Abandonment

     I'm really sorry that I abandoned you for an entire week but I was in Tampere (where I grew up) with some really awesome people so I wasn't going to waste the little time I had with them writing, I didn't write a single thing while I was there, I was far too busy. Well I started a few on the trains there and back but they were all shit so you'll do without.
     On a different note I read a few good books while I was there, first 'The Help' which you may have heard of. There was a film made of it not too long ago, the film was good but the book was great. After that I read a book called 'Go Ask Alice' which was absolutely amazing. It's a diary of a teenage girl's decent into the life of drugs in the 60s. It's amazing, it really makes you feel like you know the owner of the diary and when she's sad you're sad when she's happy you're happy, it's one of those books.
      Weronika is also back and writing though I think I'll go ahead and post this because I honestly don't know when she'll next be on but when she is something will be posted, presuming she edits. So I think that's about me, I'll tell you about my amazing week in Tampere soon but can't be bothered now. Oh and apparently we've just moved house, saves me from carrying all my stuff up four flights of stairs. Anyway, that's me, for now.
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Ruska

John Green

     Since you've spent long enough on the internet to find this blog I presume you've heard of my topic, John Green, or his brother Hank, before, then again you could be someone I know or you might have just managed to get on this blog by accident. John Green is an author, he does other stuff too I just don't know about all that much of it. So I'm going to focus on his books, more specifically his books which I have already read. So my friend, Alex, I'm sure she's been mentioned before, read his books and was going on about them for quite some time. I'd decided that I would read them when I got around to it but I wasn't too rushed, knowing they'd be good but not expecting anything amazing. So when I saw his book 'The Fault in our Stars' on my uncle's bookshelf while babysitting my 18 month-old cousin I began to read it. Once I started I couldn't stop, I couldn't put it down (with the exception of shutting up a crying baby). By the time my uncle got home I had finished it and was shocked, I had never read anything that good before. The book is about a 16 year-old cancer patient and was so realistic and amazingly written. I cried for this book, I haven't read a book that made me cry for at least two years now, if not longer. The book was incredibly good, I don't even know how to describe it. So anyway, I finished the book and texted Alex telling her how much I liked it and she told me he had a book even better than that, 'Looking for Alaska' it was called. That was it I needed it, I vowed to buy it at the airport before my flight to Finland the next day. I went into two Easons in the airport but neither of them had it, one of them though did have another book by him, 'An Abundance of Katherines', I bought it as I was in need of a book for the flight. This one required more concentration than the last because it was about a child-prodigy who had just graduated school and was a little lost in the world, so there was a fair bit of smart talk in it. I really enjoyed it, while it didn't effect me quite as much as 'The Fault in our Stars' it was still a great read and this time I did read it in one sitting, I finished it before I got off the plane. It was really sweet and made me quite happy. So yeah, I'm going to see if any bookshops here sell books in English and happen to have 'Looking for Alaska' in stock and I suggest you find yourself a copy of a John Green book pronto, I think you'll like it.
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Ruska

Finland (more excuses)

     I'm in Finland now, visiting my grandmother. So this is another excuse for me not posting a whole lot for the next few weeks. I'm in this little town near Helsinki (the capital) called Lovisa. It's nice and fairly warm, not that we haven't been getting that in Ireland. I'm probably going to gaing to gain about 5 pounds while I'm here just from eating so much, the food here is so much more amazing than that in Ireland. They have this thing called juustoleipä which is a kind of rubbery soft, fresh cheese which is amazing, and they have really good cottage cheese and these sausage things called nakki. Basically, the food is amazing! Weronika  hasn't been checking these so sorry for any mistakes that I haven't noticed. Apparently friends are more important than wasting your time on some stupid blog, maybe I should give that theory a shot actually... Anyways, see ya soon, well write to you soon...
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Ruska

P.S. I forgot to mention how amazing the peas you get at the market are.

Excuses and other things

      Neither me nor Weronika have been posting much on this, me because I'm in the process of moving house and because I'm lazy, Weronika because she's Poland and apparently too busy to spend time on the internet. I guess it's good, I'm spending much less time on the internet (I wish). If anything I'm spending more time on the internet, it's ridiculous, I'm meant to be busy packing my stuff into boxes but I haven't even touched a box in the last four days, not good packing, I know. I did though pack away most my things, including all my clothes, which maybe wasn't my brightest idea, I literally left myself with the clothes I was wearing at the time and some dirty laundry to do me for about a week. I made a Tumblr as told to by one of my best friends, Alex. I've been considering doing so for a while and I'm really starting to hate Facebook so I figured I'd give it a shot. It's good, I don't really know how it works properly yet so we'll see how it goes. I was at the Irish National Stud today with my cousins, Uncle and Aunt (god, it's weird calling her that). The Japanese Gardens were great, really beautiful and nice. The Irish National Stud for some reason has Japanese gardens, not sure what that has to do with breeding racehorses but whatever. The tour we got was good, we got to see a horse worth €60 million, which is a little bit ridiculous to be honest. This is really a bit of an awful post, fairly boring and uninteresting. So yeah, thanks for wasting your time on this.
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Ruska

Abortion

      To start I'm going to warn you that this is going to be a rant and now, just in case you don't know what's going on in Ireland with abortion at the moment, I'll give you a little bit of background so you might understand what you're reading. About 21 years ago, in 1992, there was a fourteen year old girl who had been raped and gotten pregnant from it, she wanted an abortion but as it was illegal in Ireland then (still is) planned to go to the UK to get one, once this was discovered she was forced to stay in the country by the judge. She had a miscarriage a short while later but it started a huge appeal for the change in the constitution regarding abortion. She was referred to as X for the duration of the trial to keep her privacy and it became known as, 'The X Case'. There were a few proposed changes to the constitution which didn't get through, so eventually this died out and was almost forgotten about. Last year it was the 20th, I suppose you could call it, anniversary of The X Case, sometime in February as far as I can remember. There were demonstrations about this then and vague plans to do more. A few months later, late October, a young woman died as she wasn't able to have an abortion after she was told that the foetus was not viable (going to be born dead), but they could not perform an abortion under Irish Law as the foetus' heart was still beating. She was in excruciating pain for the following three days, she was to weak to travel to England and was refused an abortion although she was constantly begging for one. After her death the movement began again, for a few months there was a demonstration every Wednesday and a march every Saturday. It eventually started to fade, not completely it was just less thought or talked about. There were still protests occasionally, not all the time but fairly regularly. Wow, and I haven't even started my rant yet. If you wanna know more, Google it. Oh and also, the people who are against abortion are 'Pro-Life' and people for it are 'Pro-Choice'. 
     Today was the annual Youth Defense march (Pro-Life) where they get people from everywhere in Ireland and bring them to Dublin for free for this big protest (they've got loads of American cash behind them). This year it was a bit of a big deal because of the whole Savita Halappanavar thing (the woman who died). They were marching down from Parnell Square to the Dail (the Irish parliament building) or something like that. Wherever it is they were going they went down O'Connell Street which was lined with people like me, holding placards, banners or, in my case, a spray-painted Irish flag, yelling at them as they passed, now I don't understand why abortion  has any affect on them as a majority of the crowd were well past the age for having children. So basically I spent two hours yelling "Pro-Life is a lie, you don't care if women die" and "Shame" and just booing old nuns and priests and other elderly people (as well as a few younger ones). This wouldn't have been too bad if they hadn't brought so many children with them. These children hadn't a clue why they were there or why they were being shouted at by thousands of people, it must have been a traumatic experience for them and, if I had been their position at that age, it would certainly bring on nightmares and things like that. Some of the kids didn't really mind it but a few were really obviously affected by this. There was this one little boy, about five years old, who was on the verge of tears and trying to pull out of the march but his dad wouldn't let him even though he was absolutely terrified, I mean I understand you want to prove your point but how could you make your son go through something like that which will very possible haunt him for years to come just to prove some stupid bloody point that doesn't even make all that much sense. So there was the scumbag parents who, to be honest, didn't treat their children very well. As well as this, the second my mother turned her back on me for just a second, to talk to someone this old woman, well into her nineties, came over to me, grabbed my wrist and told me that I have no hope in life, when my mum noticed her she told her to "stay the fuck away from my daughter" among other things. I think it's because I'm young and there weren't really very many people who brought their kids on the pro-choice side of things but about half the nuns that passed me said a pray for me or blessed me, maybe the think that my "soul" can still be "saved". Too bad for them. I respect not wanting to get an abortion and think that it should be up to you, not to the church or the state which at the moment it is. I understand that if your religion says that abortions shouldn't be had you may feel obliged to follow this but it does not mean that you have the right stop people from doing what you want with yourself. Every year there are thousands going there because it's impossible to get an abortion without breaking the law here. You risk 14 years in jail if you get an illegal abortion in Ireland. Rape is only 7 years, why the fuck is abortion double that? It's illogical, old-fashioned and disgusting that there are so many people out there trying their hardest to take away the rights of the woman, the right for health obviously doesn't come to mind. Presuming the bill will pass it'll still be practically impossible to get an abortion here due to the restrictions set out by the bill. It has to be a life threatening reason, something has gone wrong and the mother will die if there's no abortion or something along the lines of that. If the mother is
suicidal and under the risk of killing herself she needs to get four psychiatrists to say that she should get an abortion as well as three doctors, this is ridiculous as it is but some psychiatrists have said that if a pregnant woman is suicidal and wants an abortion they will be forced to sign themselves into a mental institution for the duration of their pregnancy. FORCED. I presume court cases can be taken against this but if your genuinely suicidal you don't want to go to court, you're more likely to just get a backstreet abortion or commit suicide, neither of these are good, backstreet abortions are illegal and dangerous and suicide is, well, suicide. I think I may have been somewhat repetitive there, but I just needed to get that out of my system. I was going to apologize here at the end in case I insulted anyone but then I realized that I really don't care if I insulted you with my views, they are mine, after all. I am going to apologize to Weronika though because I'm fairly sure I swore in there once or twice, so yeah, sorry 'bout that.
     Cya,
     Ruska

                      This is the picture of Savita released into the press with the story of her death last October.

Update on stuff

     Weronika's cousin has arrived so she won't be posting a whole lot anymore but I'm gonna be bored for a good chunk of the summer so I'll probably be posting some stuff. I'm back from Italy now but there's still loads of stuff I wrote while I was there that I'll post up at some stage. They may be somewhat jumbled though because I can't remember the order they were written in so just read each post individually so you don't get mixed up or something. I dunno what else to tell you, Italy was good, going to Finland in a few weeks and that's about it. Oh wait, I'm moving house the same day as I go to Finland. Our new neighbour is a monkey which is pretty awesome, my new room is cool too and I have a nice enough view. So anyway, that's about it from me.
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Ruska

Happiness

     Not to show off or anything but my life is amazing. Right now, I literally love my life and I'm extremely happy. Seriously, I can't stop smiling, everything is going well and I wouldn't change a thing. Now I don't want to make anyone feel bad, unless your life is also amazing but you're just too (appropriate word for you) to realize it, but life is amazing and I've learned to appreciate mine and be happy despite it's downs. :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
      Goodbye my munchkins,
      Your (very happy) master, Weronika

This Is What I Call A Waste Of A Day

     Today I feel kind of tired, not exactly the type of tired you feel when you're lacking sleep or the type of tired you feel when you've spent the day doing stuff that require energy, just kind of bleh. I think it's partially that my dad and I aren't able to spend a whole load of time in close quarters without becoming narky with each other, we haven't even managed three whole days, barely even two. It's not that we don't get on, it's just that we both have plenty of annoying little traits that when in close quarters with each other tend to clash. Last summer we came here for a week and one of the days we just didn't even interact with each other, my dad went on some mountain walk or other and I buried myself in the worlds of Harry Potter and music, but that was after almost seven days together. This year we didn't even manage three before exactly that happened again but this time I have the internet so I haven't actually given myself the peace I need, I've spent most of my day on the laptop instead of the peace I both wanted and needed. Now I feel bleh, I wish I had spent today reading Harry Potter and listening to music. I did do that for a while but having internet access is very distracting even if you have no interest in going on the internet. Now my dad's going to be home soon and he'll expect that I got the peace I needed in the five or so hours I had without him, but I'll still be narky so he in turn will be narky so we'll end up having some stupid argument where neither of us is right or wrong but neither will back down either so then I'll get my peace to read Harry Potter and listen to music but I have to go through that first. I wish I had spent today reading Harry Potter and listening to music instead of wasting time on the internet but in this day and age it's not easy to get away from it, if I listen to music on the laptop, it's just there so I listen to music on my phone but I've got a smartphone (albeit not a very good one) so I've still got the internet just there. I tried disconnecting my phone from the wifi and it worked, until I got into my head that I wanted to listen to this song that I don't have so I must turn on the internet but wait, no, sound quality isn't good enough on this, I'll use the laptop and then I'll just check facebook really quickly, and my e-mail, and youtube, and the blog. Before I know it my dad will be home in twenty minutes and I'm still on the computer, then I think, when he gets here he's going to want to do work so he'll want the laptop, I had best make the best of my time on it now so. Even if there's nothing I can do online anymore, none of my friends are online on facebook, that e-mail hasn't been replied to, I don't know what to blog about and I've watched all the videos my subscriptions have posted but I'll check each of these about twenty times. I've memorized the stats from the blog, I've scrolled down my news feed, right to the bottom, I've done my share of facebook stalking for today, I've read all my old, and rather embarrassing, e-mails, I've watched about a 40 videos and the book I set out to start reading today is unopened. I wish I had read that book today, I've done nothing of interest really. This is the most productive thing I've done today and I fell even more bleh than I did at the start of the day. This is what I call a waste of a day. Now, finally that I've realized this, I'm going to start reading that book, the one I love so much but haven't read in almost a year but can still recite passages of it without a second thought, now I'm going to get some peace. But before I sign out of all my accounts, I will undoubtedly check each one another time, to make sure no one interesting is online of there wasn't another video put up or we haven't somehow magically gone up 80 views to get us past the 800 mark or that person hasn't replied to my e-mail even though I just sent it. It's slightly ridiculous really how much time I waste on nothing really.
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Ruska

Wednesday

     Hello I just wanted to inform me all that Wednesday the 3rd of July is finally almost here. What's so special about the 3rd of July you ask, well the answer is MY COUSIN!!! No, it's not her birthday, that's on the 31st. The THING is that she is coming, she is coming this Wednesday, she is coming this Wednesday and is staying with me for a week! What's so special about that, you wonder. Well it's special because she lives in Poland (like all my family bar my parents, I think) and I only get to see her two months a year. It's not that bad you say, well I say 'I love her' She is the only cousin that's around my age that I love. She is perfect, she is super mega cool and smart and talented and beautiful and sweet and she has good taste in music and she is strong and amazing and so on and so on...
       Anyway, she is coming this Wednesday and I'll pick her up at the airport and I'll be able to hug her whenever I want. It will be amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!
      On a slightly less positive tone, Ruska is coming back from Italy this Wednesday too. That means that I won't see her till I come back from Poland :( But I'll survive because I'll have MY COUSIN!!! I'm dying from the excitement.
     Goodbye my munchkins,
     Your master, Weronika