nah don't feel bad! You should be proud of where you got! it's time to enjoy! Hope you 're having a blast in Russia!
About the free writes, I started doing it too =) I wanted to before when I saw posts like yours, but then I was dissuaded because I thought "who will give a F"!.- But then the ULOG trend started, and that motivated me again to start =) I enjoy it, it's nice to be able to just write what you think about any topic! And it does indeed make you know someone better.