His majesty - Ajvar

Everybody who has met a Macedonian in person has for sure heard about her majesty The Rakija and his majesty The Ajvar. I’ll talk about the healing abilities of rakija in some other blog post. This post is all about ajvar, baby! The king of the Macedonian cuisine and Macedonian specialties.

What’s so special about ajvar? It’s not a main dish because you don’t have ajvar for lunch, and it’s not a side dish because you never have just a bit of ajvar. There is a nationwide consensus in Macedonia that it is the most delicious recipe from the traditional Macedonian cuisine. I haven’t met a foreigner who has been introduced to his majesty the ajvar and didn’t like it. But it’s not just the taste of ajvar. It’s the whole preparation ceremony that makes it special.

Ajvar is usually prepared during weekends. Some people are a bit masochistic and try to finish the whole thing in one day, some take it more slowly, decide to enjoy the process of making ajvar and reserve the whole weekend for it. It all starts with buying the paprika. No idea how the type of paprika is called, but they have to be red and big. You can either buy a whole sack, and then (in most cases) get screwed with some bad paprika in the middle of the sack, which either have to be thrown away, or cut in half, or buy them in a way in which you choose each paprika manually. In the latter case you pay a bit more, but considering the fact that in the first case you through away 1/4 of the bought quantity, the price is in both cases the same. Bought quantities vary from 30kg – 150 kg. Yeah! 150 kg paprika! My family is not so masochistic and buys usually 50 kg paprika. The ajvar then usually holds out for a month or so, and the rest of the winter season we buy ajvar from the supermarket and talk about how much better home made ajvar is.

Ajvar is made on the open, either in a yard, or at the country side. Under no circumstances in front of your building since it is forbidden by law. (you people from the rest of the world reading this might think it’s ridiculous, but till a couple of years ago people, who don’t have yards or country side houses, used to do this) Although to some people it seems as a quite provincial habit typical for peasants that recently moved to the big city, there is something cute and charming about this public gathering. If we Macedonians were a bit more conscious and didn’t leave garbage behind, it could become a national trademark and a tourist attraction. But our incompetence to monetize national heritage is a different subject.

As I said, Ajvar is made in the open. Usually all members of the family are engaged (not always on their free will) to help. The men are responsible for baking the paprika, women for peeling. Paprika are baked on a kind of a grill, called kjumbe. It’s never electrical. Don’t know why. I guess we like to stick to the old-fashion way of getting things done sometimes. The paprika is being washed, and the handles and seeds are being removed from the paprika before even lighting the grill. As usually men are responsible for the grilling part, it is almost always accompanied by a glass or two of rakija, with a small amount of salad. If your neighbors see you are making ajvar, they come over for a rakija or two as well, sitting next to the grill with the man in charge of the grilling, discussing the minuses of lasts year ajvar and what both have done to make it better this year. The conversation ends with promises on both sides that once the ajvar is done, there’s gonna be a jar exchange, in order to find out whose ajvar is better.

Baking the paprika (photo taken from here)

The baked paprika are put and left in a big closed pot for some time. Now comes the hardest part of making ajvar – peeling the paprika, for which usually the women are in charge. Chairs are being put in a circle-like shape somewhere in the yard, and the pot together with a big plastic bag (for the garbage) is put in the middle. It usually starts quite cheerful, since everybody is imagining the ajvar, that is going to be eaten after that. Women discuss if this year the paprika is being pealed easier than last year, and in case they are not, they always make plans how they go to the seller and tell him to his face that he ripped them off and sold them low quality paprika. They never do. As time passes, and your back starts hurting more and more, you always end up asking yourself if it is really worth all the effort. You always know it is, but it is typical Macedonian mentality to complain about how hard things, nobody forced you to do, are.

After the paprika is being baked, the next in line is the eggplant. Same procedure as the paprika – bake, leave in a close pot for some time, peal.

The pealed paprika is cut in half, cleaned from some leftover seeds and left for a while to drain. Once the water is out, they are being put in one of those minced meat machines. Not an automatic one. A manual one. Yes, you manually provide the paprika as input with the one hand and manually rotate a handle with the other one. As I said, we like to do some things old fashion style. It’s not that there are no automatic machines available in Macedonia, or you can’t afford one. That’s just the way it’s done. The output is a reddish paste that smells fabulous and doesn’t look attractive at all.

The minced paprika together with the minced eggplant and some oil are put in a huge (I mean really huge) pot, and the grill is back in the game. Hence the size of the pot, the amount of paste and the danger of the paste being burned, it has to be stirred ALL THE TIME. This is usually the second time you start loudly expressing dissatisfaction that instead of enjoying your autumn weekend, you’re gonna have to deal with MUSKELKATER  the next couple of days. The others then start reminding you that it is soon going to be over and you have to hold out just a bit longer. A shot of rakija or two usually achieves this.

Here’s how the stirring looks like (Btw, this is a commercial for a sunflower oil brand. One of Macedonia's most epic commercials ever made.)

Half an hour to an hour of constant stirring and the ajvar is ready! Kids usually wait in front of the pot with a spoon, a peace of cheese and a peace of bread for a permission to do the primary tasting of the ajvar directly from the pot, as the person in charge of the stirring usually chases them away. Now the ajvar has to be poured into jars and that’s it. You never buy jars. Never. You collect them all year long from mayonnaise, olives, marmalade or whatever it is that is sold in jars. Before pouring the ajvar into the jars, they have to be sterilized. First washed, and after which they are being put in the stove at 50 degrees for about an hour or so.

Once all jars are full, the remains are being wiped out of the pot with small peaces of bread. Kids express their huge satisfaction, although their tongues are burned, and they demand that they have ajvar for dinner. You then come home, have a couple of slices of bread with ajvar, take a short shower and go directly to bed. And then you sleep like you have been sleepless for a week. The next couple of days your back hurts like hell, but that’s is completely irrelevant, cause your kitchen is full of jars filled with homemade ajvar.

If you still haven’t tried ajvar, I suggest you go to the supermarket and buy yourself a jar. Homemade ajvar cannot be compared to the one produced in factories, but they get better and better every year! Automatic production of ajvar is pretty new in Macedonia, a couple of years ago people didn’t even want to hear about buying ajvar from the supermarket, so some time needs to pass till the factories will have mastered this. But they are still pretty good. As for trying homemade one and witnessing “the making of ajvar” , visit Macedonia in September! The whole country has a charming smell of baked paprika. It’s simply beautiful.

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Organic my ass! [#bad11]

If there’s one thing that amazes me and pisses me off at the same time it’s how people get influenced by mass propaganda. It’s not something new, it’s been repeating itself throughout history because man has learned that it works! It worked when they tried to convince us that tap water is no good, and it works now when they are trying to sell us organic food. It’s fantastic how after a number of repetitions of a lie, people first start questioning their own positions, then they start believing you with a little dose of doubt, and at the end they have a completely opposite opinion from their original one. After a while even the liars start believing their own lies.

Dear blinded people with a bit of extra cash in your wallet, let me tell you one thing: Organic my ass! Fruits and vegetables are seasonal food. They only grow in a specific time of the year. And they have a specific geometrical shape, which is almost NEVER  perfect. So:

• If you buy a strawberry with the size of a tomato in February – it’s not organic.
• If you buy an apple with a perfect round shape in March – it’s not organic.
• If you buy tomatoes in the middle of winter – they’re not organic.
• If you buy 1kg cherries, and not a single cherry has a worm inside – they’re not organic.
• If you buy seedless grapes, it’s genetically modified fruit. And that is not organic. Besides, the seeds contain huge amount of antioxidants. Why would you want to buy seedless grapes? Is it that big of a deal to swallow the seeds? Are we getting so comfortable in our couches that we don't even want to get bothered by seeds?  
• If you buy some organic soda… what’s organic about soda anyway? I don’t even…
• If you buy an organic soap, unless it’s made of pig fat, it’s not organic.
• If you buy organic meat in a supermarket, believe me it’s not organic. Specially if it’s frozen meat.
• If you buy organic milk, unless it’s freshly squeezed from a cow, it’s not organic.
• If you buy organic tobacco… I mean really? What’s the point?
• If you buy a can of organic food, it’s not organic. Cans go with food additives, and food additives are just not organic.

And, this goes for all organic products that can be found in those huge supermarket chains: If it’s mass production, it not organic. Full stop. It just isn’t possible.
My favorite organic product of all times is (which I’ve seen with my own eyes): Nail polish remover without acetone with organic orange oil. This is top of the top. I mean, who buys something like this? Who pays a couple of extra bucks for a nail polish remover just because it has organic orange oil?

Consumerism is a terrible thing. And people just don’t realize that in order to keep the level of consumerism, corporations create demands. And organic food is just one more of those created demands. The sooner you get it, the better for you: The regular tomatoes and the shiny ones are the same crap, just being sold to us in a different package with different labels and a different price. They’re both genetically modified and fertilizers have been applied on both of them.

If you really want to eat healthy, start by eating seasonal food. Understand that lettuce grows in spring, tomatoes in summer, grapes in autumn, and in winter you just have to buy imported stuff from warmer areas, and again, those things are not organic since they’re massively produced for export. Stop eating crap like low fat butter. It’s butter, it’s supposed to be fat.  Stop eating low fat cheese. If it’s low fat it just tastes like soap. Stop eating snacks. Especially low fat snacks. Start drinking wine at lunch. France has the lowest percentage of cardiovascular diseases. And it’s not because they eat low fat food, it’s because they drink wine with the non low fat food they’re eating. Stop buying toast bread that can hold out in your kitchen drawer for a week. Buy bread in local bakeries, and if the bread you buy today is still good tomorrow, change your bakery. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. And last but not least: Unless it’s forbidden by your official local authorities, start drinking tab water. You’ll be just fine.

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That's Macedonia, bitch!!!

When I meet people from a different country, and I don't know anything about that country, I usually get some preliminary information about that country, its people, its traditions, food etc. I try to stay politically correct by not insulting them on subjects like political disputes, historical disputes, tradition disputes etc. And if I somehow manage to insult someone, it's some small group of individuals.

Today Pau Gasol managed to insult me and the whole macedonian nation.

Dear Pau Gasol, it's probably not you who is administrating your FB fan page, but whoever is behind it is speaking in your name, so I can still refer this post directly to you. Don't you FYROM me Gasol, DON'T! SAY MACEDONIA!!!

I sincerely hope this information will somehow get to you and you will realize what you and the person in charge of your FB account have done and have the decency to apologize. It's OK to make a mistake, it's not OK not apologizing for it.

For one thing, you are Catalan, you should know better...

P.S. I send all my love and positive energy to the Macedonian basketball team in Lithuania! It's been a while since I have been walking on the streets with a stupid smile on my face for no reason. Nobody was even dreaming that we would be in the semifinals at the Eurobasket 2011. I hope these moments are going to inspire more kids to start doing sports at an early age so the tradition can go on and we will not remain a one time sensation with its 5 minutes of glory.

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Sport's a bitch sometimes

Have you ever felt like you've won a match, although you've actually lost it? Such matches are bad for your health.



Macedonia basketball team, I salute you. You make me feel prouder than ever.

Talkin’ bout security

Yes, it’s another post dedicated to Annonymous. It’s another #FFF (Fuck FBI Friday) and today they released over 1GB of private emails and documents belonging to Vanguard Defense Industries(VDI), a defense contractor that sells arms to law enforcement, military, and private corporations. As they say, the emails belong to Senior Vice President of VDI Richard T. Garcia, who has previously worked as assistant Director to the Los Angeles FBI office as well as the Global Security Manager for Shell Oil Corporation. Read all about the release here. (it’s not really eye friendly, I know. Guys, red font on a black background. Really!?)

I found the following part of the release very interesting: “Have fun with the data of Mr. Garcia, former Assistant Director to the L.A. FBI office who now sells his cybersecurity "skills" to the Military and Government for brazen amounts of money.”

Why “skills”, you must be wondering. While the release was being uploaded, they published the webmail link too, and Mr. Garcia’s username and password, so you can browse through his email by yourself. After almost 3 days of public exposure, the guy found out his email was hacked and changed his password.

(photo taken from here)

Wonder what his old password was? Take a deep breath: Gloria88. Without even knowing a single thing about this guy, I’m betting on it that Gloria is his daughter’s name, and 1988 is the year she is born. I mean… COME ON!!! You don’t need to be a hacker to hack that! You don’t even need any computer skills. All you need is a computer, an internet connection and a list of close family members names. A brute force attack with no more than 20 attempts will do the job.

Yes, they do illegal stuff. Yes they hack. Yes they get into people’s computers and publish private stuff to the whole world. Yes it’s prohibited by law. But they are trying to prove a point. I quote: “#FFF shows once more that federal contractors don't even care about the "security" they are selling. They just care for the $$$.”

I don’t even want to imagine how Macedonian security agents demonstrate their security “skills”.  Half of them have their wife’s names as their computer password for sure. No capital letter, no birth year attached to it. Just first name. Raw.

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Behind the curtains

10 years ago, when 9/11 happened, everybody was shocked at first, but after a while people started commenting: Well, they financed them, trained them, supplied them with modern artillery, and now it’s all coming back to them. I thought that’s a public secret, something everybody knows, but there’s no evidence of it, until yesterday when I saw the movie Charlie Willson’s war.

(photo taken from here)

Apparently winning over the soviet invasion in Afghanistan was crucial to winning the cold war for the USA. So they had to supply them with weapons which could shoot down Russian helicopters and jets. But they couldn’t supply them with weapons produced in America, because that would mean that the USA is directly interfering with the conflict, hence the conflict would no longer be between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan, but between the Soviet Union and USA. And nobody wanted to initiate a conflict like that at that time, because that would be the equivalent of a third world war. So, non US weapons had to be imported in Afghanistan. Solution?

This is brilliant. They called it Operation Cyclone. Apparently Israel (!) sold Egypt and Pakistan weapons, which were after that given to the mujahidin's in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. This was done of course with the financial help of the Americans. Not to mention that after that people were trained how to use those weapons.

Can you imagine that? Israel, the country that is not even recognized as a state (!!!) by Afghanistan and Pakistan and doesn’t have any diplomatic relations with them, sold weapons to Pakistan so that they could give them to Afghanistan to beat the Soviets. If you don’t believe me, read about it here, you will be as surprised as I was.

And people still believe in bullshit like religious wars? People still go to war, because their governments tell them to? Israel is still fighting half of the Arab world when only 30 years ago it was selling them weapons? Mujahidin's are still going to holy wars with Israel and America, when it was they who sold them the weapons? Americans still believe that they are fighting for freedom in Afghanistan, when it is they who created this mess in the first place? Give me a break! This information is so public (although I never new about these facts, but it’s never too late to learn) and yet, people are still being so brainwashed, that they blow themselves up in the name of God or go and occupy other people’s countries in the name of freedom.

There have always been three reasons to begin a war throughout of history: Territory, resources and women. And in all three of them, religion has been used as a tool to keep the warriors motivated and angry. How is it that it’s the 21st century where information in the form of pure facts is served to us on a plate, and we are still so clueless? 

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Something is wrong with the society

4 days in a row, UK is burning. Rioters are trashing places, setting buildings on fire, robbing people, literally destroying their society. And while England has a tradition with hooligans and riots, it took them 4 days to give a green light to the police to use water cannons. People that have been guests in talk shows and on the news avoided answering the question: Do you think the police is tough enough with the rioters and should it get tougher. As if they were scared to say: No they are not tough enough, they should beat the shit out of everyone they catch! I mean, in times like these it’s not the right moment to measure the level of roughness of the police. Get as rough as you can, for Gods sake, your country is on fire!!!

(photo taken from here)

But in the end, is it really important if they are tough enough or not? This is eventually going to end, the real question is what’s going to be done after that. And it doesn’t concern only England. It concerns all of us! A month ago Norway produced one of the most terrible mass murderers of the decade, maybe even the century. Not a lost fanatic, it’s a guy led by ideals, which he wrote down on a 1500 pages long manifesto. An awfully peaceful country like Norway, a country where the government makes sure you take a dental examination every 6 months (no I’m not making this up!), produces such a fanatic. Imagine what kind of fanatics are produced in other countries where the government doesn’t have time to take care of the dental hygiene of its population, because there are other things to be taken care of, say…. poverty for an example!

Riot is the language of the unheard said Martin Luther King, and obviously there are a lot of unheard people around the world that have something to say. How come nobody listens to them? There are always people around me who tell me that they either love my brilliant idea or that I’m talking complete nonsense. But there’s always somebody who listens to me! Imagine what it’s like asking a brick wall what it thinks of your painting; or asking a brick wall to borrow you some money; or telling a brick wall that it’s an asshole; or crying at a brick wall because your stupid boyfriend cheated on you; or sharing your happiness with a brick wall over a good grade at school... And that ONLY because you have NO ONE else to turn to! I suppose this is the outcome.

I feel so sorry for these young people. The thing is that, even if they don’t want to participate in the looting, I am sure they are not just encouraged, but also forced by their gang buddies to do it. And if they don’t, they will be left out even from their hoodie society, marked for life with a scarlet letter: He’s a pussy! So now he doesn’t fit into our “normal” society, and doesn’t fit into the “bad” society either. Where does that leave him? 

Something is terribly wrong… Listen to this video. If you don’t get the message listen to it again and again until it starts to make you think.

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Anonymous strikes again

Well, as they announced, despite the fact that the president of the Missouri Sheriff's Association said the hackers have more information then they claim, Anonymous delivered today over 10GB of private police information. In their own style, they called this day ShootSheriffSaturday #SSS. You can read the whole announcement by Anonymous here.

What makes this release interesting is that they published emails of police officers who had inappropriate pictures of female teenagers, naming the file PedoSheriff. Check it out here. Besides the stolen emails, passwords, social security numbers etc., they stole a couple of credit card information too, and made an involuntary donations, like this one here.

For your convenience, Anonymous made a little search engine too. Yes, you can search though the stolen emails from the police officers. Anonymous suggests you search for: PayPal, Facebook, vpn, password, confidential. On one hand, I really wouldn’t want my email to be hacked and the whole world to be able to check out my inbox, but on the other hand, especially as a police officer, I would never connect my work email with my Facebook account.

While there is a huge debate going on weather their acts are justified, although they are not legal, the show The Stream on Al Jazeera English made an excellent insiders look on what Anonymous is and how they work. What I didn’t know before, is that this group of people helped the uprising in Tunisia, once the government decided to shut down Facebook pages, deleted various accounts and so on. Check out the whole show below. They talk about why they are so successful until now, how anonymity helps prevail the cause without a possibility for personal glorification, how such horizontal hierarchy works without having a leader and why they are doing this. (You can skip the first 13 minutes, they are irrelevant)

And they are not stopping, believe me! A couple of their mates have been arrested so far, but they do not stop here. An operation #occupywallstreet has been announced for the 17th of September. It seems that New York is going to experience a Tahrir moment.

(photos taken from here)

But, the most interesting is yet to come! And that’s November the 5th – Operation Facebook. Claiming that Facebook has been selling personal information to government agencies and information security firms so that they can spy on you, they say that the communication media we all so adore will be destroyed. Yes! They claim they will shut Facebook down!

 

Not that I have anything to hide or stuff, but I’m going to do a backup of all my contacts, photos, notes and so on, just in case. I have regained contact with people after 13 years of not hearing about each other thanks to Facebook, and as much as FB is going on my nerves lately, I am eternally grateful to them because of this! And I wouldn’t want to lose those contacts and pictures. So people I advise you, start downloading to your hard drive everything you think is worth prevailing on Facebook, because in 3 months, it may all be gone.

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I love you

I love you because when I say I’m fat, you say: That’s true!

I love you because when I’m mad at you, you say: Oh fuck, PMS again?

I love because when I say “Can I have a bite?”, you say “No, I will buy you your own hamburger”.

I love you because after some while of driving around in a circle, you say to me: “Ok, now you can ask for directions”.

I love you because after trying two pairs of shoes that don’t fit, you say to me: “Ok, can we please go now and have a cup of coffee?”

I love you because before eating something that includes onions, you call me and ask: “Babe, are we going out tonight?”

I love you because when I ask you if you love me, you say: “I find you quite simpatico. “

I love you because you have the guts to leave the phone open while I explain some “important stuff” to you, and than claim you listened to every word I said.

I love you because you call me just to tell me what song is playing in the background at the moment.

I love you because before going out, you call me and ask: “Is it really obligatory that I shave?”

I love you because you jump around like a small child full of joy when I tell you it is not.

I love you because you keep claiming that my dad has an axe in one of the kitchen drawers.

I love you because you’re such a skeptic!

I love you because you come and pick me up, when I’m dressed up as fancy as can be, with all 4 windows open while some shitty turbofolk music is rocking in the background just because you want to have fun looking at my WTF face.

I love you, because when I come with a new haircut and ask you how I look, you say: “Em, new jeans?”

I love you because whenever you sense there is a fight coming up, you start saying the magic words: “Yes darling!”

I love you because you like me most when I wake up – swollen eyes and messed up hair.

I love you because you claim you have 3 other girlfriends.

I love you because you buy 750 ml shower gel when going on vacation.

I love you because when I want to go to another club instead of going home, you start singing: “My girl wants to party all the time, party all the time, party all the tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime.”

I just… I simply love you.

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#opPayPal

When injustice becomes Law, resistance becomes Duty. - Thomas Jefferson
 
Many of you probably sense what I’m going to write about in this post. For the ones that are not informed: Remember when Visa, Mastercard and Paypal stopped supporting Wikileaks donations? Well it’s payback time.

The hackers group Anonymous called for a massive boycott on Paypal, asking people to close their accounts. Yes, the hackers group did a bit of a different hack attack this time – no DDoS attacks, this time it’s something completely legal. The reason:  A 20 year old girl arrested for hack attacks facing 15 years in prison and a fine of $500.000 while a rapist gets 11. And here is the fun part: Wikileaks supports them.

#opPayPal instantly became a trending topic on Twitter. Supposedly till now over 35.000 Paypal accounts have been closed. Additional motive for the people to close their accounts was not only that Paypal didn’t support Wikileaks donations, but supports KKK. People continuously complained throughout the day that they weren’t able to close their accounts, so they had to call and to this by phone. Paypal even removed the help page where instructions on how to remove your account were given.

The most interesting part today was not this trending topic though. It was watching how eBay’s stock fall over 3% at the end of the day. Now I don’t have a clue how the stock market works, but it’s more than clear that #opPayPal had an impact on this. Wonder what that drop of 3% means in money? – Over 1 billion U.S. dollars!



What can I say, never underestimate the power of people in large groups. I am really curious how this is going to evolve. Such online activism truly amazes me, and it is the one thing we unfortunately did not use as a weapon when the protests against police brutality in Macedonia were taking place.

P.S. Yes, I closed my PayPal account too. I was gonna do it anyway, never really used it.

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Foreign reactions about Martin Neshkovski and a short analysis

Many of my international friends , asked me what’s going on in Macedonia  when they saw how I am spamming on Facebook with links to sites with strange letters and when they saw that I've changed my profile picture. I briefly explained to them the incident with the murder of Martin Neshkovski. Here are their responses and my personal analysis of their initial instant reactions.

Russian: So? The police killed a man. Why are you making such a big deal out of it? There is nothing you can do about it.

Obviously, the awareness about freedom of speech in this country is not on the highest level. I don’t know if it is because they are afraid or because it is not developed enough. But I do know that there is over-centralized power of the oligarchs and there is literally nothing you can do about it.

Iranian: Only one is killed?

This was his instant reaction. It’s not easy for him as well. He has seen worse. Last year, during the green revolution in Iran, the government was killing young people, just because Mahmudinedzad would not recognize the electoral fraud. A bunch of progressive young people were protesting and they failed. Many of them were killed and Mahmudinedzad is still in power.

German: How can it be that 2 days it was not known who the boy is and the case was not reported?

The people of this country are used to the fact that the institutions do their job by default. She was not interested in how a member of the special police units could kill a young man, but how the case could stumble throughout the institutions.

Croatian: OMG, the police is going to send us to our graves.

I don’t have a comment on this and don’t know what to think about it. I suppose he is a proponent of the ACAB theory.

 

To what level have we developed, I cannot say. I have heard all kinds of comments, positive and negative, stupid and smart, constructive and anarchist, and revolutionary, and conservative. All kinds. A guy was trying to convince me that the video with the mother of Martin was a spin, others told me that I am a traitor to my country and a member of the opposition party (read SDSM ), others saluted the perseverance and effort I invest for this cause, others complained because I want this case to be known abroad as well. What is the proportion of the people with these attitudes I don’t know.

A Facebook event appeared a couple of days after the boy was murdered, which stated that the protest on Saturday will receive a form of a FREE CONCERT. My feelings towards this are pretty mixed up and somehow I cannot have take position if I am pro or against it. On one hand I am all love, peace and happiness, I even have some hippy outfits (I swear), but on the other hand to organize a concert just a couple of days after somebody has died... I don’t know. YOU Decide. I honestly cannot decide if I am pro or against. I was thinking, thinking and nothing ...

Yesterday I had a video chat with a producer of a show on Al Jazeera English that deals with events related to social media. She found out by coincidence about Martin Neshkovski, I don’t know how she stumbled upon my blog, translated it with Google Translate, and contacted me because she wanted to learn more. A couple of days after that, the show reported about the case. You can read about it here: http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/macedonia 

I also had a small discussion on whether the foreign media should be informed about what is going on in Macedonia. Some think that this way our state is being promoted in a negative way. And I understand them. It’s not nice for a country to be reported about, that the state institutions are trying to cover up murder. The world unfortunately still sees us as an underdeveloped and corrupted country, despite the EU-NATO integration. Some do not even know where we are on the map. I have even been asked if we have chocolate in Macedonia. And like every good Macedonian that lives abroad I have been trying with severe pain, sometimes also ironic  (for example the question about chocolate) to explain to them that we in fact are a modern society. That we have and villages that have no sewer, but that they do not represent the big picture.

I honestly think that spreading the news that there is an occurrence of protests not organized by anyone - aka higher level of awareness among the people - will show that we have heads which we do not only use for nice haircuts, but we also use them when we need them. Many people had a prejudice for Arabs, but their attitude towards Tunisia and Egypt changed after the Arab spring. I do not want a Macedonian spring to happen. I do not want a revolution. I want to change their opinion about my country. All those with a different opinion are free to have it. And I respect that. Peace to you all!

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Bienvenue

Well hi everybody!

I've been blogging for a while now and felt a constant need of addressing a wider audience. That's why I decided to open a second blog, this time in English.

This is gonna be my personal web space where I will be discussing shit that happens in the world, Web 2.0, rock and roll, concert experiences, people I admire, people I despise, interesting stuff I stumble upon and think are worth sharing, my travels, Macedonia related news, racial stereotypes, love and other disasters, expensive bags and shoes I will probably never have etc... I suppose it's gonna be as well the place where I will be asking rhetorical questions about the phenomenon called "The male brain", and it's mostly gonna be when my boyfriend is gonna piss me off. Don't worry, I know he is, there is no if, he's good at it! It's a repetitive behavior that repeats every 28 +/- 3 days. The diary of a damsel in distress and an independent career oriented woman at the same time. Everything here is my and only my personal point of view of the things. A totally subjective blog, I may say.

So till the next blog post, have a good one!

Macedonia loves you!!!

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