It's been a weird day.

This morning I found out that one of the guys I went to school with a few years ago, past away in a gruesome car accident last night. He was 19 years old, just a couple of months younger than me! It's strange, how fast things can change, how fleeting life is. I know that sounds like a total clichè, but it's so true!

Håvard was one of the "cool guys" in my class, in my opinion at the time. Now, of course, I know that they were weird and a bit stupid, the lot of them, but at the time, I was dead scared of what any one of them thought of me. However, when I met him after graduating secondary school, he was a changed man. Or maybe I was a changed girl, I don't actually know. Anyway, he was sweet and caring and nice and I feel so bad for not getting to know him better when I had the chance.

One of the last times I saw him, was on new years eve, about five months ago. He, a friend who also went to our class, and Håvard's girlfriend were out drinking and he called me, asking if I could drive them home, because I put on my facebook that I was driving that night. I picked them up and on our way to his girlfriends house, we talked a lot. We talked about what we were doing for our educations, about the good old days, about everything, really. When he got out of the car, he gave me 15 pounds (not worth as much in Norway as in England) and said "if this isn't enough, message me, and I'll transfer some more tomorrow." I never did ask for more, but I thought it was really sweet of him to offer.

I guess what I'm trying to get across is that, even though I didn't have too much to do with him since we left secondary school, it still hurts that he's gone. I suppose you don't really have to spend much time with someone to care about them. Even though I haven't talked to him in five months and probably even longer before that, I feel so bad for him because he will never experience being a husband or a father, he will never know what it's like to grow old, to have grandchildren and to do all those things throughout your life that everyone wants to do at some point. I feel bad for his parents and siblings who has to deal with the pain and sorrow of loosing someone who's so close to them.

I wish you hadn't left us, Håvard, and I say "us" because even though you and I didn't talk much in the end, I still cared and it still hurts that you're gone. You touched on a lot of lives and everyone who knew you, cared for you, and that will be obvious at your funeral. The church will be completely full, because you were truly a wonderful guy and we will all miss you so much.

Rest in peace, heaven has gained an angel.

Exam day!

Hola chicas y chicos!

It's exam day! I've never ever been this excited for an exam, it's going to be brilliant because I actually know this stuff! We've had the questions for a week now and I can already tell that I'm going to kill this exam.

The first question is "Different communities and identity groups share a varied relationship to the criminal justice system. Discuss this assertion in relation to either gender or race, outlining and evaluating the central issues in relation to crime and criminal justice."

In this question, I plan to focus on gender and write about women in the Criminal Justice system. Women are largely underrepresentated in comparison to men. Less than 1 in 5 people arrested are female and only 5% of prison inmantes are women! Another thing I'm planning to concentrate on is the fact that there is a notion of "double deviance" with women offenders. Women are seen as the care takers of society, who should preferrably be in caring professions like teachers, nurses, midwifes and so on (for my thoughts on this subject, see the last entry, called "I'm a feminist because") and for this reason, when women offend, the general reaction is that we abuse our caring position in society to con and trick people. One of the examples I'm going to refer to is the mothers of Ian Watkins victims. Ian Watkins was the vocalist in the Welsh etal/alternative rock band Lotprophets. He was arrested last year on suspicion of sexual abuse of multiple children. How did Watkins get to these children? In any cases, their mothers offered them to him to have his way with in exchange for sexual favors. In other words, in order to get some attention from this famous rock star, they gave up their children to be sexually mutilated. Horrific? Yes.

The second exam question is "The process of ‘otherisation’ is central to ‘hate crime’; using empirical examples discuss your understanding of these concepts?"

In this question I am going to start off by explaining what 'otherisation' and 'hate crime' is. My definition will be something to this effect: Otherisation is putting others below yourself, seeing a group of fellow human beings as less worthy than yourself because of some common trait they share, such as ethnic origin, skil colour, sexual orientation and the like. Otherisation is the notion of the 'others', it's fear of the unknown. Otherisation drives a wedge between communities that does not allow the members of each group to communicate and leaves the people of the strongest or biggest group to hate the smaller one, the minority in the situation. This can cause hate crimes that has in many cases, caused the death of a minority member. Hate crime is going so far in the otherisation process that you not only express your feeling of loathing and hatred verbally to members of the group, but your feelings drive you to inflict harm upon members of this group that you see as less worthy than yourself without any provocation apart from the fact that they are a member of the group you despise. 

The empirical example I'm going to use is the case of Stephen Lawrence, the 19 year old black man who were killed in a vicious attack while waiting for the bus on the evening of 22nd april 1993. Five men were arrested at the time, but they were all released. It wasn't until 2012 that two people were convicted of the murder. The report made by Sir William Macpherson following the murder of Lawrence investigated the Metropolitan Police Service and concluded that the police force was institutionally racist, and therefore not making too big an effort to solve the case of Lawrence's death. 

I think I've covered the questions quite good, it is a hand written exam and we only have two hours, so I'll have to cram it all into the space and time we're given, but I think I'll get a pretty good mark on this one. I'm really glad we get the questions ahead of the exam. It means, of course, that the marking will be more strict and that getting a really good mark will be more difficult, but it makes me a hell of a lot less nervous because I know what's ahead. Seeing as the modules I've had exams for are the ones I understand the most, I've really been lucky this year. 

So, wish me luck! 

 

I'm a feminist because...

I never gave feminism much thought until I came to university. Before I moved away from my tiny little Norwegian village of 650 people, I didn't realise how bad it actually is. This is some of the reasons why I'm a feminist. The statistics are found on the internet, of course, and I did get inspiration for this list on the internet as well, but I stand by the things on this list and these are my opinions still.

So here they are, 35 reasons to be a feminist!

  

• I'm a feminist because girls are taught in public schools that when she has sex for the first time, she'll "loose a part of her self."
   
• I'm a feminist because girls are told that the first time they have sex will be very painful and there could be blood involved. (Utter bullshit, by the way)
   
• I'm a feminist because women who has a lot of sex are sluts, while guys are studs.
   
• I'm a feminist because when a woman turns 60 years old, she will have earned $450.000 less than a 60 year old man in the exact same position.
   
• I'm a feminist because of cat calling and street harassment, and no, it's not a bloody compliment!
   
• I'm a feminist because boobs are used to sell everything from burgers to soap, but don't you dare breast feed in public!
   
• I'm a feminist because of how much pressure we put on girls to value their appearance above everything else.
   
• I'm a feminist because 1 in 4 young women are sexually assaulted and society still asks "what was she wearing?"
   
• I'm a feminist because male victims of rape are rarely believed when reporting the crime because "guys want to have sex all the time anyway, right?"
   
• I'm a feminist because in Saudi Arabia, women still can't vote or drive.
   
• I'm a feminist because half the girls in Yemen will become child brides.
   
• I'm a feminist because 65% of Brasilians believe that if a woman is wearing revealing clothes, she deserves to get raped.
   
• I'm a feminist because a woman is raped every 14 seconds in South Africa.
   
• I'm a feminist because every day, in every corner of the world, womens bodies are used as battle grounds in wars started by men.
   
• I'm a feminist because of Amanda Todd, Alicia Garcia, Cherize Morales and the sexism that drew them to end their own lives.
   
• I'm a feminist because in the US in 2013, the political body making desicions over everyone elses bodies were over 80% male.
   
• I'm a feminist because women don't get to decide over their own bodies. In the US, 77% of anti-abortion leaders are men. 100% of those will never be pregnant.
   
• I'm a feminist because men occupy the top runs of not just politics, but every industry in the world!
   
• I'm a feminist because women only hold 1 in 4 stem jobs. We own 6% of TV stations and 5% of executive positions in the media are held by a woman.
   
• I'm a feminist because people still say that asexuals, bisexuals and transgender people don't exist.
   
• I'm a feminist because in 34 states in the US, it's LEGAL to discriminate against someone who's transgender.
   
• I'm a feminist because the idea of same sex marriage shouldn't be so hard to graps as it obviously are to a lot of people.
   
• I'm a feminist because women are constantly sexualised and objectified while men get credit for their skills and professions.
   
• I'm a feminist because there are parts of this world where women are the ones who gets punished after being sexually assaulted.
   
• I'm a feminist because there are people who actually think it's not rape if the other person is sleeping.
   
• I'm a feminist because we live in a society that teaches women to be careful so they don't get raped instead of teaching men not to rape.
   
• I'm a feminist because the notion that men rape because they are pigs that can't control their urges is utterly disgusting.
   
• I'm a feminist because approximately 3 million girls are victims of female genital mutilation each year.
   
• I'm a feminist because there are approximately 2 million victims of sex trafficking each year. 85% of these are women.
   
• I'm a feminist because in 31 states in the US, if a woman gets pregnant as a result of rape and decides to keep the child, her rapist can sue for custody and visitation rights.
   
• I'm a feminist because women who report sexual harassment in the work place are seen as prudes and career experts advise women not to report it.
   
• I'm a feminist because when I walk home from the library alone at night, I hold my keys so that they stick out between my fingers because I'm scared of being assaulted.
   
• I'm a feminist because I want women like me being represented in movies and films - and not have them regulated as the fat, stupid friend that all the thin girls hang out with because they feel sorry for her.
   
• I'm a feminist because most films fail the Bechdel test, where the only requirements are for two named female characters to talk to each other about something besides sex and
  relationships, if only once.
    
•  I'm a feminist because when Austria won Eurovision this year, there were so unbelieveably many comments on facebook and tweets on twitter about how it's disgusting that Eurovision even let a drag performance on stage. I think the performance and the fact that it won is a massively positive message to send to the thousands and thousands of transgender people who suffer from discrimination and bullying on a regular basis.
    
• I'm a feminist because I believe in gender equality and I know we're not there yet.

Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment and tell me why!

Don't worry, I'm alive!

I know I haven't posted anything on here for aaaages, but I've got writers block or something to that effect.

The truth is that my dad was home from tuesday until thursday this week and during those days I spent as much time with him as I could, so blogging wasn't really a priority. Since he left I just haven't been bothered. But I'm back!

There's this crazy bathe-in-the-freezing-fucking-sea thing going around on facebook and my feed, as I'm sure yours, is filled with idiots jumping into saltwater holding 5 degrees. I can't wait to get nominated, I have the perfect plan of what to do! Kristine said she was going to nominate me, and I hope she does!

I'm going to England tomorrow!!! Yay! My flight to Oslo leaves at 7am tomorrow, I have to be at the airport at 6am, so I have to leave home at 5am and get up at 4am. Oh my life! the good thing is that I get to Winchester at like 3pm, so I'll have a few hours to nap and stuff before going to the pub, haha! Do you want my packing list? Of course you do!

Big stuff:

• Suitcase: Check! Can't really forget that, can you? 
• Suitcase No. 2: Check! I'm packing my stuff in a small suitcase now and puting that one in my big suitcase so that I can have two suitcases on my flight back. Suitception? Yup! 
• Bag: Check! Hand luggage for my flight back home.
• Clothes: Check! Not going to bother listing my clothes, let's be honest, you're not that interested, are you?
• Make up: Semi check. Packing tomorrow morning, can't look like a pig on the plane, can I?
• Toothbrush: Check! Don't worry, I have two, I'm not leaving the house with morning breath smelling like dead horse.
• Shoes: Check! Converse and ballerinas.
• Medicines: Check! Realised yesterday that I had one pill left of the heart medication, so had to get more today.
• Medical certificate: Check! To provide to the extenuating circumstances board who granted me general concessions for my school work.
• Pencil case with content: Check! For the exams, they're hand written.. *sigh*

Hand luggage:

• Passport: Check! 
• Ticket reservation numbers: Check! 
• House keys: Check! Almost forgot them though..
• Phone: Check! 
• Wallet: Check! I don't actually know if they say wallet or purse in England, but it's there anyway.
• Tablet: Charging.
• Chargers: Phone charger packed, using the tablet and computer chargers, so packing those tomorrow morning. 
• Headset: Check! x4. Got to be sure, right? 

I think that's all! If it's not, I can get it in Winch if it's important, I'm not staying there that long.

I can't wait to go back, I really miss Winchester and my friends and everything and everyone, but I can't believe we're almost done with the year already! I mean, where the hell did the year go?? It feels like it was yesterday I was hugging my parents goodbye at the airport to leave for England in September!

Right, I have 3,5 hours to get some sleep before I have to get up again, so I think I'll have to finish now. Sleep tight!