This morning I was three minutes late and my 'mentor' wasn't pleased: "Good afternoon," he quipped. Afternoon, you kidding, it's 9:03?! "Yes, you keep us waiting and the hours just tick by." He then told me he got to work at 8 already, an hour before me. Not realising of course, that I got up at 5:45 to grab a train at 7:20, suffer a bit of delay and finally ran from the station to the office. "As you're not the only one coming in late, next week we'll start at 8.30, not 9." Nice. Due to works on the railway, there are no trains from Nijmegen going North for the next two weeks. So I should already leave an extra half hour earlier to grab a bus to the next town. Normally I should grab the 6:50 train, with the works I should target 6:20 but if I should start at 8:30, I need to grab a train or bus at 5:50. There are no earlier trains, which I think says something. Luckily I managed to explain this to him at the end of the day.

Hah. All day I didn't whine about it, but I'm glad I got a blog to get it out of my system belatedly heh heh. I promise the next entry won't be so puny.

Well, I got an e-mail back from my lovely ex-colleague. Unfortunately she's already seeing someone else and didn't feel the same about me. But hey, I hadn't expected much and she was friendly, even sort of grateful. Which is cool.

Also, on the first job interview of the day, I was offered the job on the spot. I could even start the same day, but I have another job interview at 2pm this afternoon so I had to disappoint them. If it goes awry this afternoon, I'll be starting work in Amsterdam tomorrow morning nonetheless though. Didn't I say life is getting better?

"The future is orange." Rather a daft line from the Orange telephone company, but one to live by anyway. Or one by Philips Electronics: "Let's make things better." Why am I talking in one-liners? Because these are from the late nineties, when everything was bright and getting better. And guess what's up now.

I got two job interviews next Tuesday in Amsterdam, for helpdesk jobs. The salaries would be at 1400 to 1850 euros a month (decent, finally!) and I got the interviews through an agency based in the UK. Which in itself is a very good sign: for the past four years, all good jobs I got, I got via the UK. If I get either job, I could start the next day. That'd be Wednesday. If I don't go to Amsterdam to work that day, I'll go there for another job interview, a third one! Also a customer support role at decent pay. Fingers crossed, I'll be in Amsterdam on Thursday and Friday too then. It'd be about time for a good job!

On another front: Last week Thursday I walked 40 kilometers in the international Nijmegen 4-day marches. Next year, my father and I will walk 4 times 50 kilometers. And I will wear a Scots kilt, doing so. Hehe! It was fun on Thursday and it went very very well. My father had a beautiful ex-colleague with him, who also walked with a spring in her step. So we got there fast and smooth. Excellent.

Then on Saturday (aye, I'll recap an entire week now I'm online fir a while) I visited a party, as my father's girlfriend celebrated her birthday. It was great and I met my father's girlfriend's daughter again. She's almost like a sister whenever I see her, but unfortunately I don't see her that often.

Today, Monday, I got my Edinburgh accent back while speaking to the job agency on the phone. It bodes well fir taemerra. Whoops. Tomorrow. Also I sent a flirtatious e-mail to a girl I met at work 2 months ago. Weird, yes, but I got fired before I could ask her out and since then wondered how to get in touch with her. Fingers crossed she won't be cross. No 'Delivery Failure' in my mail now so I know she'll be reading it this afternoon. More good news to come then, or so I hope.

Somewhere in the end of 2003 I got to know a beautiful Australian girl. I tried desperately not to fall in love with her, because I hate long-distance and internet relationships. Or well, the unneccesary hurt and complications they cause. I failed miserably. So I spent months thinking of how I could get her to Holland or England at least for a bit, or myself the other way. It hurt, we had a few problems, I still tried to fall out of love to simplify things.. And when she met another bloke, much closer to home, I furiously sighed of relief, jealousy and misery. It's nearly a year later now, 'Strawberrie' and I still haven't met but we're good friends now and that's all it is. Her boyfriend proposed, she said yes and so they will get married soon. Is this how it feels when an ex gets wed? I don't know if I should be happy or miserable, so I've decided I'll be happy if I can make it to her wedding, miserable if I can't!

I am in the Netherlands to resolve a few things before permanently settling in Scotland. Unfortunately, in the 6 months that I've now spent here, I've been utterly unable to get anything done. The opposite is true: mistakes that I've made in the past, have come to destroy me. The plus side though: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And the becoming stronger bit is what I had in mind exactly.

My worst mistake was in 2002, when I moved from Scotland to the Netherlands, to try my hand at college again. The plan was to finish one year at home, then take my student loan to Scotland and do years 2 and 3 there. When I set foot in Holland though, a populist politician was shot dead and a few months later a right-wing government was installed. They made it impossible for me to fund a college anywhere else in the EU but Holland. And the course I followed was daft: an English-language communications study, but I spoke better English than all but one teacher, had to take stupid Dutch students under my all-knowing wing and acted as a guinea pig for the schools management. It was the first year they ever tried it, and they botched it. Trouble is, I pushed hard to complete the first year all the same, but then had to give in. The student funding agency IBG then turned all of their gifts into a loan, so all of a sudden I was 12.000 euro's in debt, without a job and with no chance of returning to Scotland. Now in 2005 I still have 11k left and on top of this my student bank want their money back too. Understandable, but they want it all, at once. So at this moment I earn no money, but have debts with a bank, a government agency and several family members.

Being penniless wreaks havoc with plans for the future. As I am having difficulties paying the bank, I am blacklisted and therefore unable to get any sort of loan for the next year, with any Dutch bank! Even if I start earning money again, but I don't have a job now either. As I also have no place to live on my own (I'm at my mum's..), no degree, no savings and no time to spend on things I like doing.. Well I can't do anything I like because of dark clouds constantly over my head.. One could say my life is shite. Oddly though, I don't feel bad. On the contrary, the worse things get the stronger and more uplifted I feel. Because to me it's like.. I need to reach an ultimate low. And it's in sight. Once I'm on top of it, things will only get better. And I know for a fact that it'll all come good. When I leave the Netherlands though, sometime next year, don't be surprised if I kick this country's arse just before getting on the boat.