Music - The thing that keeps me alive

Music is a great part of my life, I doubt it that I would survive without it. I cannot remember any period of my life when I have not sung in a choir, I compose some music myself and of course I would not go anywhere without my tuning fork! So what is it that has given me this great interest in music and singing?

First of all, I believe that my family has been a great source of inspiration. My mother and my grandmother have always been singing in a choir. When I was a kid, I sang in a children’s choir and when I grew older, I started to sing in the same choir as my mother and my grandmother. Of course I was the youngest member of the choir. I was only sixteen, and the other members were at least thirty-five and above. My grandmother was seventy-five by then. But the difference in age did not matter, since the music kept us all together. I also have an uncle who is a conductor, and I have always looked up to him. He has inspired me to write my own music, for example by giving me blank music sheets as a Christmas gift.

Secondly, I believe that musicians all over the world have been inspiring me. In fact, I think that every child is inspired by musicians. Almost every child wants to be a pop star in a period of life. The difference between me and other children of my generation, though, is that I never liked Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys or Aqua. I listened to folk music and Björn Afzelius. Of course I listened to other musicians as well; the important thing was that they had to have written the songs by themselves. And if they had not, their songs had to tell me something, instead of being mass produced, commercial songs that did not mean anything. I wanted to know that the singer actually meant what he or she was singing. I still want them to.

To sum up; my family has probably been playing the greatest part when it comes to inspire me to keep on singing. Thanks to them I always have the music at hand. If it had not been for my mother and my grandmother, I doubt it that I would have started singing in a choir. However, known artists have inspired me as well as anyone and I have them to thank for a lot.

You are never alone...

Since the terrorist attacks (known as 9/11) against the United States we cannot go abroad without being strictly checked-up. And as time has gone by, more and more surveillance cameras have been put up in almost every street corner. On top of that, every move we make on the Internet is can be checked as well. Is this what we really want, to be controlled everywhere we go? Is this kind of surveillance necessary to prevent crimes and other bad things from happening?

On an airport, you go through several security check-ups. You are being asked whether you have packed your bags yourself and if you have left it unattended at any time. These questions can seem quite annoying, since you know that you have not packed anything dangerous. However, these check-ups are there for a reason; to guarantee our security on the airplane. If something would happen, I would not be comfortable in knowing that it could have been prevented by a simple question or by an extra check-up. In this matter, I think that surveillance is a good thing and I would not want to live without it.

Likewise, we are being supervised on the street, often by hidden surveillance cameras. Some people think that this takes away their freedom, but what if something would happen to them? If my sister (or me, for that matter) would be raped, I would want the rapist to be caught in some way. If he had been caught on tape, that job would be a whole lot easier. What I am afraid of, though, is that these tapes could be used by someone with criminal intentions. I have nothing against being watched over, as long as these cameras are there in order to make my world more secure.

Last, but certainly not least, I want to discuss the fact that every site that we visit on the Internet can be checked. To be honest, I have nothing against that either, as long as I am not being checked just for the sake of checking. I want this technology to be used as a way of finding evidence against criminals, like people that visit child pornography sites.

My ideas above may indicate that surveillance is good as long as no one checks me up. The fact is, though, that I am for this kind of surveillance as long as it makes our society more secure. I have nothing at all against being checked-up on an airport, since I know that the reason is to guarantee mine and my co-travelers’ security. And when it comes to surveillance on the streets and check-ups on the Internet, I am for it as long as it is not being misused.

Let the children be happy, without the pressure that grades will put on them

The pressure on children is high nowadays. They often participate in many kinds of leisure time activities, they are expected to be social and friendly and younger and younger children start wearing make up and fasionable clothes. As if all this were not enough, the government now wants us teachers to grade them already in primary school. As far as I am concerned, grades are totally unnecessary in primary education.

First of all, grades are a factor which put pressure on young children. In the school where I am doing my school practice at the moment, the children get to know if they reach the aims or not. They can also get a mark called "reach the aims well". This is in fact, in my opinion, a sort of grading. The pupils want to know what they can do to reach the aims well, which gives them a lot of extra work to do. They have to work much harder than what is really necessary and they will always hear that if they want to reach the aims well, they have to do this or that. The pressure on these young kids grows day by day. This pressure comes from everyone; teachers, parents and also the pupils' friends, since children always have compared their results.

Secondly, a pupil that do not recieve the higher grades, starts to feel that he or she is stupid. If we start grading very young children, they will get a label at a very young age, and this label, no matter what it is, is very hard to get rid of. A pupil that is a "good" pupil will always try to keep up, while a not so "good" pupil is very likely to just give up. The "good" pupils will keep on working until they cannot take it anymore, and the less "good" pupils will stop working, since they feel that it does not lead anywhere.

However, many people do think that grades are good, since it gives the pupils and their parents a view on how well the pupils manage and keep up in school. I think that using grades on a piece of paper is just a way of avoiding to confront and to communicate with pupils and their parents. If we start (and keep) communicating on an earlier level, we will not need grades in primary school.

We all want happy children, but a child that feels a lot of pressure is not likely to feel happy. Nor is a child that has the label of being "stupid". By grading young children we will increase this pressure and we will label our pupils, willingly or not. Let the children be children and let them play, without worrying about grades!

Be prepared to give up some things - for the sake of our climate!

Nowadays you hear about climate change wherever you go. Almost every day you can read in the newspapers about catastrophes caused by the climate change. Nevertheless, the changes are accelerating and soon there will be no more polar ices and more and more animals and species are becoming more or less endangered. We have since long heard of these changes, so why is it so hard for humankind to understand what is actually happening?

First of all, I believe that more or less all people are greedy, in one way or another. Buying clothes and things that once were produced in a country far away, by children that work more or less for free, is cheaper than buying something produced in a factory where people actually get properly paid. The demand for new things keep accelerating too; humans keep on wanting new technology which makes different companies producing more and more advanced stuff.

Secondly, people are lazy. By having a mobile phone, you do not have to worry about finding a telephone when you need to call someone. I do agree; having a mobile phone makes communication quicker and easier. However, people survived without those things fifty years ago. They did manage to walk to a phone booth or even all the way home.

A third possible cause for these changes is the fact that we get too much information. I believe that people cannot handle all the information, so they choose to look away. Another reason could be that the truth is simply too inconvenient to handle. If you do not want to realize, then you simply do not, and if you do not see it, it is not there.

Climate changes have been going on for ages. It was climate changes that once caused the Ice Age and it was climate changes that made most of the ice melt. However, I believe the demand for an easier and cheaper way of living makes the climate change even faster, in a highly unnatural way.

Hilarious men, fat cops... and a lot of blood... You have made my day!

I have never been very fond of American television programmes. I have never watched an episode of the famous OC and I cannot stand Desperate Housewives. Of course, I have watched a few series, mostly drama and comedy, but I must say that I strongly favour British television programmes. To my opinion, there is no comedy show like Peep Show and British murder series are simply the best!

Peep Show has unfortunately not been broadcast in Sweden, at least not as far as I know. This series is about two guys that live together and they are both quite pathetic. They always start arguing about something, mostly often about women. Nevertheless, their friendship survives everything. What is really fun with this series, though, is the way in which it is filmed. You always see everything through the different characters’ eyes and you can also hear the thoughts of the person through whose eyes you are looking at the moment. I can assure you, if this series would be broadcast in Sweden, I would not miss one episode.

As I wrote above, I like British murder series and two of my favourites are The Chief Inspector Lynley Mysteries and Wire in the Blood. I think I like them since there are strong female characters in both of them. The fact that I like them both very much is quite interesting since they differ a lot from each other. The Chief Inspector Lynley Mysteries is often very simple, and there are often quite clear motives behind the murders. You always get in touch with the murderer on a very early stage and you can be sure that you will be mislead by some strange character that fits in perfectly as the murderer. Wire in the Blood, on the other hand, is always very psychological and often quite scary. You never really know who the murderer is and sometimes you still are not quite sure when the episode has ended. It is always very violent and raw. In spite of those differences, I do like both these series a lot.

Britain has produced a lot of great police characters, and as I talk about them, I cannot keep away from talking about the funniest one ever; Detective Chief Inspector Frost. This fat little guy with his wide, grey moustache and his ugly hat is someone that everyone just has to love! He can seem quite lazy, but there is no mind as sharp as his. And no character in the world has punch lines as funny as his. There is never much blood in this series either, so it is a series that quite young people can watch as well, unlike for example Wire in the Blood.

You can talk about television programmes and series forever. Everyone has their favourites and the ones that they detest. Luckily, there are television programmes for everyone and although many series are quite the same, they all have their own charm.

Childhood Memories

I believe that I had a very safe and secure childhood. I grew up in a so-called nuclear family, at least from the nineties' point of view. My parents still live together and I have two siblings; a brother who is two years older than I am and a sister who is six years younger. I have always felt very secure in the society where I grew up. Old and young people meet on different occasions, which secures the connection between the different generations. What I believe affected me the most while growing up are three different aspects; the way my family looks like, the fact that I am the second out of three children and the natural connection between young and old people.

As I wrote above, my parents have always lived together and naturally, that is my idea of a normal family. Today, though, many parents are divorced, they may not be married at all or a single mother can have a child, for example. Of course, all of those aspects of a family are just as "normal" as the kind of family that I grew up in. I believe, though, that when I will have a family of my own, I will do everything I can to make that family look a lot like my family. That is completely natural; that is what I am used to and it makes me feel safe. Everyone looks for things that make them feel secure, that is a way of surviving, I suppose. And, of course, the love that we have in my family has greatly affected me. That love has made me the person that I am today, a person who wants to love everyone and who wants everyone to be friends, no matter what differences there may be.

When I was a child, I played a lot on my own. My brother did not want to play with me since I was a girl, and I did not want to play with my sister, since she was so much younger than I was. Of course I had friends, but I liked playing by myself. This, of course, was helped a lot by the fact that I have always had a great deal of imagination. I could easily come up with different stories and I could keep myself busy for hours. I am afraid, though, that children today do not use their imagination in the same way that my generation did. They do not need to. Everything is already fixed. They can watch television programmes all day long if they want to, or they can sit by their computers. They do not need to come up with any characters or imagine what a person in a book would look like, since all books today have a lot of pictures in them. All the books that I read as a child were books with almost no pictures at all; I had to imagine everything. Hence, I want children of today to use their imagination more. I do not believe that children have the time to dream or imagine anymore. They are too busy watching television or playing computer games. That is what I want to give them; the opportunity, and the time, to dream.

Axvall, where I grew up, is a small village where everyone knows everyone and old and young people easily talk to each other. Of course this makes Axvall in general a bit conservative (if you are not from here, we do not want you to live here) but it has also made sure that the memories of the older generation live on. I have always loved listening to older peoples' stories and we got used to it, my friends and me. I remember an old woman who some friends and I used to visit. I cannot remember what brought us there in the first place, but I remember that we sat very silent when she told us about her own childhood. I hope that old people and children will always make use of each other. I think that both parts will learn a great deal from each other.

Your childhood affects you more than anything. As a child, you gain a lot of values and as you grow older, it becomes harder to change those values. I strongly believe that teachers and parents are the most important persons in a child's life and to make good, intelligent and loving citizens, we have to start working as soon as possible!