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When talking about homophobia and horrible countries that pass anti-gay laws we often think about Putin's Russia, Uganda, Mugabe, and such. These places are more or less far and their society are perceived as traditional, old fashion, nothing like our Western society that is so amazing. Yet we needn't look so far from home... We forget homophobia is on the rise everywhere, even in Europe. I feel awful whenever I tell my girlfriend I can't hold her hand when we're walking in the centre of Brussels, the capital of Europe. She doesn't hold it against me but I get angry at our society where I can't feel safe because of who I love. A week after Kansas almost did the same but gave up at the last minute, Arizona passed a bill that would allow businesses to refuse to serve or give medical treatment to gays on religious grounds . First off if you want to get biblical, according to the scriptures, you should hate the sin, not the sinner (Matthew 5:43-44, 6:14-15, ...

"Get a life", the new app that allows you to live on your smartphone; from clothes to food, set your preferences and it will take decisions for you. You can go to the park, take a nap, meet people, all that from your bed! Not really, I made it up, stop looking for it on the Play Store, just throw your phone away and get a real life. Who said "Life is what happens to you while you're on your smartphone" again? I don't remember but it could never be more true than now. In recent years, many people have developed this awful habit of sharing every detail of their life on facebook or other social networking website, their every location on foursquare, their every meal on instagram and their latest prank on vine. More sadly though, others have developed the habit of reading all these statuses, looking at all these pictures and checking where their distant cousin to whom they never speak had lunch. Most smartphone-possessing-youth couldn't go through a day...

We've all heard about the budget cuts and the increase in tuition fees... Since September 2012 students at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) pay £9000 per year here (Almost triple what we, students who started prior to that, pay), a fact I can more or less accept since the money has to come from somewhere... So what does the university do? UCLan installs screens at the door of every classroom to show timetables, what was wrong with our old paper timetables? Nothing. It changes the whole attendance monitoring system by installing new magnetic scanners at the door of every classroom. What was wrong with the little scanners teachers had? Nothing. Today, four gigantic ice sculptures were put around campus. Who benefits from that? Certainly not me. I really hope our tuition money ins't funding these ice sculptures... All this money UCLan spends on unnecessary stuff could fund so many brilliant projects, internships, and just stuff students would actually benefit ...

I randomly came accross the BBC reality tv show "The World's Strictest Parents" the other day on youtbe so I watched a few episodes. The story line is simple: in each episode, two British "problem" teenagers are sent to very strict families over the world for one week. The chosen teenagers a first shown back home with their family and then they meet at the airport where they leave from to get to their final destinations. I watched a couple of episodes in which the teenagers go to American cities and one in which they go to South Africa. In all the episodes I have watched so far, the host families are of Christian faith, some are more involved in their religious communities than others but they basically all gave blessings before family meals versus the British teenagers who don't appear to be religious except for a couple who are Muslim but do not practice their faith (they drink, smoke, don't go to mosque etc.). So this makes me wonder, is the BBC ...

20/12/12, Sderot Yerushalayim, Jaffa. I'm walking in the street, on my way to buy a SIM card and like a two-year-old, I miss a step and fall on my knees (they still hurt today), I make a whole in my trousers, I'm on my hands and knees. Opposite me a lady who sees the whole scene: "haaa! (Shock) HaKol Beseder? Looooooo!" she smiles and leaves. ("Everything okay? Noooooooo!) LOL. This is a perfect reflection of the Israeli mind (No offence any Israeli readers).

Many of my friends and some members of my family don't understand this but I don't like going to Brussels town centre or taking public transport in Brussels especially the underground transportation. They tell me I'm being unreasonable, paranoid and weird. A few days ago, Sofie Peeters, a Belgian film student released her short movie/documentary that raised a lot of debate. The film, "femme de la rue" depicts sexism in the centre of the capital. I don't consider myself to dress in a provocative way, it is not my style, I don't like women that do not because it is (they do what they wanna do)  but because in my humble opinion it is vulgar, I don't want to see a girl's chest on the same account that I don't like low cut jeans that show off men's asses (and often women too) because I don't need nor do I want to see people's attributes other than in an intimate context. Many people say that victims of sexual harassment in the str...

Charles Lecharmant disait : "Je suis à la cage ce que le crapaud est au cigare." "La pluie, le vent, la neige et les choux me font chavirer chaudement mais j'ai tout de même du mal à choisir entre chocolat et chamailleries chevalières telle un charlatan. La charmante mélodie si choyante que joyeuse et si attachante qu'affligeante du chamois chahuté chevauche mes songes les plus choyés. Je n'imagine point la gelée jaune gênante jasant avec la jumelle si chaude et gentille soit-elle. Nous souviendrons-nous de ces après-midi journalières et ces jours passés à jacasser chaleureusement tout en chanson ? On se chuchotait des choses telles des chochottes jugeant non-chalamant une chèvre aux chevilles chavirantes sur une chaloupe. Une chaloupe ? Que dis-je ? Une salope, une salope alléchante et mal-lechée. Mais que signifie ce lynchage ? N'a-t-on plus l'âme charitable louche d'un chanoine dans sa cheminée ? Mais qui nous rendra donc nos chopes...

Last night Steve Jobs died but I couldn't care less so instead I'll write about something else. Last week King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia announced women will have a right to vote in the 2015 local elections (not the elections that were running this week as this would be too big a shock and way too sudden, you gotta give it time so people can get used to the idea). I read the news on the BBC on Tuesday last week and the article was just very dull and reporting facts and that's probably how the news should be reported but I read this and my mind went "wait, this is really funny in a way, they fail to mention such and such". Then I went home in Belgium and bought the weekly " Le Canard Enchaîné " which expressed my point of view in a way I couldn't have formulated better myself. Saudi Arabia is supposedly run according to the Sharia Laws but I find it a bit hypocritical to say that since it is the only country in the World where women don't hav...

Although I am far from home and on holidays, I still read the news (if I didn't I would have to reconsider my choice of studies) Yesterday in the english version of Haaretz, they were talking about the rights on Enyd Blyton's "The Famous Five" and "The Secret Seven" that are being translated in Hebrew at the moment and to be published soon in Israel although another publisher has been publishing a translated version for many years without the rights. Fine, nothing interesting much until the end of the article when I read the books written for children, are considered sexist, racist and so on and that they were banned from the radio in England on grounds of lack of artistic talent or something, basically hey were unworthy of being read on the BBC. The books are being rerwritten for publication in the United Kingdom to reach today's political correctness standards. And there we reach the whole debate we had with "TinTin in Congo" in Belgium a...

Wednesday June 8th. 8pm, baby-sitting my nieces un Brussels suburbia, my new name is Mr Jacques according to the little one. Time for bed, give me a big hug, tomorrow I'm leaving for a month in Israel. read, watch tv, sleep. 11.30pm, my sister and brother in law are back, time for my mom and I to leave, I'm excited, in les than 12 hours, I'll be on the plane to Tel Aviv!! I'll land at 4.30pm, check in my hotel and then spend the evening on the beach, watch the sun go down... 12am, the phone rings *+972...* "Allo?" "Allo, Surya, ze "El-AL" "oh erm, ken" "your flight has been cancelled, you will have to take one at 8pm tomorrow" Thursday June 9th So I am leaving today. But at 8pm. Meaning I'll land at 1.30am, in a country I've never been to, where I know nobody, on my own. Sweet. Just because some people in Brussels airport decided to go on strike. I hate strikes. I hate everyone (except for my mom).

Not having the herd instinct as most humans do, I often forget to have a social life. Especially at the moment as I'm preparing this exciting yet a bit scary trip I'm about to take. So of course when an old friend from school asked if I wanted to hang out in town with another friend last night, I said okay. At the last minute, a change of plans, which is in itself not a big deal as it was closer to the place I was then and I hadn't left already. Thing is, we had to go to an old pub opposite my old school where all these kids who think they're super cool hang out. I used to go there before they changed it, it used to be okay when I was about 15 but the thing is, only 15 year-old hypocrites, nationalist, homophobic dicks hang out there now and the concept of meeting with people my age there made me feel like they have not evolved, an they probably haven't. Worst is, I know these people's faces and sometimes there's one that recognises  you and is all like ...

A disorganised rant about what I have learnt this year, what I liked or disliked, a bit of everything really. On a general level, I must admit I have loved this academic year. I have realised, like I wrote back in September that I should have been in university all my life, instead of school where you get told the same every single day. I absolutely love university and I realise I am very lucky to be able to afford it. And because I didn't really know what to expect coming to university abroad, I was not deceived by unmet expectations. I have met some really awesome, interesting and inspiring people, especially Danny, the most passionate person about Journalism I have ever met and whom I will especially miss next year as he is going to China. Thanks to him, I got to work for the Lancashire Evening Post with Chris, Mike and him. It was an amazing experience. My tutors. My tutors were the greatest. I love learning and, because I'd only experienced school, high school and s...

I am sorry, this will probably take the form of a rant but people keep getting on my nerves complaining about how their life totally sucks because of this or that. When I was eight years old, my grandma took me to India and Nepal. I was a bit worried when she packed a hundred pens I didn't understand why she wanted to take these as presents. Pens, presents? Then we got there. We travelled on the dirtiest roads to the smallest villages and all the children kept asking for pens. When I was 14 I went to Bulgaria. Travelling to and from the hotel by car I saw desolation, girls as young as me begging or selling their bodies. When I was 15 I went to Romania with my parents, in the only county that isn't mentionned in tourist guides. The children there played in mud and wore ragged clothes, they were the happiest children on earth when I gave them all I had on me, Kinder Eggs. When I was 16 I went in Zambia to teach in a small school. I packed so many pens, clothes,...