I would like a "Beutiful dreamy boy-jealous girl" combo rollup "to go",please..

It all comes down to what you can and what you cant do. For example you can accept that you have no control over a situation or you cant. If this situation involves waiting for someone you just met and spent a week with to come back in a months time from a camp full of horny, athletic, tanned girls faithful somehow to you, the real question remains if you can fool yourself that this is even possible or you cant.

Penelope decided she could wait for Ulysses, for a long long, long long long, long long long, long time. But then again Penelope was no full. She was queen and she had a mansion and cash to spend while the husband was gone. As a woman of her time and at her age she had nothing better to do but wait. She knew he would cheat; who wouldn't? After 10 years apart it didn't even count as cheating but more as survival. Penny knew that in order to remain queen she had to wait, in order for her son to have a future as a king of Ithaca she had to wait. Plus she was already old and all the other men were gone at war too for the most part anyway. And she and Ulysses were already married for years when he left. What's my excuse then?

What do i have to show as a reason for even entertaining the thought of believing a 20 year old boy (its an intentional use of word, trust me) that he wont "sleep around" when he, solo, decided arbitrarily that somehow after a week I am some a center in his life so that there can even be an "around" to sleep with.

Simple, I don't have a good reason. In truth its not even a question of whether I believe him or not. I am certain that the reality and his hormones will dictate otherwise even if he is so naive as to mean everything he said and promised. What really bothers me is that by saying all this unrealistic crap he succeded in making me inevitably think twice before looking at another male while the reasonable person inside me screams in vain: "what does that have to do with anything? If he doesnt want to do anyone else thats his business! But since you left primary school some time ago how can you consider a commitment to a person after a week just because he left you a book, a note and a shirt with his perfume?"

The thing is it has to do with everything. I know its improbable if not impossible that he will come back to me. Its very realistic to expect that i might not want him back by then. But the romantic aspect in every girls psyche, the naivete of love at first sight and the hormones of a weeks great sex say that I will try to wait, and be a good girl too while I am at it. Because in the end I have to figure out if I can or cant wait but I already know that I cant live without the hope that I can belong to someone.

The ghost of callories consumed

"How dare she kiss him? OMG have you even seen her? She is the size of a hippo and he is like gorgeous..!!"

Did the woman in the table next to mine even realize what she said? I think not.
What she said is the very essence weight-discrimination. In her version of reality extra pounds equals less rights to the pursuit of happiness. The trouble is: her version of reality is quite popular.

She is what one would classify as a "skinny bitch".
That is not a person that weighs less but someone, a woman usually, that cant be satisfied with the fact that she managed to live up to the outrageous beauty standards of fashion magazines but needs for those, who haven't sacrificed every pleasure so as to look like her, to suffer from lack of any social success. Skinny bitches are the bigots who hate the rest of us for our ability to chose a piece of chocolate cake over low fat yogurt without the inner drive to whip ourselves a hundred times. They believe in the dogma that if you haven't starved you don't deserve that great job, that hot guy, that beautiful coat.

Unfortunately it is not just the skinny b*****s, many of the self appointed rational people and yes many of the heavier people as well tend to think like that. They correlate weight with academic social and personal success and even happiness itself. According to this line of thinking normal, chubbier and yes, fat people don't have the right to wear whatever they want, because it is too revealing, they don't have the right to like and hit on whomever they want, because they are too hot for them, shouldn't dance or go to the gym looking like that!

The fashion industry of course is one of the leaders in this discrimination. The sizes get smaller the choices for different bodytypes are becoming extinct and the people that do not have to excersize their math skills by constantly calculating callories are forced to do their shopping to special shops. We are talking for a new kind of sagrogation.

I am not arguing for obesity of course but being healthy and being a thinness-freak are too states of being worlds apart.

The truth is: we all think like the skinny bitches from time to time about ourselves or others. We all have been hunted by the ghost of callories consumed. But that hopefully has more to do with our mesntrual circle (or hormones in general) and less about the actual way we view the world.

To get to a point. Equal rights have to do with more than just skin color, race and gender it has also to do with size. Heavy and big can be beautiful! The right to the pursuit of happiness does not have to do with kilos or looks.

oh, and i am not overweight :P

Pro choice or Pro woman?

I was watching Boston Legal the other night which happens to be one of my favorite TV series. One of the reasons why it’s so dear to me is the fact that it deals with a lot of controversial and/or contemporary issues and, even though sometimes it is clear which side is favored, most of the times both sides are heard. The particular episode that intrigued me was dealing with the issue of abortion from a different, yet not entirely new, angle. It discussed the rights of the man, the father.

The right of a woman to her body, the right to determine her life and thus the choice to have a baby or not is kind of a given for me. I never hesitated faced with that question: I am pro choice. But when it comes to the man is there a choice? It takes two to have a baby. Why does it take one not to have it?

Why is it that we only talk about a father’s participation and contribution, in fact we demand it, only after we decide that we want the baby? Isn’t this a little, excuse me, a lot selfish?

If you think about it though, you can’t force someone to carry a baby. A pregnancy is no small deal your body is changing and your lifestyle has to change with it! Its strenuous, its long, its committing. I guess that’s where the difference lies. But then again, they get no say whatsoever?

We could at least establish that they have a right to know. It is unfair to decide beforehand that he’d rather not know and use that as an excuse for not telling him. It is selfish to assume that you are doing him a favor by keeping him out of it. Not only is it bad for him and possibly for you but is also perpetuating a disturbing notion that fathers are only there either because they were forced to by court with child support orders or because a woman was cunning enough to force them into marrying her. What is this? Fatherhood might not be the dream we implant into little boys heads nor do we expect them to play with baby dolls and take care of them at the age of five, but for all I know having children is an understandably scary and difficult yet fulfilling experience for them as well. To tell you the truth I believe it’s today’s women that have done a lot to alienate men from the idea of having children. We want that many children, we believe it is only our right to chose when and how we will have those children etc, we only want men to just acknowledge the fact that they are responsible for the creation of a child and pay for it. We cultivate the image of the man that doesn’t care and doesn’t want to take part in the upbringing. Keeping men out of the decision making process for an abortion is one of the ways we have achieved that. By saying “It’s none of your business” we make it none of their business.

I believe men should have the right to chose if they want to become fathers but a woman’s right to her body is of greater importance. As a result I am defending a man’s right to know and hopefully somehow contribute to the decision because it is his life too, it is his child too and because fatherhood is a right not a death sentence.

Man I sound melodramatic sometimes. :)

That's what you get..

I have been thinking i should write something about the conflict in Georgia. I guess it’s too late now and in any case people who know more than me and have a better understanding of the situation should be the ones criticizing, analyzing and pin pointing the real issues. But I feel that I have to mention something that has been bugging me. When the news about Georgia was still fresh I was staying at a friend’s house and the topic came up during lunch. Naturally more than a few people at the table had really strong opinions concerning the conflict and one of them said and I quote “They deserved what they got” referring to the Georgian side, “that’s what you get for messing with Russia”. To those who know me it would be needless to explain I was infuriated. It’s not that I believed the Georgian side was right (or wrong for that matter) I didn’t have an opinion. My concern was that it wasn’t the government that took the hit but the people of Georgia. It is always the people! Villages and towns were bombed, innocent people were driven away from their homes. When I voiced my concern the only response I got was a repetition of “that’s what you get when you mess with Russia”.

I have a friend in Georgia and the first news I got concerning the issue was from an e-mail sent by her. She was so scared that I got alarmed, she described how things were there and the reality just shook me. It’s another thing to watch or hear the news and another to know that a person you know a person you have eaten with and spoken to and laughed with is in the middle of this mess. I tried explaining that to the people at my table at the risk of ruining lunch but they didn’t seem to get it. It seems that the “reality” of politics and the concept of “war is necessary” is easier for us to grasp, when we are outside, than the concept of human tragedy and the loss of innocents.

Its simply sad that we have become so accustomed to wars and military interventions that we watch them and talk about them with the same calm calculation that we would comment on a "Age of empires" or "Rome total war" session on our pc.

It is always the people that get hurt. That’s what you get for messing with "guns"..

Morality = choker OR agreed upon code of conduct?

My good friend E*** and I were discussing a couple of weeks ago about morality. I admitted that I envy her because she seems to have been born with an internal alarm that seems to go off every time something is “morally wrong”. She never hesitates or doubts, she just knows. I on the other hand have to think through everything in order to decide if I am “morally” opposed to it. In that sense I have replaced morality with logic. In my opinion our society in general is doing the same thing. (Maybe as a way to solve the problem of moral relativity?) The problem with going down that road though is that one starts using arguments to explain something that should not and can not always be broken down and analyzed logically. We end up not asking ourselves “why?” but “why not?”and the answers are becoming less and less convincing and the little voice in our head that is suggesting with ever growing hesitation “maybe you shouldn’t be sleeping with him, after all he is your best friends ex that broke her heart” is dying out.

Our moral boundaries seem to stretch endlessly as we discover more and more things that “weren’t so bad” after all. Things are no longer good and bad just things we have done and things we haven’t done...yet!

For example the other night we were having a conversation with a friend about relationships and sex. Now she seemed to believe that it is morally colorless to sleep with a guy whom you know to be involved with someone else but it is disgusting and abominable to make out with your lesbian girlfriend in public because: “You can’t force the people around you to see THAT, it’s disgusting!”

The reason being she obviously has been sleeping repeatedly with guys that were in a relationship but hasn’t experimented with any of her girlfriends...yet! Same way H**** thinks that it is possible to cheat on your boyfriend even though you love him but it is cruel to stay with a person if you are not interested in them and E*** thought sex out of the relationship was also out of the question until she tried it.

Is this really a moral decadence or are we just tearing down the faux preconceived moral ideas that were implanted in our heads even before we could speak?

Are we just taking off the choker??

Heartbreak hotel

On a more personal note,

I broke up with my boyfriend with whom I was in a relationship for 2 years and 8 months. Now I wouldn't normally even begin to write something as personal on a blog which theoretically anyone can access and read but I am aware at this point in my life that no one actually reads my blog and the only comments I find about the "stuff" I have written are advertisements about lawns and breast implants. So back to the breakup, it has only been two days yet so everything is still too fresh to touch but I really need to get a few things down on paper (so to speak) so that I can clear my thoughts.

I got into this relationship when I was just fifteen and a sophomore, now I am in college and living alone in another city. I have broken up again and gotten back together with that very same boyfriend but I just came to realize that this time it is final. That is why yesterday when we broke up it really felt like "THE END" but also the beginning of a new stage in my life that is not only different but also as challenging as the first day of school. Because the loss of the person around whom I had purposely and knowingly built my life, for almost three years, forces me really to start almost from scratch. I didn't lose just any boyfriend I lost the person with whom I spent three very important and character shaping years of my life with. I didn't lose just a boyfriend I lost my best friend and my comfort and my guide and my psychiatrist and my shopping partner and crisis manager.

And no I don't think we can really stay friends because, even though I know that we couldn't stay together for several reasons( he didn't feel good about it anymore, we live 600 kilometers away from each other and this is not going to change anytime soon, we are too young for such a commitment) I cant help but feeling let down by the very person I depended on.
...
To be honest my greatest difficulty so far has been to refrain from calling him. On the one hand I cant help hoping that he might call even though I know for a fact he never will and on the other hand I am trying to protect myself from getting hurt by a constant contact with him. If I go further I realize the dilemma is actually more long term and more substantial than it looks at first glance. If I decide not to call him at all as I have decided this means that maybe I will recover sooner but it also means that I am losing a really good friend (but haven't I already?). If decide to call him it might get messy and probably more difficult for him too (which is an advantage of the proposal) but it might also lead me to hoping we might get together again and that would be catastrophic.

I understand that it was too much that I expected this to last forever considering the distance and our age but I cant help but think that I didn't want this to end I didn't mind traveling all these hours by train just to be with him and I didn't mind that we had to spend most of our time together on the phone. For a while he didn't mind either so maybe it wasn't the distance after all maybe he just got tired or bored of me, I guess its only natural but even so the thought is killing me.

I just want to talk to him about anything: the weather, politics, movies but I cant and I shouldn't.

This is final and I have to deal with it: even good things come to an end.

Freedom

Absolute freedom.
A common demand by every one of us, but how much do we really want it?
And if everyone wants it why is our society based upon the lack of it.
It is true that men have fought some thousands of wars over it or with the excuse of it. Poetry, prose, music and painting have been used as tools to demand or praise freedom.

But what is freedom first of all?
According to the American Heritage dictionary it is: The condition of being free of restrains. The capacity to exercise choice; free will.
Freedom is indeed the absence of boundaries and limits of any sort, whether that be a leaders will, unwritten rules, laws or even society’s demands.
One person alone, hypothetically at least, can be absolutely free.

Two people, living in the same place, can never be free. Society, human interaction is what limits our freedom.
But, we are social beings, at least according to Aristotle.
How can we then be free and part of society? We cant!

Freedom is a Myth.

There is no absolute freedom.
Ever since man created societies there has been none, ever.
It is Just as Lenin said:

"While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State."

Society and freedom can’t co-exist.
Living in a society, any kind of society, be it a family, a school or a community, is not possible without the compromise of our freedom. Everything we say, everything we do is controlled and limited for the good of others and ourselves.

Laws too are a compromise.

Laws were established after all to serve society. Law is an agreement, in which we compromise and limit our freedom in order for everyone to do the same and therefore protect ourselves from others. Since laws are then the foundation of our society, then our society is based upon a compromise of our freedom.

Let’s look at an everyday example. Fashion.

Fashion is another aspect through which we can realize even rather simplistically the torment of absolute freedom.

Imagine entering this huge shop, your choices are indeed infinite. You have no limitations. How would you feel? Excited? Take a second to think about it. My guess is that were it not for fashion’s do’s and don’t ‘s you would be lost in that chaos. What would you base your choice on? Taste? Who do you think forms that taste? Isn’t it society?

Because we live in a society, we have the comfort of choosing what is accepted by our group; that is what gives us the reassurance that our choice is approved of by someone else.

Now think of something utterly different: What is your dream career? What are you going to do in your life? Do you think you really have the freedom to choose?

First and foremost there is your…mother and maybe your father! Your family has a tremendous influence on your choice. What is more, we could never exclude from the factors that, “have a say” on your career choice, your sex, your skin color, your social status and even your talent! These are all “little” things that together create a barrier between you and your freedom.

But, there is still freedom of thought, right?

Even what you think is limited by society, if your thoughts are immoral or abnormal you are taught to dismiss them yourself, you are taught to consider them sinful and evil.

What freedom then is there? Even in thinking? Shame and morality are the yoke of the minds and souls.

Hence, we cannot have societies if we want to be free. Without societies, though, man cannot survive. Thanks to society we endured when we were the least able to face nature. It was the society that enabled us to progress.

We have established then that there is no absolute freedom within society’s framework. Yet everyone cries for it, demands it, even fights for it.

Possibly because we haven’t realized what absolute freedom really is.

Well according to many philosophers, amongst whom Nietzsche holds a prominent position, crime is the only act of freedom.

Crime, breaking the law, is in fact an act against the social group one is a part of, yet at the same time it is the only absolute act of freedom because it is an act that breaks all limitations and restrictions.

But, we need not go to such extremes, even on principle we don’t want freedom, because freedom scares us. Or as George Bernard Shaw put it: "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."

You all must have at least once wished you could go back and those happy days when you were kids, when you were young, didn’t have wrinkles, didn’t have a drivers license and didn’t have to worry about taxes. Well taxes are exactly my point. The reason why you want to go back to your childhood is because it is the age when you had less freedom, less freedom meant less responsibility, you were not to blame and would not be held accountable for your mistakes.

From where I stand it is clear that people, having experienced both freedom and its responsibility and the wild joy of being happy for not having to make agonizing choices, prefer the latter.

Having doubts?

Take a moment to consider how Robinson Crusoe might have felt, all alone, well that is before Friday appeared, on a deserted island. He obviously was facing a huge dilemma; he could either build a boat and try to “go home” or stay put and try to make the most out of his situation. In either choice there is a certain amount of risk. Robinson can either die alone on an island or die trying to find his way home; neither of his choices are pleasant.

I believe Crusoe would rather not have to make that choice! Because he is absolutely free, society-wise, but he himself cannot help resenting the fact that he will have to suffer the consequences of his actions while having absolutely no kind of limitation or norm to abide by or anyone to blame. If he could only ask his mother…

To conclude, freedom by definition is not compatible with society, our free will is anything but free. Yet even when not confined by society human beings are not willing to accept the responsibility that freedom brings. Freedom is a Myth.

My version of the graduation speech-"the greatest problems humanity is facing today and what solutions can you suggest?"

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I won’t pretend I am in the position to judge you, because I like you and like the entire almost western world belong to the rich minority of the planet. We are all responsible for the foggy and uncertain future that awaits. Maybe it is not the generation graduating today that is to blame for the condition of the earth, concerning both the environment and the people, but we definitely have lived a part of our lives in the same way the people before us did, thus perpetuating the problems. If you feel guilt free, on the bases that you don’t manage one of the pollution-producing multi million corporations all over the world, you ought to reconsider. Every action we all took tonight, ladies and gentlemen, before we came here makes us partly responsible for the main problems humanity is facing. Let me follow the course of events: few hours, or many, before you came here you started getting ready. You took a shower probably long, 10-20 minutes. Then, you dried your hair with a hairdryer without using a towel first. You went upstairs, maybe, and got dressed, and with the exception of those of us wearing the black gown, most of the rest wore clothes that although were designed in Italy or France were made in China or Taiwan. To make a long story short, the majority of us came here driving a car whose parts were made in the most unprivileged places in the world and emits gases that are detrimental for the environment.

Each one of these steps was yet another hit on the health of the planet and its people, another alibi for the governments all over the planet not to break the vicious circle of inequality.

What are the charges?

The water you used to have your long shower was more than the amount an average family drinks in Africa in a day maybe even a week. What is more the water you, we so freely use is not going to be available to us for ever. The source of all life is not going to be enough to go around. One day we are going to get seriously thirsty and that day is not very far away, think of Australia where the people have already started to look for ways to make sea water drinkable, think of Greece where this year areas such as Thessalia and the island will face droughts and irrigation anomalies. And above all think of Africa and Asia where girls of 6 years and up don’t go to school so they have the time to go every morning searching for 4 to 8 hours for water to bring home. This is their reality, now, today and ours tomorrow.

Further more, the fact that you didn’t towel dry your hair had as a result the misuse of an amount of energy that may not seem so little if you consider that are energy resources are running out rapidly. Burning coal and petrol to produce electricity is both harmful for the environment and based on a finite source!

But most importantly energy resources along with the lack of water are becoming a current reason for yet another world war.

So far so bad, but, why is it an issue that your clothes or your car even though German, French or Italian are made in Taiwan and China?

The globalization of trade and the abolition of the trade barriers between countries may have resulted in the growth of the global economy but it has also caused so much harm to the people, the individuals, and the local communities. Large multibillion making corporations once employing people all over the developed world now have moved their facilities to parts of the world where labor is humiliatingly cheap and there is no such thing as workers rights. The working conditions are poor and the age group of the employees varies from 5 and 6 years old and up. Child labor is highly popular in those parts of the world, for example in Guatemala children shine shoes, make bricks, cut cane and mop floors, they sew, sort and chop often in conditions that violate even Guatemala’s loose labor laws.

In the way we allow these companies to work they enhance unfair competition between smaller and larger companies thus dominating the world economy and politics and at the same time benefiting from the misfortune of the disenfranchised. Even worse, the workers subject to this exploitation can’t react for they don’t have the education or the ability to demand more because of their great need.

To add to that, this unfair treatment and the huge gap that is still growing between the wealthy and the poor is the first event in a chain reaction that only ends with western world bursting into the flames of racism. I am talking about immigration, more specifically about the multiplying illegal aliens arriving everyday in all the developed countries!

“These people are getting our jobs”, “they rob our homes”, “they are criminals” are the most common accusations, but even if you are not a person to say or to believe all this it doesn’t mean either that you may not somehow be a racist yourself or that the problem is not growing!

It is hypocritical to say the least to suspect people of being criminals just because they are poor while being also responsible for that poverty.

It is unacceptable to judge people in terms of their nationality.

It is inhumane to blame violence on them solely or deal with them using violence.

Ladies and gentlemen, we ALL are guilty of being hypocrites, of thinking unacceptably and of behaving in an inhumane way! If you are thinking that this long list of accusations never ends, I am afraid that this is true. Sadly what is also true is that when we all go home tonight driving our CO2 emitting car we probably will have yet another long shower and this course of events more or less will repeat itself again and again.

The solution is not to walk to work, well if you can do so, or eat less or not take showers at all!

To be honest there is no magical solution otherwise it would have been put into effect.

However, if I may hope that tonight we all changed a bit for the better, we can all try to change a few things in our way of life.

We can recycle paper, plastic and glass; treat Hussein and Ivan with the respect they deserve and turn off the lights in the middle of the day and when we are not home. We can contribute with money, clothes and food to the work of international organizations such as UNICEF and AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL that help the less fortunate. Give a lift to the neighbor or to the colleague in the morning so one instead of two cars emit CO2. Take any given chance to put pressure upon our government and the governments of the world to take measures to prevent the ongoing inequality and to protect the environment. Change slowly the mentality so maybe when this generation graduating today there will be some change after all.

Thank you.

Gals vs. Guys....the real war against prejudice!!

The war between the sexes has been going on forever! From the passing from matriarchy to the Lords of the house to the Christina Aguilera "can't hold us down" music video clip and from the bugs bunny version of the cave man droping his weapon on the head of his crush and dragging her over to the bushes to Mr. Summers, former Harvard University president, statement that natural ability may be one of the reasons why there are fewer female than male maths proffessors at Harvard, the on going dispute has been developing on many levels.

For many years now we tend to believe or at least try to put forward the idea that the difference between the two sexes can be mostly attributed to society and upbringing and very little is actually innate. Yet, when boys and girls are born, they already are different! A clear sign of that is the fact that they favor different toys from the beggining. For example, a one-day-old girl will look for longer at a face than at a mechanical mobile, whereas a boy will prefer the mobile.

In the adult world. Male brains are about 9% bigger than female ones (this is actually attributed to the fact that men are generally larger than women) yet female brains have a higher percentage of grey matter than the male ones.

Further more, in most intellectual areas, such as vocabulary and verbal reasoning, the differences between men and women are statistically insignificant. But the long tail of mathematical genious does tend to be male, along with higher rates of idiocy and masturbation.

Yet even though the differences between the sexes have been attributed to society alone women have long been the targets of a male oriented sexism that seems to give more value to the characteristics that are apparently attributed to males such as intelligence (!), stability, power and so on. Due to this prejudice men are more frequently promoted to important posts and repeatedly get higher paychecks.

The difference is there and it is true but women are indeed quite unfairly the targets of this discrimination since they are emotionally intelligent more often than men.

When asked to judge when someone might have said something potentially hurtful, girls score higher from at least seven years old. Women are also more sensitive to facial expressions. They are better at decoding non-verbal communication, picking up subtle nuances from tone of voice or facial expression, or judging a person's character.

In the new workplace, you particularly want to know that. Your business and your future depend on EQ.

Women are then the hot stuff for future employers, maybe it is truly time to revise our views on which is the weaker sex.