I've been in the states for a little over 24 hours now, and I can honestly say that I have, in a perverse way, missed this place. There is something about the will/mind of Americans that is a beautiful thing to observe. Like their christmas decorations! They are so banal and kitsch that only a retard would find them beautiful (in the words real meaning). However they ARE beautiful in the sense that christmas is a time for children, for joy. The older we get the more content we get with sitting by a fireplace and musing over something or other. So when the Americans decorate their lawns and houses with their overtly colorful neon lights and plastic Santa's, they are doing it to commemorate the joy of christmas. And that is admirable. However, if you insult someones decorations, they take it as a severe personal insult, and will shoot you, for trespassing on their property.
The flight over went without any incidents. Once we had completed the gate-side security check at Schipol airport (Amsterdam) and sat down to wait for the boarding to start my mother made a great observation:"One can always tell when one is getting close to America. The closer one gets, the sloppier and lazier the clothing gets!" That and the fat percent of the people near you rises with 420%. And when we finally boarded I had two beers and a melatonin and slept like a baby for the duration of the 9 hour flight.
One of the things that i REALLY love when entering the states is filling in the "CBP Form I-94W" which asks the following questions (in addition to some more harmless ones):
A) Do you have a communicable disease; physical or mental disorder; or are you a drug abuser or addict?
B) Have you ever been arrested or convicted for an offense or crime involving moral turpitude or a violation related to a controlled substance; or been arrested or convicted for two more or more offenses for which the aggregate sentence to confinement was five years or more; or been a controlled substance trafficker; or are you seeking entry to engage in criminal or immoral activities?
C) Have you been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?
D) Are you seeking to work in the U.S.; or have ever been excluded and deported; or been previously removed from the United States; or procured or attempted to procure a visa or entry into the U.S. by fraud or misrepresentation?
E) Have you ever detained, retained or withheld custody of a child from a U.S. citizen granted custody of the child?
F) Have you ever been denied a U.S. visa or entry into the U.S. or had a U.S. visa canceled?
G) Have you ever asserted immunity from prosecution?
This is what the wonderful Department of Homeland Security has come up with to protect the States from its enemies. Now we know why 9/11 happened - the flight stewardess hadn't handed out these form before the terrorists took over the planes. So they had no way of knowing that terrorism would get them evicted from the states!
Lets consider some of these wonderful points. Of course I answered NO on all accounts however if one would really go through my life and my previous visits to the U.S. then I should've answered YES to points A), B), D) and F).
With Americas wonderful idea of a "War against Drugs" anyone, who has ever smoked marijuana (god forbid any other substances...) is a drug abuser, for now and forever, may god have mercy on your soul. So thats A) for me. On point B) we find this wonderful line at the end: "immoral activities". Well with right-wing religious nuts running the show for the past 8 years (and 12 years before Clinton) I think that my plan to enter the states and spend new year in a town which has 2 colleges and score weed, drink beer and fornicate with every female student I can find can be seen as an "immoral activity". Points D) and F) are slightly more technical and actually part of a mistake which the American embassy in Finland made. I was to go to study to the States for half a year in 8th grade. So I go a student visa for Northfield Middle School, however when we got to the U.S. border we found out that a year before a federal law had been passed prohibiting foreigners to attend their public schools unless they came through an exchange program (only available for 9th graders and up). So my student visa was canceled and I was given a regular tourist visa and told that if I wanted to go to school here it would have to be in a private school, and that if I tried to go to a public school I would be deported. So in effect I had procured a misrepresenting visa (point D)) and had it canceled (F)).
And now I'm in this lovely country of polite but paranoid people. R. Steadman makes a great point about americans in his memoir of HST: Americans are among the fastest people in the world to adopt cultures/cultural habits, yet they also are among the most conservative people in the world. And interesting, yet acute, observation.
And no matter how I vowed that I won't be doing the cooking here this holiday I got inspired and within 4 hours I'd planned out a 3 course meal to be served in the near future, and this morning I took the reins over a 6/7 kg turkey roasting operation. My first by the way, and it was a huge success!
Well thats enough typing for now.
Peace & Love,
-zS
P.S. Note to self: stock up on melatonin and other drugs which are non prescription here, but which I can't get in Finland.