A Wonderful World

Passionate Foodie who loves Vintage Markets and German Literature. BSc Politics and International Relations Undergraduate at the University of Southampton. Follow @meyer_cf !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

[charlottefabienne]

STOP DISCRIMINATING ME FOR NOT BEING BRITISH. Please.

I am a White Caucasian girl with Green Eyes so to many my story will sound like a pathetic little rant but please keep reading.

I admit that I don't get discriminated against often. When people see me they wouldn't necessarily think: Is she foreign? Some might detect my accent but as I am fairly fluent people have stopped commenting on it. 

There is however one place where it matters where I am from: Supermarkets. 

Let me tell you what happened to me today: 

I have friends coming over for the weekend and we have decided to have some drinks at mine before going out. Like any normal person would I therefore went to buy some alcohol (or tried to). In case you are thinking: She must have tried to buy Vodka or something. NO, I tried to buy three bottles of Cider at 4.0% (500ml per bottle). But then again why should it matter what I buy? I am 20 years old which is above the the legal age for purchasing alcohol in the United Kingdom. Back to my story: I was asked for my I.D. - fair enough I look under 25 and that's the rules, why should I get offended. I show the lady my EU Driving Licence and I am told that she needs to check with her supervisor. Fair enough again, not everyone knows this form of I.D. And then it comes: "I am sorry but we cannot accept this form of Identification." 

The first time this happened to me I gave them my two Identity Cards (French and German as I have two nationalities), they both clearly state my name and age (even my address, height, signature) - but No.

Most UK supermarkets don't accept I.D.s as they vary from country to country and staff can't be able to know every single one of them. As for E.U. driving licenses some shops accept them some don't. Passports are widely accepted. I do however not carry my passport with me at all times, as it is my most valuable piece of identification. 

I greatly appreciate the fact that employees cannot know all I.D.s but I can prove that I am over 18 - with not one, not two but THREE I.D.s.  So I am standing there at the till, looking at my ciders and thinking to myself: Thank you for making me look and feel like a complete idiot.  I am allowed to cross state borders with my I.D. (Schengen, baby!) but not allowed to purchase three bottles of Cider? Pathetic is the only word that comes to my mind. 

So I walk off, feeling ashamed. Yes, that's how it makes me feel. I am obviously not British, so why should I have the same rights as everyone else in this country?

For me, there is a deeper meaning behind these three bottles of Rekorderlig. The fact that I hope not to be I.D. (even though I am not 14) just shows how deeply this system of Identification is flawed. Of course they have to check my age, but most cashiers don't actually doubt the fact that I am over 18. To most of them it's just a routine check but as I don't have my Passport or a British I.D. I cannot purchase the alcohol. 

So this is my story. It's not a story of violent discrimination nor I am not trying to compare myself to anyone who has been a victim of any form of discrimination. To me this is about as bad as it gets, but if I feel so strongly about my issue I can only begin to imagine how hard it must be for anyone who is affected by discrimination on a day to day basis.  I believe it's time to change things, because nobody deserves to be discriminated. No matter where they are from. 

[charlottefabienne]

The Barraco Barner Phenomenon

Tweets go viral everyday but I don't think Gemma Worral anticipated her 140 characters to be retweeted thousands of times. 

This tweet might be really amusing of some but to others, including me it is rather shocking. Has political disengagement really come this far?

I don't believe Gemma is the only British citizen who doesn't know that the United Kingdom does not have a President. In fact, some might still think that David Cameron's title is President of the United Kingdom rather than Prime Minister. 

The whole 'Barack Obama is "our" President'-Thing was a bit harder to for me to come to terms with. For me it seems like common knowledge to know that Barack Obama is the President of the United States - regardless of the fact that I do study politics. Everyone who watched the news since 2009 should know that this man is somehow important and AMERICAN (even I can figure out his accent).

Then I started thinking - what if I printed out pictures of heads of states and showed them to people, would they know their names and more importantly what country they represent? I believe that Barack Obama is quite an extreme case, because of how much media coverage he gets. Similarly I believe most people would know who Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and David Cameron are. However, do you know who Fredrik Reinfeldt, Aníbal Cavaco Silva or Miloš Zeman are? Exactly (google is your friend).

Now, on of the main arguments of Gemma's critics is that she should have known who Barack Obama is. I totally agree yet, I believe that knowing who the American President is should not be the only important factor: One should be aware who is the key political figure of the country they live in. 

How far have people backed away from politics if they don't even know who is governing their country but are well aware what is happening in the Big Brother House? Maybe it is time for politicians to rethink the ways in which citizens can be reached. Social Media seems like a great idea - but please remember to always double check what you're tweeting

[humansofnewyork]

This was so funny. I ran into this Mexican couple on a trail in Central Park, and they were lugging around all these balloons. I asked what the balloons were for, and the guy told me that he’d brought them all the way from Mexico. He said he’d concocted this elaborate plan, where he’d given balloons to different people around the city (starting with the hotel concierge), and sent the girl on a scavenger hunt to find them. "Just because?" I asked. "Just because," he said.

——————————-

When I got home, I had an email. It said: 

Brandon,

I couldn’t tell you, but I was about to ask her to marry me.

She said yes!

Rodrigo

[charlottefabienne]

Wonderful Idea. Put a smile on my face today!!

[charlottefabienne]

Just to document that my front yard is under water as well. 

[charlottefabienne]

Flooding.

If you are British and haven't seen any rain in the last week it's probably because you live in Benidorm. 

Surrey, Berkshire and Somerset are under water and it has been reported that 130,000 homes were without electricity last Wednesday (12th of February). The storm seems to have died down but many are faced with the consequences: Damage. 

In tough times people need someone to turn to and sometimes it feels good to blame someone for what has happened. But who is to blame for a storm? Of course I could go into further detail and make a climate change argument, but that is not what I want to discuss here. What interests me is why in times like this people often point the finger at politicians. 

Why did they not react in time? Why did it take so long for the army to get involved in helping flood victims? Why did nobody predict this storm? Ect. 

Since Storm St Jude Politicians and the Environment Agency have had time to learn their speeches by heart and it seems like everyone is blaming someone else. Is this bickering really helping anyone? I don't think so. 

If your house is flooded, and you do not have electricity, I want to think that buying a newspaper is one of the last things on your mind. People want answers but they also want their life back - in form of compensations and maybe an apology (Thank you Mr. Cameron). 

The government has created a £10m grant scheme which allows small to medium businesses to claim up to £2,500 "clean-up costs and compensation", but how about private homes? The floods have alreday caused over £1bn of damage since December and insurers are now facing the heavy burden to compensate thousands of households in distress. With families still waiting to be compensated for the Christmas Storms one can only wonder when flood victims will be able to get back to their 'normal' lives. 

Still who is to blame?

I think that is a very difficult question to answer and I think it is wrong to single out politicians. Yes, the government has misjudged the flood risks in some areas. Yes, it might have taken a while for politicians to apologise. And yes, we need more flood defenses in order to prevent floods like this from happening again. But should we really blame David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg or even Nigel Farage for this? I mean on a personal level? What could they have done? We just saw how helpful they were on site - staring at the water and showing off their Hunter wellies. Maybe we should let professionals do the job, like Prince William and his brother Harry. 

In all this blame game one person claims to know why the UK was ravaged by a storm: His name is Councillor David Silvester. 

"The scriptures make it abundantly clear that a Christian nation that abandons its faith and acts contrary to the Gospel (and in naked breach of a coronation oath) will be beset by natural disasters such as storms, disease, pestilence and war."

Yes you have read this right: This man believes the floods are a divine punishment for "the passage of his [David Cameron] same-sex marriage bill". 

This is probably one of the most awful things said in regards to the storms and I am happy to say that David Silvester has been suspended from his party, namely UKIP. According to the party's spokesman 

Everyone is entitled to their own religious ideology, which is central to a free and fair society and we would again like to reinforce that Cllr Silvester’s views are his own and in no way reflect the party’s position

I do not normally agree with what UKIP has to say but we seem to agree that David Silvester statement and attitude towards the floods is completely out of line. 

[charlottefabienne]

Before I forget - BIG NEWS

Dissertation Title

The Role of First Women in the United States of America (probably after World War 2)  I am still trying to find a good time frame as I don't want to get overwhelmed by too much information on the topic.

[charlottefabienne]

European Elections

Are you going to vote?

That is what I am going to find out during my research project:

Who votes in the European Elections? Why do some people not vote? Is there enough Information about the EU Elections? Do people know what they are voting for? How aware are they of what the EU does?

And so on. 

I really hope people do care about the European Union and who knows, my group might come up with ideas on how we can change people's opinions about the European Union and its importance. 

[charlottefabienne]

Say YES to LOL

Laughing is one of my favourite emotions, it is both wonderfully liberating and contagious. 

It's like smiling: I dare you to walk down the street and smile at every person that you come across and I guarantee you that you will get smiles back. 

Habbo was created in 2000, MySpace in 2003 and Facebook celebrated its 10th Birthday a few days ago. People now had the opportunity to communicate online (slowly but surely; do you remember AOL Connect Sound?). 

Since then a lot has changed but a few things seem to have remained in all the overwhelming mess that is the internet. When people started to e-mail each other or engaged in conversations via MSN (or other messengers) they realised pretty quickly how impersonal their exchanges were: They needed a way to express their emotions.

How do you express your emotions when you cannot see the person that you are having a conversation with?

Emoticons and Internet Slang were born. 

I tend to use smileys a lot, I just think they make my texts/emails/blogposts/instagrams/tweets look nicer. Like I put mascara on every day to make myself look nicer. 

One thing however I hate is LOL. It is probably my least favourite abbreviation on the net and especially in real life. 

Until now people commonly believed that individuals who used LOL in their everyday vocabulary were either lost in their social-media world or obnoxious narcissists who did not want to share their emotions with the outside world. "That party yesterday was, like, mega LoL!"

I however have another theory. It all began with my mirror. 

Like many of you, I smile a lot and I don't hold back from "Laughing out Loud" - it seems like this has irreversible consequences on my face: LAUGHING LINES. OMG, at 20? How am I going to look like when I am 30, or 40. TBH I don't really wanna think about it, FML. 

EUREKA: What if all those professional LOLers had realised the side effects of happiness that I had just been confronted with? The evil (my smile that is) left its prints on my face. Engraved for everyone to see. 

I am still in shock. I don't know how I am ever meant to smile again. Maybe saying LOL is not that bad after all? On the plus side I am saving a few 1000 Pound on Cosmetic Surgery... If I promise not to smile, my face will be perfectly even for the rest of my life, won't it?

So please everyone, stop smiling. 

Sincerely yours,

Charlotte  

[charlottefabienne]

The Official European Commission Video for the 2014 European Elections.

Don't forget to vote!

[charlottefabienne]

Little Reminder, just for you.

[charlottefabienne]

The Beauty and the Beast: Experiencing the side effects of the NHS

Like so many, my relationship with the NHS is, lets say complicated. 

It can take weeks until I see my GP and when the day of my appointment arrives I know that I will have around 10 Minutes Face to Face time with him (if that). This might be perfectly adequate to treat people who have a cold or an infected blister on their foot but when it comes to more pressing matters I believe this is totally unacceptable. 

I am well aware that I am lucky enough to live in a country that provides free health care but I am wondering what price we actually pay for it. 

One illness that is very difficult to treat in 10 Minutes is Depression.

According to the Mental Health Foundation a quarter of the UK population "will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year".

1 in 4 people, that makes 15.9 MILLION. Not everyone single one of them will consult their GP and of course some mental illnesses are being treated adequately, but my question is: How are doctors meant to provide medical examinations in 10 Minutes? How can my GP know what is wrong with me in that amount of time?

My answer is they can't - it is impossible to provide an adequate consultation in that amount of time. And yet, many seem to walk out of their GP practice with a prescription. In fact, in 2011 46.7 Million prescriptions for Antidepressants were signed by GPs in England. 

Why is it that between 2010 and 2011 the amount of Antidepressant prescriptions increased by 9.1% in England? 

The answer might lie in the cost of a Therapy session: The reality is that the NHS is in no way capable to provide everyone with Counselling or Therapy Sessions. Many who seek advice from their GP are therefore 'being treated' with Antidepressants only for 'the time being' but put on a waiting list to see a Counselor 'soon'. The waiting lists however are very long and it can take weeks to be referred to a specialist. Of course it is always possible to go private or reach out to an organisation that provides free Counselling or Therapy Sessions for those who cannot afford to pay 30 to 120 Pound per 60 Minute Session, but will people who cannot cope with their everyday life be able to do that?

Today the NHS needs to understand that they are not providing enough support for those with mental health problems. We live in a country where Mental Health is still a taboo subject and this needs to change: In 2011 6,045 people (15 and over) in the UK took their lives. Some may have not gone that far if they had received adequate help at the time.

[charlottefabienne]

Project X or #pairrm

Cleaning your Blog after 9 Months of absence is like cleaning your house after you have been burgled. It is safe to say that it was a mess... Now that I have 'hidden' or deleted previous blog post the Project #pairrm can begin.  I am an Undergraduate Student at the University of Southampton studying Politics and International Relations, dreaming of one day sitting Front Row at Fashion Shows in Milan, Paris and New York City.  I love old books, travelling and the occasional glass of red wine.  What I love most however is talking. I can talk about anything and one thing is for sure: I will only shut up if you ask me to.

One thing I am very passionate about is Politics and this blog will be a testimony of how I feel about certain issues. Furthermore I will use this blog part of a University Project #pairrm in order to keep a record of my personal research. 

Ready, Set, GO and Hello to Day One of A Wonderful World.