Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had a bunch of dreams moving from bizarre to disturbing.

Cam had a starring role in the first one. It was about a strange form of TPN Christmas party clearly held in the northern hemisphere as evidenced by all the snow and during the gift-giving part of the evening a serving plate (gift for Cam) turned into a gravy boat whilst I simultaneously discovered that I was naked. I then procured some clothing and we got chatting about moleskines and productivity… as you do!

The second was somewhat less strange and more disturbing. Basically there were two guys tasing me. I can’t remember much more than fear and pain.

The third had me waking in a cold sweat shaking. To explain why it was so disturbing for me I’ll have to give you a little history but I’ll get to that later. The dream was simple and I don’t remember any details but someone was standing over me with a sharp blade making long, shallow cuts in my skin.

Now for the history.
I used to cut. I don’t remember when self-harm started, I’d been doing it since I was a child but the first time I actually used a blade and made a long, shallow cut down my arm was a turning point for me. It was when I was around 13 and thats when it became an irresistible urge. Cutting is an addiction like any other. Like many alcoholics drowning their sorrows with whatever spirit is on hand I did it so I didn’t have to feel. When life got too painful to bear I would lock myself in my room and drag a blade across my skin until the blood carried my pain away.

I’ve stopped that now. When Colin met me he told me never to do that again. I stopped for a while, a good few months. Then one argument with a teacher at school pushed me over and I cut deeper than I ever had on my upper thigh. I probably should have had stitches there was no way I was going into hospital. Colin did what he could to treat the wounds and to calm me down and I finally felt safe and realised that I didn’t need to cut any more and I haven’t since. Thats not to say that I haven’t wanted to, but I’ve resisted it.

So to dream about someone cutting me is like a recovering heroin junkie dreaming about someone forcing them to take a hit. Shook me up a little.

Anyways enough of my self-indulgent rambling.

You may be curious as to why I group these three dreams together. They’re the only dreams I’ve had in the past month. So its strange that they should all be about vulnerability.

Tags: Cutting, Self+Harm, Nightmare, Dream, Taser, Self+Mutilation, Depression

Given I’ve just finished setting up my desk in the new place and I haven’t messed anything up yet I decided to give you, the lovely readers, a little tour of my desk.
Note the contrast between this and the last photo I put up of my desk.

1. A small notepad for jotting things down
2. A photo of my grandmother when she was at school. It was given to me when I was 11 because I looked a lot like her.
3. A photo of me and my (late) grandfather at Christmas last year. Given to me by my mother a couple of months ago after his death.
4. My notebook which I carry around with me everywhere (well theoretically anyway) I intend to replace it with a Moleskine because I like pretty stationary.
5. Coffee, pens, pencils, post-it notes and other paraphernalia.
6. My GTD flowchart adapted from the one linked in a previous post to suit my particular contexts etc.
7. Calculator and PDA
8. My notebook – full of study notes. Look! only one project on the desk at a time! How good am I??
9. My Fender Strat. For those who are interested its a Mexican Fender which I have been reliably informed sits between American and Jap Japanese in quality/value.
10. A sub woofer.
11. (Not pictured but between the chest of drawers and the desk) A Marshall Amp.

Edited: I received a rather colourful comment which I won’t publish here from someone decided to be offended by my use of ‘Jap’ in reference to a guitar. It went on to imply that only [insert racial slur against Jewish people] would use the word ‘Jap’ and asked me if I was a [insert racial slur]. Firstly I’m not Jewish so if you’re going to try to offend me you’ll have to try a little harder. Secondly the last time I heard ‘Jap’ used as a racial slur rather than an abbreviation along the lines of ‘Aussie’ was so long ago that I forgot that in some overly PC countries it is still considered one. So I’m sorry if I offended anyone

Cameron Reilly asked this question at the end of G’day World (26th June.
Now of course because I’m contrary I took it far too literally and said to myself ‘I’m walking home from the gym’ and felt very good about myself. But immediately after that he continued with his rant about contributing to the universe and doing something with your life so I had to think a little harder which hurt my brain a little. So I’ve decided to address all the aspects of the question that I can think of.

There are times when I think that my greatest contribution to the universe is to serve as a warning to others but then I think I should give myself a bit more credit.

At the moment my time is spent studying to become an engineer. In that career I hope to be able to make some contribution to the world, even if I am just one person in a massive team who create something that will improve the world we live in. I hope that it will also give me the skills necessary to do some aid work overseas for engineers without borders or similar organisations. Although I cannot deny that many of my motivations here are selfish. I want to earn alot of money and I want to lead teams designing things that matter to me.

I have a blog (obviously) although I don’t see how it could possibly help anyone. (Although if I simply filled it with naked pics of Miriam from there’s something about Miriam then 25% of my visitors might actually find what they came here looking for) But I promise that as soon as I have a brilliant idea of how to fix the world (so no one would have to get nailed to anything) I will write all about it right here.

I guess most importantly I’ve saved the life of a friend and in her chosen career she will save many more. Not much more to be said about that.

Still, I spend most of my time doing something stupid. Like, at the moment for example, I am having a cup of full-fat warm milk with 2 tsp of sugar in it despite the fact that I’m on a diet and lactose intolerant and so I will spend the entire night whinging to Colin about my stomach ache and how I really shouldn’t have had that warm milk.

Incidentally I have a bruise on the back of my hand from working at Coles… I keep on getting distracted and accidentally whacking myself on the back of my hand with a can of soup as I put it into a plastic bag.

So, mostly a warning to others I guess 🙂