A Bite to Chew On

I realized it had been a couple days since my last post, so I thought I'd fill everyone in on what's been happening.

So I'm laying here, trying to fall asleep, and once again I have to poop. The past few days have been rather draining, so you could say. I suppose I ate something that my body didn't find too pleasing...because frequently have I been rushing to the toilet to explosively relieve myself. I hope it all settles soon...especially since we're going to Sarajevo tomorrow, and I want to fully experience this amazing Indian restaurant that Beth keeps raving about. I'm pretty excited about traveling to Bosnia's capital. It'll be my first time out of Zenica since I arrived in it. And it'll just be neat seeing more of the country.

Language classes have been super! Sladan is laying it on pretty thick, giving me lots of material to practice and learn. And at times I don't even know where to begin trying to take it all in. But the seemingly thousands of flash cards that I made are very helpful. As is frequent practice with actual native speakers...who would thunk it? I have to keep reminding myself that it's okay that i don't understand what's being said most of the time though. It will come. I've not even been here three weeks yet...wow...

Since the Summay's introduction to stupidhead, we've been playing essentially nonstop. Jeff especially seems to enjoy it. Busting out the cards, shuffling and dealing seemingly out of habit, without even consulting us about wanting to play or not. But I'm certainly not complaining. I think out of all the games we've played so far I've only been stupidhead twice. Which is a fantastic winning percentage if only you knew how many times we've played haha. But man is it fun. Today Jeff was stupidhead at least 7 times in a row...which has got to be a new record ;D It was entertaining rubbing it in his face.

Other than that and visiting people for chatting and coffee, I haven't been up to much. A couple nights ago however I did have this crazy vivid dream which I think I'll share with you cos it's constantly been in my thoughts ever since I awoke from it...

So, it began with me in a room. It was dimly lit (of course) and I was sitting in a chair facing the wall. I couldn't make out much, but I quickly realized that I was bleeding from the mouth and when I put my hands up to try and stop the bleeding I noticed that I was missing all of my teeth. (at this point I should have woken up because this is no good way to start off a dream, but that didn't happen) As you would imagine I completely freaked out and began searching all over the room for clues as to why I would have lost, or had pulled from me, all of my teeth. And all over the room were these photographs- surprisingly vivid pictures of scenes that quite frankly, were not very pleasing to me. They were all of memories, and times that I try to suppress and not ever think about. So when I saw them, as you can imagine, I was hit with intense confusion and fear. It was like everything that I had ever regretted happening was staring me in the face. But then I realized what they all meant. (It's weird how in dreams you're so good at connecting the dots to things that don't seem to correlate at all) But it occurred to me that each picture was an indicator to the placement of each of my missing teeth. And if I wanted them back, I needed to go revisit my past... So next thing I  know I'm off on this super frightening and emotional roller coaster through a bunch of memories, real memories, that I had tried to do away with cos of all the discomfort they bring- each one just a little bit more intense than the last...and in each one I'm gaining back another tooth. I won't go into any detail, because it would just take forever, but right as I'm about to visit "my final memory" I realize the purpose behind all of this. It wasn't about rectifying painful events or mistakes that had taken place in my past. In order to truly radiate a sincere smile, I must first understand the life lessons that come from the past and the trials I've experienced. It's these "learning mistakes" that made me into the man that I am today. There's no use in repressing the unfavorable times. Rather take from them what you can... smiling, cos you know you've made it this far and there's no redoing any of it. Tis a bite to chew on to say the least, and it was rather surreal waking up from it...

...so ya that's what I've been thinking about lately. It was interesting watching The Butterfly Effect today with all of that still on my mind =] Hope all is well!

Grace and Peace,

Kaleb