Events in the past week have been driving me mad. For one, my dad's condition is getting progressively worse and mom's been calling me nearly every day to update me on his situation. She sounded anxious on the phone on Sunday and I was going to try to go back mid-week. But I too had some loose ends here to tie up before I leave, so I though I'd get that sorted out before I settle on a flight date.One being the filing of my taxes which I should have done a long time ago. I tried downloading the _e-tax_ thingy and do it on my own, online, but my situation as a freelancer/contractor isn't exactly clear-cut and I got stumped with some of the questions, and none of my friends who've done it before could help me. The ATO website is comprehensive, but also managed to utterly confuse me with all their jargon. In the end I just gave in and called up a tax accountant. I had to get this sorted out before I go back as the deadline is 31 Oct and I really don't know how I'd be away for. After that was done I went to a travel agent to get my flight. This was Wednesday already and the weekend was fully booked. The agent could only get me Friday midnight (meaning I have to check in Thursday night) or Monday morning. I took monday. My flight is in the morning 10am and arriving KL about 6pm. Just as well because when I got back home, I got an email from Antony saying one of the clients of ours was going ballistic cos the enquiry form on his site that we built wasn't working. And upon checking, I found that it wasn't working all this while! How we could have overlooked that I don't know, but in any case we had to get it sorted out. As usual when you're in a hurry, your computer and the internet slows to a crawl, and everything you try to do just refuses to work. I slogged through the night, and the next morning trying various scripts, and making calls back and forth to Antony about the server logins which seemed to have changed. Arrgh... I got so stressed out. Just what I *don't* need at this point. That very morning I woke up with a burning sore throat even. I felt like I was coming down with the flu. So already not feeling too well, I had to get those problems fixed and by afternoon I was exhausted and took some medication and had to have a nap. Another thing i *don't* need right now, to be ill when I travel, and when I get back home. Already got one sick man to take care of, they don't need another. Another disappointing development is that we have another big client project coming up, which normally would mean good news for me as it's more work, but they haven't signed the contract yet and we're just waiting on that. BUT, it's a big one and i believe pretty fast paced, and Antony would like to have it done while I'm here, preferably in the office so any reviews and changes can be done immediately. This is just when I am going away for an indefinite time! How frustrating. This is a big one and the billings for this would be very welcome indeed. Income has been slow in the last few months. Talk about bad timing. If this client had signed up a month earlier I'd be jumping for joy. So now I'm in an emotional turmoil, not knowing what to expect when I go back home. I hope my dad's ok until I get back, and the rest of my family too. One strange thing though, when I told a few friends that I'm going back, they'd ask me "are you going back for good?" Heck no! Why would that happen? I'm not about to give up my life that i've been building my foundations for the past year. I'm going back now for my family who needs me. For as long as it takes, but not for good. Not yet anyway.

Stressing out