To tell you the truth, I hate to be indebted to anyone! and thus, I don’t like the idea of taking up a loan, even if I believe in my business idea, there is always the chance of it going wrong, and what then?

My boyfriend is not too befriended with the idea of socialism, but he had to admit that not having to think about whether he can afford to see a doctor and whether he can afford the medication the doctor prescribed, and that all of that still is the case even if you lose your job (under the premise that you have worked for 6 consecutive months) and also your children are ensured with you, without ANY extra costs and so is a stay-at-home-mom!

Maybe all those benefits are too much!

There are lots of things that I don’t like about this country here, but I do appreciate the security given to everyone living here!

Those benefits of course mean that quite a bit of the gross income goes into taxes and insurances, and that part becomes larger the more money you make, but here comes my question, is money really everything that counts?

Seriously?

Are you looking forward to it?

Are you anxious about it?

Completely relaxed about it?

To tell you the truth, I usually feel pretty anxious about it because I can be sure that she finds something that could use some work, cleaning up, reorganization,…

I know I am not perfect, and that I have my shortcomings, but when it comes to my household, I know there is a lot to be improved. I am working on it, and I am making daily progress, and there are people who are aware of my progress, but it is still not the way I would like it to be, and I doubt that the place will ever look the way my mom would expect it to look like….

But the most important things is that I  feel comfortable with my home, and I think if I feel comfortable about it, I am sure it will come across differently too…

He being a computer specialist of course has ask for more. He wants a job that is challenging for him and also pays well, is somewhat in a reasonable distance from me…

Of course I am independent right now, and I could move anywhere, but I have a pretty big apartment, and realized that I even sorta like life here in Innsbruck, hehehe…

we are reading the book Women who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. Oh the club is only open for women! This is an important thing about it! It is not about excluding guys, but to talk about women’s issues. Sometimes it has to do with guys, sometimes with family, sometimes society and the list goes on for ever.

I am again together with the man who makes me happier than I ever thought another person could make me
Just thinking of him puts a smile on my face. And by now we both know that we want to be together. Unfortunately he is still looking for a job, and so far without success around here. The only job opening that seems promising right now is a position in Manhattan. This is something we both are not really looking forward to since that would mean for us a long distance relationship. I believe we could make it, but it is nothing that we really want… But if things are going that direction there is not much we can do about it. I want him to be happy with his job, and I want his skills to be of use, as this means the world to him. But at the same time I have to admit, that I want him here with me. I know he loves Austria and that he feels at home here, and I want him to have this home. I can also see the progress in his German, which is amazing. And living here I can see him close to perfect in German in a year or so, which is something that would also mean a lot to him, but a man needs something to live from….

1. I have been very busy with myself. I am kinda on the way to finding myself. This might sound cheesy, but it is a quite difficult task actually.
2. I have been going through ups and downs relationship wise.
3. I am turning my apartment into my HOME
4. and the list goes on forever, I’m afraid…

I am hoping though that I will be able to be here more frequently from now on, so check this place out every once in a while or use my RSS-feed.

• Afghanistan
• Antigua and Barbuda
• Bahamas
• Bahrain
• Bangladesh
• Barbados
• Belarus
• Belize
• Botswana
• Burundi
• Cameroon
• Chad
• China (People’s Republic)
• Comoros
• Congo (Democratic Republic)
• Cuba
• Dominica
• Egypt
• Equatorial Guinea
• Eritrea
• Ethiopia
• Gabon
• Ghana
• Guatemala
• Guinea
• Guyana
• India
• Indonesia
• Iran
• Iraq
• Jamaica
• Japan
• Jordan
• Kazakhstan
• Korea, North
• Korea, South
• Kuwait
• Kyrgyzstan
• Laos
• Lebanon
• Lesotho
• Libya
• Malawi
• Malaysia
• Mongolia
• Nigeria
• Oman
• Pakistan
• Palestinian Authority
• Qatar
• Rwanda
• St. Kitts and Nevis
• St. Lucia
• St. Vincent and the Grenadines
• Saudi Arabia
• Sierra Leone
• Singapore
• Somalia
• Sudan
• Swaziland
• Syria
• Taiwan
• Tajikistan
• Tanzania
• Thailand
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Uganda
• United Arab Emirates
• United States
• Uzbekistan
• Vietnam
• Yemen
• Zambia
• Zimbabwe

some of these countries don’t exercise it anymore, but I was wondering, which of those countries you would see as countries you would like to consider as countries that should be seen as examples to follow? Honestly I don’t see many in this list.

One of the reason to think about this subject is, that looking at statistics concerning violent crime, countries without Capital Punishment are not higher on the lists than those that still perform it. If murder is wrong, why should a government kill?Because the citicens don’t have to be afraid of the person who once committed a terrible crime? I don’t think that we should forget what someone did, but executing and forgetting are 2 extremes.
Also I don’t really see the punishment which (according to the name) it should be. Unless I am very scared of death (and I think in that case I would would not commit a crime terrible enough to be put on death row), death is not a punishment I believe. Much less so if the crime is done in context with a “religious task or duty”.

also writing about this topic: http://http://anti-strib.blogspot.com/2007/01/capital-punishment.html

The article I am writing about I found quite shocking, because it basically said that Austrians don’t want children anymore: here is my translation of it:

In Austrian men and women the wish to have children is lower than in any other country of the European Union. This is what an study by the Eurobarometer which has not been published yet says. 1.68 children is the average 25 to 39 year old Austrian women want. “People will always have children” did the former German chancellor Konrad Adenauer say. “I would not be so sure about that anymore” says Wolfgang Lutz, principal of the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Because analogically with the decreasing wish to have children the already very low birthrate (1.46 children) might sink even more drastically than expected. The (improbable) worst case scenario is that in the year 2100 80% of the Austrian population is older than 65.
According to Lutz the reason for the missing longing to have children has several reasons: The “low fertility trap hypothesis” suggests that the number of children that surround young people influence their wish to have children themselves. Since the birthrate in Austria has been dropping constantly since the 1970s a whole generation grew up with a less children surrounding them, than in other countries like Spain where the birthrate started dropping later.
Additionally having children has a bad connotation. Words like “Sondernotstandshilfe” add to the impression that “mothers are problem cases”. Additionally to that it seems that the young people today are used to a pretty high standard of living and see ahead of them a quite uncertain future. And their fear is that with children they would not be able to keep up that standard of living.
That the wish for children among Austrian men is only meets just 1.3 might also have to do with the fact that nowadays they are strongly involved in raising children. In the past children were mainly a status symbol, now they involve labor for men too.
To animate the Austrian population to have children again it will take long-term solutions. What they should look like he cannot say. But “we have to do something about the way this develops. Because if the wish to have children keeps dropping like this, political means of motivation will not be of much help.
France might work as a good role model, where very child friendly politics over the past 50 years and the birthrates and the wish to have children are constantly high. But: If we would adapt the french model to Austria, “it would take decades to have any effect.”

I know that the numbes are not al, but the thing that really made me think is that those numbers of course include alreaday existing families, and those people who want to have a large family (and I am sure there are such!).

My boyfriend and I are planing to make a trip to Salzburg this weekend. We are going to meet up with a good friend of his there.

My first job was to find a place to stay for the 2 of us which was already quite a challenge, but the second task, to find a concert for all 4 of us to go to proofed much harder. The problem is not that there are not enough Mozart concerts taking place on saturday, but the question is about what time and what are we willing to pay. I am quite flexible on that issue, but as it seems things are not going as smoothly as they should, Planing a trip for 4 people located in 3 places in the world is not the easiest task, lol…

On Wednesday was the funeral, where I had to because of my friend. At the funeral I realized, how important it was to go just for myself. It is quite hard to deal with the suicide of someone you know, especially if that person wasteh kind of person who would be everyone else's cheerleader…

But that was not all. On Saturday was my cousin's wedding. This one one of the very few weddings I have attented in a very long time, and I even had the chance to bring my boyfriend to the wedding, where he basically got to know all my relatives…

I never thought how intense such a week would be. Especially the contrast between the funeral and the wedding was kind of overwhelming…