I’ve been giving a lot of thought
about what it means to be an adult.
Justin tells me it’s about a savings account with more than $30 in
it. I think it’s about having a place to
call your own, like a house or overpriced condo. Then, another friend of mine posted this same
question on her Facebook page. Freaking
Facebook. Seriously. People who scoff at it are now considered
lame or anti-social and then there are those who abuse the crap out of it. Some really great examples:
OMG I’m eating sushi!
My kid peed today, I’m a proud mama.
I’m in jail and trying not to freak
out.
This is how I feel right now.... SLAP !
Not to mention the non-stop flood of
people taking pictures of bread, pasta, fish or whatever else people eat these
days. Now that I am saying that I don’t
care what people are eating or what their kids are doing- perhaps secretly we
all do. Isn’t the point of these
websites to feel cool for about thirty seconds and to give quick updates on a
massive scale to save time and hassle of making a real phone call? How many times have I posted about floods in
my city or coffee tragedies or political stuff?
That answer is a lot. But do
people respond to my posts? No. Do I respond to theirs? Most of the time. Am I feeling hurt and irrationally
ignored? Absolutely. Is this unreasonable? Yes, yes it is.
Perhaps my favorite thing about
Facebook is the psychological drama which comes with it. Within a minute of meeting someone that you
feel combatable with, someone will ask you if are on Facebook, or VK here in
Russia. I know Americans over use the
word ‘friend’, we like to think everyone is our friend, it doesn’t matter that
we just met in the bathroom of a night club or standing line at the
supermarket; but here, in Siberia, people will ask me to friend them just
because we met and I speak English. It’s
bad, even by American standards. Why
should I friend you on my social website when I don’t even know you? And then the look they give you when you
decline is even more priceless, you would think that you just killed their
dog. Does anyone remember the good ol’
days when people would have to sit down and write, and in, pen and paper, write
real letters to each other? I occasionally
do this, and I really enjoy the process.
What I don’t enjoy is spending a few hours laboring over perfect penmanship,
resisting the urge to add unnecessary smiley faces and ‘LOLs’, go through the
torture of the Russian Post Office only to not have my letter or letters
received. Then it just makes me
appreciate e-mails more.
Returning to the subject at hand,
almost on a daily basis, when young people ask me where I’m from and I tell
them I’m American they will ask to be my friend on social media, not because
they think I’m just that interesting or want to get to know me, no, they just
want to say they know a native English speaker or they want to practice their
English. In situations like this, I can’t
help but feel like an English language whore.
Person: “Um, I want, do I can
practice English with you?”
Me: “Of course, it will cost you
though. It’s 1200 rubles to study with
me.”
Person: “Oh it great! I no want grammar though, just speaking”
Eye roll. Sure, you just want to pay to listen to me,
then give me money after I do all the work of desperately trying to understand
you, pretend to care about microscopic progress and you give me money for no
real reason. Ew. And at the end of the day, that’s what most
ESL teachers feel like. Going from house
to house, or meeting in café’s or offices, it doesn’t matter, but you go, speak
for an hour or so, and people give you money.
Your clients are always happy to see you, and you smile and give them
what they want, English. On a perverse
level, at least in the darkness that is my mind it’s like a verbal blow job:
Person: “I very happy to see you!”
Me: “Thank you, but it’s ‘I’m very
happy to see you.’”
Person: “Oh sorry (pronounced surry)
I just happy to hear voice.
Me: what an awkward thing to say, “okay, let’s get started. Did you do your homework?”
Person: “Sorry, busy. But I can to do it now.”
In my head I’m thinking, ‘sure you
can, I mean, we’ve only been doing this for the theme for the past month, I’m
so glad that I’m getting paid to do the same thing over and over and over
again. Sheez. On the surface it sounds great! No office politics, no nagging boss, no
waking up at the crack of dawn and no taxes.
However, there’s not real stability, no real connection to people and
real sense of accomplishment. Perhaps I
am over thinking and over analyzing this. After all, how many professions allow you to
show up wearing jeans, not pay taxes, and simply hire you based on your nationality? It’s reverse racism at its best.
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