Promedac, my old school

I studied in this school for about a year ten years ago. Oh, well, I studied some, mostly math. I had all sorts of times there, good, bad, fun, boring ones and to be honest some which to me seemed a bit odd/American. American influences to that extent IS odd considering it was a Mexican school in Mexico with Mexican students and teachers :-) I have a lot of memories from this time... I am glad that I now have the possibility to reconnect to some of the people there, including my old host siblings :-)

She was raped by her husband.

Today I talked to a woman a know a little. She told me about her ex with whom she has a teenage daughter with. She told me that one night he came in to the bedroom where she and the daughter were sleeping and raped her.

She reported it to the police. She gave them her statement. Then it took 6 months for a police officer to return to her. This police officer, for her unknown man, called her at 8 pm one night and asked her to tell her story again. When she didn't want to under those circumstances and since thinking about the rape hardly was what she wanted to do, he just said "then I can't help you". Then nothing more happened.

She is hardly the only one...

Do I even have to say what she feels about the police and the system?

Questionable questions?

Conversation today:

Nat: Who owns X? A or B?
Person: They lay locally here.
Nat: Who OWNS X? A or B?
Person: You use a script to...and they lay here.
Nat: Beep beep beep! WHO OWNS THE FREAKING THINGS?

Several minutes later I understand that X is NOT owned by A. Good, that was ALL I wanted to know. I ask for ownership and the anwer I get is a location...

Seriously, why do people seem to "refuse" to answer the extremly straight forward question where the answer is eg. "yes/no/sometimes/I don't know", "a/b/both/neither/I don't know"? Very frustrating. I start to wonder sometimes if I am stupid. Why don't people understand what I am saying, is my Swedish/English really that bad?!

My dad is the best

It's hardly breaking news. I got congratulations from people I know and people I don't know, all because my dad asked them to send me a message. One even wrote the following:

"Grattis på födelsedagen! Hoppas att du får en kul dag med spännande upplevelser men också tid över för eftertanke. Vad händer med tiden egentligen? Finns tid? Och om den finns vart tar den vägen? Sådant är värt att grunna på - då och då. Fast inte för ofta. Bättre att leva medan man gör det, som konstnären, författaren med mere Piet Hein skrev en gång. Och om livet sa hans landsman, existensialisten Søren Kirkegaard: historien kan egentligen bara begrundas, livet måste levas framåt. Vilket ju stämmer. Att leva baklänges är inte lätt."

It's about what time is, where it goes, but what is even better to think of is to live, that life is to be lived forward. Living backwards isn't easy. I don't even know the man who wrote this but he took the time to think about it and write it.

The big day was the 27th. Had a nice little dinner with a couple of friends. Loads of laughter and food.

Chiquita = murder, torture, paramilitary, war crimes

Care for a banana?

"In March 2007, Chiquita admitted that it made payments from 1997 to 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by its acronym in Spanish, AUC), a paramilitary organization that the US Government had designated a terrorist group. Chiquita settled a criminal complaint by the US Government at that time and agreed to pay a $25 million fine.

In July 2007, a group of Colombians filed a lawsuit against Chiquita under the Alien Tort Claims Act in US federal court in New Jersey. The plaintiffs are family members of trade unionists, banana workers, political organisers, social activists and others in Colombia who were targeted and killed by paramilitaries during the 1990s through 2004. The plaintiffs contend that the funds that Chiquita paid to Colombian paramilitary organizations during this period made the company complicit in extrajudicial killings, torture, forced disappearances, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Chiquita’s Colombian banana-growing region. "

Do you still care for a banana?

Info from http://www.amnestybusinessgroup.se/default.aspx

Ps. I love bananas...my favorite food but I at least refuse to eat any Chiquitas.

As if I didn't exist

Odd, very odd. Every morning a colleague and I have had the same routine, saying hi in the bus, walking to the front door, chatting a little and a few minutes later see each other again in the dressing room and continue the chatting there.

The other day she didn't see (?) me on the bus. Getting of the bus she started walking very fast, not turning my way once. Entering the front door without the usual "see you in a bit" and in the locker room she sat with her back towards me the entire time she got her things in order to start working (about 1,5 meters away from me) and quickly leaving the room, still not having said one word or acknowledged my existence in any other way. I thought for myself that maybe she has been crying and didn't want to show me her red eyes so I didn't say anything.

At lunch she sat talking and laughing with another colleague. Later in the locker room I asked her with a cheerful voice "So you have stopped ignoring me now?" and she replied "yepp" and nothing more. The following day the same thing happened again but when I came down to the locker room I asked her "Have I done anything to you? Are you mad at me since you ignore me?". She, almost a little irritated, answered that she just had some personal issues to think of and didn't feel like having any company. I told her that that is ok but that she shouldn't ignore me since it was perceived as a bit rude, making me think that I had done something to her.

If someone wants to make me confused, insecure and/or furious, the best way is to ignore me. I find that extremely RUDE. In this care I just wondered what had happened, feeling confused since I am not very close to my colleague and therefor don't care that much. When it comes to people that I do know better, family or friends, I take it very personally and get very angry if someone ignore me. It has happened to me from time to time. Some people seem to think that their problem will go away by not pretending it is there. One person said straight to my face that he doesn't bother to answer when he doesn't think that the person (in this case me) has nothing of interest to him to say (sometimes not even knowing what it might be about). Another just was quiet and didn't respond to my attempt to contact, finally realizing that we had to talk. To me, ignoring people is a way of sending the signal that "you are not even worth my time, please go away" and/or "I don't want you to know what the situation is actually about".

Strange Fruit

by Billie Holiday

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Catch 22

Experience without job and job without experience? It is so frustrating not having a real shot at a job just because lack of relevant experience. HOW am I supposed to get that experience if they are not willing to give me a job that would give me just that? I know that I sooner or later probably will get the chance but right not I feel a little stuck in catch 22. This is not the first time it happens when applying for a job I really want.

Pic from here.

Last one to know

I am raised in a family that is very open and I am used to be included in certain things even though I am the youngest. I am not good at all handling being the last one to know important things, whether it is within the family or concerning people outside it. It's hurtful.

I think that there are certain things, from certain people and in certain situations that one should NOT have to hear in a roundabout way (from someone else). But that is just me. Obviously :-((

Burma is still there

"Burma Chock Raised TV Fee

Without forewarning Burma's military regime has chock raised the fee for possession of satellite TV-receiver - obviously to prevent the people to take part of critic against the regime. Owners of satellite dishes received information on the Wednesday about the 166-fold raise, from 6 000 to one million kyat, only then can they pay the fee. One million kyat is equivalent to about 525 EURO (5 000 SEK), three times more than the country's average yearly income. Without satellite TV the Burmese people is referred to the severely state controlled TV channel MRTV. (TT-AFP)"
3 Jan -08
Pic from here.

Chiquitas dirty bananas - Want one?

"Chiquita is sued for hundreds of murders

The banana giant Chiquita was sued in November for about 5, 24 billion EURO (50 miljarder) for among other things killing and torture in connection with its banana production in Colombia. It is the relatives of the 393 murder victims who is behind the sue, according to Reuters' report. According to the accusations the banana company have financed and provided the Colombian paramilitary AUC with weapons. The murders are said to be performed by the paramilitary to facilitate Chiquita's production of bananas in Colombia."

read in the SKTF paper

Not in Swedish stores

Another thing that happened today but on the train. The girl sitting infront of me had a bag/purse that I liked and since I have had so much trouble finding one that I like (the fashion right now is so ugly with all these stuff on them, no elegance what so ever) I did what I do sometimes. I asked. "Excuse me, where did you buy the bag?" but she only smiled a little and explained to me in English that she doesn't speak Swedish. Crap! I asked again, in English, "You didn't buy that bag around here did you?" and her obvious answer was no. It is always annoying every time you ask someone who turns out not to be from here since they of course have bought most of their things far, far away. Once I asked a girl about her jacket buy the had bought it in Turkey.

Girl or a guy?

Why is it so important to know? I was sitting on a bus today and there were two girls (pretty and probably in their 20ies) sitting on the other side of the lane, talking to each other. I didn't think about it until I could hear one of the girl's voice through the music in my ears. She sounded like a guy. I took out the earphones and continued to listen to her voice but it kept sounding like a male voice, despite her very feminine facial looks (couldn't tell much from the way she dressed) and half long, blond, straight hair. It doesn't matter but still I wondered. How stupid and waste of energy. Hm.

Frustrating conversation ;-)

* Bla bla bla...

- Bla bla bla 5 %.

* Sorry, what do you mean? 5 % of what? I don't understand.

- 5!

* Of what?

- 5 %!

* OF WHAT?!

(and so on...)

- 5 % are xxxx.

* Ahaaaaa...Why didn't you just say so?

- I did.

* No you didn't, you answered my question about "what is 5 %" with "5 %", I got the 5 % thing but not WHAT it is that is 5 %. NOW I understand though, when you said what it was you meant.

- I thought that was clear, I thought you understood.

* Obviously not, I wouldn't have asked "5 % of what?" if I had.

---------------------------

Isn't it "fun" when you get into conversations where someone doesn't hear something or doesn't understand the sentence and when the other person is trying to explain, he or she totally misses to repeat the main point of that specific part of the conversation? Instead he/she repeats the detail that is hanging free from the rest of the discussion and is clear as a day but without a real meaning.

Public exposure? Go to Olofsson/Vero Moda

Imagine you walk into a clothing store and grab some things you want to try on. You walk into the fitting room, starts taking of your clothes and in that very moment a head pops up in the mirror, looking down at you, asking "Can I help you?".

Imagine this happens maybe not every time you visit that specific store but rather often. You have never experienced it anywhere else ever. When you finally ask a person in the store if it is a policy to do that, they say yes, saying that they do it because most of the shop lifting takes place in the fitting room.

I asked that and I also asked how they could thing it was ok to do that thing to anyone, making them feel very uncomfortable, exposed and without any possibility to get away. Always risking being seen almost naked by a perfect stranger + the fact that they assume you are committing a crime?

Answer: The rather short guy that I was arguing with, said that he had never seen anyone in just underwear (I thought quietly it is just because he can't see over the door), as if that mattered. The main thing he said was that the store is private area and they do what they want.

I said that I am, after 4 years as a costumer, never going to buy anything there again, then I left.

What store am I talking about? Olofsson (which has the same owner as Vero Moda, which used the premises before and had the same policy)

Hayden and her dolphins

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1291049,00.html

"TV star Hayden Panettiere has been involved in a violent confrontation with Japanese fishermen as she tried to disrupt their annual dolphin slaughter."

Hayden has courage

Nice to hear that there are people, famous ones, have courage to stand up for their believes in a very evident way...

She's in "Heroes".

Having soul peace

I got the comment from somebody who said that more people should be like me, standing up for things that are bad...like smoking. In some areas and some cases I can be a bitch, that means that I am just a little less bad than the people am this bitch towards. I say only one thing: one earns one's respect.

The funny thing is that there is a person who made my choice to try to stop being a pathetic wimp...a person who made me cry for two (separate) nights. Who made me flee into the bathroom so that no one could reach me. Who maybe made me feel worse than I ever had... I am a wimp in my own eyes almost every day but I am working on it and it is easier since that evening. I chose one peace before another.

(Almost) killing innocent people, it's a fact

Some more steeling. This is about three men that all had been wrongfully convicted for murder they didn't commit (one for a person who wasn't even dead) and sentenced to death but later released. They recently spoke at the UN.

"Edward Edmary Mpagi från Uganda tillbringade 18 år i dödscell. Han dömdes till döden år 1981 anklagad för att ha mördat en man som senare befanns vara i livet!

- Det är svårt att beskriva upplevelsen av att sitta i dödscell när man vet att man är oskyldig, säger Ray Krone, som är den 100:e dödsdömdefången som frigivits i USA efter att DNA-tester visat att han varit oskyldigt dömd.

Sakae Menda greps 1949 av de japanska myndigheterna anklagad för att ha mördats två personer. Genom att använda tortyr tvingade polisen fram en falsk "bekännelse", och efter en inkorrekt rättegång förklarades Menda alltså skyldig och dömdes därför att mista livet. Vid sex tillfällen begärde Sakae Menda ny rättegång innan äntligen ställdes inför rätta igen 1983. Efter att ha suttit i dödscell i 34 år, frikände domstolen honom och han blev den förste dödsdömde japan som släpptes ur fängelset.
- Att leva med vissheten att din dödsdom kan verkställas vilken månad eller dag som helst är tortyr, säger Sakae Menda.

De tre tidigare dödsdömda männen talade nyligen på ett möte som hade arrangerats av Amnesty vid FN i New York och de uppmanande alla stater i världsorganisationen som fortfarande använder dödsstraff att upphöra med detta.Uppgifterna är hämtade ur ett pressmeddelande från Amnesty. Det går för övrigt att gratisprenumerar på dessa meddelanden på nätet."

Additional facts about the death penalty in Japan. The time before the convicted person finds out when the actual execution is going to take place is sometimes (or very often??) only a couple of hours before and their families are not notified. Executions are often made while many people are on vacation.

Drunk Sincerity

Bad Religion's