Posted by: multiculturalwannabe on: March 24, 2009
It’s sad, but I really don’t have anything to write in this blog anymore. I’m thinking about deleting it. Such as if anyone should care about what I thnik about Islam, multiculturalism (a topic I have not been writing about at all), the dilemma with the hijab, the culture of honour, the right to have a partner before marriage; the right to be who you are and my identity crisis.
And my argumentation about that I’m an immigrant because I was born abroad even I’m not having two cultures. No, I have nothing more to write here. Absolutely nothing.
I don’t have any identity crisis.
But sometimes I can feel like I’m divided between two cultures even I didn’t grow up with two cultures. It’s not necessary to grow up with two cultures to get an understanding of how it can be like to be divided between two cultures: you could meet people from another culture, and you can have a partner from another culture than your own.
Ok, maybe I don’t feel divided. Why should I feel divided? I’m born in India, so what. I’m not Indian, I will never be.
I put on the dupatta and the bangles and wanted to wear a shalwar kameez just because I wanted others to look at me and believe that I was Indian or Pakistani. I wanted to keep the memory of a Pakistani guy I had a crush on, a long time ago.
Before that, I identified myself with Islam, even I was not Muslim. I still do, sometimes. And if I want I can wear a dupatta and bangles, but the reason should be that I like it; not that I want to proove something to others. If you really want to wear something, you don’t have a need to show others that you don’t care. If it’s your choice, it comes from your heart.
Ok, so I’m not Indian. But I was born there. And no matter how I wish to be someone who has two cultures, I’m not.
But don’t view me just as a Swedish girl who should behave in a specific way or dress in a specific way just because of that.
Posted by: multiculturalwannabe on: March 10, 2009
You don’t want to wear a veil – I don’t want to wear a sleeveless top
You don’t want to hide your body – I don’t want to show off mine
You want to pluck your eyebrows – I don’t think it’s necessary for me
You want to wear high heels – I want to wear sneakers
You want to wear earrings – I don’t have any need to wear that
You want to drink alcohol in the pub – I don’t want to
And our choices should be equally accepted.
Posted by: multiculturalwannabe on: March 6, 2009
If it’s possible to have a crush on a famous person, such as an actor, a singer and so on, then I’m probably having a small crush on Oded Fehr, an actor who was acting in the TV serial “Sleeper Cell”. I’m talking about the first season, I did not watch the second, weirdly enough.
The serial in itself is weird; it’s about an Islamist (note Islamist, not Islamic) terrorist cell in the United States and Oded Fehr is acting as “Saad” (or “Farik”, which is his code name), who is the leader of that cell.
An American Muslim guy from the FBI (I think) is infiltrating the group and pretending to be part of them and sharing their views – but no one is doing something to stop the cell until it’s almost too late. That is the weird thing in the serial.
I knew from the beginning that that would be the case and that it would end somehow like it actually ended. In the first episode, I felt that they were trying to put as much events as possible and I felt like it was too much and too weird, almost like a cliché. But I gave it a chance and sometimes the events in the episodes were moving somehow.
Well, I was watching it in 2006 and thought the first two episodes were kind of weird; but I liked it better in the third episode. And somehow I discoverd that Oded Fehr was so good looking! He was like my eye candy Monday evenings in late 2006. Well, if it’s possible to have a crush on a celebrity, then I should have a small crush on him, and I guess I had back then also… even the role he is playing in the serial is really not a nice one.
Anyway, I think it’s better to fall in love with someone in reality, but this is not the same thing, it’s to think a celebrity is good looking and viewing him as one’s eye candy… Nothing wrong in that…
Posted by: multiculturalwannabe on: February 26, 2009
What did you think you were doing
Where did you think you were going
What did you believe in
Where were your consciences on that day
What were your hearts whispering
Where were your thoughts on that day
What did you see in their eyes
Where were your empathies
What was in your minds that day
Where did you think that your victims would go
Posted by: multiculturalwannabe on: February 24, 2009
I wish I will get the application papers for Northern Michigan University, so I can start planning for it, but right now I feel that there is not much I can do until I recieve the application forms.
Today the weather is sunny, it’s like the first feeling of spring, even it’s still snow and icy outside. But there was a change in the air – it happens every season. Suddenly there is just a change in the air – a small one, but it’s there.
In August for example, I could feel that there was a change in the weather when I went outside. It was still summer, and sunny, but there was a feeling of cold in the air, a feeling of autumn. The same feeling came in the autumn, maybe in October, when I was walking home from the university: I felt the change again, that winter was on it’s way. The air felt colder.
And now it’s there again! The sun has been shining before in the winter (not much here in Växjö), but I didn’t get the feeling of spring until today – it’s difficult to explain what the change really is, but maybe it was because the air felt warmer. I could just feel it. That’s the important thing.
Posted by: multiculturalwannabe on: February 23, 2009
Last semester I attented the “Cultural Exchange Day” where we should make food from our countries and get together in a nice multi cultural meeting. It was very nice, but…
Just talking about the good things from one’s country, what’s the point? It’s not the whole picture, get to know people from a specific country or ethnic group and you will probably find out really interesting and nice things, but also things that may not be very nice. (Such as the culture of honour that is present in many societies) Ask me, a Cultural Exchange Day will not give you much knowledge.
There are many nice and not so nice things in Sweden as well; I can point out some things that from my point of view are not that nice: such as that many teenagers are drinking alcohol, that many Swedish people may seem reserved, etc.
People from different countries who eat a little bit food from other countries and listen to the best things in the countries – I can’t say that it’s the whole picture.
I know it very well, I have had enough multi cultural meetings to tell that a culture is like an ice berg, and what was presented on the Cultural Exchange Day was just the top of it – or even not the top of it. When you go deeper inside a culture, you will know more. Eating food and listening to nice things about a country is not enough.
I was boiling inside the whole evening. I’m still kind of boiling.
For example, some Pakistani students were performing a wedding and telling the others about a Pakistani wedding. It was interesting and nice (but I knew some of it before).
My mind was boiling. I just wanted to stand up and shout: Tell us that many of the weddings are arranged as well!
This was not the only reason why I was angry. I have a personal reason why I wanted to run away and stay there at the same time.
I have realized that I’m writing more posts in my Swedish blog http://hannabard.blogg.se than in this one, but I will still keep this one. I’m at my parents home, and tomorrow it’s an introduction to a new course. I’m planning to drop the English course I’m taking because it’s too much to study and I feel that I don’t need the English course even I (hopefully) will study in the US…
I don’t want to write here until I have anything important to write about, so I will write when I have something to write about.
Posted by: multiculturalwannabe on: February 18, 2009
It may seem weird – but I actually don’t like that guys are flirting with me. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it happens it makes me irritated. I’m kind of reserved, even in the student pub, and I guess I give the impression to guys: Stay away from me! I’m not interested.
On Facebook, I guess I don’t give such an impression, because a few times some guys have written comments that they probably think that a girl would like. I just want to vomit! It’s so obvious what these guys want, that they are just desperate, and trying to write nice comments in a bad English grammar. I hate it!
Sometimes I judge people from their spelling on, for example, msn messenger. Maybe that’s weird, but if it’s an unknown person that doesn’t spell sentences with big capital letters, or write a dot after a sentence, that gives me the impression that it’s a lazy person, even that prejudice may not be true at all.
Anyway, I hate when total unknown guys are trying to flirt with me or make contact with me. I am not interested. I am not interested. Many times that is written in my face, but not always.
Maybe I hate it because there was a few guys that were teasing me in middle school, and before middle school as well, some guys who were making fun of me by pretending that they were in love with me. I hated it and maybe that is why I hate flirting.
