panic attacks

All throughout my life, or as long as I can remember, I had panic attacks during sleep. The first ones I can remember started as early as when I was only 6 or 7, and I still have them on occasions. They all share the similarity that they happen when I am asleep, and that despite the fact that the reason behind the attacks are associated to the various situations that were appropriate in that phase of life, the feeling of the attacks are the same. This great urgency feeling that I am not doing whatever I am/was supposed to be doing, that I failed to do what I was expected to do in the greater scheme of things, whatever that was.

When I was 6, and thus the first attacks I remember, was almost always during my naps. As this blog title shows I was quite insatiable. I wanted to do everything, and more than the rest of my peers. The only way to do that, at the age of 6 and also later on, was to skip some of the things one was expected to do. Since I was not a patient person, ever, I needed to fast forward or skip altogether some steps/tasks one needed to do. One of that was the afternoon nap. I carefully calculated, as a young child, that if I would skip my noon naps, than I could read all the books I wanted to read that day ( I was a voracious reader at that age, a habit I "overcame" during my puberty) AND be able to play outside with my mates. Ofcourse, despite my high hopes I was not able to do this, and I, with my ever heavy eye lid, feel hostage of the mid-day slumber fairy that forced us into the deep hazy pool of slumber. During these times I would have the panic attacks, and these were attributed to my want or need to play with my friends outside, and my inability to do so due to the fatigue that I have been infected with.
Even with the panic attacks, I would fail to tumble into the waking world. After a struggle with my urges to play and the fairy's spell of slumber, the spell would always win and I would only awake when it was too late to go and play.
However, I would always remember these attacks and always be dissapointed in myself that I was not able to fight the very simple urges of fatigue and sleep.

The second round of attacks came during my last years of high school. They happened when I fell into my food coma states after dinner (which would've been actually the fourth warm meal of the day). My voracious appetite for books and words had morphed into my appetite for food. These were quite clear to me as well. They had to do with the fact that I was living in a culture where a strict regime of not sleeping apparently was thought as the key to one's academic success. As it was known then at the time "4 fail 3 succeed". This meant that if you slept 4 hours a day(at night), you will fail your college entrance exam, and you will succeed if you were to sleep only 3. Thus were the great ideals that made korea into what it is...
Anyhow, if you are that age, eating great deal amount of food and not being able to sleep proper during nights, it does happen that you wake up at random times during your naps in frantic panic... "s*** I should be studying"


For awhile these attacks seem to go away, but came back occasionally - for example, when I was in Edinburgh - which seem to be linked with my brain not registering that I've actually moved a continent away from home. I also had them again when I started a relationship with my boyfriend in berlin, and till now on occasion.

However, they were now very irritating due to that my conscious had failed to link with the unconscious attacks on finding the appropriate reason behind these spells.

Now even worse, and the real freaky thing is that I do them without noticing. Apparently I also make very clear audible sentences while I have these attacks. Last one seem to come with a sentence "Hey! (insert name here)! Weren't you supposed to give me something?" - apparently I did this while looking at (insert name here) - and yes in the middle of the night. Luckily enough my partner is not known to be freaked out easily.

After a long thought, I am still quite curious... what is it. is it, a baby?? Is that what my body is doing? Attacking my partner that he hasn't gotten me knocked up already, that behind my back(or my conscious self)?
That would be quite funny though, if I had some sort of alter ego that comes out in very sporadic moments - while I have no control over my self (read sleep)- to express my inner thoughts. hmmm. ofcourse if this were to grow out of proportion, I would either end up schitzo or like this guy who I know, who ended up in the laundry room in the basement of his apartment complex totally naked not knowing why how and when he came down there in such manner.
Thank god that hasn't happened (knock wood)
The best i got till now is singing silly songs and accusing people of not giving me things.

Ofcourse there was this one time when I was sharing a room with another friend who talks in her sleep and we were having full on in sleep conversations until she started giving me too random answers that didn't fit right in my dream.... but anyways.

(half of this blog entry was written on the 5th of april, 2010 and the other half on the 23rd of July 2011)

Amsterdam Insider's Tip: Drinks

So, I should be working, but I realised I haven't written anything in my blog for awhile. Thus decided to provide the world abit more of my good will and wisdom ;) before the year is completely over.
Also, I am terribly unproductive during the month of July - although my garden is growing like a jungle.

Anyhow, the first edition of Amsterdam's insider's tip is where to go drinking.
Abit background. I've lived in the Netherlands for 6 years now, but actually my trips to Amsterdam date back from when I lived in Edinburgh, but dated an Amsterdammer (which is btw what the rest of the Netherlands call a taller glass of beer)
Another background of why Drinking is put here as the first, is because Amsterdam is better in terms of drinking than food.(but food I will come back to later.)

Anyhow, here are my favourites in themes but first some rules.

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1. First Rule
DO NOT DRINK neither at LEISEPLEIN nor Rembrandtplein.
Seriously, these are the most touristy places in Amsterdam and the beer sometimes cost twice as much as you would usually pay. Rather go to nieuwemarkt, jordaan, and really just anywhere but there.(having said this some places not smack inside these areas but in the surrounding areas are quite alright)

2. Second rule
Order a Vaasje otherwise you will get a fluitje - which is like a shot of beer.

3. Third rule
you DON'T have to tip waiters/waitresses at bars, and also when they bring you beer/drinks you would usually round it up. Don't change this culture by bringing your own tipping culture into this world - yes I am looking at you guys Americans!
(but ofcourse you can tip for good service)

So the thematic places.

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Breweries and distilleries

*Brouwerij 't IJ : is the Amsterdam home grown organic beer at the East side, with their own traditional windmill!! They have one of the most delicious beers you can find, and hey you drink it from the source. It also has a nice terras(beer garden) right next to the waters. What else do you want? - the bars that are open right next to the brewery opens from 3~8pm so don't be late! Don't forget to try their sausages and cheese with the beer.

*Wynand-Fockink: is a liqueur distillery in the heart of Amsterdam. they have several different liqueurs starting from lemon, blue berry to some strange names, such as attic ?? The tasting room also opens from 3pm to 9pm, so go there early! The shots are about 1.5euros each and they really fill it up to the top!

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For the hipsters/artsies

*Cafe Brecht: vintage furniture, all sorts of Germany beers and an lounge like atmosphere with a piano inside. IT looks like something out of Prenzlauer Berg. Also they have poetry reading nights. A Great place for book worms.

*W139: This bar/club gallery space which used to be a squat is a hipster central of Amsterdam. Every weekend it looks like someone threw up hipster all of the street. Very artsy group of people.

* Kriterion: A bar next to the student run artsy/alternative cinema Kriterion provide another alternative bar scene for students but also a wide range of people. They have DJs during weekends and it becomes quite crowded.

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For the Punks
Go to squats - such as OCCII, OT 301, Joe's garage and Blijvertje.
Otherwise.. here are some alternatives.

* Sound garden: this is probably the only punkish bar in amsterdam. Yeah, Amsterdam doesn't do punk. There is a pool table and a wonderful beer garden next to the waters which draws alot of punkish alternative crowds but also very international crowds.

* Pacfic Parc: okay this isn't really punk, but still the closest you get to it. It has a nice outside area next to waters and has really good music events.


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Terrases and water
Amsterdam is well known for having nice places to hang next to the waters.
Here are my favourites

* Noorderlicht: This is right on the NDSM island, which you have to take a ferry to get to. This looks like a converted green house that changed its function into a bar/restaurant. When the weather is nice, they have nice bbqs and really comfy couches just outside next to the water. This cannot even be counted as a terras since its just outside in the "wild" so to say. During the evenings they also have parties/djs and live music. however, don't forget the last ferry back to civilization leaves around midnight!

*Cafe Hesp: is right next to the Amsterdam Amstel River. Thus it has the advantage of having this massive terras next to the river.It also has its own brewed beer. Perfect place to catch that bit of afternoon sun while lounging next to the river.

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cozy areas

There are loads of cozy bars around Amsterdam, in the centre.
however, here are some that are even extra cozy.

Cafe Langereis: This is smack in the centre but still has that extra cozy sweet living room feeling to it without having to pay for the extra costs.

Cafe Skek: This is a student run cafe/bar, which has music evenings during Thrusday to Sunday. Also has nice foods. Check out its cozy attic like room, where you really can fit 6 persons or so, and a window looking towards the stage area.

Cafe Zeppos: This place has a nice winter garden, with all the flowers and plants inside!
They also provide some nice food and good quality jazz music during weekends.

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I strongly believe that too much choices makes one depressed as well, so I stop here but I must say that there are quite alot of places I haven't really mentioned but are nice... so try the others out as well!

Inside job & the state of our society

This is must see movie about the causes and the state of affairs of the financial crisis, focusing on the US.
The key points of this movie are as follows.
* the financial crisis was largely due to very risky investments made by banks (on bad loans)
* the banks/financial organisations also made it so that they bet against themselves as well so that they make money when the loans defaulted
* the government institutions (assessment institutions and regulation institutions) that were set up to restrict the risky business transactions and secure private investors/loaners are "owned" by the banks and thus there were in fact no regulatory systems to hold the powers of capital back
* the government is largely "owned" by the banks due to that most of the people working for the government that advise on or make the policies are former chiefs of these banks and firms and/or still have interest in them
* even the economists in universities are bought out by the fact that they receive large sums of money for writing papers/analysis that favour the risky deals made by bankers and they serve and receive money for being in board members of the most fraudulent banks
* the bankers gained incredible amounts of money while the rest of society had to pay for it
* even now not a single one of these bankers have been prosecuted concerning the fraudulent deals that they made

....

This movie is down right scary. It shows how in this society when we deregulate so that capital can actually unleash its power how dangerous it could be. These bankers made billions of dollars while making risky deals which they knew could fail but would not affect their gains. One thing we must admit is that these are not horrible people - although I sometimes wonder how they could do such things and sleep at night or live without feeling utter guilt. I believe that once in that position, once in the race for more money and it is possible to do so, since there are not any bodies to regulate this behaviour, it becomes a matter of if I do not do it, the other guy would anyhow - why should I not make money out of this when they let the other guy do so.

The problem is that since capital indeed holds power to a incomprehensible amount, there is really no power that can regulate it. Capital holds power not only in politics(congress/lobbyists etc), but also information(news networks/economists in universities and research centres etc). Since everyone needs money and since it is rather necessary and helpful to do anything, such as run for congress...(especially due to that politics is now a PR game more than anything else)... banks literally own the world.

What the rest of the population is left with is one of the largest public cuts since the last Deregulation period in the 80s with Regan and Thather - only because they had to bail out these banks which made money through these deals.

let's just get more in detail and calculate this abit more.

UK 2007 bank bonuses was announced be 11 billion pounds. even in 2009 this was 7.3billion and 2010 7 billion.
For me, I think regardless of what you've actually done- even if you found cure for cancer- NOTHING can justify a 10 million euro bonus/year on top of your 1million salary. Seriously WHAT COULD YOU HAVE POSSIBLY DONE mr.banker? no you do not deserve it. Here is someone else's take on the problem with this.
Anyhow, many of these banks had to be bailed out with a 400billion pound injection
to save the deficit that came from these injections and bankruptcies, the national health service- the free health national health insurance system of the UK will have to cut 20 billion - which means cuts in staff and supply - which means that many will not be able to get the proper treatment they need.
This would essentially mean that many will eventually die and suffer tremendously- because they are cutting down a health system which already has problems of not being able to address the illness of individuals fast enough.
And let's not forget about the dramatic increase in inequality or the decrease in real wages of workers in the past few decades...

But wait. It doesn't stop there. In the most recent elections in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany which all took after the recession- ALL countries have had the conservatives win.
All of whom had announced massive budget cuts while not regulating banking systems nor excessive incomes which are not based on real production of anything.
Why are people voting for these conservatives?? I absolutely have no idea.

However, people are acting more directly as well..
Its good to hear there are things being done to stop this in some countries. But in general, not much is being done.

And in recent times there has been movement to think that perhaps we are at the end of a capitalist society perhaps as Marx predicted it, and capital has been let loose out of its reins and due to it, accordingly there will be an uprising by the people (proletariat)- such as the one we saw in Egypt, Libya, London...
Perhaps not, perhaps we are in the mist of being completely owned by big capital and the middle class will essentially collapse totally.

The catch also is that through this financial crisis everyone is put at a situation where one has to be working like crazy to save one's ass - thus does not have time to think about the true problems of society. For this reason, this movie really hits the spot that really needs to be hit in current society.

Here is something more just to get you thinking abit harder

You Decide

So readers, I don't know how many of you are out there, and will read this, but for some of you who've noticed, this blog will turn 5 years old on the 21st of January.
Hurrah!

To celebrate, I will ask you the readers to send me any topic you wish to read about - or more so, that you want me to write about.
The deadline is till the 20th of January, 2011, and the post will be up on the 21st or 22nd or 23rd (depending on how busy and lazy I feel).

I know this may result in no suggestions, but hey, I am a optimist

Tiger mom or just crazy conservative mom?

So, I am guessing many of you read the WSJ article by Amy Chua on her new book on parenting, called the "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother".
Well, you should've known about it since it cause so much controversy and attention, including one blogpost that simple write "PS. You Suck" (most of the sentences start with "And Fuck you..")

The whole story can be summed up by these few lines

"Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:
• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin"

abit harsh parenting techniques?
I have to say, regardless of whether or not it is painful to admit, my parent's parents and up to my parent's generation took this "Tigerness" as a rule of thumb guide to parenting. Although the intensity of it was not as strong as Mrs. Chua's - for example, i think everyone was allowed to have play dates and watch TV.
The whole point is that this Confucius parenting style which used to be hailed as a good parenting technique, is no longer the case for several downsides our societies saw due to it.

20 or so years ago, we all learned about the wonderful mother Shim Saimdang the great mother of scholar Yi I - how she cut rice cakes in the dark, while she made her son write Chinese calligraphy over and over again.... yeah, he achieved much. he became the great politician and spread Confucianism throughout Korea. (yeah, well done, go pat yourself on the back) This was THE way to raise your child, or so people thought those days.
This great tradition of raising your children was still seen when I was going to highschool - mind you this is 20 years ago. Yet, although there were strict parents, they were not that strict as Ms. Chua put it as it should be.

However, this is now not the case, and the reason is because the problems started to outweigh the benefits.

One of the reasons for this parenting was that this is an effective parenting technique when you have several children (like 7, which my dad's family had) and not enough time to actually respond to them as individuals. One of the core key element of Confucius teaching/parenting techniques is that you set the rules, children are to abide by it, and no questions asked. IF you have 7~10 children running around, perhaps it is easier to raise children as such. However, about 30~40 years ago, when people started having 1 or 2 children, this method ceased to have its perks due to that with this small number of children, it was easy to see them as what they were. Individuals.

In addition, this strict method actually decreased the much necessary technique of being creative. I remember although I was one of the best in art class when I was in the US, and was even toying with the idea of becoming an artist, when I came back to Korea that ambition went straight down the toilet. Why? because the teachers, using the same Confucius techniques, told me exactly what to draw, how to do it, and how to colour I should use etc. When I told them that is not what I want to do, they told me it was wrong and punished me either by giving me a bad grade and/or giving me (those days physical) punishment for talking back. That really killed the inner creativity of Korea, not just for me but for many of us. That is why we have one of the highest shares of technically skilled "artists" in the world, but we end up in sweat shops colouring in The Simpson's cartoon as designed by the Americans. This is why we hear all these stories of how in the prestigious music conservatories across the world, countless numbers of students from Asia come to study classical music, but fail to get admission. This is not because of their technical skills, which is far better than the other students, but their soul is missing, or they do not have any creativity in how they play. Having been forced to play an instrument for several years - without having a personal urge to do so, like Amy Chua is doing to her kids, - I can imagine why your piano playing will not sound joyful although technique wise it is perfectly played.(and yes, I don't care if your child played at a great concert hall, all I care is whether or not if she or he was able to enjoy that, feel the energy of the composer and was able to digest it as her own) With an even greater emphasis on creativity and uniqueness in this day and age, the strict top-down parenting techniques do not provide the necessary skills for the children of today and in the future.

Even if creativity was not a big issue, the strict parenting, especially of fathers, resulted in major family crises. Fathers were being left out of the family since he was always the (more) strict one, also combined with the crazy working hours of the Korean workforce, this meant that fathers after awhile were strangers to the family, no longer able to connect with anyone. Thus, in the past decade or so, there have been several courses offered in Korea for fathers to start getting in touch with their families and themselves emotionally.

The emphasis on education and high expectation on academic achievement led to one of the highest PISA scores and the (second) highest college graduate rate in the world. However, Korea also has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, many of which are Korean high-school students who believe they are worthless due to their low academic achievement, and others who under the strict parenting regime never learned to love themselves because of the fact that they did not achieve as much as they were told they needed to. Nor did they learn the skills to accept failure, not focus on it, but embrace other things that are still thriving in their lives.

So the fact of the matter is, we need to decide: do we want higher academic achieving non creative kids who killed themselves? or happy creative unique kids who are alive?

Why is Amy Chua and so many Asian American(other countries?) mothers applying such rules even when the "old country" has abandoned them? I think this may be due to the phenomenon that the Asian-Americans tend to latch on to the traditional values they knew when they (or their parents) left the country. Whereas the country itself changes in a very dynamic way and changes its values and norms accordingly. In addition, you have to understand that Asian-Americans are still minorities who are under racist societies. More than the Asians in Asia, they need to prove themselves that they are not second rate citizens, but that they are actually better than the majority. One way of doing that is to show that they can out-do everyone in the most commonly appreciated things, such as social position, income generation, education achievement etc. It is abit sad to see that even the second, third generations have to suffer from all this as well. Especially, when these achievements have really nothing to do with how happy or satisfied this person is. These are mostly attributions that are needed to show others what a great life you have and what others see as your achievements. All you achieve then is happiness through other people's eyes, but not of your own. But I mean, you won't make a statement by making well rounded individuals, or it is much more noticeable when you make rich or high educational achieving individuals.

Having said all this, one thing we must embrace about this tiger mother, is that she never gives up. Her efforts in supporting her children is endless and even when the child feels hopeless, the Mom is always there in 100% belief that her child has a gift for everything. Given in the right dosage, this is a wonderful thing to have as a child.(again given in the right dosage. oh yeah, the cynicism of (some and definitely my) East Asian moms are also fantastic to make sure you don't take yourself too seriously)


---ps. I must've written this in such a haste, because re-reading it, it is sooo full of grammatical and spelling mistakes, it is rather embarrassing. I hope you didn't mind (you the reader, yes you there, who is still reading up to here!)

Asian girls before and after make up

I don;t know about you, but the girl in the left is far more attractive and sexy to me

This site has a collection of asian girls before and after putting make-up on.
Jezebel wrote how surprising it is to see the uniformity of the ideas of beauty.

"In all three cases, individuality is stripped away to achieve a clear and cohesive standard of "beauty." Here, that apparently means anime eyes, kiss-pout mouths, and the general stripping of 10 years off of one's age.
Read more"

I agree with them somewhat, which is something I wrote here few years ago.

To be honest, the girls in these photos actually do not look all the same. There are some cute bunny girly types and the more sexy types. So, I do not completely agree.
What is sad to see and I must say is that most of them strip themselves of the intelligent looking unique characters of their own faces to put on the rather "bimbo" "cute" "innocent adolescent girl" face, which is popular in the East-Asian countries (I think these girls are Japanese but they could as well be from Korea, China, Taiwan and other East-Asian countries).
BTW - this is not to say that other countries are exempted from this uniformity of beauty standards and how women minimize their true beauty to make themselves more appealing in the dating market. (which is also in a way an insult to men and hinders any development towards cultivating a true culture of the sense of beauty). *sigh*
(for more before/after make up)

PS. after looking at more photos(especially of gallery 2), I retract my statement from saying "all of them strip themselves..." to "most of them". because some of them actually just look quite alright, and not gone through the process of bimbo-ing themselves.

Stop recycling.... Let's start REUSING IT!

I don't know when this happened, probably after these mass campaigns on ecological awareness of production processes and this new wave of eco-chic, but I am slowly becoming more and more aware of consumption and how ridiculous some things are.

In the past few weeks, what has been bothering me the most is packaging.
Although we only see the primary packaging (what the product is actually wrapped in), there is also secondary and transit packaging, which I will not even go into.
But even primary packaging. Half of all packaging is plastic and 25% paper/board, 10% glass. Of these, currently in Amsterdam, with the exception of beer bottles and a small portion of PET bottles, NONE of them are being re-used.(excluding the niche bio-market packaging that is being re-used in a much smaller scale).
Although we try to feel better about ourselves by saying we recycle it, but think about it again. These products/packaging are made so that they last (almost) a life time/forever. That is why plastic doesn't rot, because it was meant to be used forever! However, we don't. And the best we do is recycle it. But recycling is not RE-cycling, its DOWN-cycling.
When we recycle a glass product, it means that it is first smashed up, probably mixed in with non-glass products to make a not as good quality re-cycled glass product. Throughout this whole process we use energy and other natural resources. And apparently recycling wine bottles leave as much carbon foot print, as making a new wine bottle. - and let's not forget that not all glass products are recycled.(In Germany, the recycling country of the world, only 82% of glass products are recycled. In the UK, this is about 60%)

Now think about the glass products that we usually use.
Just to give you an example in my household, the bottles we have are predominately wine bottles and glass jars that holds things, such as pickles.
Wine bottles for example, are almost uniform in their shapes, and can actually be re-used just like beer bottles. Why are we not doing this? ( This post says that it has been due to technological problems, but also interests behind making new bottles. Fortunately enough there have been movements to change this, and businesses are being set up to re-use bottles.)

But still what really gets me going, is how Albert Heijn, the biggest supermarket in the Netherlands, where it really has a monopoly in supermarket goods, does not even re-use their own product packaging - for example the juice bottles. See, if it is your own product, you cannot use the excuse of "not same standard" nor the "takes more energy to take it back to the production field/factory" excuse.
They have the network and I bet you that their costumers are enlightened enough to bring the bottles back, even if it did not have a "statiegeld"-deposit for it!!

Just some of the EASILY reusable products from Albert Heijn.

So... Here is a little campaign I am going to start.
Go here: https://www.ah.nl/klantenservice/contact/overalbertheijn
Choose overige, for your onderwerp.
and write down
"Dear Albert Heijn, Hello. I am a very frequent customer of yours, but I have a complaint. I am wondering why you do not re-use your bottles and jars of your own products- such as the Albert Heijn Juice or Jam, and the plastic packaging - such as the Alert Heijn ready to eat products. Recycling takes as much energy and leaves as much carbon foot print as making new products. By not re-using the packaging, this puts me and many others off of buying the mentioned products. on the other hand, I will be more than happy to bring the used bottles, jars, cartons back to Albert Heijn for free, or will be willing to be charged "statiegeld"- deposit, when I purchase these products. I hope you listen to our plea. Best wishes, [YOUR NAME]"


PS. Ofcourse, when I tried this, the albertheijn site didn't work......!@*@#&@*!

bad decisions

The problem with bad decisions is that, you never quite know if it is a bad decision until it is already too late.

Angie becomes Geertje

So, this weekend, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that

"Multi-culturalism is dead.... long live multi-culturalism"

no the last bit of the sentence I put in.
She actually said, how guest workers (Gastarbeiters) that came to lift up the economy during the 60s (and till now!) have not left as the Germans had once believed, but now the Germans and the immigrants could not "live happily side by side".

The reasons noted not only by her, but others is that
1. too many come
2. they all bring their (large) families)
3. they eat up all the welfare checks

The thing I would like to know is
1. how many did actually came in the last decades
2. Does the German government believe in splitting up families? So you only want to bring in the young workers, without their dependents?
3. Did you not think of this when you wanted to import (skilled) workers?
4. What exactly is the proportion of migrants on welfare schemes - I ask this, since I know they will not make it easy to get ANY migrants on it
5. How much of the recent/past economic growth can you attribute to the migrant community??
6. WHO do you exactly define as migrants anyhow? Are you saying those who were born in Germany but of different ethnicity are also migrants? - since these days "migrant" is just a way for them to say "middle eastern/muslim"....

about question number 5, and 4
Migrant workers are a great asset, fuel of economic growth when the economy is doing well and there is a worker/ skill shortage. This is when the media and the politicians shut the **ck up about migration issues. On the other hand, in economic conditions such as now, in recession, companies let go of the vulnerable workers first - thus the women and migrants. Also, in times of uncertainty, employers will not employ new workers, but when they do, they go back into the traditional way of thinking - employing white men.
Thus, when we say migrants are on welfare checks, let;s really see who it is to blame. I know that there are asylum seekers that can be categorized as abit different case, but really what is this percentage, and again whose fault is it- their fault or the failure of the integration/training policies? Also, if you fail to accept those in dire situation, what type of world wide brotherhood are we supporting?

but overall, why isn't anyone showing hard proof concerning this at all?
and another thing, who can really define who "immigrants" are? Who are we kidding pretending nations have existed for a long time? its only in the past one of two decades that countries formed their current boundaries. and Even before then, there were loads of mass migrations all over. Do nations really have the legitimacy to say who the country belongs to?
I believe that migration is the easy way out for many politicians when they want to make a grand reform on the current social security/assistance scheme, so it doesn't upset their main voting population. Unfortunately, this whole scheme is working...

How capitalism gets a grasp on you

There is a saying, many of you know different versions of.
it goes roughly

"If you are not a Marxist at a young age, you are an idiot,
if you are a Marxist as an older adult, you are an idiot"

It more or less talks about how as a young person one should dream of the idealism of society, but come to the cold sense of real life when one becomes an "adult".
Having been a Marxist when I was young (yes, despite some entries telling you otherwise, yours truly is not as stupid as one may think), I always thought this quote was preposterous, idiotic and not true. Once a Marxist, always a Marxist. Although I did fear the moment when I have lost my true hearts without even noticing.

Now being in an age where one could be categorized as the "older adult", I understand why this quote comes about. Not because Marxism is too idealistic, but because capitalism really gets a grasp on you, and it is very difficult to escape its reigns.

After graduating, one will find a job. A Job will usually be something about 40 hours, which is what my contract is. It is a rather well paying position, although I am not making banker's bonuses, I do not complain. I would actually like to work shorter hours, but that is not really a possibility for me at this position I am in.
This is also enforced due to that I could not find a cheaper place for us to live. Living with my partner, we tried to find something which is not big, but also not too expensive. However, the housing market is made so there is either rooms for students, single persons' housing, or big ass couple/family housing. At least in Amsterdam, there is no middle ground, especially in the renter's market. Or, what happens is that the amount of money you spend per square meter increase dramatically when the size becomes below 100m2. When children come, it would be worse, you feel that you need to provide for them the best there is... and what about all the other stuff, such as bio-food, stylish clothes, and insurance for when things do not go as smoothly. One cannot but work full time. Especially since when you start working, naturally you do get into the rat race of them all. Its okay when you are not playing at all, but when you do, you feel a need to succeed.

However, working full time, and having a long commute, one really looses the energy to do anything other than work. When one has free time, it is to relax and relieve stress you get from work. Something like watching mind numbing videos and comedy. When you are physically and emotionally burned out, especially due to the increase in work intensity we have these days, one does not have extra energy to go and ponder upon some of the main questions in life and society. This is the reason why one looses contact with one's political ideals.... pure lack of energy.

Everyone I know after 30, when asked how they are doing, the first thing they'll say is "busy... I'm super busy, but otherwise okay".... regardless of what they do, and whether or not they have children. I think it is even considered a merit to say this, to show people that you are not wasting away your life.

After living like this for awhile, you become mind numbed drones, perfect to be blindfolded unaware of how society is being led. Since all you want is some nice food, a nice vacation and some sleep.

.....
oct 12 2010...very very tired.
need to update this later... but thought I will share this though first.