I went in wearing my green cords and a relaxed purple shirt with a dark blue heart in a light blue box. 5 year old faded brown birkenstocks on my feet. One broken sole. Greeted by a man in a suit, man who is very soon to be my boss. In all of 3.5 days. I hardly said a word. Nodded a few times. Feeling so surreal. A bit shocked still. They have rejected over a fifty other applicants, and it was a process of three interviews. He said to bring the forms back either tomorrow or on Monday, and "See you 8:30 Monday". One [...]

Two Australian expats died in Amsterdam in the last four months. Both of them moved here around the same time I did. One was my boss for a while. One of them a friend. Thoughts about them often creep in and start playing with my mind, messing me up. An odd thing happened when Adam died. The morning of his heart attack I was shopping for food at our local fruit and veg shop. I was buying potatoes, and I came across a heart shaped potato. But I don't want to write any more about that. It is still too raw, and private, and sensitive. [...]

During the last couple of months he lived alone. He had some friends at work and online but he lived on his own. We heard that he broke up with his girlfriend a while ago and started working late every day. I guess an expat would do that sometimes, just to pass the time, to forget other little life's problems. I don't know if that was the case with him. We weren't that close, and I haven't seen much of him in the last few months, although... We were friends and he was a brute. His facade was a big mean bully most times but [...]

"So many people ask me so what do you do. You know, at the parties people do it to start a conversation, get to know a bit about you. No-one understands me when I just say I live here. It's always like, yes, and?, and I don't have much more to tell them." - she said. She was a refugee like me once, about twenty years before I went through it all. It took her about ten years to feel at peace with where she was. It took her another ten years to feel happy just to be alive. "It is sad that people take [...]

I am in a slightly warped, miserable state of mind. But it feels right. It feels normal. I accept that a period of adjustment is necessary. I am mentally happy with what I have achieved so far. Emotionally I am broken. Physically just stable, as always. I feel very weak, but I know that I am strong. I am 21. I am on my own in a new city. I am back in Europe after six years in Australia. I have been back for just over three weeks. I have a fantastic job. I am working as Network Systems Developer for a large telecommunications company. [...]