anno 2002
I found the reason why some posts don't work with permalinks. Well, to be precise I found the way to fix them: they need to be re-edited. Saving them (even without changes) fixes their links. So I've taken up the job to go through all of my previous posts starting from the very first and retrospectively title and categorise them. This being tedious and mind-numbing I cannot do it all at once. You can follow the progress by checking the number of 'uncategorised' posts. As of now I am finished with the year 2002.
On a sidenote, it is quite disturbing to be face to face with my nineteen-year-old self. My English back then seems a lot worse, which is particularly strange because I had just finished Grammar School at the time, so I should have been at my prime time, and I haven't actively studied English ever since. The amount of badly translated thoughts are alarming. Oh, and my posts are just so superficial, childish... had I really been that much of a whingeing sissy? Or am I still?
Well, some things haven't changed for sure: "At Uni again… Well today I left my monthly mass-transit ticket at home - of course I only noticed it when I was on the underground - meaning I had to walk back and miss today’s statistics lecture. Bad thing." (18/11/02)
What can I say? Typical.
This made me laugh, despite of all the mistakes and the fact that law school means something completely different: "Law exam today. I am so glad I didn’t choose law school. ;) Law can be very interesting at some points as it is slightly more complex than it seems to be for the first sighet. However learning it is very exhausting for me. I hate learning things by heart, like exceptions, definitions, rights, etc. Pity law is built up of mainly these. :)" (29/10/02)
If I only knew...
And lastly about MMOGs. I stumbled upon this blog entry just yesterday and when slavishly working on my posts today this came up. Although I obviously lacked maturity I seemed to be a little ahead of my time regarding MMOGs. Not so many have played back then, and definitely not my age. Of course there were no game cards at the time, and the whole experience was fairly new.
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You asked what happened to the boy who wrote the letters to the Ministry. Well, not much info on him, but I browsed through all the articles on Mainichi-MSN for the past two weeks, and listed every article connected to bullying:
14-year-old boy hangs himself in the warehouse of his home (13/11)
This is a different child, from Saitama. Notice how the article mentions the club he belonged to as a piece of important background information.
High school boy busted for molesting elementary school girl (14/11)
Not strictly bullying, but they do indeed start molesting early...
17-year-old high school boy leaps to his death in Kobe (15/11)
Here we are, my hometown. "At about 7:10 p.m. on Tuesday, prefectural police received an emergency call from a resident of the 14-story apartment complex in the Myohoji district of Suma-ku, Kobe, reporting that someone had leaped from its 13th floor." Suma-ku is on the other side of Kobe, where the beach is. Bullying is not mentioned in the article, but "Earlier in the day, he had attended classes as usual. Teachers said the student's grades were solid and he was good at sports, adding that he was comparatively quiet."
Education Ministry receives 2 more letters threatening suicide (15/11)
On the same day the number of letters to the ministry rises to 18.
14-year-old boy found hanged (15/11)
"A 14-year-old boy hanged himself after allegedly being bullied by classmates, police said Wednesday." This time in Niigata prefecture.
Bill passed to amend education law despite opposition boycotting session (15/11)
One would think they are concerned about the suicide-spree. "The bill calls for the government's active involvement in education and developing patriotism among schoolchildren." Definitely what kids need right now... (The whole idea is crazy if you ask me, if there's something this country has ample resources of it's patriotism.)
Student who committed suicide had trousers pulled down on day of death (16/11)
Full report on the boy's death in Niigata. "The local education board is investigating the death, considering the possibility that periodic bullying prompted the boy to commit suicide. School officials said the 14-year-old student had his trousers pulled down by a classmate in front of several other classmates during a group cleaning session on Tuesday afternoon. Afterwards the student reportedly sat through a lesson crying." Noone noticed? More like noone cared. "the school's principal, Shuji Katsuma [...] added that the school wanted to investigate whether pulling the student's trousers down could be considered bullying, and spend time investigating the relationship between incidents at the school and the boy's death" Disgusting reaction from the school, I mean isn't the whole incident blatantly obvious?
Suicidal boy's mom stresses need for quick school response to bullying (16/11)
Some at least are trying to do something, although a suicidal son's long agonising was needed to trigger her . "It's common for children to tease others based on their appearance. I don't think that type of bullying will disappear. But when it happens, I want the adults around them to tell them, 'You mustn't say that kind of thing,' the woman said." Yes, it's that simple.
Nagoya high school student arrested for extortion (16/11)
"The following day the victim handed over 198,000 yen to him at a convenience store in Minami-ku." 338.000 HUF on today's rates.
Education Ministry receives 5 more letters from suicidal students: total now 27 (17/11)
I'm afraid sooner or later some of those kids will fulfill their threats.
10-year-old swallows nail in drink bottle at school (18/11)
I have to give it to them, these children are quite apt at innovative ways of hurting each other. "School officials reported the incident to police, suspecting that the nail may have been deliberately put in the student's drink bottle."
Worker at local education board arrested for sending hoax suicide e-mail to school (20/11)
"She admitted to the allegations during questioning, saying, 'I did it because I was frustrated.'" Actually one of the reson many cases of bullying remain unreported is because the schools are afraid of retorsion from officials.
Workers accused of beating children at Osaka welfare facility (20/11)
'Welfare facility' sounds quite suspicious to me, this could be the kind of institution they send 'problem kids' to. "Two of the students had been verbally abused, and all of the incidents apparently occurred over the past one or two years. None of the students underwent medical checks after the incidents." Of course they were trying to cover everything up. Reminds me of the fears of the kid who wrote the initial ministry letter.
Principal apologizes after spanking, injuring student who played with food (22/11)
Nara is Quite close too, right next to Kyoto. "The principal, Kiyoharu Okamoto, has a record of turning around schools in which education of students is difficult, and has written on the psychology of children and teachers. Locally he is known as the 'passionate principal.'" Maybe a little too passionate.
Teachers criticized over approach to bullying: Our hands are tied (23/11)
"'Bullying can lead to legal action, so schools are on edge,' the vice-principal said. 'Our response has to be cautious.'" In other words since it could damage the institution we rather don't talk about it.
This is two weeks' stuff. The ministry now has 27 letters of children threatening to kill themselves, and counting. Three kids committed suicide, one of them obviously as a result of being bullied at school. Schools remain 'being cautious'.