Pouring rain

My socks say that it is Wednsday today so I'm gonna go with that.

I really need to go and cut my hair, I think sholder length is what I should have and not a cm longer (yes, that is centimeters, I don't know inches, they don't make sense in my world, sorry)

Things are piling up everywhere, both with funny stuff to do and interesting stuff to do and, of course, required stuff to do.

I discovered that I like going to lectures. I was at one last week, on Thursday, and I really enjoyed it.

It was a free lecture ("Differences in Ways of Thinking in the Middle East from the West") held by Dr. Graham Leonard about the middle east. After I've been to Washington I really like to see what the American point of view really is. So I wanted to go to this lecture and see what kind of point of view this guy has.

One and a half year ago I participated in a journalistic seminar at my home institution (KAU) and one of the speakers was a former millitary lieutenant. He had been involved in the Yugoslavian was as well as been placed in the middle east. His lecture was very interesting and I really felt that he knew what he as talking about (which may seem obvious but there are many people out there who doesn't seem so have a clue on what is going on and still claim they know this and that).

I got the same feeling from Dr. Leonard and I liked his lecture. I don't know much about the middle east so I'm not gonna claim that I know anything about the area but Dr. Leonard pointed out that it wasn't unitl west interfered that it really became bad. Everyone affects everyone and all stories has two sides (atleast). It is specially important to remember that when it comes to international relations and Dr. Leonard was good in pointing that out.

There's a free lecture on Wednsday as well and I hope I will remember to go to it.

This morning I participated in a group interview about religion. The first thing I pointed out in my blog when I first got here was that Sweden and U.S are primary different in three ways;
  1. Bigger packages
  2. Wider roads
  3. Religion
I mean the very presence of religion. Some of the things going on here would be considered propaganda or atleast scandalous in Sweden. Other than that, U.S is the exact opposite of Sweden when it ocmes to believing in God. At home, most people wouldn't say that they believe in God, because it is considered to be dorky and a little dumb to do. You have to believe in science and nothing else to be taken seriously by most people. There are of course, people who are religious, but they are very open about it and their entire presence is about religion and their beliefs. In U.S, however, I experience it to be the opposite, if you don't believe in God there's something not quite right with you. Not that everyone hangs on the church door handle but everyone has God in their life some way or another and if you don't, people need an explanation for that.

But most of all, the huge giant white cross outside of Johnson city, kind of scare me.

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