This is one of those 'what would you do' posts

For the past two consecutive days i've seen mothers react to their child's misbehavior rather...violently.

ya'll know what i'm talking about. a kid is misbehaving in public, and the parent responds with a very public showing of hitting and screaming.

1. I was taking the tram home on Wednesday when a young mother was standing in the handicapped section with a (approx.) 2yo girl in a stroller and a 4yo boy. 2yo is kind of kicking the bag of mom from stroller. mom starts shacking the stroller, yelling some rude things at kid in dialect. a little later boy starts to unintentionally squeeze a finger of 2yo between this thingie to keep wheelchairs from rolling (it's kind of hard to describe what it is, but just go with it). 2yo isn't in that much pain, but still screams hysterically cuz it's her older brother doing it. mom pushes the boy really hard, grabs his coat, shakes him back and forth and slaps him on the head as well. everyone on the tram is discretely staring, but boy seems to find this a daily activity.

2. I was standing guard by our car in namur when a woman walked past me. clinging to her was a 6yo girl who was just 'crying' for the sake of crying. obviously she had been punished before for doing something wrong and was sorry and frustrated at the fact that she made her mom angry (or so i think. i'm not sure if you should trust my child psychology). right when they had passed me, the woman GRABS the girl's HAIR, pulls it back really hard, yells a few things in french at her (ta gueule) and then throws her head back forward by means of her hair. the girl, now feels even worse than before, but her attempts to give her mom a hug are answered by some more 'ta gueule's'.

Of course parents can have a bad day, get frustrated...i totally understand that.
Obviously we should cut parents some slack. i'm not a parent, or far from becoming one.
Everyone has their own way of punishing kids. some parents are the talking kind, others tend to be more physical, and others parents take away rights and privileges. i'm fine with all that. every kid is different, and good parents probably know best.

But the two cases i'm describing to you here are extremes. clearly all the outsiders in the 2 stories were a little shocked by the way these people punished their kids.

so what would you do? Let's say you're...old and experienced? would you go up to the parents (personally i think it's a very bad idea to approach a parent in times of rage) and tell them that they are wrong? or would you stare at them, and give them the worst evil glare you have in store? or just walk by and try not to think about their situation at home?

I hate situations like this.

it's over!

so....


my year in namur is over. the most dreaded thing of 2006 is done. Well, almost. I still have to get my grades that are awful, and pick a few more things up from my studio.



It's been a good year though. Ignoring the fact that I was dragged here against my will, from the basement on the hill, i can't complain. People here have been really nice to me, which was nice since I left my belgian elementary school on a bad note 8 years ago. they accepted me right from the start. I'm really thankful for that.


I'm really going to miss my studio. I adored living by myself. I could do whatever the frick i wanted to. Ok, the most hard core thing i ever did was stay up till 3 AM reading mormon blogs...
I could have solo dance parties and talk to myself (shut up, you KNOW you've done it too) and no one would care, not even my neighbors, who were drunk half the time.

gosh, i'm really going to miss that place. even if i slept with a knife under my pillow half the time...



but i'm also really glad that my Namur Chapter is over. Let's be honest: I was really out of place there. and i really didn't have a social life, cuz i didn't speak the language well enough.


(oh, and I'm also glad I don't have to worry about drunk hobo's ringing my doorbell at unreasonable hours of the night :-))

Boy Howdy

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 9 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

This is the coolest blog EVER

Anglo-Saxon mp3's:

http://fred.wheatonma.edu/wordpressmu/mdrout

I can totally see Lancelot rocking out with his ipod.

I'm going to the Congo in July!!

That's right! I'm leaving for Kinshasa the 20rd of July! We'll be back 8 days later. Yes I know, it's only 8 days, but it's better than nothing at all. I'm going there with my dad who is part of a project for the VLIR. We'll be staying at local nunneries and we also emailed a few people from the LDS mission home. The mission president told us he will hook us up with a few locals that will help us around (so we won't get ripped off at the markets and other unpleasant activities).

Today we got all our vaccinations since they are supposed to be done a month in advance.

(please excuse the crappy shot and the fact that my arms look cut off) (my vaccination booklet)

While we were paying one of the ladies at the desk starred at me for about a good minute. I politely smiled at her (well, more like an 'eek-quit-starring-at-me' type of smile), and she remarked, loud and clearly for everyone to hear: "You look REALLY pale, are you feeling alright??"

Yes I'm feeling fine, and it's not like I have not gotten shots before! Then I came home today and told my mom what happened at the Tropical Institute. She too said that the first thing she thought when she saw me today was that I was very pale.

maybe it's the yellow shirt? Good thing I only have 2....

Lunch conversation

I was sitting outside a classroom with 2 other people, waiting for a Dutch Stylistics exam to start. (this conversation was in french)

L: I love dutch. I think it's the prettiest language I've heard.

V: You kidding me??!! I hate that language! I think it's the ugliest thing I've heard! Then I think German is prettier!

Me: *cough* *cough*

V: Well, I'm not referring directly to you. You speak fluent English. So you're saved.

.....aaaagghhhh......

June

The month of June seems to be a really boring month.



1. Lots of people around the world are doing finals.



2. Apparently June is the month were people decide to 'engage themselves in some projects.'



3. The bloggernackle is quiet. You might have noticed that my sidebar has not been very active.



4. People want to save money for the summer (trips, festivals, sales...)

to prove my point:

I'M BORED.

BYU Entertainment

This pretty much sums up all the free entertainment I'm going to get at BYU. Minus International Cinema.

Because I don't want to end up like

them. (If you don't want to watch the whole 10 minutes, here's the shorter version.)

When I first saw this, I thought this was highly entertaining. But now I'm not so sure. They are ridiculous. This is not even sharing your opinion. This is 'I'm-right-you're-wrong-and-if-you-disagree-with-me-I'm-gonna-smash-a-chair-on-your-head type thing.'

Why do politics release the beast in us? Why do nice people turn into such tyrants with red faces and veins popping out of their necks, and call it 'sticking to your guns?' Why must we always make sure we remain loyal to our political label, because if we don't, we'll be called a flip-flopper and indecisive. And ooooh, we certainly don't want that! Because looking back on the past, and learning from previous decisions is the last thing on earth we want to do!

It always surprises me (especially in Utah) to hear people bear powerful testimonies on Sunday, and then become monsters during the week when politics are released on them.
Why do people let go of their values and lower themselves, just to prove their point to people who slightly disagree with them? Can't we just 'not like' a political party and leave it at that? WHY do we have to insult each other just to prove that our so called 'way of thinking' is the correct way? And what is so glorious about doing it out in the open for everyone to see?

I am guilty of sometimes loosing it as well. Ok, probably not as bad as the example on top, but there are times when I came really close.
Well, I'm done with that. I don't want to end up like those decent women on the view. I think it's senseless to destroy your image over politics. So I've decided to do away with the political label. I am not going to fight.

When writing this post a few scriptures about worshiping other gods came to mind. Also the Scripture about being in one heart seemed appropriate.

And no, this does not mean Ellen is going to stop following up on the news and politics. Believe me, Ellen is still gonna have the label 'Liberal Mormon' on her forehead, and it's gonna take one heck of a laser surgery to get it of. And if I was at BYU this year, I would still be outside the JSM building, protesting against Mr. Cheney.

But I'm done with the fighting. It really does not make life easier to live with a constant hatred and fear in your heart, for something so abstract as politics.

This is how one takes tests at BYU

I stole this from some dude's blog. This sign hangs outside the Testing Center at BYU, and 'the doors' refer to the exit doors.
Sometimes my life seems to be one long continuous culture shock

A list of the random things that happened to me in the past couple of days

1. The name of the Canadian Store 'The Crazy Canook" popped into my head and will not leave.


2. I dreamt that my English Lit. exam consisted of filling in blanks of printed Beatle Lyrics by means of riddles. I also freaked out and failed 'Yellow Submarine.'


3. Steven's Hot Coco popped into my head as well. In the lexical form, that is.


4. A booklet arrived in the mail yesterday from BYU for New Students. In order to reach my house, it traveled all the way around New Zealand. Apparently this isn't the first time BYU has send me mail via Oceania.

5. A random doctor remarked that prophyria includes intense abdominal cramps. He then concluded that those cramps were caught by eating beans.