By fire be purged

What another strange day. I could not sleep. I spent hours playing pvp in Guild Wars 2 with Qita mou. It was 09:21 and i felt like i was about to melt in my chair. I gathered all the strength i could muster and headed towards the bus stop.

Life has been hard lately. Searching pockets hopeful of finding some hidden coins and then reveling in excitement when you can finally afford a cinnamon bun is priceless and deeply saddening in the same time.

I sat along Shahar again and tried to pay attention for the next 2 hours talking about dispersion, diffusion and advection in water. We had a computer lab later at 13:00 so that meant 1 hour break from 12:00. Gah. I thought i would go up to the sofa and sleep but it was impossible. At least something happened that made my day.

I received a text file from someone. It was a short story and thoughts that were based on my post from yesterday. I rose up from my pile of ashes and had such a great smile for the rest of the day. She liked what i wrote but more importantly she liked who i am. And what makes it even more important is that she was a friend of my first love, the woman that dominates my memoirs here in this blog. That means i did something right all these years. I am not bad or rotten after all.

I will paste her text on the bottom here but not before i write something else too. While waiting for people to contact me regarding the blog advertisement i tried to think how to motivate myself and write new refreshing things since i do not get out much.

I was thinking about a post on separate topics. Since i was a video game nerd when i was a kid and knew nothing about love and James Bond kissing women on film would make me want to hide i was thinking of adding a category called Awful Gaming Memories. I have a lot of them it should be interesting. So maybe my next post will be tossed straight into that world. Another one based on the fact that Avengers 2: Age of Ultron is premiering next week has got me pumped up on film reviews. Maybe i will look into that as well.

These were some ideas, what do you think about them? Here follows the text as sent from Claire Newton.

Dear Kostas,

Firstly, before I start writing what I have in mind, let me apologize for my mediocre use of English (despite the fact that I’m half British).

And secondly, you’re free to publish this letter as an actual blog post with what you might think as an answer, if you feel like doing so. If you do, please correct any mistakes.

Now, to the point. I’ll try to keep it short. I’ve been following your blog almost from its day #1. I found it accidentally via facebook, and since then I’ve been a constant reader. Some of your posts made me cry and some others made me laugh. But what I liked most, was the fact that you wrote about your life, your everyday struggles, what you saw and experienced. And that I thought was the most sincere and interesting thing someone could write about. I’ve been a “blogger” user for a few years and there was not a single blog I enjoyed as much as I enjoyed yours.

As I said, I’ve been a blogger myself, not only a reader, and I know that sometimes it’s pretty difficult to keep writing. You don’t have the motivation, like you stated. It’s a struggle to maintain a positive attitude towards your blog and your followers. I’ve deleted more than a dozen blogs because of my lack of motivation (and the lack of feedback, my only existing blog counts 87 posts and 14519 views in 5 years). I’ve been there and I honestly and strongly advise you to keep trying. Make a schedule, a plan, anything that could help you write. Keep it short, it’s not mandatory, not even necessary to write long posts. Write for things that might be useful for someone who’d like to visit Sweden or move there permanently (me for example, I’m searching for possible opportunities in both USA and Europe, and I’m more than willing to consider moving to Sweden), like jobs, rents, transportation, anything. I know, some people might Google directly those things, but it’s good to have an opinion from someone who went through the same situation.

I, and I guess many other readers, enjoy your personal posts because they share a somewhat private part of you, a piece of your heart, not only your mind. That’s the best way to know someone. And what’s the point in reading your blog, if not to know you? They are not always happy and positive. Your memoirs made me cry. They really touched me. Not only because the person that inflicted such pain upon you, was a friend of mine (or so I thought for quite some time) but mostly because since I met you, I’ve considered you not just an average nice guy, but a person I respect and with whom I’d like to talk and get to know him. And anyway, no one should have to experience what you did, it’s unfair and so unkind. You don’t have to write about sensitive topics but it’s nice to share more with your readers.
I know, you sometimes write about  how you feel but it’s almost always “soaked” in humor and fun and everyday stuff. Go for something deeper next time. Your blog is mainly a personal/lifestyle one, you can write anything along those lines.

Write about experiences like army for example, there are many young men out there who would appreciate some info from someone around their age that went through the madness and chaos of the Greek Army. Write stuff that could be some kind of help for someone in the vast internet.
Make a post solely to compare Greece to Sweden, or Greek universities to the Swedish, or compare people and habits, anything. Make a post for a specific topic at a time.

I don’t know if I’m helping or not, but I felt like writing and sharing my thought with you was a good idea. It might not be, who cares? 

Don’t give up. Keep it up. Good luck.

Best wishes from Greece

Claire

Thank you Claire. Goodmorning Sweden. It is beautiful to be here these days.

From left to right: Cawa, Vicky and Ippu.