This year's christmas eve was fairly unremarkable. I felt extremely tired all of today. I had a bad insomnia episode yesterday.I went into a bad mental place because I couldn't sleep. Combine that with a lot of very senseless masturbating and I wasn't feeling so great.

I got out of bed finally around 2pm. From that point I was tidying up my room. I did some final christmas shopping. Mainly getting siracha sauce, tabasco and a big beef roast for boxing day. I've bought a really big beef rib to cook. It cost almost half a pony as well.

I've been thinking a bit about what I might call 'magazine reading aspirational thoughts'. Through most of this decade, I've been reading a lot of lifestyle magazines and I've found something deeply aspirational about the way things are marketed and sold to me as a lower-to-middle income man who is now in the 30s age bracket, but I was in the 20s bracket.

Things like watches, beds, tvs, computers, meat, clothes, socks, underpants, USB drives or even data plans are all marketed towards a certain kind of cookie cutter lifestyle. I happen to have a very engaging and busy job these days and I also happen to have a pattern of training very hard.

Last year I was offered some casual work to cover for a woman who worked on a desk that I occaisionally worked on. Then she left, then another woman who worked on a desk linked to the role I took over also was leaving. It turn turned into a full time job (on casual pay). Eventually, I got a contract. What an odd situation it has been What an odd situation it became. What a wonderful development in my life that I ended up finally in a proper job. Not least one that has an impact on the world.

I have to be positive about it, its created a certain lifestyle for me, its created opportunities and not least a bit more money. My health has immproved in some ways and I have had less worries by comparison.

I'm really thankful for that.

I mention the past year because I got an email from 5 years ago from myself, writing on Christmas day. It was my 25 year old self. In a lot of ways there is a large continuity between the person of that time and myself in the present day. He sent me a picture of himself, he had a funny moustache on and he had a blue hoody that I think I got rid of about a year or 18 months ago. I had updated it with something more high tech and mroe personalised to me. I also looked thinner. That's an odd thing to say. I'm probably going to say that a lot.