Politics & Current Events
Publius
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Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
I'm bored. Ask me anything.
Since I haven't been around a lot lately thanks to the stupid time difference maybe it will help me ease back into the board.
Re: I'm bored. Ask me anything.
lololol
How do you feel about illegal immigration?
Do you think you should have to pass a high school English exam in order to demand that immigrants "speak English!"?
I think the US' immigration and naturalization act is in serious need of overhaul.
For the second, are you talking about in order to get a visa to live in the US or in order to naturalize?
I mean, in order to post on the Bump or hold a protest sign demanding that immigrants speak English, should you first have to pass an English test yourself?
OK in all seriousness, if you were in charge of immigration reform, what would you do?
Local foods--char kway teow, which is a Chinese Malaysian noodle dish. What I really like is the melange of local ethnicities foods--Chinese food with traditional Indian and Malay spices, special Indian Malaysian curries, etc.
Yum. That sounds delicious. We have an Indian place in our town, and I think the owners are really from somewhere in Malaysia because they have a section of the menu that is much more like the food you mention. It is really good.
Do you have any thoughts about where you are headed next? I feel like you only moved to KL yesterday! Wow.
LOL. I would not be against your first proposal.
Immigration reform--first I'd do away with the current quota system. It's absolutely ridiculous that someone entitled to a green card due to a familial relationship with a US citizen would have to wait in their home country for twenty years for their number to come up simply because of where they were born. But then again, I don't think that immigration is a bad thing.
I would also favor making it possible and easier to get working visas to the US for jobs in agg, etc., while at the same time raising the penalties for employers hiring undocumented workers.
They're looking for volunteers to go to the Sudan. That's not going to happen. Johannesburg is on the table. Since Malawi got its new president Lilongwe is back on the table too. Also in the running is Brazil and there's always a chance we'll be going straight back to Geneva. There's also a chance that somewhere will come up that hasn't yet been mentioned. Hopefully we'll know in July but I doubt it.
Do you have any preferences? Remind me---either you, your H or both are in international development type work, right? I could be wrong.
I'm an unemployed attorney and he's in finance for ***poof*** If anyone else wants to know what he does pm me and I'll tell you.
As to preferences, as long as we're not in a war zone I'm a happy camper.
What do you do again? I was newer to the board when you were a more frequent poster so I forget.
We're here for H's job. We've been abroad since 2008. We were in Prague first and then Switzerland after that.
That is interesting. Have you ever talked about it on the boards before?
What kind of law did you used to practice? Do you find it challenging to be a "trailing spouse" as it related to having a career? Is that something that will change once your scenery changes from KL to somewhere else, or is it kind of inherent in the nature of expat life?
I've hinted around it on this board in the past, never really talked about it openly. IRL when meeting people and getting to the part where H mentions what he does the conversation usually stops.
I've never practiced and have only been licensed for two years. I was interviewing for in house jobs when we found out we were leaving Geneva. I was offered a job about a week before H was asked to go to KL but it wasn't meant to be.
The big difference between here and Switzerland is that I don't have a work permit here. It's rough to not be able to work and I'll probably start looking again when we get somewhere more conducive to it. In the mean time I've been working on my French and volunteering with refugees through the UN here, so hopefully something will come of it somewhere down the line.
I would not have expected that to be the profession that required that kind of travel. That is really cool though.
How long do you usually stay in one location? What has been your favorite place?
Oh, I am adding your blog to my list. I would love to travel like you do.
It's weird. We're technically in Geneva permanently, so that will be the longest someday. We've not been in one place for more than two years since we first moved abroad though. Of all the places we've lived I like KL best because it's like being on a really long vacation and it's so close to a lot of places I want to see. As far as favorite places I've traveled, it's probably a toss up between Vietnam and Borneo.
how do you feel about not working? what do you do all day?
i obviously don't mean this to be condescending at all. i can't imagine what i would do all day every day away from my home base.
and BTW: i am enthralled with this post!
Three days a week I have several hours of French with the goal of passing the DALF C1 (pretty much fluent) exam next spring. Eventually we'll be moving back to the French speaking part of Switzerland and I'll need it then. I also play tennis and golf and I do pilates and lunch. I've recently started helping refugee children with English a few afternoons a week.
You find ways to pass the time. There is a massive expat community here and since trailing spouses don't get work permits everyone is in the same boat. There is always someone around with whom to get coffee or have a chat or play tennis or something of the like. Actually, my days are now pretty full.
You're a lady who lunches!
That's the tits.
that is my dream. aside from the pilates that's the kind of day i want when i hit the lottery.
The last time I was in the US the CBP officer asked me what I do in Malaysia. I just looked at him and said, "lunch". He kind of laughed and just waved me through. It's a catch all answer I tell you.
bahahahaha. That's awesome.
How much access to US news do you get? Dumb question probably. I assume you get full access to internet news, yes? Any print news available over there?
We get a lot of US tv channels, so if I really wanted to watch US cable news shows I could. We got into the habit of watching the BBC when we lived in Switzerland because that's all we got, so that's what is usually on.
Print media isn't so easy to come across because of censorship. You can usually get a scanned copy of a newspaper printed off the internet, but those are really expensive.
There have been a few times when something has happened in the US and I find out about it a week later on here. If it weren't for the internet I'd be in the dark ages.