Who has a better claim to being an "european native"?

Two weeks ago, as part of the Training Week I had at my new job (FRISS), I had a training session on "Diversity and Inclusion" because ever since I started working with other people it's a subject that fascinates me. And even though I have hands-on experience on it, due to the multiple environments I have been put on, in particular after leaving Portugal, I want o learn more about it to overcome my shortcomings, as I still have some and as always we should aim to always be better and grow, in particular when it comes to this subject, that we can simplify into being a better human being and understand our fellow humans.

Summer Twittetracts - Boomers do worry about non-existant problems!

At lunch my father gave me a great example of what affects society nowadays, in particular white males over 55 years-old, meaning the Boomers (even if technically they are early GenX, a lot of portuguese people this age behave in fact like boomers): they are scared of problems that don't exist but they think are very important ones.

According to him, it's a big fucking deal that employers, or people responsible for employees, don't keep a close and detailed track of the employees whereabouts, in particular their absences and why, you may ask?

Cogitation in the Time of War #33 - Maps are worth a thousand claims

I haven't been cogitating much about the war here and this will continue to be the trend, as I will be more involved with other activities from this week onwards and my side projects, namely my dissertation writings, will have to slow down. But still, via Facebook and namely Twitter I continue, and will continue, to share some thoughts, things from the moment, usually a reaction to some development shared online, but coming here and write a thorough and more detailed line of thought, with the references to contextualise will become less frequent.

Cogitation in the Time of War #32 - 100 days of total war have come and gone

It seems I'm not able to gather enough inspiration and motivation (and time, one thing I constantly lack to do all that I want to, and must, do) to sit for a few hours and write a proper cogitation regarding the (more than) 100 days of Putin's (Still Failed) Invasion, with a look back and a new look forward but starting almost exactly with the same words as these, I shared on Twitter some points and the thread got big enough to become itself the Cogitation #32, by copying what I wrote (with a bit more context information and references) and thus having my own essay marking this milestone of 100 days, although it's not really about those 100 days.

Cogitation in the Time of War #31 - About the discussion on the global public arena

Macron and Scholz at a press conference before a meeting in Berlin, back in January 2022. Image taken from this My India First article.

Today is day #97 of Putin's (Still Failed) Invasion of Ukraine; 551 hours and roughly 39 minutes have passed since my previous cogitation and since I haven't cogitated here about the war lately, I was planning to only write when we reached the 100 days milestone, where I would talk about the situation on that day, the previous assessments and again attempt to forecast what will happen next. But during all this time I continue to follow closely, even though the frequency of the news and the frequency of remarks by the people I follow and that I give credibility have also reduced - this is an evidence of a phenomenon I mentioned before, that time normalises a situation, so the war in Ukraine is not such a hot topic as it used to be.

Still as I was writing, I follow closely and today I ended up writing a much longer thread than I had anticipated about a sort of discussion or debate that is being going one in the Twitterverse but also generally in the public arena, or using the direct translation of the portuguese expression, the public square, so now I copy that here for proper documentation.

America's unique "problem" that the rest of the World doesn't have

Image taken from this RTE article.

I woke up to the news today of yet another school shooting that happened in the US, this time in the city of Uvade in Texas, where a teenager (18 years-old, not old enough to drink a beer but old enough to buy a gun and to kill; also old enough to die in the military if required) killed 19 children and 2 adults and injured another 16 in the Robb Elementary School (ages from 5 to 11 years old, so the same school type that my own kids attend). I had to pause writing my essay on another human tragedy happening on the other side of the globe and write some words about these tragedies that, no matter what people say, it's a unique "problem" to the US: mass shootings done by a "normal" citizen but more specifically school shootings, many times with young men as the shooters, using legally obtained guns.

Please don't stop taking care of your mental health

On April 26th, so a little more than 2 weeks ago, I tweeted the following: I have decided to adapt into my "international" blog the more personal texts I wrote in my original blog (in Portuguese) about my mental issues that lead to a serious burnout (and more) because #MentalHealthMatters.
And today I finally completed the adaptation (I use this verb because it is not a simple translation of word by word, I need to adapt expressions and styles) of the 7 texts I published last year on my mental struggle experience.
There was another reason I wasn't fully certain yet when I tweeted my decision; that I struggled still until very recently even though last year I thought I was fine, and being aware of the issues and have tools to fight back, I still felt bad again after some weeks of vacation in Portugal.

Cogitation in the Time of War #30 - Victory or Defeat Day?

At the time of writing, we in Western Europe and also the USA are still on May the 8th, the day we celebrate Victory in Europe Day, when it was announced that the Germans had surrendered to the Allies and thus the war in Europe was over. 1 day before, the Germans had signed their Instrument of Surrender, the legal document in Reims where it was stated that fighting was to stop at 23:01 CET of the 8th. This is the main reason why the 8-May is considered the day for people in CET (Central European Timezone) or earlier (further West), because the war stopped officially on that day.

However it was already the 9-May in the Soviet Union when this occurred, and adding to this, the Soviet High Command didn't fully agree with the signing in Reims as they claimed it had to happen at the seat of Germany's government, Berlin. So another gathering occurred on the night of the 8th and a new version of the Instrument of Surrender was signed, the last signature being put to paper on the 9-May, 00:16 local time. These are the main reasons that Russia is celebrating the Victory Day of the Great Patriotic War (as they call WWII) tomorrow, Monday the 9-May, and not today with the rest of the Allies (USA, UK and France, the other countries that alongside USSR controlled a section of Germany after this).