In other news...

[mamainak]

• I am active again in CouchSurfing as a host, not sure if I mentioned it. Since I don't see my friends I am a bit bored and lonely so I have these people coming over, why not, if I have free time and a free bed.


First I had a 32 yr old woman from Canada, self-named Tesla. She's a bit of an odd-ball. I mean, as a surfer she's nice. But her life...She's 32, no working experience, always short on money, no education, her goal is to just travel and have fun and she has 2 kids. I asked her where are her kids now, when she's traveling around the world. She says one kid is with his father and other one is with a family from the same street she lives in. I said "Oh staying with friends during the summer" She goes: "Oh, no, they want to keep her forever" O.o

She says that she thinks she has a capacity to be a mother but she doesn't want to. She wants to live her life the way she likes it and kids just don't belong there. After 7 years she decided she doesn't want to be a mother anymore.
Ok. Now, we know that accidental pregnancies happen, so you can either keep it, abort it or give up for adoption. She decided to keep it. But the second happened, too.
The tricky thing with kids...they are not for 'temporary'. They are a life long obligation, right? But as we all know, there are women who give birth but truth be told, they are just not good mothers or mother material or they just didn't want them. So, the best option was to give them to someone who will love them and want them...but why wait years?? I honestly tried to stay objective, open-minded and non-judgemental...but something was shouting in my head "That's just wrong! So selfish!"

Then I tried to imagine myself in such situation: if I got pregnant but didn't want to abort and gave it a shot, actually tried to make an effort to be a good mother, but then realised that I don't feel like a mother and that there is something else in this world I want to do, how I want to live...what would I do? Because kids ARE a lifelong duty, I could either stick to it, trying to be a good person - do the right thing, my responsibility - and raise them without love and resenting them for living the life I didn't want...or give them up, let someone who wants them to take care of them and go on with my life.

I just...I don't know what to think.

Would you call it selfish? Cold? Irresponsible? Reckless, most probably. You can't 'undo' kids though. So you have to either live with it or try to 'fix' it the best you can. Do you think people's thoughts would be the same if she was a man? When mother leaves her kids behind it's absolutely awful, a crime, but when I man...

She says she's living her dream. Just traveling around and enjoying, without any commitments. Wouldn't we all want to live the life as we wanted?

Second person was a girl from Chicago, USA, Alena. She's been living in a little French town called Blois (pronounced 'blah' but I'm sure French manage to say it with more dignity and more style) for 2 and a half months with her friend who's been teaching English in a French school. She has a degree from English literature and creative writing and she actually got a job as a teacher in Rennes in the autumn. But now she's traveling around Croatia for few weeks and then going back to USA. She's one of the people I got along the most while hosting...Really easy going, smiling and laughing, loves the same music & films, same zodiac sign even, haha, talks to herself just like me...It was so funny when we went to the fruit and vegetable market, I tought her how to pick vegetables :P And while we were going around the market we spoke in English so when we came to a stall with peaches I translated to the owner what she wants and the man goes: "Your Croatian in great!" XD Later on, we also passed by some lady that said "Look, this one even knows some Croatian!" ahahaha, we cracked up! It happened one more time when we went to buy her a beach towel (btw, she chose the ugliest one on purpose, on My Little Pony, lol!) and the woman also told me that my Croatian is great and I said "But I AM a Croat!" and she goes "I know, but you're probably one of the kids of our emmigrants"* Ego boost for my language skillz? Damn straight. :P

*There are lots of Croatian immigrants in Canada and Australia

Talking about English, my CPE results are in 5 daaaaaays! I'm getting nervous, I wasn't before. :/ I hope Harry's birthday is going to bring me some luck! And OMG Harry is 29!!!!! O.o

Also, she was reading a book while staying at my place but she finished it and gave it to me. So now I'm a proud owner of the book I wanted to read for a long time, Picture of Dorian Gray :D

And my third surfers were two cousins, guy & girl from Latvia, Guntis & Liga. They are traveling by hitchhiking (as many of my surfers) so 2 days ago they decided to go to Krka national park, which is close to the town of Šibenik but they came a bit late to enter the park so they went to the beach there somewhere and when they wanted to go back to Split they couldn't get a car to drive them back so they slept in the park, poor things. In the morning they finally went to the NP and came back late in the evening, just when I was in the cinema.

My next (and last for this season) surfers are friends (guy & girl) from London, they were supposed to come today but they have some transport problems near Pula so they're coming tomorrow...oh well


• And while I was here I found my mum a new subtenant, a student girl to rent a room to. AND since my room is going to be empty for almost whole August and September I found her some people via couch surfing who will pay for their stay in my room. The price we set is cheaper than most hostels, so people liked the idea. I'm glad my mum is getting some extra money, especially because she paid for my plane ticket...
  
• Also, remember than internet traffic drama? Well, um, it was my fault, indirectly. So what happened: I downloaded an uTorrent program which I usually use on my laptop (that i left in London) so I can download this but I obviously didn't put limit on the traffic so my laptop/utorrent was seeding that same film. *facepalm* That's what ate over 10 Gbs. Grrr
  
• Oh I saw a VERY cheap ticket with Ryanair for Dublin!!! I wanted to go to Edinburgh again, actually, and wanted to take the train but the cheapest ticket was around 100 pounds and cheapest plane ticket was 60 (imagine that - plane cheaper than the train!) and then I saw the offer for Dublin for only 30 pounds (return ticket!). I really really really want to go! :D Hopefully I the offer will be up for some time, until I plane things out, and tell my new employers (well, the trip would be on weekend so it's none of their business actually, but just in case they really need babysitting or something) And I hope to get a host via CS, should be easier when traveling by myself...
  


• I decided to improve my italian and learn spanish and perhaps some french and portugese. I found people on gumtree (under Skill and Language swap category) who need English prractice (mostly italians and spanish people, ehehehe) so I'll go and meet them when I'm back in London. Also, there is a website for learning new languages, Livemocha and BBC's Languages Worth trying...