Warning: This post is caustic and may cause severe burns.
Its Monday and many blogs are bitchy on Monday. Dan had a lovely rant about children's voices on answering machines that I could not agree more with. I get it. You have kids. It should not be a novelty that they learn how to communicate, it should be expected of them. Your children are not monkeys meant to preform for the rest of us. If you want them to behave like people treat them like people.
A fellow Dallasite has a great post on the whole Muhammed cartoon thing and I could not agree with him more. I love how the muslims are angry that the cartoon generalizes them as all being violent and the way they protest is by burning down the Danish embassy in Tehran. Brilliant strategy way toprove the point set an example!
I have a Monday diatribe of my own that I was going to post but I'm feeling like my last couple of posts have been very cynical and I need to be a bit more cheery.
Fuck that! Take this bitches.
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You know what I really really dislike? No? Well I'm going to tell you. Let me preface what I'm about to say by stating that I'm not a xenophobe by any means. In fact I LOVE to meet foreigners and discuss a wide range of topics with them. I think that its important that people from different countries share their points of view on every topic not to mention the culinary benefits that come with meeting people from around the world! Some of the best friendships I've made in Dallas have been with people that have come from other countries to study here. Now that that disclaimer is out in the open I will tell you what chaps my ass to no end.
I really don't like it when I'm with a group of people, non english speakers, whom I have been having a pleasant conversation with in english when all of a sudden a comrade of theirs shows up and strikes up a conversation with everyone in their mother tongue and they carry on as if I had somehow evaporated. It's flat out rude not to mention that one cannot improve their english language skills by speaking in their own language. Furthermore, if I had the opportunity to study abroad I would want to learn more about the people where I was staying and make a proactive effort to learn and speak their language in order to get to know them better. The last thing I'd want to do is hang out with Americans, I can do that when I get home. If you want to speak your own language and only speak with people from your own country you should probably stay put. Up until now I've been sympathetic but its reached a point where its become flat out discourteous especially when I know that the english fluency of these individuals is completely and utterly sufficient. I'm not as angry as I could be since the worst offender of this is someone that I don't really feel a need to connect with so much. I just want an end to the co-opting of conversations with people that I do like talking to. That's what pisses me off.
I'm off my soapbox now. I need to listen to some Wanda Wisdom and get me some serenity before I turn into a giant electron cloud. (thats a science joke. electrons are negatively charged...get it? negative cloud of energy? feh!)
A fellow Dallasite has a great post on the whole Muhammed cartoon thing and I could not agree with him more. I love how the muslims are angry that the cartoon generalizes them as all being violent and the way they protest is by burning down the Danish embassy in Tehran. Brilliant strategy way to
I have a Monday diatribe of my own that I was going to post but I'm feeling like my last couple of posts have been very cynical and I need to be a bit more cheery.
Fuck that! Take this bitches.
-----------------------------------
You know what I really really dislike? No? Well I'm going to tell you. Let me preface what I'm about to say by stating that I'm not a xenophobe by any means. In fact I LOVE to meet foreigners and discuss a wide range of topics with them. I think that its important that people from different countries share their points of view on every topic not to mention the culinary benefits that come with meeting people from around the world! Some of the best friendships I've made in Dallas have been with people that have come from other countries to study here. Now that that disclaimer is out in the open I will tell you what chaps my ass to no end.
I really don't like it when I'm with a group of people, non english speakers, whom I have been having a pleasant conversation with in english when all of a sudden a comrade of theirs shows up and strikes up a conversation with everyone in their mother tongue and they carry on as if I had somehow evaporated. It's flat out rude not to mention that one cannot improve their english language skills by speaking in their own language. Furthermore, if I had the opportunity to study abroad I would want to learn more about the people where I was staying and make a proactive effort to learn and speak their language in order to get to know them better. The last thing I'd want to do is hang out with Americans, I can do that when I get home. If you want to speak your own language and only speak with people from your own country you should probably stay put. Up until now I've been sympathetic but its reached a point where its become flat out discourteous especially when I know that the english fluency of these individuals is completely and utterly sufficient. I'm not as angry as I could be since the worst offender of this is someone that I don't really feel a need to connect with so much. I just want an end to the co-opting of conversations with people that I do like talking to. That's what pisses me off.
I'm off my soapbox now. I need to listen to some Wanda Wisdom and get me some serenity before I turn into a giant electron cloud. (thats a science joke. electrons are negatively charged...get it? negative cloud of energy? feh!)
posted by Adam at 2:58 PM
7 Comments:
I concur on all accounts.
Are you ever going to tell me when you're going to be here?
Bitch, bitch, bitch...that's all we do. Thank God!
Yeah that sucks. The only way out though is to learn their language. Of course, once you do, you realize they aren't saying anything all that important anyway. Ha!
Je pense que vous êtes bête et mesquin et sont juste jaloux.
Actually, I think its a way of them subtley excluding you and when I had a group of swedes staying with me they'd do the same thing: pissed me off majorly. At least they were aware of it and would often (quickly) switch back to english and apologise.
おい！みなさん、日本語勉強します。
A wee poke at Jake, since he wants to learn Japanese. :P
Yeah, that "linguistic exclusion" thing can get annoying. My wife is Japanese, and when her friends come over, I tend to get tuned out.
Fortunately I have learned enough Japanese to interject something silly. Always fun when it catches folks off guard.
from the other side of the fence.
why we switch from english back to our mother tongue in the midst of stuff.
i)you get caught up in the moment and you forgot that someone there doesnt speak it.
ii)some words, especially jokes (bound to happen when a huge swarm of native speakers appear) doesnt sound the same way translated. it is sort of like " the hug from home" thing.
iii)sometimes you just get tired of speaking a "a foreign language". double thinking everything and such. its like having to subtitle everything you want to say. i know its not nice, but sometimes it happens. especially when your fellow countrymen shows up. you try speaking another language for a day. its tiring.
iv)im guilty of the linguistic exclusion thing sometimes. if youre even in the middle of one, just ignore it.
Greatt reading your blog
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