Going up!

Yo, i just had a bunch of people over for what can only be described as the coolest Christian youth event this side of Estonia!! There's music, comedy, altmees(batmen) ;-), everything you could ever want in life!!! I had people over from Tallinn, Narva and Kavastu, we had 19 people sleeping over at our 3 bedroom house!! Talk about a rockin' party!! We had 5 people from Kavastu, 3 from Narva, and 3 from Tallinn. Plus the additional 3 from tartu and my family. we had a lot of people. we only had 5 guys (inlcuding me) so we all just camped out on the floor in my room, it was a snug fit, but it worked. and then we had so manyu girls we had to put them into 2 different rooms, it was interesting. well anyway i'm gonna tell you a bit about it now, not becuase i think you'll be interested, but becuase i want to right about it.

On the first day (friday) we went and picked up Anneli and Evelin from the bus station at 4:30 and had a great time chilling with them until 6:30 when everyone else came and we had to go to going up. i took one group of people and walked while my dad took some people in the car and i took some people for a walk through town to get to the vanemuine teater where going up was and we went inside and found some seats. now normally i would have had Anneli translate for me, but we had 3 girls from narva, who only spoke russian. so i had to give up my favorite translater to them. now noramlly that would mean me, sarah and my dad would all have to share liis and maret, our only other translaters, but this time we didn't. right after i cam in and sat down Dave Cupery (an american missionary), came and told me that for this going up we where going to use translater headsets rather than have a personal translater. i think this is becuase at almost every going up i bring 3 americans (including myself) and there fore we have 3 translaters up in the front row jabbering in our ears. now i'm sure this is very disruptive to everybody else, so it only made sense to get translater headsets. so we all got our headsets, i knew how to use them from using them at salvation army events and so i flicked through the channels until i found the right one. once going up started i was happy to hear not the voice of some boring old fogey, but a nice young womans voice. why i say that is becuase usual when i use a translater headset its in finland, and i don't know who they have translate but it just puts you to sleep. no offense, of course. and so this nice person translated, via headset, for me, sarah, and my dad. the subject was very interesting, they were mocking (in a nice way) the estonian election going on right now. first there where the blond and brunette partys, fighting for supremecy! then they decided to combine to create the almighty, alpowerful...(drumroll please!) Kohuke party! (the kohuke party, teeme eesti paremaks, making estonia better)

Now let me explain what on earth a kohuke is, the closest english translation is cheese cake, but i will not allow either kohuke or cheese cake to be insulted by being compared to the other. cheese cake as you know is a delicous cheesy cake. kohuke is kind of like cheese cake on the inside, only, well, different. and on the ouside it's usually covered in chocolate. these marvelous bite size things can (as far as i know) only be found in the baltic states, so if you ever want to try them, COME VISIT ME!!! IMPORTANT!!!, i have just found a new translation for kohuke, cheese curds. sound nasty? it's awesome, now do yourself a favor and go to www.kohuke.ee and drool over a pretty picture of some kohuke, and if you want click on the upper, right hand corner where it says "ENG" for some nice pretty english.

Now let me get back to what i was talking about, oh yes. well with the advent of the new political party came all sorts of cool stuff, the kohuke dancers, an election, and finally, a giant kohuke, which in the end got torn apart by peep (pronounced like PAY with a P on the end), but you'll hear more about that in a minute. now as i was watching this i had anneli sitting next to me translating for the narva girls. now since there were 3 girls who needed translation, and only 2 translaters, they had to talk a little bit louder, not much more than they normally would to translate, but still. And this apparently got on the nerves of the girls sitting accross the isle from from me, and they tried to let Anneli know, quite annoyingly to me. and so i waited until there was a lull in the translation (theres nothing more annoying than having your translater interrupted or be interupted when your translating) and then i whispered for both the translaters to be quieter, it worked, mostly. well anyway, then Peep went to up talk and had some very interesting things to say. he told us a story about how as a child he almost died from choking on a kohuke, but how he still loves them. and he told us about the fact that in estonian slang, to call someone a kohuke mean that they might not look blond on the outside, but on the inside they are. which basically makes me a kohuke. and then he talk about how sometimes we can be a kohuke in a different way, we can be sweet chocolate on the outside, and be something different on the inside. at this point he tore open the top of a giant (fake) kohuke, which made me quite hungry.

Then as we left everyone was given a kohuke, which was sweet of them. get it? sweet? oh, whatever. now you know what, i didn't think this was gonna take so long to write about, so i think i'm gonna finish writing tommorow. Cya'll later!

ahhhh, life is good!

hey, my parents left for estonian class a few hours ago and i'm feeling good. for about an hour after they left me and my brother peter read books and played all sorts of games (patty cake anyone?). then he got tired of that and started being fussy and asked me to put on a video for him, now you have to understand, when i say he "asked" i mean he got a video, hit me in the leg with it, then pushed me over to the VCR and threw the video at me. he can be quite persuasive. so anyway i put the video on for him and he sat down on a chair. i decided that he could take care of himself for a minute and went on the computer to check my email. i had gotten nothing interesting and was just getting off when i noticed something. it was quiet, too quiet. i slowly got up from the computer and stuck my head into the living room, expecting to either see (more of) a mess, or peter holding something that he had ripped apart. i looked in and what did i see? peter lying on the chair, snoring lightly, the video had put him to sleep. and i didn't even think i had to worry abuot putting him to sleep for another half an hour! awesome! so then i went and made raman noodles for me and my sister, and got to eat in peace, with out peter screaming.


so now its an hour later, my parents still aren't back, peter's still sleeping, and i feel like blogging. sorry about that last post, don't you just hate it when i think? when i think too much and then blog about it its real annoying, sorry. but anyway i want to tell you about the new kauba maja (literal translation would be like "stock house" stock as in stock in a store, or at least thats the best translation i can think of). this thing is huge! and it's not just a kauba maja or i wouldn't care, this is a mall!! a big, fat mall!! straight in the middle of tartu!! well yesterday this huge place opened and me and my friend Liis had wanted to go shopping for someones birthday anyway, not anyway important of course. and definitely not sarah! ;-) so we decided why not go check out the new kauba maja! i mean the whole place was packed with people but who cares! right away we went and got some food, not the best but whatever. and it was nice becuase since it was the first day of the resturant we went to they didn't have a price for the Liis ordered so we had to stand around for, no kidding, around 15 minutes while they worked this all out. so by the time we sat down our food was cold(ish) and we ate and were satisfied enough.


then we went exploring! we went first to kauba maja. now i know your saying "i thought you were already in the kauba maja!" but no, this was the kauba maja within the kauba maja. so we looked around and of course after 2 minutes i figured out this store was a bad idea. becuase i was in a department store with a 14 year old girl! "oh look at this!!! isn't that cute!!! oh, smell this perfume!!!" and the whole time i'm thinking "RUN RUN RUN!!!!". but anyway we found nothing of interest to actually BUY (crazy girls, always look but never buy!) so i of course made a bee-line for apollo raamatupood (apollo bookstore) and we decided to look around there. now of course a book store had hours of interesting stuff in it. i marked the place in my memory as a place i would visit often. we found the english section and i almost fainted at the amount of good english book they had. and on the bottom shelf they had anime! now i know where to take anneli.


so i enjoyed the books until Liis bugged me to look around the rest of the mall. there wasn't much interesting (to me) but she was exciting to see they had both a "terra nova" and "vera moda" right accross from each other now of course that meant nothing to me. first she said "lets go to terra nova!!" and i'm like, whatever. and then shes like "lets go to vero moda!!" and i was like "we just did". i mean come on, whats the difference, the names even sound the same. so then we went and checked out "filmipood" (movie store) and saw they had some good movies cheap (i'll be back...). and then went to some junky jewelery store, which she of course loved. then i saw a store that actually interested me.


"universaal universuum" (universal universe), a store that was selling all sorts of indian/asian things. we went inside and of course she went up to where they where selling all the nasty, smelly things that girls love. i, on the other hand, checked out the drums, they where just like my chemba, only some bigger, and some smaller. but all way more expensive then the prices i could get in town. and then as i looked i saw something. in a basket at the end of the shelf, was a sword! i walked up to and slowly pulled it partway out of it's sheath. it was beautiful. this was a real sword, and it was old. it was the most amazing thing i had ever seen, it had a keen edge and a georgous hilt. i looked at it closer and saw small markings on the blade, some sort of writing, awesome! and i looked at the end of the hilt and saw something that both made my heart jump and fall in the same instant: a price tag. i looked and the price tag and saw something that made my pace quicken, the price was only 300 kroon! thats less than 30 dollars! give me 2 months and i could have that much! i took the sword and asked the lady who worked at the store where it came from, i was still in awe at the beauty of it. and she said that it had been imported from india or indonesia. awesome! so now i am official anounceing that i have fallen in love with a sword. if i can i will buy it and display it in my room. it's georgous. or probably by the time i get back to the store other idiot will have already have bought my precious. what ever. some things aren't meant to be i guess...


then after that we left and i came home and had a snack, but i still can't stop thinking of that sword!! now i'm done blogging and am expecting my parents home any minute. well anyway i'm gonna tell you a quick joke and then get off. please comment and tell me what you think of the joke. note: it's corny.

Why did the one handed man cross the road?

To get to the other side! No, wait. I mean, to get to the second hand shop! HAHA!!

Cya later!! ;-)

For all my fellow MKs

hey, i don't have much in my life to blog about so i'm gonna blog about a song, again. i call this song the MK (missionary kid) song, but it describes the characteristics of so many MKs. but also this is more my theme song, it describes my whole life. becuase wanna hear a fun fact? i've necer lived in one state for more than 3 1/2 years, people ask me where i'm from and i say "east coast". i have no home, i have no where i belong, and therefore, this is my song. this song is linkin park, somewhere i belong. please note: the words in italic are my comments.




When this began
I had nothing to say and I'd get lost in the nothingness inside of me
(I was confused)
this is exactly how i felt when i was at MTI for missionary training, i hated it.
And I let it all out to find
That I'm not the only with all these things in mind
through my experience in estonia (and especially my time with the beautiful wittenberg girls, i dedicate this blog post to you) i have learned i'm not the only one who feels like this.
(Inside of me)
But all the vacancy the words reaveled
Is the only thing I've got left to feel
it feels like all you can feel is a vacancy, an emptyness. a blankness of words.
(nothing to lose)
Just stuck, hollow and alone
i remember days lieing on my bed in our apartment feeling so alone, so empty, and so stuck. just thinking "i've gone too far to turn back now..."
And the fault is my own
And the fault is my own
so many times i would think to my self, "i could have stopped it somehow, i could have figured out some way to stop our coming here, but i didn't".

I want to heal
I want to feel
What I thought was never real
the pain of the separation of going to a new country and leaving you home behind is huge. and for me personally i want to feel something i never thought was real, a place that truly and completely felt like MY home.
I want to let go of the pain I've held so long
(Erase all the pain til it's gone)
again, there so much pain from leaving home that takes so long to let go of, it took me months.
I want to heal
I want to feel
Like I'm close to something real
home is real.
I want to find something I've wanted all along
Somewhere I belong
in my life that is my mission, to find where i belong.

and I've got nothing to say
I can't believe I didn't fall Right down on my face
i think i did fall down a few times when i first came here and wasn't used to the threshholds.
(I was confused)
Looking eberywhere
Only to find that it's not the way I had imagined it all in my mind
i remember stepping into the terminal at the airport and hoping to see a crowd of horribly attractive estonian chicks. i saw no one, the people coming to meeting us where late. that definitely wasn't what i had imagined. but no worries, the attractive chicks came later, and now they still don't leave me alone.
(So what am I)
What do I have but negativity
Cause I can't justify the way everyone is looking at me
these lines have a few meanings to me, becuase i was so negative when i first came, there was no positive. and everybody stared, everybody. and i felt pretty negative about staring at first, now i enjoy it.
(Nothing to lose)
Nothing to gain, hollow and alone
this isn't quite true, i felt i had so much to lose, first impressions are important, and i didn't make good ones. and i felt that there was nothing to be gained, i would just have to survive three years of agony. but a wonderful young estonian dancer changed my mind about that! ;) (you know what i'm talking about sarah)
And the fault is my own
And the fault is my own
and a repeat, i felt it was my fault for not stopping it.

(Chorus)

I will never know myself
Until I do this on my own
through figuring out life for myself here in estonia, i have come to truly know myself, not know the video game drugged thing i was, but what i am, ME!
And I will never feel anything else
Until my wounds are healed
i didn't feel much of anything but a crazy blur until i started to heal from the pain of leaving america, and then i felt something new, i started to enjoy it!
I will never be anything
`Til I break away from me
And I will break away
I'll find myself today
that was what i did, broke away from the old, depressed, nothing me that was, and found the new confident me that is.

(Chorus)

The End

so what did you think? do you think i listen to to much depressing music? this song doesn't make me depressed, it makes me happy, becuase it reminds me, i feel i belong here, in estonia, more than anywhere else. having 2 teens and 2 of our homeless friends come to church on sunday reminded me of that. and doing mission team trips reminds me of that. and i just got off the phone with my good friends anneli and evelin in tallinn, and they reminded me of that. now i'm gonna go to sleep, i'm tired. and by the, wanna hear the freakiest change of all? i atually haven't listened to evanescence or relient k in like a week, i've been listen to...dare i say it? techno! trance! DJ stuff! they've converted me to european music, i don't know how they did it, but oh well. good-bye.

balla da li di li di la........sha lalala european music is taking over the world.....

pictures of peter!

i have some pictures of peter i want to share with you! here he is coloring.

ugh, exuasted....(i'm so tired i think i spelled that wrong)

hey, i'm tired. the last few days we've had people sleeping over the house, and by sleeping over the house i mean in my room. i'm tired. they don't let me sleep. when i don't sleep i get cranky! well right now my parents are at the homeless shelter doing a program so i'm left home babysitting (as always). i just had a problem becuase peter had something in his mouth he found on the floor, and i couldn't get it out. i picked him up and pry'd (can't spell when tired) his mouth, but by the time i got his mouth open (much more of a painful challenge than it sounds like) he had either swallowed the the thing or...well i guess he swallowed it. so i hope thats gonna be ok. so now peter is calmed down (when someone tries to stick thier fingers in your mouth it makes you upset, it's understandable) and watching barney (i'm tempted to sing "joy to the world, barney's dead...") and so i'm going on the computer. i'm trying to think of something interesting to write about. hey, i hope she won't kill me for this but my friend evelin has started writing a manga (well technically you don't write manga, you draw it. but she's writing it) so if you wanna check that out go to www.evyrules.blogspot.com and check it out. and then comment and say something nice.

that reminds me...did i ever mention i started a book? its a fantasy/fiction type thing that i doubt anyone reading this would be interested in. it's about my video game/anime/computer alter ego, kurisu. kurisu is me as i would like to be, if i where in the lord of the rings. but i still doubt any of you would be interested in it. and NO, i will not put my book on my blog, for now at least. so don't bug me. well anyway, i don't have much more to write about, so i'm gonna go. Cya later.

hey, i'm gonna blog about peotry (again)!

for school this year i'm readin a book called "americans' favorite peoms", it's a bunch of peoms that american's like a guess. it's kinda funny becuase most of them are actually peoms in other languages that have been translated into english, like this peom i'm about to blog about says "Translated from the greek by Kenneth Rexroth", interesting. now i'm writing about this peom for a few resons, partly becuase i like it, partly becuase it reminds me of all my RTS (real time strategy) games, partly becuase it has good advice, and partly becuase i disagree with it. sound confusing? good, i enjoy confusing you. now here is the peom, try to guess what i like, what reminds me of games, what i think is good advice, and what i don't agree with.

Will, lost in a sea of trouble

Archilochos

Will, lost in a sea of trouble,

Rise, save yourself from the whirlpool

Of the enemies willing.

Courage exposes ambushes.

Steadfastness destroys enemies.

Keep your victories hidden.

Do not sulk over defeat.

Accept good. Bend before evil.

Learn the rhythm which binds all men.

now, you guys guessed right? now i'm gonna show you how you did, i will explain about this peom (i know it didn't rhyme, but it was translated from greek, come on). those beggining 3 lines, are just cool, i like them. the next to lines, about courage and steadfastness remind me of my games. the next to lines are good advice, don't show off your victories, going "i'm so great! i rule! your heads on fire and mines not, i'm better! ;-)". be humble. then "do not sulk over defeat", this is important, if you sulk over your defeat you've just lost all over again. and now here's the part i argue with, "accept good. bend before evil."? no way, man. you got it waaayyy wrong! i would say "embrace good. stand fast against evil." you don't bend before evil, what kind of loser advice is that? if all those super heroes had bended before evil where would we be today? ;-) and if your gonna accept good, why not good all the way and embrace it?

so anyway, that was my deep thought on the subject of this peom, i hope you didn't get too bored. i just want to say how very, very! dissapointed i am in you! no one (except one person) has comment on the question i asked!!! i asked you all to comment!!! come on, it only takes 2 minutes, are you really that lazy? well anyway, i'm gonna ask this question again for the youth group at the corps they asked this question and i want you guys to try and asnwer. now here goes.

Where are heaven and hell?

now i want you guys to pick up your big fat lazy fingers and COMMENT!!! thank you...please just throw out any opinion, you can comment as anonymous if you want, i'm sick of just writing, i want some feed back! ok, Cya!

And one quick thing i wannas add...

just so you know this post sorta goes on the end of my last post, SO GO READ MY LAST POST!!!! well today my friend Andrei (from the youth group, and sorry, it's not spelled andre, it's andrei) came to our house and helped me with my estonian. we first looked over my estonian book and did some work in that, as well as doing small conversations in estonian, and then he decided that the best way for me to learn estonian was from immersion. he said how he learned russian was from going to kindergarden in russian, so he decided that i should spend a whole half hour with him, no english, estonian only. i'm always up for a challenge! so i went for it, we went outside and did yardwork for a half hour, rules were no english from me. i must say i did extrodinarily good, i only spoke english when he told me too becuase he was having trouble understanding my clumsy estonian, and that only happened once or twice. and then half an hour later we had cleaned up the yard and i had done it all in estonian. i even threw in joke in estonian into the mix of conversation. Andrei had said something about how this wasn't too hard of work (picking up the half rotten apples that had fallen from the trees) and i replied, "ma tean, aga peaaegukoik ameriklased mõtlen koik töö on väga raske töö!"(i hope that was understandable for you estonians, andrei understood it. and sorry americans, i'm not gonna translate this, you might be offended. and anyway, it's you own "lollpead ameriklased" fault for not understanding).


well anyway that was all i wanted to say, please go read my lost post and COMMENT!!! NOW!!! ok? good...Cya!

Our Corps A-Sploded! ;-)

Yesterday was Sunday, (was it? I think so…) well anyway guess how many people we had! 15! Including my family, but hey, 10 then! So we had 10 whole people who came just because! That’s like totally awesome! We had 3 people from the homeless shelter, 4 teens from Kavastu (right outside Tartu) Andre and Liis from Tartu and I can’t figure out who the 10th person was, but whatever. So that was really awesome. And then afterwards we had a really cool Sunday school because we had so many teens, and then Elizabeth’s friend Etthel came too. So that was cool. So from Kavustu I mentioned we had 4 teens, we had Maret, Jaanika (with the J pronounced like a Y), kuido, and (I know I’m spelling this wrong) Siggret(?). Kuido, Jaanika, and Maret had all come to the youth group on Thursday, so it was awesome they actually came back! I thought they’d come and be like “you want me to come back to this place? And be with these wierdos? No way!” but apparently they liked it, because they came back. And one very nice thing was that Siggret was a red-head! I don’t think I’ve seen a real, natural red-head since I’ve left America!

Well, I’m sorry to be greedy but I want to take some credit for the corps growth, let me tell you how we got so many teens. Last march I went to a English camp and in my small group was a teenage girl named Liis. We talked a little but we weren’t really friends or anything. Then at another English camp this summer, I met her again on the bus, and it seemed she’d met a new friend on the bus, an extrodinarily talkative girl named Maret. Now since this girl was so talkative she talked to everyone, non-stop, even to me. So now me, her, and Liis all got to be good friends. And through those friendships we’ve gotten new youth from Kavastu, and I’m waiting for Liis to bring some of her friends to church. So sorry, I just wanted to take some credit for that.

Now like I said some people from Kavastu came on Thursday, so all together we had 3 from Kavastu and 2 from Tartu (not including me). And we had a nice time then too. And one interesting question came up, where’s hell? Well answer this question I simply said “where’s heaven?” now of course Liis, who had asked the question answered by pointing up and saying “up there”. Now of course I’m a kinda scientific guy, and so I know what’s straight up, stars, planets, and galaxies. Not heaven, and I said so. So now we have these mostly unsolved questions, where are heaven and hell? And now I want to do something I don’t think of done before, I’m am sick and tired of just writing out into a blank void, I want ALL of you who read this post to comment and tell me your opinion on this question, and I will show the results to the youth group. It’s not that hard to comment, just click the little thingy on the bottom of this post, and I will quite thankful to you for commenting. Well and, I gotta go, Cya


And don’t forget, comment on the question “where are heaven and hell?”

yo, welcome to life in general! i'm gonna blog about life in general!

hey it's been a while since i've just blogged about life, so now thats what im gonna do. right now i am lidtening to radio on yahoo, and its playing some nice music so im in a good mood. this morning i woke up late and came upstairs and got myself some cereal. the cereal company was "hea"(the estonian word for good) so i assumed it would be good, but i don't really remember, i was half asleep. so then im in the middle of eating breakfast when i hear a knocking noise, now of course i did what i alwasy do when im tired, i ignored it. then my mom started yelling for me to check it out so i went to the door and saw Jim Vogel (another missionary here in tartu, not salvation army, but still cool) at the door jokingly saying, "we're looking for salvation!". the Vogels had come for a visit! cool! except for that i looked like crap becuase i had just gotten out of bed, my dad was in the shower and my mom was upstairs (hopefully dressed!). oops! so somehow we worked it all out, i took peter and took him to my room and watched his "baby songs" DVD on the X-box so he would be good, while i quickly got dressed and tried to avoid looking crappy(i still did). and then someone we all got good looking enough and sat and talked to the Vogels for a while.

then we went out to lunch, or tried. but this was kinda messed up by the fact that it was 11:00 in the morning, nothing was opened! so we just sorta chilled and walked around raekoja plats (town square) for a while and got some yummy donuts! then at 11:30 taverna (my favorite resturant) opened and we were standing at the door the second they opened up. the poor emolyees were kinda freaked out when they opened the doors and saw 6 people and a baby waiting to get in! so i went and got my delicous "quotro formaggi" pizza (mmmmm) and had a good time eating and chatting. then while all the "big, grown up people" finished eating and talking me and peter went and played outside, and since we where playing in raekoja plats we ended up seeing my friend kati from english camp (i have to many friends, i can barely keep track of them all!) and talked with her. so now im home, happy, and enjoying the closest thing i've had to a free saturday in god-knows-how-long.

now i wann blog about estonian class becuase its just fun! im am bored to death in this class, its just to easy! at least it gives my a huge self esteem boost about my estonian skills. but in this class im dying becuase the techer is always makeing us say the points of the compass. põhja! lõuna! ida! lääne! nii lahe!!!! ei ole... oh, sorry. im gonna translate for you americans. north! south! east! west! so cool!!!! not... how did you like that? see, i'm multi-lingual! who da man? i'm so not the man...mida iganes (whatever)! well anywa this class is also very repetitive, becuase part of what makes estonian so hard to learn is that theres 14 cases! nii hull! so crazy! so you can say the word "hull" (crazy) in 14 different ways, like this. hull, hullu, hullud, hullid...so on and so on. so right now we're just learning the 3 main cases, so we read the word in 3 cases and than translate it. but as we're doing this it sounds a lot like we're playing "duck, duck, goose!". it's like this, "isa, isa, isa, father!!" then we all run in a circle around the classroom...not really, but it sounds like it. and also we translate childrens poetry, which is both insulting and annoying! heres a peom that i will translate for you, this peoms name is "vari", or in english "shadow".

VARI

Hando Runnel

Ema, vaata, minul on vari!

Minul on vari! Vaata kui pikk!

Ema, vaata, minul on vari!

Nüüd on väike ja nüüd on pikk!

Ema, vaata, minul on vari,

mina seisan ta jalgade peal!

Ema, ema, see on MINU vari,

ära SINA kõnni ta peal!

and now for the translation!

SHADOW

Hando Runnel

Mother, look, i have a shadow!

I have a shadow! Look how tall!

Mother, look, i have a shadow!

Now it's small and now it's tall!

Mother, look, i have a shadow,

i stand on his/her legs!

Mother, mother, this is MY shadow,

don't YOU step/walk on him/her!

Wow, how was that? If any estonians read this please tell me how i did, this is a translation i just did on the spot, but i think i did well! well anyway now i'm gonna go take Elizabeth and her friend Ehtel to the library, Cya!

your now bi-lingual friend,

Chris