seen from Guernsey
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I have a very short period of time to raise a LOT of money for my work visa. If you were considering giving me a gift for my birthday or Jul this year, please consider donating just £1 toward my visa because we all know how well I cope when I'm forcibly sent back to Asia haha gag
DONATE HERE
I just got back into an old fandom I left because of school - more precisely, a French fandom that’s pretty popular with French preteens and inexistant in the rest of the world - and I’m out of fanfiction material from the official website.
How desperate for new content am I? Am I “browse the official website again with lower grammar/plot standards” desperate? Wattpad desperate? Skyblog desperate? “Misshapen fanart drawn by a preteen who will probably be a great artist someday but isn’t there yet” desperate? “Doing the dishes to forget about it” desperate?
Or am I “pausing batfam whumptober fics and staring at a blank page” desperate?
I’ve come to discover that if a Finnish person whom I really don’t want to have a conversation with, like at a party, does the “omg a foreigner” thing and asks me where I’m from, I simply have to say “Espoo”. They often first express their sympathies, but it usually shuts down the conversation.
Me: mom how do I make [insert chinese dish here] Mom: *lists off 7 ingredients that I would need to drive an hour and a half to chinatown and back for*
@ land of white people, why
So for my BA I majored in German. The way the programme worked was you could focus on literature, linguistics, or do a bit of both. I focused on linguistics so I got a pretty good idea of why German is Like That. I also got a minor in linguistics where I did classes in historical languages (i.e., languages that get preceded with ‘old’ like Old English) as well as language acquisition. I also got a second minor in TESOL where I took even more classes in language acquisition, L2 error analysis, and specifically how to teach English as a second or foreign language.
Then when I moved to Germany I got told by a non-native English speaker who studied literature and knew jack shit about linguistics or language acquisition that I needed to learn English before I could teach it.
Every German ever: My English... is perfect... I took English... twenty years ago... when I was in elementary school... I am... fluent... impeccable...
German gov’t: You have to give us the original of a form which you receive from the consulate and, since it’s in English, you have to get a certified translation that will cost you a few hundred dollars :) And no, you can’t translate it yourself even though you’re bilingual and you have documentation to prove that :) You’re just a regular person :) You need an official office to do it :) Because we don’t trust you :) Also it has to be notarized to prove that the official document is official both from your consulate AND the translation service :) No you can’t just give us the English document we’re in Germany we speak German only :)
A while back at work this guy, to whom I’ve never spoken, asked me out of the blue where I was from, stating I have an accent.
Now I absolutely hate this question as it’s invasive af. People keep trying to tell me that it’s just being friendly, but here’s the thing: it’s friendly if you were having a conversation with the person anyway, if you’re chatting to get to know one another and you’re both asking questions. It’s invasive, demanding, and rude to come up and ask me that out of nowhere. Would you walk up to a complete and total stranger and demand to know where they’re from? Then get upset at you when they don’t want to answer? No? Okay then don’t do that to me just because I’m a foreigner.
Usually I just tell people I’d rather not say, that I’m uncomfortable answering the question, but then they press and tell me it’s okay to tell them (like????) and get really insistent. But for some reason that I day just looked at this guy and said, “I don’t have an accent. You have an accent.”
And he was so confused he dropped it.
10/10 tactic. Would use again.
One of my new favourite games at work is just to say yes to whatever country people ask if I'm from. England? Sure. Russia? Why not. Italy? If it makes you happy.
Easier than telling people I'm uncomfortable talking about my background, and it causes just... just so much chaos
