#Adjusting to a New Country

[darrenwalleyconsultancy]

Expat Sacrifice

Photo by Dannyluo Expat life, Expat Living, although full of fun, adventure, love and maybe even money, comes with sacrifice. Once living and working abroad, you will have friends and family congratulating you on your move and even some who will be more focused on the crazy money you must be earning. Isn’t it funny how the apparent crazy money is why third-world immigrants flock to the shores of…

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

Had a dream about packing up my apartment in Florida and tbh that still feels like my real life and the past 5 months moved back in with my parents in NV have just been some strange aberration or extended summer break.

[enbyfication]

omg congrats on starting your phd!! :3

thank you rowan!!!!

[izzy-b-hands]

Checked my old med records re: transition dates bc today's Pl/Pa appt is probably going to be a fucking doozy where I anticipate being quizzed on my transition thus far and future goals for it

And double checked the year to find out A. my memory is shit and I was off a year but also B:

Next year will be my 5 year anniversary on T!!

[apolohgy]

i know my neighbors are tired of my apt sounding like a barbershop every night

[ayyponine]

Sister coming back to this side of the Atlantic fr three weeks near the end of this month all i can say is lol eww omg ewwww and also booo tomatoees

[likehandlingroses]

Tbh I am mentally building my American 1883 equivalent set of men for Oscar.

[phagodyke]

omg.... my new nearest audiology department actually has an EMAIL TO CONTACT!!!!!!! we're so fucking back baby

[rollercoasterwords]

hello rae!!!! how are you!!!! how's life!!!! did moving work out the way you wanted? how are you adjusting? sending u all the good vibes 💕

hi!! i'm good life has been. very busy but in fun ways mostly so!! moving did in fact work out the way i wanted--the first leg of the trip getting back 2 the u.s. was hell but actually moving from my hometown 2 the city where i'm living now went v smoothly bc i had a lot of help from family <3 & i am obsessed w my new apt quite frankly...actually got 2 decorate it the way i want it looks soooo good i got all my trinkets back & put so much art on the walls etc...also living in the same city as my sisters now which is GREAT i'm over at their place like every night using their kitchen eating their snacks watching scary movies together...things are finally settling enough now that i'm starting 2 feel a little homesick tho which </3 part of the experience of moving anywhere new but bittersweet all the same...

[meowmeowmessi]

the way this man is only willing to consider staying in France or going back to Barcelona is making me scream, my guy my dude wouldn't you like a shot a the premier?? Pep and Juli are there?? Just for a year??? Please???

I live in delusion and I would really like for this to happen

we really are being selfish atp tbh but the frustration is so real sjskdjsk LIKE. i understand he doesn't want to move his family to a completely new country considering how many years of his professional career he has left (said while coughing blood) but holy hell i am so tired of watching him waste his skills away at pissg. every time i see his stats and how he's still dominating in all those "most [insert achievement here] in top 5 european leagues" lists i just stare at my phone in abject misery bc my god, all this for pee es gee??

and his only other option barça is so fucking risky rn 💀 more than anything i want him to get the goodbye he deserves, surrounded by the adoring fans of camp nou, but i don't trust the barça board not to fuck this up somehow, not to mention what may come afterwards if messi, by some miracle, does return (slander from true coolers, him being made the scapegoat for the rest of the team fucking up, and god forbid: the barça induced jinx of him not winning international trophies rearing its ugly head again). i stress about his future so much i should become his agent atp 😭

[darrenwalleyconsultancy]

Expat Life

Photo by Kranich17 I decided to write this article on Expat Life because it has and still is a crucial part of my life. Although I cannot even determine a time when I got the bug and desire to have such a lifestyle. I was born outside of the UK as my father was in the British Army. We moved back to the UK when I was 11, and at 17, my parents dropped me off at Edinburgh train station and off I…

[lizclipse]

This feels like a disconnect between the USA and the UK, but I don’t think you guys realise just how dense and old this country is. When millions of people have lived stably on the same island for a thousand years (the last successful invasion was literally that long ago from memory), it tends to have a mild impact on the environment

It doesn’t even have to be intentional - when the choice is between getting killed or kill, people choose the latter, and when you have so many packed into such a small space those situations will happen a lot more. It’s really just a numbers game - there was no way any predator was surviving on this small island very long if it was at least a mild threat to people, and being an island means that there’s no way for new predators to replace them

Size is also why so much of our land, especially in England (which is where I’m from, so my understanding is likely biased that way), is used, we also happen to have quite a good environment for farming, so it’s almost a given that we’d expand over it

Maybe it is weird to outsiders, but growing up here it’s just a given that you don’t think about threats when in forests and such. It’s been like that for so long no one questions it, and you just accept that all the land here is used for something. Is that a good thing? Probably not. But we didn’t really choose to do this, this is just how it’s been for a few hundred years now

Actually your society is the freaks for shooting everything that moves and burning half your "nature reserves" every year so that upperclass dandies can eat leaded pheasant. North Americans are the well adjusted ones here, your country has become a desolate suburban lawn in island form

[malcriada]

Help save Bilal's family!

i want to talk about my friend Bilal @bilal-salah0. for over a year now, Bilal has been living in germany, trying to adjust to his new living situation in a foreign country, learning a new language and working full time. 

when the war started, he was far away from home and his family and has been living in daily fear for their lives ever since. 

being forced to work long hours and promoting his family’s fundraiser at the same time, he has taken on more responsibility than anyone ever should. still, he managed to raise money for their evacuation fund and helped take care of his family’s daily needs with the money he was making while working. 

in a cruel twist of fate, all of this got taken away in an instant. he lost his job and his apartment and even his residence permit. which means he is at danger of deportation from germany that could happen as soon as next week!

i have been in daily contact with Bilal for a while now and connected him with some of my friends in germany. together, we are trying our utmost to make sure he can stay in the country. anyone who knows german bureaucracy knows what kind of hell it is. but we won't give up.

without his job, he was forced to dip into the money of his family’s evacuation fund to cover their daily expenses like food and shelter. this meant he had to raise his goal from €70,000 to €100,000. this was not an easy decision for him to make, he even asked for my advice on whether or not to do it, because he did not want anyone to think he was scamming people. 

even in such a desperate situation, Bilal does not want to be seen as someone who would ever take advantage of people's generosity

his family is comprised of 18 members, 10 of them are adults and 8 are children under 16 years old, some of them newborns who were born amidst the chaos of war and displacement.

currently, he is sitting at:

€71,817 / €100,000

donations have been slowing down ever since he reached his original goal. i cannot stress how important it is that they pick back up!

WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME! HE NEEDS TO REACH HIS GOAL BY AUGUST 15TH!

THAT MEANS HE HAS TO RAISE NEARLY 30K IN THE NEXT TEN DAYS. THIS CANT WAIT.

his campaign has been verified and can be found on @/el-shab-hussein’s and @/nabulsi’s list of vetted fundraisers here (#132, line 136) so PLEASE don't hesitate to share and donate.

With such a tight deadline, i cant do this on my own. So i implore you to PLEASE share this wherever you can– on your whatsapp groups, on your discord servers, please share his story on other platforms wherever you have reach! Please share his story wherever you can, so that we can ease this burden from his shoulders.

[ID: a gfm link with a picture of two small children sitting in the sand in front of a cooking pot. they are looking up a the camera, eyes half-closed. the title reads "Donate to Help Evacuate My Family from Gaza to Safety, organized by Bilal salah" End ID]

tagging for reach under the cut, please let me know if you'd like to be removed:

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@fridgebride @27-moons @tamarrud @familyabolisher @fleshdyk3

@decolonize-solidarity @palipunk @gothhabiba

[ozlices]

would literally rather eat my fingers off my hand one by one than go back to my doctor tmr after the last apt im still pissed. the first apt went so well just to have that disaster follow. & i was candid abt having medical trauma, too.

im so exhausted being disabled is so tiring i don't wanna be a person tmr she lost any slight trust i had for her by fearmongering my mom abt a non-issue that has MULTIPLE reasons for happening.

im literally stressed enough constantly just fucking living in this stupid ass house again can u fucking lay off my back i haven't even seen u for half a yr lady

[treba-neco-napise]

oh good i didn't need to stop being depressed and anxious about the future of this planet for over a year straight anyway

I see posts going "Okay, I'll vote for Kamala, I GUESS IF I HAVE TO" and "omg if that's the best we can do I suppose I'll support it" and I'm like...

What do you people fucking WANT?

Let's run down how she's rated politically by some organizations that we vibe with, kay?

ACLU = 93% on civil liberties

AFL-CIO = 100% on trade unions

Human Rights Campaign = 100% on queer rights

League of Conservation Voters = 91% on environmentalism

NARAL = 100% on reproductive rights

NRA Fund = 7% on gun rights (we LIKE a low score on this one)

NEA = 100% on education

Planned Parenthoos = 100% on reproductive rights

In addition, GovTrack (which is a nonpartisan tracker) places her in the MOST politically left-leaning categories of Senators. So we've got a very liberal, woman of color who's spent her career trying to mitigate draconian tough-on-crime laws to benefit the accused and keep black people out of prison and decrease recidivism and that's somehow...just barely tolerable.

So I ask again...what is that you're dissatisfied with? Is it Palestine? as recently as March she was calling for a ceasefire and demanding aid to Gaza. Keep in mind she's pretty constrained as to what's possible to do in this situation.

Is it just that she was a prosecutor? That is an important job that needs to be done and we WANT people doing it who aren't rah-rah tough-on-crime Gestapo types, which she is not. We need prosecutors who are addressing the root causes of crime and looking for ways to help people escape the cycle, which she has done to the point that she was often called SOFT on crime.

So what is your objection here? Is it that her politics aren't 100% aligned with a bunch of Tumblr socialists? I got news for you...we Tumblr socialists DO NOT REPRESENT THE ELECTORATE. If such a candidate existed, they would not win.

Democrats struggle sometimes because our tent is large. Republicans just want you if you're a straight white man and preferably rich. There's room for a lot more types in the lefty side, but sadly that means a lot of room also for dissention among the ranks. This is how they get us. Let's not let them, huh? Just a suggestion.

[dykeishheart]

Something that I fear will get lost in all this that I cannot in good conscience let people ignore is that James Somerton is also just incredibly racist?

Between his willingness to rip off the works of asian writers, his total *unwillingness* to fact-check any of his own claims about laws and customs in asian countries (specifically China, I'll note), his enthusiastic citing of information from right-wing cracks who openly conspiracy theorize about China, and his gleeful theory crafting of whole new conspiracy bullshit about China in his attempt to frame all media discussions through his overly clouded lens, I think it's fair to say James Somerton is just racist. There's no sugarcoating it just because he doesn't espouse direct hate or use slurs. The passive liberal brand racism is still racism. Like, someone doesn't invent fake claims about Chinese box office coverups and help spread myths about censorship laws in Japanese television code out of nowhere. These are not the ideas of a man who has healthy or well adjusted views about Asia, these are pure and simple orientalism.