Okay, I am finally logging. At least, I hope I'm doing it right. So a little background, since this is my first log, I'm in Armenia for an extended period, but sadly going back to America in August. I've been referred to as a Vagabond, but I prefer to consider it "exploring my options in life." But I will say that living in Armenia is tempting.

Raffi, I did attend the Diaspora Conference and I have to say though some good did come out of it, I was pretty disappointed. Perhaps I was looking for something that it wasn't aiming to do, perhaps I misunderstood the purpose, but I was hoping for something else. Where I thought many issues of social development and attention to serious poverty issues could have been raised, I only found more discussions on how to speed up the business world to catch up with the global economy. While that has its place and need, other issues seemed to be brushed off in fear of not being able to accompish anything in 2 days with 3000 people. But in all, I think the good that has come of it is that it exposed quite a few people to Armenia and hopefully good things will come out of it in someway.

The finally event, Ara Gevorkian's concert at Sartarabad was also a treat. Not just the performance, since quite frankly I couldn't see anything over the masses of people that arrived, but we managed to see everyone loosen their ties a bit and show their true colors. It was good to see so much laughter, so much fraternal enthusiasm among the group of people that seemed so cold, bitter and tense throughout the conference. The fireworks were mighty nice, too. The skydivers with the Armenian flags were just cool.