A book that is supposed to prevent things from happening again

I am going to write about a book that has had a great influence on me. The title of the book; Leila a Bosnian girl. It is about a girl who lived in Bosnian during the war, 1992-1995. The book is a story from real life, a novel and an autobiography. It is a story about Leila and her life during the war and after the war. The book is written by Alexandra Cavelius, based on interview she did with Leila.

In the book you get to follow Leila and her struggle and the effort she makes to survive. She is captured by the Serbian army and is put in a concentration camp when she is only 16 years old. She is alone in a camp full of sick and miserable people who are tortured and beaten to death. The nightmare does not end there.

Leila is a beautiful girl and the beautiful girls are sold to brothels. In the brothel she is forced to do things women are forced to do in brothels, disgusting things in a degrading way. In the beginning Leila has hopes of meeting her family again, to see her mother and brother and the rest of her family, but she has nor idea what the future holds. From there on the book gets even better; Leila is moved from brothel to brothel, from one disgusting soldier to another. Now she is beyond hope of meeting her family again, and she is just about to give up when she finds herself all alone a few years later in a dark forest without a clue of where she is and just a stranger’s face in front of her. Leila is not sure what this man’s intentions are and she is expecting the worst t happen.

This book had a great impact on me because when you read it you can really imagine everything that Leila is going through. Before I read the book, I did not know what horrible things people went trough and the ways people were tortured and killed, especially women.

It is a sad, sad story, a touching story and you can not really understand the point of it until you read the book yourself. The book changed me in a way. It made me respect people more, and respect my cultured and the country that I am from, and it made me feel proud. Is made me realize what my family and friends really mean to me and ho blessed I am to have them. It made me think about other people who are unfortunate, and those people who do not have a home to come back to after a hard day. Where will they go, when the world does not treat them right? Even worse what would a happy home be without having anyone to share it with? There is no greater feeling than the love of family and friends.

Most of us do not know how to appreciate the things we have, like family and friends, a house, a car, a TV, food and, most important, our freedom. Our freedom is one thing that no one can take from us. Leila had it all, a house, a TV, a family and friends, still someone decided to take that away that we need the most_; freedom. Leila’s free will was taken away from her, the possibility of making her own decisions about her future. This is just one of many proofs of how unfair life can be, and how stupid people can act. One of many proof of how people do not think about how their actions can affect other peoples lives. People are still in denial of what happened during the war, a book like this can open people’s eyes. A book like this can make people understand how one man can end so many lives and change so many others. The memories of the war are still there and some memories can not fade away, even if you try your hardest to make them disappear. Some things are just meant to be remembered for ever, so they do not recur again.

What would you do if you wake up one morning and find your life upside down and suddenly you have to realize that everything you lived for is gone and the only thing running trough your head is the thought of survival?

Personal essay

Music! What does it mean to me? There are many different answers to that question. First of all I think music is a treatment against depression and a way to express my feelings. Music is always available. Everyone has a MP3 player or a cell phone with music. Personally I would not make it without music. When I am depressed I love to listen music that is depressing. It may sound wierd but actually it is really nice and makes me feel better. It feels like the music is sympathizing with me and my feelings and it is a great relief to have. Music is not a living thing but it feels like it sometimes. It is always there to comfort me.

Music is not only good in those situations. The point is that music is always a good for me, no matter how I feel at the moment.

I listen to all kinds of music but mostly Melodic Death Metal and other kinds of Metal. I do not know why I like that kind of music the most. Maybe because it feels like true feelings and power at the same time. It is hard for me to explain.

What would we humans do without music? We have had music at all times. I think it is amazing how music has evolved in our time. Earlier there was no technology at all, but today we have all kinds of instruments and technology to develop all kinds of music.

I have only been to three concerts in my life, but all of these were absolutely amazing. The first concert was in Malmö about a year ago. Five different bands were playing but to be honest I was only there to watch In Flames. Unfortunately they played quite late but it was worth while waiting. They outplayed the other four bands. I visited my second concert in Lund, also an In Flames concert. I loved it. It was the best thing I had done in my life so far. I just love the feeling, standing and screaming to the music. It was a great success! My third one was in Copenhagen, where Linkin Park was playing. I thought In Flames were good but they were nothing compared to Linkin Park. This was something special to me, watching the band I have loved since I was ten years old. It did not feel like reality. People may think wierd things about me and my taste of music but I really love music and it is a very important thing to me. I would like to learn playing an instrument but I do not know. I think I am doing a great job just listening to all the music that I listen to.

The story that touched my heart

I am going to write about something that really has inspired me and I think it has helped me change my way of thinking.It is a book I read about two years ago. It is called "Koltrastslätten".The title of the book in original, is the name of a province in former Yugoslavia called Kosovo.The story takes place during the short but horrible war in Kosovo 1998-1999. It is about a man's struggle for surviving a year in a country that is laid waste by ethnic cleansing and all the crimes that come with it. This young man is called Goshy, and he was 15 years old when his father was massacred along with all the other men that lived in his village. This was done by the Serbs that had lived in the village along with the Albanian people in peace and harmony for a long time. Thanks to a miracle,Goshy and his brother Mithat, manage to survive and escape the massacre, but his mother and two sisters, and the love of his life, Rebeka, are taken away by the Serbs but nobody knows where to.Goshy decides that he is going to find them no matter what it takes.He thinks that his brother Mithat is going to help him, but he has other plans.Mithat wants to join the Kosovo Liberation army (KLA) and help his people in need.Mithat tries to convince Goshy that it is the right thing to do, but Goshy thinks that KLA is as bad as the Serbian army.Mithat leaves, and Goshy continues his search for his mother,sisters and Rebeka.But it is not that easy to find them , because Goshy has to avoid beeing seen by the Serbian army, so he spends almost two days in the woods without any food or water. One day he falls asleep leaning on a tree. Then the Serbian army gets closer and finds him. They capture him and bring him to a brothel. After two days Goshy manages to escape as a result of an invasion made by KLA, now he is back in the woods and he has no food, the ethnic cleansing is still going on , and he does not even know if his family is alive or dead.In the end he finds a refugee camp , where his mother and his two sisters are. But he cannot find Rebeka, only her mother and sisters. Later he finds out that Rebeka was captured by the Serbian army and had been brought to a brothel. After she was released she comitted suicide.


This book is one of the best books I have ever read. The main reason is because it explains what happened in the modern Europe, and I don't think that many people know that. This story is not a true story, it has been glued together by many stories told by the Albanian refugees right after the war when being interviewed by the author of the book, Torben Poulsen. This book has touched my heart in a way that i did not think was possible. I have read it three times. It really made me think how lucky I am living in Sweden, and I thank my parents for the decision to move away from Kosovo. I feel a lot of pain for my people that went through all this, but at the same time I am really glad that I was not there. When I first read the book I just could not stop thinking about it. It just had a huge impact on me . In a way it is very hard to read because the only thing you want to do is cry when you read it. It breaks your heart to know that these things have really happened to people. But that is actually one of the main reasons why I love it. The author has not romantisised what really happened during those years the war was going on. He tells stories about peoples struggle through the character Goshy, and he tells them straight out, without making anything look better than it really was. When you read the book, you notice that Torben Poulsen does not only write about what the Serbs did, he is concerned with what the Albanians did to the Serbs that lived in Kosovo. And it is true, because KLA and the Serbian army were in alot of battles. But they were not face to face with eachother. They attacked the innocent people, like Goshy and his family, the civilians.

This book is very hard to find. You cannot find it in many libraries. Maybe because it has not the most popular topic and because of that it has not become a bestseller. That is a pity, because sometimes I want to read it again. I do not think people are interested reading about something they know nothing about and I do not think that many people know alot about the wars in former Yugoslavia. But it doesn't matter, the wars are over now,but still books about the war in former Yugoslavia can be very interesting to read, and this one is. Torben Poulsen is a very talented writer and has written other very inspiring books about things in daily life around the world. When he writes about something, he engages himself. That is very noticeable in this book. When he talks about the ordinary day for Goshy in his village, you can tell that Torben knows alot about the traditions and the way people lives their life in Kosovo. It is very admiring that an Danish author is so interested in a culture that is different from his own. Because with out the author this incredible story about Goshy would not excist and no one would tell the world these things that happened during the war in Kosovo.

Music!

A band that has affected me and influenced me in a small way is a Swedish rock band named kent. I think it is mainly because I like Jocke Berg, the singer and songwriter. He is really good at what he does, and he can express so many feelings in a tune, which makes you able to interpret it as you like.

There are a lot of people who are judgemental against the band. Many people just assume that just because the lyrics are rather sad and kind of depressing sometimes, the ones who listen to it suffer from a depression and wear black all the time. I think that just because you listen to a certain music style you do not have to take on the whole lifestyle that comes with it. The first time I experienced kent I was about 13 years old. My brother and my mother are also very fond of kent so the first time I heard them I was at home. At first, I thought the lyrics were strange. Since I was just 13 years old I did not understand much, but it grew on me and I came to like it.

After a while I stopped listening to it and it was not until I was about 15 years old that I picked up an old CD laying around and put it in the CD player. I started listening to it again. It was then I really got into kent and because I was older, I came to understand all the things I was not able to understand the last time I heard it. Maybe I got a little bit wiser by listening to kent, but I tend to never let anything affect me a lot and especially not music. The lyrics are melancholy and reflective and often rather strange. As I said before, you can interpret them as you like. Some songs are cheery and happy and some are very “please come and kill me now”. Sometimes I get really bored with it because I feel that it is all about suffering and self-pity. The band itself is not the most modest band in the world if you put it like that. I have periods of liking for kent. Sometimes I listen to it intensely and sometimes I do not listen to it at all. I had a very intense period when I was about 15 years old and at that time I listened to the CD’s “Hagnesta Hill” and “Isola”. If I listen to them today I feel all the things I felt back then, I feel really nostalgic about it. Some of the songs will always be very special for me.

I have never been much of an artist. I am really bad at singing and painting and things like that, and I do not think that kent has influenced me i my non-artistic ways.

Spice Girls, absolute music and Timo Räisänen

I think it’s quite hard to choose just one song or an album which affected me as a child, because first of all I don’t really think songs like “bä bä vita lamm” can affect you so much and even if I take a song that I really loved, for example Spice Girls song “Stop” I don’t think lines like:
“Stop right now, thank you very much,
I need somebody with the human touch,
Hey you always on the run,
Gotta slow if down baby, gotta have some fun” can affect or change a girls life. I don’t mean that a person can’t say so, but honestly, if the lyrics is that simple and for me totally meaningless I think the reason why somebody claims that they have been affected by the song is because they have a memory to it. And when they hear the song played on the radio ten years later, they will remember that special memory and say that the song have made a big impact on them.

It’s a matter of a course that it’s often like that, not just when it comes to music but also different smells, special feelings and so on. If you had a perfume as a teenager which you used every day, of course you will feel strange if you smell that smell 30 years later.

I hope you’re getting my point. Anyway, if I have to make a summery of bands and artists I liked as a younger child it would look something like this: Spice Girls (of course, who didn’t like them?), All Saints, Backstreets Boys and Five. And I can say it again, these bands and their songs have not affected me because of their lyrics, I liked them at that time and that is the end of the story.

Me and my sisters did also have all those “absolute of” records, if you remember them. I think we had all CD’s from the time 1993 to 1999. Now, afterwards, I’m use to go in on the website: www.absolute.com and search for those old records that my little brother had an innocent habit of destroying and now years later download the song that we listened to. And I can say that some of it, was really good but some of it the opposite. But now, to the real point! I was told to write a few lines about a real music experience not babbling about absolute-CD’s and tying to make a point that really wasn’t a point just a thought I had that passed me by.

But now I’m realizing that I have written too much... So, I’m going to take this a little shorter: One day when I was looking on a TV show called “förkväll” a guy with a guitar came in and sang one of his songs called “let’s kill ourselves a son”. When he was done, I was in shock. I swear that was one of my best ”TV-experience”. When he sang and played his guitar, it sounded like a whole orchestra coming out of just one person. The guy’s name was Timo Räisänen and he had a new album coming out that you could order from his website. The first thing I did was to order the CD and I can just say that it wasn’t a disappointment. It’s my favorite album so far and this summer me and my friends went to see him on a festival in Helsingborg and that was absolute the best concert I have ever been on. So there you have it, an album that has affected me a lot and I know that in ten years I will still love the guy! In forty or fifty years I hope that I will not forget my Finnish hero Timo Räisänen.

I already know what the words “P.S I Loved you” means, it was an essay about Beatles. So I can’t write about that.

Personal essay

A few years ago my favourite band was Gyllene Tider, a Swedish pop band. I listened to them every day, even when I cleaned my room and had the vacuum cleaner on. I remember my 14th birthday when I got a ticket to their concert in Gothenburg. I was so happy! Have you ever had a feeling that you are walking on air? That was the happiness I felt.

I went there by bus with my mother and my sister, since I did not want to go on my own. There were very many people, more than 59.000, but you did not need to push yourself through the crowd because everyone was very calm. We had good seats so we could hear and see everything. All of it was perfect, even the weather; the sky was free from clouds and the sun warmed us in the dusk. You did not need more than a t-shirt and a pair of shorts to keep yourself warm.

I also remember when they played “Kung av sand”; it was the best part of the entire concert. Everyone ended up in a very good mood and lighted their lighters. It was so nice to see the whole audience waving like a trees blowing in the wind. I want that experience again because it is something you can not forget, the feeling of being so happy that you want to jump around and scream. I think everyone should have that feeling sometimes in their lives, because it is the greatest feeling in the world, except for love then.

Gyllene Tider meant a lot to me when I was 14, they did not change my life but their music cheered me up when I was sad and eased my mind when I was stressed out. They have very simple song lyrics, which I think are the most tempting thing with their music. The first time you hear them you do not realize how emotional they are because it takes a few times. Most of their songs are about some kind of love. It is not just love to a woman, it is also about unrequited love and the love you feel for your friends.

I still listen to them sometimes but not like I used to. I think I have heard them too many times and got a little tired of them because they do not make new songs together anymore. I do not like Per Gessle when he sings on his own. He has only done a few good songs without the band on his album, Mazarin. I bought it because I liked Gyllene Tider so much and hoped that it would be the same, but it was not.

If I would get the question “What do I think about Gyllene Tider in ten years?” I do not know what I would answer. I do not think that I will be listening to them, I do not know why, but it is a feeling I have. But if I look back in the past I know that I will remember them as the only essential band for me.