An American moved to Slovenia

http://www.carniola.org/

In year 2001, Michael Manske moved from New York City to Slovenia because of his wife, who is a Slovene. He claims that Slovenia is a wonderful country to live in and I agree with him ;).

He began to write his blog The Glory of Carniola on January 26, 2004. His aim is to provide a modest picture of life in Slovenia after the year 2000.
Manske’s blog is divided into 15 different categories, there is everything from music, sports to things you probably won’t see in the U.S.
On February 1, 2005, his blog won the European Weblog Award for “Best Weblog Focused On A Single Country Or Region” and also “Best Weblog.”

It is a pleasure to read his blog. Michael Manske has a great sense of humor, one example: “Slovenia has two million people, each of whom speaks their own dialect of Slovene.” – this is so true :)

Now I go to bed but next time more about his great blog! Good night everybody!

A cool weekend in Maribor

This weekend was just great… there was so much going on in Maribor that there was no time and space for being bored.

On Friday evening there was a big concert by various Slovenian artists called “Tezenska noč”. The concert was organized by one of the most popular broadcast stations in Slovenia. OK… the music wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea … but the concert was for free and all alcoholic drinks were available for only 2 Euros. So you can imagine that the place was “quite” crowded.

Another cool thing for all people who didn’t have to fight with an extreme hangover on Saturday morning was the beginning of the Sport Weekend 2007.
Every year at the beginning of June there is a Sport Weekend in Maribor. This reminds me somehow on The Healthy Saturdays Initiative I talked about in my obesity presentation, but unfortunately the sport weekend is only once a year. Anyway, it’s a very cool thing and residents of Maribor just love it.

Sport weekend can keep you busy the whole Saturday and Sunday and is the best opportunity to try out various kinds of sport, like horse riding; boat driving or just playing all these standard sports like soccer, tennis, basketball, volleyball and so on. One has also the chance to go on a panoramic flight. Everything is for free or available for a reduced price.

So everybody willing to try out some new sport or just willing to enjoy Maribor’s beautiful countryside… see you next year on Sport Weekend 2008!;)

Obesity

That's very nice to hear and to read that you found the topic of my presentation interesting and somehow inspiring to blog about it or to make a further research on obesity. I think obesity is a topic we could discus for hours and I don’t think we would get to the bottom of the problem.

Obesity is a serious problem of our modern society. I believe that all of us know at least one obese person. Knowing such a person and her reasons of obesity made me think about this problem, especially about the idea of taxing obese people.

My aunt is not just a bit overweight but she is really obese. Before she got obese she was kind of +/- 5 kilos person. She had to be careful about the amount of calories she’d eaten.
Ten years ago she had some personal problems, like divorce, being jobless… in her desperation she started to eat. She ate huge amounts of chocolate, ice cream, chips … all these unhealthy stuff. Although all family was trying to convince her that eating is not a solution to any problem, she continued to eat.

Ten years later her life is almost perfect. She has a loving partner, a great job but she is still obese. After overcoming her personal crisis she has tried out all kinds of diets, but nothing has really helped.

One of the reasons why no diet has worked is that she actually doesn’t want to lose her weight. Her philosophy is that everybody has to die and if she has to die because of obesity that is absolutely OK for her. She jokes that she won’t die hungry. Furthermore, she is aware of the fact that obesity is linked to some serious diseases but she doesn’t care about that. She is completely satisfied with herself, her partner got to know her as an obese person and loves her the way she is. 40 years she had to be careful about every single calorie, but now as a 56-year-old woman she doesn’t want to torture her self with counting calories.

I really ask myself why such a person should be paying more tax. For all the food she eats she pays just like anybody else. If the warning words of a doctor don’t prevent her from eating, I don’t get how a higher tax will do. Did smokers stop smoking because of higher cigarette prices? I don’t think so. I think taxing obese people would be unfair and discriminating.
I think the public authorities should focus more on preventing childhood obesity than taxing obese adults.

My presentation is available at yahoo groups and here are some interesting web-pages:

• The World's Heaviest People
• Das dicke Forum
• American Obesity Association
  

Here on Earth: Tackling AIDS

… a very interesting radio show …

Jean Feraca talks to a UW alumnus Ernest Darkoh whom Time magazine named one of eighteen Global Health Heroes. Dr. Darkoh is the chairman and founding partner of BroadReach. His latest operation is the Prevention and Treatment Program for HIV/AIDS in Botswana.

The situation in Sub-Saharan Africa is absolutely devastating; more than 50 million people died because of AIDS, about 40% of adults in Botswana are HIV positive and life expectancy has plummeted from over 65 to 40. Moreover, 20 years of epidemic and a lack of knowledge about HIV have developed a social stigma about this disease. People are actually afraid about their HIV status, so they prefer not to know it.

One of the reasons why the epidemic of HIV/AIDS has spread so dramatically is the moral issue of this disease. People thought that it is a disease of homosexuals. But realizing that also heterosexual people can get infected with the HIV virus has not changed their behavior. People tried to distance themselves from HIV. Therefore nothing was done to prevent the epidemic.

Another very profound problem of Sub-Saharan Africa is the brain drain. Educated people do not want to live and work in rural Africa. So people living in rural areas have to fend for themselves. But Darkoh’s program offers a beacon of hope to people in Botswana.

With support of the president of Botswana Dr. Darkoh achieved a great breakthrough. He transformed the psychology of people living in this particular area of Sub-Saharan Africa by establishing hope. Having treatment available motivates people to test their HIV status. People in Botswana experience new openness in dealing with HIV/AIDS. Talking about it on radio, in churches, etc. and sharing their own experiences with AIDS has become a part of their everyday lives. They started to realize that there is no need to deny this disease, especially if so many people are affected by it.

In search of a practical solution to the epidemic Dr. Darkoh connected various skills sectors to create one powerful punch against AIDS. He even took tips from Wal-Mart, like creating “express” lines for HIV-patients that are in better health condition than other people with this disease. Furthermore, Dr. Darkoh claims that health care has to be accessible even though there are no specialized health workers in a particular area. Expertise has to be transferred with help of modern technology, so a non-specialized health provider can be supervised by an expert from a remote place.

Dr. Darkoh has made an outstanding contribution in preventing AIDS. Not only did he achieve that people in Botswana changed their approach to the HIV virus but he also accomplished that 10% of people living in this country get their medical treatment for free. Although each country has unique and specific problems, elements of his model program can be replicated elsewhere in the world.

Touching the void – The True Story of One Man’s Miraculous Survival

Most of my blog entries describe my personal life and my own experiences but this entry is devoted to one of my favorite books.

The book Touching the void - The True Story of One Man’s Miraculous Survival written by Joe Simpson is divided into thirteen chapters and each chapter is more impressive and more gripping than the last.

I am not a keen reader but this book was a real page-turner. Although I can not understand the attitudes or the motivation of people for doing such things as climbing; I find this actually really absurd: risking your life just to feel the adrenalin or just to prove yourself that you are able to do something outstanding or unusual, I find this book somehow inspiring. The story is true-to-life; actually it is an autobiography, and it is really amazing what a human body and mind is able to survive.

Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, had just reached the top of a 21000 – foot peak in the Andes when a disaster struck. Joe plunged off the vertical face of an ice ledge, breaking his leg and then the real drama began… Simon wanted to help his friend but he was not strong enough. Moreover, Simon had to cut the rope before he would have been pulled into his own death. Simon was sure that Joe was dead therefore he returned to the base camp. But miraculously Joe survived and crawled over cliffs to the base camp.

My favorite parts of the book are the descriptions of their thoughts and emotions. They were having a real fight with their fears, the freezing cold and their hunger. The author is perfectly honest with us; he talks without a feeling of being ashamed of his worries and his nights in tears. I was deeply touched by Joe’s and Simon’s story. I could really feel with them; their desperation – on one side is Joe who is near his death and on the other side is Simon who is going to lose his partner and friend.

To conclude, this is a story of Joe Simpson’s miraculous survival. In my opinion, this book is really encouraging and stimulating because it shows that with a strong will we are able to survive.

I can only recommend this book; it is a great read.

Where is the love?

In the last few weeks a lot of my friends broke up with their boyfriends and I ask myself why... what’s wrong?

Of course I know only their side of their stories and don’t think that I’m some extreme women’s libber and I definitely love boys … but … I blame them!!! It’s their fault that there is no love.
Because our group consists only of girls and Mr. Newman, but he can tolerate a bit of critique about men ;) I can talk freely about boys and their bad, bad behavior… :)

I’ve made a little collection of “the best” ways how to break up with your girlfriend that I’ve heard in the recent weeks. These aren’t my own experiences, but experiences of my friends (happy singles, like me, don’t have such problems :))

To quit with your girlfriend via a cell phone (probably with a short message) is really the endmost thing that you can do. Don’t be a sissy… be a man, look into her eyes and say what you want to say. You are not the only boy in this world… she will survive and get over you … don’t worry: everybody is replaceable.

To say to your girlfriend after a year of relationship that she is boring and that you
feel much better when she is not with you.
OK … honesty is good … but too much of honesty … and what about being more tactful …
And don’t you think, you guys, that you are probably not always that entertaining as we wish you would be or that girls have sometimes better time without their boyfriends. And the reason why we fall asleep while watching television is you and not the bad TV program.

To say to your girlfriend that you don’t like to call her, because you only phone
people that mean a lot to you.
Hello?! Your girlfriend doesn’t mean a lot to you??? … OK… such man should stay single … for ever. And every girl should be happy that such an idiot has broken up with her… this has to be celebrated.

This is also good: to say to your girlfriend that you are afraid that you will miss
out on something if you stay in relationship with her.
How stupid is that? Do these guys really think that girls want to spend 24 hours per day together with them? No, I don’t think they want. Girls also have their own hobbies and their studies or want sometimes to go out with other girls or friends, without their boyfriend… So what are these boys supposed to miss out? Absolutely nothing … oh … maybe an opportunity to have some “hanky-panky” with some other girl … and this is the only thing …
So girls we don’t need such boyfriends!

I’ve saved the best for last:
To say to your girlfriend that she is the most wonderful person … BUT! … you cannot be loyal to her because she can’t be with you every weekend (because she has to or wants to spend weekends with her parents) … and a Saturday is a day when a man needs a woman…
What bullshit is this? I don’t think that this needs any comment.


I don’t claim that women are perfect and of course also women cheat on their boyfriends and break up their relationships but most of them (not all of them, but most of them) do that more tactfully and with more elegance and style. So guys if you have to do it, just do it … but don’t do it like that. There are also more “human-ways” how to break up with somebody.

I don’t think that any boy would ever read that … anyway, these things just need to be said, so that’s it.

My new best friends

People often say that dogs are their best friends and that you cannot buy your friends with money ... but I did it :)

I bought my new friends for only 43 Kun. Kuna is the currency of Croatia; 1 Euro is approximately 7, 35 Kun. And for 43 Kun I bought these lovely three dogs.

I just fall in love with these three puppies! Aren’t they sweet?!