaurant with chums,  I see them peruse the menu and presently exclaim, ‘There’s so much choice, I can’t decide!’. And every time this happens I hasten to agree. However, after considerable speculation, I have come to the conclusion that they do not share the level of indecision which afflicts me.

I am incapable of making swift and unrepentant decisions. I’m not just talking about deciding what to eat, although that in itself can be a painful and protracted experience, but, well, about pretty much everything. But let’s take food as a case in point. If only kind restaurateurs would furnish me with a stripped-down menu with perhaps only two dishes to choose between, my life would be so much easier. Less varied perhaps but also less stressful.

As it is, I scan the list of dishes. I note ones which could be of interest. I re-scan. I shortlist - perhaps three or four choices. Up until this point my whittling down process has been based on ingredients, my current mood, potential fat content and sometimes cost. The next stage involves the science of probability also known as ‘eeny meeny miny moe’. Having selected my meal I will close the menu but before long my resolve falters. Have I made the right choice? What if this dish is rubbish? Couldn’t I easily make this at home? What if I get food envy when I see my friends’ choices?

If there is time before the server appears I may peruse the menu again, a little more frantically this time, trying to discern what each dish might look and taste like. I look around the restaurant to see if I can spot the dish being eaten elsewhere. I ensure that no one else at my table is ordering the same meal - but maybe this is a mistake? Maybe they know something I don’t and I should follow their lead?

The server looms over the table, I let my companions order first, buying time. Finally, it is my turn. I order my drinks first, still not 100% certain what my food will be. When I eventually name the chosen dish, I blurt out something at random which probably didn’t even feature in my shortlist. Waiting for the meal to arrive I’m racked with feelings of contrition. It was the wrong choice, is it too late to change my order?

And this is simply deciding what to eat in a restaurant. Any normal person would think, does it really matter? Even if your choice is bad and the food sucks, is it the end of the world? Well, obviously, no it’s not the end of the world but for me every wrong decision undermines my ability to make a decision the next time for fear of getting it wrong again. And the more indecisive I become the worse choices I make, creating a vicious circle of doubt and indecision.

Where am I going with this? Well, my intention wasn’t to show how neurotic I am, although if it had I imagine I’ve been quite successful. My current indecision concerns the JET Programme. An exciting opportunity to live and teach English in Japan for a year. I was feeling pretty gung-ho about it before but now that the applications have opened up, I’m flummoxed.  My only option is to default to my usual technique. I’ll apply and if I get a place then the decision will be made for me. I shall leave it to chance.

It only took about two years but finally my masterpiece (*ahem*) is complete! The closing words of my short story, which I had been struggling to be motivated to write, were finally penned at the end of last week. Hurray! And now that it is finished, I can get on with writing my next masterpiece. No, not this blog, as captivating as it may be, no, soon it will be time to begin crafting my first novel.

No doubt you’re thinking, how many more years will that take? And that would be a valid point, but I feel that my delayed creativity was owing to a lack of relevant inspiration. In other words, my lifestyle wasn’t conducive to prolific novel-writing. Well, my situation hasn’t changed, but I’m beginning to think about ways I can change my situation to make it more suitable. Or at least more inspirational.

Ok, in less general terms what I mean is I intend to get out of my full-time job and see the world. I’m not yet 100% sure of my plans but I’m weighing up some options such as a relaxing month or two in a lovely hot, cheap place. Or maybe applying to the JET programme, which wouldn’t give me much free time for writing but would surely give me plenty of inspiritation. Or maybe both, hey why not?

Making life changes like these require a lot of courage and determination. The latter I’ve got in bucketloads, the former, not so much. Now, I’m not saying that I’m a coward; I’m just feeling a little trepidation about the future. I have an ongoing battle raging in my head: to go away and give up everything that’s familiar to me and exchange it for something unknown is what I’ve always wanted - how exciting! But at the same time what if it all goes wrong? What if I’m lonely or scared or run out of money? How terrifying!

People often repeat phrases like ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’, which I find trite but annoyingly have to concede that they’re true. If I go it could be really scary and might possibly go horribly wrong, but if I don’t ever go through with these plans I will, without a doubt, end up frustrated, disappointed and full of regret.

Well, that makes it easier to decide.

Motivation is a strange and elusive thing: one day you’re full of good intentions and positively champing on the bit to get your latest project going, the next thing you know you’re slumped on your living room sofa, TV remote or Wii control pad in hand, guilty thoughts pushed down as far as you’re able and a slightly less active mantra repeating through your mind, ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’.

But when you’ve actually got started on something and you’re really stuck in, head down, working away, it suddenly becomes easy and the activity which you’d been putting off for so long is actually rewarding in itself, not to mention that now the end is in sight and you will soon be feeling proud of your achievement. The most difficult part then is the getting started. The seemingly uphill struggle of actually concentrating on the task ahead: the motivation.

You probably thought I was going to supply some surefire method to getting motivated and staying that way. Well I’m not. I haven’t got a clue. I’m supposed to be writing my short story but there always seems to be something else to do. Sometimes it’s just easier to do something else than the thing you really ought to be doing. Sometimes you might even find yourself doing all the housework and clearing out your wardrobe or any bloody thing apart from what you really should be doing. That’s procrastination right there. On the surface it looks productive but deep down you know you’re just delaying the inevitable.

Or is that really the case? I started this blog post as an alternative to my story and now that I’m nearly done I guess I feel some sense of achievement. Maybe this will spur me on to finish my story. I have to admit I feel more motivated to write now than I did before. Maybe the key to motivation is baby steps and completing small tasks on your way to the final goal.

It’s an interesting theory and one that I will ponder while watching The Simpsons…

**UPDATE**

Still haven’t finished the story. Did find the time to redesign my frontpage though. Oops.

My mum recently got back from a trip to Japan and she brought with her some gifts for me (yay!) from relatives. Knowing that I’ve been studying the language (off and on) for a while now, they had decided to give me some language books. Admittedly I have been letting my studies slip somewhat and so I decided to re-immerse myself and get back in the 日本語 の 鞍 (Japanese language saddle).

One of the hardest things to learn in Japanese is kanji - the Chinese letters. In order to understand a Japanese newspaper, you really must be able to recognise at least 2000 kanji, bearing in mind that each kanji can often be interpreted a number of different ways depending on the context. I find the thought of learning to read and write all those kanji very daunting, but at least the Japanese don’t use as many as they do in China!

So far, I maybe know about 20 kanji (hey, 1% ain’t so bad :/ ). So obviously I wanted to learn some more but the only way I know how to learn them is through tedious drilling, practice, repetition *sigh*. But then I had a flash of inspiration or genius - call it what you will - I love playing my DS! (Right…and…?) And surely those clever peeps at Nintendo have invented some kind of kanji game? Indeed they had, a cool little game called Tadashii Kanji Kakitori-kun. Now I can learn and practice kanji on the tube to work!

They say that necessity is the mother of invention and since being striken down by poverty (OK - maybe a slight exaggeration) due to scrimping and saving for better things, I have proved this statement to be true by achieving a modest amount of invention borne of necessity.

Before, in the days of bounty, if I was hungry I would go out and buy some lunch or the ingredients necessary to cook a nice dinner. Now I find myself making do with whatever I happen to have in the fridge and cupboards. This has led to the creation of some inspired meals. I’m not claiming to be a master chef or anything, and perhaps my ingredient combinations are a little unorthodox, but some of my culinary creations have been quite ingenious. I feel proud that I have not only expanded my repertoire but also have managed to stay within my meagre budget.

I’ve also been inspired to sartorial creativity with the aim of revamping my lacklustre wardrobe without spending any money. This is how I came across t-shirt surgery. In the past I’ve tried to cut up old t-shirts in the hope of producing something funky, new and bohemian, but generally my efforts resulted in a big old mess.

Then I came across this t-shirt reconstruction community and also Ohmystars, a lovely little site that gives helpful tutorials on how to do your own DIYs - some which don’t even require sewing! (Very helpful for someone needle-dextrously challenged like myself.) I immediately dived head-first into reconstructing a Flickr t-shirt (given to me at work) which was a little unflattering. I happily snipped away, removing sleeves and collars haphazardly and finally my creative materpiece was complete!

I wish I could claim that my first surgery was a fantastic success but as you can see from the picture the result was a tad underwhelming. But that will not deter me from performing more surgeries in the future. Think not of the casualties which may result from my malpractice but only of the beautiful t-shirts which may possibly one day be created by my (soon to be) capable hands.

These days so much of life is digital. Working all day in front of a computer screen (two for me in fact), surfing the intertubes for hours, using mobile phones, cameras, video cameras, mp3 players, watching television, playing Playstations, Xboxes, Wiis. Sometimes you have to take a break from all that techy stuff and get outside. (And no I dont mean WiFi).

Fortunately, in London there is an abundance of green spaces to enjoy pseudo-nature and being at one with the world. I especially like Hampstead Heath. There you can find acres of grass, trees, ponds, kites, joggers, tennis players and dogs. I like to experience dog-owning vicariously through others in the park by sitting on a bench on the heath and watching the dogs run around. Seeing the sheer pleasure they get simply from chasing a stick or rolling in mud is something I could do for hours.

Maybe it’s the closest thing I have to going on safari … then again, maybe not. But actually, since dogs are so domesticated, there are other animals living in London which are pretty much wild and equally interesting to watch - such as squirrels and foxes. Of course, you don’t get to see much of them as they tend to live secretive lives, running and hiding when they think a human is watching. Fair play. Nobody likes being under constant scrutiny, I guess.

Of course, there are always pigeons. Wild animals - more or less - living out their lives right under our noses (or above them, rather). I spend quite a lot of time watching pigeons when waiting for buses and trains. They strut around the streets of London acting as though it’s their city, not ours. Many people think they’re a pest, flying rats. On the other hand lots of people enjoy feeding them (surprisingly a huge point of contention in the recent mayoral elections).

I’ve actually come to find them very interesting. Their behaviour patterns seem similar to humans: they hang out socially, there’s a great deal of bullying, they fight amongst each other, form cliques in which certain pigeons are not welcome, they huddle together for warms and cuddle and stroke each other too.

After watching pigeon behaviour for some time, I decided one day to find out what they were actually getting up to when I had interpreted their actions in this anthropomorphic way. And so, the next time I found myself watching pigeon behaviour, I recognised the patterns I had read about: here was one male pigeon jealously guarding his chosen female from other males, here was another herding a female away from the flock to woo her with his feathery displays and there was a couple already intimate with each other, stroking each other’s heads and gripping their beaks in each other’s and at that point (or rather, very shortly after) I began to feel like a voyeur.

Perhaps this is why one of the big issues for the Mayor of London is the prevention of feeding pigeons: to protect us from the filth that is pigeon porn.

Looking at an airplane, you’d never believe it could fly. Hundreds of tonnes of metal just soaring up above, and from the ground they seem to be moving so slowly - how come they don’t fall out of the sky? I once read that the only thing keeping them up there was the passengers’ belief that the plane could fly. That would be apart from the jet propulsion of their engines then.

Still, it’s quite understandable that so many people have a fear of flying, despite it being statistically one of the safest modes of transport. But I’m not one of them. On the contrary - I love flying. From the moment you walk down the gangway to board, to the touchdown at your destination - it’s all awesome. The take-off is exhilarating every time and watching the world drop away and become lilliputian is fascinating.

That may sound like hyperbole but, for me, I swear it’s the truth. On the way to Barcelona I was lumbered with an aisle seat and the experience was really no different from riding a badly ventilated train with the added bonus of a toddler kicking the back of my seat and pulling my hair. On the return however, window seat! I spent almost the entire flight staring out the tiny porthole window, sunglasses on to prevent the glare of the early evening sun reflected on the glassy sea, contentedly absorbed with seeing shapes in the clouds and trying to spot whales in the sea, sheep on the ground (neither of which did I find).

I even love plane food, admittedly not to the extent that some people do. I’m not about to turn this blog into a plane food journal. But there’s something very satisfying about the separate little compartments of bread, foil-sealed water, hot meal, dessert, sometimes a side-salad. Of course the quality of the meal depends on the class you fly and the airline. Once on an American Airlines flight it was too short for a proper meal so they distributed snack boxes including mini Pringles, Oreos, cheese and crackers, dried fruit and a mini Toblerone. I was still reeling from the earlier pretzels and so I saved most of the snacks for after the flight. I think they lasted about a week.

Imagine my disappointment when I realised that good ol’ EasyJet don’t provide meals, just extortionately expensive bland-looking sandwiches and KitKats for a nugget. Oh well, more time for admiring the view, I guess. Only, it makes it a lot harder to concentrate on believing the plane can fly on an empty stomach.

In the beginning, when God was creating stuff, he said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good.

Thousands of years later the Temple de Sagrat Cor at Tibidabo, Barcelona, was created in God’s name and no doubt he told his followers to let there be light inside it. They saw fit to install electric candlelight. I saw these candles, and they were not good. But perhaps God has developed a sense of humour.

I’ve been to a fair few churches in the past but I’ve never come across electric votive candles before. What a gyp! Pretty candle flames and churches surely go hand in hand, but in the church in Tibidabo, instead of paying to light your candle’s wick, you bequeath your 10cents and, Lo! a little bulb flickers on.

Perhaps electric candles are only to be expected in a church which shares its lofty mountain spot with an amusement park. Gaudiness is not unprecedented in Catholicism but a theme park juxtaposed with a church? The amusement park is every bit as tacky as the electric candles. Built some time in the early 1900s, each rickety ride looks like it’s about to topple down the mountain.

The good thing about Tibidabo is the view. It really is impressive. If you go up to the top of the church, a view of Barcelona stretches out before you right to the coast. It was an overcast day when I visited and at that height I found myself swathed in clouds - not great viewing conditions but an awesome experience none the less.

The name Tibidabo is Latin, meaning ‘I will give to you’, and refers to when the devil was tempting Jesus. He offered power over all the kingdoms of the world which they could see from the mountain they stood on - it was that high. It’s a very apt name for the area. Standing high above the city, taking in such an impressive view, I reckon it would be tough to turn it down, even if I were a god. You can keep the theme park though, Beelzebub.

She beckons to me, enticing with her promise of amazing bargains and impossibly good value for money. She lays her bait and I think to myself, ‘It’s only 99p. What difference would it make?’ And that is when she knows she has snared me, that all she need do is reel me in, gently at first with tiny increments: £1.50, £2.00. Small fry.

Then, when she is certain that I am hooked, my teeth firmly sunk into something shiny, pretty, desirable, she can hike up that price brazenly. I’m too far gone to care. Like a junkie getting that desperately-needed hit, or a closet trannie furtively wearing his wife’s knickers, I’m riding high on the thrill of chasing down my bargain. I must acquire the shiny thing; it will be mine. And before I know what’s happening it’s all over. Victory! Success! I am a winner!

I must pay soon. But PayPal softens the blow. Electronic money doesn’t feel like really spending. I happily click away. Then the emailed receipt: I have spent £25 on something I don’t need. Guilt sets in. I make excuses to myself. ‘It’s still cheaper than in the shops.’ ‘Hey, I deserve something nice.’ Time passes. The package arrives. Excitement! Anticipation! But the desired shiny thing is not how it seemed online. Oh fail.

I’m not the only one with eBay addiction. It seems so innocent, so innocuous. Those low-priced bargains waiting to be snapped up. But don’t be fooled. eBay is a cold, calculating mistress, a mercenary with a heart of stone laying traps for the work-bored, the commercially-naive and the bargain-hunting hopefuls.