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My first language lesson course is coming to a close! It was a lot of fun and I'm impressed at how much I managed to learn. It'll take me a while more to speak the language in public, but I'm getting the hang of it. I'm great with grammar, syntax, vocabulary and writing (well, being dictated), but I still struggle with forming a good sentence and stringing it all together into a coherent whole. For less than a month though, I'd say I'm doing well.
I started growing out my terf bangs... My big forehead is out on display now, but since it's mostly people that haven't gotten used to me with bangs that I'm around now, it makes it easier to grow my bangs out in front of them, if that makes sense? The weather here is too hot for me to keep them, because when I'm outside they're just wet all the time. It is getting colder now so I picked the wrong time but whatever. I'm still thinking of going back, but I'm so curious to see myself with fully grown out bangs! I've been bang-less for exactly 5 years of my life. Insane, huh? After I grow them out, or maybe sometime soon, I was thinking of getting a really really short bob. Like barely past ear length. I want to try a short bob finally...
Now, last entry I wrote about the people I'm in the course with and hmm! I'm not sure how well I vibe with all of them. Luckily, the neurologist lady, who will be continuing the course - I get along fine with. She's the complete opposite of me socially but she's very open and easy to talk with which I enjoy. She's also really funny and I had hopes for her opening up to me and gossiping more but last time we went out for lunch she said she hates gossip. So now I'm not sure whether bringing up other people from the course would be considered as gossip... There's this other british girl I got along with better at the start of the course, but now I'm starting to think she's a bit... too spontaneous and unpredictable? She looks really shy and closed off, but actually she's the complete opposite. I think we could get along well if we spent more time together, but she's leaving for good after this course. Now the german lady, I'm really most disappointed with. Her naive optimism, work with children and bright smile charmed me at first but my doubts (which I didn't want to express here at first out of fear of sounding like an annoying blackpilled smartass) came true. Basically, she kind of lives in a bubble. She's also kind of... well it would be best if I just wrote the whole situation down. We were on a break, I noticed she had been pretty sad during the lesson, and I went to cheer her up. Turns out she wasn't really sad because of the lesson, but because an acquaintance of hers, a former instructor of some kind, is moving out of his country for good. He's disappointed in the government and he's leaving... Keep in mind, she hardly knew this man. While she was telling me this, she was crying, saying how he's a well educated man that tried his best etc. etc. So we begin talking about how much it sucks to leave your family behind because your country sucks and well, logically I bring my country up. I say how 50% of my high school class actually moved out, and how it's a sad reality for many of us and yadda yadda. And to that what does she tell me? With a smile on her face "Well yes, but for the citizens of your country it's different, you're used to it! :-D". I................. I really don't want to bring any of that good old Balkan victim mentality over with me but honestly... This felt like a hate crime lmao. I get that we're the annoying cheap labor in Germany and all, but for a bleeding heart like her I expected some compassion frankly, is that too presumptuous of me? But any time I mention my country's government or politics she has this extreme look of disinterest and indifference (despite her talking about politics very, very often!). I honestly thought I was imagining things but this sentence confirmed it for me yesterday. Idk, it feels weird!
Also, because this is a private school (very hipsterish so I was expecting a more relaxed atmosphere) I guess everyone is a bit too posh for me. I haven't heard a single "shit" or "fuck" or even "damn" since I got here, and maybe I'm too much of a hick with a sailors mouth but I found this shocking. In fact I said fuck under my breath once while looking at my homework (outside of class) and this german lady found it hilarious. Huh? This made me realize how much I swear in my native language, and how normal it is lmao.
I hope that the next course will have a more chill group of people to talk to, maybe just slightly more similar to me background wise. I actually can't believe I'm saying this but I hope it'll have a couple of NORMIE (i will GLADLY be the most chronically online person in the room at all times please) Americans. I spoke to two Americans outside of my course during breaks etc. and they were both a lot more... down to earth lmao. I know that asking for someone from my parts is too unrealistic...
So my favourite site has been down for almost two weeks and now it's back and so is my will to write in my diary (the two are not connected, I hope). I used the Internet very conservatively for the past two weeks as a result of this, and it's been... boring! By the Internet, I don't mean my online games of course, most of my online socializing just got poured into those spaces.
I rarely talk about neocities meta stuff in here but I must say I'm kind of unhappy with this special sauce algorithm and how it's structured. Some of my neocities friends mentioned it too, so I know I'm not alone!! But it's kind of dumb to calculate popularity based on a number of followers, views and... eugh... activity... It actually made me want to update my site less, it's the contrarian in me. I would much rather prefer if the special sauce page was randomized based on some minimum requirements that coincide with how the latest activity feed works (it doesn't show those fresh empty pages). Well whatever, I was never too concerned with this aspect of the site. ALTHOUGH latest activity now including status updates too pisses me offfffffffffffff.
In other news, I'm learning a new language and it's been keeping me busy. I don't want to disclose which language because it would very effectively narrow my location down and I've never been interested in making it public so.... What I will say is that it's hard, but I'm enjoying the intensive pace. Back when I was in uni I took Swedish as my second major (very dumb decision) and I couldn't learn the language at all. I was doing all of the homework, exercises etc... but I didn't immerse myself in the language at all which I think ended up being my downfall. I also really wasn't interested in Swedish. I don't like how it sounds at all, especially the weird throaty i's and u's. Another thing that stops me from being able to learn a language is my lack of confidence. If I don't think I'm good at something, I absolutely won't perform it, not even in front of the people that are the closest to me. So this lack of confidence absolutely contributed to me never speaking Swedish in front of anyone and then ultimately forgetting the little I've learned. I applied this same logic to the current language I'm learning, so I delayed learning it! I thought I wouldn't do well, and that I would meet the same fate as I did when I learned Swedish. I think I'm proving myself wrong now though. I grew up in these... 8 years (christ) I suppose, so speaking my husbands native language in front of him doesn't seem that embarrassing anymore. I learned to.. treat myself as a baby I guess, a baby that's just learning the language. I'm not looking at myself through the lenses of an adult that suffers from a certain degree of perfectionism. So I'll point at things and ask what they are (not in English). Stuff like that.. It helps! He also reviews my homework every day and we talk about different ways you can say certain things. It's kind of fun lmao. My strong slavic accent is there, but whatever!!! In the end, with Swedish, I admit I was the main reason of why I dropped out of this major. And maybe it wasn't my lack of talent that failed me after all (which is what I blamed it on this whole time), but me doing absolutely everything wrong. I also think I relied on myself knowing English so well that I thought Swedish will just come naturally to me, but obviously it doesn't work like that. I basically learned English as my native tongue almost, considering I've been immersed in it since I was like... 3 and a half (thank you grandma for buying me that ps1).
Another factor that imo is very important when learning a language is the group of people you end up learning it with! In uni, I admit, I didn't like anyone. I was fresh out of high school, very interested in making friends, yet very disillusioned once I've met everyone at my major(s). I didn't get close with anyone, not truly. Some people I did sit next to and chat with, but we never went to drink coffees, we never went to eat together, we never hung out after classes. All interactions were purely class related. I truly was alone and depressed that year. It's night and day compared to my second try at university, where I met my best friend, and all of my other current friends I'm still in touch with (except for the one I ranted about a while ago.. I wish we could reconnect though!). So the group I'm in now is small, there's about 7 of us. Actually not that much different compared to Swedish, iirc we were split into two groups of 8 people as it does make learning languages easier. One of the people in my group is this 60-something year old lady, who's a former theatre actor. Currently she's a playwright. Her life story is interesting and her outlook on life is something I've honestly never encountered before, in terms of older people especially. So she's very interesting to converse with! She also invited a few of us to brunch this weekend... There's also this british woman, well she's about... mid 30's maybe? And she's a neurologist (woah). On day 7 of knowing her she started asking me for relationship advice lmfao... I'm impressed at her ability to be open and speak so earnestly with someone who is effectively, a stranger to her. Honestly they're all an interesting bunch and I will talk about them more later because I'm getting tired of writing. It's interesting how nobody has an even remotely similar story of how they got here or why, which is fascinating! I also have to give props to this language school because they're doing a really good job so far. I only just started though...