Astrid’s Journal

Dear Diary,

There are some things I really don’t understand and one of these is as follows: why do people my own age, or one or two years older, abuse others (physically, sexually, whatever)? Last Tuesday in the Dutch village of Venlo a 22-year-old boy had been assaulted by two 18-year-old guys so heavily that he died in
hospital. And that’s not the first time and I’m afraid it won’t be the last too that someone has been assaulted for no reason (if there’s any reason to maltreat someone anyways) by teenagers. Maybe you’ve heard about that German 19-year-old guy coming to his school and shooting around so that 14
teachers and 3 students died. That’s so sickening horrible! And then thinking of that those people are only a few years older then myself! I even heard (but that’s
already a fww years ago) of a 14-year-old girl who abused little kids sexually. And we’re all against violence, aren’t we? If we don’t want that violence,
why is it still happening?

I may be stupid asking this, because you’ll probably say: not everyone appears to be against violence, some people are maybe still thinking that assaulting,
shooting and that things is the right way to solve problems.

If I were really idealistic I would ask: is there really no way to settle this? But, to be realistic, I begin more and more thinking no. We’re teaching everyone that violence is bad, that you solve problems by talking instead of on violence, but there are still - so it may prove - so many people who seem
to don’t understand this.

Looking at this last incident we can talk about the parents: the parents of the main offender didn’t watch on their child and even approved what he did at first. (Later they declared that they had been wrong saying that and they found it also wrong.) But what can we do? Take those parents to a
re-education course? I’m sceptic, and furthermore that teens then have already assaulted or even killed someone.

Another thing what people point out is the background of those wrongdoers. For example they said about this person that he was a Moroccan. But that’s something which I’ve written a long entry about a few days ago and I really dislike that, although it’s true that these parents referred on Allah to point out that
their son was doing good and it’s a fact that they were very un-integrated, but okay, first I think looking at a whole ethnic group because someone who’s in that group is criminal is really wrong, and second what do we do about autochtonous criminals? (Sorry for all that allochtonous related
entries, in
The Netherlands now with our current government integration of foreigners/allochtonous people is a hot topic.) Okay, you can simply say: teach EVERYONE from young age on about violence and that that’s wrong and how to settle problems in a right way. But aren’t we (current teens) already flooded
with all that education? So what do we do?

Okay, heavier punishment for young criminals and recidivists, as our government wants? But it’s a fact that the jail is a very good place to learn real criminal activities. Byt his I’m talking about for example thieves and that smaller criminals. I think long imprisonments aren’t the right way as well.

Comes up the question: if all those things aren’t the right solution, what IS the right solution? Sometimes I really think that there isn’t a solution for this problem. But I stay hopeful (however it may be very idealistic as I said) that there once will be a solution that works for those young criminals.

Dear Diary,

Today I went to the supermarket to buy some sweets, because I was bored and I wanted to eat something. I before really doubted going, because I knew that it would take at least an hour and I would be so frustrated if I couldn’t find the shop or the sweets or whatever. But anyway, I wouldn’t care, so I went there and found the supermarket. There were so many people and I think I came into the shop through the exit, so there were the cash desks and all that people waiting to pay and I couldn’t find the entry way, so I was struggling there between the cash desks and the exit with my white cane (for who doesn’t know: I’m blind) trying to find the entry way and all that willing people asking me: “Can I help you?” “Are you looking for the door?” “What are you looking for?” And I felt like it wasn’t good to tell that I was looking for the sweets - yes stupid, I don’t know why I felt this way -, so I said: “No, it’s all right,” and I walked on, struggling until I found the entrance. So finally, I was in the shop.
I walked on, along the fruit and that
things and tried to find the way to the sweets. Again everyone asking: “Can I help you?” and so on. I felt so… How do you explain this? As I said, needing help seems to be something wrong, so I didn’t want to say what I was looking for. And all that very nice people kept on asking and asking and I nearly felt like screaming: “Go away you all sickening helpful people who only want to increase your self esteem!” I of course don’t think of really saying such bad things, but I felt so like everyone was sooo kind only to let the other people show: look, I’m helping that poor little blind girl over there! I felt so frustrated by all that very nice people, and I knew that they didn’t mean to blow up there self esteem or something like that but only meant to help me, but in a way I wasn’t allowed to need that people, because I had to be perfectly independent or whatever. And it felt so very frustrating to have all that nice people around and to be not allowed to need them. In that way that willing people are so annoying, while sometimes I’m really happy when someone asks me if he can help me, because I won’t ask him myself. So I found the sweets which I wanted and went to the cash desk to pay. So when I had paid I went out of the shop and was scared again: the way back home is as difficult to find as the way to or in the shop. The way back home is even more difficult, don’t know why but that doesn’t matter. So at the exit of the shop I turned right and walked to what I thought to be the exit of the shopping centre. But I, again, walked wrong and found another tunnel (the exit is in a tunnel), but I didn’t know that it was the wrong tunnel, so I walked through it and then didn’t hear cars driving, while the exit of the shopping centre is near a big road which you have to cross (aslo not nice, crossing that road, but anyway). SAo I went back and nearly fall over bike stand. And again someone asked me: “Can I help you?” Oh, I know that it’s rude, but sometimes that’s sooo annoying. I said: “Ni, it’s all right,” and walked on. Finally I found the exit of the shopping centre and walked home. That all went good, but another couple of people asking me. This time I didn’t need their help, so that wasn’t that annoying. Strange, yes, I know, it’s all so complicated. So I arrived home and I noticed that buying the sweets
had taken an hour. Hm, that’s not bad.

Once also worried people called the police because I was wandering around. Oh, I felt so ashamed, because I didn’t want to be helped by that people and now they’d called the police. But another time the police was called when I didn’t really wander, but only didn’t walk in a normal way I
suppose. Then I felt only ashamed because a blind girl isn’t a stupid or something like that, but that wasn’t that frustrating. Sometimes all that with asking people to help me / people asking me if they can help and that things is sooo complicated: I don’t ask them, while I need their help, they
ask me if I need them when I don’t need them and all that things.

And because blindness, as I pointed out once, seems to be something you need to make good, needing other people’s help seems to be forbidden, while all that people are so willing to help me. Hm, what a complicated entry’s this. Don’t think any of you will undnerstand.

p.s. - and now you know that a blind person isn’t perfectly finding the way and that things, but I think I’m worse at that than most blind people.

Dear Diary,

In a way someone whom I read an article of was right saying that Bush’s a terrorist. I don’t wanna use that big words, but I completely condemn that war against Iraq’s CITIZENS. I mean, I really dislike the 9/11 terrorist attacks and it’s really sad for all that people who had been killed and
all that many more people who have lost someone in the WTC, but I think it’s extremely wicked to fight against a country where maybe terrorists are, because that country
(Iraq, Afghanistan, whatever) hasn’t done bad things against the US. They were the people who catched the airplanes and flew with them into the WTC and Osama Bin Laden who made them do this who were (or some are still) terrorists, but not a certain country where terrorists may live is completely
full of terrorists. Maybe in the US are terrorists planning to attack something or whatever, you never know, but we don’t attack the US for housing terrorists, do we???

Furthermore Hussein is said to have nucleair weapons. Okay, it’s good that there are inspectors to look for them, because nucleair, biological and chemical weapons can do very much wicked things. But everyone knows that the US has nucleair weapons too. And we don’t inspect the US, do we?
Recently I read an article written by a Dutch organisation against the “new war”, as it called that, and it promoted to inspect not only Iraq but also other countries to
manage weapons in common. And that’s what we should do: not only look at Iraq, but at all countries which may have nucleair, biological or chemical weapons to manage them.

Another fact is that the US wanted to be sure that there aren’t Americans having to come to the international punishment centre (or how to call that in English) in Den Haag, because Bush wan’s to protect his own soldiers. That’s another very inconsistent thing. Why letting for example
Yugoslavian people go there and not Americans? I find this whole war against terrorism and all that things very inconsistent.

Sometimes it seems to me like Bush thinks that he’s sooo important to decide this himself and the whole world follows him because his country has been attacked by that wicked terrorists. And yes, they’re wicked, that terrorists, but not all the countries which Bush disagrees with are wicked.

MOreover, by attacking Iraq you won’t catch Hussein, but you only punish Iraq’s citizens. Has Hussein been killed in the Gulf War in 1991? No! But how many citizens have been killed in that war? And how many citizens have been suffering because of that economical punishment of Iraq after the
Gulf War? Do we want to punish the terrorists and their customers, or do we want to take revenge for that attacks? If I follow Bush’ plans I think the last, but that’s
something I really don’t understand and I hope that the Dutch government won’t take part in this revenge in anyway. (Oh, it has unfortunately already taken part in it, namely in the Afghanistan war, but hopefully it won’t take part in the Iraq war, I mean.)

P.S. - I fully respect people who disagree with me, this is only my personal view.

Note: I wrote this entry for The Diary Project under the name ~*Astrid*~.

Dear Diary,

Searching for entries containing the word “Netherlands” to find other Dutch writers on this site, I found an entry written on October 16th, titled “Message from me!” in the Miscellaneous ramblings section, written by me (I called myself Princess), which I didn’t know of that it was posted and
which I had tried to ignore, because Princess (so I) had mentioned being blind. That’s (hopefully you agree with that) not something to be ashamed of, is it? Well, why didn’t I want to know about this entry? It’s because I don’t wanna be treated or seen differently from you all “normal” diarists.

Yes, I had planned to write an entry about my blindness once, but I didn’t like to yet, because I wanted To talk about “normal” things like school, my interests and politics and I expected to be seen as only blind after I told you. Saying this seemed to me like a confession, because I wasn’t
the same as you. Moreover, I had talked about my homosexuality yesterday, which I fully accept at the moment, but I was afraid that you wouldn’t “want” me to be that different: blind and a lesbian, can that come together? Yes OK, it’s possible, but…

Let me explain, I fully accept not seeing for example an airplane flying in the sky, while I was able to see that when I was eight (then I was pRtially sighted, my sight became worse and worse and now I I’m blind), but being “different” isn’t that easy. It’s like I’m “less” than you, because I
can’t see, while I wanna be treated like everyone else.

I have namely, as you can read in my other entries, “normal” interests like writing, I enjoy music and I am following political news very interested.
In that one entry I wrote about my interests and only put down the bracketed words “I’m blind” to explain why I liked disability related sites and immediately
in the comments everyone discussed how I could read and write entries for this site while I was blind. Immediately after I had submitted this entry I expected
so, so I completely ignored the entry and was happy to call myself “Princess” in it, so that I could keep on writing entries where I was called “~*Astrid*~”
without worrying about that couple of words. I wrote new entries about my interests, my opinions and the fallen government and planned to confess you my
“difference” after you had known me as a completely normal teenager. When I wrote about my homosexuality I didn’t worry about anything, because I fully
accept this and know that falling in love with girls or with boys doesn’t make a certain difference, but seeing or not seeing DOES, namely: you are supposed
to are, as the word sais, disabled, so you can do less things. And I DON’T WANNA BE DIFFERENT!!! I live with my sighted parents and sister in a normal house in the Netherlands, I go to a normal school (exact the same as my sighted sister) but only I have a (normal) computer with a screen reader
(which translates the screen text to braille), I go shopping, I am in a choir with all sighted members, I recently became a member of my favorite political party
and all that things, only I have some tools like a white cane and sometimes I need some more help than the sighted, but I’m NOT a poor little girl who
can’t do anything and who has to be cared for in institutes all her life. After I have graduated high school I hope to go to university like my sighted
acquaintances and study Dutch, so that I can become a teacher or a writer. Blindness isn’t my whole identity.

Furthermore I myself sometimes have difficulty seeing me as a normal person and blindness sometimes seems to completely define me, because… Hard to explain,
but a disability seems to be something you need to compensate for on being perfect in all other ways, so I wanna be “normal” so that I am allowed to have
some bad sides. That’s not a point on the Internet, because you can’t see me how good or bad I am, but that’s also why I, in a place where nobody can see me with my white cane or sees that I am not “normal”, wanna act as normal as possible, so that I’m not labelled. Clear explaination? Don’t think so, I
don’t understand these last sentences myself. But however, I wanted to be like every other diarist and I supposed you to see me as only disabled if I confessed you. And reading your comments on “Message from me!” only a couple of bracketed words is enough to let you only discuss that. Sorry, I
don’t mean to blame you for this (everyone whom I first meet and who knows that I’m blind can’t stop asking questions about that) and I don’t want to upset you probably only interested readers. But I feel so different by that and as I now say for the umpteenth time, I don’t wanna be different,
because blindness is not the only thing I am.

p.s. - don’t worry, in one of my next entries I will explain how I can read and write and that things (I think there isn’t enough space to use a comment on “Message from me!”), but I wanted you to know this.

Dear Diary,

Sometimes I’m really wondering why people don’t respect homo, lesbian or bisexual people or are afraid of them. In May 2001 a imam from Rotterdam (The Netherlands) said that homosexuality was a disease which could spread all around. It was about one month after the law was changed so that homos could marry as well, one year after I discovered that I was a lesbian and three days after I, totally disliking my “different choice”, had decided to be hetero, while you CAN’T choose this. At that time I had only told my sister that I was a lesbian. She said that I was too young to know that, because I was nearly 14 when I discovered my sexuality and nearly 15 when I told her and she had heard that most people are 17 or 18 when they discover this. In the summer of 2001 I told some classmates that I could fall in love with girls instead of with boys. That was at a class party where I had showed off a not about my lover who was a first-form girl, which I didn’t tell. That classmates accepted my sexuality, but I
didn’t yet. That summer holiday I felt very confused about this: only four people accepted me who I was and one person, who was so important to me (my younger sis) didn’t. But in July she said she was crazy not accepting it and she did. On September 1st, 2001 I woke up and wanted to tell my Mum, so that afternoon, when myy Dad was going to the supermarket, I said: “Mum?” She looked up from her newspaper and asked: “What?” “I believe I’m a lesbian,” I said. She said that she already thought so, because when they were discussing the subject, I reacted sometimes very frustrated. She asked me if she could tell my Dad. I was afraid he wouldn’t accept it, but fortunately he did.

When I, a few weeks later, fell in love with a classmate, who wasn’t in love with me by the way, I could talk to my parents about this.

I didn’t tell many other people, by which I mean that I didn’t come out, but when we discuss the subject I am not ashamed to say it anymore. I now think: What difference does it make? Therefore I don’t understand why people don’t accept homos and lesbians, because what do they wrong? If I fell
in love with someone, I won’t try to make her mine immediately or something like that. You don’t have to be afraid of homosexual girls or boys, because they’re NOT dirty or anything like that!

p.s. - if you readers don’t accept my sexuality, sorry, you’re quite stupid and have to learn to be more open-minded.

Dear Diary,

On MTV, I heard this evening on the news, a Dutch rapper has got a song which is declared “super clip”. It’s a allochtonous (Moroccan) rapper who sang about the way Dutch people treat Moroccans: as if they are all criminals and aren’t integrated and all that things. The word “kut” is a vulgar Dutch word which a politician in Amsterdam (Dutch main city) used in the word “kut-Marokkanen” to point this out. He didn’t know that he was filmed, so whole the country could hear him saying this.

These days most politicians in the Netherlands are thinking very bad about allochtonous people (especially Moroccans), because some Moroccan teens are criminal and they are immediately pointed out as “criminal MOROCCANS” instead of “criminal PEOPLE”. Why are we immediately saying about
criminals which group they are in and mostly this is “allochtonous”. I think this is some sort of discrimination. Admittedly, there was for example a group of allochtonous people who went on the streets on 9/11 to celebrate the WTC terrorist attack, but not ALL allochtonous people are celebrating terrorist attacks, destroying bus shelters
or robbing people!

And we are not saying that a certain criminal is a Dutch person, are we? There are shops where the owners hang plates: “max. 1 asylum seeker a time”, because they are afraid that those asylum seekers rob their shops. Why only labelling “different” people. Only about Volkert van der G., who is
thought to be the killer of the politician Pim Fortuyn, is said that he was a 32-years-old, white ENVIRONMENT ACTIVIST, so that all environment activist are labelled.

But it are mostly the asylum seekers/allochtonous people who are labelled. And you don’t hear about the good Moroccans who want to stop the crime by allochtonous people. Oooh, that Moroccans are so bad. Stop discriminating, POLITICIANS! Then hopefully the citizens are stopping discriminating
too.

Dear Diary,

Now it’s a boring Saturday evening and I don’t know what to do, so I’ll tell you something about my interests.

My first hobby is writing: I love to write stories, poems (but I’m not really good at writing poetry), diary entries and non-fiction articles. I also like to read stories, poems and articles by other teens. Fortunately on the Internet there are a lot of sites where teens can write and read
stories, poems and articles.

My second hobby is reading books. My favorite writer is the Dutch writer of books for teens Caja Cazemier. She mostly write about 15/16-year-old girls. But I also like some literature, but I have a prjudice against that: it seems to be written very difficult, but the books that I’ve read
weren’t difficult. But now we have to read a book written in middle ages, I have heard for Dutch. Oh no, I really don’t like that.

My next hobby is surfing the Internet, but because that’s very expensive I’m now only allowed to suf the web after eight o’clock. I like, as I said, to visit writing sites and diary sites like this and I also like some teen E-zines, especially when they are partially designed by teens.

Also a big interest are politics. I like to follow the political news and what plans the parties have and I especially attend the news now that the Dutch government has fallen and they have to think of what subjects must be declared controversial and won’t be managed until the elections in January have passed. Because there are some plans of our cabinet, which has resigned, which I really disagree with and which I hope of that they will be declared controversial. And I’m also attending the political polls now that the elections are coming soon and my favorite party is said to get 15 seats in the Dutch lower house (of 150). I also love to discuss political events with my parents and sister or with other family members or classmates. It’s really cool to hear about someone’s opinion and sd

scuss with them.

I also like music. I like to listen to music: pop music, latin-American music, Russian folk songs and the critical (socialistic) songs which critical people sang in the 70’s.

Oh, now I hear my sister coming home (she went to my uncle), so I’ll go downstairs, but this was my collection of interests.

I AM HAPPY!!!
The Dutch government has fallen! We had a government which I really disagreed with. It had (in my opinion) really bad plans. For example one of the ministers wanted to send allochtonous criminals with a Dutch passport to their background country. It also disadvantaged the poor and it punished the partially disabled workless people financially, because it thought that 1 million disabled WERE a problem, while they HAVE a problem! Hopefully our socialist party will get many seats in the Dutch lower house after the elections this January (it has 9 of 150 now). In a poll a few weeks ago it was said to ge

t
14!

I think it wasn’t good that the LPF (List Pim Fortuyn) participated in the Government, while it’s a very new party and the leader had been killed on May 6th (nine days before the elections). That’s regretably of course: whether you agree with his ideas or not, that’s not a reason to kill someone!!! But he had found some people for his list (when he was sent away by another party) who he didn’t even know, so when he had been killed it became a big mess in his party. But my Dad says that, if he had been still alive, the same would have happened, because the members of the LPF are fighting all the time.

But it was also a problem that the LPF had no history, no leader as I said, and no general ideology: it was Pim Fortuyn’s collection of ideas and his critique on our previous government which he bound the Dutch people with to his party. We’re in an economically bad (but what’s bad???) time, so when someone screams his ideas out and points out how bad things go in our country, many people think he’s good. And in a way Pim Fortuyn was good: I dislike his ideas, but he had charisma and he made politics interesting, but his party was a collection of very different people who thought to agree with Pim’s ideas and after his killing went on “along Pim’s lines”. That had to went wrong! Maybe it would have been better if the LPF was in
the opposition.

Now maybe the Dutch liberals (something like the Republicans in the USA) and christian party can go on governing after the elections. Also in my opinion not a really nice idea, but I think the biggest part of the Dutch population chooses one of these parties. Also a good posibility, which I
like more is a social-democratic party together with the christians.

Now this is the end of my opinion about the Dutch government. Keep in mind that it is only my personal view and I don’t want to upset anyone with it.

Dear Diary,
I’m bored, so I write an entry for this Diary. It’s really a good site! Do you know something to do for me??? OK, I could perhaps learn for my tests, but tomorrow the only test I have is Dutch, which is a writing test which you don’t have to learn much for and I don’t wanna learn for my classical culture and science/nature tests on Thursday. (The subjects have Dutch names which I can’t translate.) This test week means very much learning work, because I’m in fourth form (of six). Last year I didn’t start learning my tests until one day before seven o’clock, but now I have to start three/four/five days before and mostly already at four o’clock. IT’S NOT FAIR!!! I’m not worried, because in first and second form I got all eights and nines or even tens. (Marks go from 1 - 10, 5,5 is not bad and not good.) I guess I can get sixes or sevens at almost every subject; math is a bit difficult. So I’m really not scared to get low marks.

Today we had no tests, but we went on a school trip to a farm with our class and another fourth form class. The info we got was quite interesting, but the wheather wasn’t that good: cold and wet, not nice to go to a farm.

Now it’s 1:15 PM, so my sister, who had to go to school until 12:40, will have arrived.

p.s. - while I’m previewing my entry, it seems like a little girl has written it. Oh, how bad is my English!