Moral problems

Ok. So living in a huge city like this is pretty great from many points of view. Today I was in this incredibly big library, my favorite store Decathlon is placed at lots of places all over the city and there are a big range of cultural stuff like movies and theater. Unfortunately there is also a backside. Here and there you can see so called SDF:s (sans domicile fixe), homeless people. The beggars are even more common and range from young mothers with small children to old men with filthy dogs. Well, the thing is, should you give them money or shouldn't you? I have no idea how much they make in a day. Someone once told me that street musicians actually make very much. I guess that if you give them money, in a way, you encourage it and people might be less persistent in searching for a real job? On the other hand I can't imagine anyone doing that if they had any choice whatsoever. I mean, when I worked for IM, trying to get people to give money to this aid organization, people didn’t look at me like I was a worthy human. That’s the best way I can describe it. It’s a horrible feeling when everyone avoids meeting your eyes like you had the plagues. Like you’re so far below them that you don’t even exist in their world. And then I was “begging” for a good cause, I guess it must be even worse when you’re just begging for your own survival. Maybe I got my answer there, or what do you think?

Another thing that concerns France and that I have been reading about is a woman called Rachida Dati. She was the first woman from a non-European country to be chosen to a key position in the French government. As I have understood it, she was sort of an idol in the poor suburban areas here in France. She worked her way through her entire education as both her parents where poor immigrants and she was the second child of twelve. Recently, she gave birth to a baby girl. She refuses to say who the father is and says she’s going to raise the child herself. Ok, now to the point. The wind blows hard at the top and just five days after the birth she was back at work. It is not an easy thing to reach the position she has had, especially not being a woman and especially not having a foreign background. She doesn’t have few enemies and I suppose she had to defend her ground. However here in France there has been a huge debate about the whole thing. I think that a French mother has the right to 16 weeks of maternity leave. Women all over France are in a rage and say that many bosses will not allow them to stay home that long now with reference to Dati. Right, a lot of background for a short question. Should women be made to act certain ways because it gets back on all of us otherwise? I guess in Sweden the problem is the opposite. One could ask the question about whether women should be home with their children less. After all, that women put more energy into raising the children than the men is a big reason to why all of us still get less paid and have fewer top jobs. Well what do you think?

Colombes

Ok, now I'll write a quick update about life here.

Colomb is the name of the place where I live. As I've said it's about ten minutes outside of Paris (I count Paris as the area where there's subway. The house is not very big, about the same size as Adam's. They do have a celler too though, only they don't use it except for stooring stuff. It's seriously so full you can barely walk in there and the floor's really cold. (That was a little exaggerated).

Anyway the family is still nice. Most of my chores consists of doing the laundery, iron (they iron everything, even underwear!) and cleaning. I also get to walk their supercute dog. Right now it takes pretty much time but I don't think that it will take more than 2-3 hours once I get used to it. Also, I'm still looking for a school. I would prefer to be in the same school the whole time I stay here because there is quite a large inscription fee. Problem is that only some of them have the higher levels that I will hopefully reach later.

They have lots of holidays here. I haven't discussed it with the mother yet, it would feel kind of stupid as I've just arrived, but they have to times two weeks of holiday. And there is no language school that time either. It might acctually be possible to be in Sweden that time. Though, I don't know what they will do with Victor, the dog, if they want to go away for the holidays.

About the mail I don't know what's wrong. It's simply impossible to open the home pages for hotmail, yahoo and gmail. They have "tradlost" here but I can't get it to work. It might be that it's the wrong code. I'll keep working on that. Right now I'm using the daughter's computer.

Keep commenting! =). For you who are really bored with me just describing my life I'll write something more general about stupid french stuff next time.

Arrival

I don't have a lot of time. I have to eat and then I'm gonna meet Hanna in the city. Just wanted to say that you can't check your email in this house. Maybe I will get my own internet later and then I may be able to figure it out.

Just a brief rapport. The family is nice and consists of a mum a "dad" (he's not the real dad but he lives here) and the daughter Marie that's almost 13 but is very grown up. There is also a brother that's 24 and seems to visite once a week. Everyone speeks only french although the "dad" Gil seems to know pretty much english, at least he knew the word for headquarter. It's ok though, I understand most of what they say.

This keeboard is totally different and it's really slow writing. You'll hear more from me soon. Hugs! Good luck with moving and everything Jocke and Paul.

Panic

Hate to disappoint you but now I'm gonna write about something that is not politics. I've gotten a family! For those of you who are thinking "hmm ... doesn't she already have a family" and are feeling somewhat lost, let me explain.

A while ago I applied for being au-pair in Paris. Yesterday, a woman called me on my cellphone and started speaking in french. Let's just say I was a bit confused myself before I realized she was calling from the au-pair agency. Anyway, the family lives about 10 minutes outside of Paris with train. The parents are both lawyers and the father plays the piano. The girl I'm gonna take care of is 12,5 years old. There are also two older siblings but they no longer live at home. they've also got a dog. No one in the family seems to speak any English, although it says "English and German" on the contact sheet. And that's really all I know. I've spoken with the mother over the phone and she seems nice. I'll be leaving Linköping Friday January 16th for Norrköping and the family is going to pick me up in the city center (Porte Maillot) at about four p.m. Saturday 17th.

So, I'm just a little bit freaked out. I'll guess I'll take it one day at a time. If it doesn't work out I could always find another family or go home. It's not really worse than that. It's scary anyway though.

Vattenfall = evil

well, you wished for politics ....


WE ALL HAVE A RESPONSABILITY TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE. That's written on several places on the different official pages of Vattenfall. Vattenfall is working hard to launch its climate profile. And has just gotten a nomination from the swedish green party mp as the lobyist of the year. ;)

Actually the company did invest a billion crowns in renewable energi in the Nordic countries in 2007. The problem is that in Germany and Poland, where the company also is active, the number of crowns invested in renewables where zero. Not only that, the company has just bought three new fields of lignite (brunkol) in Germany and is planning to keep mining there until 2030. This is taking responsability for climate change? Lignite is, corbon dioxidewise, the worst of the fossil fuels, producing nearly three times more CO2 than natural gas.

Vattenfall's actions in the Brandenburger region in Germany has also had a great impact on the lives of the poeple who live there. So far, about 80 villages has been abandoned because of Vattenfall's mining. 200 000 custumers in Germany have left Vattenfall because of their reprehensible actions. Now, this is a company that's owned by the swedish governement, that is, by us. In Germany it is also a representative of Sweden, feel their doing a good job?

Vattenfall is yearly releasing as much CO2, as the whole swedish population. Only the carbon power plant Jänschwalde is releasing 24,7 million tons CO2 a year. That is the worst in Europe and the seventh worst in the world. As I said, this is a swedish company so we might actually of a small chance to influence. Let the word of Vattenfall's evil be spread across the country!


Svd: Vattenfall utplånar byar i Tyskland. 2008-10-20
www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/artikel_1910811.svd

Vattenfall: Vad gör vattenfall för att bromsa klimatförändringarna?
klimatsignatur.vattenfall.se/whatsvfdoing.php

Fältbiologen 04/07
Vattenfall - det kolsvarta elbolaget

E24: Vattenfall anklagas för dubbelmoral om miljön. 2008-04-30
www.e24.se/branscher/ovrigindustri/artikel_435901.e24

Introduction

Well, Astrid Lindgren's said that one of the greatest works of arts ever written, Pippi Longstocking, only came to life because of illnesses and injuries. And I was thinking, since I have a cold right now, what better time to start my own creative project. Who knows, it might just end up being one of the most loved stories of Swedish history ... or not. Anyway, having my own blog I can always feel unique in this computer dependant, information control obsessed society. I mean, no one else has ever thought of the idea before, right?
So I guess people are wondering why I write in English. I don't really know, I guess I just thought it would be fun to see if I still remember some of the language, not having had any classes for half a year. Feel free to comment on grammatical and spelling mistakes.