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foreignfilmfreak
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Well, religion changes over time and the Pope is pretty much in charge of those changes, right? I don't know, I spent two years with a Roman Catholic guy and never really figured anything out.

Also, I feel pretty appalled at people today. In a sad way. If you have me on facebook, you probably know. lol It's just really sad to see all the ignorance and people defending racism and telling people they're too sensitive. Like, oh god.. I mean, the woman was Singaporean so I don't expect her to know Native American history, but I'm surprised her husband, who's American, never pointed out anything. ._. They also seem to think still in terms of how "Who cares what they've faced?" I just happen to know a lot on First Nations history and on what they STILL face in Canada, so the ignorance is mind blowing.

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She's singaporean. That's an answer in itself. Sadly. Meh

That aside, religion does not change over time. People change. People's personal interpretation changes. Society and cultural values change. Laws and rules change.

But to say that religion itself changes over time, especially in the absence of an actual prophet or messenger, is making light of the idea of religion in the first place. "Keeping up with the times", for example, is no reason to allow something that has been expressly forbidden.

What the pope said is his own belief, or his own interpretation of the bible. The bible itself (arguably) hasn't changed. And so likewise, you cannot say that religion can change.


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quote:
Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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husky51
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I start by saying that I am not an expert in Theology, nor do I know a lot about the subject in general. That being said, I do know some things that I have learned over my years if life. I am not starting a debate, merely stating some things that I believe I know...

Many religions have a living leader... Catholics have their Pope; Mormons have their President; Eastern Orthodox have their Pope as well, iirc; Episcopalians have their leader, title unkown.. Likewise, many religions do not have a single person as the living leader of their faith and others have leading groups known by various names.

I will speak first of the religion I know the most about, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon). The leader is known as the President or Prophet of the Church. He is assisted in his leadership by the Council of Twelve from whose ranks he was chosen. The next group that assists the President and the Council of Twelve consists of 100 men whose title is forgotten. The Prophet can make decisions that make changes in how the faith is practiced such as was done in early years that first allowed plural marriage, but was later changed. The President supposedly speaks the words of God that have been revealed to him through prayer.

Likewise, as a child I attended a few Mass observations at a Catholic church with friends. Back then the sermon was delivered in Latin and meat was forbidden on Fridays and only fish was allowed. Later, the Pope changed this to preaching in the language of the land in which the church was located. I also seem to remember that the meat restriction was eased, but I am not positive on this. Like the Mormon President, the Pope also speaks the words of God through his own prayers.

Islam is a religion that , like many others, I am pretty ignorant of. I have learned some things because of my Daughters conversion to that faith. I don't believe that there is a single leader or enclave that rules the faith in general. I think that the faith is basically governed by the teachings of Mohammad and the Quran and is not subject to modern re-interpetations.

I say now that I myself follow no religion nor do I believe in any Supreme Being per se. I respect the rights of others to believe as they wish and will not put down any religion. That being said, I do disagree with some practices conducted by different factions of some religions. I have no objection to the religions, merely to some of the observances that are not commonly done throughout the religion.

Nuff' said...


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foreignfilmfreak
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quote:
Originally posted by Roarkiller
She's singaporean. That's an answer in itself. Sadly. Meh

That aside, religion does not change over time. People change. People's personal interpretation changes. Society and cultural values change. Laws and rules change.

But to say that religion itself changes over time, especially in the absence of an actual prophet or messenger, is making light of the idea of religion in the first place. "Keeping up with the times", for example, is no reason to allow something that has been expressly forbidden.

What the pope said is his own belief, or his own interpretation of the bible. The bible itself (arguably) hasn't changed. And so likewise, you cannot say that religion can change.


Yeah, my boyfriend sighed said people from Malaysia/Singapore can be pretty ignorant, sadly. But the same can be said here too.

Oopsies, meant to be like people change religion over time. I've never really been involved in religion so I get confused on the topic.

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It's less a case of being ignorant as it is a case of preferring to be ignorant. Call it selfishness or apathy, but the truth is people in general do not care about anything outside of their own interests. Few people are willing to be open-minded about what they want to believe in.

On the flip side, I'd equally argue that what a particular group of people have faced in their past history IS irrelevant in the present context. Solutions need to be found to existing problems, not to what happened to my great-great-grandmother. You learn from history, not dwell upon it.

Or that's my stand on it anyway. Either way, stereotyping and prejudism isn't something that will be going away ever.


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quote:
Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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Don't get me started on the Roman Catholic religion.

It's a complete load of...

Well, I won't start.


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foreignfilmfreak
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quote:
Originally posted by Roarkiller
It's less a case of being ignorant as it is a case of preferring to be ignorant. Call it selfishness or apathy, but the truth is people in general do not care about anything outside of their own interests. Few people are willing to be open-minded about what they want to believe in.

On the flip side, I'd equally argue that what a particular group of people have faced in their past history IS irrelevant in the present context. Solutions need to be found to existing problems, not to what happened to my great-great-grandmother. You learn from history, not dwell upon it.

Or that's my stand on it anyway. Either way, stereotyping and prejudism isn't something that will be going away ever.


Yeah I know. :I It's just, Native Americans in Canada have current problems as a result of an ugly side of Canadian history -- residential schools. I can't speak for Native Americans from the States or elsewhere, as I do know they still face discrimination. Part of Canadian history in the last hundred years is starting to be printed in textbooks and there's been more novels and studies done on residential schools. These schools didn't impact everyone, but it did to a significant population. It still affects the older generation of Native Americans here and their descendents. The last school closed sometime in the late 1980s. These schools were created by the church to force assimilate Native American children into Canadian/European culture and isolate them from their families and their own culture. More than just that, many children died and faced extreme abuse in these places.

It messed up a lot of people and made it difficult for them to be able to be proper parents to their own children, setting an unfortunate pattern that still affects the younger generation today. There's also the case of missing and murdered aboriginal women (and men) and the lack of investigation that goes into looking into what happened. This has been brought to light in recent cases in the past few years. A student from my school went missing and little has been done to find him beyond what his family and the town have done. His brother won a writing competition so when his story is published I'd love to share it as I've read it. There was also a woman who was working on a thesis I think on missing and murdered aboriginal women who was recently murdered herself.

Not saying that anyone outside of Canada knows about this stuff, but that's why it affected me the most. lol As I study mostly Canadian literature, I'm mostly interested in stories that come from Native Americans and how their people have been wronged (and how they have coped). I'm either 1/4th or 1/8th First Nations myself, but a few of my friends are mixed and have lived on/off reserves.

The current generation has been working towards improving the situation and coming to terms with what has happened. But until it becomes more widespread knowledge and the government totally accepts that it was the reason this crime happened alongside the churches, then there might not be a complete resolve. This is still a recent part of history since most who have faced this are probably between 40-70 years old (or younger) currently as they were affected as children. Key thing to note: as children. It takes time for change and one part of coming to terms with change is acknowledging what has happened to create the current situation.

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husky51
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Damn it...

Somewhere in my house or near neighborhood in a dead critter of some sort that is smelly... A couple of years ago when a lizard got inside and died, I looked for days and never found it. Finally after a couple of months, I found the old, dried up carcass.


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So there's this guy in my Japanese class... I am this close, this close to have serious words with him. And not for the first time. His manners in class are absolutely godawful, he is so rude to the teacher sometimes, and immature as well. I can't believe he's older than me, he acts like a stroppy fifteen-year-old. I was sort of forgiving of it at first because it seems he's a bit shy and introverted, and struggling a bit with the classwork, but... that's no excuse for the way he behaves. I'm shy and introverted and I'm perfectly polite at all times; and as for him struggling with the work, I know that several of us in the class, myself included, have offered to help him (he doesn't want to approach the teacher because he thinks she doesn't like him. I wouldn't blame her one bit). His response has been basically 'thanks but no thanks'. Ugh. I wouldn't be surprised if he drops out, his attendance to this class and the others I'm with him in is pretty poor. In the meantime it's just very irritating.

Ah, felt so bad this morning for my Asia-Pacific lecturer. A week or two back he had the class give some anonymous feedback on how the lectures have been so far... Among the other things, it seems someone complained about his English. He's Chinese, I'm not sure how long he's lived here. Yeah, it's far from perfect, his pronounciation is often not great, but I think considering the complexity of what he's teaching he does asolutely brilliantly... And I mean, more or less everything he says is on the powerpoint anyway. He can't help having an accent. I can only imagine it might have been one of the students that isn't a native English speaker that might have brought this up. A lot of us just felt it was a bit... well, a bit unkind? He does his level best, and does in fact apologise for his pronounciation of things often. To make it worse he even brought biscuits for us all from his trip to Sweden last week. ._. We're buying him a Christmas card and a little present tomorrow.


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husky51
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I know how you feel about the, as you call if 'First Nation' situation up there in Canada... We have had pretty much the same thing here in the States with our 'Native Americans'.

They were forced into special schools that made them dress and groom themselves (haircuts, etc) as Whites and even forced them to practice Christian religions as part of their assimilation into the White mans' society. One thing that I have noted in my studies is that their 'training' was for the menial tasks that their instructors thought were all they could learn or understand; farming, animal husbandry for the boys; housekeeping, sewing, etc for the girls. One school near me taught printing and they even printed their own newspaper and had their own band. The Priest in charge knew and taught these skills.

When I was in Junior High, I started getting interested in the old Indian cultures. I use Indian as it is easier and I am lazy... lol This carried on into my high school years and even after. On my own, I made charts of the American Indian tribal nations and where they were located on the continent and basic language groups. In every book I read I copied out the names and tribal affiliations of any Indian that was mention and even wrote down the anglisied spelling of any Indian word and what tribe it was used by and what it meant.

I was primarily interested in the OLD culture as I felt that the contemporary Indian wasn't much different than myself, what with cars, radios, TV, etc. I even wished that I had some Indian lineage myself, just so that I could better understand the tribal ways and religion of these people. When I was in college, I took American Indian Lifestyles as a course of study and enjoyed it immensely. My instructor and I had fun educating each other about things that we hadn't heard of before. I did get an 'A' in that class, lol. It was so fun!

And many of the tribes actually inhabited both countries, the Cree, Souix, the Confederated Nations of the Northeast (Iroquis, Huron, etc).
I have forgotten much, but still have a lot of my old books and papers out in the garage. I am a member of the Dragonfly Club, learning about Cahuilla and Chemhuevi tribes around where I live. Some of the old language is still spoken and recorded, which is great.

Haha, I even, through marriage, am related to many of the Indian families on the reservations around me. To what exact degree I am not sure, but I just call it 'distant cousins' and these are acknowledged by them as well. One 'cousin' is the leader/governor of the Torres/Martines tribe, one of the smallest tribal groups still around. He used to drive forklift at the place we both worked at. Ray and I got to talking one day and discovered common family connections, which blew both of us away.. Another 'cousin' is in jail for murder. I have many cousins...

I agree with all you say about the mistreatment of the Indian peoples throughout the US and Canada and, yes, even Japan. The Ainu have been, and still are in some areas, as mistreated as our own Native Americans people.

All of the Nations, in the US at least, were mistreated to some degree or another. One of the tribes, the Cherokee iirc, had assimilated into the current American culture even as far as buying and owning Black slaves, and still, When the White settlers coveted their lands, they were moved out by force. I may be wrong in my memory of the Tribe... They had English names and governed themselves along with the rest of the population and it came to naught.

With all the tribes, promises were made and consistently broken by the government and the Nations were pushed onto small, inadequate
reservations and starved in some cases, sometimes with or alongside ancient enemies.

Enough, I could talk all night about this...


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The worst of terrorism is false peace.

And people wonder why Israel is so hated.


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quote:
Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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foreignfilmfreak
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quote:
Originally posted by Kazegami
So there's this guy in my Japanese class... I am this close, this close to have serious words with him. And not for the first time. His manners in class are absolutely godawful, he is so rude to the teacher sometimes, and immature as well. I can't believe he's older than me, he acts like a stroppy fifteen-year-old. I was sort of forgiving of it at first because it seems he's a bit shy and introverted, and struggling a bit with the classwork, but... that's no excuse for the way he behaves. I'm shy and introverted and I'm perfectly polite at all times; and as for him struggling with the work, I know that several of us in the class, myself included, have offered to help him (he doesn't want to approach the teacher because he thinks she doesn't like him. I wouldn't blame her one bit). His response has been basically 'thanks but no thanks'. Ugh. I wouldn't be surprised if he drops out, his attendance to this class and the others I'm with him in is pretty poor. In the meantime it's just very irritating.

Ah, felt so bad this morning for my Asia-Pacific lecturer. A week or two back he had the class give some anonymous feedback on how the lectures have been so far... Among the other things, it seems someone complained about his English. He's Chinese, I'm not sure how long he's lived here. Yeah, it's far from perfect, his pronounciation is often not great, but I think considering the complexity of what he's teaching he does asolutely brilliantly... And I mean, more or less everything he says is on the powerpoint anyway. He can't help having an accent. I can only imagine it might have been one of the students that isn't a native English speaker that might have brought this up. A lot of us just felt it was a bit... well, a bit unkind? He does his level best, and does in fact apologise for his pronounciation of things often. To make it worse he even brought biscuits for us all from his trip to Sweden last week. ._. We're buying him a Christmas card and a little present tomorrow.


There's a lot of immature students similar to that guy at my university. There's also a lot of younger students who have been exceedingly rude towards professors and other students here. There's some annoying kids in my boyfriend's Japanese class who say things that really bother the prof.

My gender studies prof received criticism from her other class calling her lazy and a horrible prof, which isn't true. They got upset that she had to cancel class once or twice without realizing she had to take over two additional courses on top of her regular workload mid-semester, and she's not even a full time employee. She also doesn't have her PhD yet when almost all of the profs here do, so I'm not sure how much she gets paid but probably not that much. My friend got upset how the other students were writing how horrible of a prof she was on the sheets that would determine whether or not the university will continue hiring her on.

As for your professor, people are legit making complaints about his language? Damn. They do that here, openly unfortunately. I also have friends who work as Teaching Assistants and lab instructors who get criticized for their lack of English skills or their accent (this really pisses them off, and makes them feel they shouldn't be allowed in the position). Some feel openly discouraged from tutoring because they overhear students saying they don't want a non-native speaker to teach them. This is normally towards Chinese students since they're the largest number. It really irks my Chinese friends when people say these things. Non-native English speakers normally won't call another person out on their English, especially an instructor, at least not here unless they're really having difficulties with the course.

My boyfriend also feels frustrated when people claim they can't understand him through his accent. He's worked very hard to make it so he doesn't speak so fast. And English is one of his first languages (his father's family is from the Hakka region of China I think but his father was brought up completely in English, studying only in British schools established in M. His mother is Cantonese but she speaks English, Cantonese, and Mandarin, plus Malay).

One thing that upsets my boyfriend is when people are surprised how well he speaks English without realizing he was raised speaking English. Most people here wouldn't know where his home country is on the map or any of the history surrounding the country.

I have a Nepali friend who says people in his country learn to speak everyone's language. I'm not sure how many languages he can speak, at least conversationally. His girlfriend is a Japanese international student whom I'm friends with.

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I wasn't exposed that much to foreign languages at an early age, which was a shame. A few words of Mexican Spanish, but mostly the swear words taught to me by a GF. (don't ask, lol) I picked up a few words in many languages after that, but conversant in none of them. I know a lot of Spanish now, but don't get to use it enough to be fluent. I can generally make myself understood and with effort on both partys, understand what is being said.

One of my granddaughters 8 yo, has been in a Spanish immersion class at her school and speaks quite well. She has moved to the next city over and I hope that she can continue.

My sister was fluent in Japanese when we were over there at about the same age. I watched her wait on an elderly Japanese woman in a friends cookie store. She greeted, asked for her order, weighed it out, and amt in Yen, made change and thanked the woman. I was flabbergasted! She'd only been there for about 3 months!!! Her and my mother were stay temporarily with Kazuko and her family above their three little shops (Cookie, Candy and Shoes).

I think children can pick up languages much easier than adults because the pronunciations haven't been ingrained into their minds yet and they are more open to learning the different ones.


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I think it's less to do with time span and more to do with frequency. Years of studying a language is pointless if you only use it two hours a week, compared to using it 24/7.

EDIT: 139 pages of zero posters in our forum. Wow.


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quote:
Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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Children pick up languages quicker than adults. My kids will be likely be fluent in English and Mandarin, although we'd really hope to get them to learn French as well regardless of where we live (even in Ontario some areas require you to be bilingual in English and French for jobs... wait, I guess that makes sense considering Ottawa. Anyhow, Ontario typically isn't seen as a French speaking province). The only thing is French in Canada is so different from elsewhere. Quebec French is really different and most French friends of mine are Acadien. Acadien French is my fave. It can be so hilarious. But pretty sure the school system teaches us Parisian French.

It also has to do with language immersion. We have a special program for Japanese students who do not pass the English requirements to study full time in English speaking countries to come on exchange and immerse themselves fully in English. The program really works and often their English skills become fantastic. It's really awesome for me to see their changes and ability to grasp the English language by the time they complete the program. But all other students here had to have taken the test, which isn't the same at other universities (we have no ESL programs for international students, although I wish we had some for them to learn writing and other things beyond little workshops throughout the year. Most are intimidated at the idea of taking English lit courses and it would be great if such courses were offered to teach writing essays and other assignments, even for regular English speaking students).

I have a friend back in Japan who is planning on becoming an English teacher but feels discouraged about his language skills right now. His speaking is still fine but there aren't a huge amount of possibilities there for him to continue with his English skills. His writing is a bit off (honestly, his tweets are hilarious because he's trying to be deep but my friend and I can't get over his obvious mistakes which somehow make it more funny/hilarious). He currently works at a bar that is totally in English serving Americans in Japan. But it's still stressful. There's another girl I know who came here on exchange from Japan who was struggling at her internship but seems to be doing much better.

Then there's international students who are great at picking up languages. One of my friends from Japan you'd have no idea she wasn't Canadian or had at the very least gone to high school here because she has a very slight accent when speaking in English. She is also learning French. My best friend's boyfriend is Japanese and planning possibly to do a language minor in school. He's in Spanish right now. He still has a sort of thick accent but Japanese accents are really easy for me to understand. lol His girlfriend sometimes speaks to him in Japanese but he'll always reply in English.

I find Chinese students usually are the most reluctant to speak in English, but that's mostly because they're a bit shy to at first. International students usually seem to like me since I don't comment on their English skills and I just talk to them normally, whereas some students talk super slow or as if they're children (lol don't ever make that comment to my boyfriend he would hate you). When I first meet students who tell me they're still struggling with their oral and listening skills to just tell me to speak slower if they need me to.

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I enjoyed my Spanish class in college. It was an 'immersion' type class that I had for three semesters with my instructor, Alexander Bailiaiff, a Russian-Mexican who spoke no English before coming to the States when he was 14. He also had a travel agency in San Diego and many of his students would go to Spain or other Spanish speaking countries. We even went on an unauthorized class trip to Tia Jauna, Mexico.

It was part of the Criminalogy courses we tried to conduct everything in Spanish. In night school, the instructor had access to the criminalogy armoury and some times a gang of bandido's would burst in to the room armed with rifles, shotguns, pistols, knives, etc and "rob, murder, kidnap" students and flee. Then the 'policia' would arrive and interrogate all the witnesses, etc. Fun times... But I imagine that they can't do things like that any more, for obvious reasons.

Imagine these 'bandits' standing around outside the classroom door in costume!!!

The class title was "Conversational Spanish for the Peace Officer and/or Public Servant"... This helped me a lot when I was working at a Truck inspection station with the CHP and dealing with the Mexican truck drivers. If I didn't know a word, say for a tire, in Spanish, I would just Point to the tire and say, "Que es en Espanol" or have them write it down. Once I saw it I could say it and added it to my little note book that I carried. I got to use it quite a bit back then, but nothing much since. By the way, tire in Spanish is 'llanta' with the double 'll' a 'y' sound.


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foreignfilmfreak
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Registration Date: 10.02.06
Location: Japan
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That sounds like a very intriguing class. XD

I'm feeling a bit miffed at the moment. One of my closest friends since middle school has started growing distant from me and just got engaged without even letting me know. I had to find out on Facebook so I messaged her. If I did the same to her, she would have gotten mad at me. She's pretty much ditched me for her boyfriend completely and only makes fun of me or be rude when I do see her. It makes me feel upset and wonder if I should even keep up the friendship. At least when my other close friend got engaged she let me know as soon as she could, but she's also been moving all over the place and would remain my friend no matter the circumstances or how little we talk to one another.

It would mean I've lost all my friendships from elementary to high school besides one, and that's weird. Everyone I know from high school is still pretty much in the same friend group they grew up in. My sister's still in high school but going through pretty much the same thing. Her friends pretty much ditched her for the partying life. She didn't do anything to end the friendships more than that she didn't like the whole partying aspect and refused to go drinking with them as she's underage, but they just tease her over that. My sister and I both don't drink out of choice. For me it's because alcoholism runs in my family and was what killed my grandfather and his father before him. It's also what killed the person I'm named after. In university, people are pretty respectful of me not drinking and actually feel bad when they find out why. I've never once felt pressured to drink, which is great. I mean, I might drink a little sometimes (I do enjoy gin and tonic and would probably like light alcoholic drinks) but for the most part I don't. Her high school friends think it's weird she doesn't. Mine could have cared less. lol

At the same time, since graduating I think I've become the one out of my classmates to have the most friends. Real friends. There's a lot of acquaintances too and some friends no longer live here. I know some people think having too many friendships make someone fake or something, but in my case it's entirely different. I just know a lot of people who are international students. They tend to make friendships the fastest since they realize their time here is limited. Some choose to stay in Canada and move to bigger cities. Still, it feels great to have my friends here. I try my best to make friends with my friends' closest friends or at least get to know them. I don't like to make people feel excluded. At the moment I would say though my closest friends are a Canadian, an American, a Japanese student, a woman from Sri Lanka, Chinese students, etc. I've somehow managed to become close to so many people from different cultures despite the smallness of my school and province.

12.07.2014, 06:05 AM foreignfilmfreak is offline   Profile for foreignfilmfreak Add foreignfilmfreak to your buddy list
husky51
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Registration Date: 03.16.08
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hahahaha, read your post and focused on the last word when I read it and the thought jumped into my mind (such as it is)...

That is so Provincial...

And that reminded me of a good trivia question....

How many States are there in the United States of America?

I will wait for a few replies before I give the answer unless someone comes up with it first...


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12.07.2014, 06:39 AM husky51 is offline   Profile for husky51 Add husky51 to your buddy list Send an Email to husky51
foreignfilmfreak
Miyazaki's Best Friend




Registration Date: 10.02.06
Location: Japan
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Is that some sort of trick question? XD There's 50, right? Or is it 51... I always thought it was 52...

Although my Puerto Rican acquaintances like to say "We're part of the USA, but not. We're our own country, but we're not."

Post last edited by foreignfilmfreak on 12.07.2014, 06:57 AM.

12.07.2014, 06:55 AM foreignfilmfreak is offline   Profile for foreignfilmfreak Add foreignfilmfreak to your buddy list
husky51
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Registration Date: 03.16.08
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No, sorry. FFF

There are 46 States in the USA...

There are 4 Commonwealths...

For a total of 50...


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Post last edited by husky51 on 01.19.2015, 08:40 AM.

12.07.2014, 12:26 PM husky51 is offline   Profile for husky51 Add husky51 to your buddy list Send an Email to husky51
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