public transportation was down and the roads were blocked. this was not rumors being spread by the opposition, this was my staff unable to make it to work from etchmiadzin and kharberd and this was my eyes seeing it from the ashdarak road. ask anyone who commutes to yerevan. there were crowds of people standing by the road... in the hopes they would see a friendly face who owns a car. it was a sad reality. however, the roads were not blocked today.

i blew out my back coughing. i decided i would take care of my physical health and visited some doctors today... including a chiropracter who has me standing up straight again. (i looked like a question mark over the weekend). my mental health on the other hand has been a question mark for more than just this weekend. :o)

in fifty minutes another rally is going to begin... and i am feeling a disattachment from the diaspora. i keep thinking of an analogy... i feel like we have a grandparent (armenia) sick in the hospital... i feel like i am the grandchild holding my grandparents hand... while some of my cousins are not nearby... or not even aware about their grandparents health. i know i should not be thinking this way... but i cannot help wondering if my fellow armenians that i grew up with... all those who would stay up late hours with me at ayf camp singing revolutionary songs... are now concerned and following through for a stronger armenia. are they organizing meetings where they can discuss the situation, are they bringing awareness to their community? do they remember the songs they sang and what they meant... or did they sing their hearts out so they would be first in line at the cafeteria after flagpole?

i am sorry to be so rough but sometimes i want to feel that the people who stayed behind (and away from the homeland)... did so with a larger purpose in mind. i hope to think they are enticing and adding to the armenian lobby in their countries... i hope to think they are sending their hard earned dollars here for good causes... that they are encouraging their children to think about armenia... and that they are travelling here on their vacations at the least. this place needs all of you... in this day and age... when we finally have an armenia to shape and guide... it is not enough to just feel armenian, eat koo koo at zatik, or speak armenian... or attend armenian network events. this is the time when being armenian... becomes more difficult and more of a challenge and i hope that many of you embrace this challenge. i feel very rewarded and i hope that you too can feel the same. any contribution that is worthy of who you are and where you are in this world... is valuable. the more... the better chance that we will survive as a nation and thus as a people.