[HAL]

This isn't a random thought. It's an edited post which contained some ramblings that were meant for the confessions thread. And so those ramblings are now there.

 

[HAL]

Haha. So my first potential job opportunity in Vietnam was a non-starter, because the company doesn't want to hire people from abroad.

I'm now trying another company via another guy who messaged me on facebook about an opportunity. I'm going to email my CV to him. While going over my CV, it suddenly dawned on me that in Asian culture it's normal to have a photo of yourself on your CV.

And so I have just attempted to take a photo of myself.

My ex girlfriend told me I looked much better in real life than I do in photos. I think I agree with her.

I shall not be adding a photo to my CV.

 

[islandlight]

Invest in a professional photo. I know, yuck. But still....

Good luck!

 

[HAL]

Invest in a professional photo. I know, yuck. But still....

Good luck!

I would love to, but there's nothing like that around here, specially with all this coviddy bollocks around.

Anyway, good news is I've found a good enough photo on my computer.

I think it's an old visa photo or something so it's a good plain look (I remember Asian smart/office photos are all about the plain facial expression), and luckily I have a shirt on too, so it's almost perfect.

Woohoo!

 

[Grandmaster Yoda]

Haha. So my first potential job opportunity in Vietnam was a non-starter, because the company doesn't want to hire people from abroad.

I'm now trying another company via another guy who messaged me on facebook about an opportunity. I'm going to email my CV to him. While going over my CV, it suddenly dawned on me that in Asian culture it's normal to have a photo of yourself on your CV.

And so I have just attempted to take a photo of myself.

My ex girlfriend told me I looked much better in real life than I do in photos. I think I agree with her.

I shall not be adding a photo to my CV.

America wins here. Putting photographs in those things is considered mad wack in these parts and I’m glad.

 

[Grandmaster Yoda]

Speaking of and with slang, I saw that “It’s brick outside” is actually a New York expression.

I never actually thought about that. What would someone say if I said that around here? Would they be completely confused?

 

[HAL]

America wins here. Putting photographs in those things is considered mad wack in these parts and I’m glad.

Yeah it's mad wack in the UK too. Probably most of Europe.

Asia is quite far behind with its understandings on social discrimination.

And don't get me started on racism, particularly in China. "We aren't racist, we're just pragmatic, and that's why we prefer white English teachers, because they look like what children think English speakers should look like." They fucking justify it in this 'business sensible' argument which screams of fucking systematic racism to me. Ugh I'm now remembering how much I fucking hated the woefully unworldly nature of Chinese culture.

 

[HAL]

Speaking of and with slang, I saw that “It’s brick outside” is actually a New York expression.

I never actually thought about that. What would someone say if I said that around here? Would they be completely confused?

If someone said that to me, I'd need some serious context first.

i.e. if they walk in and it's raining really hard, then they say it's brick outside, I'll understand the meaning.

Otherwise, I have no idea what it means.

This also makes me suddenly aware of just how fucking awesome language is, and specially the fact that there are multiple very large populations with similar but loosely variant cultures all combined by a shared language - English. UK, America, Australia, Canada, a large chunk of South Africa, New Zealand, all predominantly Anglicised nations, in all corners of the globe. I was always fascinated by the fact that this occurs for other languages and cultures, e.g. Chinese exists in China, Singapore, and Malaysia to name a few. But really it's just the same for English and European culture generally, and on a larger scale. Quite cool.

Also, it makes me aware of just how much ****** spread all over the globe in the last couple of centuries, and therefore how disgustingly hypocritical it is when people (whiteys) complain about immigrants and/or the wrong kind of people coming into their country.

EDIT: The starred out word is w h i t ey.

I can't believe the forum is censoring a word like that, wtf.

 

[HAL]

Deleted

 

[Grandmaster Yoda]

If someone said that to me, I'd need some serious context first.

i.e. if they walk in and it's raining really hard, then they say it's brick outside, I'll understand the meaning.

Otherwise, I have no idea what it means.

This also makes me suddenly aware of just how fucking awesome language is, and specially the fact that there are multiple very large populations with similar but loosely variant cultures all combined by a shared language - English. UK, America, Australia, Canada, a large chunk of South Africa, New Zealand, all predominantly Anglicised nations, in all corners of the globe. I was always fascinated by the fact that this occurs for other languages and cultures, e.g. Chinese exists in China, Singapore, and Malaysia to name a few. But really it's just the same for English and European culture generally, and on a larger scale. Quite cool.

Also, it makes me aware of just how much ** spread all over the globe in the last couple of centuries, and therefore how disgustingly hypocritical it is when people (whiteys) complain about immigrants and/or the wrong kind of people coming into their country.

To say it is brick means to say that is cold.

I thought it was interesting that all of these slang words are unified under New York slang even though very different groups of people have their own slang.

I read a book last night that mentioned Japanese may require stronger listening skills because of the placement of parts of speech. Reminded me of how in Spanish you say the noun first and then the adjective. My Spanish teachers criticized English because you could have a tremulously long string of adjectives before one even thought what the noun is. Which is interesting because the object is made of properties. The noun is the adjective. A ball is purely abstract and hidden until we note that it is green, it is bouncy and so on. So maybe from the English you can infer a prominence of the adjective or the properties or maybe that’s just everyone.

 

[HAL]

My Spanish teachers criticized English because you could have a tremulously long string of adjectives before one even thought what the noun is.

Kinda related:

 

[Grandmaster Yoda]

Yeah it's mad wack in the UK too. Probably most of Europe.

Asia is quite far behind with its understandings on social discrimination.

And don't get me started on racism, particularly in China. "We aren't racist, we're just pragmatic, and that's why we prefer white English teachers, because they look like what children think English speakers should look like." They fucking justify it in this 'business sensible' argument which screams of fucking systematic racism to me. Ugh I'm now remembering how much I fucking hated the woefully unworldly nature of Chinese culture.

I am in an environment where intensive acceptance and diversity is required. So different from the old way of doing things.

Better watch your mouth in those environments and think, but perhaps thinking will cause too much thinking.

 

[Grandmaster Yoda]

Kinda related:

View attachment 874245

You mean we can’t have an rectangular, little, old, green and lovely...

It is difficult to randomize this because some forms do sound better.

 

[HAL]

You mean we can’t have an rectangular, little, old, green and lovely...

It is difficult to randomize this because some forms do sound better.

Without checking what the correct order should be, I naturally feel like it should be little green lovely old rectangular

Aaand I was wrong.

Lovely little old rectangular green.... hmmm. I dunno. I think there's more too it than a basic mechanical ordering of the words. I think there's something psychological at play, to do with how the words are proncounced and/or how they sound.

For example, "green great dragon" might not work due to that rule, but it might also be because of another linguistic thing which says that 'flip flop' works but 'flop flip' doesn't. Similar to how 'great green' works but 'green great' doesn't.

And that is enough linguistics for today.

 

[leftover crack]

lovely little rectangular green french silver whittling knife

I haven't checked the correct order but I think I got it. It took me a second to process though.

let's try something else

A rather plain conical red ceramic imported mug... no that sounds off it should be plain conical red imported ceramic mug

fyi I am not a native speaker

 

[bifurcations]

I need more challenges this semester.

 

[Grandmaster Yoda]

The movement patterns I displayed in that video must lead me to conclude that my personality energies most closely correspond to Hayao Miyzaki

 

[NipNip]

The movement patterns I displayed in that video must lead me to conclude that my personality energies most closely correspond to Hayao Miyzaki

Can he move his head?

 

[HAL]

81.6kg today and I think I'm in the good-but-bad phase where the scales show that weight loss is clearly happening but it's not quite as obvious in a visual sense.

I can see on my body where the last parts of fat are that I definitely want to lose (a bit on my waist and I still have a little bit of a double-chin - I want my chiselled jaw back!), but I guess there must be other hidden areas where fat exists, so that fat needs to be shed too, before I notice it also coming off at the parts where I want it to come off.

Either way, the progress is great. I'm actually starting to feel a bit "not myself", because in the mirror I suddenly don't see the overweight guy I got used to being for the past 5 years. It's interesting because in my mind I have always been the thin mid-20s version of myself, but really I wasn't at all. This new change is bizarre, in a good way.

I wonder if it would be better to measure things in terms of BMI. I keep on stating my weight, but that doesn't mean much.

So here's my BMI, for my current weight. It's worth noting that I've always been on the higher end of the BMI scale, I think because I have quite big leg muscles. Even when I was in my greatest shape, my BMI was right on the edge of the green zone. So my aim for 79kg will hopefully be enough to reach the best BMI for myself.

 

[HAL]

Also, I'm having a phase of hardcore Vietnamese language learning. It's so cool, I feel like I'm back in the days when I was getting started learning Chinese. I'm doing a bit of study each evening, and have now found an app which has about 15 major Vietnam radio stations I can listen to for some subliminal immersion training while working.

When I really think about it, this is probably one of those incredibly INTP things I do that I don't really think about. I'm listening to a foreign radio station that I can't understand a word of, purely for intellectual gain.

Hipster level: 10,000.

Now I'm gonna uống nước của tôi and carry on with my work.

^^^^^ and that is the first time I've properly applied something Duolingo has taught me. Also, I feel like I've taken on another challenge - to learn Vietnamese to a marginally passable level, via Duolingo and Vietnamese radio. People say Duolingo isn't enough to learn a language. I want to prove people wrong.