Hi all. Yeah, I know. 'The hearing'. It sounds pretty serious doesn't it. Right at this moment I begin to realize just how serious it has been wrecking my sub conscience when the invitation for it came in a couple of weeks ago ... Starting from that moment just about until yesterday I've been sleeping very bad. And I mean really bad. Four or five hours a night tops, waking up much too soon in the morning, that sort of 'bad'. Extremely heavy on my mood and overall happiness, allthough I hope none of you have noticed much of it. But no problems sleeping last night. To continue the trend of using movie quotes for expressing myself: 'Baby's don't sleep this well' - Jack a.k.a. Tyler Durden. Just watch the movie and you'll know what I mean. Man did I sleep nice last night, in comparison to the past weeks I've been catching up for countless lost hours of sleep. This feels so incredibly good, I tell you. I really need to do this more often ;-) Right. About that Hearing now. When we (that's my sister and me) got there we found out that the hearing was going to be done by two people. One who led the hearing and another one was taking notes. There is a better term for that I'm sure but I can't be bothered looking it up right now, sorry. Clerk jumps to mind (free translation from Dutch), but I'm not sure that is the correct term ... The man explained to us first of all that they both were part of an independent part of the organization, so they themselves we're not the final decision takers. He also explained that from their point of view a hearing is more common than exception and that it was basically nothing more than a face to face conversation between them and us. No heavy cross question examination or anything like that. This immediately made me feel a whole lot better. Not sure about my sister though, she seemed a but suspicious. Specially since we had been a little worried that this hearing might have been scheduled simply because we forgot something or didn't make something clear, stuff like that. None of this all, they just wanted to have and give the chance to add something to the letters that had been exchanged from and to us. Easy ;-) Then they asked us to 'make our point' so to speak, and so we did. What we told them was basically the contents of the letters we send, and added to that a bit of 'human emotion' I guess is the best way to describe it. We tried to keep it straight and simple. After we were finished they also had two questions and we managed to get by them nicely. It were no difficult ones, more clearing up a couple of small details. No problem at all for as far as I can determine. And basically that was it. No more no less. I noticed that when the man was kind of finished and was ready to wrap it all up that my sister had a little trouble letting the guy go :-) I saw a bit of uncertainty coming up and she wanted to make absolutely positively sure that that was it and that all topics had been covered. She's just so sweet. Then we went home, relieved that it was finally over and done with and finally able to relax a bit. Which was good a thing and we both needed that. In the afternoon we went shopping for a new pair of glasses for yours truly and a coupe of hours later we had picked one! The first rough eye test was nearly the same as my current glasses, only added to that was a '0.25 cylinder' ... So ... Now I know a lot about some things and I know some about a lot of things but this cylinder thing had to be explained to me ... not a clue as of what that meant. Right now I do think I now what it means, but I have no idea how to repeat it here. Let's stick with the simple fact that during the more detailed eye test I was able to see the difference clearly so I definitely want it in my new glasses. As right now I'm not loaded with money I asked the guy who helped us to write down all data we measured and the specific frame and color I picked so that when I do have the money he'd be able to look up the exact data on what I want. He said that when both glasses and frame are in stock they'll usually are able to deliver in just one day! So that would be nice. Oh look, an Eagle ;-)