Despondant

Today we started off with a slide show of deaths by stab wounds, the perfect continuation of the string of events since Sunday.  We saw many women who were stabbed in the face and chest.  This is typical of women killed by ex-lovers the doctor said - the face is often the object of stabby attention.

I started to relate my story about being menaced with a knife to my "colleagues." I managed to say a few phrases before being interrupted by everyone's dumb stories about being almost robbed.  They didn't once think to return the floor to me, or ask what happened after he pulled out his knife.  They chattered without pause until the prof returned 5 minutes later.

What's so sad about Walid not having an attorney is his perception that "the law of the street" and the Law corresponded in some way.  He earnestly said in his defense, "Yeah I pulled out my knife and pointed it at him!  I just wanted to make him keep on walking. I wasn't going to hurt him." 

Why did he admit to pointing the knife at me?  It was my word against his!  But he seemed to think that since his reason for pulling the knife wasn't malicious, that would somehow convince the cop to let him go.  

In the afternoon we saw a hastily planned presentation from one of the forensic doctors.  "Sorry," he said, "they told me I was doing this just a couple days ago and I didn't really have time to prepare."  So he just showed us a bunch of pictures from things he's been doing lately, including crime scene photos from yesterday's headlines: "Dentist Murdered for 99 Euros."  The story is that an elderly man of 71 years was charged 399 euros instead of 300 euros, so he came into the dentist's office armed to the teeth, told everyone to leave, and then shot the dentist lady eight times.  After an hour holed up in the office he was shot to death by the police, who found many clips of ammo on him and two handguns.  So I saw everything there was to see and more from that grisly scene. 

 

Then we moved on to suicides.  The worst was a family that decided to kill itself.  The mother, the father, and the son (aged 19) all wrote separate suicide notes, and the doctor said there was no reason to suspect that they hadn't all participated willingly.  The reason was that they were financially ruined.  So I got to see all that too.  

I'm so fucking tired of this Masters program.