Suffering through my conflictions
I have a really hard time picking (and then keeping) a background for my phone screen. I know what you’re thinking - how much more first-world can my problems get? Believe me, I hear you (me?), but this is a real concern. And in the interest of keeping this blog about my life as an ex-pat, I’ll relate this particular problem to, well, my life as an ex-pat. Have I ever told you I consider myself to be a very competent writer?
Currently, I’m torn between two images - the first is my beloved California (Point Lobos, to be exact). I’ve been a Californian my whole life, and it will always be how I identify first (American? Sort of, but definitely Californian). It’s a nice picture, sure, but mostly it makes me happy to be reminded of a place in which I felt so comfortable that I could move halfway across the world away from it, secure in the knowledge that it would always be there for me when (if) I decide to come back to it.
The other picture is my current home, a place I love so much that I’m actually staying here for longer than any of my other European sojourns. I can tell that I’ve been here longer than anywhere else because I’m starting to feel the travel bug bites - those tiny little reminders that there’s so much of the world I want, need, still to experience and explore. I have to keep my feet firmly planted and remind myself that there’s no reason to leave just yet, and very good reasons to stay. The point is, while it’s certainly an objectively beautiful city, a big part of its aesthetic appeal is deeply connected to the grasp it currently has around my heart.
So how do I choose? I can only have one background at a time. I can only live in one place at one time. (Well…) I can’t have it all. Right?
But I can be a Californian in Prague. And I can change my background any time I want. And I still have decades to travel and see everything and everywhere I choose. Sometimes I forget that I am where I am because of decisions I’ve made, not because I just “ended up” so far away from home. And every time I start to really, seriously, truly miss my wonderful homeland, I go for a visit.
Hooray for summer vacations.
My bad
Sorry I’m a bad updater. I’ll try and be better tomorrow. Or maybe the next day. This week, for sure. But it’s almost the end of the week, so let’s make it next week. Wait, what am I promising?
My sister was here visiting me last month, and something happened. I would lean more towards “funny”; I think she would be more inclined towards “I hate you for doing this to me”. Minor differences. Anyway, what happened was this: the first (but sadly, not the last) time I ever forgot my keys at home was her first day in Prague. I realized I’d left them inside the house as soon as I started walking down the stairs, but I figured “naaaahh, not a big deal - I’ll just call my landlady and she’ll let us in later tonight.” So naturally, I texted her a few minutes later, saying something along the lines of, “Whoops - forgot my keys at home! What time will you be home tonight?” She responded right away, stating that she’d be home later than usual, but sometime around 7. Feeling satisfied, I confirmed this message by replying, “Great! I’ll be home around then.”
Just after 7, my sister and I arrived at my flat, rang the bell, and waited. Nothing happened. After a few more minutes of patience, I called my landlady, who sounded shocked and dismayed that I was home. Why? Because she hadn’t left work yet. Work that was an hour+ outside of Prague. Again, why?
Because to non-native speakers of English, sometimes you read words like “then” as “ten”. As for what happened next, I think the picture speaks for itself.
Sorry, Juliana!
This story will have you glued to your seat
Guys, be forewarned - a riveting story lies below.
A few days ago, a headband was found broken at one of the stores, and I was asked to fix it by glueing the flower back into place. It was a deceptively simple task, one which I did not think required my manager’s warning of, “ok Ali, now don’t glue your fingers together.” I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes and said something like, “oh my god, please, like I would be dumb enough to glue my fingers together - not only am I super good at arts and crafts, I’m also very spatially aware and of all the things I have to worry about in my life right now, glueing my FINNNG-GERRRRRRRRRRS together is not one of them. Oh my gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawd.”
And then it happened. After promptly getting the glue on one finger, in my haste to remove it as quickly as possible with (what else?) my other finger, I ended up looking like I was giving the “A-OK” sign for an awkwardly long time.
Man, how cool am I?
Least productive conversation ever, Spring edition
- “Elephant!”
- “I’m sorry?”
- “Elephant!”
- “Yes, alright, an elephant. Are you looking f…”
- “ELEPHANT!”
- “You saw something with an eleph-“
- “Elephant, yes, elephant! With… uh… trunk!”
- (nodding to confirm I indeed understand what an elephant is)
- “We have an elephant necklace, here…”
- (points to elephant in jewelry case)
- “No no no no… with a trunk, elephant!”
- “This elephant has a trunk, look, it’s-“
- “Window! Elephant window!”
- “Do you mean the glass in our window that has an elephant on it?”
- (blank stare)
- “Yes, how many?”
- “We only have the one you see in the window.”
- “Yes, how many?”
- “Uh, we have just the one. The one right there in the window.”
- “Yes, and how many?”
- “It costs 4,500.”
- “Four?”
- “Four thousand, five hundred.”
- “It’s four?”
- “Four. Five. Zero. Zero.”
- “Ahhhh ok thank you bye bye.”
-END SCENE-
lolololololololol
I literally laughed out loud when I saw this earlier today. What’s so funny about a sad cookie (other than the fact that it’s, well… a sad cookie), you ask? Its name means “smiley”.
Cup of America, please
I don’t remember much from when I was a kid. I’ve stored fragments here and there, generally meaningless and trivial things, mostly things I remember hearing about more than actually experiencing them. Point is, most of us aren’t able to store all those memories, so we just start actually making memories at, like, age 10. Or we can only store so many years’ worth of thoughts that each time we form a new memory, our brain automatically deletes the earliest one we’ve already got stored, and of course we can’t remember what we just forgot, because we just went ahead and forgot it.
Is your mind melting yet? That’s probably all those memories you’re losing.
There is one that’s still in there, though. One little guy that’s really only a sort of half-memory, a fuzzy little dustbunny of an idea that has apparently hidden under the bed and escaped the years of memory-erasing I’m sure happens upstairs. My mom and I are in Starbucks, picking up coffee beans to take home.
It’s not a detailed memory. It’s not profound. It’s not really even about the place, or the person, or the what we were doing. But it evokes a feeling, one that has an ability to take hold of me and allow me to forget where I am, just for a second.
Having lived in cities renowned for their local, organic, fair-trade, no-orphans-or-kittens-harmed-in-the-making-of-your-drink coffee, I rarely went to Starbucks except when I was home visiting my family. Now, I go to Starbucks precisely because I miss home. I order my over-priced, overly-sweet drink because I miss my family, and I miss my car, and I miss my English, and I miss the often-fast pace of My American Life. I have no intention of moving back any time soon, but damnit if sometimes I need to feel like a good ol’ giant-corporate-coffee-blooded-American. Hey, it’s part of who I am.
And besides, I happen to really like their old logo.
We are nothing without the Other
You can always spot the tourists - they’re the ones with wide eyes and big grins on their faces, stopping to take photos every ten paces or so, while the rest of us walk with our heads down, only stopping every ten paces or so to glance up and make sure we don’t accidentally end up in someone’s holiday snapshot.
It’s an interesting thing - living among vacationers. You might expect one of two results: either their intrinsic impermanence would magnify, solidify, my own permanence though contrast; or the opposite, and I too would begin to be aware of my own impermanence living abroad as a foreigner. But I think instead I fall somewhere between the two - I am at once hyper-sensitive to the unabashed joy and excitement that tourists feel as they explore a brand-new and unfamiliar place, but I am also very aware that I am in a different place, and thus perceive the world differently, than all the Others.
The concept of the anthropological Other is one which I spent oh so many years puzzling over, trying to elucidate through hours spent poring over academic texts and theories. In pedestrian terms, the idea is this: without an Other, someone who is fundamentally different - whether it is culturally, biologically or socially - from our own perceived notions of self, we cannot understand who we are. I haven’t read an academic text in who knows how long (well actually, I do know - it was May 2010), but this idea of the Other is omnipresent in my thoughts and everyday behaviors. I am caught somewhere between tourist (Other) and native (also Other). Carving out my own space as local ex-pat (itself a contradictory label) is a struggle I’ve come to accept as part of my choice to live in a foreign country. People spend years - lifetimes, even - figuring out who they are, so I guess my Self will just have to wait.
There’s a reason patience is a virtue.
