Trip 2: Gaborone– day 1.

Well, I'm feeling a bit better to day. We had a lovely church service. The organ was undergoing maintenance so we sang a cappella, and we didn't sound that bad. The sermon was the riveting fourth installment of 'Christian' by Andy Stanley. I think it could go without saying but; I was captivated. 

So anyway we're heading to Kang today. I think you'll recall from my earlier traveling related entry, we moved the S.B.T.P. office to the mall. We have to go through there on the way to Gabs, and since we're taking it easy on this trip, we just gonna stay the night. 

I'll write again once we get there—3:11pm.

Week: 129

Another comes and goes it seems. I have been deeply wrestling with thought of my coming birth day. Even though I know that it's over 6 months off, I can't help but wonder what all my come of it. "You're just being a worry wort!" right? What makes this such a big deal is that I'll be eighteen— that number which long I have dreaded. It's approach is Impending, with all of the stealth and design of a great-cat, the day comes. What shall I do if the permits do not succeed? I am terrified. I can think of no worse fate than to be shipped back to America, it would divide my being! Not unlike black cauldron of cold and dark and the depressions and vile vindictive vice, which I know well.

What can one do in these times, but hope that what Jesus has planed is somehow better than what I would hope/wish for? I'm not quite to tears yet, but they may come before I have finished penning this. For the first time in a long while, I can't see foreword. This makes me fearful.

If all goes well, we leave for Gaborone at mid-afternoon tomorrow. For my family; it is to be a holiday, but for me, it is a sign that The day, upon which my greatest woes and possible joys hang, from a thread.

I have not seen Bole in over a month except for a glimpse of him passing the gate. He is still alive, somewhere. But it's so freeing with out him, that I almost fear that he might return. Hopefully, I'll have more to share tomorrow. Maybe some good news! 

Good night.

Entertaining possibilities of inaction.

Well I have looked in to the video mode of blogging. It looks fun, exiting, and entertaining. I was thinking of doing one similar to the first few entries of the slender log called MLAndersen0, it would be simple to sit down and speak my thoughts in the stead of trying to remember every detail in the story whilst I type.

When I approached my dad on the subject, he thought I would try to make a V-log similar to Jonathen Fisk's show, Worldview Everlasting, which would also be fun, but that's a bit more "in the now" than what I want to do. He hasn't given me an answer yet, but even if he does say yes; I might not do anything. I have been dabbling of late with the idea of retiring my blog. 

The whole reason I started it was to see what one does and does not put on ones blog, so that I, through experience, could write a better horror story. It's not exactly the best reason ever, so I expanded. I decided that I would try to describe my home, Botswana, and we all know I have done it no justice.

I am not announcing any thing, just contemplating.

Something–something.

I think it's been about a week or two since I last wrote. The same old routine continues both mundane and arduous. It would be a lie to say that "I had for gotten" or "was too busy". The fact of the matter is that I simply cannot write consistently, because if I did it would just leave you reading the same old thing. Not as if I didn't want to write, and you have seen when I write for several days in a row how bland it can get. So, in a way I want to share my world with you, but in reality I can't do that the way that I set out to. Perhaps I could change my approach and do something more like a video-log, I don't know. And maybe I'm just tired and it's just the exhaustion talking ('cause that happens from time to time) so I'm not announcing any thing yet I'm just thinking about options. May be I just need some tea or coffee...

Week: 132

I didn't really do as much to day as I thought I would. But I did a lot of research into the nature of Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) and the Slender mythos, and I can say for certain, that I will be planing and structuring my games in a lot more detail than the first. I have a few ideas that I'm gonna scratch down and I'll revisit them when I graduate (hopefully that's before I'm in Nebraska). I'm also looking at blender. It just sounds interesting. I just hope I can make something interesting.

Untimely Charity.

Mom and dad at some point decided that they would assist the parents of  one if Josh's classmates in the way one babysitting him for the afternoon whilst they move something (large) to somewhere(else). I only came by the information that they had decided this shortly before they left to bring Matt, Josh, Becca, and said unnamed Afrikaner home from school. I must confess, I panicked. There was no way that I could possibly clean my room (well enough for visitors) before my mom arrived home with them, too much school yet for that, and I have no idea as to the nature of this boy, be it mischievous or not— and I am certain of one thing; I don't want to find this out the hard way. 

So, in the spirit of self conservation, I have locked and fortified it into a veritable Fort Knox. The only minor (ok– major) flaw with my plan is that we haven't eaten lunch yet, and... well eating lunch when not in the dining room is usually er... difficult. So I'll have to leave my room sometime— oh there's the call for lunch now. I'll let you know if I survive. [1:02 PM]

[1:38]- I survived lunch, the visitor is shy, perhaps even more so than I am. He didn't say much, in fact I'm tempted to say he didn't say anything at all but it seems that he and Josh have worked out a mode of communication based on facial gestures and eye movements. 

He was blond, tan-skinned (darkly), and buzzed cut as most Afrikaners are, he wore short-shorts, long socks pulled about half way up to his knees, again– nothing out of the ordinary. There were only two things that made him different from most other Afrikaner boys (between 8&10 years of age. In like most, his eyes are brown, and he wore a button-up shirt— without a collar. I observed him as closely as possible without stalking him, and without starring at him, 'cause that would have just been uncomfortable for both of us. I can't say much on him, but I'm not sure how I like him yet. I've got a bit of school-work yet to do, but I'll let you know how it ends later-[1:55 PM]

[5:41 PM]- After I finished my schoolwork I practiced my ocarina, did some research and almost forgot that Shaun (as I have learned his name is) was here, everything was so quiet; which isn't normal at all. I went out to investigate and found that Matt Josh and Shaun were watching a movie together. "Perhaps they can be civil" I thought to my self. So I watched them. They played on the Wii, Lego Star Wars, Wii sports, and supermario bros. for Wii. Later they moved onto playing Minecraft on the iPad, and from there Angry Birds, Naught and Bad Piggies. The only conclusion I could come to about this boy was "for a farmer boy, he's really good at video games."

I slumped into my bed. I felt defeated. Going over what I knew, I was dissatisfied with the amount of information I had gathered on Shaun. He and I hadn't once spoken, and it wasn't likely to happen in the future, any time soon. He would be leaving soon and— heeyyy! He would be leaving soon and if I could see his mom, there could be any ammount of gleamable information there! With that idea in hand, I sat on the front porch and waited! And, waited... And waited. For about twenty minutes I waited, I checked my watch, and waited twenty more. And at exactly half-past naked-arm, I decided it might be more productive if I went and caught the cat so that I couldn't escape before it was time  to come in for the night.

I found him right away, shut him up in my bedroom and proceeded to shut up the house. It didn't occurr to me that this might be a bad idea until my mom scolded me for shutting the windows in the living room, because it had cut off the breeze from their exercising area. When I had finished reopening that end of the house, I saw a car pull up to the gate. 

It was a nice car, a white one. Mom came into the room and asked if I would get the gate. My plan was working perfectly! I got to the front door and thought I'd heard something, but I couldn't tell over my dad's exercise music. I opened the door and his mother was right-there! I didn't quite remember what I had been going to say, and proceeded to institute the most awkward silence of my life. I quickly went and got Shaun and informed him that his mum was here, and as they were leaving I went out to control Buster, who was being a bit rambunctious. I sighed to my self, maybe it would have been easier if I had just talked to him.

Recovery time. A satire

My best excuse for not entering anything the last two days is that; I was very busy with school work and other things. My excuse becomes significantly less convincing when the things that i was busy with were drawing a fake map, and building grammar and grammatical structures for my conlang, but I have to spend time on those too.

Today, things went rather well school wise. That is; until about lunch time, when my stomach started hurting so badly that I could no longer considerate. I went out and sat down in our living room. The room is rather large, even with two couches, an arm chair, television set, and our own personal library (which is also the best library in the country). I decided that this would be a good time to pipe a tune on my ocarina. Just as I finished the most convincing finally of "My Favorite Things" yet-- my lip split... again. I proceeded to wander back to my dad's room where the Vaseline was. Evidently, my dad had gotten there just before I had. The Vaseline was in his closet, and so was he. I walked in and tried to reach for the Vaseline, but he gave me this look over his shoulder; like I'd burnt the cookies and said:

"It followssss ussss, and doessssn't knockssss, Precioussss?" In a deep throaty, raspy voice. I backed up and knocked on the door. "Oh now it knockes!" he replied. I went again for the Vaseline, but he started again, "Ooh, it doessssn't even ask Ussss."

"Fine," he was being unusually difficult, in play- but still. "May I get something?"

"What doessss he want, precioussss?"

"The Vaseline, my lip split." I said, then just to get him for giving me a hard time I added, "And, you said 'he' not 'it' the last time." to which he made one of the labored sounds, like when some one says 'Darn' really loud and fast."But other than that is was a good Gollum impression."  I walked back out to the living room trying not to smile so as not to hurt my lip.

I sat in the chair and just thought to my self, "Ok, you've got the imperative sentence structure down now we should get to the exclamatory- exclamations, what am I thinking, I should invent the plural form! OF WHAT? You haven't invented any nouns yet! What you really need to get on to is the alphabet. Which one- actually no let me take a step back, we can't make the alphabet until we have a larger grammar database. The conversations I have with my self are rarely less confusing than this. I thought on a bit longer. When my dad came the room, I put my thoughts away and dusted out my attic.

My dad sat there for a few minutes, or maybe it was seconds, and then rose to his feet and said (in his normal voice) "I know how to get them to come home so we can eat!" and rushed out of the room. I stared after him wondering what on earth he was talking about. He came not two minutes afterward carrying my school books. All I could do was stare at the ceiling and laugh, but it does seem as though when ever we sit down to get to school, They usually come in and cause a large commotion, and usually causing dad to have to leave to disband some micro crusade, or something of the sort. Well this time- NOTHING happened, at all. We actually made it through, my assignments without being interrupted. All I could think was "Praise to the Lord!" I honestly cannot remember the last time this happened.

About ten minutes later they arrived home and dad and I (who had been sitting at the table staring at the empty bowls before us) were saved from fainting from low blood sugar. We ate soup, drank assorted juices, and were very thankful.when we had finished, I cleared the table, and got back to school.

It's what happened next that has me convinced that my brothers can, not only read minds, but also do positively ridiculous things just to watch my thoughts get all mixed up.

I was very nearly finished with my school work, but there were a few Items that I couldn't find in the books, so I went to ask dad for help. He came and sat down, and we were trying to figure out exactly which terms to search for when; Knock Knock Knock! "NO!" I answered the door, and at the same time, dad says,

"Come in!"
"How could you?" I whispered to him. It was Josh, and I did the only thing one can do when Josh enters a room. I berried my head in my hands and braced my self. Josh opened the door slowly, so slowly that it was nearly painful, he walked in his enormous blue eyes roving all the while, and on every pass they made over my room, his eyes met mine, mischievously. By this time my thoughts were racing, "did I leave my scissors out- where are my recorders? In my cubby, good- my mug?- not impotent-" and other such thoughts. Dad had finished answering whatever question Josh had come to have answered, and Josh walked out of my room walking slowly and backward so as to reveal, his menacing little grin. though he was only in my room for one minute, it took my ten minutes to clean all of the dust out of my attic and resume my studies.





**NOTE: This is not meant to be taken seriously AT ALL. This is to be read for comedic purposes ONLY.