Monty

This is going to be a short post. I hear all the time from people asking the question why life should be so hard and tough to which I always reply to them:

Would you really be satisfied with your life if you did not have anything to fight for or a goal to reach for?

Atleast I would not. But that is me, I like challenge because I know it develop your mind, personality and life. However, I am not saying in this sense that I do not like things to be easy, but I try to make them simple. Between these two definitions there is a vast difference.

Life would not be interesting if we did not have any goals to achieve, that is how we give meaning to our own life, which involves love in most cases. Some people go through their entire life searching for that someone while other meet the one without putting any effort into it. Sometimes love is hidding between the seconds of your life, if you do not stop for a moment; you might miss it.

People who are trapped in the illusion that “time changes everything” have to realise, sooner or later, that it is not completely true. Doing things; changes things. Not doing things leaves things as they always have been. This is the ultimate concept of social interaction and personality development.

The past couple of days have been amazing. Met alot of new interesting people, learned alot about myself and laughed more than usual. It all started out on saturday evening when I got invited to a barbeque party at university with some exchange students and regular students. I have probably not brought this up earlier but when I talk to new people we usually ask the basic questions:

• What are you studying?
• Where are you from?
• How old are you?

Really basic questions which I do not have a problem with other people asking. But there is one thing that I have noticed during the last couple of months and it is the second question. Over 90% of all people I have talked to say that I look like I am from Latin America, Spain or Portugal. But no one would guess that I am from the Middle East, which is a good thing since I am going to the States within couple of months.

Here are some pictures from the barbeque we had during saturday 21st of July which I took with my phone and the camera is not the best one but it works pretty good anyway. Here we have myself together with Karin, who is such an amazing girl, really like her personality.

Other people that was there were Adam (left), a guy from Hawaii who have been here in Sweden for almost two years and studied Peace and Development, if there is such a thing in the world because I have only seen Conflicts and War. Elin (right) was the other person who was there and I did not actually get what she studied, but she was very polite talking to.

Unfortunately I did not take a picture of both persian guys that were there, but I did manage to take a picture of Said (right) and Elin (left). Said has been a free-mover since some time ago and he studied Computer Science just like me and he had some interesting thoughts of what he wanted to do in the upcoming future, so I tried to help him in any way I could, hopefully he will be successful.

So, what about US and A? It is going great. I have my financial paper done from CSN and I will get my decision in a day or two, after that there are some papers left then I am going to apply for the Visa at the US Embassy in Stockholm.

It is amazing how much you learn by just talking to people you do not know and you do not expect alot from. One of the criterias to get a Visa is to bring an excatly 61 kr self-stamped envelop (don’t ask) and I went to the post office in the city and asked for it. The guy in the post office started to ask if it was for the Visa to the US and I replied “This is not the first time you sell excatly 61 kr stamped envelop to someone, is it?” to which he explained to me that the cost for recommended letter is 61 kr and this is for the return of your passport from the US Embassy.

So, the discussion commenced. He told me alot about when his daughter went to the States and I was just thinking about if she was single or not, haha. No, I am just kidding. He gave me a piece of advice which was if I am going to make an intermediate landing then I should have atleast 3-4 hours between the flight because most delays is when you get inside of the US, once you are in then you can go and do what you want. This was something I did not quite think about, but I am glad he told me this.

A couple of days ago Adam, the Hawaii guy, was over at my place and we talked alot about the States and the flight over there. My flight will take approximately 16 hours and it is just so unreal when you think about being in the air almost an entire day. So he gave me a link to a great site, expedia.com, where you really could find cheap and comfortable flights.

This is really great for US domestic flights and flights to Latin America, which I have plans of visiting while I am there. We came across an airline company called Virgin Atlantic Airways, and I was hoping that they would have virgins onboard when I am flying over the Atlantic, but they did not have it on the menu. :( So, however, this airline is so amazing. You get your own tv, watch movies of your own choice, they have video games, comfortable seats, free drinks and even a complete bar in the middle of the airplane. Will probably fly with them when I am departing.

On friday the 27 of July I will take my little brother with me to see the new Simpsons movie that everyone have been talking about. I was suprised when my little brother told me that he have never been to the cinema which in the same sense made me happy that I will do something special for him. I am also exciting to see the movie although I do not watch so much tv these days.

Finally, since I did not release a june tracklist for progressive house I will at the end of this month release a Progressive House Summer 2007 tracklist of the best progressive selections for you fans out there. It will be a double tracklist with the best 20 tracks this summer.

When I say a taste of the Swedish nature, I really mean everything that is included in the society. But mainly I would like to share some of the things I have been through lately. A couple of days ago I was invited to dinner at Derya’s place, a turkish girl who study economy at Växjö university. When I came there were also some Swedish speaking guests from South America. I really had a great time talking, sharing and listening to thoughts with other people. But soon the night was going to its end and I wanted to make something special so I brought up “Elements explosive party trick”. Don’t try this at home!

The party trick is all about mixing alcohol with a German pouder called Brause. At first, I kind of scared the hell of everyone with how you take this drink, which by the way was Hypnotiq.

Thereafter when I explained in a less dangerous way the guests became interested. So what you do is you first take the Brause pouder and keep it in your mouth then you pour up a Hypnotiq shot and add it to the mix in your mouth. Then you shake your mouth so the alcohol gets mixed with the pouder and after that you swallow everything. It’s an amazing feeling. I know this because after the guests tried it out the first time they were really excited to do it once more. Brause comes in flavours lemon, orange, melon and raspberry.

So what else have happened? Sometimes you go around in life not wanting to try out things you haven’t experienced so often. A friend of mine, Maria, asked me yesterday if I wanted to go for a walk in the forrest close by the university. During all my years I haven’t had the thought of going in the forrest for a while, since usually I run or walk around the lake. But yesterday I decided that it was worth a try. We had a great time and I laughed alot when we came across things. I saw this place below and asked Maria if I could offer her some black coffee. Yummy… NOT!

After a while we found a watch tower in the middle of nowhere and she didn’t came across it either since she have walked those ways several times, so we decided to go up and sit there for a while. It was so relaxing. Below is a picture from the watch tower.

I don’t know why I enjoyed the evening so much but there were several reasons for it. One of which was that I really like to take pictures of the nature because the view of it makes you really calm. This is another picture along a road where horses are kept locked up.

I should add to this post that all these pictures where taken by my brand new Sony Ericsson W880i, the phone is really great since it have mp3 player, camera and alot of other things I haven’t yet used. We had alot of discussions about how to be a parent or how one should raise ones children and it was really interesting, but I was very determined about a argumentative point which was that you should try everything in the world at least one time to have the experience with you. But you shouldn’t try everything, just things that are somewhat harmless. And then she said in an ironic way:

Maybe I should try to have a baby. Then I should maybe try to have an abortion.

It’s not easy when it’s hard. And what is hard is not learning the language as a new immigrant in Sweden. These final words can be seen as the psychological explanation behind Laszlo’s post regarding why the new integration minister, Nyamko Sabuni, gives away thousands of Swedish crowns to immigrants who put effort in learning the Swedish language.

The answer for this decision is rather simple if you have read basic psychology. This decision is based on a theory called operant conditioning and is a psychological explanation to why we motivate ourselves to learn new things. The principle behind this theory is simple: learning through consequence.

If you think through Nyamko Sabuni’s decision you will, with help from psychology, find the decision rather logic than illogic. If you can positively enforce a person to learn new things by using money as an instrument then that person will become motivated to learn the Swedish language in order to achieve the goal, that is to say to receive money. As a result, the Swedish government can then offer the immigrant a crap job which no one wants because you have the basic communication skills to perform this job.

But, as Laszlo argued for, if you deincrease the amount of money for those who do not want to learn the Swedish language then you are negatively enforcing them not to learn in order to achieve money. Then neither will the Swedish government earn labour nor will the immigrants be able to motivate themselves to learn new things because of the wounderful social security net Sweden has.

What social security net? The political Sweden has a social security net which catch all people from falling down and since immigrants tend to fall down often when they arrive then they will get the standard amount of money because they are unemployed. If you remove this basic social security net for people then the Swedish government will jeopardize the only thing that is unique for Sweden, namely the Swedish welfare state. You cannot motivate people by decreasing the amount of money as the unemployeed people have. Because if you have to change it, you have to change it for the entire group, if you do not then it will transform into a discrimination. And that is probably the last thing an integration minister would want in Sweden. The entire article can be viewed at SR.