So close, and yet so far...

To my friends in Amsterdam,

Wow, it's September 20th! I'm outa here on or around October 7th... so in 18 days or less I'm on my way home!!!

Trouble is, I'm starting to loose it. Motivation, health, etc. are all dropping like rocks right now. I feel like I haven't had a proper night's sleep in weeks or months. My knee aches, my shoulder hurts, I have sore muscles in my legs and back and neck....

I'm getting a bit of work done these days. I have to wrap up and report on all the computer simulations I've run over the previous weeks. And that is actually happening. But I still have 4+ hours a day in the office of nothing... just surfing the internet, sending emails, and day dreaming about being elsewhere.

What's worse though is I suddenly find my head filled with all kinds of worries! How am I going to get all my extra luggage home? What's it going to be like to go back to a tiny washing machine and no clothes drier? What on earth am I going to do for work when I get back to Holland? Will my last couple of paycheques build the savings I need to live for the next few months? It just keeps building and building until I have no motivation for anything!

I've also spent the last 3-4 nights in a row just sitting in my hotel. I have all kinds of time for going to the gym, doing groceries, going out... but instead I sit about complaining to myself that there's nothing on TV... and drinking beer when I should be exercising and/or studying.

*sigh*

I'm depressed.

I hope you guys are doing really well when I get back, because I'm going to need a happy smiling welcome home! I've still got so much to do between now and then (12 hour drive, shipping extra luggage, 3 flights over 2 days, finishing all my scuba tests and exams) that I'm going to be wiped out by the time I get there.

But there's good stuff coming up!

Mike will be here (right here at this desk) in 5 days. It'll be fun to spend my last two weeks in town with him. I have to share all I've learned about the local ammenities so he can pick up and start a life here more quickly than I did. By then my work should be wrapped up, and our old friend Joby will be here for a bit of that too. So lots of craziness is guaranteed!

My mom's been depressed lately and talking to her is probably rubbing off on me. But she'll be in great spirits for the week or so I'm visiting. And my dad and I have lots of scuba plans to make together... that'll be really cool too!

In 2-1/2 weeks my expenses stop!!! I'll be staying with family and friends from then onwards. :-) It'll be tempting to spend that "savings" on more scuba gear, but I'll try to resist.

When I think of Amsterdam my mind wanders to all kinds of things. Mostly I'm looking forward to seeing you guys. I picture us in a cafe or at the Joker, trading stories and laughing about silly things. I hope any way! I also look forward to walking a lot, to seeing my desk-belly quickly disappearing, and to cleaning the whole appartment of the 6 months of dust Rogier will have let build up.

I'm going to see if I can cut my smoking in half, with the hopes of quitting soon. And Adam, are you interested in joining the diving club in the Hague on their weekly Sunday outings? All year long they go for 2-tank dives somewhere local. I really want to join up with them... unless I can find a PADI shop that actually needs me to "work" for them on weekend dives.

But the closer I get the farther away it all seems. There's so much I have to do to find a dive shop that can use me... for example. And the lack of work looks like a big huge moutain standing in front of me. It was way off in the distance, but as I approach it now, the ground is getting steeper and the progress seems less and less each day.

Help!!!