Lost Supposedly Funny Dragoness

This is a rather pessimistic paragraph that I wrote about two years ago, before I got into Buddhism. My philosophy has changed a bit since then, but I think it's still a nice short piece of writing. Sometimes I imagine and almost believe that there is reincarnation. The soul of a living being, according to its actions in a previous life, is transferred into the body of another organism when its body fails. It is born as a mouse or hatches as a chicken or a lizard or a fly larva or sprouts into a blade of grass or ... well, is born again as a human being. Souls who have committed the worst unimaginable acts in a previous life become human. So they are condemned to (another) lifetime of suffering.

 Another one from the Disability Studies course. In Nazi Germany, they tried to eradicate the "handicapped" through eugenics, to create a "pure" race of healthy, beautiful, intelligent and useful people. The Nazi methods of achieving master race domination were, like the system as a whole, radical, from forced sterilisation to concentration camps and killing. Nevertheless, there are parallels between today's, covert, eugenics and the mentality in Nazi Germany. Not long ago, people with disabilities were still being forcibly sterilised in Slovenia, and even today, many people discourage the reproduction of 'disabled' people. Too often I see comments about 'disabled' people not having children, because the children will then suffer. This may be justified in the case of diseases that are inherited: I myself, for example, would prefer not to have children because of my predisposition to certain disorders, which are also influenced by genetics, as I h...

This post is actually part of my exam for the Disability Studies course, which I translated. I got a ten out of ten for it, so I guess it's not that bad. Just to clarify: the medical model is the treatment of people (e.g. people with diasabilites or elderly people) where people are made equal with their "defects" which need to be treated, cured or at least minimised so that people become as "normal" as possible. The medical model, which, at least in my opinion, is currently dominant, places a great deal of emphasis on correcting bodies that do not conform to social norms. The implication is that someone with a disability wants to have their physical 'defect' corrected. Let's say, if someone is squinting, a whole hoard of doctors flock to help them correct this "defect" as early as possible. Especially if it is a child who is squinting, no one asks him if he wants to change it. He is not given the space to express his opinion. Because societ...

 Let's get two things straight: Firstly, I'm a privileged young white citizen of the European Union who has never had to deal with 'real life problems'. Yes, I've had a few episodes where my mental health issues have got a bit out of hand, but otherwise I'm fine. I have friends, I get on well with my family, we're comfortable with money, I have the opportunity to study what I want and I've never had anyone really close to me die. And secondly, I am not an adult. Hang on, let me explain. I technically and formally am a citizen of age in most countries, I am turning twenty-one this year afterall. I've voted several times and I may be physically developed, so biologically (although my flat chest begs to differ) I'm an adult too. But for good karma's sake, I. Am. NOT. An. Adult. I have no idea how to pay my taxes, if I have a problem with the bank, my computer, a leak in the bathroom or any kind of paperwork (or if there's a big scary spider...

Zariah is known as Zari, Baboucarr Babu, Abubacarr Abu, Aisha is called Aisha Banana, Musa... well, Musa doesn't really have a nickname, but his name is short for Musafa. Nicolas, on the other hand, does not have a nickname. Everyone just calls him Niiiiiiicolaaas. That's a bit ironic, isn't it? It's called a nick name after all. Nicolas is a six-month-old baby that I had the pleasure of spending some time with while volunteering in The Gambia this summer. He's one of the babies being raised by carers in a kind of social work centre that's divided into several sections: an orphanage (we don't have orphanages in Slovenia, so I hope that's still a correct term) for babies and one for older children, a kind of residential home for elderly people who have no one to look after them, and an asylum home. The conditions there are - by Gambian standards - not bad at all. The children are well fed and mostly clean. The problem is the staff shortage: about two to t...

If you read my introduction (Who Am I and Other Basics), you already know that I give up fairly quickly, which essentialy means you might not have much to read on this blog soon. It was the same with running. I started running with my dad a couple of times and - you guessed it - gave up every time. So how did I decide to become more consistent? The answer is quite simple with a slightly more complex explanation: I had mental health issues. I will talk a bit more about this in separate posts, but here goes: I have anorexia. It peaked in May of this year. I was lying in bed all day, thinking about food, counting calories, perfecting information about food I'd eaten in a weight loss app, barely having the strength to do sixty prostrations - a Buddhist physical and mental exercise - when I can usually do over two hundred, my skin was breaking out in acne, I was dizzy all the damn time. And while I was rolling around pathetically on my double bed in Ostrava, ignoring my friends and wond...

This year has been by far the most interesting of my life and it's not even September yet. I lived in another country for five months, came back to Slovenia, went to a concert in London, then volunteered in Gambia for three weeks (a report or reports on that will follow soon) and now I'm going backpacking. This will probably be my last big trip around Europe for a while, as I've realised that I have a whole life - if I don't get hit by a bus tomorrow while jaywalking - to take more or less comfortable trains, sleep in hostels with electricity and hot water, etc. I can do that if I decide to have a family and when (or should I say if again due to climate change and other possible issues that cannot be predicted) I grow old. This is the first post about the backpacking trip. WHO IS GOING? The original idea was to travel through the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia, Lituhania (I always mix up the last two as I never know which one has the complicated - Lithuania - name in ...

You ask me why I'm hugging you like it's the last time and am trying to get the most out of every moment we spend together. Just a few minutes ago you said you didn't know how you felt about me. That you don't know how this relationship will evolve. Before you go, you kiss me and give me that look I fell in love with: you smile slightly and look at me from under your forehead. I notice the bowl on the table that you brought when I was sick and you made me tea. You have forgotten it countless times. I don't want to remind you that you have to take it home, even though it takes up half of the space on my table and is actually more of an inconvenience than anything else. Because then you'll have no reason to come back. Because apart from your smell on my pillow and tears, it may be the only thing I have left of you. At the last moment, you notice it. You take it because you have just enough room in your bag today - or so you say. I sit in the dark, crying. There is...

This is a translation of my Reddit post from r/Slovenia. Yes, I am a Redditor (go, check me out u/whatamIdoinghere46), how incelic of me. Okay, here's the thing: I don't like to complain. No, let's start again, because this is, of course, the biggest lie of the last decade, forgive me. In short, we consider ourselves to be a first-world central European country. Ljubljana is a capital and - too much so lately - a tourist city. How, then, do we allow public transport to be so outdated? I've been away from Slovenia since January this year, living in a comparably sized city in the Czech Republic, where public transport is up to scratch, and then travelling a bit more, so coming back to Ljubljana was almost a culture shock for me (a born and raised Ljubljanaite). Yes, my fault. I should have expected public transport in our beloved capital to be unpredictable, erratic and outdated. I mean, it makes sense that if I'm meeting someone in the centre at eleven, I have to lea...

Phew, I set up the domain, chose the blog template that will change every few weeks due to my indecisiveness and almost had a nervous breakdown. I turned off the computer, put on some music, took a few deep breaths and did it anyway. The thing about me is that I give up too easily. But another thing, the thing that keeps me going, is that I hate spending money, and when I do spend it, I make the most of it. And since I paid seventeen full Euros for my domain, there is no turning back, is there? So I guess this is it. My first post, how exciting is that? Let's dive right in.   WHO AM I? A million dollar question and my second obstacle. Who. Am. I? On the blog, I suppose I am Lost Supposedly - it took me a few Google searches to make sure I spelt that word right - Funny Dragoness. Supposedly, because I think I am hilarious and my greatest source of entertainment, but not everyone agrees. Dragoness because I just love dragons. My favourite book is The Heritage by Paolini and I al...