31st

Today is the last day of the year. I'm usually not a fan of "best of the year" or "worst of the year". I don't make New Year's resolutions. The end of the year (or the beginning for that matter) is completely arbitrary, and there are days that are more meaningful to me (my birthday being the main one, if I'm going to start counting from somewhere, that's it). But 2013 was a good year, so I'm going to make a small exception.

I learnt a lot in 2013. Worked hard, and learnt a lot more than I thought I would. I helped write a paper, I sat down and actually did some real science, and it was a worthwhile experience. I met intelligent people, hard working people, people who were much better at what we did than I am, and they took me in and taught me and helped me along. I'm grateful to them for it.

I worked hard. Sometimes very hard. And I didn't love every minute of it, but I learnt that I could do it. I could work hard and I was able to get what I wanted done.

I made new friends, and met lots of new people who may end up being friends in the near future. I had fun. I had so much fun. I also overdid it a few times, but I have no regrets (I've apologized enough to the people involved, I'm fairly sure).

2013 was also a hard year. A person close to me was ill, and I couldn't be with them, and that doesn't stop sucking however many times it happens. Working was good, but it was hard on me. I was not able to enjoy it as much as I should have, perhaps. A few times I took too long to do things, and that hurt me. But it all worked out in the end: illness was cured (hopefully it won't return), I got results for my work, and I did do things in the end, which worked out really well for me.

No, really, 2013 was a fantastic year (or maybe I'm just happy with how it turned out now).

And as I said above, I don't make New Year's resolutions, but perhaps I'll make some wishes.

I hope I don't hurt anyone in 2014, that I'm able to make the people around me happy (or just plain indifferent).

I hope I have the guts to do what's best for me.

I hope no one close to me gets ill (I would wish for universal health, but that is highly unlikely).

I hope I keep writing, more often than I am now, and reading, and listening to music, and enjoying those things others offer me.

And I'm done.

To all of those who read, hope you've had a good 2013, and if you haven't, hope 2014 is a lot better. Enjoy the day, it's the last one of this year. And enjoy beginning a brand new year tomorrow.

H

A post and a half

So as the title suggests, today I've got a couple of things to talk about. Neither of them are enough for one whole blogpost I don't think, and they are not connected directly, but I feel with both of them that if I don't put them down right now, I may never do.

Today I was binge eating. As I am writing, I have on my table a mug (I've had about 3 cups of coacoa), an empty 2-pint bottle of milk, sugar, cheese and a bowl for some gherkins I was eating before. I've also had potato stew. This may not sound like much, except when you consider that all I've done today has been sleep, eat and watch shows. Combined with the fact that the food I consumed yesterday consisted on a bar of chocolate, some cod with courgettes tomato and mozzarella, a whole box (yes, that's 375g) of Krave cereal, and litre of milk, I would say that I've had a "bad" couple of days when it comes to food. Especially considering that I've been hiding my eating, a telltale sign of "disordered" eating.

I sort of know why I'm binge eating: it's the end of term, I need to start revising for exams and I'm procrastinating. I procrastinate by eating and watching TV and not getting out of bed. All of these things also make me feel like shit, but it's a vicious cycle: the more time I spend in bed with shitty TV and food, the more guilty I feel about it, the more I do it to make myself feel better. The most ironic thing about it is that I am perfectly capable of rationally describing my behaviour while actively engaging in it. More than that: I know exactly how to stop it. Take a shower, get dressed, and go out. It doesn't matter where. If some friends will have me, that's usually best, but if they won't, just getting out of the house will make me feel a million times better. And yet... I don't do it. Most of the time, I don't do it.

The reason I'm writing this down on a public blog is because it helps me to make the problem known. As I've said before, hiding that you're eating, or hiding what you're eating, is a common sign of disordered eating. Telling people what I'm eating (in this case, what I've been eating) forces me to accept it, makes it more real. Yes, I've eaten all that food. No, it wasn't a very healthy behaviour. Yes, I'll probably do it again. No, probably I won't do it in the next few days.

Binge eating led me (as it usually does) to find some advice on the Internet on how to stop. Which led me to my stickies. I was never a huge fan of real sticky notes, but I'm in love with the Mac app. I really like having the reminders on my desktop. I'd completely forgotten about them, until I had my binge and decided to write one reminding me what sort of things I should do when I am having a binge (or when I'm about to). So I open the stickies, and what's the first thing I find? A sticky commenting on a Felix article from over a year ago. A Felix article about sexism.

I know exactly when I wrote that sticky, and it was close to when I started writing this blog. I haven't checked, but there's a possibility that one of my early posts is about that article. There's also a possibility that I never published it because the article made me so angry. It was condescending, paternalistic and all around offensive, while trying to be a feminist article. I find that this happens so much that there are feminist media outlets that I won't visit, or that I will only visit compulsively, to find the flaws.

I was reading through my post-it note, my sticky, and it came to me. What really bothers me about this type of feminism. It's not the ideas behind it (most of the time), or the tone (even though it does bother me). It's the fact that I get the horrible feeling that the people who write these articles have chosen feminism as their pet activism the same way they could have chosen anything else. They are feminists because feminism gives them an outlet to be angry at society, or at the world, and I guess it's a good thing they found feminism: I sometimes feel they could have found racism just as easily.

I have said before in this blog that I value freedom. And yet, I don't think I'm free. I'm constrained by my circumstances (some might call it my privilege) and by my compulsions (binge eating, for example, does not make me feel like I'm free). Everyone is constrained. This doesn't mean we don't deserve a world in which we can be as free as possible. Part of freedom is knowing that your rights end where other people's rights begin. That just because someone is wrong it doesn't make it right to hurt them. That freedom is a responsibility of course, but that it is also a right (not only yours, but everyone else's).

Fantasy number 7

Note: I told I friend of mine that I wrote a fantasy diary, and this person asked me to publish one of them. So here goes.

Fantasy n. 7

They're in their mid or late twenties, a few years older than me, and they've known me for a while. Enough to know what I like.

On a winter day they call me, and tell me to come over to their place for coffee. It's cold outside, the sharp kind of cold that you can't run from or wear enough layers to stop, but I don't mind. I walk fast, face flushed and an almost smile on myself. I get to their house and ring the doorbell. They open the door, utter an excited "hi!" and give me a quick hug, inviting me in. As they'd promised, coffee is ready and they hand me a cup (they know me well enough to know that if it's good coffee I'll have it black, on ice in summer, freshly brewed in winter). They show me into the sitting room and tell me to make myself at home, and to wait a minute, they have something for me.

The sitting room walls are completely covered with bookcases, one of the things I love about them: every book on the bookcases they've ready, all of them they've chosen carefully, lovingly. I take a closer look, always drinking my coffee. The books are organised by author, but not alphabetically. I detect a penchant for history books, and an original language bias. There's also a chronological order (in fiction, this order has to do with the period of the author; in the history books, this order depends on the topic of the book, which makes some of the author ordering confusing). Historical books are in separate bookcases to fiction, and there's a separate bookcase for dictionaries, and yet another for technical books.

-Hey, -I hear them say, but before I have the chance to turn around, a blindfold's over my eyes. I take a sharp breath, and I feel my whole body tense and relax at the same time.

-Like it?- they whisper in my ear, sounding a mixture between eager and concerned, but they don't wait for an answer. They grab my hips and turn me towards them.

I nod, my mouth dry. They first take my coffee cup from my hand, and lead me around the chairs, until we're next to the sofa, where they sit me down. I'm smiling, I can't help it, even though we haven't known each other for that long.

I expect them to sit next to me, but instead I hear them step out of the room, and open a door... the kitchen door? I hear the coffee maker and soon I can smell coffee, good coffee, better than the one they gave me before. And something else. Sweet perhaps?

They return, and the smell of coffee comes full force into the room with them. They hand me a mug, a different mug, pulling my hand out so I won't miss and spill hot coffee all over, and then they sit next tome. I smell the coffee first. It's strong, sweeter than I'm used to, or maybe softer is the word I'm looking for, as though the usual bitterness has been worked out of the bean. I then proceed to taste. It's hot, hotter than I expected, but I hold it in my mouth. No, it's not bitter, it's purely coffee flavoured, perfect coffee. South American, by the taste of it, amost flowery, if coffee can ever be described that way.

-Colombian?- I ask to my right, where I know they're sitting. I can almost hear them breathing.

-Hmhmm. -they say, and I imagine them nodding their heads, cup of coffee in hand, maybe some of it in their mouth, looking at me. -Open your mouth.

I obey without question. Somehow I trust them, Maybe because I know they are me, or like me, close enough that it can't hurt.

They shift their weight and then place something in my mouth. It's crumbly and almost sweet, that full taste that comes with good baking, where the ingredients have combined to make something that doesn't quite taste of any of them, but of something almost magical. It has pecans, that are crunchy and bold, and a fruit, raspberries maybe?, that adds some acidity and at the same time softens the mix. It's delicious. I savour it, and swallow, and thank them.

We sit in silence for a while, drinking coffee, and the house comes alive. It smells a bit damp, just like all the houses in this city, and I can hear it, creaking and howling, even though we are the only ones inside. I suspect I hear mice in the wall behind me, and I can hear the traffic from outside. Somehow, I know it's raining, probably some rhythmic tapping registering somewhere just within my hearing that I can't consciously distinguish. I feel my body settling into a rhythm, almost like I'm meditating, feeling everything around me. They are quiet, and suddenly, I feel embarrassed, I've gotten too comfortable. Are they watching me?

-What are you thinking? -I blurt out.

-I want to take you somewhere. -they answer.

-... OK.- I don't understand where the hesitation comes from, maybe just giving myself time to enjoy the power of choosing, maybe some fear of what will happen next. I feel a bolt going up my back, and balance is restored.

They get up, and take my empty mug from me. They then take my hands in their warm hands and pull me up from the sofa. They turn me around, my back to them, and put their hands on my hips again, which instantly makes me breathe a little faster, and they start steering me. They help me put my coat on then, and lead me outside Walking this way is slow, and I can't help but wonder what others in the street are thinking.

The ground feels different, maybe because I'm more conscious of it now. Hard sometimes, then it changes, the asphalt softer than the pavement. They never let go of me, they tell me clearly when I need to take a step, or when there's a crossing or a turn. They are an excellent guide, and I suspect that they've done this before, and also that they're enjoying pushing me around, and maybe even enjoying that I'm willing to be pushed around.

-Stop -they say quietly, and I stop. -We're here.

They take their hands off my hips and step away, and I think I make a sound, disappointed. I a door opening, and I am pushed inside.

The first thing is the smell. It hits me hard, musty, but not really, familiar, almost warm, pleasant, full, warm, worn. The smell of ink and paper and of every human hand that has touched each page. Next, I notice the sounds. No music. Whispers, a chuckle. The creak of a spine groaning. The ripple of a page turned, the rustle of so many books in a small space. I reach my hand to my right and I feel the row of uneven volumes. Some hardbacks, others leatherbound, yet others paperbacks with creased spines.

-A second-hand bookshop! -I say, excited, smiling brightly.

They chuckle, and take my blindfold off, and it takes a few seconds for sight to reassert itself as my main source of information. The shelves are painted green, and there are so many books I'm almost sure most of them will be bad. I start running my finger over spines, reading titles. I was wrong. The selection borders on excellent, they have everyone. Spambauer, and Rushdie, and Roth. Sontag, and Gordimer, Boyd, Lee and Salinger, of course, Carver and the rest. They are all there. I pick up a volume that I don't know, but an author that rings a bell, but I can't quite place, and I start reading. I get into it, get lost in the book, distracted, and I don't know how much time goes by. When I finally look up, remembering I'm in a second hand bookshop and why I'm there, they have disappeared. I feel my stomach drop and my back grow cold, and my smile fades. Where are they?

I go deeper into the small shop, and find that behind what I thought was the last bookcase, there is a staircase leading to the basement. They're standing at the base, looking at the history section, and fingering a book I recognise, one by Paul Preston on the Spanish Civil War. They're absorbed, clearly looking for something missing from their own collection, something they know is missing. I smile, happily. I know that exact look, because it's my look. We may not know each other that well, no, but it doesn't matter. They are a version of me, or I'm a version of them. I couldn't know them better.

It is kind of personal

I like to argue. I enjoy it. I will defend any position for the sake of argument, even when I know I'm wrong, even when I know I'm losing the argument. It doesn't matter. I don't know what it is about arguing that attracts me, it's a mixture between the thrill of perhaps convincing someone, the satisfaction of proving someone wrong, and the pure and simple delight I personally get out of having someone try to convince me. All this said, I (more often than not) lose arguments. I like to think that this is due to the fact that I've found people more intelligent than me to argue with, but between you and me? It's probably due to me not being great at coming up with (nearly) flawless logical arguments.

This is why it really bothers me when someone refuses to hear an argument out. And I admit it's often one of my problems with many feminists I come across. I (kind of) understand the idea "we're not here to educate anyone, people, if they're interested, should educate themselves". But this shouldn't be an excuse not to get into an argument, it shouldn't be an excuse to say "I don't want to hear it, I'm not going to get into this". This is a mistake. Because a lot of the time, people don't know they are wrong.

I understand that feminism is a political and social movement (and I expect I am missing a lot here, I won't pretend to be educated in it), and that there is a lot to do, but I still can't help but think that one of the most important and possibly effective ways of spreading feminism, and making it the default way of thinking (that men and women are equal), is education. Yes, it might be exhausting, it might be boring. And of course, if someone asks, the best thing to do is probably to point them in the direction of Google (or if you're feeling charitable, some of the good resources in either books or the maze that is the internet). But when someone is saying something that is quite simply morally wrong, or if someone who claims to be a feminist falls into victim blaming (even if it's unconsciously, and I'm afraid I may or may not have done this before), they need to be corrected. It's not good enough to say "I don't want to argue". It's not good enough to say "I don't want to get into it", or "I've had this argument a million times before", or "I know I'm right". These people need to be corrected, because they are the possible feminists, who may be wrong, who may not know they are, who may not have realised.

So next time you feel that engaging in an argument isn't worth your time, think about it. Is it OK to leave the misconception there? Because, sure, I like arguing. I often do it without any regard for what I actually believe in. But once in a while I get the chance to correct a misconception, or to quite simply put my point across about something that I actually do think is important. Believe me it's worth it. Refusing to engage just makes one sound like a bigot, like they don't have the argument.

H

What happens to Darwin?

A few months ago, a "great win" was hailed for British feminism: Jane Austen would be on the £10 note. I didn't think too much of it at the time. As some of my readers may know, I like Jane Austen's books, but I don't share the British passion for her writing: I think she's a good writer, nothing extraordinary; I think if she had lived and written books nowadays she would have been classified as "chick lit" rather than a classic. But no matter: whatever I may think, she is a recognised author, a woman who published under her own name, a woman who gave an insight into the lives of the upper class at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, all in all, an important player in British culture who deserves to be appreciated and celebrated. As I've mentioned, the fact that she will be on the £10 note has been hailed as a win for British feminism: it makes an important woman more visible, in an area dominated by men (she will be the first woman to feature in a British note). And yet... I can't whole heartedly support this.

The other day I took a ten pound note out of my wallet. It was a bit worn, had a black mark near the bottom right corner, probably the result of counting in a bank or a shop, all in all, it looked perfect, a note that had served its purpose and was still going, a note that had seen the world. And on it, serious, with his great beard and his straight nose, with his bushy eyebrows and bald head, was Darwin. And I swear, my heart almost stopped beating. Because, yes, Austen will be on the note. But what will happen to Darwin?

I refuse to draw a comparison between Darwin and Austen. They are incomparable. They were two completely different people, in different times. But I have a fondness for Darwin, the person, that I don't have for Austen. One has to love a man whose wife feared for his soul, because he didn't believe in God. A man who loved his children, who travelled on HMS Beagle, who spent his days observing dirt worms in his garden, and hypothesising as to how they turned the earth over, who had pigeons, who was able not just to see (for others before him had seein it) but to make a case for natural selection as the mechanism for the evolution of species. A highly intelligent man, who was afraid to publish his work because he was afraid he did not have enough data to support it, a man who went case by case, recording all he could, in order to gather more and more evidence to support his theory. The only man in the history of science who has come up with a theory that is both fact and theory.

A lot of confusion seems to fly around when it comes to Darwin. The "canonical" story, what they tell us in school, is that Darwin traveled on the Beagle as the ship's naturalist, got to the Galapagos, and there inspiration hit him as he saw the biodiversity of the islands and he came up with evolution. Unfortunately, almost no part of this story is true.

Firstly, the only reason Darwin ever traveled on the Beagle was because the ship's commander, Robert FitzRoy, wanted a companion to talk to. In the 19th century, it was not practice for the ship's captain to socialise with the crew, and FitzRoy was afraid he might have depressive tendencies (his uncle had committed suicide during a depressive bout), so he decided to ask Darwin to be his companion to stave off loneliness. As it turns out, FitzRoy was right about his susceptibility to depression, and he committed suicide by slitting his throat with a razor in 1865. In any case, Darwin wasn't the ship's naturalist or its doctor, he was simply a young man who was the captain's companion.

Secondly, Darwin did not come to evolution through natural selection in the Galapagos. In fact, he did not even find much to interest him there, and it was only after arriving back in Great Britain that he started formulating his theory. He even had to ask former crew members for their finches, because he hadn't collected any.

Thirdly, and this is a widespread misconception, Darwin did not come up with evolution. Evolution was a more or less accepted concept, as shown by Lamarckian models of evolution. No, the originality of Darwin's approach was not to say that organisms evolved, this was obvious, and few people would deny it (artificial selection, after all, could be observed easily), it was to formulate the mechanism of natural selection. Natural selection makes sense. Not just logically, but factually: if an organism does not have characteristics that will allow it to survive until it reproduces, it will not produce offspring that can inherit its characteristics. New characteristics arise randomly (actually, gene mutations aren't exactly random, some areas of the genome are more prone to them than others), and then the environment will determine whether these random characteristics will allow the organism to be better adapted or not.

Finally, a lot has been said about Darwin not really coming up with natural selection. This is unarguably true: he was not the first to formulate natural selection. He was the first, however, to communicate the concept well and give it the importance it was due. This may sound like cheating, but one must not forget that in science, making a discovery has no value if you are unable to communicate it to others. Darwin's genius was not only his theory, but his fantastic writing (to anyone who hasn't read "On the Origin of Species", I can say I whole heartedly recommend it, not just as a scientific masterpiece, but also as a literary work of art. The writing is accurate and clear, at times difficult to read but always beautiful).

I believe Darwin represents a lot of things many people strive for: he was a tireless worker, he was humble, he was incredibly intelligent, he loved his family, he was a reasonable man. He was unique, possibly one of the greatest, if not the greatest, scientific mind in history (I happily admit I may be biased making this judgement). As much as I do believe that women have to become more visible in order for equality to be achieved, I can't help but find it terribly sad that it might be at the cost of losing Charles Darwin. Because Jane Austen may represent women, and arts, and writing; but Darwin represents humanity.

A couple of things about Love Stories (and a few things about sex)

*Note: I talk about "girls" and "guys" here as general terms for "women" and "men" respectively. The reason for this is that I'm more comfortable referring to my male peers as "guys" and my female peers as "girls", "men" and "women" are solemn words that I feel have little to do with me. Only to clarify that it means no disrespect to anyone who considers themselves a "man" or "woman". It's a personal thing.

First, a confession. I've never fallen for a girl. Do I find girls attractive? Occasionally. Some girls (ask me when I'm drunk). Have I ever fantasized about having sex (I hate that euphemism of "sleeping with", I've slept with plenty of people without having sex with them) with a girl? Yes, most of the time these fantasies have more to do with threesomes (including a guy) than with sleeping with a girl, but I have fantasized about both. Do I think male human beings and female human beings are different? ... I don't know. A year ago, even a few months ago, I would have replied "yes", without a shadow of a doubt. Now I'm not so sure. Yes, some human males and human females (and I don't even know how to define human male and human female, but that's a subject for another post) are physically (and perhaps psychologically) different, but I'm not sure that a) this difference is bigger between sexes than it is between individuals or b) this difference is a reflection of a dichotomy. After all, there are intersex people. Sure, they represent a very small part of the population, but they exist. Plus, there's the whole deal about all humans being female when development starts... But again, I'm going off topic. As I said, I'm not sure males and females are different. And yet, I can say that I've never fallen for a girl. And I have fallen for guys. I am also generally more attracted to guys than girls: I can find something attractive in almost every guy, there are girls that don't interest me at all. But I'd like to think that I fall in love with people, not with their sex, or even worse, with their gender.

This whole paragraph to introduce the first thing what I mean to talk about in this post: a love story is a love story. I'm sick of movies and/or books being referred to as "gay" love stories or "lesbian" love stories. After all, we never talk about "straight" love stories (I wonder what they would call a love story with many different people of both sexes and/or genders, or a love story between two intersex and/or two intergender people, or between several intersex and/or intergender people and people of either sex and/or gender, or between an intersex and/or intergender person and a person of one sex and/or gender... or all the other possible combinations). A love story is a love story, and remarkably, from what I've read and seen in movies, love stories have nearly the same narrative independently of who is involved. And I can't shake off the feeling that the reason some love stories are referred to as "gay" or "lesbian" has to do more with sex than with the love story itself.

A couple of days ago, I was going through the Guardian (as I do) and I found this article: "A Single Man's Guide to seeing Blue is the Warmest Colour". And as usual I rolled my eyes and was really annoyed. To be fair, I have not (yet) watched the film. Any opinions I have on it are based on what critics have said, what the story sounds like and it having won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. But I haven't watched it, so don't take this as me saying that the film is good. That's not what this is about.

"Blue is the Warmest Colour", originally "La Vie d'Adèle, chapitres 1 &2", is a French drama about the love story between two young women. Because of this, instead of being sold as a love story, or as a coming of age story, or as a drama, it's sold as a lesbian drama. And because it's sold as a lesbian drama, here comes The Guardian, a newspaper that claims to be egalitarian and liberal and not prejudiced, and publishes an article about how men who go watch it (specifically, single men who go watch it, but I think what they mean is men who go watch it on their own) will be looked down upon by their social circle. Because, it just so happens, the movie has a lesbian sex scene, and god forbid anyone would think a single man goes to watch a film because there's a lesbian sex scene in it.

It smells rotten. If it were a movie about a love story between a young cis male and a young cis female (this is, a love story between a young human male who identifies as a heterosexual man and a young human female who identifies as a young heterosexual woman) it would be acclaimed as a brilliant love story, and the fact that there is a seven minute sex scene somewhere in there would be ignored (or, in the very least, the Guardian would have ignored it, the fact that in the same article "Jeune et Jolie" is mentioned as another example of a French film with a high sexual content doesn't really matter, because if "Blue is the Warmest Colour" hadn't come out at roughly the same time, "Jeune et Jolie" wouldn't have come up at all). But because it's a lesbian love story, a man going to watch it on his own must be wanting to get off, he must be a pervert. Firstly, I don't understand why the fact that he were accompanied would change this at all (I mean, a guy with a date might go watch it wanting to get off all the same, but apparently, that's more socially acceptable). Secondly (and more importantly): why is it a problem if he does go watch it for the sex scene? What's wrong with that? What's wrong with sex, with masturbation, with porn?

Here's the thing: I grew up in a society where movies with a high violent content were rated +13 (Spanish ratings when I was a teenager differed from the British rating system), but movies with any hint of nudity (not to mention sex) were rated 18+. This equates to "sex is more embarrassing than violence, sex is less normal than violence, sex has to be hidden more than violence". Is this really how we think? I don't know, but I'm getting a bit sick of the whole "sex is bad, sex is embarrassing, sex should be hidden" thing. Of course, I don't see it as much in my peer group, but it's telling that it comes up in a newspaper that purports to be liberal and not prejudiced.

OK, so let's talk a little bit about sex. First and foremost, sex is fun. I don't really get people who take it too solemnly (sex is a serious matter, but if I can't giggle I'm out). Sex can be uncomplicated, and it can be fantastic. It can also be pretty mediocre (which, in this case, means crap). I don't understand why, how or when it became a taboo. We (as a society) have so many hang ups about sex, it's unbelievable. Sex is sex. Pure and simple. Yes, it feels good, and I'd be hard pressed to give it up for the rest of my life, but on a case by case basis, there are times when I'd rather do something else.

It worries me that as a society we think it is worse to show a teenager violence than it is to show them sex. It worries me because we grow up thinking that sex has a special status, that it is an activity different from everything else (which of course it is, but no more than any other activity), that if we don't have it we have to be miserable, that if we do have it, we have to be happy. This leads to a lot of things, most of them bad. Mainly, it leads to a lack of information about sex: people not knowing about STD prevention, about birth control, people not knowing that it's OK to say "no" to sex, people thinking that if they haven't done it they are somehow "less" than everyone else, etc. Wouldn't it be better to normalize sex? To make it as much a part of daily life as eating, or drinking or anything else? Personally, I think it's tremendously unhealthy for a society to make violence more available than sex. After all, sex is an act of enjoyment, an act of attraction, and violence is an act of anger and dislike.

Love stories shouldn't be judged by the type of sex they depict. Relationships are between people, and sex is only one part of a relationship. And sex should be more normal. We need to grow up, become less solemn about sex and become more serious about it. Talk about it. Learn about it. And yes, eventually, tell stories about it.



Yeah, now I should go back to MatLab, and write some more code. Hope you've enjoyed reading!

H

EDIT: While reading the blogpost, my friend K was reminded of the song linked about halfway through the post, and decided to finish reading while listening to it. All I can say is, it enhances the experience.

Actually, not so funny

Yesterday something disturbing happened to me. I was walking down Fulham Palace Road at about 11:30 PM when a guy on a bike rode by and shouted something at me. I wasn't really paying attention, so I just ignored him and he seemed to ride on, but he did stare at me for a bit. I went on walking, and then saw that he'd stopped ahead, just before a pedestrian crossing I had to cross.

I passed him and he didn't say or do anything, so I assumed nothing was going on, but soon enough he pulled up next to me and asked me whether I was single. I replied that I wasn't. Up to this point, the exchange was unwelcome and uninvited, but if it had stopped there I may have just forgotten about it (even though I don't condone it: approaching someone on the street, especially someone physically smaller, without an excuse me, and with an obviously "sexual" object in mind, is intimidating and should not be permitted). However he went on.

"You look pissed off, something happen tonight?"

I didn't reply to this, kept walking, and something must have changed in my expression because he then said:

"Ah, a smile. So you're really not single?"

"No"

"Why are you walking alone then?"

Maybe I should have just ignored him. Kept on walking without saying anything, or stopped at the bus stop so he'd leave me alone. But I couldn't do it.

"So wait, you're saying if I'm not single I can't walk on the street on my own?"

"Yeah, you need a strong man next to you to protect you. Where is this guy? Why isn't he with you if you ain't single?"

"Wait, so you're saying, if I'm single I can walk down the street on my own, but if I'm with someone, I can't?"

"Yeah, yeah, you need a strong man to protect you!"

"Protect me from what? I should be completely safe walking down the street."

"No, you need a man to protect you"

"Look, that's just not true, and it's wrong. I'm allowed to walk down the street safely on my own. I don't need anyone to protect me, and it's not whoever I'm with's job to protect me."

"So you're saying I'm talking bullshit?"

"No, I said what you said is not true and it's wrong."

"That's the same as saying I'm talking bullshit"

At this point I didn't answer. He was right after all, I was saying he was talking bullshit. We continued for a few seconds, and then he tried another tack.

"Where are you going?"

"A friend's place, not that it's any of your business"

(Don't ask me why I provided this information, it was unnecessary and could be regarded as conversational. I should have just ignored him, but I can't always act how I should. I was still reeling from the fact that he'd told me that because I wasn't single I couldn't walk down the street on my own).

"So, you going out tonight?"

"That's none of your business".

"Where do you live?"

"That's none of your business"

Silence for 10 seconds or so.

"So you live close by?"

"That's none of your business"

"Well, you must live close by, you're walking home"

"No, I said I'm walking to a friend's place, I could've just come from the station"

"Yeah, cos you're going home. If you didn't live close by you would have just taken the bus"

At this point, I felt like I'd had enough.

"Look, I'm not interested. I don't want to talk, so have a good night, OK?"

"Why are you being like that?"

No reply from me. At this point I'm turning into the road I was going to, a much less concurred road, and he follows me.

"Ah, you're turning here, yeah this is the way I'm going too"

"Hey, look, you're following me, it's not nice, it's creepy, please stop"

"Why are you being so aggressive?"

I stop on my tracks.

"I'm not being aggressive. I'm telling you I'm not interested, I don't want to talk, to leave me alone, and you're following me around. What you are doing is intimidating and creepy."

"But I'm just going down this road. It's on my way, you're the one being a bitch about it, I haven't done anything"

At this point I refused to reply anymore. He followed me until I got to my friend's place asking why I was being so rude/mean/aggressive, and then when I turned inside he said something along the lines of, "Oh, so you're here eh? I think you need to be a bit less aggressive tonight, with your friends."

I walked into the house and he left. I can't say I was extremely scared for any of the situation, after all, I had a bag with four bottles of beer which I could have hit him with if he'd tried anything, but that's not the issue. The issue isn't where this guy got the idea that if a girl is single she can't walk down the street on her own (though it could well be), or that he can follow someone around after they've told him they feel uncomfortable and to please stop (though again, that could perfectly well be the issue. Tip: it's one thing to approach someone extremely politely on the street and ask them if they would mind talking, and respecting whatever answer they give you, it's another to open with a personal question and to follow them. This is wrong). The issue here is that I went into the house, sat down with my friends and told them what had just happened. I came off a bit nervous about the incident, but I told it in a comedic fashion. As though what had just happened was funny. It wasn't funny. Not for one second. I felt intimidated. I didn't feel in actual physical danger, but I did think of ways to defend myself in case something happened. And I felt diminished, and disrespected. I clearly stated that I wasn't interested, I told him he was following me and that I didn't like it, and I told him that what he was doing was wrong. And he didn't stop. It was degrading, and scary, and not funny at all. But I walked into the house, saw my friends, and pretty much laughed the incident off.

The reason this is an issue is because recently I told another friend of mine the story of how when I was going for a run in Santa Fe, at one point a man came running behind me and grabbed my ass. I hadn't told anyone before, and I'd sort of written off the incident as one crazy man. I told this friend the story as an example of sexism. She looked at me fixedly and said:

"Yeah, but that's not just sexism. It's assault."

She was right.

I was incapable of recognizing that what had happened to me went somewhat beyond discrimination due to my sex, and went into the realm of consent. This man had touched me without my permission, without any sort of invitation. How did I not recognize this? How did I just write it off?

The fact is, I am sexist. And I'm trying not to be. The fact that I was able to pretty much laugh these incidents off gives me insight into how ingrained this sexism is. If I laugh it off, the idea it gives to other people is that these things are, maybe not "alright", but definitely, "not that big a deal". And they are a big deal. No one should ever be touched against their will. No one should ever feel intimidated when walking down the street.

Because here's the thing: telling someone that they can't walk down the street on their own, that they should be accompanied by someone who will protect them, is akin to threatening that something will happen if they're not. But more than that, it is victim blaming. It's saying that if a person who isn't single walks down the street on their own, they're setting themselves up for trouble. This is victim blaming. Because that morning in New Mexico I just wanted to go for a run, that was all that was on my mind, and this man took that away from me.

Personal freedoms

I've gone on about this before, in the context of abortion, but the more I think about it the more I realise it's not just about abortion.

'My body, my choice' is a question of freedom, of rejecting Stare intervention, of having the possibility to live your life how you want to live it.

The discussion was about drugs, and whether they should be banned or not, not from an economic point of view but from a moral point of view. Does the government have the right to decide for people what is good or bad for them? Of course not. People are not stupid, and should not be treated like they are. People are grown ups and they can make choices, and (in the society I live in) they are generally free to make these choices.

However there is a point of contention here. If I accept that people are free to do what they want with their bodies as long as they don't hurt anyone else, then what about people with dependants? These people may not directly harm anyone by taking drugs, but being responsible for other people, they might indirectly harm them (for example by spending money meant for taking care of these dependants on drugs/whatever else).

Should these people be stopped from doing this by the government? Should different rules apply to people who are responsible for other people? No. The same rules should apply to everyone. Substances should not be banned, no matter how harmful or addictive they are: alcohol is more dangerous than heroin, and it is still legal. It is however possible to make it illegal to not take responsibility for your dependants. 

Let's put an example out there: a man who is addicted to morphine and is responsible for his wife, who happens to have a chronic illness. As long as he's taking good care of her, the government should have nothing to say. But even if he weren't, the solution shouldn't be to illegalise morphine, but to take away his responsibility (and any benefits he receives due to this responsibility). Of course, his wife also has a say in this. If she feels she wants to stick with her husband, no one can stop her, even if he isn't providing adequate care. It's their choice after all. 

In the case of dependants who cannot make their own choices, it is the governments' responsibility to make sure they are well cared for, not to make the people who are at any point responsible for them any less free. In this scenario, parents might be denied guardianship of their children if they are not taking good care of them, but simply taking  drugs is not a good measure of whether they are good parents.

People are more complex than their actions. Kant summarised this by proposing a moral of absolutes, rather than declaring 'good' or 'bad' actions.

Beginnings

It's the final year. After delaying it for as long as I could, I'm here, at the start of my last year of uni, and as much as I'd like to say I'm looking forward to finishing, I'd be lying. No, I like being a student. I love the nights out, and the long conversations, the dropping in, and the not having any responsibilities whatsoever ('cause let's face it, I don't). So I'm starting this year with a lot of apprehension, and doing as much as I can (outside the classroom) to make up for the fact that it's the last time I'll be able to. I'm going out. I'm joining clubs. I'm meeting people. I'm buying drinks. One thing I haven't done yet is write a post here, though.

I started a few posts. A couple of them technical (they're still in preparation, they will be posted at some point), a couple of them stories. But I didn't feel like publishing them, they didn't feel right, partly because I didn't feel right.

I haven't published anything in about a month, because I have not been writing anything publishable. A lot of poems, a fantasy diary (might publish a couple of entries of that in due time), a lot of work on one of the novels, but nothing "suitable" for the blog, whatever that means. I haven't been in the mood, or rather, everything that I tried to write became either too technical or too personal to publish. So here goes.

Uni started a couple of weeks ago, and I've been back in London for a bit less than a month. Since I've come back I've been going out a lot, drinking quite a bit (mum, dad, if you're reading this don't worry, nothing dangerous), and I've met a lot of people. I needed it. I needed to get it out of my system that a lot of people in my year have graduated (though loads of them are still at Imperial, which helps), and that I'd be graduating in a few months, and that this year is going to be tough. I wouldn't say that I've been happy exactly, just a bit frantic about doing as much as I could. I think that mood is over now, and I can go back to being my usual lazy self. Maybe. I've quite enjoyed these two weeks of exciting, but I'm afraid if I keep this up I won't graduate! So let's see, exactly what have I been up to?

There have been celebrations, which were good fun, but I'm not going to talk about here, since they involve my friends and I don't know a) how many of them read this or b) how happy they would be if I did write about them, there have been restarts, and there have been new starts.

Let's start with the restarts. I'm back in ICSE full time! I'm ICSE treasurer, we've already had one rehearsal, and I'm back to being able to attend most rehearsals. The first rehearsal was lots of fun with plenty of new freshers and what I thought was a good social afterwards. I'm so happy to be back playing my viola and back seeing the ICSE crowd, I hadn't realised how much I'd missed them. As a spinoff from that (a fantastic recommendation from a fellow ICSE member), I've been watching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which are FANTASTIC, and you HAVE to watch them if you haven't yet (I refuse to explain what they are, no description does them justice).

I'm also back at Uni, which in itself is fantastic. I'm enjoying the M3D (molecules in 3D, about how to determine molecular structure and dynamics) lectures like you wouldn't believe, but also just being around Uni, having interesting people who do so many different things around (this sounds so cliché, but seriously, after working in a place where people's only interest was science for a whole year it's amazing to be able to sit down with someone and discuss films or music or books... not that I didn't last year, but there's just a lot more chances this year). I also love not having to commute though (small confession) I miss having the quiet time to read. It seems that as long as I have internet and a phone I am completely incapable of switching off for a while and picking up a book (to my own embarrassment).

Now for the new starts: I have started going to DebateSoc meetings and I've joined Fellwanderers. The first DebateSoc meeting was great fun, and I think I'm really going to enjoy being part of the society. They talk, they talk well, and they like to argue about stuff. About stuff that they don't necessarily have strong feelings about. This is my kind of people. We'll see how it goes tomorrow, and hopefully I'll go on a trip with them sometime soon: one thing I've learnt is that the best way of becoming a "real" member of a Uni club is to go for a trip with them. It may sound unrealistic, but spending a couple of days with people you don't know that well really does make you more comfortable around them. Which leads to the second start.

This past weekend I went on the Fellwanderers Freshers trip to Snowdonia, and I have to say, I had lots of fun. There was a lot of hiking (which I hadn't done in a while, and it felt fantastic), a lot of talking and faffing about, a few games on Saturday evening and it was just generally a really good weekend. I hadn't realized how much I needed to diversify, do something that I hadn't done in ages, and just spend a weekend from London (of course, I did go to the US, but that was with my parents, and as much as it was an amazing trip, I needed some time off that wasn't family related).

Anyways, that's it for the first post of the (school) year. I hope that I'll be able to post about horse evolution, vesicular transport and maybe a bit about crystallography of membrane proteins soon. Then again, I might just do a really long post on what I think education should consist on. Hope you're all doing well!

H

20th of February

The waxing crescent moon was visible early in the evening, next to the brightest Venus that had been seen in years. Visitors insisted that the sky was clearer there than anywhere else in the country, but the townspeople knew it wasn't true.

Many of them went to the river that night, to look at the heavens and wonder at the clarity of the sky, interrupting the young couples who took their cars out on the weekend to be alone for just a while. Children played in the shallows, while their parents sat down on blankets and towels, and waited for them to calm down.

The first shooting star crossed the sky before it was dark. Soon, there were so many it was impossible to keep up with them, the credulous making as many wishes as they possibly could. The night was heavy with hope and wonder, it seemed like the town had been waiting years for that night, and there was nothing to do but enjoy.

Grace Mitchell was on the other side of the river, but she wasn't looking at the sky. She was looking at her cousins and her parents and her aunts and uncles, at her little sister and her older brother, at her sister in law. She wondered if any of them were wishing for her safe return home. She smiled sadly, feeling everything that she had missed aching somewhere between her right lung and her spine. She wondered if that was what pain felt like. She wanted to jump into the river and swim across and be with her family for one night. She wondered if Sandra would recognize her, if her mother would scream, if her father would cry. She closed her eyes and concentrated on a white wall.

The white wall was a brick wall, red originally, painted white. The paint job wasn't good, some parts of the wall had thick blobs of paint, other parts were painted over so thinly that one could almost think they were pink. There were cracks in the wall, like it was part of a very old building that had been abandoned, but that didn't matter. The cracks changed every time. That night, there was one along the left edge, a crack that climbed upwards, snaking into the front of the wall and dividing into half a thousand more cracks as it neared the top. Another one crossed the wall from the centre to the top right corner, shorter than the first, but thicker, and deeper. Some flowers and a few leaves of grass had sprouted from the crack, giving the wall a thin line of green with yellow interruptions. There were seven flowers, and Grace knew each of them, although she hadn't named them.

By the time she opened her eyes again any thoughts of her family had faded, and she was able to look at the people on the other side of the river indifferently. Just a group of people who were happy that night. She smiled, even though she wouldn't have been able to say that she was happy. It had been too long missing something she didn't quite know how to replace. She looked back at the sky. She didn't believe in luck, or in god, or in wishes, and yet she wondered if maybe the act of making a wish could change the course of events. She shivered. She knew that horoscopes only seemed to guess because they were easily remembered when they applied, that wishes only seemed to come true because they were promptly forgotten when they didn't. She rummaged in her pocket and found a quarter. It was the last one she had, so it had been eight years. She might not believe in god, but she believed in ritual.

She stepped into the shallows of the river, and prepared to be shocked by the coldness and the damp. She looked at the quarter for a couple of minutes, wondering exactly what she was doing, whether she was thanking destiny for taking her away, or cursing her luck. It didn't matter anymore, it was the last quarter, the last time she would stand in the river and look across. Maybe that was why the whole town was there, to say goodbye. She threw the coin into the water and turned back. As she did she could sense the eyes of the children on her back, and for a second she wondered. Some of the elders said that only children could see ghosts.

Freedom

All that is left of the country is a burnt banner and a few marks on the ground, the frontiers that Michael Anders drew before shooting his wife and then himself. It was a country for less than four months, and even then, not one recognized by the international community, whatever that means.

The story went like this: one winter morning, Michael Anders decided to kill his wife. He couldn't have told you why, God did not speak to him, nor did voices convince him. He just knew it was the right thing to do. He also knew that he couldn't do it in his house, or even in his village, and most certainly, he couldn't do it that day, even though he owned thirteen guns, and even though he knew he would kill himself after he killed his wife. He looked at his wife, sleeping next to him. One of her arms was thrown about his chest, and he smiled at the familiarity. He almost felt sad that he had to kill her.

The next day, Michael Anders told his wife that he wanted to found a new country. Linda Anders looked at him, bewildered, and asked him what he was talking about. He explained: if America is a free country, then I should be free to make my own country out of my own land. She could see the logic in his reasoning, so she nodded, even though she did not understand why her husband wanted a country of his own. She asked as much. He replied shortly: in a country of my own I can do what I like. She shrugged, saying that he could already do what he liked in the US. He answered that he couldn't do what he wanted without fear of punishment. She laughed, and asked him what he was planning to do in his new country. He smiled, and said that the first thing he was going to do was burn a US flag.

Michael Anders declared five square feet of his land the Independent Republic of Karamungo on the 20th of February. His wife crossed the frontier (she didn't need a visa, she was married to the first and only citizen of the Independent Republic of Karamungo, after all), and stood with him while he burned the flag of the United States. She pleaded with him not to, reminding him of all the times he had pledged allegiance, and she tried to stop him, but he wouldn't have any of it. He burnt the flag and left the remains on the soil of the Independent Republic of Karamungo. Then he and his wife crossed back to the United States and went to sleep.

For a few months nothing else happened. Michael Anders knew he had to kill his wife, but he kept putting it off. There were always other things to do: cutting the grass, trying to learn French, going to work... Every day when he woke up he thought he would do it, but he never did, and the Independent Republic of Karamungo remained unpopulated. On the last day of spring, his wife asked him about his country, and he pointed towards the marks on the ground. She asked if it had a government. He looked at her, puzzled for a second, then said no. Government is only a way to limit freedom, he said. She walked into the Independent Republic, and asked him whether what he was saying was that she could do what she wanted as long as she remained within those four marks and there would be no consequences. He replied that the only consequences would be the physical consequences from her actions. She smiled, and pointed her gun at him. For a second he thought she would kill him, but then he remembered that he had to kill her. And then kill himself. He walked towards her, even as she was pointing at him, smiling. She kept her gun pointed, and her expression turned from a playful smile to fear, then to hate. He took his revolver out and shot her point blank in the head. He looked around to make sure the flag was within the four lines delimiting the Independent Republic of Karamungo. Then he shot himself in the head.

The policemen who found the bodies saw it as a murder-suicide.They couldn't make much sense of the burnt flag, or the marks on the ground, so they crossed into the Independent Republic of Karamungo without knowing they were leaving the US. Only the little girl next door, who had been watching the Anders every morning since she had moved into the house, knew what had really happened, but no one thought to ask her.

Years later, Anna Luvitch would write a book. In it she defined freedom as the right to do whatever you want without worrying about the consequences. She was of the opinion that freedom could only be reached through death.

Fleeting

Shhhh! Just watch. It goes by quickly. Just listen.

The stars are beautiful tonight. Who would have thought? 22nd of August. Surely not a beautiful day? I don't know anyone who was born today, I don't think. Just eight days before, and many days later, but not today.

The sky is full of stars, it is August after all, the gifted month, the gorgeous month. If August were a man, it would be the most beautiful man, the most elegant man.

It's not that late. Every time I look at the clock I'm shocked, and I listen to Debussy once more, one more time, until the day is done. Beauty! Beauty! Isn't that what we all need? What we all feed on?

I don't want to talk to you. Shush. Be quiet. Again! Listen, just listen.

The story is here. The story is every night I've spent with you, every morning I've woken with you, every time I've left. And every time I've told you to leave. That is life. Live. Life. Live. Live life. Life is worth it. Life is beautiful.

Trust. I don't trust anyone yet (no creo en mí todavía), but maybe I will. Maybe it just takes more time.

Music. Yes, I think I need music to survive tonight. Because it's still the 22nd of August, and it's not yet the 23rd.

Nothing to write about

I can't write. I spent one hour writing this morning, and all I could come up with was shit about how I was feeling, or shit about how the world is going to hell. I couldn't write anything real. I don't like this, it scares me. Maybe it's writer's block? I don't get writer's block. The same way I don't get sick.

No. I refuse. I need to write. Which is why I'm going to write. Something. About something. Anything. It's important.

There's a story waiting to be told everywhere. Especially on the tube.

A girl walks on. She's about 15. Her tips are dyed bright pink and she's dressed all in black, wearing black make up.

Bullshit. No. I can't write. Not even the made-up girl helps. What about a made-up boy? Tall, handsome, blue eyes, light brown hair. He was on the thin side. He got on a couple of stops after made-up girl. He was wearing a backpack and listening to music on his headphones. We could all hear the music when he got on the train.

So what did made-up girl think? She's fifteen, an eighteen year old asshole walks on the tube, listening to too loud music on his headphones. What's he listening to? Dubstep? No. Electronic music. Yes. Electronic music. I quite generally hate electronic music, so that must be what he was listening to.

He didn't bother sitting down, but stood against the glass that separates the seats from the door area. He didn't smile, just banged his head to the beat. Made-up girl is looking at him, disgusted. He seems to feel her gaze and looks up at her. He seems to notice the frown and smiles knowingly and looks back down, without turning down the music.

What happens next? I'm really tempted to say that she gets up, and pulls one of his earphones out and tells him to please turn the music down. But that would never happen on the tube. People are too polite for that. Especially 15 year old girls, who are generally too shy to approach a guy three years older than him.

So maybe someone else comes along and politely asks him to turn down the music? Yeah. That would work... Except, then the story would end. So?

I walk into the carriage. I look at the occupants. An old lady, carrying a Waitrose bag is sitting at the centre of the carriage. A young mother with her baby in her arms looks distracted, she's staring into the window, but doesn't seem to see anything. She looks down at her baby and smiles, putting the world to rights. A dad with three boys is telling them a story from when he was little. On the other side of the carriage, a 15 year old girl, all dressed in black, and with the tips of her black hair dyed bright pink is sitting, staring nastily at a guy a couple of years older than her. He's listening to loud music. Loud electronic music. "Asshole", I think to myself. I can't stand people who listen to music too loudly on the tube. I stand up and go over to him.

-Excuse me, - I say with a smile.

He pulls an earphone off.

-Hi. You like electronic music don't you?

He nods, smiling, not kindly.

-Well, I don't. And I don't think she does either. -I say jabbing my finger at the girl. -Can you please turn it down?

The girl gets up then, and comes up to me.

-Hey, don't bring me into it, if I wanted the music off I would have told him myself.

There. I've interfered, so now it's fine. They have some common ground, someone to side against.

Now they can continue, maybe get to know each other, maybe not.

Not great, but hey, I wrote something. Maybe tomorrow it'll be something a bit better.

A Pleasure

(Note: at the time of writing I am only halfway through the book, so whatever I write here is purely provisional).

Spanish is a beautiful language. It is a language meant to be written in, and spoken, and sung and read aloud. It is the language of over 400 million people, and it is as rich and varied as those people. It is rare, and wonderful, to find an author who writes in English and who can bring the joy and feel of Spanish to a page. By this I don't mean the language, of course, the two are too different, but in his "The Jaguar Smile" Salman Rushdie is able to communicate the feel of Nicaragua in the 80s, or so it seems to me.

The book is a travel book, a book about a journey. This is important: in journey books, the author is a spectator, they visit a place and they recount what they see and who they meet. The author is not the centre of the action, they just describe what is happening around them. Although they will give a personal perspective on everything, most journey books are about places and people, and less about events. Salman Rushdie visited Nicaragua for three weeks in 1986. Of course, by 1986 he had already written Midnight's Children and he was (to say the least) well known. He probably didn't have much trouble arranging to meet whoever he wanted. This possibly gives a rather eschewed perspective: he seems to travel around the country with government officials, something that surely wasn't as common as the book seems to intimate. He also keeps meeting poets and writers (although, as one of them puts it, everyone in Nicaragua is a poet until they prove the opposite), and generally always seems to be surrounded by important people. But somehow he manages, through his prose, to reflect what Nicaragua must have been like in 1986, a country at war, a country violent, a country hopeful.

From what I can glean, Salman Rushdie spoke little (if any) Spanish when he visited Nicaragua. He needed to be surrounded by people who spoke English, or otherwise he wouldn't have managed. This is another way the view of the country might have been eschewed, but it doesn't feel like it was. He seems to willingly join in with the natives, going to church services in Spanish and dancing salsa after a few drinks. I suspect that he was happy to be in Nicaragua, in a way that only people who travel can understand, he was free.

The most striking scene in the book is probably when a fellow writer, a poet, approaches him (approaches el (¿al?) escritor hindú) and tells him that he admires Tagoré. Rushdie is surprised that Rabindranath Tagore is mentioned in Central America, wonders why this man knows Tagore at all. The poet explains: Victoria Ocampo. And Argentina, of course, comes into play. Many people ignore the power of Argentina, and to ignore it is to ignore the power of the Spanish language. Victoria Ocampo was an Argentine intellectual, and foremost, an editor. She read Tagore and loved him, so she had him translated to her language. And so it was that Salman Rushdie found that Tagore (or Tagoré as the Nicaraguan poet called him) was more read in Central America than he was in his native India. Possibly the most human moment in this conversation, the one that drives it home, that makes it feel truly Central American, that reflects why Spanish is such a beautiful language, is when Salman Rushdie says to the poet: "Then Tagore is better read in Latin America than in India", and the poet responds (but you have to hear the response, gentle, chiding, in Nicaraguan Spanish): "Tagoré".

I am hugely enjoying "The Jaguar Smile". It's a lesson on history, politics and Central America. But first and foremost, it is a lesson in writing.

The Book

There's a Guardian Witness assignment called "A book that changed me". I started reading through it out of curiosity, and then I wondered about books that have had any effect on me whatsoever.

I really love reading, but I tend to downplay the effect books have on me. I often insist that I don't really have a favourite book (if I had to choose one it would have to be the Harry Potter series, I was completely obsessed for the span of about seven or eight years, not a day would go by that I wouldn't talk about it, but it feels like a weak answer to the question), to me it's kind of a ridiculous question, there's too many books to pick just one (but then, I have a favourite movie, so what am I saying really?). Reading is a escape from reality, a way to see the world (or a world) through someone else's eyes, and as such, I often view it as pure entertainment, but not really affecting me. So when I started reading people's accounts of books that changed them my attitude was dismissive.

I have a confession to make now. I do have a "book that changed me". Possibly more than one, but this one has had a huge effect on who I am now. I read it when I was relatively young, nine or ten, so I don't know if it "changed me" as much as it just affected me, it put me in touch with the first thing that taught me what humanity means.

"When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit", by Judith Kerr is a children's novel, but (like any good children's novel) it can be read by anyone. Put simply, it's about Anna, a girl whose family escapes Germany in 1933 when the Nazi party is elected. It is about her journey from Berlin to Switzerland, then to Paris, and finally to London. The story is continued in "The Other Way Around" and "A Small Person Far Away", but it's "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" that feels the most real and the most necessary.

The book is about a lot of things: it is about the holocaust, of course, but it is about family, and growing up, and learning new languages. It is also about freedom. The book is a perfect introduction to the Holocaust for children because it's written from a child's perspective, but also because the people in it leave Germany very early on. I am not one to say that children should be spared violence (I liked the original versions of the Grimm fairy tales) but I do think that there are things children can't understand. The power in "When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" is that it shows the brutality of Nazism, the horror of being a refugee, without being grisly. The main character is a child, and as a child she adapts to the new situations. She is not always happy, but she makes friends, she plays, she grows up.

This was the book that introduced me to the Holocaust. I hesitate to say why the subject is so important to me, but it is. I am not Jewish. I come from a traditionally antisemitic country. Learning about the Holocaust has made me a better human being. It has taught me a lot about human nature, and it has helped me question and understand (and therefore strengthen) certain aspects of my own morality.

Firstly, "hope is the last thing we lose". The first time I had a conversation about the Holocaust with my parents, I asked why Jewish people didn't leave. Why a lot of them didn't escape. The simple answer is that by the time things started getting difficult for the Jews in Germany, it wasn't easy for them to leave the country anymore. The more complicated answer, the answer my parents gave me, and one of the truths that have stuck with me, has to do with human nature. No one wants to leave their home, especially knowing they may never return. No one wants to give up their job, their friends, their family, their neighbourhood, their house, their things. But more than anything, few people believe that things are really that bad. People keep hoping. Hoping that it's all a mistake. Hoping that it won't happen to them. Hoping that if they are "good" they will be spared any horrors. It's human nature to think that if something bad happened, you would be one of the survivors. This truth is an important one. It taught me that there's nowhere to hide, that if someone is treating a person unfairly, at some point they will treat everyone unfairly.

Secondly, humans can be monsters, and humans can be monsters without realizing they are. During the Nazi regime, neighbours gave each other up, friends gave each other up, people betrayed each other. But more than that: they did it not for personal gain, or out of anger or spite, they did it because they thought it was the right thing to do. One of the most horrifically successful aspects of Nazism is that for a long time it brainwashed people into actually believing at first that Jewish people were dangerous and a threat to society, and then that they were inferior. This is scary. A bad economic situation was used to convince people that a certain group of society was inferior. And people fell for it, ate it up. Part of it was fear, I'm sure, but part of it was simply that it was the easy thing to do. It's a lot easier to think "they must have done something wrong", when your neighbours start being persecuted, than it is to accept that authority, the people who control the police and the army, the people who make the laws, could be crazy and could be doing something scarily, horrifically wrong.

Three, I have a core of beliefs. In general, I am an extremely morally flexible person. I don't care what anyone else does as long as it doesn't involve any other person (unless the other person agrees to be involved of course). I've changed my mind on many topics many times, and there's very few things I think are wrong (compared to a lot of people). But there are certain things that I think are right, and people who I feel truly disregard these things scare me. One of them is that all people are equally "valid". All people. Everyone has the right to live, and to live with dignity, no one should be "under" anyone else. That's it. That is my core. Most of the rest of my opinions can probably be derived from a combination of this with what I know, and with the belief that we are equally "valid", but we are not equal. Take all of those together and you have what I won't change.

"When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit" put me in touch with everything I've just written. But it also taught me something else: it's possible to write a book about a horrific situation and make it a wonderful book.

Definitions

I read when I'm happy. I write when I'm sad.

It sucks

I woke up on the 25th of July and I didn't know yet. As usual, I turned on my computer (old habits die hard) and checked the Guardian and El País. It was the first news item in both of them: more than 60 people dead in a train accident close to Santiago de Compostela.

The train was coming from Madrid, and was traveling at 190 km per hour when it derailed. The news was a shock. I keep reading about it. Going back to the papers and reading about it. I didn't dare write back home, I was scared someone I knew had been on the train.

Hours went by. I didn't get any news from my parents, so I assumed everyone in the family was fine. The Galician friends I have posted on Facebook or Tuenti, they were OK, no one they knew had been on the train. Slowly I came to the conclusion that the people I knew were fine. I kept reading about the accident.

Most people have an obsession with the morbid to some degree. Violence, tragedy, catastrophe, is fascinating. Stories of survivors started leaking out. I've read a lot of them. The stories and faces of the dead were soon made public too. I read as many as I could of those. I don't know why. Where does the fascination lie? But I read them all the same. They were all normal people. Just people who were going from Madrid to Santiago de Compostela. The only reason their stories have made it to the front page of newspapers is because they died. There is something terrible and horrifying in that. Yet, I can't help but read their stories and feel for their families. Big tragedies, big catastrophes, bring great mourning. Spain declared three days of mourning. The festivities of Santiago turned to mourning. I think most Spanish people have spared a thought for the dead and their families, and for those surviving, and been sad these past few days. And yet, part of me can't help asking why. People die every day after all, people as anonymous as the ones that died on those trains, and we don't mourn them.

The accident in Santiago, along with a smaller bus accident close to my city earlier this year, feeds my fears. I live too far from home. If something happened to someone I know, to someone I love, I wouldn't be able to be there for them, not in good time anyway. Living far away has meant that I haven't been there for my family when I should have been. Living far away means that when a family member is ill I can't go see them as much as I like. Living far away means that sometimes I worry that I'm not being told something important to spare me the worry. It's happened more than once. Living far away means that I get told things late, and that I am not present when I should be. It also means that often I have to cry on my own.

I know now that I made the right choice moving here. But it doesn't take away that it sucks. It sucks that I can't be home to give a hug or get a hug when something goes wrong. It sucks that things are kept from me so that I don't worry. It sucks that I'm not there to take my dog for walks, or to play with him, or to take him to the vet. It sucks that I only get to see my parents a few times a year.

A lot has been said for young people leaving Spain, and how it's terrible. How Spain is losing talent. How it's horrible that these people won't be able to settle down in Spain. How these people pack their bags and are "wrenched" from their home. All this is kind of bullshit. Young people leave because they want to, and because they can. If they say they don't want to leave, they're lying. It might not be their ideal choice, but they have a choice, and they choose to leave rather than stay. Leaving is not a tragedy. Living in a new country is not a tragedy. Making new friends, finding a new home isn't a tragedy. Missing the people you left behind is not a tragedy. But it sucks. And it does not wear off.

What do you think about lads mags?

Recently a lot has been said about lads magazines. The Co-op is threatening to stop selling some of them, and a few campaigns are going on to diminish their presence (No More Page 3 and Lose the Lads Mags probably being the two most visible ones).

I have been asked my opinion on it by a couple of people. I have thought about it. And here's the thing: I don't know what to think. I have no clue what my opinion is on the subject.

On the one hand, I don't feel very affected by these magazines. The supermarket where I do my shopping has the magazine stand in a part of the shop that I can easily avoid, but even when I've gone over to look at the magazines (I am a sucker for gossip and fashion even though it's been years since I bought a magazine) lads mags haven't jumped out at me. Maybe because I'm so used to seeing women expose themselves, but most probably because I'm quite simply not very interested. It's the same thing with porn: some people are turned on, some people are grossed out, I get bored after the first ten minutes or so. The way lad mags depict women, the way (mainstream) porn depicts women, bores me. I don't find it attractive, in the sense that I don't feel the need to look at it at all. On this side of the argument, when someone tells me that they think lads mags should be banned, my answer is to shrug and reply "You don't have to read them, why do you care if anyone else does?".

On the other hand, there's the attitudes these magazines promote, and the ideas they put into people's heads about what is normal and what isn't. I'll explain myself: there are people (women and men) who fantasize about rape. That's fine with me. There's people who will make movies or write stories about rape, and there's people who will watch these movies and read these stories, and enjoy them. That's also OK with me. Until one of these people start regarding rape as the norm, and they decide that raping someone is just another way to have sex. Then I start questioning whether making movies where rape is depicted as a normal way to have sex is OK. But then, what's the solution? Making it illegal to watch or distribute these movies? That's what has been done with child pornography, but in child pornography a child is being abused: a child is being used in a sexual way when they haven't yet fully realised their sexuality. In the case of rape depictions the story changes. Films containing rape and stories containing rape are usually made by consenting adults (in the case of stories, it is quite usual to indicate at the beginning of the story that all characters in the story are over 18 and consenting adults), and they are meant to be consumed by consenting adults. Illegalising them would be censure in my opinion. And here's where I am at loss: I don't think making something illegal, censoring something, is a solution. But I don't know what would be.

A good sex education, and more than that, a good consent education is important. It is important to teach children, and teenagers, and adults, that you can't do things to another person without having their consent, their approval. Also, that noone should do anything to them without their consent and their approval. A good education in consent would probably solve some of the problems posed by porn and lads mags. A good sex education would help in making people (especially teenagers and young adults) realise what is realistic when it comes to sex and what is hyped up by porn or lads magazines, and it would help normalise attitudes towards sex and sex partners.

But all this avoids the real question when it comes to lads mags or porn: are they sexist? Because in the end, this is the real issue. The answer is fairly straightforward: yes. They are sexist. They are magazines made by men for men, and there is very little equivalent available for women. In any case, even if an equivalent for women existed, there is the problem that these types of magazines reduce women (and men, where the counterparts exist) to their bodies, and even to parts of their bodies. Sometimes I wonder whether this is really a problem. Who cares? We are reductionist by nature, we tend to see only little parts of a whole, we don't know things completely, we are human. But then... It's not wrong to reduce once in a while. The problem comes in when we start reducing every time. We all make judgements, and we all make judgements based on appearance, after all, it's the first thing we can see about someone. But this is a whole sex/gender/whatever you want to call it (I guess gender would be most appropriate in this case) reduced to their appearances a lot more than the other. And that is by definition sexist.

Now, let me tell you a secret: I pity the guys who read lad mags and actually believe that that's what women should be like (I also pity girls who read Cosmo and believe that any of what's in it reflects reality). See, here's the thing: "hot" isn't the same as attractive. Many of the "hot" guys I know are... dull? Not exactly. Simply, they aren't very engaging. Many of the attractive guys I know, on the other hand, may not be hot (a few of them are downright ugly when it comes down to it), but hey, they can keep up a conversation, they have a sexy smile, there's something about them that makes me want to keep listening. (Then there's the rare thing, the hot and attractive guy, and then I'm afraid I'm lost for words, and I just nod like an idiot while staring). My point is, I think there is a lot more to attractiveness than the physical, and I can't help but suspect that people who reduce a person to their physical attributes are just missing out. But I can't stop them.

Curses

La Paz, Bolivia. August 2001.

The city extends from a hole, the centre at the bottom, the buildings climbing up the walls of the hole in the middle of the plain. It was the end of a long week. The capital meant civilization, soroche and showers.

I can't remember the hotel we stayed in well. I seem to think we were on the fourth or fifth floor, the bathroom was high, and if my memory doesn't fail me, I fell down stomach first on the side of the tub, and for the first time in my life I knew what it was like to have the breath knocked out of me.

After we'd cleaned up, and rested, we decided to go get some food. The streets of La Paz are busy during the day, and colourful. Like any other city, it has its markets and its plazas, its museums and its boulevards. By night, it's quieter, and it can seem imposing, but after long days around the Titicaca we welcomed the rudeness of a city. We made our way to Plaza Murillo. Even then there were pigeons in the square, but I remember thinking it was peaceful. Compared to what I had seen in Lima, this was close to paradise.

We found a small restaurant open a couple of streets away from our hotel, and sat down to have dinner. We were made to feel welcome, in a way that only happens when you visit a country where you can speak the language. As we were about to leave, the waiter mentioned that if we continued down the street, we would come to an alley where the hechiceros often sold their wares at night.

We followed his directions, but found nothing. We had given up, and were trying to get back to the hotel, when we stumbled upon a narrow street, with worse lighting than the others. There must have been more people other than us there, but as I remember it, the street was empty except for us and three or four women selling amulets that they were exhibiting on wooden stalls. The women were all dark and thickset, and we could tell when we spoke to them that Spanish was their second language. These were true hechiceras. I started inspecting what they were selling immediately: I may not believe in luck, but I believe in magic. Soon, I found that they all had the same amulets, but far from being disappointed, I made it my job to find out which of them would give me a better deal. The third time I asked the oldest woman there for the price, my father held me back.

-Be careful, -he said. -They're hechiceras, they could be cursing you, you shouldn't haggle.

I left the night market having bought many amulets. For health, for traveling, for love, for good fortune...

Two days later, as we were on the bus back to Peru, I got sick. Coke didn't help, and stopping didn't help, and it wasn't until we reached the other side of Lake Titicaca that I started to feel any better. I was sure one of the hechiceras had indeed cursed me, but not too badly because I was a child. The trip continued, and soon I forgot all about it.

We arrived in Spain at the end of August. It was still hot, and unpacking the bags after one month of traveling took time. The amulets had all disappeared. I asked my parents, and they didn't remember buying them, or the street, or my haggling. Soon I forgot about them, and the trip to La Paz became a bit smaller in my mind.


Ávila, Spain. December 2009.

It was late on a Sunday. I didn't want to go back to Salamanca, the 9AM algebra class didn't seem worth it. My dad was laughing at the proof I had come up with, showing it to my mum. I asked what was wrong with it, and they both laughed and said it was essentially correct. I took it from them frowning and went through it again. It seemed fine to me. No matter.

I went to my room and opened my wardrobe. Me and my friends were going camping the weekend after and I needed to get my backpack. I hadn't used it since the summer before, and I had made sure I'd emptied it, but when I opened the small pocket on the right to put in my usual first aid kit I felt something lumpy. It was a small packet, brown paper wrapped around something. I took it out, and opened it. 7 amulets were inside. A frog, for good fortune, a bird, for safe trips, a lion, for courage, and others that I couldn't remember the meaning of. I took them downstairs to show to my parents. The second they saw them, they smiled and my father reminded me how he had warned me about the witches' curses. I frowned, but didn't say anything. I looked at my mother and asked if she would keep them safe for me.

-You don't want them? -she asked.

-I think they're unlucky. -I said earnestly.

-So you're giving them to me? -she accused, half laughing.

I nodded, confused. I was sure they wouldn't harm her.


Before I came to London, I looked for the amulets again. They seem to have disappeared once more. Every time I'm about to take a trip, I keep expecting to find them, they haunt me. I suspect that they won't make an appearance again, until I've forgotten them, and they come to remind me that there may not be such a thing as bad luck, but curses exist.

Dark and darker

Today I am in a bad mood. Nothing to worry about, it's bad with a good background, these past three or four weeks I've been feeling happier than I had since December.

The combination of a terrible headache, my data not being happy and a small argument have led to me being listless. I'm sitting around the office, trying to stop myself from going downstairs to buy multiple Kit Kats and eating them all in one go.

I've been doing some reading, but I fear I find no inspiration on the web today. I tried to turn to music, but it seems I'm not in the mood, songs that usually make me smile are pissing me off with their lyrics.

I'm in a sort of nowhere land at the moment. I'm almost done with experiments, but not quite writing yet. I'm almost ready to leave for the US, but it's not quite time yet. I'm trying to find a new place, but haven't quite got one. I'm starting my last year of Uni, but that won't happen for a couple of months yet. Alas, it seems that summer is still a time of transition, even when I have a job that requires me to stay in one place.

London has been gorgeous for the past couple of weeks. The parks are a favourite haunt of mine now, and I'm visiting as many as I can. Primrose Hill I find particularly beautiful and soothing, and I can see all of the city from there.

Central London is full of tourists, like Camden, Portobello and all the known places. Mill Hill is deserted on the other hand, school has finished and not nearly as many children can be seen in the morning. It feels strange, and almost haunted, but at the same time the view from my office window has never been more beautiful. The hills and the trees and the cows, and now the sun, and the blue skies make me feel like I'm in some idyllic setting.

The Thames Path is also at its best. I especially like it in the evenings, when the pubs are full, and dogs are walked, and children are playing around, but also in the mornings, when it's full of runners and commuters, and cyclers.

The good weather changes London, and it brings out the best in Londoners. They want to be outside and enjoy the sun, I've never lived in a place where the sun was so worshipped.

Yes, the last few weeks have been good to London, and good to me. I'm starting to suspect that for my own good I should move back south. Sometimes I wish I could go back home. Then I think about it and conclude that it's unrealistic.

I'm feeling restless. There's something I want to do, but I don't know exactly what. It involves staying up late at night talking close to a fire, and it involves meeting new people, and traveling. It involves books, and discussions, and arguments. I think maybe it's time for me to leave here. But how can it be time for anyone to leave London?

I distract myself with my day to day chores: washing clothes, making food, shopping... All those things that distract me from doing what I need to do, what I want to do, what makes me happy. I used to know what it was, now it seems more and more that happiness is within my grasp, but completely out of my control.

I fear that I don't even know what I want anymore. But then again, who does? Does it matter? I tend to be wary of people who have a very clear idea of what they want.

Reproductive Rights

Recently, the Spanish ministry for health announced that there will be a change in who is eligible for assisted reproductive technology.

Firstly, a recap: 

Spain has a national health system, that provides free healthcare for every Spanish national (plus a few people who don't have Spanish nationality, mainly citizens of the European Union). There are treatments and interventions that are not covered by this "universal" system, and there are also treatments and interventions that are only partially covered. 

"Women's health" or "reproductive health" is a controversial subject in Spain. Until recently (2010) our abortion law only contemplated "cases": a woman could have an abortion if she was in grave physical or mental health, if she had been raped, or if the foetus had grave physical or mental malformations. Currently, abortion is not penalised before the 14th week of gestation, and after that, a woman can still have an abortion in certain cases. Contraceptives are not provided for free. 

Secondly, the issue at hand:

Assisted reproductive technology has helped many women and couples have children. The wording of the law in Spain up to now went something like this: women could benefit from government financed ART when there was a diagnosis of sterility or an "established clinical indication". This allowed some leeway for single women and women in relationships with other women (someone has mentioned that saying "single women and lesbians" is discriminatory, for lesbians are still women, however I disagree with this: lesbians are still women, but they are not single women, saying "women in a couple" would include heterosexual women. I think I've used the best wording possible here, but please, suggestions would be welcome) to receive finance, since clearly they could not have children without ART even if medically they were not sterile. Now, the ministry for health has made a proposal to change what is covered by the public health. According to the amendments, only couples formed by a man under 55 and a woman under 40, who have no previous healthy progeny and who have been trying to have a child by having sexual relationships with vaginal intercourse for at least 12 months with no success will be eligible for treatment.

According to this new wording, only heterosexual couples will be eligible to have children using ART. And only one child per couple, assuming the child is healthy.

Clearly, this breaches the Spanish Assisted Reproduction law, which states that all women above the age of 18 have the same right to assisted reproduction. But let's forget this for a second. Let's forget the obvious controversy of the suggestion and dig a bit deeper.

First of all, as ever with ART, there is a more fundamental question. If we accept universal free healthcare, we have to accept that it's going to cost taxpayer money. Knowing this, we must accept that there are certain treatments that can be paid for, and certain treatments that will be too expensive for the healthcare system to provide. So if there is going to be universal healthcare, there must be some basic services provided, services that are indispensable, and others that aren't provided because people don't need them. So the question here is: is having biological children necessary? Is it a right?

As much as it pains me to say it, because I am one of those single women who would happily have children via ART, I don't think having biological children is a right. But I do think everyone should be equal. What I'm saying is, I think ART should only be provided to people (men or women, independently of their sexual orientation or relationship status) who are clinically sterile. Everyone else can pay. This may sound insensitive to lesbians, or to women who want to have children on their own, but it truly isn't. Adoption is still an option, and they can still pay for the treatment if they truly want a biological child. 

That said, I still feel like there's something not quite right with that: if a girl is unlucky enough not to find a guy she likes, or lucky enough to just a girl she likes, why can't she have children? When the question is put to me this way, I am disarmed. It's true. Why do they have less right than a woman who is sterile but has had the luck to find the right guy? So I come to the following conclusion: no ART for anyone. At least, no ART paid for by the government. I still don't think having biological children is a right. 

Secondly, there is the question of men. The discussion has centred exclusively on women because they are the ones affected by the proposal, but the fact remains that if a single heterosexual male or two men in a relationship with each other want to have a child they can't be helped. Surrogate mothers are illegal in Spain (clearly, there are ways to get around this, but in my opinion it shouldn't be something that needs getting around of), so any ART that these males could use is automatically negated unless they happen to have a good friend who will happily carry their child for them. All in all, they are in the same situation as single women or women in relationships with other women, except they're not just not getting financed, but they can't even pay for the treatment.

So, what would I propose? Ideally, in a country where resources are unlimited, I would propose that everyone is eligible for fertility treatments, whoever they are. I would legalise the use of surrogate mothers (though I might regulate it). Less ideally, in a country where resources are limited, and choices have to be made as to treatments, I would legalise the use of surrogate mothers and allow anyone who wanted a child and wasn't able to conceive one to go through the adoption without having to pay fees, but I would not make fertility treatments part of what the national health system provided. They would still be legal, but anyone wanting one would have to pay for it.

In any case, I think the change in the rules in Spain is unfortunate. It is unfair and it provokes more inequality than the previous regulations. And there is the subtext of course: the current governing party in Spain is openly opposed to gay marriage and to abortion, they side with the Catholic Church and have "traditionalist" ideas. Knowing this, it becomes less a question of equality and more a question of the governing party trying to impose their morals on the people they are governing. Of course, this is politics. But it is also discrimination. The Spanish Constitution states that "Spaniards are equal before the law and may not in any way be discriminated against on account of birth, race, sex, religion, opinion or any other personal or social condition or circumstance." The regulations I am speaking about are not strictly "law", but they endanger the equality that the 1978 Constitution awarded the Spanish people. This cannot be allowed to happen.