<< Hi Liba, yah, it was quite crazy during Jens’s wedding, but I was glad to spend some time with him and hang out at his house. I keep forgetting to ask but I’d like to get a hold of some pictures as well. They do not have to be high quality, or all of them, but many of me and you guys, and then some goo ones. Hope you and your grandma remain healthy.
>> That’s one of the reasons I keep inviting him to spend some time with me, to teach him how to be more independent thinking and to go after what he wants, once he discovers what that is, rather than waiting for his mommy to constantly blow his nose. I saw him when he was in Czech and couldn’t even recognise his deep voice on the phone, and was surprised how growed up he looked. But I guess it’s expected, since I didn’t seem him for so long. In any case he didn’t talk much as usual, and I might write pages of letters to him by email and he’d respond “dik” or something. I think his mother is poisoning his mind against me and she is winning a loser battle, and he is losing because of it as well. I haven’t mentioned this to him yet, and maybe never will, but I will certainly not turn into an emotional cripple if he never wants to see me again. As far as I am concerned he would be hurting himself much more than I. Anyway, I occasionally repeat my inviations to him, and if he always response so shortly he cannot expect too many letters from me. Perhaps you could email with him and it might make thing easier. Or maybe even give him partial lessons through email. He has internet and a computer at home (which I bought and set up for him), so he could study on his own time there. He needs to learn how to self-motivate himself, if he wants to accomplish anything. I’m really angry that Ilona sent the authorities after my mother. I didn’t even know they could do that. I told her she could send them after me. My mother has a different last name than me and it was entirely unnecessary. I was practically starving on the road, for one year I wasn’t even paying my own health insurance, just so I could cover alimony, and when I finally asked her and David to help me find work in the Czech Republic, they just dragged their asses, did nothing, and eventually I found out that they expected me to practically fall on my knees and beg for their help. This after so many years that I paid more than I had to, and gave them so much of my stuff before and when I left. So because they have this shit attitude they can rot. The Czech government will never get me. I even offered to hire David for a reasonable wage (more than 60 Kc per hour cash in hand), which they would have received secretly while I would still owe the Czech government for alimony. But he said he wouldn’t work until I first paid alimony. I assume they’re getting money from the government so this would only be bonus money for them. I can see how she’s feeding his mind with lazy ideas. So I have absolutely no remorse for their situation, and hopefully one day David will learn that such laziness and nothing will not get him very far in life. I think one summer of treeplanting with me will teach him some valuable lessons in life. Until then he’ll have to learn to raise a pinky finger to try and maintain some relationship with him. Otherwise I occasionally write to him and invite him again.
<< I’m in Bulgaria at the moment and plan to be about a year, since I signed a year’s contract for fast and cheap internet on my mobile. Looking forward to perusing the Black Sea once it warms up, and other parts of Bulgaria, as there are supposed to be many beautiful areas, and the country is super cheap everywhere. Now I’m staying in a pension for 5 Euro a day after I left a previous job (http://kenax.net/links/construction-chicks.html). After new year’s I should be going to the south eastern part of the country to stay with another friend and help him reconstruct his house. Started polishing my French and want to offer that instead of from Czech, cause the Czechs don’t pay much, and there isn’t really a lot of work in that language combination. But I’ve picked up some new clients, and until I feel confident enough with my French, I’ve managed to find a fair amount of work. I’m also developing some accounting software for one company, and it wants me to develop its website, so I’m getting cash from different sources and overall I find it rather interesting at the moment.
Yah, I write with K all the time, especially since I’m developing her online database for her. Once that is finished I want to make demo pages and hope that through that I’ll be able to find more customers. I find that type of work much more intelligent and interesting, and for a long time I’ve been trying to get away from translations, even though the pay can be quite good at times.
Well, good to hear from you. Wrote dad about one project I’m working on now (http://africa-charity-project.org/) but not sure if he got it. Was looking for sponsors from the rich west. I’ve been trying to get involved in charity for so long, but the responses from NGOs are so lame that I finally decided I’m just going to start my own projects. I’m getting excited about this one and hope to head down to Africa once my year is up in Bulgaria. That would be truly exciting and juicy traveling! Adio
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Well, I sent out emails to everyone asking for a loan so I could go treeplanting for summer of last year. The only ones that could help me were Fernando and Jim. I paid F back right after the summer with 25% interest as promised and in time for his wedding, but Jim I couldnt cause the season was shorter than expected, health insurance was high and unexpected, my boss jipped me out of 2,000 bucks and other factors, and I needed some money to survive, so I instead invited him for a free vacation in Cyprus. So actually I still owe him and the world’s financial crisis goes around in circles, but business is slowly picking up for me and I’m slowly paying off my mountain of debt. So essentially he bribed his way back into my life and I felt I owed it to him. Horrible eh?
yesh, im sorry too because he owes me a lot of money. anyways, i thought you were done with your friendship with him. what hanged your mind?
I guess it’s just Jim being Jim. Usually when I am not sure if someone is getting my emails I send to them from several sources, but I’ve got many emails for my work. If he just ignores you or blocks your email I guess there’s not much you can do. Sorry that it turned out this way dude.
cant wait to hear about it!
funny, if jim thinks he was wronged, why is he ignoting my emails?
will dig up the explanation and send it to ya at some point. Rather funny and personally gratifying for me. Jimbo visited me in Cyprus for a month and was talking about your financial disagreement. Not sure I remember his point of view but he seemed to believe he was done wrong, or in the right or somethin. Otherwise we do email occasionally and I actually owe him some cash.
sorry to hear about the cold. but at least youre not in edmonton where it’s even colder! yeah, bulgaria is pretty cheap. i loved sofia. so are you going to fill me in on why you got fired? and are you still in touch with jim? he owes me a ton of money… its cold here dude. i was going to drive to Sicily after I got fired but calculated that I dont have enough gascash. Besides, I think I can live more cheaply here even with the pension. 2.5L bottle of beer in the grocery store for 1.3 Euro, yum yum. Truck is okay but needs some work and another reason why Im glad Im here – labour beautifully cheap here. Hope to polish it up before I split in a year. nice cows! sounds like you’ve been keeping busy. how’s the truck going? how come you’re not sleeping in that? In Bulgaria shortly after I got fired from this joint http://kenax.net/links/construction-chicks.html Long story but the world need justice and the foreman a good crack in the face. Now Im in a neighbouring pension for 5 Euro a day waiting for a friend to get back from China so I can stay at his house for free, until it warms up. Plan to stay in this country for a year and looking forward to the BS coast. that and my quick reflexes! where are you now anyway? maybe youre so fast on the court cause your skinny white ass slices through the air like a razor blade! hey, my white ass may be skinny but once i grab a squash racket slice like ninja and cut like a razor blade! that would be radical. Already have one friend who wants to join me – although not sure how much safer I will feel crossing African borders with a 60 year old man and your skinny white ass, heh heh hmm, interesting; i like it. if things dont work out in oz in feb when i get there i’ll come join you… will speak to someone i know who is doing some business with solar pannels and maybe he can help… hey dudes, did I say I’m crazy? I know I’m crazy. Anyway, crazy people have crazy ideas and I’ve started thinking about the following. After three years on the road, surviving through internet on my mobile phone, internet café, wifi from marinas and so on, and solar panels on my roof, I started to think that this could be a feasible concept for Africa. I like to call it “One Laptop Per Village”,
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responding to your last text message and email, as some things cannot be squeezed into a simple sms. After I wrote my explanation of how things happened and I received what seemed like a blatant insinuation that I’m a prima donna, I kept my mouth shut and hoped that things would somehow be resolved during a face to face meeting. You never responded to any of my emails etc., saw your vans parked occasionally around town but never invited for beers, so what was I supposed to think? I didn’t appreciate that you docked my agreed wages after working for you for a week. This issue of paying me less while I was in Bulgaria never came up for half a year while we discussed this and while I saved up the 1500 Euro cash to get to you, nor during the month that I worked in Bulgaria before I went to Czech. I drove your truck there, paid for the gas there and back, arranged the papers which your contacts were not capable of, and was shocked that you expected me to pay for them as well. And then you called me BS when I said I could have flown out for much cheaper and stayed with numerous friends. Sure, I enjoyed the drive there but, like I wrote, I slept in the van the whole time because I did not want anything to happen to it.
Anyway, I still intend to pay back my debt to you, with interest as I offered, and I’ll work on your pages according to how you respond to my emails.
You write me a text that you’re “coming down from the mountain”, but do you expect me to run around to this pub or that looking for where you might be or where you might end up? When I received that text I stopped my cooking and was waiting. You couldn’t knock on the door or simply call me or something? In short I feel rather disappointed how things turned out. Gavin likes to blame me, saying that if I had simply agreed to work more hours I would have received my full wages and it would have been all okay. But that is not what we have agreed upon, was it? Before you left on your cruise you yourself said I could happily prune away at the trees until you got back and stay out of Gavin’s hair. But this was not the issue, as I wrote. When I repeated this to him, in front of Steve and Jane, Gavin stormed off and said, “either I go or he does”. This is not an issue of working more hours. He pot shot me in the mouth without warning and I slammed him in the face afterwards, as he quite deserved. This is BS treatment and I’m not impressed at all. Seems like you’re just making a joke out of me. For some time already I felt like a bit of a dog working there, I did not say anything, but once Steve told me he thought I was a good hard worker but that I was verbally shit on by you on a few occasions, I decided that it must have been a little too obvious for my liking. After he got paid he said he didn’t even want to spend any more time on the hill because he felt the arrogance was rife.
Since things could not have been resolved over a pleasant beer I just wanted to get this off my chest. I certainly deeply resent being called a prima donna.
Tags: Work in Bulgaria, Time to Head Back, Czech, Hard, Year