... isn't necessarily very interesting.
I've had a blog of some kind for several years, starting with a couple of livejournals, then a different blogspot one, and I just never seem to know what to write!
Life is just carrying on, for the time being. I'm not sure what my plans for 2009 are going to be, but I hope it might be something a little more fulfilling that the latter half of this year.
I can't believe how quickly 2008 has gone. At the beginning of the year I was living in London, finishing my studies. I've just had a statement through from the student loans company, and I've had £250 pounds interest added to my debt since June. It's pretty scary. I've been wondering whether University was actually worth it at all, financially or academically. Financially, it's really just an assault on savings; how will it ever get paid off? I have no idea. They sent an example of repayments - if you're earning £18,000 pa, your repayable amount is £250, of which they take 9%. But paying off £22 a month against interest of nearly £70 a month seems completely ludicrous! Academically, well, I could be doing my current job with no degree, but time will tell if I end up in a career where I can use what I learnt during my four years of racking up (currently) over 17 grand's worth of debt!
I hope that 2009 might be the year I can discover something I love to do. I hope the global economic crisis doesn't affect my chances of finding work too much.
Friday 21 November 2008
Monday 10 November 2008
Thoughts on the last week
Just a thought on the US election.
There has been plenty of news regarding the first black president of the US, Barack Obama. And plenty more articles deriding the use of the word "black" when Mr. Obama is actually half white, just as much white as he is black.
The reason so many mixed-race people are automatically referred to as black is simply because, according to the US "one drop" law, anyone with the smallest amount of black heritage has, in the past, been legally black. Of course this does not reflect equality or skin colour necessarily, and in fact the law has been abused by many people cashing in on the positive discrimination regulations set out to encourage more African-American students to attend university.
The difference in other countries, principally Brazil, is that race categorisation has historically been based on physical characteristics, such as size/shape of nose, hair texture, skin colour (i.e. shade of brown), rather than just whether one has an African grandparent/ great grandparent etc.
Anyway, I am not saying the one system is better than the other; in the current age of globalisation, even the term "mixed race" is going to be much more difficult to define, but that's my two cents on the matter.
Besides, Obama is not going to succeed as president just because of his mixed heritage. The shape of his legacy remains to be seen.
There has been plenty of news regarding the first black president of the US, Barack Obama. And plenty more articles deriding the use of the word "black" when Mr. Obama is actually half white, just as much white as he is black.
The reason so many mixed-race people are automatically referred to as black is simply because, according to the US "one drop" law, anyone with the smallest amount of black heritage has, in the past, been legally black. Of course this does not reflect equality or skin colour necessarily, and in fact the law has been abused by many people cashing in on the positive discrimination regulations set out to encourage more African-American students to attend university.
The difference in other countries, principally Brazil, is that race categorisation has historically been based on physical characteristics, such as size/shape of nose, hair texture, skin colour (i.e. shade of brown), rather than just whether one has an African grandparent/ great grandparent etc.
Anyway, I am not saying the one system is better than the other; in the current age of globalisation, even the term "mixed race" is going to be much more difficult to define, but that's my two cents on the matter.
Besides, Obama is not going to succeed as president just because of his mixed heritage. The shape of his legacy remains to be seen.
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