The question pertains to people who at some point emigrated from the Balkans and later came back or just visited, getting to see the people they'd known prior to leaving. Were there any differences in how well you fit in their company and wider society?
I keep hearing about people regretting their move to Hawai'i and leaving after only a few years. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the illusion that it's just going to be a tropical paradise without stress. As someone who plans on moving there in order to do a Master's degree, I'd like to know what the biggest misconceptions people have about Hawai'i and the move there.
I'm interested in teaching English in places like China, Taiwan, Japan, and Vietnam for a few years as gap years between my Bachelor's and Master's. However, I'm worried that my long hair (down to my back) might cause issues in school environments, as I've heard that some places are really strict about presentation.
Does anyone here have any experience with this? Does it cause trouble with whoever is overseeing the teachers in the schools?
Bonus question: would it negatively make me stick out like a sore thumb? I know being caucasian would make me stick out on its own, but longer hair that I usually keep down would likely amplify it by a lot.
Nekoliko njih iz mojih bivših odeljenja u osnovnoj i srednjoj školi koji su otišli u inostranstvo se vratilo za fakultet u Srbiji, idući na privatne fakultete kao što su Singidunum i Metropolitan. Da je situacija takva da samo jedna osoba ovo radi, ne bi mi bilo toliko čudno, ali činjenica da se veći broj njih vraća u Srbiju me zbunjuje.
Da li postoji neka korist od toga da studiraju u Srbiju umesto u Nemačkoj ili drugde?
I'm looking to start learning Mandarin, and I'd prefer to find a place somewhere I could learn it in person. I've already graduated from college, so I can't just take a course there.
If anyone has any recommendations for good courses or places I should take a look at, please do tell me. I'm mainly looking for answers from people with experience with this. I have a list of places I've found online, but it would help out more to have someone who's done this before to drop a recommendation.
We live in the same dorm complex on the same floor. In fact, our doors are directly across each other.
When she moved in here (a month or so after me), we were friendly to each other, and we would stop each other in the hallway or anywhere we see one another to talk or joke. We've never been "friends" nor hung out properly, but it was clear that there was an atmosphere that was positive and friendly.
However, a week ago she just started ignoring me whenever we're in the same room. She's extremely nice to others, and she talks to others perfectly normally, but it seems like I just don't exist to her at all. I tried to talk to her a few days ago, thinking that the reason this happened was because I might have made a joke that may have been (I don't know if it was, but my mind has just been stuck theorizing) embarrassing for her, that being asking her to pronounce a word that twisted her tongue (we come from different backgrounds, so I thought it would be funny to ask her to pronounce a word from a language I speak). She responded to my apology about it by saying she doesn't remember it and that it wasn't important. I was genuinely expressing regret, but she ended the conversation by repeating that it wasn't a big deal and it didn't matter.
Part of me still thinks that might have been the reason for the awkwardness, but mostly I doubt it. There must have been something else to warrant this cold shoulder treatment, considering that we also made jokes about how I pronounce words in her language.
I feel really bad, and I don't want the awkwardness to continue to be present whenever we're in the same lounge area or room. If this were a person who lives in a completely different part of town, I'd just cut my losses and try to get my mind off of things, but we see one another multiple times every day, and I can't just change my dorm.
I'm really nervous about trying to ask her again about what the matter is. There's genuine hostility in the air now, and I can tell that she avoids even looking at me when I'm walking by or am in the same room. It's not like this for the others. When there's others in the room at the same time as me, it's clear that she's really passionate about talking to them. It doesn't help that I'm worse at understanding social situations than most people. I just want things to be normal. I want to make the right choice because we're gonna be living in the same building for months.
We live in the same dorm complex on the same floor. In fact, our doors are directly across each other.
When she moved in here (a month or so after me), we were friendly to each other, and we would stop each other in the hallway or anywhere we see one another to talk or joke. We've never been "friends" nor hung out properly, but it was clear that there was an atmosphere that was positive and friendly.
However, a week ago she just started ignoring me whenever we're in the same room. She's extremely nice to others, and she talks to others perfectly normally, but it seems like I just don't exist to her at all. I tried to talk to her a few days ago, thinking that the reason this happened was because I might have made a joke that may have been (I don't know if it was, but my mind has just been stuck theorizing) embarrassing for her, that being asking her to pronounce a word that twisted her tongue (we come from different backgrounds, so I thought it would be funny to ask her to pronounce a word from a language I speak). She responded to my apology about it by saying she doesn't remember it and that it wasn't important. I was genuinely expressing regret, but she ended the conversation by repeating that it wasn't a big deal and it didn't matter.
Part of me still thinks that might have been the reason for the awkwardness, but mostly I doubt it. There must have been something else to warrant this cold shoulder treatment, considering that we also made jokes about how I pronounce words in her language.
I feel really bad, and I don't want the awkwardness to continue to be present whenever we're in the same lounge area or room. If this were a person who lives in a completely different part of town, I'd just cut my losses and try to get my mind off of things, but we see one another multiple times every day, and I can't just change my dorm.
I'm really nervous about trying to ask her again about what the matter is. There's genuine hostility in the air now, and I can tell that she avoids even looking at me when I'm walking by or am in the same room. It's not like this for the others. When there's others in the room at the same time as me, it's clear that she's really passionate about talking to them. It doesn't help that I'm worse at understanding social situations than most people. I just want things to be normal. I want to make the right choice because we're gonna be living in the same building for months.
If you don't want to read a rant, then just skip this post. You don't have to give it any attention if you don't want to.
I adore the fact that I get to spend half a year at a national park, and the job I do really isn't stressful enough for me to call it quits. In fact, it's quite tolerable.
However, I'm genuinely starting to fall into a depressed state of mind because of how difficult it is to socialize here. I'm not the same in the brain like most other people, so I struggle with understanding social situations. I know I'm most likely the problem, seeing how the others just manage to get along extremely easily, but I can't figure out how to fix the issue. I try to befriend people, but a lot of them don't even say hello to me in the hallway, and some flat out just ignore or hate me for seemingly no reason, even if I've never interacted with them. This isn't even getting itno the fact that people who I thought I was friends with don't even approach me after I thought we were getting off on the right foot (but it turns out I was just approaching them the whole time). I'm tired of being the one who's constantly forcing himself out of his comfort zone for people who don't even want to bother looking past the fact that I was born with a brain that just works differently. It's extremely lonely, especially considering the fact that some people even insult me by snarkily asking if I'm autistic or something.
Only I myself can change things for the better, but it really is extremely painful to go through this. It feels like I'm high school again, and the fact that I know it's the perfect opportunity for so many people to make friends and start new romantic relationships just hurts even more. I wish I knew what to do, but I really don't know where to begin. This might be the reason I quit because I don't feel like anything I do makes things better.
I promise this isn't a vent/rant post, as much as I inject my personal feelings into it.
What's bringing me down is the fact that I'm not able to be normal like other people, befriending others extremely quickly and it leading to strong friendships. I'm always witnessing the positive aura around groups of people who genuinely love one another, and you can tell by their faces that they enjoy one another's presence. This isn't even to mention the passionate calling out or approaching when one of them sees the other.
I really want to have that, but I'm stuck mostly alone and it's genuinely making the nights painful because I can't stop thinking about the fact that I just don't get to experience someone actually wanting to spend time with me.
I don't know if it's the way I talk or the way I look or even some other thing. It just doesn't lead to anything. I'm extroverted, I know that, but I deal with so many failures of mine trying to socialize that I really wish I were an introvert that's able to isolate himself with few problems.
I'm working a seasonal job with many people from around the USA and even the world here. I do my best to walk up to people and try to get them to talk about their background because I know that people love talking about themselves, but they always cut conversations with me short compared to with others. I do my best to make it a dialogue by inserting the stuff I know about the places they're from or their cultures, but it just leads to a nervous smile and ends there. Sometimes I have a good short conversation with some of them, but then they don't say hi to me when they notice me in the hallway or in the same room. Why is that?
Am I not supposed to be the one doing the approaching? After all, I'm the one who's offering his hand to the others, and all it takes is for them to do the same, but it almost never is like that.
I'm the one who does the inviting, and I'm the one who puts in the effort to get to know others. People don't do that with me, though, so I'm either just horrible at social skills or people think I'm unapproachable, but I doubt it's the latter considering how often I genuinely try to initiate interactions.
Why is it that people don't really give a shit about me? I want to understand what's wrong with me. I'm clean. I don't wear filthy clothes. I'm not rude to people. Sometimes I misinterpret the mood or tone of a conversation, but a lot of people are fine with others who are even more socially awkward than I am. I'm not ugly to look at (I'm not beautiful either, but I'm also not hideous). I don't make conversations just about myself.
If this were just one or two people being like this to me, then I could say that maybe they were just jerks I came across, but this is with nearly everyone. The problem's clearly with me, but I'm stressing out so bad over the fact that I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I just want to feel like I'm as capable as others.
The most embarrassing part is that I genuinely am unable to befriend women my age. Sometimes with guys (1 in a thousand) I can actually get through and seem like a cool person to them, but this has never happened with women. No, I'm not sexist, and I treat men and women the same. It's genuinely humiliating to admit this flaw of mine.
There's a lot of foreign J1 visa students at the place I'm working, but it seems like a lot of them are really closed off and exclusively talk to others from their countries. I'm someone who loves interacting with people from different environments, but I can't lie about it being really difficult in this case.
How do you guys do it? I don't have troubles with befriending Americans.
I'm working a summer job with students from different places around the world on the Work and Travel program (I'm not a foreigner), but it seems like the people tend to stick to others from their own countries (Colombia, Taiwan, Thailand, etc.) or regions (Latin America). Of course, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with choosing who you want your friends to be, but it seems to me to be just so common that it makes me wonder if it's a matter of shyness or fear of the unfamiliar.
Is there anything I can do to make people feel more comfortable and welcome? I'd like to befriend them, too, but it does really look like a lot of them don't pursue making friends with locals.
I completely get the fear some might have, as I've also been alone like that in foreign countries for school or work, but I still always made sure to do my best to get to know the people around me.
Is there anything I could do as a local to help them out or should I just leave them be? I genuinely want advice.
She's really pretty and cute, but is basically always among others from her country in a group, so she doesn't really spend much time interacting with locals, and it's difficult to have a conversation or hang out with her alone. She's really really cool. screw my stupid chungus life
I'm tired of it happening. I'd just rather be on my own until I die
Ja sam sad na dijeti nakon što sam se ugojio posle povrede prošle godine. Dostigao sam 98kg na 183cm, a cilj mi je da dostignem oko 70-75kg. Na poslu sam izuzetno fizički aktivan i pokušavam da pojedem sve kalorije (1200 na dan) tokom ručka. Mislim da sam već izgubio kilogram ili dva ovako (počeo sam pre nedelju dana).
Kako ste vi?
I submitted my application for naturalization in November, living in Chicago. Now I'm doing seasonal work in another state, and I think I'm going to have my interview scheduled while I'm here. I know I can get days off to go do my interview and everything. Is it possible to just move the interview to this other state or is it much more difficult?
Got to Yellowstone the other day, and I genuinely love the environment and don't mind the job I have. Sure, complaints exist, but the benefits outway the negatives here for me.
The issue I do have, though, is with the social life. I'd like to believe that it's my fault and that I just suck at socialization, but I also can't help but notice that people have gotten into cliques that seem almost like the ones in high school. It kind of sucks because I thought that everyone being in their 20s would be enough to be more serious about the social life here, but it doesn't seem so.
I've struggled with meeting people this entire time, as I've been approaching many of my coworkers to start conversations, but they don't seem to be enthusiastic at all, and I myself have not really been approached, so it's kind of bumming me out seeing so many people just joking around and hanging out while I'm stuck alone. To be honest, I don't really like the whole cliquish feeling and how it sometimes feels like we're still in high school.
I'm still grateful that I get to work at Yellowstone, so I think I'll power through things, but I'd also be happy just having someone to hike with or hang out with, you know?
Does anyone have any tips or advice on what I myself can do? I'm clean, outgoing (or at least try to be), and I don't think I'm intimidating or rude, just to get some of the more obvious things that would bother people. I'm trying to avoid transferring to another location just because of a bad start with people here.
I'm an American who just got done with his bachelor's degree in the humanities (anthropology). In the USA, we're able to switch fields upon getting to our Master's if we demonstrate experience outside of our Bachelor's that could translate into the program's requirements (say we do research outside of school). I could hypothetically get into a Master's program in ecology here if I was able to get the adequate experience.
My first question is if it works similarly in Slovenia. I've seen on the website that it tends to require people who have taken biology courses, but that might be misunderstanding stuff because of my limited understanding of Slovene. I'm able to do my Master's for a much smaller cost in Slovenia due to having a passport from one of the Balkan states, so it'd be great if I could just do a Master's program over there.
My second question is how many research opportunities there are in general, as I'm not sure how different that entire system is in Europe compared to the USA where Master's degree really focus on research.
Finally, do Master's students over there work as TAs (teaching assistants)? Is that a thing at all in Ljubljana?
Apologies if these questions have obvious answers that I just haven't found online. I did a lot of digging, but I don't really trust my dodgy knowledge of Slovene to understand all the information online.
I'm always interested in meeting new people from outside the USA, so I'm curious if there's anyone here that knows they're going to be working at Yellowstone this summer.
Ne znam gde drugde da pitam, a baš me zanima jer ću da radim tamo tokom leta, pa me interesuje da li će biti ikoga iz Srbije ili okoline Balkana.
