Eurovision Song Contest WTF?

After years of not watching the Eurovision Song Contest, today I forced my man to watch it with me.
I used to enjoy it very much but that was many moons ago.
I had so much WTF happening there, it’s almost sad what has become of this contest.

• Almost all the songs sounded alike, as if the same person wrote them all. What a bad sign for music culture…
• Whoever wrote the moderations for the presenters -> You are not funny! You are cringy at best. (That is not good, it is annoying)
• The presenters sang a song together. That song was not only bad, and way too much of everything. The fact that it was present as some kind of satire and supposed to be funny in the same forced way as the moderations, added to the “wtf- factor”.
• So you invite Justine Timberlake and then let him cheaply perform basically a medley of his old songs but present as if it is new? Are you for real? How stupid do you think your viewers are?
• As the points were given, the other countries had so horrible, bad backgrounds and sometimes the outfits were just so ridiculous. Come on, when you are streaming to such a mass of people, you should put more than 2 minutes worth of effort in those two things if you want to represent your country.

Tiny rant here:

Where are the actual life performances? I think only 3 artists actually performed live with a band, as in not a playback on which you sing. That’s poor standards. This contest used to pride itself by how great and talented the artists were that came on stage and perform. There was a very high standard on who could actually perform there. Now it is just another music show with mostly untalented people. I stopped counting how many “singers” weren’t able to hold a note.
And just to mention. I spend my childhood and most of my teenage years on stages. I know that stress and fear can do things to your performance. BUT big BUT these people are supposed to be professionals. If they are, they should not let it get to them to a degree where something as basic as holding a note, cannot be done anymore. If you sing every day because that is what you do, it is your live and your job and your hobby, then holding a note cannot ever be difficult for you.
Before I stopped singing, it was almost impossible for me to break a note or not hit it spot on. And I was not a professional. I just sang a lot, my voice was somewhat trained, my ears had almost absolute hearing at the point. So if me, not professional, can hold a note on stage, why can’t a professional. You gotta be kidding me to let that be on your stage.

End rant

How about we go through the performances and what my man and I just happened to notice. Because although the music was horrible from an artistic standpoint of view (most of the time) and the standards for this competition have obviously sunk to an all-time low, at least it was funny to watch all the fail.

So from start to end:

1. Belgium: Moved waaay too much.
2. Czech Republic: Made up for Belgium by not moving at all. Fun-fact, that song was called stay (or something like that)
3. Netherlands: Dutch cowboy who should have performed a country song. So yea wild west in the Netherlands I guess.
4. Azarbajan: Singer couldn’t sing but at least one of the male dancers was belly free and fun to watch.
5. Hungary: Some kind of Sexy Bambie guy with a smokey voice. He cannot sing but at least he brought a drummer who didn’t hit his drum and his background”singers” were really good at whistling and skipping.
6. Italy: At least this singer didn’t sing in English for a change, but in Italian. She was not moving at all, maybe glued to the stage on that green spot, who knows. The song did not move out of the range of half an octave but those 4 notes, she hit them well.
7. Israel: The most cliche emo I have ever seen. Black everything, even the stage apart from the blue big star he stood on. And wtf was going on with the gymnsasts on stage. Was that some kind of artsy statement?
8. Bulgaria: Nice coat, hot babe, shiny lights on her costume… The song was made of refrain, one line, refrain… sad
9. Sweden: Some babyfaced guy talking the song and eating the mic at the same time. He probably had more foundation (make up) on his face than a beauty guru on youtube.
10. Germany: What’s with the Anime fangirl and the ugly stage with odd trees that have neon green laser lights coming out of the branches while the rest is in nice dark blue and purple colours on the stage… And I thought I am colour blind…
11. France: At least not only singing in English but also in French. But the song and performance were just unimpressive as fuck.
12. Poland: A rocker with a great rock voice singing a shit song (not rock) while wearing the costume of a circus director.
13. Australia: because every one knows that Asian-Australian girls are from Europe. Good voice. Too bad that half the song was stolen from another song.
14. Cyprus: Finally music. A rockband actually performing on stage properly. And the song sounded like a song instead of some pop-manufactured blargh
15. Serbia: Dead eyes, probably trying to look mysterious. Good voice and big budget for hair clips. She brought a sexy guy and some shield maidens on stage.
16. Lithuania: His choreographer must have been a girl. too much echo in the song. Also trying to be sexy – how cute.
17. Croatia: Literally treehugger… Wtf was that dress? Also kind of asian theme to the song/ Sounded like a mix of Japanese and Cranberries styles. Good voice though.
18. Russia: Final Fantasy much? Anyway very impressive stage performance. How unfortunate that the song was complete shit.
19. Spain: A mix of 90s, Madonna, and La Isla Bonita. Not impressive, but at least very loud, eh.
20. Latvia: Was unable to hit a single note. Always a tiny tad off. Why was he screaming at the audience so much? Why so angry. In the end he was like “Screw you guys! I’m taking my jacket off!”
21. Ukraine: Main lyric was “uuuhuuuhuuu” and apparently this lady can only gesture with her left hand. Well done…
22. Malta: Skyping the song in? So much Mariah Carrey tryhard and what’s with the odd frog man doing gymnastics and handstands?
23. Georgia: Roxette style rock music and nicely done because performed live with band. Had an interesting sound but was very repetitive.
24. Austria: meh
25. United Kingdom: Guys going for the gay vibe? Who knows. The one who “played” the guitar didn’t even touch the strings. Come on.
26. Armenia: The background track was from another song (at least in the beginning). Kinda naked performer, looking good. Who needs to sing well if you got that body?

If you want to watch the thing to know what I am referring to, just re-watch it on YouTube 🙂

 

“Hitchens accepted Jesus”

So I stumbled over this article about Christopher Hitchens maybe having accepted Jesus before he died from cancer and I have a few things to say about this.

Disgusting sales strategy!

How dare you take a great man’s life work and the things he did in order to promote reason and logic, and twist it sickly into something that simply isn’t true?
Christians like to argue with “how do you know morality without religion?”
Well how is this morally acceptable at all? How about you start with yourself. If you have an actual argument, it will hold up without a famous name in it. If you count on the famous name to make your book sales and to win over more sheepish followers towards your faith, or in order to be able to boost your ego, then your argument is already worthless.
And it is especially disgusting, considering that the man is dead and can’t even speak out about this anymore.

Sources!

Since when are hearsay, personal experience, and Amazon valid sources?
So in this article, one of the leading points that Christopher Hitchens has accepted religion / Jesus in the end was a powerful story about some apologetic’s HIV positive daughter. Yes, HIV is shocking diagnose and living with it, going through all the medical things, medicines, doctors, therapies etc. It requires a lot of strength and great medical professionals PLUS friends and family that stand by your side and catch you when you fall. I understand that her story, whatever the story was, might have been moving and powerful. But it is not a valid source and, as far as I can tell, also not a logical assumption that the claim of the article itself is true.

Manipulative phrasing!

The whole phrasing of the article already annoyed me from the get go. (this is a screenshot following. Find the link to the article in the end. Yellow marking is by me.)

It should be unnecessary to use all this emotional language, if you actually have a point. Because if you do have a point, if you are actually speaking something based on evidence and proof, you can show sources > trustworthy sources. How about Christopher Hitchens himself stating how he considers accepting Jesus, in a video. Just an idea, you know.

I don’t know who Mr Taunton is, but he is obviously lacking ethics, common sense, and moral based on the article there. I don’t know about that friendship or those road trips. But let’s, for the sake of the argument, consider that a fact. In that case, being friends and studying a book together, doesn’t make an acceptance of its truth a given. Did that make sense? If Mr Hitchens and Mr Taunton would have studied the Q’ran together, it would not mean that Mr Hitchens has no accepted Islam and Muhammad. If they would have studied freaking Harry Potter together, it would not have meant that Mr Hitchens now thinks he is a wizard and lives with muggles and that Harry Potter himself is the saviour.

This is the article:
http://www.charismanews.com/culture/56590-did-famed-atheist-author-christopher-hitchens-accept-jesus-before-he-died

 

Last thoughts:

Hitchens was a very logical and reasonable man with a wonderful sense of humour. He made great speeches, gave great talks, he wrote good books and was generally a very well educated man as far as it appeared to me. I am sorry that the world lost such a great mind and promoter of logic and reason!
I tip my fedora and bow: Great show sir! Good work! Rest in Peace!

 

Level up

Once again I have levelled up. I am now 32 levels old and it is weird but things change although inside you feel nothing has changed while you also feel like everything has.

Am I even making sense?

I don’t celebrate my birthday usually. I will go along when others prepare something for me and I enjoy it. It is nice to know someone has thought about me. But I won’t make a big fuzz of my birthday. A cake for work (although not in my current job) if I feel like it. There are many reasons but mainly I get very … “thinky”. I recab my life until now and how it improved from my childhood /teenage years up to now. Like the mom of my best friend during my teenage years once said to me “Your life is like a badly written novel.” Well, not anymore, ma’am.

But how was today?

Today I had the most normal day. Nothing really special for birthday. At least not special for mine.
I had an eye test and found out I need glasses. Before the eye test I went to check my balance on my bank account to see if I could afford glasses right away. And it said roundabout 400 Euro. For two weeks is fine. I was thinking of buying a nice thing for my husband because he has his birthday this week as well and I wanted to see if I find a nice thing for him.
Well I had to pay almost 300 euro for the glasses and the eye test. So yea… Kinda panicked at that point because 2 weeks for 2 people with not even 100 euro left, no electricity or bus tickets bought.
Later found out that my husband had some money so yea things are fine. But that was a nice shock for a birthday.
Anyway, I am currently really sick so wanted to take it slow today and just rest a lot. Well did not get to that. Our flat looked horrific and I just couldn’t look at it any more. And no matter how sick I am, I have to get at least the worst of it done. So cleaned around, dishes, laundry. baked some stuff. Made a nice cake for birthday. Mostly for the man, not for me. Because I don’t make a nice cake for myself.
Watched some stuff on Netflix while doing my thing. But I can feel how it is taking it’s toll now. I am just really really sick. I was before but it is not getting better because I am not resting.

Apart from that, thinking back on my life and what I got now.
Like the way I grew up and how I have always been depressed. And at some point got diagnosed with bpd (depression being one of the symptoms), when I finally attempted to receive help.
Like how I beat the symptoms of my bpd on a daily basis and it only rarely ever shows through any more.
Like how poor I grew up and how grim my outlook was just about 6 years ago and how well I am doing now compared to that. Not great but well at least, and that is a huge step.

My thinking has changed and not changed.
Sometimes I click through this blog and I see a post from a year or longer ago and I would still agree on the things I wrote then 100 percent. But I look back on older blogs that I had before this one and I am interested how radically some of my views have changed. For example my view on military. On another blog, in a community I am in, I wrote about military in a delusional way where nowadays I have to face palm that this was what I really thought back then
But then there are areas where I have always been thinking the same way. Like equality, fairness, justice, rights, honour, etc.
I am also still a hippie inside. But it is so hard in this current world and society to let that shine through. Those nice ideas to save people, the world, society… Just getting crushed permanently.

My personal struggles are the same but they are less frequent.
I still don’t feel like a woman inside and sometimes it makes me feel very… dark inside. I can’t even describe it. It is a horrible struggle between, loving my husband too much to go for transitioning and feeling that I am not me until I get to transition. Hard to deal with that, especially around things like women’s day or so.
I think this is my actual only personal struggle I have. I am pretty sure that a lot of my underline issues would be solved if I got to transition. But although my husband understands that my mind is not female and he loves me for that, he just is not into male bodies and he expressed clearly that he doesn’t know if a relationship would be possible if I transitioned. Yea it hits me hard once in a while. On occasions like my birthday, hooray. So questions why I don’t feel like celebrating?

 

Ah well, I guess I will just dive into the next year and see what happens.

 

Updates on work and life

So I have recently handed in my resignation and from that moment on, I felt energized. All the pressure from this work has fallen off me.

 

For now, I have an ever-growing backlog that I cannot work off but you know what, as sorry as I am for those staying in that place, those who will have to work off anything I leave behind, I just cannot give a flying fuck about it. Just really no fucks given whatsoever.

I am counting my days down: 13 work days to go, not even 3 weeks any more.

I will make a big, detailed post about the company and what is going on and why it broke me so fast. But I will make that post, once I left the company, so that it won’t bite me in the ass. I have to make it, so I get closure and can move on.

Other than being super salty about work but super hyped that I get my old job back?

I currently plan several trips around Ireland as a birthday present for my husband and I. Usually we celebrate together because our birthdays are very close together. I want to show him Galway, Aran Islands, Rock of Cashel, and the Cliffs of Moher.
I will have one week off, and I hope that we can do this financially. I count on getting some money back from health insurance, and also my tax money back.

With all this new energy I found, I also finally know something I want to study and upon my husband’s request, will trial a website that he suggested. I forgot the name but apparently it has tons of courses available and it is a monthly subscription but pretty much All-You-Can-Eat when it comes to the courses.
I want to go for camera man, film making, movie editing, etc. All these things. It is very interesting to me and I want to become good at it.
After that I would like to go for some media things, whatever I can find.
I will also pick my Swedish studies back up because it is so fun to learn Swedish but before I quit, I had lost all my will and energy to do anything.

Right now I am busy with my gaming community as we are re-launching the website with a lot of changes. And we are working hard on keeping our deadline on Friday.
Today, after work, I have done nothing but plan things, write stuff, and plan more things. We should be ready by Friday.

Also leaving the LARP I currently play in because the ST team sucks. The game itself is a great idea, non-combat, a political game. But I am just not happy with how the game is being managed.

Instead, I am currently working out a great idea for my first own LARP that I will run with a friend of mine. It will be based on a novel I am currently reading. We already did some brain storming and are pretty much on the same page with everything. We just need some time now, to work everything out.

 

Burnt out

I have been writing about my current place of work a few times already and now that I am hopefully going back to my job before, I start realizing some things.

This job has completely burnt me out within four month.
Useless training, horrible upper management, brainless short term targets, external and internal tools breaking all the time, internal procedures not being followed, pressure where no pressure should be made, one of my three supervisors being an unprofessional pervert, two of my three team leads completely incompetent, the product I support is absolutely boring to me, any projects I could possibly take on are equally boring and un-challenging, quality control is completely nuts, new great additional procedures being made up on the spot all the time, big corporate bullshit everywhere….

I always think of work like this:
I spend more of my waking hours at work than anywhere else. When I go to work, I want to go there and feel good about it. Yes, it is a job, and it needs to be done. But the fact that I spend so much time in a place I hate is very unhealthy. Work needs to be a bit like a second home. A place where you can go, do your job, be appreciated at least sometimes, relax during break times, and just simply not hate yourself.
I had that in my old job. It was challenging and not the easiest of jobs from more than one point of view BUT I loved going there. I felt that I am being valued and cared for.

Now, during the past two month, I have been on auto pilot. Just functioning but feeling worse and worse. I am happy I got back in touch with my old recruiter and she offered me my old job. The interview went well, she already knew me and she likes me. So the next day I got my email that basically said “yes we want you but we need to do the background check”.
So right now I am idling, waiting for that background check to be done and waiting for an email saying “Here is your contract and start date. Be there at 8 am.”

So I guess I will be on survival mode for a few more days and once I get my call/email I can pull my last few energy resources to get through the last month in that weird work place.

 

 

The IQ

Many years ago, late 1990’s I think, a big craze about IQ started and a lot of shows were on TV where you could test your IQ. Other shows had segments about intelligence and what the IQ is. It was in magazines, in the papers, and all over the internet.

IQ, as per definition, means Intelligence Quotient.

So what happens in an IQ test is this:
You solve little puzzles, memorize things, answer questions, etc.
It depends a little on where you do the test and who created it.
But in the end you will receive a score that depends on how well you did at solving all the exercises. The score will be an average.

I see a few problems with this system of ranking people and even countries.

1. It is an average so it does not actually show a number that is representative. Not even by a far stretch.
2. If you have an average IQ for a big group of people, it is even less representative. It gets worse, the bigger the group.
3. Why define your own intelligence by a number that averages different fields.
4. All tests are different. And I mean completely different. In scoring, in types of problems, and in areas being tested.

Why am I so critical about this, you may ask.

Intelligence is something that can get lower or higher, depending on how much you work your grey matter.
You can be massively intelligent in one area and close to retardation in another. So how does your IQ (the average of all the areas being tested) matter at all? Do you function? Can you breath, work, understand? Are you able to learn? Can you adjust to your environment?
Those are the important questions.

I have gone through several IQ tests: At school, at the psychologist, on the Internet, at Mensa, etc etc. Every single test was completely different. And I scored pretty much everything on the scale from 65 to 150.

My score of 65 was the score of my mathematical understanding for example.
But in another test, my mathematical score was 150. So… what now?
While 65 is an extremely low score, pretty much retardation, 150 is extremely high, pretty much genius.
So what the hell am I? A retarded genius?
As a matter of fact, the way it was tested was different in both. And while one way of testing was simple for me, the other one was not.
In reality, my mathematical skills let me navigate everyday life just fine. I add, substract, multiply, divide… Like a 4th-grader. I don’t need more. I understand a few more concepts, but really, whatever I was supposed to understand after 5th grade (many moons ago), it was useless for my life and I forgot it all within a matter of minutes.

My usual average IQ score was always somewhere between 120 and 130. This is still considered above average but my above-average-scores have never helped me finding a job. In real life, no one is interested in your IQ because it really does not tell your future employer if you can do the job. How many completely un-intelligent people have studied and became lawyers and doctors? There is a difference between being book smart and life smart.

Try to think about this:

The lowest average IQs that I was able to find online (please use google, I am too lazy to link stuff atm) were in some parts of Africa with an average of about 70. The highest IQ scores by country. with an average around 99, I found in Asia. And right in the middle of the two extremes were places like Europe or Australia.

How do patterns of triangles or great language skills matter to the person living the middle of Sahara desert? They need other skills, and those skills are not being measured in those IQ tests. That same person with the very low IQ, would probably do just fine surviving that rough life in the desert, because maybe they do well with simple tasks that always stay the same like find water, care for the camels, build a tent, etc.

In places like Japan though, those skills are not needed. School and work 6 days a week and very intense. You will only succeed in live if you keep passing tests well and if you are able to think in those specific ways, that an IQ test checks.

Ok, done.

 

Just a number

Hi there, I am a number and you are too.

Well maybe more a mixture of different numbers.

I have been thinking for a while and for some reason it is just that.

We are all just numbers on papers and neat excel sheets. We are numbers in private live and at work. We are numbers and it is getting annoying that it seems that only those numbers count in my life.

Privately, this is what I am:

• I am 31 years old.
• I was born in 1984
• I am 1.75m tall
• I weigh in at 94.3 kg after losing 10 kg
• Currently I eat 1300 kcal a day
• I eat 2 meal replacements, 3 snacks, and 1 home cooked meal per day
• My dinner consists of max 600 kcal
• I sleep 6-7 hours a day on weekdays
• I sleep 10 hours a day on weekends and holidays
• In 2015 I spent about 2000 Euro on vacation (I went on one expensive and one cheap vacation)
• In 2016 I have been depressed once for 3 days so far
• I own 2 pairs of shoes
• My rent is 800 Euro a month
• My phone contract plus rate is 53 Euro a month
• I pay 10 Euro electricity per week

This is me in LoL:

• My CS is 60-80 by 10 min
• All the items bought in a game mount up to roughly 11k gold
• I play with 4 team mates
• I play against 5 players
• Each normal minion wave has 6 minions
• I want to kill 5 dragons per game
• I  kill 1 baron per game
• I  get 2 red buffs a game when playing ADC
• I have 3 stealth wards up at a time when playing support
• I have 1 pink ward up at all times

This is me professionally:

• I take 10 – 20 calls from customers per day
• I call back average 5 customers a day
• I have received 3 dsats in 6 months (that is a low number btw)
• I close 20 – 28 tickets per week (above target)
• I open and forward aprox 10 – 20 technical tickets a week
• My average handling time on the phone is 7 min and 23 seconds which is 17 seconds better than target.
• I spend 2 hours a day commuting to and from work
• I have 20 days of PTO per year
• I work 40 hours a week

So you see what I mean?

Yes you are more than numbers, but for some reason we do tend to define ourselves and others by a lot of bullshit numbers, or not? Are they not a little bit bullshit?

How about seeing the person as a whole and maybe sometimes take a step back from the numbers. And this counts for normal everyday interactions in private life as much as for the professional world.

I get it. Sometimes numbers are needed. Especially in specific lines of work. But there is a healthy and an unhealthy amount of focus on the numbers.

For all the managers out there (and one in particular, let’s call him “J”):
How about the realisation that behind that mountain of numbers, there are real people. Those real people have real lives, desires, and abilities outside of the number you attach to them. And little hint: The more un-needed pressure you put on them, the more frequently they will get sick. That is a fact. Sick people can’t perform and training new people is costly. You are damaging yourself 😉

 

About studying and life and a pickle

So if you saw my last post with the wishlist, you saw the points about getting into online marketing and video editing a little more. Mainly because I would love my Youtube channels to grow. All three of them. But how? Right?

Over all, whatever I end up studying, I would like it to be something I enjoy studying, and something that might even help me in my career, looking forward.

So after some thinking I thought about Media Studies and I have just started to look into where to study that around here, what it would cost, and what courses etc etc. The stuff you gotta look up if you wanna go back to school.

I then also talked to my husband. And I love him to bits, he does keep my feet on the ground. But he has this habit of probing. Basically he will ask me questions to have me think, maybe just answer for myself, etc. Just so I won’t jump into something that sounds nice for five minutes and then drop it.

The problem is that this is the exact same way that was used on my all my life in order to stop me from achieving any goals that I wanted to achieve.
Very early on I had in my mind to become a psychologist or veterinarian. Both Psychology and animals have always been interesting to me and especially animals, up to this day, are something I would love to work with day in day out. But we were dirt poor. Buying certain books for high school was already almost too much so of course uni wasn’t anywhere close to possible. The money was the main reason why, at 13 years old, I decided to move one school type lower, because we wouldn’t have to buy so many things for school there. (Yes my mother left this kind of decision up to me completely)

So I had to find a new thing to be passionate about. I had always loved music and was very talented but didn’t really see that as a career for myself.
So what will I do with my life? What is my goal? At 14 / 15 you are supposed to choose what career path you want to go down.
I decided on computer science, although it would be incredibly hard for me because the branch that taught computer science at my school, was the same branch that had a heavy focus on maths and I am really not a maths person.

Guess what, my mom talked me out of it. We had no computer and no money to get one. No matter how much I loved computers, consoles, and all of it, there was no way to do it financially. And apparently the fact that there was a computer room for me to go and study didn’t matter because maths… Well.

So I looked into less conventional things, while moving onto the art branch of my school (that btw head the same heavy focus on maths as the computer science, but fuck logic).

I had always been invested into everything circus. I was juggling, I went on stage as a clown regularly, I had started to ride the unicycle, I was sporty and knew some acrobatics. I followed circus competitions and volunteered at circus project.
So I thought, I would love to go to the circus. I would not get rich with it but I would become happy. I still believe that to this day but the time to make it true is over.
Of course I was not encouraged to go to the circus.

So I thought about going to the sea. I was into ships and boats and into sailing. I was a great swimmer, and as I mentioned very fit. My graduation class had a graduation trip to the Netherlands to go sailing for a week. And I loved it. I learnt, I spoke to the skipper about possibly getting on his ship when he needs a Maat, etc. I told my teacher that if he hears back from the skipper to please let me know. And low and behold, two months later he told me that the skipper was now looking for a Maat and he gave me the phone number. I spoke to my mom about it and who discouraged me again?
I was 18 years old, in my last year of school. I wasn’t going to graduate because of maths and chemistry. I wasn’t willing to repeat the year either at 18 years old.
My mother wanted to see me as a pre-school teacher but that school would only take me with a graduation. So I had to do the long way. Go for child care assistant. Work for two years, then go back to school.
Turns out I stopped after child care assistant and worked 4 years before leaving the profession. Don’t get me wrong, I am really good at being a child care assistant. But it is not what I ever wanted to achieve. I studied it so I have a job, not because I wanted it.

I am now the age where I can make my own decisions and as long as I can finance the uni / college, I feel I should go for it.
Sometimes I feel my time is running out. My life is just slowly starting to become stable. There is so much I want to do with my life. Study, children, travel, animals, house, hobbies, etc.
I want to invest time into studying especially because I love learning new things. I just feel that I get too many hurdles.

My husband and I talked it through, and I pretty much got his blessing after a very long talk. But I just don’t have thousands and thousands of euro just laying on my bedside table, waiting to be spent.
I guess I am in a bit of a pickle…

 

The Wishlist

So the new year has begun and I have a wishlist.

Really no new year’s resolutions because I always fail mine and I am sure a lot of you have the same problem.

In reality I have very hopeful and maybe even realistic wishes.

One example for a wishlist is the one that my husband and I made for the ideal flat that we want to find this year:

But there are other things I would like. And here is my little wishlist for the year:

• Lose another 15 kilo (already lost 9)
• Leave either the department or find a new job
• Learn Swedish better
• Become Gold in LoL
• Cosplay Aiden Pearse
• Get my youtube going
• Look into online marketing
• Improve video editing skills
• Become Level 13 at Ingress
• Write LARP for Leprecon
• Write RPG for friends and I
• Start bi-weekly game-and-coma-eating-nights again (once we have a new flat)
• Calculate what building a house costs (all in all) versus comparable house ready to buy
• Keep breathing

That being said, have a great 20016 and may all the wishes on your wishlist come true! 

 

Being an Ex-Vegan

So recently, while looking for recipes on YouTube, I stumbled upon some vegan videos. And some of them hit me very hard because the vegans in those videos were so hard-core world saving judgemental preachers.

All these inclination that everything non-vegan is unhealthy, horrible, ethically unacceptable, and deadly.

A few examples of statements by such vegans without name shaming:

• Calling fresh meat, sold in a supermarket “rotting animal corpse”
• Stating that the anti baby pill is deadly
• Stating that condoms are not vegan
• Saying that everybody who eats meat is ignorant
• Calling someone who is vegan for a non-ethical reason not a “real vegan”
• Calling vegans who allow themselves a cheat day or cheat meal not “real vegans”

And then there are Ex-Vegans who stopped with these eating habits who will explain how all the problems they faced are due to their vegan life style. Like deficiencies, feeling unfit, cravings, disorders, etc.

So I saw this video just a few minutes ago. “A Vegan’s Take on Ex-Vegans” and at first I expected to get angry. I thought she would be another one of those obnoxious idiots. But it turned out that she was a very reasonable person with very good points. I linked the video below so you can watch it if you want.

Here is my take on the Ex-Vegan “thing” and why I am not vegan any more:

I never decided to be a vegan. I had been a vegetarian for about 4 years when I moved into my first own place and finally I had internet. I had been a vegetarian because honestly, I just don’t like the taste of meat too much. I also always disliked the way animals were treated. Those two things combined just got me to not eating meat. I include all animals in the category meat. So therefore birds, fish, and seafood are meat in my book.
At the time I would still eat Eggs, things with gelatine, soup stock, etc.

Once I moved, as I said, I finally had internet. So this was one of things I started looking into a bit more. This combined with the fact that naturally I was buying almost exclusively plant based foods. The only animal product, when it comes to food, that I ever bought, were eggs from the local farmer who came to my block with his truck once a week.

I also had two cats and they received a meat-based diet of course. They got the cat food from the supermarket, they got some nice pieces from the butcher as a treat, they got a bit of white yoghurt once in a while, etc.
And after having read articles today, that there are vegans out there, who feed their carnivores a vegan diet:
You are irresponsible assholes. Do your fucking research before getting a pet. A carnivore who does not get meat will die. And you will be the reason. Get a rabbit or gunieapig, you fucking idiot!
You cannot argue with how humans deal with cutting out on meat because humans have a different physique and they are omnivores. Humans evolved to eat everything including meat so they are usually fine, cutting out meat.

Now in my case, as I was buying plant based foods anyway, it was no big step for me to commit to a vegan lifestyle. Because I did not want to support any animal cruelty, I cut out everything that, to my knowledge, kills animals. Therefore I started reading labels and would cut out certain soup stocks, certain jellies (because gelatin), and so on. I also stopped looking at leather and fur products (real stuff). If I wanted the look, I was going for faux leather.

On this eating style I was very healthy. I knew exactly what my body needs and how to provide those nutrients through a vegan “diet”. But, as you might have figured, I was not a health nut, I was not involved in any movement, forum, or so. I was also not an activist and did not feel the need to “educate” everybody. I just lived it. When I was visiting people, I would tell them that I am vegetarian (as vegan was not a big known thing at the time) and I would stick to the things I deemed “save”. In restaurants I would ask if there are animal products in a meal. For example in a sauce or so and usually the chef would always be so nice to make me a sauce that would suit me.
But I continued consuming products that don’t kill and I would consume them from local farmers. For example eggs or honey. I bought these products only directly from the farmer and not in a supermarket. This way I knew that no animal suffered for it.

But why did I stop at some point?

Well I was at a very low point in my life and someone had offered to take me in. They offered me to help me in different ways and I took the offer. They knew I was a “vegetarian” and ensured me that they would be fine to provide me with food that is suitable for me. And they actually lived up to this but the fact that this always caused more work (cooking two meals, shopping for them got more complicated, cleaning up after all the cooking, checking back with me all the time) I felt like my choice was asking too much of the good people who took me in. I did not want to cause all this trouble that no one complained about but that was very obvious.
So one day we went to the city and we got to one of those hot dog stands or whatever sausages they had there. I was hungry anyway and I said, “Let’s go and buy a sausage, I wanna try.” And we talked it through. I said “It’s fine. I wanna see if I can still have it.” blabla etc. In my mind I just wanted to find out what my body will say to a meat product.
Let’s just keep in mind that at this point I had not eaten any meat for the past 8 years.
20 Minutes after eating the sausage I started to feel very bloated and gassy. An hour after eating the sausage I started being in so much pain that I did not know how to lay down for it to hurt less.
But my mind was set. I wanted things to be less complicated with these good people who took me in. So I carefully brought meat back into my diet until at some point it caused no problems any longer.

This was 6 years ago and I am not living with these people any more.

So why still eat meat?

Well I found my love while living there. And leaving those people, I moved in right with my love (who is now my husband). He is not just a meat eater, he is a meat lover. His whole family branch strives on meat. He can do without but he will feel very unwell, no matter how good the “un-meaty” food, you provide, is. It can be tasty and provide all the nutrients to him and he can love it but he will feel unwell after a short time.
In addition, because I asked him at some point, he also doesn’t deal well with processed soy products. (Which was proven multiple times when he had it anyway because it is tasty. Soon after he would have to spend hours on the toilet.) So the amount of food needed in his case to make up for the missing high value proteins, would be crazy. I cannot afford that, sorry. I can also not afford to buy properly for two different food-styles. I do not have the space to store everything I would need and everything he needs. And I also don’t have the time to cook for both every day if it has to be one vegan and one omnivore.

I still don’t eat a lot of meat and the few times I prepare it, I handle it with care and respect. It is the least I can do. My mindset is still vegan, if that makes any sense.

The one thing that gives me hope, is the fact that we started managing our money a little differently now. So each of us gets their own amount of money per week to shop for foods. So that is making things easier because I don’t have to worry about shopping for him any more. And I do actually not buy any meat or things that kill animals.
Now I will be going on the Slimfast diet and that will have me buy even less. I can cut out on proteins for the time being because they will be provided by the meal replacements. And in the evening I can indulge in rice with veggies, smoothies, salads, and all those fine things 😀

So knowing how there can be so many reason why someone might stop being a vegan (and usually none of them ignorance), it really pisses me off to be judged by those 18 year old kiddies who don’t know real life yet but have to convert the world to what is the best thing ever in their opinion. They generalize, provide half-truth, do not research their stuff properly, and still think they know it all. Really annoying.

So that was my take on this whole topic.

Here is the video I talked about earlier, as promised.