Do you ever get the feeling like you’re a compass that’s spinning in every direction, trying to find its North? I read this reference in a short story by Stephen King once, and that’s exactly what I’ve felt like all my life. It’s like I know I’m looking for something and as I do I try many different things and get so many ideas just flowing into my brain 24 hours a day 7 days a week. But when I find my North, I know I’m going to hone in on it and focus 100% of my energy into that one thing. I think everyone needs to find their North to be truly happy. I’m getting closer every day.

Someone was trying to kill me. I was in a house. The house was familiar, but I don’t think I’ve ever been there in real life. All I remember about my killer is that he was of average build. I don’t think his face was ever revealed to me in the dream, as if he didn’t have a face, but he just struck me as “average”. Not ugly, not handsome, nothing unique about him. Your generic murderer.

He said: “You can either have sex with me or I can kill you.”

“I can’t, I have a boyfriend.” I said.

“Then you’re going to die.”

I bolted and ran into the bathroom, I knew where it was. The bathroom was small, just a tiny rectangular space with a toilet – the actual sink and shower must have been in another room. I flipped the lock on the gold-colored metal doorknob (not the kind we have in Australia, but the kind in the U.S., with the rotating lock in the middle of the doorknob). I heard him outside the door, can’t remember if he said anything. I think he banged on the door a few times, but couldn’t get in so retreated.

There were mice there…I didn’t see them, but I knew there were a few gray mice in the bathroom. I’m not sure why they were there.

I had to get out of there. I looked in the toilet and (this is really gross, but I have to describe everything I can remember) a bit of poo floated up from the pipes. It didn’t smell. I started messaging HHRay, asking him to come and help me because someone was trying to kill me. He replied, saying he’s on his way. I kept messaging, asking him to hurry. I breathed as quietly as possible so as not to attract attention.

I waited, scared, probably crying. It was getting difficult to breathe. I kept thinking that the person wanting to kill me was going to break through the door at any minute, I heard him moving around the house.

Then HHRay came, I heard him talking to the killer outside. I can’t remember what they said exactly, HHRay was asking where I was. I felt so happy, I’d get out of there soon. But HHRay’s voice was gone. I sent him an SMS: “Where are you? Please come. He’s going to kill me.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about where he was. Why wasn’t he coming to rescue me? I was going to die, why wasn’t he there?

I kept messaging, begging him to get me out of there. Couldn’t he at least call the police? Why wasn’t anyone there yet?

I heard footsteps pounding toward the door, then retreating. There was someone outside. I thought maybe it was HHRay. I sent him another message, panicking.

I heard the killer’s voice from the yard somewhere to my right and back: “It’s HHRay, open up!”

I held my breath. It was obviously not HHRay’s voice. He was trying to make it sound like whoever was at the door was telling me it was HHRay. “It’s HHRay! I’ve come to save you!”

I knew it wasn’t him. There were two of them now. The original killer was in the yard and he must have had an accomplice who was now at the bathroom door. I heard the footsteps retreat from the door and cautiously opened it a crack. I kept doing this, realizing that one time I forgot to lock the door back up and it was actually already partly unlatched. All the killer had to do was nudge the door to get in. I was relieved that they hadn’t noticed and locked the door back up. I felt my throat closing up, it was more difficult to draw breath.

Then, I saw something fall from a little nook at the top of the wall to the right of the toilet (when facing the toilet). It was a mouse, dead. There was blood around its mouth, as if it coughed up blood and died. I heard the killer say something along the lines of “Don’t worry, you’ll be dead tomorrow.”

I looked at the time on my phone – it was late night, but I still had a few hours until 12 so I knew I’d probably have barely enough air to last until then. I realized that he was probably either poisoning the air or cutting it off in the bathroom. He used the mice to show me what my fate was going to be because the mice would die before I would.

I think that’s when I started waking up. Everything spun, I think it was a mild form of lucid dreaming. I realized that I was sleeping, I was feeling myself wake up, but I was still in the dream setting. I had slight control over what I was doing. I could think, and my thoughts reflected what my body did but I had no direct movement control. I thought that I had to escape. I would soon suffocate and had to find air. First I tried to get fresh air through the toilet opening, leaning into the bowl, thinking maybe fresh air would be entering through there. Then, I saw a small window with flywire over it above the toilet. I as quietly as I could stood on it and pulled the latch, trying to stay silent as I peeled the flywire window open. I was already thinking ahead through my plan, almost fully awake now and feeling myself laying in bed as I got fresh air into my lungs through the small window. I was thinking about how I’d quietly climb through the window. It was dark outside. I would sneak from bush to bush and quietly get off the property, then bolt.

My alarm rang. It was kind of a seamless awakening, not the jolt you sometimes get when your alarm wakes you up, as if I was already on the brink of waking up naturally.

I took some photos around the neighborhood today:

Stone Wall

I had my laser eye surgery today. Instead of writing about how awesome (or not awesome) it was, I’ll first tell you how exactly it happened.

As I’m typing this, everything is quite blurry. I’m wearing. protective goggles, which must stay on until my follow-up appointment tomorrow morning.

HHRay and I woke up at 9:30 AM and got ready to go. I wasn’t allowed to wear any moisturizer, makeup, perfumed deodorant, sprays, or anything of the sort.

We got to the Laser Vision Center and Murdoch Hospital about half an hour early and waited in the car for a bit, chatting and reading news on my iPhone before going in.

In the waiting room, they seemed to be running a little behind schedule. During our wait we saw two people come out with protective eye shields literally taped over their eyes with masking tape. I haven’t been nervous at all in the days prior and while I felt a tiny bit more apprehensive this morning (because I had a dream last night about them sticking a needle in my eye, which doesn’t actually happen), I still wasn’t afraid or worried at all.

Finally, HHRay and I got called into the next office. There, a nice lady checked my paperwork and told me that the $6,100 fee for the surgery doesn’t actually get implemented until November and until then, patients only have to pay $5,900. Bonus!

She handed me some paper “booties” to wear over my shoes and a cap to put over my head. Then, a nice elderly nurse came out of the office next-door to give me a mild sedative and put some steroid eye drops into my eyes.

We waited for twenty minutes for the sedative to kick in. HHRay and I chatted with the receptionist, who also gave me the run-down on the procedure, what I have to do post-op, and answered any questions about the whole thing. She also gave me an appointment card to see Dr. Phillip McGeorge (the surgeon) the next morning at 7:45 AM.

Finally, I was led through to the actual operation room. By this time the sedative kicked in and I was even more relaxed than I previously was. I noticed about three or four people in the room, but didn’t really get a chance to look around because the kind elderly nurse got me to sit on the bed and slowly and carefully lay down with my head under some sort of a machine.

She then proceeded to put what felt like two or three different types of drops into my eyes, then dry my eyes. The whole time she was talking me through what was happening, which I definitely appreciated. She was also saying I was doing great – I got the sense that many people must be really scared about this, because she was so careful to sound soothing and make sure I knew what was happening.

Then, the bed I was laying on moved and I saw the surgeon above me. His face was covered, but I can only assume that it was Dr. McGeorge. From memory he put more drops into my eye – these stung for a few seconds. He then covered my left eye with tape of some sort. I remember him putting some sort of a measurement device near (or on top of?) my eye. Finally, the surgeon placed some sort of a white device onto my eye. I heard a nurse nearby saying “Suction” and felt pressure, but no pain. I was instructed to look straight ahead as the first laser began to create the corneal flap by slicing through the surface of my eye. I did feel a little discomfort, but it didn’t hurt at all. It took about 20 seconds for the flap to be created. Then, the nurse said “Suction off” (or something along those lines) and the white device which was on top of my eye was removed.

The surgeon put more eye drops into my eye and then the same process was repeated on my left eye.

Next, my left eye was covered up again and two bits of some sort of tape were placed on the bottom and top of my right eye, maybe to keep the eyelashes out of the way. After this, some sort of a device was placed into my eye to keep it open. As I said, I couldn’t really see anything properly – everything was slightly blurred from the eye drops and maybe from the fact that part of my eye was just partly sliced off. I saw the surgeon’s hand with a thin metal looking device of some sort. He brought it to my eye and, I think, started sliding the flap up and away to expose the tissue beneath. Everything moved and became blurry and distorted at this point. The red pin of light that I saw ahead of me before turned into a red, sparkly blob of light. I was told to concentrate on the red light while the laser worked to modify the surface of my eye. This felt like it took around 30-45 seconds. And again, the same process was repeated on the left eye.

Before I knew it two protective shields were taped over my eyes and I was sitting up. The nurse asked me how I was feeling. I felt totally fine and was led through to another room where I was given a water bottle, sunglasses, and a box of Paracetamol pain killers (two of which the nurse had me swallow straight away).

I went out to meet HHRay in the waiting room, feeling totally fine. It’s when we were outside that the sedative they gave me earlier really started to take effect. I wasn’t sleepy so much as I was disoriented. All I remember is half-stumbling back to HHRay’s car, babbling complete nonsense, and instructing him to go to McDonald’s and ordering a “half small half medium”-sized fries.

Those were some of the most delicious fries I’ve had in my life. I ate them as I was half asleep. When we got back to his house I instantly sank into the bed, where he cuddled me for a bit to make sure I went to sleep, and slept for something like three hours.

I woke up feeling like there was sand in my eyes. It hurt to open them and it hurt to close them. I tried sleeping more, but couldn’t. I took two more pain killers and now I feel totally fine (until the pain killers wear off I’m sure). HHRay’s dad and I went for a walk around the park with his dog. Already, when I manage to look through one of the little holes in the eye protectors, I can read things I never would have imagined being able to read before. I can’t wait until my 7:45 appointment tomorrow, when I can get these things taken off and really experience my newfound 20/20 vision.

I’m getting laser eye surgery tomorrow and I’ve been saving up for this for months. If I wasn’t spending my savings on laser eyes (Pew, Pew!), I would consider spending it on a trip right about now. Accor is hosting a giant Asia Pacific hotel sale from October 27 to October 29. Basically, you can apparently book a hotel room online for as low as $30 USD when you take advantage of this “Super Sale”. The offer includes 1 million hotel rooms across the Asia Pacific.

The country list includes Australia, but if I could take advantage of the sale I’d probably choose to see Thailand. Thailand is one of the most devoutly Buddhist countries in the world – imagine how awesome it would be.

I’ve been itching to travel lately. HHRay can’t yet because of his studies, but I’m not sure how much longer I can wait. After my laser eye surgery I’ll be starting to save up for a trip to another country.

So – when I go to Thailand, I will make it my mission to explore the Buddhist temples, learn more about Buddhism, and make some Buddhist friends.

Other than Thailand, other countries included in Accor’s Super Sale offer are  Korea, China, Japan, HK, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Fiji, Indonesia, Taiwan, India, and Bali.

Accor Hotels 3-Day Super Sale Asia Pacific sounds pretty cool. There are always hotel deals and special offers flying around, maybe something like this will come along when I’m planning my own trip.

Just like my laser eye surgery, featured posts are also a-go. I downloaded a handy featured posts plugin and tested it out on my Rottnest post below. The plugin automatically picks an image to use and, of course, it chose the funniest of the bunch. Now I don’t have the heart to change the featured post to my introduction as was the plan originally. There’s no snuggie photo in my introduction post. In fact, there’s no photo at all in there.

I had my consultation appointment with Perth Laser Vision at Murdoch Hospital today. I had to go through two rooms of testing, where they had me look into all kinds of machines to map the surface of my eyes, check my retinas, and other such things. All in all they had to bring me up to four different types of machines before they sat me back down in the reception area to wait for the surgeon.

Finally, the surgeon called me into his office, where he tested my eyes with yet another gadget of some sort. And then came the words I’ve been waiting for: “You’re a good candidate for laser eye surgery. The surgery should be simple and straight forward, just a basic short-sightedness correction.”

You have no idea how happy I was. I’ve been saving up and planning for this for months and finally I get the OK. I made an appointment for the earliest possible date, which luckily happens to be next Thursday!

Obviously they can’t guarantee anything with 100% certainty, but he said that at my age they slightly over-correct vision on purpose, so when my eyesight worsens with age I shouldn’t even notice a difference for about 20 years or so.

I can’t wait.

This was by far my most tiring, busiest, and most fun weekend in a while. Here’s how it panned out:

On Saturday, my amazing driving instructor picked me up from HHRay’s house for our 8:30 am driving lesson. We limited the lesson to an hour because he knew I had to be in Fremantle that morning and practiced parking. I actually did quite well and am starting to feel like maybe I won’t become a safety hazard when and if I ever get my actual license. I’m still doubtful that they’ll want to unleash me onto the roads of Perth, but we’ll see.

I then quickly got ready in 20 minutes or so and HHRay’s dad’s girlfriend was kind enough to drop me off at the Cockburn train station. I caught up on much needed sleep on the bus and when I finally reached Fremantle the weather was just getting seriously hot (well, seriously hot until real summer actually kicks in).

Wayne flew in from the U.S. that Friday and we were meeting in Fremantle before our trip to Rottnest on Sunday. I knew Wayne to be a great hummus lover, so decided to feed the addiction by bringing him some hummus as a Perth welcome gift. Now, by this time the hummus wasn’t exactly cool. In fact, I wasn’t sure if it was even still edible due to me carrying it around for 2 hours in the heat. Wayne tasted the hummus with a suspicious look on his face, sniffed, and declared that it was “OK”. By this time anything better than “It’s gone off. I’m going to die.” was great in my book.

We spent the day semi-exploring Fremantle, pretending to be related, honing our Ninja skills, eating ice cream, comparing iPhone apps (my collection was, of course, superior), wearing zombie masks, and drinking some sort of blueberry tea. I think the biggest surprise of the day was that Wayne had no idea what a Snuggie was. What kind of a fashionista is he? Every reputable girl knows what a Snuggie is, even if she doesn’t have one. Wayne, for your convenience I made this so that you would be able to picture how great you’d look in a Snuggie:

Wayne in a Snuggie with Hummus

Anyway, when I got back to HHRay’s house the weather was still nice and warm. I suffered through a soaking wet bear hug as he got out of the pool, we had dinner, and I caught the bus back to my house as HHRay went out clubbing with some friends. I hadn’t eaten except for ice cream all day, so the dinner didn’t exactly fill me up and I ordered something delicious and nutritious from Eagle Boys pizza.

I tried going to sleep early, I really did. But the Rottnest 5km Fun Run which I’d be running tomorrow (the same day as the Rottnest marathon) was keeping me up. I made sure to prepare everything for the day: triple check the dates and times, make sure I had our tickets, grab a sufficient number of pins for the race numbers, make sure the race numbers were in their envelopes, make sure my running clothes didn’t suddenly shrink or stretch overnight, and all of that other good stuff. I even went for a 2km run just to make sure everything was in working order.  Finally, after an episode of Stargate Universe and a movie, I managed to fall asleep at about 2am.

Fast forward to 10:30am – start of the race. By this time Wayne has successfully managed to convince a lady that he’s my father and we have picked out our two “targets” for the race – the people we’d be striving to beat. His was a fast and fit-looking young man. Mine was a 10-year-old looking girl.

So the race started and I took off – or rather shuffled off – on the course. At first I was thinking “Hey, this isn’t as hilly or windy as I was expecting!” The wind never ended up bothering me, but I was so wrong about the hills. Slowly I felt myself starting to climb. I ran up the first “big” (in my book) hill, but had to actually jog/walk up the second. Thankfully, the ascent in the first half of the race could only mean one thing on the way back – a downhill run. At one point I saw Wayne pass me, not looking tired at all. I thought about being jealous, but then remembered that I could never be jealous of someone who’s never seen a Snuggie and continued on my way. I looked something like this (reenactment):

Rottnest Fun Run 5km Reenactment

By the end of the race I was sweating profusely, my legs felt like lead, and I struggled to keep up my breathing pattern. All of a sudden I see this flash of vampire-like skin approaching in the distance and realize that wow, this must be Wayne coming back. It was. He ran with me the rest of the way, which wasn’t as long as I expected, and I got a good sprint in toward the end.

Wayne finished something like either 6th or 11th, we won’t know until the results are posted on the WAMC website (which they have been for the Marathon, but not for the Fun Runs as of yet). We ate, had a rest, and then decided to hire out some bikes and explore the island. I learned that Wayne takes great pictures of himself. I can never get the angle just right when I’m camera-whoring, but his form and lighting was excellent:

Wayne's Photography Skills

We tried to get a photo of us feeding a quokka  a leaf, but by the time we got my phone out and turned on the camera the quokka was no longer interested. So Wayne took a photo of me accepting a leaf instead, so you can see what the quokka would look like if it wasn’t being so snobby and rejecting our offering:

Quokka Feeding

Other than that we also climbed a sand dune:

Wayne Blending in with the Sand

I make fun of him, but we’re both pretty much just as pale as each other:

Wayne's Photography Skills

Anyway, it was a fun weekend and I was thoroughly exhausted by the time I got home. I had it easy, though. Wayne had to do a 2-hour talk straight after we got back from Rottnest.

That night I was very happy to see and make up with HHRay, but there’s a whole another story there so I’ll leave it for another post. We still have some things to resolve, but it was great to see him and get my dosage of cuddles.

Also that night, I realized that I forgot to put sunscreen on my back, so my shoulders are pretty burnt (though thankfully not peeling…my skin isn’t the peeling kind I think, it just goes red). I’m so happy that I have tomorrow off. I need a sleep-in. Not to mention my laser eye surgery consultation appointment is tomorrow, so it’s going to be very exciting!

Overall, I had an excellent weekend.

Rottnest Island

I am half-relaxing half working. What a tiring, but good, day. Had a driving lesson early in the morning. Met up with a friend whose name I will not mention because then I won’t be able to talk about incriminating “froggy” evidence I have on him. Hung out in Fremantle, in the heat (37 degrees today!). Then got back, had a dinner with HHRay (after a very wet after-pool hug), bussed it back to my house, took a 2km run, had a shower, got my things ready for tomorrow, ordered some sides from Eagle Boys, and am now working/relaxing/watching Eagle Eye.

It’s such a nice, relaxing, warm night.

It’s the thrill of the chase, of getting that top spot. It’s the exhilaration you feel when you see your client’s (or your own) position rise for targeted keywords. It’s the fascination with analyzing Google Analytics data to see what keywords drove traffic and how people found your site.

It’s the disappointment you can’t shake off when you get a bad ranking report and the itch to do better next time.

It’s knowing that you’re never really in control, but that you might be more in control than the rest of them.

It’s being able to say “We got you this traffic.”

In short, I find it very exciting. It’s also very stressful, but on good days the rewards far outweigh the stress.