Okay, so I love my friends, but I don't always love them at odd hours of the night.

I got home from horseback riding around 22.45, watched a bit of TV, ate something, then went to bed. And laid there, and laid there, and laid there, not able to sleep. Finally, just as I started to drift off, I heard the familiar da-da-dum of MSN. My status says sleeping... Da-da-dum! Damn, and I was almost there, too... Da-da-dum! Whyyyy didn't I turn off the sound? Da-da-dum!

They kept coming, so I got up and went to the computer to see who it was, fully intending to simply turn off the sound and go back to bed if it were anyone but Martin, Lotte, David, Olga, Tristan, or Linde. It was David, so I sat down and typed an answer. It turned out he wanted Kazaa Lite, that he'd lost the first file I sent him via computer problems. So I tried (about ten times) to send him the file, but the router didn't want to cooperate, so I promised I'd try again the next day. And went back to bed. That was around 1.30 or 2.00. I laid awake until at least 4.30. Just couldn't sleep.

I did finally drift off. And at 9.00, I woke up to the brrrrr-sound of my vibrating cell phone. I ignored it and tried to go back to sleep, but then there went MSN again... da-da-dum! Da-da-dum! Da-da-dum! Sigh...

So this time it was Lotte (both the SMS and the MSN), telling me I had to wake up because there was a crisis, that this time she really could barely fit into her pants and that she wanted 'a plan!' So I decided I'd never be able to get back to sleep again and that it didn't matter anyway, since I have to go to Doetinchem in a couple of hours, so we formulated a rough plan, swimming early in the mornings. My 'assignment' is to think about details while she's gone for an hour, so here's what I've got: swim on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, and on Saturdays if we feel like it, and try to eat reasonably healthy. (And 'reasonably healthy' does not mean counting every calorie and depriving yourself of every chip and cookie like you did last time, LiLo, 'cause that makes it even harder to stick to, at least for me. If you're exercising, your body needs more calories, not fewer.)

Anyway, so I didn't get a lot of sleep.

But I did go riding last night - we went on a sort of short trail ride, across a 'typically Dutch' stretch of land, through tall grass and even through a patch of shallow water. That was fun. Then we came back and did some more lesson-type stuff. My horse, Eva, was really good on the trail ride and not so good in the ring, but apparently we were still 'good enough', because they asked me if I want to come in the first hour next week, which is the advanced hour. Cool. :)

I've got to leave for Doetinchem on the 13.20 train. And if we're delayed again, I'm seriously going to throw a fit. It seems like I end up SMSing Wim every single time to say 'sorry, first train delayed, thus missed second train, be about 30 min late'.

Rest of the week: going to Emmen tomorrow (it seems like a year since I've been there), so that's the weekend, then class Monday, then no seminar on Tuesday, YES! Riding on Wednesday (Martin's going to be in Utrecht so he's going to come watch, haha, which means I'll screw up), then going to that spa thing on Thursday - a 'beauty farm', they call it - which looks interesting. And I see from my planner that I have to turn in a 'tussentoets' on Friday, which is interesting, seeing as I know nothing about this. And Ann-Christin has written 'Party' on Saturday, and says I'm supposed to bring 'everyone'... hmm... we shall see.

And yes, I realize I haven't said anything about the presentation I was so nervous about. That's because I had good reason to be nervous and I feel like it went horribly. I heard myself making all kinds of Dutch mistakes and I'm sure I talked too fast, because that's just what I do when I'm nervous. I've realized I can either focus on speaking Dutch or I can focus on what I'm supposed to be talking about, but not both at the same time yet. I hate this. Every time I think I'm really getting a leg up on this stuff, something like this happens and blows my confidence to shreds yet again. Oh well. It's not a required course for me, I just had to take something to get credits, so I suppose it doesn't matter.

I'm back at work on the book, by the way, and I'm very open to ideas - in fact, I need ideas - so please... hit me! :)