People Suck.

So I have written on my blog before about a near-mugging that I experienced, and last night I had another near-mugging...but this time much worse. A friend and I were walking down the street near a park last night on our way to a movie. We were chatting and I mentioned that I had heard that this particular park was pretty dangerous at night. He scoffed and said ¨I´ve lived here eight months so far, and I always walk alone at night. I´ve never had anything happen.¨ Just then I saw a really big guy walking up really close behind David, and a shorter guy coming up behind me. I barely had time to turn around and grab David´s arm before they were in our faces, driving us apart. The shorter one grabbed my shoulder bag and tried to pull it off my head while telling me to give him all my money. I tried to fight him off and started shouting. He couldn´t get my bag off of my shoulder and so he grabbed my arms and tried to rip off my watch All this time I´m backing towards the street and shouting and trying to get away. Finally I realize, hey, wait, I don´t have to just back away, I can fight back. This is an acceptable time to hurt someone else. So I start kicking and hitting him and he decides to run off, with his friend following him. The only thing they got was David´s cell phone.

The reason that I say that people suck is A, the two guys who tried to take our stuff, and B, the people walking by on the street or sitting in idling cars waiting for the the light to change with their windows open, who didn´t do anything while we were being mugged. At one point in my-maybe 30 seconds-of shouting and fighting I looked towards the street for help and there was a guy walking on the sidewalk who locked eyes with me and then continued walking. It´s not like I wanted him to get stabbed, but a helpful shout would have been nice.

2005 / 2006?

If someone had told me when I was in high school, or college, or even a year ago that when the year 2006 came winding to a close, I would still have to pause and think about whether it was year 2005 or 2006, and that I would be teaching Swedish in Ecuador, I would have told them they were nuts. I don´t speak Swedish by the way, and since ABBA sang in English, I almost expected the language of Sweden to be English. And yet, here I am, teaching Swedish in Ecaudor and still writing 2005 as the date.