I was appalled again this week when I realized the justice system in Finland is completely shot to bits. It has lost all sense and reason. Usually I only criticize the US justice system of that. But this week two different cases came to a close and the verdicts were read. The first one was for a young guy who burned down a church. Ok, it was an old church and part of the Finnish history bla bla bla. Completely repairable though because now the restoration has been completely finished as well. No people were hurt in this case.
The second case was that of another young guy who was driving a car with his friends in it, and they were all speeding away from the cops who had been chasing them for a while. The chase ended when police were setting up a roadblock to stop the car and a senior officer was laying out the spike mat to blow the car’s tires. The car swerved and ran over the officer who died immediately. 1 person was killed in this case.
Now this is the part that I don’t get. The church burner got a jail sentence of 6½ years. The Cop killer got a jail sentence of 3 years of which he will serve only ½ for being a first time offender.
How the hell have I come to live in a society that lays out a greater punishment for burning a building than taking someone else’s life? Is this really what we have come to?
I always have the most interesting talks with a good old friend of mine. Somehow we always find ourselves talking about relationships, and today I realised that most of our talks crush both of our misconceptions of perfect relationships. But they are good for keeping a persons feet on the ground. For example, today we talked about the reality of cheating. How great it is to be in a relationship with complete trust in your partner. But realistically, more often than not, people cheat in a relationship. In our conversation today, we caught up on five new accounts of infidelity in our friend circle since our last conversation about the subject. That was approximately two months ago.
If you have a room of 50 people and ask them how many of their partners cheat, a few, maybe a handful will raise their hand. If you then ask how many of those people have ever cheated in a relationship, about 3/4 will raise their hand. Hmmm… how is that possible then?
I love relationships. All stages bring their ups and downs but overall being in a relationship ultimately provides me with a sense of security and well being. When one is in a relationship you give your trust into it. You settle into the belief that this will go on for the rest of your life. You will have another half who stands by you through thick and thin. It all sounds so simple. But surrendering yourself completely into someone else’s hands is not the healthiest thing either. Of course you can not keep your guard up all the time and suspect everything because then there is no point in the whole relationship. You will not get from it what you are supposed to. So where to draw the line? You can’t be too naive because then you give someone the possibility of tearing you to shreds. But you can’t be too careful because if you can’t let loose in your relationship it will ultimately explode. And if you do shield yourself from the possibility of getting hurt, will it ever be enough to help you get through a tough break-up or do you just beat yourself up because you should have seen it coming?
Relationship matters are always difficult. However simple a relationship seems in the beginning, it’s bound to hit a bump at some point. So what do you do when it does? I think many people these days don’t want to work on things anymore. If their relationship isn’t perfect all the time then it’s not worth being in. I guess those people will ultimately be alone. But what is it that has given people the misconception that a relationship is not worth fighting for if it is not perfect all the time? TV shows? What about celebrity relationships? We meet, we et hitched, don’t like his haircut, get a divorce. And all this in a couple of months. A few hundred years back roles were clear and once you had a partner you really stuck with them through thick and thin. Now-a-days it’s just something you say in front of God, family and friends. Is it because we teach people these days to look out for number one. Make sure no one can change you. Stay your strong self. Don’t compromise. I believe that’s the big one. Don’t compromise. We are taught to be so head strong that we don’t realize what we can gain with a little compromise. I’m not saying that when you enter into a relationship you should forgo your own self and become a new person known only in that relationship. How I see it is that two people with separate lives join those lives together in certain places to form a relationship. A bit of compromise and the complete respect for the other person is what will keep that boat afloat. No matter what the situation, you must remember complete respect for the other person. If both people have a solid head on their shoulders they should be fine.
These are topics that I could go on and on about but I will stop here for now cause I really want to go to sleep. I wish everyone a lot of respect and strength to work on relationships that may not always be totally perfect.
I just got finished watching Miami Ink on TV and a story there really effected me. A man came in to get a tattoo on his chest of his 2½ year old daughter Elise. She has Tay-Sachs disease and is most likely not going to survive her fifth birthday. This blog was fueled by her story.
I find myself often thinking about changed perceptions these days. I guess it really is true that child bearing changes a womans life in one way or another. Before I became a mom I did have a heart and other’s stories effected me greatly then too. But it seems that after having a child I find I have a much more sensitized perception of things. A little bit like if you are a smoker eating food. You can taste it but you don’t know how little you are tasting until you stop smoking and realize all of a sudden how much more you can taste.
Becoming a mother has made me a lot more protective of myself as well as others. I feel the need to take care of myself better because I need to be around to take care of someone else. But I also limit my boyfriends actions. For example, I did not let him go cliff diving on vacation even though before I probably would have dared him. But when does this protectiveness leave the allowed boundaries and turn into an obsession? I feel like the more time goes on the more I am scared to live my life. Is this where the phrase “you’ll understand when you have your own kids…” comes from? That’s what my mom always told me when I wanted to do something too stupid and she wouldn’t let me. But she also told me that this is just the reaction after childbirth and I should mellow down in a little while. Somehow I feel like it just keeps getting stronger.
Hearing other people’s stories about tragedies that have befallen upon their loved ones makes this even harder. I do appreciate what I have and how lucky my family is to have their health, but realizing what we have makes me that much more scared of loosing it. When you live in a constant state of fear of loosing something then do you really live at all?
Feelings that were evoked by this story run deep in the crevices of my mind. I wonder about the path that the world takes. I wonder why so many close people died in 2007. Will this continue in 2008? At one point I thought something is taking away the good people so that they are spared from what’s in store for the rest of us. If we are for example killing off our planet, the ones who go now have it easy.
These thoughts intrigue me and therefore I probably think about them so often. However they also depress me but I do not know how to keep myself from thinking about them. I guess this explains my fondness of no brainer movies. When watching them my mind goes blank and I can take a break.
But at the end I come back to my worrying self, get off the sofa to take my snack plate into the kitchen, go and check on my little sleeping girl, sit back down on the sofa and start to think about how lucky I am in my life. And how much I love my life and this world that I get to spend it in and the people around me. I just hope that at some point I can learn to stop waisting it and start living it.
I am the very proud mother of an 8 month old little girl. On the most part she has been healthy and well but two days before New Years Eve she got a high fever. As this is pretty common for little children my boyfriend and I decided to wait a few days to see if it goes away. But the fever didn’t stay away and on the third night she complained a lot and scratched her ears. So my we decided to take her to see a doctor in case of an ear infection.
We called our own health clinic but they had no times left for that day so we were redirected to the city’s first aid clinic. This is the same place that they send people who… for example… burst a firecracker in their face. Anyways… we walked in there and there was only a foreign couple sitting in the waiting lobby. Immediately I thought, great, won’t have to wait long. I “checked us in” at the reception and after explaining the situation we were redirected to sit and wait.
We sat down and while I was taking my daughters overalls off I noticed that Diagnosis Murder started on the TV. That means it was 3 pm. I started watching it half heartedly cause I knew we would only see a a bit of it. It was around the same time the foreign couple was called into the nurse’s room. Their visit lasted about 10 minutes so when they came out I jerked myself up in the chair and gathered our daughters things, ready to go in for the check up. A few minutes went by… nothing. After a while it was 3.30 pm and I propped myself back in the chair. I started muttering to my boyfriend something about how it can take so long, and even if that is the only room where they’re seeing patients, we should have gotten in by now. My boyfriend decided to go for a walk, just to see if he could see anyone in the other rooms. As he walked down the corridor he noticed that the rest of the doors were open too and no one was in them. Four nurses were having coffee in the reception area. Every now and then a nurse would come and walk out of one room and into another and then back again. But nothing happened. There were no patients in any rooms and only one of the 10+ nurses we saw was actually doing something. She was pushing a cart full of doctor’s office tidbits from one room to another.
My boyfriend came back with a sigh of annoyment and started wondering what on Earth was going on. From where I was sitting I could see into the one exam room that had been used by the foreign couple. The nurse in there was walking around arranging stuff on her shelf. Then she walked over to the printer and checked the paper tray. That was full so she closed it. She kept walking in and out of my view arranging little knick knacks, texting on her phone. I’m a pretty patient person but when I’m in a first aid clinic waiting with a crying daughter on my lap to see a doctor or nurse I do expect to see one as soon as possible. My daughters sobbing had no effect on these people. I’m sure they’re used to people crying and complaining but come on.
Time went on and and my boyfriend and I grew more and more impatient. At 8 minutes to 4 pm the nurse in the exam room picked up her bag off the floor, threw it over her shoulder and took off. What?!? Yep, she left. Then it was 2 minutes to 4 when another female walked into the room with a bag and coat, hung them up and went to the reception area for a coffee. We realized that at 4 pm they have a shift change. We’d been waiting all this time because of a shift change.
At five past four the woman walked back into the room and in about ten minutes we were called in. Our visit lasted for about seven minutes during which it was diagnosed that our daughter had an ear infection. We waited over an hour just because the person finishing her shift didn’t want to take on any more patients.
Let it be known that only a couple of months back Finnish nurses were on strike demanding a pay increase because their jobs are so stressful and they are completely overworked. I supported their claim cause even librarians were paid more than them. But never have I had to wait so long to check out a library book.