There is only one word with which to describe how I’ve been doing lately: Hästi, Hyva, Hurasho, Beuno…Good!

That third one, “Hurasho”, is supposed to be Russian, just in case you’re wondering. Some days I have trouble finding words to use to describe how I’ve been doing or feeling. Sometimes there are just no words bad enough. Sometimes there are just no words mad enough. Sometimes there are just no words sad enough. Sometimes there are just no words glad enough! Wow, that’s catchy! Maybe I should write a song! Maybe later. Anyway, I’ve been doing very well, and I’m going to tell you all about it. Why have I been doing so well? Lots of reasons. Let’s start on Friday…

Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…Last Friday, here in Tallinn, Estonia we (my Family and I) were debating what to do. We’re on vacation at the moment, but if we stay in Tallinn than my parents will end up working anyway. Many ideas were proposed, but the final decision was that we go to Finland on the SuperStar, the new Tallinnk boat, which, because it’s new, is having a special deal that let us go for super cheap. But the only problem was that if I went to Finland I would both miss youth group at the Methodist church AND waste a Saturday in one of the world’s most boring countries (unless you’re a goth). So we devised and excellent plan. A plan so wonderful, so amazing, that it would make me happy until today, Wednesday, when I’m writing this post fresh off the boat from Finland. We decided that I would stay home and guard the empire until Sunday night, when I would join my family in Finland. This meant I had tons of glorious time alone to do nothing but sit around and…No, that would be boring. So as I told in my last post, I rounded up my homeys, or homies, or homos, or…wait a minute, let’s just say friends. And I spent the day over at Kristi and Michael’s house playing Phase 10 with them and Keit and chatting, and eating brownies and drinking milkshakes. Now that already sounds like paradise, but the good times didn’t end there.

Because we couldn’t stand to be away from each other we all packed up our bags and headed to Rakvere for the night, planning to explore the castle and help out Michael’s adopted Estonian mother. It was great, Michael’s Estonian best friend’s mother has kind of adopted Michael, meaning that she was very nice and loving and letting us stay at her house despite the fact that she’d only expected Michael and Kristi and Keit and I tagged along too. I had lots of fun mostly because if you put Kristi, Michael, Keit and I into a blender and blended us up the result would be pure liquefied fun. Actually it would probably be a really nasty mix of blood and bone chips and…yuck! Being with Michael is especially fun because we’re pretty similar. We just laugh at a lot of the same stuff. And I was also thrilled to find out that he also plays Heroes (HOMM), I was just saying recently how much I’d love to play against a human because of the stupidity of computers. We also both thoroughly enjoyed playing with the collection of medieval weaponry and armor at Rakvere castle. In the picture up there Michael and I got into a little fight and decided to fight to the death over who would get the first sausage off the grill later. Of course we were both too amazingly skilled, and therefore neither of us died. But I still got the first sausage! Another interesting thing was that we all slept in the same room. 2 guys, 2 girls, 1 party. We played Phase 10 until we got tired. And I left Keit gasping on the bed next to me. Now, that sounds very suggestive, but of course it was meant to. In the course of the night Keit realized that I can do an Australian accent that could only fool some who thought Australia is between Florida and Mexico, A.K.A. an idiot. But Keit seems to thinks it’s hilarious, so I kept speaking with my horribly fake Aussie accent and talking about blimey dingoes, mate. She was laughing so hard…I really don’t know why she thought it was so funny, it irritates everyone else, but I think I sound rather cool with an Australian accent.

It was kind of funny because I was thinking about it later and I realized that that was the most pleasure either of us was going to get from the opposite sex in a long time. Pleasure for me because I love making people laugh, pleasure for her because of my great accent. I because I’m committed to staying single until I find someone I’d be willing to marry (judging from the women I know now it’s going to be a LOOOOOOONNNGGGG time), and Keit because she’s committed to staying single until she’s 18. I actually only just found out about Keit’s thought’s on waiting to date, and I think it’s awesome. Kudos to you Keit, why do you have to be so young? Joking, joking…Anyway, back to where I was. So we had a great time in Rakvere. We went to the castle and had loads of fun. And we got a family ticket because we’re so obviously a family. I actually thought it was really funny when Michael’s adopted mom asked me if I’m his brother. We did yard work and had fun with that too. I carried a mountain of rocks and we built a beautiful little rock wall around part of the garden. Then we were planning on grilling in the yard, but I needed to get back to Tallinn so that I could go to Finland. If I missed my boat that would be BAD. So I had time to quickly eat two sausages and then run. I was about to congratulate myself for making it to the bus station one minute early when I looked around. No bus. I went in the bus station and asked the lady. “The bus just left”. Why would the bus leave early? How could they do this to me? So I had to wait an hour and a half for the next bus, which got me to Tallinn with no time to spare. Everyone was worried I wouldn’t make it to the harbor in time. I would say you can’t keep a good man down, but you can, I’ve been there, man (what were the Newsboys thinking when they rhymed man and man?). But at least you can’t keep this good man down. I’ve got luck streaming out of my fingers and toes, so I made it there with time to spare despite all the odds against me. I just rock. But I still fill a little upset at the bus drivers. Why would the bus I want leave early and the bus I take leave late? Annoying.

Anyway, I took the boat to Finland and enjoyed all the many benefits of traveling alone (I might blog about that later) and then spent the last 2 days in Helsinki with my family. We had fun, we did lots, but I don’t feel like blogging all that right now, I want to take a shower. Maybe I’ll blog about that later too. Finland I mean, not the shower. Anyway, I’m off to go make myself smell good, bye!

“Why haven’t you blogged Chris? I love it when you blog! When you don’t blog I cry! And it’s really sad. And I miss your sexy writing SOOO much!"

That’s what everyone’s been saying, so I thought I should probably blog to keep you all from going insane. Why haven’t I blogged in over a week? Well, my cousins Jennifer and Bryan were here, and Bryan was staying in my room. I normally blog between 9 and 10 P.M. in my room with the lights low and some cool mood music playing. At the moment I’ve got some Black Eyed Peas playing because I’m in such a rockin’ mood. But anyway, I was busy every night except for one night when I sat down to blog and realized that after writing 3 pages I had only covered the first day and a half of my cousins visit. And despite the fact that this is a chronicle I don’t want have the time or the energy to chronicle all that. I’d been planning to write everything so that my aunt would know how much fun her kids had, but I just can’t do it. So anyway, I’ll just give you the shortened version. Cousins came, we had fun, they left. There. All done! Naw, not that short! Okay, let me flesh that out. Cousins came, we had LOTS of fun, they left. See? Now I can go take a shower. No, not yet. My laptop will have to live with the stench for a bit longer.

Well, I really do need to abridge this, but I may or may not write a better version later. On Friday my cousins came and stayed until Thursday morning. I gave them the best tour of Tallinn it’s possible to give, they saw Laulev Revolutsioon (The Singing Revolution), and they came to the corps. We also went to Loksa, Rakvere, Narva and Tartu (In that order). So they really got the best tour of Estonia possible without living here for 4 years. They saw things I hadn’t seen until I went with them. Lucky, lucky, they so lucky! Sorry, I just switched from B.E.P. to Franz Ferdinand. So they had a very good visit, and I was very happy to see them. We had loads of fun. And I really do need to blog about everything that happened. There was some really funny stuff. Like me mixing up Onions and Russians, which is understandable because they both make you cry, just like ogres! Bad racist joke. Bad Chris, bad. Don’t be such a nationalistic patriotic Estonian! Whatever.
Anyway, only one person actually said they miss my blog, and they didn’t say it in the words I used in the title of this post. Though I know she meant it. But anyway, my parent’s are off partying in Finland which leaves me home to party. Which is great for me, I can do FaceBook, YouTube, MSN and all that good stuff! But yesterday was Methodist church Youth Group and I knew that if I didn’t do something I would spend Saturday alone and bored. So I rounded up my homeys, or peeps, or whatever you call your friends these days, and did the diabolical role call. I left out Maximilian Pegasus because he creeps me out, but Michael, Kristi, Keit, Anneli, Evelin and I all agreed we should do something together on Saturday. Something fun, something cool. Something just plain great! So once I finish this blog post I’m going to take a shower and beautify myself and then head over to Michael and Kristi’s with a bag full of games and fun stuff. And I’m bringing brownies too! I just rock! It’s going to be fun. I just hope Anneli and Evelin aren’t too lazy to wake up! Anyway, now I’m gonna get going. I hope you’re happy Keit, I know you missed my blogging, and I will do my best to keep it up! Cya!

Stockmann rocks, man!

Dude, I like totally stood at Stockmann today. It was all like, gnarly and awesome dude. It was groovy. I was all like “Sweet!” and the other dude was all like “Awesome!” and I was all like “Dude…” And then we were both totally like “Whoa!” Not really. Though those 4 sentences sound really funny if you read them out loud, dude. But anyway, I know you love hearing about me collecting money at Stockmann so I’ll try to tell you all about it. The only problem is that I don’t remember any of the interesting stuff. I know there were a few times when I was like “I need to write this down, that was awesome” but because I was busy doing other things I couldn’t write things down. And I know I thought of some really witty sentence but now I can’t remember! No! Anyway, I’ll do my best to point out some highlights.

The biggest highlight is that I did the best of anyone that day, as far as amount of money. And standing for 3 hours in full uniform makes me deserve it! I actually had a really good day today. Normally nobody gives any money and I stand there getting more and more bored until to relieve the monotony I start counting the number of people in between those who give me money. The only problem is that once I get into the hundreds I start getting pretty depressed. But today I never got that bored. I decided to start praying for people, something I’ve done before but have usually gotten bored of. But today it was actually quite interesting, because people with limps, or screaming kids, or nasty scowls, or some other anything kept walking by and giving me a reason to pray for them. It was quite exciting. One of my favorite people whenever I’m standing at Stockmann is the security guard. Last year some other company bought Falck, and it seems their first move was to fire all the guards I recognized. So I had a nice new guard today. He was a rather tall and gangly fellow with glasses, but despite that I could tell he had some hidden inner strength behind what might not seem the proper physique for a security guard. And I think I saw what that hidden strength was. He was nice. When some guys laughed at me (I’m used to it, I do look pretty funny in that hat) he quickly looked over at me with genuine concern, causing me to give him a quick smile and he gave me a respectful nod in return. And when people walked past him, rather than scowl menacingly like so many other guards, he’d give them a respectful little nod and a small smile. And when one lady set off the alarm because one of the things she bought didn’t register as being paid for, he talked with her nicely, joking and helping her rather than being a jerk when she’d done nothing wrong. I swear I have never seen a nicer security guard! It’s funny that he made such an impression on me when we never talked, but I guess this is just another case of actions speaking louder than words.

When collecting money at Stockmann I have two goals. Most people think there’s only one, but in reality there are two. The first goal of course is to collect as much money as possible to support the work of our beloved Salvation Army. The second goal, and the one which I often think is more important, is letting people know we’re there. The Salvation Army hasn’t been in Estonia very long, less than 15 years, and so we’re pretty much unknown, unlike in America or England where we are known and respected. So I always have a pile of “Mis on Päästearmee?” (“What is The Salvation Army?”) papers ready to hand and give one to anyone who asks or gives money. And that’s actually primarily what I do when at Stockmann. I went through a ton of papers today, and people actually were reading them! There have been times when I give someone a paper and watch as they throw it into the trash. But today I saw everyone I gave a paper to actually reading it! And one very special time a woman came up to me and said, “The Salvation Army right?” and commenced putting in money, then when I tried to give her a paper she said, “No, thank you. I know what you do. God bless you.” That was cool.

But there’s one thing I’m still kicking myself for. The guy I mentioned earlier who laughed was quite interesting. It’s not unusual to be laughed at when I’m in uniform, I got laughed at at least 5 times today, and that’s just the laughs I saw. But this guy was different. He was about my age and as he walked past with his 2 buddies he gave out this harsh, cruel laugh. One of those laughs that leaves no doubt in your mind that they are laughing at you, and not with you. I don’t know how to describe this laugh other than thoroughly unpleasant. But I didn’t mind, I just smiled and put two fingers to the visor of my hat in a quick salute. I’m sure the guy didn’t have any animosity towards me, so I didn’t hold his laughing against him. The world needs more laughter, so a day when someone can laugh because of me is a day well spent. But then I did something very stupid later. Because my laughing friend was such a joker as he walked out with a bag of gummy bears he asked me if I wanted one. And without thinking how much I really like gummy bears, and how good that gummy bear would taste after two hours of standing, I automatically laughed and said no thank you. Why didn’t I take a gummy bear! Now I’ve got like a gummy bear craving! Dang it, I’ll need to go buy some.

Another interesting thing that happened was that someone bowed to me. He walked in kind of slowly and then stopped and looked at me. Then he went to the other side of the room and looked at me some more. Then he slowly walked up to me and bowed, low, from the waist. For a second I was shocked, and so I did the only thing I could think of. I threw a true Salvation Army salute, pointing to heaven, and, not sure how to say “To God be the glory” in Estonian, I just said “Ei, Jumalale.” or “No, to God.” and I pretty sure he understood. Then he smiled at me and left.

And I think that just about sums up all the excitement. I’m pretty sure there was more, but I don’t remember. If I do I’ll write it later! But I have some prayer requests, because I believe so many of my readers are Christians. First of all please pray that some of these people I talked to today come to the corps! On the paper I gave them is the address, and Tiit (A fellow soldier who stood) says he invited one lady. So let’s pray we get some now people! Also, tomorrow (Tuesday, which will be today by the time you read this) will be quite an interesting day for me. My dad is off to Finland early in the morning and then my mom is off to Narva in the afternoon. I have 2 hours at Stockmann at then babysitting until late that night. Plus, getting some school and housework done would be nice. So please pray for me that I can have the patience and skill to juggle it all. Thanks, good night!

Last night I had a dream…

Well, that just about says it. Last night I had a dream. But what made this dream interesting (and therefore worth mentioning) is the way it let me view my life. Lately I’ve been feeling weird. And I don’t mean I’ve been feeling like a weird person, I mean I’ve been feeling strange emotions. I’m not quite sure what exactly I’m feeling. But this dream definitely gave me an image. So allow me to tell you about it…

Everything was dark. But I was aware of the darkness, so I knew I wasn’t asleep. I heard the sound of waves crashing, and I opened my eyes. I didn’t move, but I looked around. Up above me I saw the moon, shining bright against a black sky. I was lying on my back on a rock, cold and hard, in the middle of the sea. Far off in the distance I could see cliffs, with the waves crashing against them. A gentle breeze played in my hair. And still I didn’t move. I closed my eyes and listened to the surf crashing around me. And though my eyes were closed I could still see. But I saw myself from outside my body. It was as if I were floating above the waves, looking down on my body, alone on the rock in the sea. Yet I still felt what my body felt. I felt the cool breeze on my face, and heard the pleasant ocean sounds around me, and felt the cold stone against my back. And as I saw myself lying there alone, the world began to fade to black…

Then this morning I woke up with this dream still in my memory. It wasn’t a nightmare. Because as I lay on the rock I felt nothing but peace, and calm. No fear of the waves. No fear of the loneliness. I was alone, yet, somehow, happy. I was at peace. And this dream really let me look at my life in a new way. I’ve been feeling strange lately. I’ve been lying alone in the middle of the sea on a dark night, the waves of life crashing around me. Yet I’m happy. Sometimes when I write posts like this I think you guys all just think I’m mental. But, this is my life. I lie on the rock in the sea of life. Happy, and calm, and filled with peace and joy and the breeze plays through my hair and over my face.

“Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.” Psalm 95:1

I’m green with envy! Green like a frog, or an ogre, or some mutant ogre frog thing! Cool, mutant ogre frog…

Green with envy? What the? Ogre frog? Yes, I am completely crazy. But yes, this post does have a point…somewhere. Lately I’ve been feeling very envious. Not jealous, envious. Why envy over jealousy? Because they have 2 different definitions as I will explain later. Why have I been feeling envious…well, lots of reasons. But before I get to them let’s say it’s later and get to those definitions. My handy-dandy “Miriam-Webster’s Reference Library Dictionary” (say that 10 times fast! ;-p) defines being jealous as, “suspicious of a rival or of one believed to enjoy an advantage.” But that is not how I feel. Though I just need to say that I always thought that envy and jealousy were synonymous, but they’re not. My afore mentioned handy-dandy whatsit defines envy (or “en vie” as I could spell it if I wanted to look cool) as, “painful or resentful awareness of another's advantages” and that is how I feel. Now we will, as they say, get to the meat of the matter. But before the excitement I just want to ask if anyone notices that my writing is especially whimsical and witty today? Does anyone? If not I must ask your permission to bury my face in my hands and mourn my fate. Why is my writing supposed to be more whimsical and witty? Well, because I decided something today. I’ve decided that if I had to describe my writing style I would want it described as a cross between Charles Dickens and P. G. Wodehouse. And because I believe that my writing style is already very close to a cross between these two great writers it won’t take me much work to master a style that I will call the Dickens/Wodehouse style for now, though when I’m famous it will be known as the Chris Clark style. I can’t wait for the day when people say, “I want my writing style to be a cross between C. J. Clark and (insert great writer here)!” But that day is far off, and I won’t bring it closer by wasting time, only by writing more in the C. j. Clark style!

Anyway, enough calling myself C. J. Clark, I’m starting to feel my head expanding. I’m not famous enough yet to scrap my first name. I’m not like J. R. R. Tolkien or J. K. Rowling or P. G. Wodehouse yet, though I hope to be someday. But back to my original point, envy, the green faced ogre frog monstrosity, has come back into my life. I’m usually envious of someone. Envious in that, as the description says, I am painfully, and often resentfully, aware of another’s advantages. I’m sure you’re wondering who on earth could have advantages over the great C. J. Clark, but you’d be surprised. One such person is Tanel, a guy at our corps. Last Sunday, while I tried in vain to go out with my friends, Tanel did the unthinkable. Remember when I blogged about that amazing incarnation of female beauty at the Methodist who is so shockingly beautiful that even guys who have a girl resistance as high as mine are stopped dead in their tracks and reduced to slobbering idiots. I’m serious, a girl hasn’t had this effect on me by looks alone for years. Well, Tanel actually took this amazing beauty out for pizza! PIZZA! Once you’ve had pizza with a girl there’s just no turning back! Now I’m filled with an overflowing envy that is spilling out my ears! My ears I tell you! It’s that insane! Just look at all those exclamation points! So now I’m filled with this horrible “why him?” feeling. I don’t always have the highest opinion of Tanel. But he has the advantage over me in a few ways. He is outgoing to the point of being annoying, and he’s fearless to the point of stupidity. I am outgoing with my friends but try to keep my cool when with those I don’t know so well. And also I weigh every situation and think through every little detail before I do anything. So, as Anneli pointed out so aptly, the biggest reason why this girl went out with Tanel and not me is because Tanel asked her.

But, as my mom pointed out equally aptly, I go out with beautiful girls all the time. I just quoted a beautiful girl, Anneli. So I really have no reason to be envious of Tanel. But I am anyway. But I can tie this in with that “As Iron sharpens iron” post and say that from now on I’ve decided to adopt something of a “nothing to lose” attitude, at least sometimes, because of Tanel. But I’m not only feeling envious of Tanel. I’m just feeling envious of…pretty much everyone! You get to read my blog, you lucky little things. I have trouble finding writing as interesting as my own. That’s why I read P. G. Wodehouse books whenever I can, because he’s the best I can find. And I’m envious of all those guys with girlfriends, and all those men with wives, and all those people who speak Estonian perfectly, and all those good looking people, and all those rich people, and all those smart people, and all those respected people, and all those…everyone. It’s quite hard to be me. But then I remember how many people I’m sure might envy me. I think in truth we’re all in the same boat here. The grass is always greener under that guy’s feet. I just need to learn to be content. And it wouldn’t hurt to get to know that incarnation of feminine charm a little better. But anyway, I’ve just written you yet another self-absorbed and pointless blog post. I hope you enjoyed it. And I hope you’re envious, because that grass I’ve got here really is pretty green…

With love,C. J. Clark

“As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.”

That is one of my favorite quotes, a great little verse from proverbs. I’ll repeat it just because I’m so horrendously repetitive. “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.” Proverbs 27:17. This is something I’ve always thought about with my friends. I’ve always prayed that I am sharpening them, and I do my best to sharpen them. But many times I’ve felt like I don’t have any friends who sharpen me. Because when I read this verse before I used to think it meant something like, “You should have amazingly godly friends who you will be so in awe of that you will want to be just like them!” But I’ve never really had a friend who I could look up to in that way. But I was feeling a little irritated with my friends today because they were making some choices I didn’t completely agree with and they knew my feelings on the subject so I was just holding my peace. And then I realized something when I read this verse. How does iron sharpen iron? Is it by setting the two pieces next to each other and letting them sit comfortably? No, that wouldn’t do anything, and given enough time it would make them dull. You make iron sharp by smashing it against another piece of iron! By rubbing them together, through the friction between them they sharpen each other. And I realized something. I never really had a friend I could look up to, but I honestly doubt it would do much good, because I would just end up feeling inadequate. But smashing against my friends is what sharpens me. The friction between us sharpens me. Through the clashes with my friends I am constantly defining who I am and what I believe, sharpening myself to a razor edge. And I’ve realized that it is not through sitting next to a sharper piece of iron that I sharpen, it is through clashing with other iron.

So anyway, there’s my thoughts on Proverb’s 27:17. Give me some feedback. I’m getting lonely out here. Leave me a comment, through FaceBook or Blogger, anything. Tell me what you think of my writing lately. But now I must go, Cya!

Thank you Hansapank!

"Eighteen. You (yourself) choose with whom to marry, what you drink and where to start work. And when you end (stop)."

Hansapank just realised I'm eighteen and decided to send me this cool picture. The whole point of the E-mail was to tell me to start doing pension stuff now (not a bad idea) and that I should do it with Hansapank. But I'm not going to because I'm heading to America soon. But I just liked this picture, so I thought I'd put it up. I'm eighteen now. Oh yeah!

Life is just so…life!

Just like everyday of my life, on Friday I had some ups, and I had some downs. The ups weren’t that up and the downs weren’t that down. But it was still something. Let me tell you all about it, because I know you love to hear about my life! It’s just what you live for, right? That’s the only explanation for why you all keep reading. Unless I’m just the hottest guy alive and you’re all hoping to marry me. All you girls anyway. If any of you guys are interested I just have to say that I’m very sorry but, no. But anyway, enough ego stroking, it’s time to begin!

That morning I woke up to a shock. I had slept in like a whole hour! No real problem of course, but still a shock. But a bigger shock was yet to come. Life likes to throw me curve balls and watch me smash them. Or more like life likes to throw pointy shuriken at me and watch me catch and return them with my mad ninja skills. But either way, I do it. So anyway, I got up and then my mother greeted me sort of like this “Good morning, you’re in charge of youth night tonight!” Because I still wasn’t fully awake I responded something like “Yeah, good morning…YOUTH NIGHT! WHAT?” Because I knew that I was not in charge of youth night, my dad was. But apparently the forces of the universe wanted to give me a little excitement, so at the last minute I got put in charge. It wasn’t that bad, but it was still annoying. I like to plan ahead (as I will complain more about later) and so when people spring things on me at the last minute I get annoyed. If you tell me something 24 hours in advance then I’m okay with it. But if you tell me 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds in advance then I won’t be happy. This was told to me 8 hours in advance. So I quickly scraped together the best thing I could, and because I’m so awesome (and because I enlisted the aid of my mother, the herald of bad news) it turned out okay. But before I can tell you what I did I have an announcement I need to make…

This summer we have a mission team coming to Estonia! 8 beautiful Christian young ladies are going to come to Estonia and be our slaves for a little while and do mission team type stuff. It’s going to be good. And so last night was focused around these 8 girls. Despite the fact that I have never met any of them I managed to get enough facts about them to play some quiz type games and then the best part was when we had a caption contest with some funny pictures of the girls that I got off their FaceBook profiles. It was quite good, despite my rush to prepare. Then after that we each got one of the girls as a prayer partner. I’ll be praying for Mhairi Smeaton, the team leader. Don’t ask me how to pronounce her name, I think maybe I’ll be able to figure it out if she tells me in person, but I I’m not quite sure. Let’s hope!

Anyway, now I want to complain about people who don’t like to plan ahead. Yesterday, while walking through Old Town on our way home I asked Anneli, Evelin and Priit if they wanted to meet up on Saturday and hang out and do anything. Anything at all. And, Priit of course, being the sensible guy that he is, said “Sure, let’s do it.” But Anneli and Evelin, being the not so sensible young ladies that they are, just fussed and whined and said they were too tired to think. And then Saturday they said they were too tired. Meaning I sat home all day trying to avoid work and wishing I could go do something. I wouldn’t be so bugged by this if it wasn’t for the fact that this isn’t the first time this has happened. But most people I know are like this. Let’s not plan, let’s be spontaneous! Ugh, whatever. We could have had so much fun, their loss…

This actually got me thinking about my friends a bit, and why they’re my friends. One of the reasons why I’m not a huge fan of sites like MySpace and Orkut is because I really don’t want to meet tons of new people. It’s not that I don’t want friends, it’s just that I prefer a few good friends over many so called “friends”. I only have so much energy, so I have always in my life tried to only have a few good friends who I stick with rather than tons of people who I kind of know. And I think this has always been good for me. I always have liked it better than when I’ve tried to juggle friends. But the only downside to this approach to friendship is that if my few good friends are busy than I have no one else to turn to. This is rather irritating, and I’m thinking of trying to do something to remedy it. Why I think I might need to find a solution to this problem is because most of my friends are the opposite of me, and have many “friends” and so are never stuck for something to do or someone to be with. So let me see…I tried hanging out at MegaGame and playing Yugioh, but that just didn’t work for me. Unlike in Tartu where it was a bunch of teens playing games, here in Tallinn it’s a bunch of 20 somethings doing business with children’s trading cards. It’s all about winning the tournament and selling your cards, not about having fun. So I quite that a while ago. Hmmm, where else could I go for friends? I guess I could try going to some of those gamer internet cafes. Man, I’m such a nerd! But to be honest that’s one of the thing I really miss. Here in Estonia I have no real “nerd” friends. I have no gamer friends. And though my nerdy tendencies have lessened quite a bit as time goes by I still miss it. In America I remember playing X-Box, GameCube, Heroes of Might and Magic III and Dungeons and Dragons every Saturday with my gamer buddies. But here I really have no one to play with. What I really long for is a friend to play Heroes IV with. I know that makes me such a nerd, but I get so sick of playing alone. Anyway, that’s a hopeless dream. But maybe someday I’ll get my wish. Maybe my Houghton roommate will be a hard-core HOMM III-IV fanatic! There’s always a chance.

Anyway, enough rambling about my nerdy hopes and dreams that will never be fulfilled. Now I must go, Cya!

Ugh, life is exciting.

Well, I haven’t blogged in a while, but I’ve been busy. The day after I wrote that post complaining about the snow the sun decided to listen to my whining and come make me happy. So the sun slaughtered the snow and now it’s so warm that I don’t have to wear my huge winter coat anymore! I still have to wear several layers of fleeces, but no big coat that makes me look like a marsh-mellow! A rather big, burned, dropped in the ashes type marsh-mellow. My coat is black and grey. So now I can walk around happily. This is what I’ve been waiting for! This is what I’ve been dreaming of! Nothing can stop my happiness now! Nothing can keep me from frolicking in the sunshine! Right? WRONG! No, my mom had to get sick. Not my mom’s fault of course. I’m pretty sure she didn’t do it on purpose. But then my brother got sick (different sickness, so not my mom’s fault, just bad coincidence) and because my sister didn’t want to be left out she started faking being sick too. She really is faking it. She is so not sick. For once in my life I’m not just making fun of her, she’s faking it and it’s irritating me. And because my dad has to go to work that leaves one person left to cook for, medicate, and basically just take care of everyone. Who could that be? Is it, could it be, me? Yup. It’s me. For some reason I have a super immune system that eats disease for breakfast, meaning I’m always healthy. So whenever people get sick I get take care of them. Fun. So rather than getting my bike out of the basement and going to exploring this brave new world filled with sun I am instead stuck in the house taking care of everybody. And it’s not easy. I’m not the most patient person for sickness, because I’m so rarely sick. So when people get sick I’m always having to work at being compassionate. And there is no greater challenge to human patience than a sick 4 year old. But as always, I will overcome…

So please do me a favor and pray that my family will get better so that I won’t have to keep slaving in the house but can dance in the sun. Thank you. I’m sorry I haven’t been blogging, but I just haven’t had any inspiration. Isn’t that weird? I was like pumping out a post a day for a while, and then BOOM no more inspiration. But now I just had to tell you what’s been going on, so be grateful. Anyway, time for sleep! Cya!