There is so much weed being smoked on my floor right now that it is wafting in through my closed door and probably would cause me to fail a drug test tomorrow if I had one.

And suddenly, Christmas in Coventry

I realised after publishing this post that several photos need captions otherwise they would be so unbelievably weird, so here's the second go at this:

A bar/restaurant. No big deal here...

The Cathedral

Same Cathedral

The inside of a shopping centre

Moving gnomes, just a little creepy

Another church or something

Lady Godiva on her stallion or pony or other such beast

A very confusing and frightening performance of Winter Wonderland

A christmas robot... 

A Christmas/British... um... wo/man

A very blurry arrival of Santa on a Sleigh pulled by an Audi through a giant crowd of people... totally safe

This is what happens when you throw Christmas at cars

House parties

Last Friday I attended a house party. It was a typical house party with tons of interesting features that I will describe to you now because, well, frankly, it was very fascinating.

Upon entering the three story house filled with students the indistinguishable smell of weed and cigarettes wafted towards me. Thinking I could possibly get high off the smell alone I was concerned what would await me on the next floor as we know smoke travels up. It was indeed very smokey and very very illicit drugy.

I had a drink and went to the balcony with a friend where we met a lot of people that were either high off their minds, drunk, or very emotional. It could have been all three at once, I wasn't sure. We ended up talking to a guy who talked to us about family and moving away from home recently. With the history I ave of moving around it proved to be a very interesting and helpful conversation for him as both my friend and I had some experience in moving about and away from home. It was hilarious to find this conversation at a house party.

Later we went back inside to find another interesting experience taking place, people huffing laughing gas. That is the gas used to create whipped cream and someone bought a huge box full, filled it into balloons that they would later huff in and out. Fascinating and somewhat weird. Actually really weird. Very weird.. why would someone huff that stuff? Who came up with that? Hey! I bet I can make my brain whipped cream.... OK.

Eventually, after more talking to people and finding some nice people at this place we decided to go to a club. The house party was nice, relaxing, and other than the obnoxious amount of drugs not too crazy. At the club we danced a little and eventually ended the night by buying delicious french fries that never seemed to end and watching Robot Chicken, an awesome show.

And thus concludes the episode of me attending a British house party.

Unbelievable

Every once in a while there is an issue I learn about in such detail that I am horrified to be a part of the human race. I look around thinking: How could any person ever even think about doing something like this to another? How greedy does someone have to be to put their own well being and wealth over that of the life of a child? How horrible does a person have to be to exploit a child or a woman or a man to such an extent that it leaves them physically and psychologically scarred beyond recognition? How horrible are the people that do this? And how could there possibly be so many? Oh, there can be.

Human Trafficking in particular is a crime I just can't wrap my head around. With an annual profit of $32 Billion, this money is made by exploiting innocent men women and children so completely it baffles me. 29.9 million people are trafficked that can mean a variety of things:
-4.5 million people are being sexually exploited, sold to the highest perverted bidder that will do with them what they like, such as beat them, rape them, or whatever else pleases their sick selves.
-14.2 million people are in forced labour which means they are forced to work extreme hours, in extreme conditions, trapped from leaving or voicing out, and with very little or sometimes no pay.
-40% of forced labourers are men while many are children and women as well.
- About 10% of sexually exploited trafficking victims are men, which means the most highly exploited in the sex industry are women and children.
-Shockingly, 5.7 million children are being trafficked for all sorts of reasons, including forced labour, domestic servitude, forced marriage, and sexual exploitation. Others may be trafficked for benefit fraud, theft and crime exploitation, and organ harvesting.

Trafficking in persons is a fundamental violation of any person's human rights and is a major issue in every country, whether it is considered a source country (where victims are recruited), a transit country (a country they travel through), or a destination country (where they stay and work).

According to the Palermo protocol from 2000 anything that involves the following is trafficking and is a horrible thing to do to any human being:
the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of a child or person for the purpose of exploitation of work and money.
This means trafficking includes elements of force, deception, abduction, coersion, violence, abuse of power, vulnerability, and threats.

Victims are often forced into a country where they do not understand the language, they may not even know where they are. They may be locked into a home or a room and become completely isolated from teh outside world, making them very vulnerable. Victims may be exploited by as many as ten people a day for sexual favours which may pay badly but is even worse knowing that the money will go directly to the traffickers who are collecting a supposed debt owed to them. Many victims are debt bonded to the traffickers, meaning they will always have to pay them back for something (privilege of having been smuggled to a new country etc.). Victims may work 12 hours a day only to be forced to work somewhere else for several more hours with as little as one meal a day and perhaps two hours of sleep. If victims attempt to run away they may be beaten, killed, or forced to watch as another is killed because of them. Can you imagine living in such conditions?

How on earth could anyone do such a thing?!?! I just don't understand and I never ever will.

Lessons so far

There are so many things I have already learned so far even though all I have had is three lectures in research and three days of human trafficking lectures. Yet the substance of human trafficking is immense and fascinating. I'll cover that another time because after 9 hours of that today I feel a little too down to have to continue thinking about it. So, another thing I learned: People are really self centred!

I know people have a lot to tell. Especially when meeting new friends, it seems the stories never run out. But a trend I have been observing actively is that many people, here where I am in particular, are very full of information that only concerns themselves. For instance, when one person talks about hair and how they have trouble with getting their graduation hat on, suddenly everyone has a story.
While that is good and all, it seems there are always some people that must re-mention their stories and tell the point three four times in order to make sure that everyone knows they have the hardest time with hair. Same is with family. i don't think I talked to any of the people here except maybe two about my family other than vague details. Nor do they know about different segments of my life. However, i know all of theirs, their pet names, best friend's name, siblings location, parents occupation, past sexual history, hobbies and side hobbies and second hobbies and things they once tried. In fact, I know them so well at this point I think I could easily steal their identity.
Yes, that is friendship. You know the other person so well. But somehow nothing is reciprocal here but rather one sided. A topic comes up and BAM all the info is spewed forward so that I am left only asking questions because, frankly, at this point in time I am waiting for them to realize how little they know about me. Like a ninja, I'll hide AND STRIKE WHEN LEAST EXPECTED!

emails.......

In my haste to cut down internet usage I never thought I would have another email thrown at me. Through the university I, of course, cannot receive emails to my private account but must do everything through the account they set up for me. In addition, this account works through the same provider as my private email which means I can never check them both at once but must log out one to check the other.
 Then come my obligations to Facebook and Blogs. After that I still have to make sure that our online course guides have not been updated or information has been put in the forums. All of this together means I spend more time online than I want to.
I have tried cutting down, but seriously, who knew it would be so difficult? I hate coming home and having to respond to like ten emails all professionally and officially. It's going to be horrible when I have a job..... SO MUCH RESPONSIBILITY!!! ARGH!

Oh Saturday....

It would seem to be an interesting Saturday. But, in fact, the last three days looked pretty similar. Get up laaaaaate, eat brunch, go to gym for class, work on assignment for hours, watch The Office for hours. Then go to sleep, late. It's been like this for three days... so exciting...