Semester 10 Chapter XVI: Listen...

Yo, before we get down to it, let me talk my shit again. This past week we had another case of women being abused, this time by one of the youngest and most popular members of parliament in the Czech Republic. I mean, that fucker has 1M+ followers on ig; it’s the most popular profile in the country. Looking at the allegations and testimonies, we’re dealing with flat out rapes and it all seems so well documented, researched and backed down by independent sources, there’s very little room for doubt. Now, let me start with “fuck him.” Next, I would really like to stress out how important is to talk about shit like that. Victims of such behavior are often traumatized for life, their experience is being downplayed… Shit, even legislation in that matter is a pile of bullshit at this point. Given the fact that lots of women freeze out when someone attacks them, rape doesn’t really mean only a physical life-or-death fight in the middle of the park. With a stranger. Nah, it’s way more complex than that, it’s usually someone the girl knows, we need to get our fucking heads around it and most importantly, we need to fucking listen and create an environment where women feel comfortable talking about such things and exposing these fucktards. And we need to educate kids. Cause again, shit is connected. If you live in a world where certain shit is being tolerated, where women are being treated wrong, it takes only little for it to spin out of control. People need to know that “no” means no, people need to know that checking the temperature and asking if the other person feels comfortable is the least we can do, people need to know that there’s no justifying sexual abuse in any shape or form. I’m not putting myself on the pedestal here. Looking into the rear view mirror, I wish I would pay more attention to how other people feel too. I don’t feel I’ve ever crossed any crazy line but I wish this issue had been discussed more where I'm from in general. There is a difference between being a dick and being a serial rapist but if we let men being dicks for long enough, shit is definitely not gonna get any better. And it’s not gonna stop there neither. And we need to start teaching this, we need to start talking about it more and we need to listen to victims. Not asking what the fuck they were wearing, not blaming them for not going to the police straight after the act, not second-guessing every fucking sentence they say. Coming forward with something like this takes enormous courage and we need to to create a space where women won’t feel they gonna get shitted on left and right once they do. Every single one of us need to check ourselves regularly and keep our minds and hearts open to systemic and individual violence and pain around us. For real.

Okay, now back to this little story of mine. This past week, I’ve been on my shit as usual. Keeping it all clean and healthy, reading a lot, working on my shit. That never gets old. And I mean never ever ever. The highlights was the dive. I had first customer at the dive shop. That was Saturday - a woman going in for the first time and her husband, an Advanced diver. All went smooth. The woman made her first dive and I took the husband around the reef in Girandela. Now, I don’t usually pad my pad myself on my back but fuck it… I nailed that shit. I’m not really familiar with anything at that reef, I had been there only once before and I totally counted with the option of not being able to get us exactly back to our entry point. But nah. I took us around 30 meters deep, it was a cool ass dive and with a help of compass, some terrain scanning and a bit of luck, I did just that. Smooth as a motherfucker. It felt good being back in the water. Driving feels good too.

Seems like next week, I’m going to the Czech Republic for couple of the days to transport some shit to the dive shop. So today I went up to Labin to fill up the tank in the van, shop for some snacks for the road trip and I walked around for a bit. Fucked up thing is, none of the cafés over there (and I’ve been to quite a few) don’t have fucking soy milk. So no cappuccinos or some shit like that. Which sucks. You can’t have everything I guess. Other than that life is still good, I have been in touch with my peers… Slow life. And I totally didn’t bother with any pictures last week. Gonna ake it up to you next week. One!

Highlights:

• The dives.
• Snow Crush. That book is something else.
• New Moneybagg Yo. That shit slaps.