"The Karlskrona Syndrome"

It's been almost 10 months living in Sweden so I guess it's time to write something about this country as there are definitely a lot of things to talk about Swedish culture and way of living.

I want to start with my favorites: The stereotypes. If you are not one of those that confuse Sweden and Switzerland, the first things that come into mind when you hear about Sweden or Swedish would be quite similar. I think the best way is to see what people ask to Google about it.

Ok, let's start with the appearance as in my opinion that's the most distinctive thing about Scandinavians. For me, yes they are mostly tall and blonde. But it's not like the hair color is lemon yellow as opposed to common perception. They are more brunette or something.

But in my experience people usually ask if the people here are actually cold. This is hard to answer. Because it's not like they never smile and stuff. It's the opposite. They try to be very kind to everybody. When you go to a supermarket , the cashier gives you the most genuine smile and says "hello" and "goodbye" to everybody with the same sincerity without geting tired of it. This is definitely not the case in the countries where so called "warm people" live. Maybe the reason is people here really love their jobs and they don't see working as a burden or torture. Well of course, it's probably related to the working conditions and salaries. I will get back to this subject later.

I think the best way to describe them would be "Calm" instead of "Cold". Because they are really cold-blooded. You cannot see any crazy people runing, shouting, jumping, fighting in the street. They don't get angry so easily for stupid reasons. Or they do not react very much to the circumstances going on around. However they turn into a complete opposite when they are drunk and you can see the rudeness, crazyness and everything that they've been opressing. I guess the reason why they are so calm is somehow related to the weather. It's always so cold that they just don't want to spend time in the streets and go back home :) I mean, you really don't have any energy to do anything than necessary when it's so cold.


In general, I could say that they are very nice and polite people. I used to admire how Scandinavians dress elegantly, but now there is this weird trend going on that I noticed. Guys wear these hats everywhere indoor and outdoor although there is no sun. Some girls shave some part of their hair and stuff. But still the majority looks always stylish and chic.This picture on the right would be a typical Swedish that you can recognize everywhere.



When it comes to racism, it's really hard to say something directly. I could easily make a generalization that Danish people are racist but it's not really the same in Sweden. But there is something about them and in my opinion it's almost as bad as racism. They are known to be very "introverted". That is, they are not really open to new cultures, people or anyhthing other than what they have in Scandinavia and what they believe as the best. Hence, they do their best for not to get in touch with any foreigners, this includes the rest of the europe as well. So it's not a racism about the immigrants and stuff, they just don't want to interact with anybody else than their "master race". So they give rights to immigrants, they try not to discriminate them, they behave equally to them but they say -Just do whatever you want without disturbing or interacting with me, you are free to live here (Of course if you ask to an immigrant, they will not agree with this equally behaving but i guess it's everywhere). They don't have a concern about integration as in Germany, they don't want integrate anyway.

However, all Swedes were really angry and surprised when the far-right nationalistic party in Sweden entered the parliement in 2010 with 5.7% of the votes. This kind of parties have much more votes in other countries such as Holland where they have around 20%. So, I think this shows that Swedish people are actually not racist but they have a very closed society. But still, it's as annoying as racism and actually not that different than racism if you see the reasons behind why they are like that.

When it comes to the country itself, this is what Google tells us about what people wonder about it.

I guess the confusion about European Union and Sweden comes from the fact that they use Swedish Kronas here instead of Euros and another scandinavian country Norway is not a part of EU. But yea, Sweden is in EU.

About socialism, it's a very common perception because of all the regulations of Swedish government. Sweden is a welfare state. The taxes can go up to 50% and it returns as free education, health care, etc. This gives all the Swedish people a high standard of living and equaly distributed welfare which Swedes care really a lot. The difference between the rich and the poor is very very narrow. This is of course great and creates a peaceful society. Swedes never try to show off with their money and belongings. They are happy living in a modest, comfortable life. You can see that in their faces that they are actually happy with their lives. That's why they always rank the top in those "Happiest People" surveys.

Since money is not a matter of superiority between people, they don't mind to do things that wouldn't be expected from rich people. For example, they take their own bags to the supermarket so that they don't buy another plastic bag everytime they go shopping (yes, you have to pay for plastic bags: 50 Turkish kuruş), they keep all their bottles at home and they carry them to recycling machines to get their deposit back. They dont mind to do their responsibilities for the environment. However when I ask to a friend of mine if he recycles his bottles and stuff, his answer was -"We are not poor maaann!" =) This is an apparent difference between Swedish culture and the rest.

Here's my favorite video about this which tells about Sweden and the Swedes:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

It's true that working conditions are really great in Sweden. You start with 6 weeks of paid vacation when you start to work after graduation. That means, all Sweden is swimming in the mediterranean sea during all summer.

The downside of this equal working conditions for everybody is, all the shops are closed after 5 pm in the weekdays and open only until 2pm on SATURDAY and closed all sunday. This is really annoying and hard to get used to. Since they protect the rights of the workers, they dont want them to work on saturdays when everybody else is not working and also in the evenings of the weekdays. It's regulated by law that you cannot open your shop even if you are really willing to work extra hours (Unless you have a special permission). This creates a very boring lifestyle here because everybody has to stay at home after work as there is nothing else to do. They don't even have possibilities to spend their money.
For me this is really nonsense, people should be able to work extra hours if they want to. Students can work with shifts during weekends to save some money, etc.

Sweden is also famous for strict alcohol consumption regulations which makes them one of the least alcohol consuming countries in Europe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption).



Driniking beverages which have more than 3.5% of alcohol is forbidden in all public places which means streets, parks, beaches, etc. Alcohol sales is monopolized and only 1 shop has the permission to sell which is closed usually at 15 or 17 pm. There are also huge taxes on alcohol which are up to 40%. However this only stops Swedes drinking in the weekdays and they spend all their money in the weekends.





Another notable thing about Sweden is the complete equality of women and men. From what I see it's actually more than equality. They are considered exactly the same as if there is no difference whatsoever. Women here would not really like when you try to pay the bill for them or hold the door for them. They don't really behave like what I call "girly behaviors".
For instance, when the women is pregnant and have a baby, the paid vacation time which is about 9 months can be shared between men and women. That is, the woman can start to work and the man will take care of the baby if they want. And the sign in the toilets about the place to change the diaper of the babies also exists in men toilet.

To sum up, there are really great advantages of living in a country like Sweden but if you are not a person who likes to live in a calm, quiet and monotonous life then that's really not the place to be.

One thing maybe the most important one I forgot is the weather that everybody keeps asking and mocking!! Sweden has just had the warmest winter of the last 250 years!! So it didnt really snow or rain much, yayyyy!

Western babies Vs Eastern babies

There's this thing I've always observed and I cannot understand why. I know it's kinda weird but after seeing it here in Sweden, I felt like I have to write this..

That is, I have almost never seen a crying baby in Europe. They are always silent or sleeping, emotionless or smiling but they are never unhappy and crying out loud.. It happened to take my interest as it's always one of the most annoying things when I travel inside Turkey.. In a bus, train or in the street.. It doesnt matter, there's always a baby crying non-stop and you do everything you can take some sleep during your journey, turn the music on so loud but still... You cant avoid hearing that kid. It just happened last time I went, the kid cried his ass off for 45 minutes and their parents could do nothing to stop..(the only way they know is threatening him via telling the driver or the police would get mad at him anyway )

Once, I even thought about proposing baby-free vagons in the trains or baby-free buses between cities. I still think I would even pay more for that service.

But here in Europe, it's not anything like that.. I always see babies in the buses and they always stay in peace. They dont cry, they dont disturb their parents constantly, they are just silent kids.

I always realize this difference at the very begining of my way to Turkey.. When I just take the plane from Copenhagen, it's always the same.. It doesnt happen when I fly to somewhere else. There must be something wrong with the babies of this area.

Actually, I had the chance to have a "controlled experiment" here as there are lots of immigrants. There were two babies in the bus, staying side by side in their baby-cars. One is Swedish, the other from Middle-east something. And the Middleeastern kid started to cry and did not stop. He threw something on the floor, he cried, he didnt want to sit there, bla bla bla.. Always seeked attention from his mother. And the blonde one was literally shocked staring at the other kid, trying to find a meaning about what he is doing and why. I still cant get that image out of my mind.. They even looked at each other for a while, the crying baby stopped for a moment and kept crying afterwards, and the other was looking with totally flat eyes without any sign of emotion.

What is this about? Are the kids in this part of the world born problematic? Is this the reason why there are always these fights and wars and nonstop incidents in this area?

Or is it about the way they raise their kids, do they teach them from the birth that crying is not a solution and it's not gonna bring any good?!?

I cant really understand this..I wish this was my master thesis instead of this stupid machines world.
I really believe this is important. Because I know that, that Swedish kid will never have a fight in his entire life and do not cause any problems for no reason.. And the other one? Well, who knows..
But check the crime rates in Eu, statistics do say something.

Before, I used to think it's all about education, I actually still believe that... but now I'm thinking whether it can go into your genes or not when you educate a generation for long enough..
Oooppss, forget it ;)

Beirut - "Paris of the Middle East" - II

This time I want to write about the people of Beirut and the lifestyle there. I'll actually mention about some specific type of people in Beirut but they have an noticable effect on the rest of the people.

First of all, as everybody has told me before, here in Beirut almost everybody speaks English and/or French. That's why they say it's not the best place for learning and practicing Arabic. Plus they have a strong dialect which is quite different than the Standard Arabic. So far it's ok, but here comes the strange thing. Here, people talk by mixing all these 3 languages: Arabic,French and English. And they dont just borrow some   words from the latter two, they actually form complete sentences in english and french. So when you hear people speaking, you can hear one full sentence in english, one in arabic and another in french. This is really odd.

The first alphabet: Phoenician

When you ask a Lebanese, -How do you say "happy birthday"? , the answer would be -"Happy birthday". Or you can extend this to Hi, Merci, Sorry and etc.

Or even more you can see little kids speaking english with their parents all the time. Because in the schools the first language they learn is not arabic. They choose english or french as the main language and arabic comes later as a second language. I find this totally nonsense and can only explain with this "Wannabe" culture here. Imagine on one hand some French people that dont want to speak english allthough they can; as they are too proud to be French and on the hand some people in Lebanon who dont want to speak arabic because they are too ashamed to be Arab. (Well they actually claim to be not Arab, but come on..)

As a result, people get really surprised here when you say you are studying arabic. Because arabic is not cool. If you want to have a higher status in society you have to speak French with a French accent.


The other thing to have a higher social status is to look good in this country. And there's a very strong pressure on everybody to look better. For this reason, 1/3 of Lebanese girls have had at least one plastic surgery in Beirut. All the noses look like the same and you can see girls smoking shisha with giant lips!! Have a look at famous Lebanese singers and see how all of them look like each other!!

You can see girls going to the university with high-heeled shoes, night dresses and expensive bags. A Lebanese woman on the plane was complaining to me that she had to put her Macbook to her Prada bag and she was also telling that Europeans find her overdressed but that was actually casual for her!

Another exaggerated thing is the cars. Everybody in Beirut drives jeeps or really fancy cars. Your car defines your status. If a man has a new BMW,Mercedes or Nissan Jeep, he has a better chance on finding a girl that looks like above.
You cannot see those middle class cars that for instance I always see in Turkey. I hardly saw a Focus, Golf, Palio, Corolla or anything like that. So what does middle class drive? They also have jeeps but the ones that elites sell after they use a few years. And what about the poor? They also drive Mercedeses but from the 80s!

And there is no other.. Everybody has a car here cause you cannot really survive without a car and the Lebanese never ever walk! You cannot see people walking on the streets. They go to a restaurant and leave their car keys to a Valet.. Dont tell me every restaurant cannot have Valet parking, because even McDonalds has it!!!


So just like everybody I also wondered: Where does this money come from?? Are they really rich?
The answer is no!! They are not patrol millioners. Lebanon doesnt have oil!.. Hence?
The thing is, they only look rich or in other words live like rich. They dont think about the future, they never save money and consume all the money to luxury. They take loans from the banks again and again. This is a place where there is a specific loan for plastic surgery!

And the bad thing is, the life is not cheap in Lebanon.. Eating in a good restaurant would cost quite high especially compared to Middle East or the salaries they earn. Average salary for a university graduate is about 800 dollars and the cost just to rent a room in Beirut costs like 350-400 dollars!

An electric pole

And beyond this luxury, the life standards are not really good. The government doesnt supply electric all day. Everyday they cut at least 4 hours. So you have to buy electric from private companies also, plus the non-ending electric cuts during all day. Gsm companies are really expensive, they cancel your number if you dont charge for only 2 weeks!! And Lebanon has the slowest internet I've seen.. You have to wait half an hour to watch a video on youtube..

The people who have better conditions somehow afford these expenses. And it's very common that working families have a nanny from Philipines or Sri Lanka. You can see them around on sundays everywhere which is their only free day (if they are lucky). They work for 200 dollars a month and do all the housework. They are hoping to save some money and return back after 3 years, the duration that their visa allows.


Moreover, I guess everybody has a house up in the mountains or the house of their parents. There is a terrible traffic every weekend by the people who leave the hot, humid weather of Beirut and run away to the cool, fresh mountains.

There is also certain image of Beirut from the rest of the Arabs that I want to mention. When you say you went to Beirut, all Middle East reacts as if you have been to Las Vegas. Because that's how Beirut is seen by their eyes but it's not really like that. Oil millioners of the Gulf region come to this city just to spend their money on prostitution, nightlife and stuff.
This is why Lebanese people dont like them. They are basicly rich and stupid.

Along with all these interesting things about the people of Lebanon, they are really friendly and welcoming. They do their best to ensure you enjoy your stay in Lebanon and they really care about what you think about their country.

About the critic I made about the culture, actually I can criticise like this, many other cultures including Turkey. Indeed, it's very very similar to Turkey.
These acts are no different than us trying to show everybody that we are not Arabs(the only difference is we are actually not ;)) via changing the alphabet and dressing style, via banning everything from the old, forcing people to "look like" western.. Or Chinese who becomes happy when you say he/she doesnt look Chinese.. Or an Indian or African who tries to become "White" via using some creams and stuff... Or a Japanese who just wants to find a "Western" partner.. Or a South American who gives her child an American name...

The truth is West has not become "West" just because they are white or dont have slanty eyes or have those names. In fact, West wasn't always "West" and probably will not be so forever.

I'm just deeply ashamed of most of the people outside "the West" 

Bütün genellemeler yanlıştır, bu da dahil

Gözlemlerime dayanarak yaptığım bir kaç yanlış genelleme:

İspanyollar: Rahatına düşkün, pratik zekadn yoksun
İtalyanlar: İspanyolların bir üst modeli, daha zekisi ve daha iyi görüneni
Danimarkalılar: Irkçı, her daim sarhoş
İsveçliler: Danimarkalıların bir üst modeli, daha medeni ve daha anlayışlı
Fransızlar: "Fransız" gibi olmayanları kimseye zararı olmayan, iyi niyetli
Hollandalılar: Mükemmele yakın, saf
Belçikalılar: Fransız tarafı fransız gibi olan, flamenk tarafı hollandalı gibi olan millet
Almanlar: Herkesden çok ırkçı olması beklenirken (türklere karşı), tarihlerinden dolayı en anlayışlısı, toleranslısı..
Avusturyalılar: Zeki
Avustralyalılar: Liseyi bitirince 1 yıllığına dünyayı dolaşan, geliboluda yenilmelerine rağmen neredeyse bizden çok önem veren millet.
Polonyalılar: Erkekleri salakk ve çirkn, kızları tam tersi..
Çek Cumhuriyetililer: Kısaca o.. çocukları
Bosnalılar: Candırlar.. Ayrıca "Türk" diye soykırım yapılan millet
Hırvatlar: Bi garip
Yunanlar: Arkadaş canlısı
Romanyalılar: Çingene olarak tanınmanın verdiği buruklukla, tersini ispat etmek için herkese iyi davranan, latin olduklarını duyurmaya çalışan, türkleri seven, türkçe küfür eden millet.
Lübnanlılar: Fransız özentisi
İngilizler: İki lafından biri thank you veya sorry olan kibar millet.
Macarlar: Türklerle akrabalığından gocunmayan
Arnavutlar: Hakkındaki deyimlerin hakkını veren
Ermeniler: Bildiğin anadolulu
Güney Koreliler: Güleç
Japonlar: Utangaç ötesi
Çinliler: Başka bi dünyadan
Amerikalılar: Herşeyi abartarak anlatan boş insanlar topluluğu
Arjantinliler: Kafa ütüleyen
Brezilyalılar: Araplara türk diyen millet
Pakistanlılar: Kimisi çok yavaş, kimisi tam tersi
İsviçreliler: Ayağı yere basan, mütevazi

ve son olarak
Türkler: Arap ırkçısı, arkadaşı için canını veren ama tanımadığına zerre kadar değer vermeyen, 'mişli geçmiş zamanı icat etmiş, kimlik olarak arada kalmış güzel milletim

PS: Sözüm meclisten dışarı =)

Beirut - "Paris of the Middle East"

Paris of the Middle East.. yes I think this might give a good idea about Beirut and its people. But no, not in the sense that you would understand when you first read this. I mean, when you want to picture the streets and buildings of this city in your mind, your image will definitely not match what you will see in Beirut. However, this phrase reveals the mentality of the people here and what they want to be..They are trying to live and look like the Paris people..

After living 1 month in this incomprehensible city, I had a general idea about the lifestyle in Beirut. But still, it's almost impossible to understand..Maybe it's because of the rich history, occupations and wars which were non-stop in this country.. The known history starts from the Phoenicians and goes on to Egiptians, Persians, Assyriacs, Romans, Arabs, Seljuks, Mamluks, Crusaders, Ottomans and finally the French Mandate. As a consequence of all these, a country with a very very diverse ethnicity and religion has emerged..

There are 17 religions in this country. I dont think it exists in any other place around the world, especially in such a small land. 59.7% of the people are Muslims where Sunni and Shia are 27% each and 39% is Christian. The Christians are mostly Maronite but there is also Greek Orthodox, Melkite Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Chaldean, Assyrian, Coptic, Protestant. And the other Muslim communities are  Druze, Isma'ilite, Alawite.

In the end, what you get from all these are a very messy political system, civil war and identity and ethnicity problems.First of all the state is not secular and religions are the basic elements that shape the political system. For instance, here in Lebanon, the president has to be Christian, the prime minister has to be Sunni and the speaker of the parliament has to be Shi'a. So we can say that the main political power is in the hands of the Sunni community.

Other than that, the civil law is not secular as well. That is, when you want to get married or divorce, you have to obey the rules of your religion. For example, if you are a Catholic, you may not be allowed to divorce. Or marriages between people of different religions are strongly discouraged or prohibited for most of the groups. So many people here go to Cyprus or sometimes Turkey to have a civil marriage.. And other issues about inheritance are also handled by the religions. All the laws other than the civil law are copied from the French system.

Although religion is always involved in the politics the main polarization of the country right now is not actually about religion. After the assassination of the prime minister Rafic Hariri in 2005, there are two main groups in Lebanon: March 8 and March 14. In other words Pro-Syria and Anti-Syria.
March 14 group is mainly Sunni and supported Hariri. They blame Syria for the murder of their prime minister in 2005.
For me the more interesting group is March 8 which consists of Christians, Shia and Hezboullah. The thing that surprised me was some Christians who are in this group that support Hezboullah. I didn't expect anything like that as Hezboullah does not sound very positive from the outside. So a Christian Hezboullah supporter was totally unexpected.

But there are many reasons why Hezboullah is so powerful here. First of all Lebanese army is very very weak, thanks to the arms export embargo that is applied by almost all the world, in other words "thanks" to Israel. The army doesn't even have planes. So the only power that can resist to Israel seems to be Hezboullah which is backed by the Shia community, which is Iran and Syria. In the end they are indeed very powerful especially in southern Lebanon. You can see flags and posters all around the cities.

Other than that, your poltical choice will always find and effect you in your life. For instance, when you apply for a job, your qualifications are less important than your political and religious backgrounds. This is something very annoying if you dont want to be any part of it. But this option is unfortunately not available. In this sense this is quite similar to Turkey except for one main difference. Turkey is not that diverse. Right now it's only "Erdogan" or "anti-Erdogan".

In Lebanon, just like in Turkey everybody talks about politics. But they dont just talk. For example, every political party has a color. And these colors do not belong to the people anymore. You cannot just wear whatever color you like, cause people would think you support that party. Here's an interesting article how this can be annoying.

These people even special way of sounding the horn according to your political leanings!!! Everytime you are in a tunnel, you can hear the "horn fight" where you try to make more noise than the others with the rythim that's associated with your party.

Anyways, enough with the politics.. There are many minorities in Lebanon that I found interesting.

Armenian Church in Bourj Hammoud

First of all Armenians who were dramatically expelled from Turkey during Ottoman times, in 1915 and before. They are living in a neighbourhood where the hatred against Turks is still very alive. The violent acts do not continue as there were attacks to Turkish Embassy and secretary of Turkish embassy was killed in 1975 by ASALA. But for instance, this district is the only place in Lebanon, where you cannot find any Turkish products in the supermarkets and where people do not watch Turkish tv series (yes all the Arabic world is watching stupid series from Turkey since the last decade :)
But still, you can meet people who have their grandparents Turkish and Armenian and these old people speak Turkish at home with each other.

The other community I found interesting is the Druze. Maybe it's because of the name which is Dürzü in Turkish and gained a completely different meaning!!!
They say Druze was a branch of Shia before but then changed and transformed to something different. But I still couldnt exactly figure it out. Because the religion is kept secret from almost everybody. Even the Druze people themselves. The truth is only known by some "knowers" and only they have access to these secret teachings..The Druze people might have this opportunity after they are 40 years old, if they deserve it. The Druze permit no conversion, either away from or to their religion, and no intermarriage..
This is all the information and I could find online and I've been heard there. But I don't have any idea about how correct it is.

And the last minority is the people who are always minority everwhere in the world.. There are 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon, mostly living in refugee camps. These people are not allowed to be a Lebanese citizen, are not allowed to work or buy property. So, they have no rights at all. They live in the camps in very bad conditions. They cant leave the camp without a special permission. They dont have access to Lebanese healt care system. In other words, they are not behaved anything like humans, and totally ignored. All I can say is, this is a huge shame on Lebanon and Arab world.



Finally, to end the background information about Lebanon, there's the Lebanese Civil War between 1975 to 1990 which caused around 200,000 deaths. It was a war between many groups as a result of the diversity of the country: Sunni, Shia, Christian, Palestinians, Israel, Syria..

In the end Beirut was completely destroyed where you can still see signs from the war around the city. Since then, there's construction all around the city to rebuild the "Paris of the Middle East" again. The signs on the buildings are mostly removed but probably not the ones in the memories.

I'll write my observations about the people and the lifestyle in a seperate post as this background was really long and became just an introduction to understand the Lebanese.

First days in Beirut

I've finished my first year in my Master's and my next year will be in Karlskrona-Sweden next year.. Till then I have this summer time free so I decided to fill this with an Arabic course in Beirut!! I've always wanted to see Beirut for some reason and finally I got here yesterday!

The course is offered by University of Saint Joseph here. It's an intensive summer course which means I have 5 hours of class everyday. I chose this place as it was the most appropriate one for me because of the dates and the price. The other options were Saifi Institute which started in June and it was too soon for me and the most famous one was American University of Beirut. It would be a better choice for me as I wouldnt have any language problem but it's meaninglessly expensive. It was around 4000 dollars!

Here in my university the main language is French obviously. It's totally forbidden to speak any language other than Arabic during the classes but all other stuff goes on in French and everybody speaks French..But I hope this wont be much of a problem as they also speak English generally..

I arrived here on sunday and took the cab to my student dormitory. I unpacked and everything but my internet was not working and I didnt have lebanese money in my pocket and there was nothing around. So I had to stay in my room, drink tap water and eat the my mum's cookies all day  :)

Today I attended my first class. There were many French and Italians.. I was expecting French but I really dont know howcome Italians were into Arabic language course this much. There are also a few Spanish and some half Lebanese half American guys..
The course was funny as always.. It feels like primary school days everytime you start to learn a new language.

After the course I finally went for some shopping to the supermarket that was supposed to be cheap. But woow.. It's almost more expensive than Spain.. I wasnt expecting this. I couldnt buy many things I wanted to. But anyways, paying part did not hurt that much..Thanks to the light in the cashier's eyes when she checked my ID and saw Turkey there... It was worth seeing :)

Well I also experienced my first geting lost.. I walked all around the city for hours, since there's no sign of street names or anything it was quite painful.. I'll write about my impressions about the city after I see it properly :)

That's all from Beirut for now..

Education in Spain

"A waste of time!" This would be the one sentence I would use if somebody would ask me about it. After almost finishing my first year of masters in Spain, I think it's time to write something..

I was gonna write the heading as "Education System in Spain" but then I realized that there is no system at all here. The registration, grading, courses.. everything is just a mess..

First of all, I want to tell about the courses I took. I had more or less 12 courses and from half of these I didnt learn any single thing!! yes literally nothing. I dont remember anything, I didnt pay attention to the lectures as either the prof was so boring because of his inability of teaching or his poor english or because of the content of topic was not interesting at all.. For the other half of the courses, maybe the efficiency of them were like 25% for me. That is, I spent the whole year but I gathered information which could fit to only 2-3 months, if the courses would not be full of empty talk..

Anyways, this was just an introduction about the education here..The main issues are much more deeper. Because anything can happen in Spain (at least in my Uni). Coming up with a logical reason for what has been happening is quite impossible.
Here I will give some examples:

- They may say to you that they'll take care of everything about the registration, they'd choose the courses and  register for you and everything. Then you start taking your courses.. After 2 months, some of your friend realizes that the system does  not show one of the courses you currently take. and guess what, it turns out that you are not actually enrolled to that course.. You were not even supposed to be!! Then you just stop going to that course and throw the assignments u already made to rubbish!

- You might be in a group of 6 people through out all the course. and the grading might be based on weekly papers u deliver and a final presentation (of course, you have no idea what's the weight of each delivery). Final week, you all together make your presentation and your prof says he liked your presentation and he would give a B,B+ for you.. Then the grades are announced and you got a 7 and most of your team members slightly more.. although it is possible, u have no reasoning why.. Then you find out that the prof said the same things to other groups also, but they also got 7.. One of the other groups goes and objects to the prof as he said the grade would be something like B,B+,A (yes very close interval), and this might be the answer you get: "Ohh.. I didnt know 7 was a C.. I will change your grade to 9." Even until now it's pretty awesome to hear something like this from a prof! Anyways no comment.. He didnt know the new grading system or whatever.. Afterwards, one of your team members requests the prof to change his grades also as the prof didnt know 7 was a C and now he knows it isnt so he is supposed to change all grades.. But what happens next? My group mate's grade goes from 7.2 to 8.2 where the other groups grades go from 7.2 to 9!! What kind of grading is this? I have no idea..
But this is not the end.. Because my grade is still 7!!!!!! and so is one of my group mate.. So we go to the office of the Prof and ask whats happening.. He says "let me look on papers" and brings the paper that he sent to the board which has a list of students that the grades should be changed. He checks our names.. and perfect!! Only the names of two people on the list were CROSSED OUT! He says I dont know why I did this, I dont remember.. I will change your grades to 7.8!! Oh My God!! What kind of mentality is this??!!?!
Why other group members go from 7.2 to 8.2 but our 7 goes to 7.8 only?? (Not to mention the ones that rise from 7.2 to 9)
In the end he accepts it to make 8 and thats the end of story.. In any of the steps above there's no single logical thing that I can understand.

- Moreover, here your Prof can say there will be a final exam in the end of the semester and it'll be a pass/fail exam. That is, if you get more than 50 points, you pass, otherwise you fail.. It's not gonna effect your grade. The grade is based on the assignments. Then you think it's not a problem, you go to the exam and the exam paper says it'll contribute to the final grade just like it's an assignment.. Very fair!
Then the grades are announced but not the exam results, and it's said that the exam didnt contribute the grade.. Thats it.. everybody passes the course. No logic.

- The other thing is grading of the assignments. Your grades are mainly based on two things:
First your Microsoft Word Smart Art skills!! If you draw fancy tables and figures, this will increase your grade siginificantly.. The content is the second important thing.
Secondly, your empty talking skills during the class. I understand this should effect the grade, I dont have any single objection to this. BUT, also your assignment grades might be affected by this!! Yes, your assignments are graded according to the overall image of you in the eyes of Profs.
I am personally not active during the classes and do not expect that high grades in my final records. But I just want to do what I have to do and expect to get a grade between 7-8 and do not care about the rest. More important thing is what I learn or what I wanna learn. But obviously Spanish system doesnt fit to me, as you expect to behave like in primary school where you try to use colorful pencils and pretty hand writing .. and hold up your finger as much as possible in the class. This is my thing and I'm happy with my grades that I deserve.

But, this is not always the case that you get what you deserve.. For example you can be in a group of 3 for a course and you can do 6 out of 9 assignments with your group. I mean, upload exactly the same file! And in the end your final grade might be 5 and the other members 6 and 9. And there's no explanation about the grades whatsoever.. The assignment grades are not announced (yet). I dont what were the weights of the assignments that were individual but apparently they can effect your grade tremendously.. I'm sure the weights will not be announced anyway as it will be a part of teacher's "personal assessment"..
Again, I dont think I should have had 9 or anythng I'm just talking about my relative grade, which in my opinion should have been around 7.
btw the other group mate who got 6 was the same guy that the name was crossed out in another course.. I dont know if I should make any conspiracy theories if the gossips in the teachers room has something to do with this. I'd prefer to think positive and keep this as a bad joke.


So... This was my experience in Spain. If you have any plans to study here please think twice.. if you dont change your mind, read here again.. until you change your decision..
I really dont know what the future of Spain will be with this kind of system.. I hear similar stories from my friends in other universities. I guess the trend of Spanish economy is not a surprise...