#fuck my english teacher for giving us an extremely difficult project every fucking day

[houseofwolvess]

god i wish i could get an adhd diagnoses so i don't feel like a fucking failure making excuses for why im doing awful in online school

[duchessofostergotlands]

Someone on Twitter said that Meghan's engagements should count more than Charles and Anne's combined, because she has more impact. Though I agree, that she gets more media attention I wonder if the impact for the organizations involved should count more. That's why I am here, because as a foreigner I always see stories about Meghan and Catherine, but it's usually about their personal lives or clothes. We rarely see anything about their patronages. (1/3)

(2/3)We don't hear a lot about Anne, but usually the focus of her stories are the places she's visiting. I am not trying to diminish Catherine or Meghan's work. But I don't think they are really more impactful than Charles and Anne. Because Charles, for example had been interested in environment for more time than they are alive. Anne seems quite passionate about her work (well, as much passionate as she can look, obviously). I think internationally speaking the young royals get more attention (3/3) But attention doesn't mean money, and the patronages might enjoy more Instagram followers, but at the end of the day they need money to survive. Raising awareness and shedding a light are cute for Social Media, but does the impact of the young royals are really bigger than the impact of Charles, Anne or the Wessex? That's my ask. Sorry about writing a damn essay and I hope I explained myself well. I am not sure, because I am from South America, English is not my native language.

You don’t have to apologise at all and you explained yourself very well! I think you’ve hit on some really great points. As someone working in the charity sector, there are a lot of misconceptions I see when it comes to the royals. I think I’ll probably end up making less sense than you with my reply as I have lots of thoughts haha.

Money 

Public donations- charities need and want money more than anything. We can’t do anything without it. As much as people might like to suggest otherwise, patronages and connections to royals do not bring about huge public donations over a prolonged period of time. I would say that the royal influence on the public donating to charities is negligible no matter which royal it is. The difficulty with it is that you also can’t track it. No one asks “did you donate because we have a royal patron” so there’s no way to know definitively or in a way that we could compare from royal to royal

High net worths- this is easier to track and much more lucrative for charities. These gala events that royals often get criticised for attending are important fundraisers. A charity can easily make half a mill in one night. Some raise more. William attended a gala for Jewish Care that raised £1 million. People do pay more to go to events where the royals are present and those who get to sit on the same table as the royal are likely to give major gifts as a result, in my experience. But again, it’s difficult to track impact. You would probably have to look at an event the charity hosted with no royal attendance vs with royal attendance to see if there’s a standard uplift that comes with their presence

Community fundraising- The Cambridges and Harry (maybe Meghan now, I don’t know) award London Marathon places to all of their patronages. The number varies from year to year but most patronages wouldn’t have these places otherwise so this is an easy to track, concrete thing that is their impact. Something like the Regatta would also apply here, as would Meghan’s projects with the Hubb and Smart Works. 

Trusts and Foundations- the easiest thing to track is when a charity set up by a royal gives a grant or donation to another organisation. However, there’s a lot of politics that goes on behind the scenes. Charities may not be that interested in the project itself but know that they should accept the money so a restricted grant is not always a welcome thing. Another thing to note is that unless the royals are Trustees of the organisation they are not in control of where funds are awarded by law so it’s not technically their impact anyway. Or for something like the Prince’s Trust, that was set up by Charles but he doesn’t do the day to day work. Is it really his impact now?

Awareness

People seem to confuse awareness with exposure. I remember talking to the Comms people at my work and they were explaining how a royal visiting our organisation and getting coverage in every major outlet in the UK and the US was worth less to them than one article in the Times Education Supplement (TES), the bible for teachers. Because the general population who read royal articles is not always your target market for a start and if it is, it doesn’t mean anyone took action as a result of seeing the coverage or that attitudes changed. So if people want to use this then totting up headlines is not going to be a good indicator of actual awareness raised. Which brings me to..

What is Impact?

I spend almost every day agonising over this in my job. Part of my role is assessing our impact and I have to regularly report on it to funders. It’s a constant pain in the ass because outputs are not impact. So for example let’s take Kate’s Mentally Healthy Schools website. You could say that 100,000 people have viewed the website this year (I have no idea if that’s right, I’m just picking a random number to illustrate). That is an output. That is something you have achieved. But it isn’t impact. Impact is the difference that happens as a result of your work that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. A teacher using the resources from the website in the classroom or in their practice would be impact. A child feeling more supported in school because their teacher is better equipped would be impact. Hits are not impact. Or to use Meghan’s Smart Set programme, the number of garments given to the charity is an output. The number of women who then go on to have successful interviews as a result of those garments is the impact. And impact is sooooo hard to measure. Outputs are easy, you can report on that until the cows come home. Assessing impact is truly really difficult. 

How do we decide what impact is more worthwhile? To use the example of Meghan and Kate, although I am loathe to compare them. Meghan’s work tends to be short term projects with easy to measure outputs which target a small group of people intensely. Kate’s tend to be long term projects with harder to measure outputs which target a larger group of people in a more light touch way. So the Hubb kitchen was hugely successful and I think it was a brilliant idea which Meghan clearly put a lot of work into, but it targets a small group of women. Is that intense support for a small group more or less valuable than something like Mentally Healthy Schools which has been accessed by thousands of teachers across the country but is much more hands off? I personally think they are both extremely valuable but in totally different ways. And that’s fine. We don’t need to compare them, we can’t compare them accurately! And it’s not very encouraging to hear people who know fuck all about your sector saying that your work is less valuable- because this work is not delivered by the royals themselves, it’s delivered by real people- because they’ve decided your impact for you

So basically while I do agree that royals need to be better at talking about impact I think that deciding that one person’s engagements count more is incredibly difficult to back up with evidence and really unhelpful to the charity sector

[becky8300-blog]

2/6

It has officially been one week that I’ve been in Cameroon! On the one hand, it feels like I just arrived. On the other, I feel like I’ve already been here forever! I think that’s because the days are so jam packed with activities and I have to feel like I’m “on” all the time in navigating a new culture and a new language. My normal schedule is: wake up at 6-6:15ish, take a taxi to school by 7:30, class from 8:00-3:30 (with some breaks), then the other students and I often go to internet cafés for a few hours after classes to do homework, then take a taxi home before the 6:30 curfew, finish homework and chat with my host family, watch tv (people watch a LOT of tv here… my mama’s favorite is soap operas while my papa prefers soccer), shower, then bed. You can see why I haven’t had a ton of time to post many blogs so far…

This weekend was also jam-packed with many different activities. Saturday, we went to school for a few hours to finish up our orientation. I did laundry by hand for the first time which was much more laborious than I expected. My papa noticed that it was taking me forever, so he had pity on me and sat and helped me. He was talking about his travels to the US- Houston is his favorite city that he’s visited, while San Francisco is much too expensive for his taste. One interesting aspect of Cameroon that I’ve mentioned before is how collective and communal the culture is. This was exemplified for me this weekend. Both Saturday and Sunday, there were hundreds of Cameroonians exercising outside: in public parks, on the side of the road, in the grassy circle in the middle of the roundabouts, etc. Many were clustered together doing dance or yoga. My parents explained that Cameroonians take health very seriously, and therefore every weekend people just go out into the street and exercise together. On Sunday morning, we had the opportunity to join them! We traveled to the local public park, “Parcours Vide,” and participated in an exercise class. There were probably 60-70 people spread out on mats on the ground looking up at a hill, where an exercise instructor stood. Loud music was blaring, and there were a few small shops selling food and water. We all grabbed mats and joined in. This particular class must have been quite advanced because we were all struggling with the exercises, laughing at each other for how out of shape we all are (carbs are the primary food, here). After, we went for a long walk on a beautiful public promenade. It was a really fun bonding experience with the other students and our host families!

One of the things I’ve been finding challenging is connecting with my host family. During orientation, our directors told us that our families were told that the reason we international students are here is to integrate into and learn the true way of life of Cameroonians. They were instructed not to give us special treatment or adjust their way of living. My family has definitely followed those instructions. As I mentioned, they watch a lot of tv. This makes it rather difficult to initiate conversation. In addition, having meals as a family unit isn’t common at all here- people serve themselves and eat when they’re hungry, so there’s not much conversation over meals. Finally, I just learned today that, unfortunately, my mama’s mother is very sick, so she’ll be leaving tomorrow to travel to visit her. She’s not sure how long she’ll be gone for. Out of all of my family members, she’s the one who I usually talk with and interact with the most, so I’ll have to try extra hard to engage with my papa and grandmere. I think perhaps I had unrealistic expectations of what the homestay would be like coming into it- my family back home twice hosted exchange students from France for a few weeks each, and we really made the effort to get to know them, take them on small day trips, etc. Two things that make my homestay experience different are a) my family doesn’t speak any English and b) they don’t have children my age that I can hang out with. It’s been a bittersweet realization because, on the one hand I signed up for this program with the intention of avoiding any type of tourist experience so I’m glad that I’m not receiving special treatment and am getting to see an authentic representation of Cameroonian life. On the other hand, I feel like I can’t get to know the Cameroonian culture and feel integrated just from observing it- It would be better for me to have people to talk to and ask questions and exchange life experiences with. But then again, I have only been here for 1 week. Hopefully over the next 14 weeks I’ll meet some really cool Cameroonians my age that I can befriend!

One of the aspects of this program that has not disappointed so far is the academics. They’re extremely challenging and I have a lot of homework (this is despite everyone I’ve ever known who studied abroad telling me that the homework and classes are wicked easy) but the subject matter and professors I have are fantastic. The main subject of study for this program is development and social change. That being said, the curriculum is centered around a very critical lens of traditional development theories. For the last two days we’ve analyzed concepts such as globalization, international aid, concepts of development, economic inequality etc. One thing that I’m beginning to only now fully come to terms with is the long lasting effects of colonization on the “third world.” We’ve been analyzing how the rapid development of Europe and the US during the industrial period was based heavily on the exploitation of countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In other words, Westerners stole the natural resources from these countries, sold many of their people into slavery, and then used these natural and human resources to finance their own economic growth. What’s even more shocking and frustrating is that this legacy continues today- many of the foreign “aid” institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank, actually end up negatively impacting the economies of the countries they purport to help. Their basic model is to loan a country huge sums of money, contract workers and companies from Western countries to come in to do a ‘development’ project that ends up benefitting only the richest families of that country, and then the developing countries find themselves drowning in mountains of debt that they can’t repay to these international aid organizations. These countries then end up spending huge chunks of their budget repaying this debt rather than helping their own citizens with social welfare, public health, and education programs. Then, we (“we” being the West) go and accuse these countries of corruption and dictatorship- when we’re the ones who have perpetuated these institutions in the first place. It’s fucked up, man. If you’re at all interested in learning more about this, I would highly suggest that you read “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” by John Perkins. It’s a book that talks about a very important, serious subject but in a very easy to read style for people who may be intimidated by these kinds of subjects. Or, you could watch the documentary “The End of Poverty,” for free on Youtube, which is also quite eye-opening. And infuriating.

Anyway, on a lighter note, I totally embarrassed myself today. As part of my French class, we went to the marché en plein air. I’m still getting used to the currency difference (1 USD = approx. 550 CFA) and I’m also not used to bargaining. So, I bought a dress from a vender for 18,000 CFA, or about $33. When my French teacher found out, she marched back to the stall and accused the vender of taking advantage of me. She argued with the woman until she finally gave me my money back and I returned the dress. Apparently, I shouldn’t have paid more than 5,000 CFA for the dress. The two Cameroonian students were making fun of me so much when they found out! Lol well anyway, life tip #1: if you’re a white person in Cameroon, people will think that you’re rich and gullible and will way overcharge you for stuff. It this happens, immediately find another kind Cameroonian who will help you negotiate the price better.

P.S. I finally got a fan in my room yesterday, Last night’s sleep was hands down the best I’ve had since I got here.

[viahhapocalyptica]

I really want to learn Finnish but it scares me so much more than the other Scandinavian languages I know...teach me ur ways ;—;

Heeiiidon’t be scared young Padiwan, Finnish is more of a beautiful enigma than a scary monster :3 (apart from Helsinki slang and the stuff you read onSuomitumppu… That shit’s terrifying XD).Firstup: Finnish is not a Scandinavian/Norse language, that’s possiblywhy it’s intimidating. Unless you speak Estonian,Hungarian, or various indigenous Siberian languages, it’s not gonnabe familiar. But that’s why it’s fun! ‘Cause it’s totally different :3 You just throw away everythingyou think you know about how languages work and you start fromscratch.Secondly: Here’s some facts that make it sound less scary– there’s no grammatical genders. There’sno gender pronouns either, there’s just “hän” for he or she (or“se” in spoken Finnish which literally means “it” XD).There’s also no articles, which means that sometimes I forget tosay “the” and “a/an” in English now. And also the spelling istotally phonetic. Every letter only makes one sound, so spelling andpronunciation are simple. Oh, and there’s only two tenses: Present and past. Bloody marvellous Myways you say? Well personally I began witha book called Teach Yourself Finnish by Terttu Leney. I HIGHLYrecommend investing in this book, preferably a more recent version (oldest oneis too formal). I taught myselfspelling and grammar and basically the most important shit solelyfrom that book for something like 8 years before I got lessons, and Istill go through it from time to time. Honestly you should see thestate of my copy XD When I finally started lessons, my teacherscouldn’t believe I had taught myself. So I literally can’tpraise it enough.Thatsaid, there’s other good books out there too, I’ll put themin a list at the end of this ramble :3NextI got lessons. I am lucky that I live a few towns away from anAnglo-Finn group called Camberleyn Suomikoulu (Camberley’s Finnishschool), who are basically a bunch of Finns who mingle whilst theirspouses/kids get taught Finnish. I’m their novelty student XD But they treat me as a Finn too. :3Anyway,I know it may not be so simple for most people to get lessons. If youhave looked/googled all over and can’t find any near enough to you,are there any Finnish embassies or groups in your country that dointensive courses a couple times a year? Also consider gettinglessons over Skype. There are teachers who even have group lessons ifyou are nervous :3 Or find Finnish speakers who don’t mindcommunicating with you often, there are people here on tumblr forexample in the langblr community, and loads more on forums andlanguage communities across t’internet who may be able to help.Honestly my knowledge on this is not great as I am not that involved(would you believe I am quite shy irl -__-), but I’m sure it won’tbe difficult to find more info about other communities if you findsome Finnish langblrs. I don’t follow loads but I will put themat the end of this ramble too.Forhelp with vocabulary, there are websites and apps that can help you.Memrise has absolutely FUCKTONNES of useful vocab, for example. The courses are put together by Memrise users so it’s all free, thoughsadly that also means you might want to be wary of accuracy here andthere. “3000 most common words”, “Beginner’s Finnish” (with amoomin for a pic), and “Vocabulary from Selkouutiset”, areparticularly good vocab lists. Interesting to note that the appexercises (at least on iphone) are different from the website, but both are good.Mondlyis also great! You get a free lesson every day, even if you don’tbuy the full version :3 I’m dreaming of the day I can afford ittbh, it has speech recognition like on Duolingo, which is so rare forFinnish *____*Clozemaster is something I’ve just discovered, it’slike the last two apps/websites but it presents the words in context,which is pretty damn useful in Finnish. There are so many other random/smaller websiteswhich are good for reference also, not just for vocab but alsophrases and tidbits of grammar. I’ll put them at the end.Ifyou can, try to listen to Finnish radio, news, or even watch the Moomins,so that you can hear more every day and casual subjects andconversation, as opposed to song lyrics and interviews, or thosebloody voice actors who speak slowly for the accompanying audio totextbooks. I mean, that’s useful at first, but nobody speaks likethat irl.

Oh,also I better acknowledge the cases, conjugations, and consonantgradation. It seems pretty intimidating I know, but don’t worry!There is method in that madness. The rules of Finnish grammar arelogical with only very few exceptions, and therefore in time becomequite easy to apply. Chances are you won’t know what to do at timesand that’s fine - I don’t think anyone will give you shit for gettingthings wrong. But if you are unsure and want to check how toconjugate words and such, use Wiktionary. You can search for a word there and it should have awhole table of all possible conjugations when you click the little “more”button :3 Sometimes there are examples in context as well.Personally I’ve always had a little table of case names with examples on my wall where I work, because sometimes a textbookwill say “use ___ with the elative case” and I can’t rememberwhat the fuck that means (because I just know it as “the -sta/-stä ending”,for example XD) and it’s made life so much easier than having to lookit up every time. East to reach conjugation tables/lists are definitely your friend.BeforeI stop rambling (finally) and get to the links - maybe this willapply to other languages, maybe not, but imo keeping on top ofFinnish is a daily thing. Doing my Mondly lesson and two Memrisesessions a day has greatly improved my listening skills,and it helps with keeping vocab fresh in my mind. That is my bareminimum a day - I can do more, but never less. It’s a new-ish routinein my life, but it’s already helped soooo SOOO much. Just five littlemeasly minutes a day, every day, find something to practice whetherit’s vocab or reading about grammar, or one exercise in a book. Thenyou can choose to do extra or not. If you choose to do loads, do NOTgive yourself a day off the next day. Still do those five minutes. Ipromise you will learn faster than cramming it all in your head forlike three days straight, then burning out for a month, then beingintimidated by the pile you have to catch up on. I speak fromexperience. XD

So,onto those links. 

Websites mentionedhere:www.memrise.comwww.mondlylanguages.comwww.clozemaster.comwww.wiktionary.com

Otheruseful websites for just abouteverything:www.uusikielemme.fi/index.html– “Finnish for busy people”, great for simplified explanationsto grammar and lists of important vocab. Also inSpanish.www.101languages.net/finnish/- This website has audio samples of common words, a conjugator, atranslator, radio, news, vocab and phrases, a conversational course,the whole friggin’ works.www.livelingua.com/project/fsi/Finnish/- some free and extensive courses with audiohere.https://twitter.com/kaikkisanat– a twitter account posting literally every Finnishword.www.sanakirja.org - online dictionarywww.urbaanisanakirja.fi– dictionary for slang words. The definitions are in Finnishthough.http://extreme-finnish.teachable.com/- a course on spoken Finnish.www.randomfinnishlesson.com– a great blog with lots of useful anecdotes, grammardeconstructing, slang words, vocab etc… The owner occasionallyteaches over skype, she also does podcasts in simple Finnish andstuff.http://donnerwetter.kielikeskus.helsinki.fi/FinnishForForeigners/parts-index.htm– useful exercises andsuch.https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/selkouutiset/- the news in simpleFinnish.https://viahhapocalypticalangblr.tumblr.com/post/154651215026/starryskiesandlanguages-memrise-finnish#notes– A masterpost of other helpful Finnish content.Some langblrs/tumblrblogs with useful Finnishcontent:@blackteaandlanguages​@letslearnfinnish​@useless-finlandfacts​@learnsuomi​@uselessfinnish​@thisisfinnish​@finugriclanguages​@hiiru-lainen​@finnishproverbs​@finnishwords​@catfinnish​@just-finnish-learning-things​@finland-is-cooler-than-you​@viahhapocalypticalangblr​(this is mine, I’m not terribly active there but I try to reblog anyuseful shit I see and occasionally talk about life inFinnish.)Books I can recommend:Teach Yourself Finnish byTerttu LeneyFrom Start To Finnish by Leila WhiteHyvin Menee!Suomea Aikuisille (series)Suomen Mestari (series)BerlitzFinnish phrasebook & dictionary (good for travelling)I haveloads more in my collection but I haven’t managed to read them yetso… Watch this space for more info maybe?I have probablyforgotten some things here and there but I hope you get the idea, andsome kind of starting point. I wish you the best of luck learningthis unique and beautiful language, and please feel free to ask any questions if you get stuck. Tsemppiä! And may yourencounters with the partitive case be peaceful and easy to understand XD