#i've spent so much time reading & writing & thinking & speaking in english my entire life etc

[rollercoasterwords]

rae do you have any tips on like verb tenses when it comes to writing? as an immigrant who never properly learned english grammar i struggle with it so much when im writing fiction especially. i feel like i always mix up tenses and never know when is appropriate to use one over the other idk.

hmmm well i may not be the best person 2 advise on this bc english is my first language so bear that in mind but! it might help to like. consciously pick a single tense that ur gonna write the fic in & then read back over & just pay specific attention 2 verbs & make sure they're all in the same tense. & when doing this i will say i think present tense is generally easier to write in than past tense (even though past tense tends to be the norm in published fiction) bc like. if ur writing a fic in simple present tense then it's easier to be like "ok here i'm talking about past so i can just use simple paste tense and here i can just use simple future tense," whereas if ur writing in past tense u have 2 start pulling out the "had" phrases etc if ur talking abt the past in past-tense & things get more complicated...like it's easier to conjugate "He says it's true. But earlier, he lied." than "He said it was true. But earlier, he had lied." y'know?

i've had cases before where i forgot what tense i was writing in & had to go back through & change everything to match the same tense so i know it can def be a pain lol but that's also why i think like...consciously going "ok i'm writing in present [or whatever u choose] tense" at the beginning of the writing process makes it a bit easier, bc then u know that no matter what ur writing it should be in that tense. & where it gets tricky is when u have to start talking abt past/future/conditionals/etc but like i said i think writing in present tense makes that a bit easier bc it's usually the tense that we're most familiar with & so it can sometimes be easier to figure out "weird" verb conjugations within the present tense. basing this advice also from my experience learning other languages where like...i have a way easier time conjugating simple present/past/future tense than trying 2 get into any of the more complicated grammar lol

[theflyingfeeling]

Random thoughts etc. just writing these down for me, read if you're interested in my uneventful life lol

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Had my orientation for my new job yesterday and I'm still so excited!! I spent a year studying there 11 years ago (👵) so it's fun to go back, but it's definitely also gonna be a little weird first. Both of the two teachers who taught me there will be absent this semester (unless the other one returns from her maternity leave after Christmas, but that's not set in stone yet), although I'm meeting the other for another orientation tomorrow, which I'm excited about because she's probably my favourite teacher ever and she's just so great and said such nice things about my writing skills 😭 so it's a shame I won't get to work with her nor the other English teacher (the one on maternity leave), so it's just me and the Swedish teacher (who will also be my supervisor), and my memories of her are...not quite as pleasant 🥲

the Swedish teacher: so you were here 11 years ago? that means that was my first year teaching here! me: oh yes, I remember it was your first year! :) the Swedish teacher: oh god, I must have been a total dummy back then! 😄 me, thinking of how she had accused me of not having written my Swedish essay myself: 🙂

lol obviously I'm not bitter about that anymore and I also sort of understand why she thought I had not written it myself (somehow talking Swedish in Swedish class is not the same as writing an essay in Swedish in the safety of your home), and she did apologize afterwards, assumably having brought this up with the English teachers and being told there's no way I would've done that, and yesterday she was suuuuuuuuper nice and helpful , so I'm sure we'll get along just fine 😌

...I know I just said I'm excited, but I haven't really done any planning for the courses or anything concrete at all, so if you see me crying about life next week, assume it's because I've realised how horribly incompetent I am for the job 🙂👍

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Today I was on godmother duty with my niece (10½ months) and y'all should be SO proud of me from protecting her from the evil, baby-eating spider that was climbing on her carriage 😪 It was a dramatic and somewhat traumatic encounter with life-threatening wildlife, especially when the spider wouldn't hop off the carriage when I swept it with a twig the first time, but together we made through it (the niece was sleeping the entire time)

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Speaking of wildlife, I saw a little stoat running on the parking lot of my building this morning 🥺 I hope it he had a safe journey to wherever it was hopping...

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Seeing BC on Saturday (yes, again 🥰) and I'm so excited because 1) aaaaaaaaa what if they play the new song, I know it's not officially out until next week but come ooooon it's the last show of the summer tour and the last show in Finland until god knows when (😭) and they also played Don't Fix Me at shows last summer before they officially released the song so idk about you guys but I for one am totally getting my hopes up 🤞, and 2) aaaaaaaaa gonna see so many of my beloved BC mutuals, it's gonna be a grand ol' reunion again!! 🥺💕 however, I have zero idea about when/how I'm gonna get there (it takes ~4 hours to travel to the venue from where I live, and amazingly the train ain't much more quicker than the bus 🙂) or when/how I'm gonna be leaving back home again because I still haven't decided whether or not I should stay the night somewhere (I don't want to miss any potential after-show hangouts, but I also really love sleeping the night in my own bed lol), so if this issue would somehow just solve itself that would be great thanks ✌️