Let me first start out by envying my friend Matt. On my EC08 post he commented, “I think I was playing video games in my basement from March 17 to March 20th. Guess which one of us had a better time! (Hint: The one who hung out with girls)” Matt, you played video games with girls for FOUR whole days?! And I’ve seen your basement, there is no cooler place to play video games. I am so jealous...video games and girls. You lucky little...lucky person. I bet you totally pwned those girls. But anyway, I just have to say thank you to Matt for commenting, because no one EVER comments, and this makes me very sad. It makes tears run down my cheeks, and sobs jump out of my throat. I throw myself on the ground, screaming and begging for just a single comment...Do you think maybe I’m exaggerating a little? I think so to. I like your comments. Please tell me what you think. Am I inspired, insidious or insane? Or an insidiously inspired insane person? Or the most amazing guy you’ve ever met and have now fallen madly in love with? Naw, never gonna happen. Anyway, now it’s time for me to get started on my thoughts and feelings. And I have promised to be utterly and completely honest and blunt. So I hope I don’t offend anyone too much. Because English Camp really is great. But anyway, it might be good if you read this post side by side with the “What’s fun what’s great? Is it maybe…could it be…would it, should it be…EC08!” post, or at least use it as a reference. Because as I write I’m using it as a reference to make sure I keep things in the same chronological order. So let’s get started!
Day 1, March 17, 2008
As I said, I got there early. Something I wasn’t entirely happy about because I think it’s bad to stand out too much. I prefer to stick with the group whenever it’s possible. Which it rarely is, so whatever. I sat on my suitcase, looking cool. I think I may have covered too many of my thoughts and feelings in the other post. Because now I’m feeling low on things to write. I’ll get something. But anyway, seeing Eva, and speaking Estonian with her, was great. I normally don’t show off, but the fact that I can speak Estonian even as pathetically as I do is a miracle. I said in the other post that I would point out full circle moments, but then I never did. So I will in this post instead. Here is a full circle moment, speaking Estonian with the person who taught me my first Estonian.
I was slightly disappointed by the fact that my friend Liis, who was the one who convinced me to come to EC in the first place, wasn’t there. I had run out to the bus when it first arrived to carry her bag for her, but neither her, nor her bag, was there yet. She eventually showed up halfway through the main meeting, and then ignored and avoided me as much as possible through all of camp. Liis is one of my oldest friends in Estonia, and definitely my oldest friend from Tartu. We met at English Camp years ago when I was bored and lonely and had nothing to lose. Liis has always been hard to figure out simply because she can be one of the most hard hearted jerks you can imagine, but somehow remains your friend. And also she’s a lot like me in that sometimes she’ll be mean as a joke, and so it’s hard to tell if she’s pretending not to like you, or if she really just thinks you’re the scum of the earth. But last night I talked to her on MSN and she was being nice and friendly again, so I’ll just make the assumption I’ve always made. Liis was trying to act cool in front of the Americans and the “Cool” people. The fact that I am an American cool person doesn’t count because I live in Estonia and I’m not THAT cool. But I don’t really care. Because Liis is my friend on FaceBook, and that’s where it really matters, right? And also outside of EC, in real life, she’s my real friend. Whereas these Americans she loves so deeply she knows for a week or so and then disappear. So I think I’ve got it better.
Anyway, I already told about Edgar in the other post. And he really was the guy who I just clicked with. I will never understand my nerd/misfit/loser label. I don’t play video games so much anymore, so I’m not a nerd like I once was. I’m Mr. Cool among my own people, who are cool everywhere, so I’m not so much a misfit as I was once upon a time when I would sit alone in Tartu playing X-Box and feeling lonely. And I’m not a loser either. I really have become much better at everything. But whatever. I really think it just must be that I don’t feel comfortable around the “cool” people. The other nerds/misfits/losers are usually just easier to be around. So I don’t think I did much to change my image at this camp. I still hung out with Edgar. And I still had fun anyway. Another reason why I think us losers seem to want to stick together is because it does seem like a battle sometimes. The “cool” people just look so cool! And we want to be like them. But since we can’t we band together and create our own, much cooler, form of cool. I mean I’ve always thought I was hanging out with the coolest people even back when I was playing DND with people who were proud to be nerds. Because we really were cooler than all of “cool” people I knew. I think I’ve lost track of where I was going, but let me just do a quick summary. I always have been, and am, a misfit, a loser, a nerd, and an outcast. I may never understand why, and I may still be slightly hurt when I’m shunned by the “cool” people who I occasionally envy, but in truth us “nerds”, “misfits” and “losers” are way cooler anyway. At many times in the past I’ve always felt like I don’t fit in anywhere, but that’s exactly where I fit in, with those who don’t.
Going to the pool was great. You spend so long covered with warm clothes that you forget you have skin that can feel anything but clothe. But then you slip into the cool water and your whole body tingles with the sensation of the water closing around you. And in the winter I spend so much time sitting on my bed reading, or writing, or sleeping that I don’t get much exercise. The only exercise I get is walking to the tram and walking through old town. So the physical exertion of swimming laps was really nice. It’s always been my dream to be in a Triathlon, but swimming is my weakest point, so I practice whenever I can. But the pool was overrun with “cool” people and other people who didn’t want to talk to me. So besides swimming laps until my arms hurt I really had nothing to do. I considered going to the sauna, but I only like going to the sauna when I’m with other people. One time I did go with some other guys, but because the steam sauna was unisex it was filled with girls too. Then all the guys got up and left, leaving me alone in a sauna full of girls. Despite the fact that this could have been a great chance for some romancing, I felt the imbalance was too strong, and I got up and fled to the dry sauna where the other guys had gone. We all joked a little bit about how I had just fled paradise, but I’m glad I did. It gave me a chance to ask Timo what I had said when I mixed up my translation. I was trying to say “käsk” (command), but accidently said “kask” (birch tree) but the Estonians heard “pask” (a more offensive form of the word crap) so I was glad I got that cleared up.
One thing I just remembered that freaked me out is the way that Americans use “What’s up?” as a greeting rather than a question. They don’t really want to know what’s up, its how they say hi. An American would say “what’s up” or “how’s it going” and I’d answer. Then they’d give me a weird “I asked for your name not your life story!” kind of look. I thought those were questions, not greetings! When I say “What’s up?” I’m asking a question. One example of this is when I came out of the pool I saw one of the Americans I kind of knew playing a card game I didn’t recognize. So I walked up to him and said, “Hey, what’s up?” to which he replied “What’s up?”. An awkward silence ensued while I tried to figure out why he had answered my question with a question. “Umm, well I just got out of the pool…” at this point he gave me one of those odd ‘I wasn’t asking’ type looks so I just said “What are you doing?” then I finally found out the answer to my original question and got in on the game. I’m hoping I won’t have more experiences like that when I move to America. Because to me a question is a question, a greeting is a greeting. Don’t mix them up or you start destroying the language.
Anyway, that night was dancing. I really feel enormously proud of how I danced. I normally am a horrendous dancer, but I did quite well. And the girls noticed. And I noticed that they noticed. And I was happy. And I must point out that I was wrong, Liis did not throw me, someone bumped into us. That’s her side of the story anyway. All I know is that we went flying. But I do think it’s very likely that someone bumped into her from behind, causing us to careen crazily into another pair. I really don’t like polka dancing. It’s already awkward to put your hands on a girl’s hips, but then to spin around and try not to trip or smash into other people while also trying to keep a relaxed and gentle grip on the girl is nearly impossible. But all the other dances were rather easy and fun. I resent my mothers comment that my constantly referring to Mariliis as “Mariliis, my first Estonian crush” is reminiscent of the way the bible says “Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus” Especially because my mom called her M. I don’t want people to get confused about this, because I say horrible things about the person I call M. But M. doesn’t stand for Mariliis. M. stands for someone else. But speaking of Mariliis can actually bring me to my next point…
I mentioned full circle moments. Mariliis is one of those full circle people. I never did anything more in the other post than to explain that other than that she was one of my first Estonian crushes. When I first moved to Estonia I was a very lonely person. I had no friends, and, very unlike today, I was terrified of girls. But because I didn’t want to be a hermit I went to the Kolgata Baptist church youth group as a way of getting out of the house. If you went back and read some of my earliest posts then you could probably read about my experiences there. But as I was saying, I was a very lonely person, and I was trying to learn Estonian, but I had no inspiration. So I searched and searched for an inspiration, and I found it in the face of two beautiful Estonian girls from Kolgata, Kristi and Mariliis. For some reason Kristi wasn’t at EC, I don’t know why. But anyway, in my early days of Estonian learning, whenever I was feeling tired and worn out, I would remember my goal, my inspiration. Those two girls who I was desperate to talk to. So in a way it was with Mariliis’s unconscious help that I learned Estonian. I never actually did ever get to talk to her. At least not until this English Camp. But it was still special for me, especially remembering the time when I went to a camp that Kolgata did, and that Mariliis tried her best to translate for me, and now here I was translating at English Camp. It was good.
Day 2, March 18, 2008
Anyway, it was on this day that I started translating. Chris Kelly, one of our leaders, was explaining why we were joining groups and he said “…and we’re also joining to try to help bridge the language gap. Chris, you’re pretty strong in your Estonian, right?” I had kind of been day-dreaming a little and jumped and said “Oota, mida? I mean, sorry, what? Oh yeah, strong enough.” He smiled at me and said “well then, Chris, you’ll be doing translation.” So that was how I ended up translating. I had mixed feelings about translating, because of course I had told everyone that I speak Estonian, and I was now quite worried that I was going make myself look like an idiot. But I only really messed up once (the whole käsk, kask, pask, thing) so in the end I did pretty good. And people were actually impressed. I’m not used to being impressive. And as I said in the other post, this camp did great things for my self-esteem. I need this confidence in my Estonian. Because this isn’t the only time I’ll be needed for translation. So I’m very glad things worked out as they did. I’m also extremely glad the Kertu was in our group to handle any English-Estonian translation. It’s much easier to translate into your mother tongue. And doing much English-Estonian would have killed me.
After this was free time, and this is where I will talk about my thoughts on the outreach bits of English Camp. Let me start out by saying that I think that English Camp, Going Up, Lift, all that stuff is great, and is doing lots of good things. But. There’s always a “but”. I don’t always agree with the methods. I think I hold myself to a much higher standard than most Christians because I believe what it says in Matthew 6:22 is very important. “"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” it’s like the good old “be careful little eyes what you see” song. And I believe it is important to control what goes into my mind through my eyes and ears. They always play great music at EC. But then again not all of it is great. I was talking with two of the Americans who had come this is the conversation we had…American guy: “Have you ever heard the real lyrics to this song? It’s horrible!”American girl: “The real lyrics? This is bad enough already!”Guy: “No, this is the edited version, the real version is much worse.”Me: “Then why play this music? There’s tons of other good music out there that’s not like this.Girl: “Remember Chris, this is outreach…”At this point I was filling up with holy indignation, but it wasn’t my place to start shooting out my thoughts on the subject so I kept quiet. If we, as Christians, lower our standards for outreach how can we expect the people we reach out to to change their lives once they are Christians? “This song is a stumbling block to me, and I used to love it before I was a Christian, but once I learned about God I learned this song is going directly against his teaching and will for my life. I deleted it off my computer, but every time I go to a Christian event I hear it blasted!” Do you see the contradiction we create? In church we are holy, but out in the world, to tell people about Jesus, we roll in the sinful muck ourselves. I also was surprised by their choice of movie. Kingdom of Heaven. Is there any movie that can portray Christianity in a worse way? I tried to watch it, but 5 minutes in a priest is coming to a guy and saying “I am your priest, and I know your wife is burning in hell right now. If you don’t go on the crusade she’ll burn forever.” So first off the priest is being a jerk, but then our hero, the blacksmith, takes the red hot sword he’s been working on and stabs the priest. What a nice way to die. I almost left at this point, but then I thought maybe there will be some real plot, maybe this movie will be worth watching anyway. 5 minutes later Orlando Bloom is still looking sexy and has met up with some other crusaders and then some men ride up and say “we are from the bishop, that dude killed a priest, he’s under arrest” then those holy crusaders, crosses on their armor and prayers on their lips reply “you can’t arrest him if you’re DEAD!” I left at the point where the German berserker kept on fighting despite having an arrow through his neck. Nasty stuff. And such a beautiful portrayal of the part of Christian history that we should all be most proud of. I’m hoping my sarcasm is making it’s point. My friend Edgar stayed through the whole movie. Through all of EC he’d been complaining about how everyone kept talking about, as he put it, the “bla, bla, God stuff” but that night he was complaining about how sickening that movie was. I’ll remember its outreach when we stay Christian while we reach out.
Day 3, March 19, 2008
I hope I didn’t offend anyone with that little rant, but I feel very strongly about this. But I have the highest regards for English Camp and all its leaders. Craig’s talk about fear did a lot for me. And it still is. I’m now living fearlessly. Self-defense was really fun. Hmm, what else…I really used up all my topics on the other EC08 post. Craig’s talk about Jesus was good. I don’t know if anyone got saved, but I sincerely hope so. I guess the next thing I could talk about would be playing Phase 10 with Kelli and Aliina. Please forgive me, Aliina, for spelling your beautiful name wrong in the EC post. I really like nothing better then sitting with girls and playing games. This is going to sound really weird, but I’ll say it anyway. I’ve done a lot of things with girls, and the most enjoyable, most beneficial, and overall best things did not involve any physical contact, but simply a game of cards or the telling of a few jokes. That may sound weird, but it’s true. I was blissfully happy during that game. I was sad that it had to end. But then we played later, and I was happy then too. So the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and his games.
Day 4, Final day, March 20, 2008
Waking up knowing it’s the last day you’ll see someone can be a rather depressing experience. I know most people think that it’s really not that bad because of the internet and stuff, but I really don’t like talking on the computer so much. I still do it a lot out of necessity, but nothing beats face-to-face talking. But then playing Knight, Horseman, Cavalier was great. I’ve never been good at that game because I’m not the strongest guy around. But Mariliis was perfect. But I just have to wonder and kind of kick myself, why did it take me this long to get this great? I was holding Mariliis in this strong, manly way. Why couldn’t I have done that years ago instead of embarrassing myself horribly by dropping girls? But standing there, beautiful girl in my arms, I really did just realize that now I had come full circle. From the boy who was scared of girls, couldn’t speak Estonian, and wasn’t strong enough to even think about holding them up, I was now the man who chatted easily with girls, in either Estonian or English, and was now easily holding a beautiful girl in my arms. It took me time to get this good. But I’m glad I made it.
After that we left, and now I’m home. Kelli got a FaceBook so now I don’t need to go on Orkut, but I will anyway. Aliina I haven’t been able to track down anywhere. And Mariliis is my friend on Orkut and just added me on FaceBook. And Liis is my friend everywhere. Anyway, must be going now, I’ve written another 6 pages on MS word. This post if roughly the same length as the EC08 post. So I hope you’re happy. But now I’m going to be babysitting this afternoon, so Cya!
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