There was a quite nice saying in one of some comments of a blog: “Although I haven’t seen/read the thing, I would like to state a personal opinion.” That is definitely what can be referred to the head of the Latvian Catholic Church. The archbishop states that he definitely has not read it, and is not even thinking about reading it. However, this man says that the book is blasphemous and he can name several facts about it. At this point I would like to stop the tape and shout out loud: “Hello?! How can you criticize anything or form a personal statement not even bothering to pay a little attention for reading the thing?” To my mind, it is nonsense. I mean, of course, he might find it completely contrary to the dogmas of the church. Of course, it is his job to maintain the prestige of his institution. Of course, that was even expected. But heeey – to judge something, you must get to know it.

Honestly, in my opinion, most of this chatter is stupid. How could reading a plain novel affect the religious belief of a sincere Christian? Do they really think that just reading the book is a sin? Maybe I do not have this ordinary attitude to the religion, but I opine that faith is something what is deep inside the person’s soul, something so true that no tome can change it. The Catholic Church again is trying to be as conservative as they can and to quench anything that can spark off. It could be just some sort of a resistance to the fact that they are losing influence in the modern world. In this case it would just be another chance for the Catholics to remind the rest of us of their existence. Anyhow, I believe that God would judge us not depending on some silly books or other trivia, but the inner part of the soul.

Or maybe the conspiracy theory sounds more reasonable? Just imagine: the more the Church cries about this “sinister and wicked” book and film, the more people they will actually attract to reading the book or watching the movie. It is the law of human nature. Negative publicity is still a sort of publicity. In fact, two excellent examples may be provided. The first takes place in the USA. After the first teenage killing spree in one of high schools, the second was not too long to follow. The cause is that so much attention was diverted to the youngster who committed the serious crimes. He was shown on the news, in the newspapers – in almost all mass media. This attracted another mindless fellow. This time, though, no attention was paid to the delinquent. And the second is common in Latvia nowadays. Despite all the actions done to prevent people from burning last year’s grass, the number of fires has steadily increased from year to year. Now people have started to think about the consequences of spotlighting this misfortune. Now they think it makes teenagers do this, since so many people talk about it. So here we come to the idea about the Da Vinci Code. Some people have guessed that there is a contract between the Holy Chair and Hollywood to provide these actions, because the more the fuss, the more the profits. The both sides win. Vatican reaches its aim by condemning such evil actions and keeps its face and maintains its constant attitude towards the modern world. Hollywood achieves its aim, too, by making cash. Much cash.

I can not really understand the hullabaloo the eldest IB form makes. Maybe I have gained a wrong impression about them, but there is nothing I hear about them but missed deadlines, sleepless walking zombies, low grades, ridiculously written papers to be handed in, and other nice things. And all those phrases coming from them, like “Gee, I have three deadlines tomorrow” or “Sheesh, I haven’t slept more than four hours for a month”; I just can not stand the attitude like this. To my mind, missing deadlines and sleepless nights just show that you are not able to plan your time or that you do not exactly have the proper regard towards the load you have chosen. They should be ashamed they have to complain about this, since it is nothing to be proud with. I know that I can not always manage to make absolutely everything right on time, but – hey! – I am not shouting it to everyone. I am also aware of the fact that after writing these lines I will be forced to do everything on time, to avoid criticizing myself in this way. But I am ready for it. I know it will be hard sometimes, but I have chosen it. And those fellows who burst out laughing as I was filling my extended essay proposal form to hand it in before the end of April (not some time in October, yes, I am exaggerating, but whatever) – they really got on my nerves then.

I just feel that then there is no use of having IB if one just “swims through” the whole process. It can be done in the regular forms as well. Speaking frankly, in this way the places for people who might really use this chance to go studying abroad are uselessly filled up. Sadly, I have a prediction, that the same I’ll be able to say about a part of our form when the twelfth grade is over. Nevertheless, I am determined to do my best.

Grabbing the bull by its horns – I lost my clothes I used for sports at school. Hehe, actually, it happened a month ago. So all this time I did not go to sports, since I could not quite manage to buy me a new one. Ok, one time I just had to visit my darling at the hospital, but other times I did not exactly do what a good student is supposed to do.

But today I was completely fed up with this misery, therefore I was really determined to make a trip around the city and get a new outfit, so I would not fail to pass the tests in basketball. One shop in the other side of the city, counting from my home, there I found a pretty nice pair of shorts. Were a little more expensive I had expected, but therefore not worse. Then another shop, trying to dig up some footwear, but this time I was not so fortunate. All those that were fine, were not my size. Not a single pair of shoes that could fit my feet. This meant another kilometer of biking to another shop. Fortunately, this time I was lucky. Nice.

And then, when we (I was together with my brother) returned home, it was about half past nine. We showed all the things we had found to our parents. Both mom and dad expressed approval for what we had brought home, yet only one fact disturbed me. It was my mom’s question: but why could not you use your previous outfit, the one that is hanging in the hallway?

Tonight we – me, Jānis and Sniedze – spent about three to four hours trying to provide the resolution “The work of Latvia’s people abroad stimulates/does not stimulate the economy of Latvia”. A recent theme, of course. Much debated in the mass media as well. Still, as we tried to figure out the arguments, we found out, that, thinking in the long term, looking really deeply in the consequences, the emigration must give a great deal of economical benefits for Latvia. Economical.

The average wages are expected to rise; an improvement in the technologies must be made to keep up with the new circumstances of the market. Thus, the whole economy is expected to become more advanced, more competitive. And that means more money for us all. And all those people are bringing about twenty million lats a month back to Latvia.

And, when we started to figure out some arguments for the negative case of the resolution, we discovered the real difficulties, since at the beginning there were almost no arguments against this, arguments that would provide evidence for “does not stimulate” part, because – think about this – the only way of not stimulating the economy of Latvia is by working abroad with NO link to Latvia. How many could such people be? I think, not too many. And, if we look really deeply, a stimulus can also be negative. In this way of thinking we can come to the conclusion that all people that have any link with Latvia, must stimulate its economy in some way. I wonder what the author of the resolution though about when deciding about it. To my mind, there is no use of crying about torrents of people rushing out of this nice country. No need to get emotional, this can be the impulse to finally change our business environment and the average wages. And regarding some of those people who leave – we do not really need them here if they can do only mushroom cutting or any unqualified work. I am sad about the smart minds that leave this country, but I hope they will come back after years, when the emigration will have made politicians and entrepreneurs to act in order to improve the economy of Latvia.

So – this has actually happened. After the unfortunate try to get to the Pirmā Plate #3 contest, getting the 16th place out of 19, when only 9 bands were selected for the finals, we now are really determined to play together.

Why? It means music, our own music, fun, relaxation as well as the best way, to my mind, to improve our musical skills. What I like and appreciate the best is the nice environment among us, free thought, a great deal of laugh, but over them all stands the music we make. I really like it. Yes, we need a lot of improvement, actually, lots and lots of improvement, in the way we play, yet I like the tendencies in the style our music resembles. Although right now the definite style is just starting to emerge from our fantasy and musical imagination, and composing abilities. I think that when we get better at playing it will be something in between rock, ska and rock’n’roll. Anyhow, I can not tell that accurately now.

So, right now I am trying to find a used electric guitar, so we could start serious repetitions. Since the acoustic guitar is almost completely useless in the recording studio, and the way we would like to sound needs the electric guitar. Yesterday my ex-classmate visited us in one of the repetitions, and with her agreement now we have a drummer. It will be a good practice for her as well, no matter she has been playing only for a month.

Yes. We have formed a band. Unfortunately, it does not have a name yet, since we decided that the name we used to name our band in the contest of Pirmā Plate is not quite appropriate. But that will come later, when we get to know what we have really made up.

The next step is to start proper repetitions, improving the songs we already have. Then we would be able to bake our first real record. The first bit of the fame, eh?

This one goes for my stand on the recent matters with the caricatures in the Danish newspaper. As far as I know, the European Council has agreed not to apologize about them, but has only expressed regret for the disorder they have caused. In my opinion, their idea is right, since we should not apologize for something that we can not be blamed for.

First of all, the Western World, the society of Western Europe and North America, highly appreciates freedom of thought, freedom of expression. In our culture the censorship is abolished, and there are very few limits to state openly someone's ideas, opinions and beliefs. We can make comments on politicians, officials, presidents, kings and queens. We can draw caricatures or comics about them. No one is so absolutely high-ranked that we would be afraid of saying something bad about him or her. Therefore I think the islamic world has to accept this, as well as we would accept their traditions when living in their country.

Secondly, this is a secular society. There are thousands of comics about God, Jesus and other religious characters of christianity. And, although they sometimes may seem offensive , the most of religious people do not tip their hat to them. I mean, if someone truly believes in something, they do not take nonsense like this seriously. To my mind, this could be some kind of intended trouble-making, since there are many groups of fighters that are very aggressive towards the West.

And finally, there is certain proof about this statement. According to what I read in "Diena", the caricatures were first printed in September. September 2005, much time has definitely passed since then! AND, those two most offensive pictures printed in the booklet, that created the scandal, had been added only then. They had never been printed in the newspaper. It seems to me some kind of provocation, to increase pressure and tension between the West and the East.

Of course, we should be careful not to hurt other people's feelings. Still, this case looks like a deliberate act of provoking hate, thus no apology is needed. In contrary, I think the politicians should keep this accident in mind as a method of causing trouble in the world.

I just can't stand the state I am in. There is total unwillingness to do anything that is concerned school. Anything. No a snigle task seems interesting or worth to make. This is very unusual for me, since I almost always have done what I have to do without complainig. Senti's essays, for example. Those were loads of work, I could spend whole day writing them, and doing my other homework. And I did not feel that this would cause me any inconvenience. I mean, what you have to do, you have to do, this belief has followed me since my childhood.

But now it is like this. Whenever I have to do something, I hesitate. I do not want to. I have even started to dislike going to school, which is also uncommon concerning me. Really, the best way to spend the day now would be just being lazy and doing nothing at all, without even thinking about duties, homework, without keeping the timetable of the day in my mind.

And the worst part of this is the fact that I do not know why this has happened to me. Maybe it is because the winter goes to the end, and I am physiologically tired of it, but the spring that could bring some energy has not come yet. Or, it is because of the driving school, which I must attend each Saturday and Sunday at 9 o'clock, thus depriving me from the usual sleep in the weekends. Or maybe I am just tired?

I hope this ends soon. The spring is coming, after all.

That was something! I came home from Greece so quickly, that fell directly into bed. High temperature and my head like an anvil. Sheesh. Well, luckily, I did not catch any illness while travelling.

Now I feel a little bit curious, how many tons of homework I will have to write/do/manage/etc. And of course, school is not the only business for me...there comes salsa, students' council and other occupations, too. At least my internal assesment in economics is left now to cool down; it has been just baked. And I'm feeling proud. Haha.

When I listened to my dear saying she's got only5 tests tomorrow as well as 4 tests in sports, I got some kind of a weird feeling inside my stomach. I have not been to school for even logner time, what will happen to me? I'll say never mind to the thermometer that told me during the day several times: "Thirty-seven point three, sir," and go to school tomorrow.

I can feel even because of this text my head is dizzy - there is no sense in this text I have written. Or maybe there is sense after all just because it is senseless, I mean, it shows the exact thoughts and feelings that come into my mind? I think this is one of those rare times when I just think and write without thinking about some particular structure and so on.

Well, at least my English is not too bad. In Greece there were 9 other Latvians, and I was shocked, how bad their English is. Really, I can not understand someone needing translation for almost everything people say, when, to my disappointment, the Greek form of English is far from "ok" and they speak slowly and simply. Weird, isn't it?

Right. Enough. I'll go and take my bath now. Too much of my nonsense. Ha.

When I woke up yesterday, it was quite late. It was a little bit hard to open my eyes, because I still wanted to sleep. Yet, when my eyes finally opened, they bulged in surprise: snow!? Now!? My goodness, how happy I was, seeing those big, fluffy, white snowflakes either whirling in the air or falling down calmly. And all this impression on such a special occasion!

However, I have mixed feelings regarding yesterday. First of all, I went to the centre of Riga with my girlfriend to see the parade. I must say, we both liked it, especially the soldiers in parade forms, who looked like from the thirties of previous century. It somehow linked in our minds with the army of the first republic of Latvia, making us feel proud. All those people, standing in hail, and all those flags really impressed me, and I finally felt that the day of 18th November is a holiday. When the NATO fighters flew over the whole parade, it seemed to me that finally we are not alone when celebrating our day of proclamation.

Then we went to listen to the president’s speech at the Monument of Freedom. I must say, that this was not one of her best speeches, still I liked it. However, I had mixed feelings on this occasion, because two matters disturbed me: first of all there were two guys talking too loud, making it hard to listen to what Vīķe-Freiberga was speaking, yet this was not the worst. What really annoyed me were some damned drunken, loud Russians trying to penetrate the crowd with words: comrades, give a pass to citizens of the Soviet Union! Unfortunately, there were so many drunken members of our Eastern neighbour nation, that first even I, a guy usually who is so calm, started to get angry. Still, finally I just felt a tinge of pity towards them, people with no culture and sense.

Nevertheless, no one could disturb my feelings of patriotism while singing our Anthem together with many, many people who had gathered at the foot of the Monument of Freedom.

I have been debating two saturdays in a row. Gee, that's something to be proud with. First of all - my team - we got the first place in Rīga and Zemgale regional tournament about the topic "The Young People of Latvia Are Patriots of Their Country". That was a very nice occasion.
However, we fell out from yesterday's competition semi-finals. Although the main idea of our team was that the opponents' team was strong (and they really were good and respectable debaters), so that this loss was not really surprising, I believe, that deeply inside we all thought that victory is ours, regardless the opponents. Therefore I opine that these debates taught us a lesson about over-estimating our skills and under-estimating the opponents, despite that my teammates may think differently and may not agree with me.

Anyhow, I consider debating as a kind of sport, that really can be addictive. For example, I convinced my brother to try debating, and now he's anxious, waiting for the next tournament. I feel like him, because the debate is the way to feel the real power of one's brain, speech and self-confidence. I admit, that I adore to be standing in front of the judge, speaking clearly, convincigly and self-confidently. As this feeling, that is hard to be expressed in words, becomes even greater if there are many judges and also the audience that listens to the debate. I do not know why it is so, but, in fact, due to debates I have understood that I want to be a professional politician or diplomat, or concern my life with these matters. Then I would be able to enjoy what I do.

I agree with the idea that skills gained in debating will be useful in any part of my life. Therefore I am willing to devote a whole day to this sport even if I must tell the teacher on the next monday that I have not managed to write an outline for my cause-and-effect essay.

Finally home. Gee, it's been a really hard day! There are voices saying some weird phrases in German in my head. And I just almost wrote bin instead of been.
I know, when I'm sixty-four, I will speak at least seven languages. I have a great passion for them and the ability to speak several foreign languages, to my mind, is a very respectable quality of anyone. Besides that, it's easier to get a well-paid job if you know many languages (unless you're some scientist, completely obsessed with the world-wide language - mathematics).
There are four tongues in my ammunition now, but I have started to gain the fifth. Latvian is my mother tongue and I assume that my English is fluent (and now, when I have taken the English A1 course, for the first time of my life the improvement of English language skills is tangible). I can also perfectly understand Russian and quickly read writings in this language. I can have a conversation in Russian, too. Now I highly esteem the fact that I have absorbed this language without any effort, as there is Russian around us in Riga. My third foreign tongue is German. The attendance of the DSD course has amended my German skills very much; I can understand and speak a little bit in German. And then comes French, which I have started to learn from the beggining of this school term. So far French seems easier than German to me, because it appears quite similar to English, although it is vice versa - English has gaind some aspect of French throughout the centuries.
I would definitely like to learn the Lithuanian language, because of my interest of the particular features of similarity between the Latvian and the Lithuanian tongues. And Estonian, too, albeit the rumours that this Finnic language is hard to learn.
Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow, Oliver Wendell Holmes has said. I am certain that by learning languages I will better my mind.

During the soviet times, students had to go to school six days a week. This is the same situation for me, except that I one day of the weekend I stay at home and try to do a lot of work. This reminds me of the saying sticked to the wall of the English classroom - It's easier to keep up than to catch up! After all, I don't have any choice, today I have to do my English homework (write the compare/contrast essay, learn the 4th week of 1100 Words + write my journals, as I am doing it now), I'm also going to pass some time, learning French and German, testing the usefulness of the e-book Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning German on Your Own, and finally I have my job with translations, too. Luckily, I already have found the necessary information about WWI for the History lesson. No time for the guitar...never mind. If I want to go to salsa lesson on Monday, there is Hobson's choice for me. (Haha, I even use the idioms I have learnt.)
This is not a complaint, just a realization of a fact. I don't really understand why people complain they have no time. It just takes more of their time. Ironically, isn't it?

...it was cold, so he put on his sweater from China. He had some homework to do, therefore he sat in front of his PC's monitor, manufactured in Southern Korea, that was connected to his PC, mainly created in Taiwan but assembled in Russia. He turned on music of some American artist, drank some Indish tea from his Czech mug, and then entered the internet, the land of no borders and limitations...

There have always been borders in people's society. People have been caged as well as transit of goods by slow transportation, language barrier and actual country borders causing difficulties to travel. Now it is possible to reach New York in a day's time. Riga - Tallinn route takes about four hours. Now it is easy to get anywhere, if only you are able to pay. Even the language barrier has started to kneel in front of the globalisation; with the reign of internet the power of the English lanuage has increased, creating it the most popular international language in the world, and it is also possible to learn as many foreign lanugages as you can because of the education available. The countries have opened their door to the transit of goods, letting their inhabitants get products of various origin.

To my mind, this process is a normal consequence of the world population rise and the development of transportation. The only idea I find peculiar is: what is the marginal border of the mankind? For centuries, people have had the feeling of home in their own country and the feeling as a foreigner in another country. Now they say we live in a global village. What will happen if there is only one great World, not divided into countries? What will happen, if people are no longer caged in their own community? Maybe when I'm sixty-four, the answers to these questions will be clearer.