Riding the waves.. ratsutaud lained.. езжающий на волнах..

Nii.. really no way to describe things other than ups and downs. I really wish that I had more to stream consciousness about on random here and theres, though the last few weeks have been devoid of posts due to a more inward view on things. Not exactly a bad thing, just biding time and sorting things out. Tonight was one of the best nights I have had for.. a while. I confess that part of this does include the fact that it was mostly in English, given that this has become the main determinant of every action (what language it takes place in, not explicitly that it took place in English mind you). However.. yeah. Well done by all. I worked for the morning, was able to move myself into it slowly thanks to some mild food reactions (aaah feta..) from last night and the resulting good amount of much-needed sleep due to a wild schedule. Work (kohvikus.. in the cafe.. for those not caught up on this, first off, yes, second off, more explanation in time) was vaikne (quiet) for most of the day. Great time to catch up on last week's The Economist, in part due to the fact that Eastern Europe = Minneapolis = The Economist's version of the Wild West and subscription issues usually arrive a few days after publication. After work I watched some Office, all part of the US culture daily supplement (along with gun-toting and a ritual refusal of quartering troops), talked with Kim in DC for a while and made rice, then after delaying the evening with Shiraz and more Office set out to Vanalinna (to Old Town). After a fall through on some Americans being out that I randomly encountered here (not in any sense the worst thing to not happen), I scored some free espresso from another cafe and did some wild EU texting with my Japanese friend here in Tallinn. Met up with her, рукEesti boyfriend, some Soome girls, a few Czech guys and a German guy (who has intimate knowledge of northwestern Wisconsin.. ridiculous!). After several failed attempts to go into some bars we landed a spot in a semi-classy one with some live Latin music. It was.. hanging out. Obzhalis', prosto. Great conversations, great meetings and more to come. It might be the separation of work and social life, work in a long-term sense of locking down other languages, that has been missing and causing stress. Possibly it had been not previously meeting people that I could really connect with.. in the sense that I would feel comfortable hanging out either with pints of Saku or Hope and King, in any language. Life as a foreigner has its difficulties, which do not need to be solved by a reversion to a home culture entirely. Given, yes, and I continually feel this semi-religious sort of guilt, English is my native language and I do have an unfair advantage. However the energy which comes from a collection of foreigners meeting on the basis of that.. it's not purely the language specifically that I am comfortable with, but the global views and the various backgrounds of the fact; why the fuck are you in Estonia? Few of us have firm answers. Alright, some are avoiding conscription in Germany and attempting to scout out of it with 11 months of foreign social work. However that could be done in other EU countries connected by Schengen where Merckel won't track you down. So, Estonia. And few of us have firm answers. Which is exactly what the rest of us are comforted to hear.
Interesting developments to proceed. The mere possibility of this is enlivening and only sheds light on the connections between a lull in these and general waves of unsure inhabitance.
Edasi..

Ну вот, даааа собачка!

I haven't meant for a flurry of positive-sounding posts here (kaks kokku, two total) и всё-таки я общаю что вот это будет короткым (muidu ma luban et selle saab lühike.. and I promise this one will be short barring me translating everything three times). This possibly reflects the flurry of snowstorms in the last few days lifting spirits. Aside, I really enjoy the Estonian approach to plowing side-streets for cars by not plowing side streets for cars. Autod are naturally heavy and compact snow. Enough cars on the streets, enough compacted snow. Done.
What really warms my heart is when I am walking back from Rimi (Rainbow for Minnesotans) and at the crosswalk over a busy street there is a semi-drunk Russian guy running with his three year old kid across the street, holding a bottle of beer in his other hand. Once reaching the other side and walking further he drunk-lectures the kid about guard dogs in yards and how they will fuck you up.
Warm fuzzies straight to the core.

Edasi..

Сдача не надо. Tagasiraha ei vajalik. Keep the change.

Täna oli üks esimestest päevatest et ma tunnin nii kui olen kodus siin. (Today was one of the first days that I really felt like I was at home here.)

Well, home is a different sort of feeling. This was.. comfortable, pleased with things. A good haircut will do that for you. If my haircut had turned out extremely shitty, I might have been writing this from the bottle of a bottle in a ditch sapping wireless off of a homeless shack (I assume they are set up) and all of this would just be a string of characters punched from my tears falling on the keyboard. Appreciate a good haircut. Especially when it works out while speaking Russian.

Really, though.. it took a while for the feeling to develop and for me to understand what the specific flow was behind it. Over the last month, comfort and dis- of the previous have come and gone, often multiple times within the course of a few hours. Makes one a bit staggered. It takes some time for small ins and outs of thoughts and trivial occurences to have less of an impact on your overall conception of place and your life. So, I have come to attempt to ignore most of this rocking back and forth with the waves of an uprooted life. Not ignore so much, just.. deal with, and.. justify. So it takes larger happenings to really make me motion sick after a period. The little occurences keep their impact, however.. and it was one of these miniscule and usually trivial processes that gave me a fuzzy.

It is smalltalk (lobisemine).

Really, and this is one of the more difficult things to stumble into in Eastern Europe on top of that. For effective smalltalk, one needs a grip on the language at the level of a toddler (although I was really downtrodden when this 18 month old totally schooled my ass today in Estonian.. she's got it coming, just wait..). This also requires about the same level of time, dedication and immersion in the language. I was able to make remarks today three times. Ridiculous. Given, it lasted no more than a simple exchange of a sentence or two, but it is the ability to be understood and to demonstrate that you understand and can even make light of something that starts to root you into a population. The feeling is alleviating, incredibly uplifting. It also gives a new stimulus to remember words, to increase proficiency at the language from basic encouraging non-formal exchanges. Apart from these usual sentences of "Please, give me xxx" or "Excuse me sir, it isn't to my liking when you stab me" being devoid of much personality and basically mechanically reproduced utterings from a textbook, the formality of basic command and respond is tiring. I barely make every other sentence completely serious in English; this inability to joust with words has been an unrealized source of discouragement for me, apparently. Much more to go, and endlessly more up and down to come. Kuigi now, there is a renewed spark.. an increased chance of expression and things sorting out in more intricate ways. Järgmine (next), solid friends with whom this can occur.. I suggest along with this (and before this) that those dear to me in the States get your Estonian down and get over here sharpish. There is only one microbrewery in Estonia, and it is shit. I see opportunity, and free beer. These thoughts will move forth in time. Responses?

Aside of such rambling, I am shaking loose this curse of a journalist position as hard as I can, am starting a few shifts at a private cafe next week where I will speak ainult eesti keeles, applied for a Critical Language scholarship Venemaal suveks (in Russia for the summer), and have moved to the next and final stage for approval of a Fulbright scholarship here Eestis. That sentence could be another 12 paragraphs, however there is a bottle of A le Coq in my külmik. The scale weighs unevenly in this case.

Edasi..