The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => People & Places => Topic started by: linnea on November 19, 2007, 01:37:24 am
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Lately I have been thinking a lot about emigrating or at least studying abroad. Although I have never been to Australia or Canada, they both seem very appealing. I was also looking into emigrating to an EU country if I can get an Italian passport. My twin sister was looking into getting dual Italian citizenship for us, but I think that in order for us to claim citizenship through the paternal line, it has to be unbroken - meaning that our dad would also have to apply, and he has a bad attitude about it ("We live in the best country in the world! Why would you want to change that??"). Plus nobody can find documentation as to whether our great-grandfather renounced his Italian citizenship when he came through Ellis Island because there was a huge fire that destroyed the records. Apparently that will be monumental in determining whether or not we will be eligible for dual Italian citizenship.
I think that the easiest path would be to study abroad in another country, get a Master's degree there, and then try to find a job/sponsor. Or do you think that I should just try to get a degree here, and THEN try to find a job? Either way, it's gonna be expensive.
Have any of you party people studied abroad or emigrated without a sponsor? One of Kelli's friends is living and studying in Aus as a grad student. My dad has a horrible attitude about it, and has done everything possible to dissuade me from even thinking about it, which I think is bullshit. I love being back in Colorado, but I really want another new challenge.
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I had half-made up my mind to move to Australia when I met the woman I ended up marrying. A girl I used to work with moved there. It was pretty genius, actually. She joined the airline, used the benefits to fly down and see her fiancee (whom she met at college here). She came back, went back a month later, and once she got there, called work and quit. I was going to do the same thing, but you know.
If I didn't have things tying me down here now, I'd have done it. This country is going in a direction that scares the ever-living nuts out of me, and I'm not sure I want to be a part of it. It sucked being a German after WW2, and it's going to suck being an American when the shit hits the fan in the next X years.
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I love Italy and want to live there at some point, but that probably won't happen. I dig living in the US, and I want to live in all different kinds of places. But lately I am realizing that I should live someplace warmer than here... but maybe I can get more used to the cold. The main issue is that when I am in cold weather, my eyes water, and then after a week or so the area around my eyes gets kind of raw from constantly wiping away tears... it sucks. I might buy some goggles or something.
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If I didn't have things tying me down here now, I'd have done it. This country is going in a direction that scares the ever-living nuts out of me, and I'm not sure I want to be a part of it. It sucked being a German after WW2, and it's going to suck being an American when the shit hits the fan in the next X years.
Yeah, but it is surprisingly hard to emigrate to Canada, when I looked at it. I can't answer any of your questions, linnea, but if you can live in Alaska I am sure you are strong enough to live out the hard times to get the hell out of here. Good luck.
I would move down old South America way, my dream is going to Argentina, but that probably isn't going to happen. I would love to live in Eva Peron's face (and hey, you can live with some Italian fascists!) but I am to attached to my family probably to do this. For now I am concentrating on the Bay. If you've got to live here, might as well live in a cool place, though I guess Denver is a pretty cool place. Smoking a bowl on the top of a hill and looking at the bay reminded me of all of the Greece picture books a girl I used to work with would always bring to work. Very cool. Also, it is basically my dream to buy a boot a sail around the world. Maybe default on some loans, get some guns and some growing equipment (food) and stay out on the high seas forever. Again, a dream that isn't going to happen.
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my great-grandma used to smuggle luxury goods of some kind across the Andes into Argentina, and she met Eva a few times. Eva was impressed with her gumption.
man, I didn't even think about moving to Chile. That country is so cool. My mom would think I was an idiot, though, and say things similar to Linnea's dad. She loves it here, man.
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The only thing I really know about Chile is that Pablo Neruda is the shit.
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Yeah, the time for claiming Canadianhood even if its not for real is upon us.
I've been thinking of getting a ballcap with a clock on it that says "Time For Hockey" for the next time I travel to Europe, just to avoid the hate-crimes and so forth.
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I guess I'm just really afraid of approaching my next decade-marking birthday without topping the Alaska thing. I am just really hungry for feeling like I'm moving towards something better than what I have now. I am afraid of stagnating and becoming too comfortable, and I also really want to continue my education. I'll have to be here for my younger sister's wedding in May, but I could always fly back for my twin sister's wedding in June 2009. At any rate, I have to start looking into Master's degree programs that interest me and figure out what exams I'll have to take. I took the GRE in 2002 so I'm sure I'll have to retake it.
It's hard for Americans to emigrate anywhere, but I hear that Canada and England are especially tough to get into. However, I have a Bachelor's degree and I'm skilled, so I think I have enough points to get in. There are numerous companies that specialize in visa procurement, so I could always go with one of them to handle processing the visa application.
Plus, once I get in country, I could probably get naturalized relatively easily if I were able to fall in love with and marry a local.
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My best and oldest friend quite easily got a student visa for a year of studying in Australia, and one of my dearest friends is an American about to get her perminant resident card on Wednesday with a lot of thanks to me hiring her and doing all the stuff needed to get her a work visa. So L, either study somewhere you might want to live and hopefully fall in love with and marry one of the country's citizens or find a friend who can employ you or a specialized job that you can do that can't be filled by someone from the country you want to move to. The number one contributor to population growth in most large Canadian cities is immigration, so, you know, that says something. I'm not sure about the US, but most Universities locally have preexisting exchange programs with other countries (my university had and exchange with Japan, my friend's was with Australia, which is why she went) so you might want to ask any nearby universities about their exchange schools - perhaps you could get a degree and spend a year or two in another part of the world. I'm sure there must be some sort of "study abroad" type groups at your local university that can help you out. I wish I'd taken advantage of a program like that back then, but I was just trying to stay sane most of the time, and now I've got the love of my life, so I'm somewhat tied to one place.
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I need to decide pretty soon whether I am going to try to study abroad. But based on what I have scoped out, I don't know if I have enough time to fulfill my major's requirements and still take a semester off to go to some other country. The only place listed under my major is the University of Edinburgh. If I just did a psych thing, my options broaden to include Queensland, Haifa (Israel!), Sussex, and Exeter. I do not really know about any of these places, and I am possibly getting close to deadlines for things. I need to look into this.
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Queensland
If you like awesome beaches, reasonable drinking ages and a life that is basically awesome, this is the place for you.
Just saying.
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If you like awesome beaches, reasonable drinking ages and a life that is basically awesome, this is the place for you.
Just saying.
Heh! Doc, do you know any nice guys amazing, sexy, wonderful blokes who are looking for an American mail order bride?
Also, over here, most people think that "foreign accents" like Aussie, Kiwi, British, Scottish, Irish, etc. are fun and intriguing. What do folks in other lands think of the American accent? Is it pretty boring?
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Are you sure you'd want to meet someone who wants a mail-order bride?
To be honest though American accents aren't considered that intriguing around here. I guess since they're all over TV they're not much of a novelty and we're a country made up of lots of different immigrants we're kind of hard to phase, even though there's an irritating core of insular racism in our culture for some reason.
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Probably because you have a society built upon people.
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Yeah, but I'm working on that.
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Probably because you have a society built upon people.
I have read this so many times, and I am so confused about what it could possibly mean. It's funny, though, because I am writing an essay about the legitimacy of government coming from the consent of the governed?
I really want to end my essay with "I'm glad that John Locke figured all this "legitimate government" stuff out a few hundred years ago so we don't have to try it out now in a middle eastern country," but that would probably ruin the intellectual tone of the paper.
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I think Keith means that people are flawed and that's why any society built on/by people will be flawed.
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oh.
for some reason I was reading it as some kind of mean comment about your society being built upon the backs of oppressed people or something? maybe there was some historical issue I wasn't aware of?
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Oh, well yeah come to that we did that too.
Australian Aborigines haven't had the best deal under the heel of the European oppressors.
Actually yeah now that I think about it that probably is what he meant. Dang.
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I mean, that's pretty much how things are under the heel of the European oppressors. It is a pretty standard deal, I think.
What I'm saying is, there aren't any people around who are like "man, we totally lucked out, being under this heel. this heel, oppressing us? this is prime. this is our golden age."
linnea, don't look for a guy who wants a mail order bride.
now I am imagining the dichotomy of... the guy who would want an American mail order bride, vs. the guy who would want, say, a Russian or Thai one. There are so many ways a person can be creepy, is what I am getting across.
however, when you show up on the scene in this country which you end up going to, the guys with accents which are attractive to you will be all "hey, who is that girl, her name is Somebody nice and her looks are great/ I would really like to take her on a date/ man, no, seriously, she is rad."
I am saying this because you are pretty and full of desire for adventure, both Alaska-based and non-Alaska based.
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Actually the trend around here, at least with older dudes, is to see a guy in say his fifties with a chick in her say 30s from the phillipines or somewhere similar. These ladies tend to be really quiet and this just amkes the whole thing even creepier.
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the mail order bride thing was just a lame joke on my part. I knew several dudes in Alaska who had Eastern European or Filipina mail order brides. The dudes were hell of creepy. Usually the mail order bride thing is a front for human trafficking, and we all know how strongly I feel about that.
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Perhaps I am too much a Sensitive New Age Guy here but... why would anyone want a lover who can barely speak the language? I mean, sex is awesome but... good Lord, even if it's frequent and zesty, you're only talking about four or five hours of the week.
My big problem with dating in high school and early college was that I was always attracted to interesting smart talented women who wrote and did art and played music and stuff and... those girls all wanted tortured drunks with washboard abs and leather jackets.
They didn't WANT guys who'd actually be good to them and care for them and so on, they wanted big dramatic paintings that could be mysterious and that could provide them with drama and tulmult and inspiration and so on.
Why would anyone want a lover who is emotionally and psychologically disengaged from them?
Doesn't it get boring/frustrating right quick?
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lfm, you know my opinion on that whole thing. Girls are ridiculous sometimes. boys are ridiculous, but in different ways, of course. I am starting to wonder if the reason that I am tending towards Judgemental Asshole in my social interactions lately is as some sort of correctional mechanism for lacking the abs and leather jacket. or maybe it's just that a lot of my friends here are... kind of judgemental and jerky.
the good news is, the girls who aren't looking to date dicks are always pretty happy when they realize you aren't a dick.
"so. daniel. are you a good egg?"
"um... what?"
"are you a good guy. you know. if you aren't, just... I'm not about to put up with that shit."
"oh. I mean. I'd like to think I am."
"ok. good."
on the other hand, when you fuck it up, you get the "you used to be such a nice guy, what happened?" and it feels pretty shitty.
the only situation in which I could see being With someone who didn't speak english would be if it were a thing where, you know... I am like a wounded paratrooper, and she only speaks french, and she hides me from the nazis and we slowly learn each other's languages and then... etc.
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the only situation in which I could see being With someone who didn't speak english would be if it were a thing where, you know... I am like a wounded paratrooper, and she only speaks french, and she hides me from the nazis and we slowly learn each other's languages and then... etc.
Inev has hell of WW2 fantasies.
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That's some nice romanticizin' Inev.
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Inev's gonna be cuttin' in on Cornelius's business 'fore too long.
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Also, over here, most people think that "foreign accents" like Aussie, Kiwi, British, Scottish, Irish, etc. are fun and intriguing. What do folks in other lands think of the American accent? Is it pretty boring?
In short: yes. American is kind of the Western world's generic accent, simply due to it's over-exposure everywhere. Somewhat unfortunately, the 'mis-pronunciation' of (different way of saying) 'English' words is normally regarded as annoying rather than endearing/interesting, unlike in Scots for example. Also, most accents have associated slang which is interesting, can't think of much American.
However, this is Britain, I'm sure in non-English speaking countries the American accent is far more unique due to the fact it wouldn't be heard as much.
Crap, look at the British guy get all up himself. To mitigate things a bit, I'm pretty certain when we were a dominant cultural force our accent was considered a bit shite too, and in fact I'm pretty certain everyone except you guys HATE TO HELL the English accent.
Also: England alone has about a billion regional accents, but I notice very little variation in American dialects. Is this just a perspective thing, ie. do you notice English regional differences and am I missing the American ones?
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Also: England alone has about a billion regional accents, but I notice very little variation in American dialects. Is this just a perspective thing, ie. do you notice English regional differences and am I missing the American ones?
I notice the difference between regional accents in both American and British English. The Boston, New York, and Southern accents are the most obvious, but there's also the Wisconsin/Minnesota accent, the difference between Southern and Deep Southern, and the dialect differences between East and West (things like "the I-5" on the west vs. "I-95" on the east). Then there's Pittsburgese. I also surprised the hell out of a Briton by saying, "Where in England are you from? I know it's not London." He was from Liverpool. I recognized it quickly in the twang of Lennon. If I wasn't able to understand what he was saying, I'd have said Manchester.
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Also: England alone has about a billion regional accents, but I notice very little variation in American dialects. Is this just a perspective thing, ie. do you notice English regional differences and am I missing the American ones?
The "generic American" accent is pretty prevalent all over our country, which is the "Midwestern" accent. It is what you most often hear newscasters speaking. Many people adopt it instead of their regional accents in order to sound more "educated". Other regional accents and dialects seem to be associated with the lower classes, which is a pity because they're so interesting. That is why newscasters struggle to master the bland Midwestern accent - because it is so generic and free of "low class/stupid" stereotypes (well...at least when compared to other American dialects). There are a multitude of Southern accents, such as Appalachian, Cajun, Texan drawl...I tend to categorize Southern accents by state, like Alabama, Georgia, etc. The Minnesotan/Wisconsin accents and speech patterns are undoubtedly influenced by the Nordic and Germanic people who settled there en masse during the emigration waves. I love hearing Bostonians and New Yorkers speak, and there are a multitude of varied shades of all of these regional accents.
It's a lot of fun. I enjoy listening to regional differences in speech.
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I think that the high level of mobility in this country probably contributes to the blandness. Many people don't settle where they were born, and often move many times in their lives.
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Yeah, I have the bland Midwestern accent. The good news though, is that if I would have been born 45 miles in any direction I would sound like a huge hick.
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Well, there is also the simple fact that we sort of had widespread radio and television earlier and stronger than basically anywhere else and... that's the great accent homogenizer, you know.
More and more, we learn our accents and dialects from the teevee, you understand.
Hell, many Brits for a long stretch of time learned to sing with American accents, despite speaking with heavy British-type accents, because of the popularity of American music over there.
And also... uhm... no offense to my Southern friends here but...
A heavy Southern accent DOES sound like the speaker is trying to talk with a mouthful of the Michelin Tire Man's dick to anyone not from the South and... uhm... so that is why a lot less people are either eliminating their accents from their entirely or lightening them up significantly.
Fellating a commerical mascot is not a great sound.
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A heavy Southern accent DOES sound like the speaker is trying to talk with a mouthful of the Michelin Tire Man's dick to anyone not from the South and... uhm... so that is why a lot less people are either eliminating their accents from their entirely or lightening them up significantly.
yeah, because New York and Boston accents sound like the song of angels.
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I like boston accents. At least the version in 'The Departed', after watching that movie I wander around for days pronouncing 'cop' with at least 2 more letters than I spell it.
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yeah, because New York and Boston accents sound like the song of angels.
QFT.
A better question is why an Iowa/Kansas/Nebraska accent was adopted as the official "accentless" version of US-Speak. We have accents. The difference between a Bostonian, a Milwaukeeite and a Georgian are obvious, but I think I could distinguish between an southern accents from Alabama, Georgia, Virginia and Kentucky (actually, from several different regions in KY).
I'm not trying to brag about my accent-distinguishing abilities here. I think local accents, in their original forms, can be pretty easy to tell apart. My point is that region American accents certainly existed during my lifetime. Also, they are in decline in favor of a middle-midwestern accent.
But what is it about that particular accent makes us perceive it as "accentless"? How and why did Iowan become Received American?
Wombat?
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Because it is plain and easiest to understand for people throughout the country?
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A light Southern accent is fine, even pleasant. Just as a light NYC accent can be kinda cute in a crass sorta way.
But if you're going into Paula Deen territory... I'm sorry... I can't get behind that.
I'm sorry but someone's gotta smack the giant rubber dick out of that woman's mouth.
I don't CARE if she's married to Santa Claus or not. The smacking must occur.
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It happens everywhere. 90 percent of mexican voice-over work is done with the "Mexico City" accent, which has been determined to be the least reigional dialect and therefore the easiest to broadcast everywhere. I've heard mexican anime fans wail and gnash heartily over this fact. I imagine The Beverly Hillbilliies would be very dull when dubbed with all cast members having the same accent.
Wasn't there someone here with an accent story regarding call centers (centres) and Canada?
And as I've said before, though I grew up in Alabama and spent my first 25 years there, I never had a very pronounced southern accent and eliminated it completely from my speech by age 20 or so. Part of the reason came to me when I listened to a lecture by a brilliant architect with really groundbreaking ideas, but didn't take him seriously for the first half of it because he had a thick Kentucky accent and was nicknamed Sambo.
Reigional accents, like regional delicacies, customs, music, and architecture, require insular communities to foster them. A mere century ago, people rarely traveled more than twenty miles in their lifetime. Physical and class barriers tended to reinforce accents. Even the large cities had, by necessity, subdivided into smaller self-sufficent communities with regional accents of their own. Bronx accents still exist, and they're different from Long Island or Manhattan.
Cars, relocation, and mass media all break down accents. Our children are exposed to nationally-televised voices (with that 'generic' midwest accent) just as much as their friends from around the neighborhood, if they're lucky enough to have any. More and more often we have to drive to wherever our kids can play for as long as we have 'free' time, then back in the car with its national radio show and DVD player.
My oldest sister, 11 years my senior, still has some very Alabama pronunciations, especially in O sounds. Her husband does too, though neither of them match their parents. I started with far less of an accent than she had and have none now. Her children, aged five to fourteen, have very little southern accent in their speech at all.
I'm not sure how I feel, though I guess I can't really lament the loss of something when I actively stamped it out at home, so to speak.
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a professor I might take a class from next semester is kind of Known in linguistics circles, apparently, because of research he did on Linguistic Profiling, where you make assumptions about people based on their accents. The specific example was calling up to inquire about an apartment for rent-- first he let himself go wild with the "Urban" (black) way he used to speak, then he called again with a "white" sounding voice. There was a pretty big difference of reaction, apparently.
It is cool because I had read about this in the newspaper in Charlotte, and thought it was awesome, and now I am probably taking a class with the guy.
However, his class meets only 1 day a week, for 3 hours in a row. That is not really a good idea, I feel.
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Well, I am not in the business anymore but... my recollection of the state of things is that there's really no evidence that regional accents are disappearing in this country. Many people may learn to minimize them with education and so on, but it's not hard to go and find someone who speaks any regional accent that you are interested in hearing.
I am not sure how Midwestern became standard. In most countries, the standard accent is that spoken in whatever city is the center of economic and/or political power, often the capital, but not always - for example the New York City accent was prestigious at one time - if you listen to movies in the 40s or so, fancy people in New York settings drop their Rs, something which is now stigmatized about that accent (although Americans think it's fine when Brits do exactly the same thing.)
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It happens everywhere. 90 percent of mexican voice-over work is done with the "Mexico City" accent, which has been determined to be the least reigional dialect and therefore the easiest to broadcast everywhere. I've heard mexican anime fans wail and gnash heartily over this fact. I imagine The Beverly Hillbilliies would be very dull when dubbed with all cast members having the same accent.
I remember reading about Univision training all its on-air talent to speak with Mexico City accent back in 2000. Apparently there are also dialect/slang issues. Venezuelans speak differently than Puerto Ricans and might have communication problems, but everybody understands somebody from Mexico City. Or at least the article said. The two spanish-speakers who sit next to me confirm this, but they are both Mexican and might be biased.
As for anime-dubbing, I think all one accent might actually be the way to go. If you've seen Princess Mononoke in English you know what I mean. There's this monk who speaks with low-class hick accent that makes the character appear dumb in Japanese. So for the dub they went with Billy Bob Thorton, since most Americans associate southern with stupid. It's very jarring to hear a Japanese monk with a southern accent.
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Wasn't there someone here with an accent story regarding call centers (centres) and Canada?
Yes, that was me. I can't be bothered to search for my old post. Manitoba has a huge amount of call centres because our accent is considered non-regional specific. I've worked at many an American call-centre, several for products not sold in Canada. We were told to say we were located "north of Minneapolis" and to never reveal we were in Canada. Occasionally people would catch me when I said "about" and want to make sure I understood that they knew I was Canadian.
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When I worked a call centre job, they were just so happy to be reasonably sure that I was a native English speaker that... they didn't really care if I was in Utica or Topeka or Vancouver or whatever. I wasn't in Bangalore or Manilla and that was good enough for them.
There was the vague possibility that I could actually understand them and that was enough.
Welcome to the 21st Century.
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When I worked a call centre job, they were just so happy to be reasonably sure that I was a native English speaker that... they didn't really care if I was in Utica or Topeka or Vancouver or whatever. I wasn't in Bangalore or Manilla and that was good enough for them.
There was the vague possibility that I could actually understand them and that was enough.
Welcome to the 21st Century.
This is one of the reasons I prefer Vocelli's when ordering cheap delivery pizza. You call an 800 number where you get somebody at a central office hired for their phone skills instead of a random guy working the counter at your local shop. The pizza is no better or worse than Domino's or Papa John's but ordering is easier and has a lower error-rate.
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You know you can order online from Papa John's now? Same benefits, you can verify the livin' crap out of your order before submitting.
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At home we're not allowed to order Papa John's or Domino's because they both give money to anti-choice groups.
I ordered from Pizza Hut online once and everything was fine.
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At home we're not allowed to order Papa John's or Domino's because they both give money to anti-choice groups.
It's like the future has sent... a telegram to today.
I see my future involving rules like this.
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It's like the future has sent... a telegram to today.
I see my future involving rules like this.
I cant imagine a future where I am concerned with food chain political contributions. The time and energy required to research every place of business and what they do with their money is time and energy id rather spend on other things.
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Like eating pizza?
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oh, no, see, I imagine myself living in a house with a lady who cares enough to check up on this stuff. and, of course, cares enough to make a rule that Papa John's is Not OK to Eat due to this fact.
Also, we live in an age where information is available through avenues other than finding it out yourself.
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Well, you still have to fire up Google and sort the wheat from the chaff. Its not like they're beaming your choices directly into your skull (yet).
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For a couple years the SO always went on the Ms. magazine cruise and one of the most popular sessions was always investing/eating/shopping ethically. So they'd give you lists of Bad Places like Domino's & Papa Johns. Although those two are really blatant about their beliefs already.
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Are they handing out "Free Eric Rudolph!" bumper stickers or something?
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Are they handing out "Free Eric Rudolph!" bumper stickers or something?
Well the head guy at Domino's (CEO? Founder?) is trying to start an all-Catholic town in Florida. None of the drug stores will be allowed to carry condoms, all the schools will be Catholic schools. That kind of thing.
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At home we're not allowed to order Papa John's or Domino's because they both give money to anti-choice groups.
My favourite part of this sentence is the 'at home', the implication being that you secretly and illicitly order papa john's pizza from work or similar.
Also I don't order dominoes pizza beacuse I like my pizza to taste good. I always get into arguments with The Lady about this because she believes Dominoes is superior the the Hut whilst I champion the opposite agenda. Luckily there are like 3 tiny boutique type pizza shops basically in walking distance of us that beats the ##### of any stupid chain store.
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I don't usually eat Domino's or Papa John's because they don't taste so good. Fortunately I have a little mom and pop place very close that makes really good pie. I don't know their politics, but the dude that delivers has a Radiohead and a Bjork bumper sticker. He brought the pizza into my apartment and put two slices on a plate for me that time I sprained my ankle (http://www.paulmcrae.com/FEATURES/SPRAINED_ANKLE/IMAGES/DSCN4181-E-500.jpg).
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I have a weakness for Papa Johns because I like that garlic-butter-esque stuff they give you to dip your crusts into. It is thoroughly mediocre otherwise but that other stuff is completely addictive.
I... need to exercise more, this is all there is to it.
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As far as bland chains go, I think Round Table is the best you can get. I can do with Pizza Hut, but Dominoes is like eating some dude's old college sweatshirt with a sprinkling of mozzarella cheese on it.
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A-CAP doesnt allow coca cola products to be sold or distributed on campus because there was a thing a couple years ago when coca cola refused to deny that maybe they funnel money to paramilitary groups
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Also, to get slightly back on topic, I too used to work at a call center. Well, Nintendo of America consumer service. All told, a pretty cool place to work. Anyways, talking to people from all over the US and Canada gave me a tremendous appreciation of all the different accents this country has. Even in the South, the accents vary a lot. The difference between a Louisiana accent and one found in South Carolina is actually pretty great. I also learned to differentiate between Canadian accents for the first time. I can pretty easily spot the difference between, say, a Nova Scotia accent and a Toronto accent. For an American who has been to Canada maybe four times in his life, I'm pretty proud of that.
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Well, there is also the simple fact that we sort of had widespread radio and television earlier and stronger than basically anywhere else and... that's the great accent homogenizer, you know.
More and more, we learn our accents and dialects from the teevee, you understand.
Hell, many Brits for a long stretch of time learned to sing with American accents, despite speaking with heavy British-type accents, because of the popularity of American music over there.
ARMCHAIR LINGUIST ALERT
Actually, despite the existence of mass media, regional accent variations continue to exist. The first example that springs immediately to mind the northern cities vowel shift (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_cities_vowel_shift), which is a fairly recent development -- the trigger for the shift was first identified within the past 50 years.
I suppose it's possible, though I have no real scientific basis for this, that kids growing up today might have more homogenous accents than kids in the past, given that it seems like Kids These Days watch more TV and watch it earlier in their development than kids in the past did, who generally probably did not become voracious consumers of TV until well after they learned their accent.
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I used to deliver for Papa John's a few years ago. Also, it's a local company. Papa John started in Louisville (OK, actually right across the river in Jeff) and is still based here. I know nothing about his politics.
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Oh, there are still regional accents, of course.
But they're slllllllllloooooooooowllllly going away.
It's the sort of change that doesn't completely happen in one lifetime, though.
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my linguistics professor told us today about how a lab at washU is doing a lot of research on spelling and reading acquisition, and they have noticed a new pattern of misspellings-- specifically, a large number of kids spelling "truck" as "chruk" or "chruc" or "chruck." Which... I guess we do kind of pronounce those the same.
he also talks a lot about how people who don't differentiate between the dAWn sound and the dOn sound confuse him.
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my linguistics professor told us today about how a lab at washU is doing a lot of research on spelling and reading acquisition, and they have noticed a new pattern of misspellings-- specifically, a large number of kids spelling "truck" as "chruk" or "chruc" or "chruck." Which... I guess we do kind of pronounce those the same.
he also talks a lot about how people who don't differentiate between the dAWn sound and the dOn sound confuse him.
What kind of moron kid makes a word longer when they misspell it? There was a kid in primary school who spelled "said" "sed", "school" "scool", "knee" "nee" etc - I can understand that. But what makes someone spell "shrimp" "schrimps"? (I've seen that one myself).
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Does that mean there's people who go around pronouncing "definitely" as "defiNATely?" Because there are so many goddamned stupid kids who continue to spell the word that way it drives me fuck*ng insaaaaaaaaaaaaane, etc.
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he also talks a lot about how people who don't differentiate between the dAWn sound and the dOn sound confuse him.
This does not seem like a very good use of class time.
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I was talking to my Dad today and he got REALLY PISSED and started yelling/lecturing about how I need to "settle in" and not move somewhere and not go to grad school. Why is he bein' such a dick about it?
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I was talking to my Dad today and he got REALLY PISSED and started yelling/lecturing about how I need to "settle in" and not move somewhere and not go to grad school. Why is he bein' such a dick about it?
Jealousy, perhaps?
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I was talking to my Dad today and he got REALLY PISSED and started yelling/lecturing about how I need to "settle in" and not move somewhere and not go to grad school. Why is he bein' such a dick about it?
He's obviously tired of updating the Christmas card list. Stop being so selgiraffe for once in your life.
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I'm guessing he's probably just... worried about you, worried that if you never just pick one place to plunk down and start grinding, you'll always be searching and never stick in one place long enough to be happy.
I get similar stuff from my parents, really, they mean well, they mean well.
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So was it just random pissed off yelling or did he make any salient points in support of his position?
His argument points:
1. You have already done a lot of fun stuff in your life. (actual quote)
2. You need to stop dreaming so big. (actual quote)
3. You need to settle down and save some money. You need to fully pay off your $21k car and your $35k student loans before you assume any more debt. (actual quote)
4. You should settle down and get married. If you did that, I'm sure that you and your husband would have a combined income of 100,000 and that's more than enough for anybody. (actual quote)
He didn't buy my side of it, which is that my lifetime earning potential will be much larger if I were to go to grad school. I'll be better eqiupped to pay off my $56,000 in debts (plus however much I have to borrow for grad school) with a Master's degree than at my my current job. I also think that having my PMP designation and getting an MBA in a foreign country would make me really marketable.
However, my dad thinks that people men who are successful in business are Naturally Born That Way (and he has an unspoken, highly-buried and unquestioned misogynistic worldview that says women aren't good at math or business). Yet I have a degree in architecture and I do cartography as my day to day job. I think I might be able to develop the entrepreneurial spirit if I had some business education and work for myself someday.
I think that it really, really stuck in his craw that I made as much money per year in Alaska as he did.
Jealousy, perhaps?
I think you're right, Mr. Haus. I also think that it's a total douchebag Hunt's move to take out one's own insecurities on one's own daughter.
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Man, the more I hear about other people's families, the more I like my own. We are very nice to each other. Perhaps it is an anomaly.
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Not really. Mine's pretty good too (even with divorced parents!) It just sounds sort of boastful, so I don't bring it up much.
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Oh, your dad's just being a worrisome douche, then.
Frankly, my folks... well, my mom, just my mom, my dad's happy as long as I'm happy... have more of a point.
I AM just head above water financially.
I'M WRITING A NOVEL, fer God's friggin'. She has a lot more rational reasons to worry about me than your pop does for you, L-Money.
I have many lottery tickets, however, this is basically my arguement against her, now.
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4. You should settle down and get married.
Is this supposed to be a piece of rational advice? Like this is something you can just decide to do? Like ordering a husband from a catalog?
I have never understood parents who think they can tell their grown children what to do with their lives or why any of those children do anything but nod politely, thank them for their concern, and change the subject. But in any case, anyone who tells you you should just settle down and get married... obviously nothing else they say can be taken seriously, no matter how they're related to you.
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Bizarrely, I actually had the reverse conversation with my father about two weeks ago: "(V), you're 24 now. I was 24 when I moved up to Alaska, and your mother was 25... maybe you ought to do something like that. Just go on an adventure."
Today, we talked about the fact that I'm thinking of applying for a job in LA, and he's ambivalent about it, but he still thinks I ought to do something adventurous. I'm less certain.
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Some say that religion is the last refuge of scondrels.
Others say that patriotism is the last refuge of scondrels.
But I proffer up that Los Angeles is the actual last refuge of scondrels.
...joooooooiiiiiiin us.... jooooooooin us....
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Is this supposed to be a piece of rational advice? Like this is something you can just decide to do? Like ordering a husband from a catalog?
I have never understood parents who think they can tell their grown children what to do with their lives or why any of those children do anything but nod politely, thank them for their concern, and change the subject. But in any case, anyone who tells you you should just settle down and get married... obviously nothing else they say can be taken seriously, no matter how they're related to you.
Basically, the douche was telling me to forget project management and an MBA, and just go for the MRS degree instead. WTF, asshole? It's the 21st century, for Christ's sake!
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And I second that our dad is very misogynistic. I think he truly believes that women are inferior to men. It seems entirely possible that he's jealous of Somebody nice's drive & ambition (I think he has the same drive, but he has been choosing "the safe choice" for a long time now).
Basically, he thinks women ought to just get married and do all the housework for the Man of the House. Everything is subserviant to the man. He does not think they deserve to earn as much as men for the same work. I'm sure he thinks that women working are the beginning of the Downfall of Society.
Sometimes I want to punch him in the face.
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What truly doesn't make sense to me is - why would you want your daughter's life to be totally dependent on the good will of some strange man? It's much better and safer if she can provide for herself.
Also: V - go to LA!
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Wants some damn grandkids, I say.
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I'm sure he thinks that women working are the beginning of the Downfall of Society.
I mean, true. We were doin' just fine without y'all.
you know... back when there weren't women.
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I second the motion of V going to LA.
I mean, since we are making all of your big decisions for you now.
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Well, hell, why not? It's not like the board can do a worse job to date than I have.
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The SoCal pod will arrive in your mailbox shortly. Soon you will be doing yoga and driving to places you used to walk to. Then you will have to move out here.
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No no no, those are no longer valid Los Angeles cliches.
Do so much cocaine that you no longer know how to drive in even a drizzle THEN you're ready.
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That's good, because I've recently started doing yoga and I have no desire to move to Southern California. Not that there's anything wrong with Southern Cal. I just like it here.
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Not that there's anything wrong with Southern Cal. I just like it here.
I'm glad you said that. Our So Cal contingent is a touchy bunch.
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I'm glad you said that. Our So Cal contingent is a touchy bunch.
No kidding. Must be something in the water.
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What about the Nor Cal contingency? Who else is there besides me? We dirty San Francisco hippies could take LFM and his coked up Hollywood stars any day!
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which reminds me, LFM, you should hang out with my friend who works for Satan (Creative Artists Agency). She is hot, lives in LA, and great. You guys would probably not like each other at all.
I like that I know someone who works for what is apparently a truly Evil organization. She has hell of situations involving, you know, older creepy celebrities smarmily hitting on her in elevators. She is blond and pretty, but, you know, in a way which probably counts as "down to earth" for LA.
Sorry, um, you are just the only two people I know in LA. Other than my aunt/uncle/cousins.
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As I have a girlfriend, I am not allowed to like hot ladies, so it all works out.
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That's good, because I've recently started doing yoga and I have no desire to move to Southern California. Not that there's anything wrong with Southern Cal. I just like it here.
Yoga is awesome. You can do it anywhere in the country. Even hick states like North Carolina -- as long as you're in a moderate-sized city and don't mind sharing a class with the occasional big-haired, buxom yogini in too-tight spandex.
I'm once again considering getting certified to teach yoga. I actually talked to my yoga teacher about it last week. The yoga studio I attend has a respected teacher-training program -- and there is a distinct possibility that I could do it on a part-time basis. I want to teach yoga to special-needs kids, and my yoga teacher actually taught a movement class to a group of autistic middle-schoolers last year. It was part of a contract with the public school system. (She also has an MA in Dance, so technically it was a dance class but she used lots of yoga too.) She says there's no special certification but you could cobble together the required information from a series of weekend workshops, and she'd be thrilled to help me. I'd have to start out teaching regular classes to get my bearings before I started doing something so specialized, but it's possible that I could have my certification and be teaching half-time by the time Hero goes to preschool.
But the problem with this plan is that it doesn't have any relationship to the thing I have spent the last six years studying, which is history, and I would sort of like to keep my foot in the door in that respect so that I can resume my career as an historian once the kids are older. There are a couple of ways to do this, one of which is to continue researching and writing on my own and submitting short papers to peer-reviewed journals for publication. If I can get half a dozen articles published over the next ten years it will at least prove that I have worked to keep my skills current even though I've not been officially working in the field, and I might actually be able to get a job. The other thing I could do is apply to teach an evening class at the local technical college. Most require a Master's but no teaching experience. Both these thingswould help me get into a PhD program later if I decide that's what I want to do, but which one I choose now will determine what my options are aferwards. Also, I don't know if I want to get my PhD or if I want to go in a different direction entirely.
The last option is to just do nothing for five years or so and then get involved in local politics, work my way up, and hopefully end up doing some state-level lobbying job for an organization I believe in. Which wouldn't be bad either, but it's not exactly a lifelong dream. The most appealing thing about this option is that it doesn't require anything of me any time soon. I am so burned out on school that the idea of ever doing anything school related again, ever, is sort of a turnoff.
So, I guess this is my way of saying that linnea and V aren't the only people with identity crises around here. You would think once you've got a husband and 1 1/2 kids you don't have to make these kinds of tough decisions, but really, the spouse and kids only serve to further complicate things in the long run.
Speaking of which, one of my complications is trying to sit on my lap while I type this, so I need to move my laptop. I don't have enough lap left to accommodate both any more!
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Yoga is awesome. You can do it anywhere in the country. Even hick states like North Carolina -- as long as you're in a moderate-sized city and don't mind sharing a class with the occasional big-haired, buxom yogini in too-tight spandex.
Apparently a small rural/bedroom community is OK too.
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What about the Nor Cal contingency? Who else is there besides me? We dirty San Francisco hippies could take LFM and his coked up Hollywood stars any day!
Me for one. I lured my wife to the North following college days. Her family followed too. They brought LA's traffic with them to Sacramento, where they live now. I live in Little Kabul, near the Bay.
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Me for one. I lured my wife to the North following college days. Her family followed too. They brought LA's traffic with them to Sacramento, where they live now. I live in Little Kabul, near the Bay.
Did you guys know that over 90% of the nation's LSD is made in 6 major labs in Northern California?
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I always get surprised when I hear that LSD still exists. It's not something I think about. Until 2 friends IM me within a week telling me about using it?
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It probably doesn't take much. A little LSD goes a long way.
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Our So Cal contingent is a touchy bunch.
What the fuck do you mean by that, Paul?!? Huh? Hey! I'm talking to you!!!
[whispering] JL? Do the yoga.
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What about the Nor Cal contingency? Who else is there besides me?
Oh! Now I remember. Bjorn (http://touamb.com/index.php?action=profile;u=910) is in NorCal too. He hasn't been around recently. Perhaps seduced by the ease of assbar.
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Perhaps seduced by the ease of assbar.
Perish the thought!