THE SUNGLASSES ANALOGY

Imagine that in your country, ever since, today and until the far future, every human being was, is and will be born with two legs, two arms, two eyes, a nose, a mouth and sunglasses. The colour of the sunglasses is yellow. Nobody has ever wondered about the existence of those sunglasses, because they have always been there and are body parts so to speak. Every human being is born with them. Take the yellow sunglasses off and look at them. What makes them yellow are all the values, attitudes, ideas, beliefs, and assumptions common to all Croatians.

Everything Croatians have ever learnt and experienced and will ever learn and experience has entered the brain through the yellow lenses of the sunglasses. Everything was filtered and interpreted by the values and ideas, which have coloured the lenses yellow. The yellow lenses of the sunglasses represent our attitudes, values and beliefs and represent our being Croatian.

Thousands of kilometres away in another country (e.g. Finland), ever since, today and until the far future, every human being was, is and will be born with two legs, two arms, two eyes, a nose, a mouth and sunglasses. The colour of the sunglasses is blue. Nobody has ever wondered about the existence of those sunglasses, because they have always been there and are body parts, so to speak. Every human being is born with them. Everything that the Fins see, learn and experience is filtered by the blue lenses of their sunglasses.

A traveller who wants to go to Finland is probably clever enough to realise that if he wants to learn more about Finland he has to buy Finish blue sunglasses, in order for him to truly “see” Finland. Upon arrival in Finland the traveller is now wearing blue Finish sunglasses, stays for two months and is convinced that he has learnt a lot about Finish attitudes, values and beliefs. He is truly “seeing” Finland by wearing Finish blue sunglasses. He returns to his home country and declares himself an expert on Finland and maintains that the culture of Finland is green.

What has happened? The traveller has not removed his own Croatian yellow filter. The moral of this story is: before we are open and free to learn about another culture (to wear their sunglasses) we have to take off our own sunglasses, to avoid the colouring and filtering of our interpretations of the new culture which we want to learn about by our own attitudes, values and beliefs. Our aim should not be to judge the other culture, but to learn something about it. We have to develop a double vision or in other words, the ability to perceive more than one side of an idea.

How can we take off the sunglasses? Very easily. By developing the ability to understand and describe the values, attitudes and beliefs and assumptions of our own Croatian culture the yellow colour of our lenses is fading and the blue colour of the other culture becomes more intense. The more we verbalize and truly understand, what it is that defines us as Croatians, the easier we can make the yellow filters lighter, so as to be able to put on the blue sunglasses and to see a more pure blue tone.

(Source: unknown)

Bez rijeci.......

Blast to the past! Welcome to Austria

What suprised me was how many guests at the 

prom found the dance floor almost their natural habitat.

They were kicking it away with fox trot, one step, polka.. you name it! 

Living in a bit isolated part of Austria, I never truly felt like I was experiencing that flair of a long tradition and culture that Austria is so famous for. In my country older people still say that someone is brought up in  "Vienna school" style, if they want to emphasise that someone has fine manners. This is coming from an old tradition (from the times Croatia and Austria were in the same kingdom) of sending the best students from our whole region to Vienna  finishing schools. 

:)

Girls geting ready for their big night

On the 09.01.09 I had the privilege to be Tina's dance partner. This vibrant young lady is finishing her school of Culture and Fair Management.

It is a practice in many countries, including Austria, to throw a ball,  called prom. It was an interesting opportunity for me to observe first hand the cream of Grazer society at it's best. Tina decided to dance the classical Ballroom dance, called Bolonese, so we were the first group to go on the dance floor. After us there was a modern dance group, which was folowed by presentation of all the pupils.

Tina in the middle, as it si suppose to be,

with her family and friends.

Bozic i Nova Godina,Happy Christmas and New Year, Freue Weihnachten und Neues Jahr, Feliz Navidad y Ano Nuevo

Ovaj kao rijetko koji drugi Bozic bio je u znaku obitelji. Ovo je najduze vrijeme koje sam proveo s obitelji u zadnjih dvije godine. Posjetio nas je nas najdrazi tajkunski ogranak rijecke obitelji i uljepsao cijeli dogadjaj. Par dana nakon toga smo imali veliko okupljanje bosanske strane moje obitelji (tako zvane sumnjive strane obitelji). Taj susret je bio dirljiv i poseban jer sam sve te osobe tada vidio  po prvi put nakon 15 godina...

Nekako racunam da sam se dovoljno naputovao ove godine tako da cu novu docekat doma...

Svima vama zelim pametnu i sretnu glavu u Novoj godini!   

Back in Austria

I've been back home, dono where that home is any more.........so to speak for two and a half months. Right up on my return form this year's big trip to Mexico and Cali I was speedely sucked up in to my little Kapfenberg life.The thing that was creeping behind the corner the whole sommer waiting for me was a The big Math exam.

It was back in summer, right about around my birthday when I got the word that I've used up my first two strikes and I'll have to go on a commission exam (the last thing you want to do on this Uni because if you fail you are finished with studying). Back then it made me realise I need to sort out my priorities and that I worked to much to save money for my sommer. You just can't work as much as I did and at the same time try to finish Uni with such a tight schedule like my. Eventually I passed the exam in Nov and could breath more easily, start sorting things from this semester.

Now I'm working just two days a week which leaves me more time for studying and invest time in to friends and networking, both here and back home...once again where ever that is.

Travel vise there are no big plans in near future

On the long run...... well my Austria life is coming to an end next June and I will be moving to another country to do my exchange semester and after that to do my abroad internship. Where you ask? Well I'm studying Spanish at the moment and the intention is to either go to a Spanish speaking or an English speaking county. Of course Mexico with Yesi is the first choice but it might be difficult to accomplish. Apparently it's hard to get in to Mexican Universties, everybody wants to go there....I cant blame them, it is a beautiful country.

Ahhh....It was nice to put some things on this imaginary HTML paper again, with my ten finger typing...it's nice to keep my blog alive, it makes me feel more a bit more alive to....and now a spectacle:

Attended my great freinds great wedding pary in Zagerb..hello there Igor

My brother goofing around at the wedding

Here are my library ladies, we had a crazy Christmas party that almost went out of control...lol not really.