Not all those who wander are lost

[sfuqua]

I guess I can talk about health care policies fairly safely here, but there isn't much good to say about US healthcare.
When I was a kid, I didn't feel like I fit into the United States very well. I wasn't sure why, but I seemed to somehow have gotten a different set of values or something. I liked the idea of vacation more than overtime. I didn't see what was so important about skin color. When I saw somebody from another country, I wasn't scared by them; if they were a girl, I probably wanted to date them.
And I thought that the US healthcare system was bizarre. Most people from the US support it because they get good healthcare from the insurance that they have while they are employed. They never worry about the ridiculous costs because they never see the bills. They never consider what would happen if they became unemployed or disabled. It has been a little better the last few years, but before Obama, there was no limit on preexisting conditions. So the scenario goes like this. Get cancer, lose your job, lose your group plan for healthcare. You can't get new health insurance because you have cancer. Now you learn how ridiculously expensive healthcare is in the US. Lose all your money, all of your family's money, and die, totally broke. The bills for your care will keep coming in for months after you die, just to make sure there isn't a dime left.

All of the developed world seems to have a better system. Whatever problems with their care, it isn't as cruel as the US.

My family and I have had a nice run in the US over the past 25 years, but in some ways I wish I had bailed out of this crazy place long ago. Now i am too old to go to another developed country and buy into their system. Retired people are expensive, and they don't add much to the economy.
Blah, blah, blah. Everybody has problems.
And I am way luckier than most. My princess is alive and singing in the shower as I write this.

The last trip to the Philippines, we spent much of the money we brought for the trip to support care for the last few days of a cousin-in-law (I don't know the term), who was dying of cervical cancer. A 42 year old woman dying of cervical cancer who had never had a Pap smear, and who had been cut off from pain medication in her last days because she couldn't pay her bills.
She should have had preventive care, which could have easily prevented her death, and she should never have been left with no pain medication because she couldn't afford it.
We took care of her hospital bills.
The Philippines has the excuse of being a poor country.
I don't know what excuse the US has.

Well this was dark; I'll get back on topic next message...

[Le Baron]

Needed to be said though. Especially when the systems of so much of the rest of the world are also slowly getting chipped away.

Glad to hear that she is singing in the shower!

[sfuqua]

Well, my wife is recovering amazingly fast. She is up to walking 2 miles a day and returned to work full time today. So far, no problems. Awesome! My daughter got the female lead in a musical at her high school, so she is sort of walking on air right now too. So far so good. The awfulness we have been through makes me appreciate the good days more. Right now my wife is talking to a friend in Ireland. It would be so nice to get back to Europe next summer...
The United States seems to be in a really bad mood these days. I spent half of Saturday trying to get a supply of my medicines from Kaiser, our local HMO. There were hundreds of people in line at the pharmacy. The pharmacy is going on strike next week, so everybody was trying to get their medicine before things got weird. Most people were mad at the people going on strike, although as a former union member I know that the threat of a strike can be the only thing that works sometimes. I have no idea what side of the issue I am on, but I hope that they can reach an agreement before I need a refill...
California is cold for California, although at this temperature, 7 degrees C, people would start sunbathing in Minnesota when I was in high school. Our blood is thin here so our mild days seem cold. My walk went well, although the wildlife was scarce. There was a cat on part of my walk who apparently thinks I look like somebody who would like to meet a random cat. She jumps out into my path and starts purring and then rubs against my legs meowing and making a big fuss. I hang out for a minute and then keep walking. I kept a good pace today, and felt strong...

I switched back to Spanish and French and, wait for it, Tagalog in a big anki deck. My recent time waiting in the hospital reminded me of how convenient anki is, and I had cards ready to install for these languages, and I made a deck almost as big as I have of Ænglisc, Irish, and Norse. Anki is convenient, and I can punch through a lot of cards quickly since I am relatively stronger in these languages. One thing I am doing, which some people hate, is doing a bunch of L1->L2 cards along with my L2->L1 cards. The cards are made up from sentence lists created from old glossika, Assimil, and cards made from Barrios's Tagalog textbooks.
You might wonder what I am doing studying a language that I have been speaking for 37 years, Tagalog. Well, my Tagalog has always been sort of low class and slangy. I lack the educated register that kids get from school, and then mostly forget as soon as they leave, but I had a bad comprehension problem with a teleserye the other day. It was the climax of the whole series. The main characters of the series were confronting the "villain", an insane faith healer who thinks that she is god. The evil one laughed maniacally, and threw a hand grenade at the kids and...the grenade exploded right next to the kids in a huge flash of light... and there was Jesus standing there and the kids were unharmed.
Quite a plot development. The problem is, Jesus took off speaking in super formal, prestige Tagalog, and for about 3 sentences I couldn't understand a word he was saying. Anyway, I was lost. My wife understood every word. She is not a native speaker of Tagalog, but is a very, very advanced nonnative speaker. I was just lost. I sucked. I need to learn more. I want to be ready if a similar case of divine intervention happens again.

Oh, by the way, things didn't go well for the faith healer in the show. She announced that she was God, and well, she went to a rubber room, the DNA test came back and it turned out that the two teenagers were actually sisters and everybody else lived happily ever after.

[sfuqua]

Despite being retired, I didn't get much done on my languages today, except for completing anki and listening to Spanish for a half hour while walking. I tried to read and fell asleep.
I know that many people think that being retired means that they would have tons of time for language learning. For me, I'm just as busy as I was when I was working; I'm just doing different things. Now I have laundry, dishes, shopping, and more cleaning to do. I did some of this before, but it seems silly to have my wife to any of it, since she is still working full time.

My anki decks are starting to build up reviews, the way they do, and it is taking a little more time to do it. I'm doing a passive wave and an active wave. If I can keep up a pace of 40 new cards a day, I should have seen all of the cards in the last two generations of Assimil "with ease" and "using "courses of French and Spanish. I'm about halfway through the passive wave right now. Since it says C1 on the cover of the Using books, I assume that I will be a C1 in both languages by about this time next year.

Then I'll quit Spanish and French forever and do only Irish, Old English, and Old Norse. Of course maybe I should switch languages now.

Old English has a lot of practical value. Maybe if I study hard I could become a bard or something. My OE deck has all of Beowulf in it. I wonder if anybody who already can speak a couple of languages has ever tried to bring Old English all the way to a spoken language. Can professors speak it, more or less normally? I know some people can do Latin pretty well, but that should be a much bigger community.

One good thing about Old English is that so much of the writing from the period and writing about the period describes a world infinitely more violent than our modern world. When one considers the odds of dying violently, or from what would be a minor illness or infection today, it reminds one that we are pretty lucky to be alive today.

Even though my wife had a long hard struggle getting a good diagnosis, I have no doubt that modern medicine has also saved the life of my princess, and for that I will be forever grateful...

[sfuqua]

Well, it's Black Friday, that silliest of US holidays. I just had a fun interaction with a neighbor about it.
They live near us and they generally very unfriendly. They have a large dog that they never walk; they just take the poor beast out and walk about 50 feet and have him poop near my front door. They generally scoop the poop, so I don't walk in it, but I pity the poor, housebound dog. Anyway today I had the following fun exchange with the woman part of the couple as her dog pooped near our door:
Me: Hi, happy Black Friday to you.
Her: Oh, you Americans have such odd holidays (said in a pure American accent).
Me: We Americans? Where are you from?
Her: Of, I'm from England. We don't have silly holidays like Black Friday. (at this point a million snappy answers tried to come out of my mouth, but I said...)
Me: I visit Ireland, and I really enjoy the bank holidays for no reason.
Her: Oh, Ireland.. sniff... sad shake of head.

Wow, am I going to have some fun with this would be snob. She is going to get a hearty, overly friendly, American greeting and conversation from me every time she comes into sight.
I guess she's special because she is "from England." Oh, I am soooo impressed.
I love smiling and annoying people who think that they are better than me.
I am obnoxious sometimes.

I didn't study today but took the online diagnostic assessment test https://oda.dliflc.edu/from the Defense Language Institute for Spanish Reading. Wow was it different than dialang! It is clearly a much more serious test. It took a little under two hours. I scored

Based on your performance in this ODA session, your ILR proficiency level estimate is 3 or higher (Current Level).

Which is:

You have demonstrated the ability to understand the highest level of texts that the ODA system offers. The current version of ODA does not assess beyond the ability to understand texts on general abstract topics. Therefore, the section on "what you NEED to do next" may contain little or no feedback.

This is supposed to be equivalent to a C1 CEFR according to most of the online equivalency measures.
This is described as:

R-3: Reading 3 (General Professional Proficiency) Able to read within a normal range of speed and with almost complete comprehension a variety of authentic prose material on unfamiliar subjects. Reading ability is not dependent on subject matter knowledge, although it is not expected that the individual can comprehend thoroughly subject matter which is highly dependent on cultural knowledge or which is outside his/her general experience and not accompanied by explanation. Text-types include news stories similar to wire service reports or international news items in major periodicals, routine correspondence, general reports, and technical material in his/her professional field; all of these may include hypothesis, argumentation and supported opinions. Misreading rare. Almost always able to interpret material correctly, relate ideas and "read between the lines," (that is, understand the writers' implicit intents in text of the above types). Can get the gist of more sophisticated texts, but may be unable to detect or understand subtlety and nuance. Rarely has to pause over or reread general vocabulary. However, may experience some difficulty with unusually complex structure and low frequency idioms.


R-3+: Reading 3+ (General Professional Proficiency, Plus) Can comprehend a variety of styles and forms pertinent to professional needs. Rarely misinterprets such texts or rarely experiences difficulty relating ideas or making inferences. Able to comprehend many sociolinguistic and cultural references. However, may miss some nuances and subtleties. Able to comprehend a considerable range of intentionally complex structures, low frequency idioms, and uncommon connotative intentions, however, accuracy is not complete. The individual is typically able to read with facility, understand, and appreciate contemporary expository, technical or literary texts which do not rely heavily on slang and unusual items.

I'll take it and retire from testing Spanish reading online.

[DaveAgain]

Her: Of, I'm from England. We don't have silly holidays like Black Friday.

I'm in England, and there are currently lots of TV adverts for Black Friday sales, so we seem to have this here too now.

Halloween has also travelled, we used to just have Bonfire Night.

[sfuqua]

That's what I thought, DaveAgain. She's just an idiot, and I suspect she really isn't very English. I suspect that if I had said good morning to her, she would have tried to find a way to put that down too.

I wonder what is wrong with her.

I just wish they would give that big beautiful golden retriever of theirs for a walk from time to time.

Of course that's really none of my business.

[jeff_lindqvist]

If it's any comfort to you, the idiocy has also reached Sweden.

I don't think I had heard about Black Friday (at all) until maybe five-six years ago. Now, the Friday has turned into a week. (It is said that it was introduced in Sweden in 2013.)

(Halloween has been around since at least 1995 which was the first time I heard about any organized Halloween event in my area. Then, dark forces attempted to introduce it as a tradition to encourage shopping... It went well and is here to stay.)

[iguanamon]

To all those who are not American, "Black Friday" is not an official holiday- it's a made up media name. Since Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday in November, most people, typically get the following Friday off of work. Thanksgiving is a very family oriented holiday in the States. People often trek long distances to be with their families. In fact, Thanksgiving is arguably a more important holiday than Christmas for many Americans to celebrate. There's a feast centered around traditional foods found in North America before the British arrived. Expecting people to come into work for one day, a Friday, after this major holiday is a bit ridiculous. So, most companies gave their workers the day off for the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Of course, being so close to Christmas, the day after Thanksgiving, that Friday, unofficially begins the Christmas shopping season. Americans typically have the day off work the Friday after Thanksgiving. The feast is over. So are the football games. It's cold outside up there. There's nothing else to do so they start shopping for Christmas. Retailers call it "Black Friday" because it is supposed to be the day that their earnings go into the "black" (profitable) versus the "red" ink of debt. The media love a catchy name. The advent of 24/7 national cable news about 30 years ago meant that the media took the term and ran with it. Many of us, who lived outside of major urban areas (half of the country) had no earthly idea what they were talking about.

Retail stores began running ever more wacky "loss-leader" sales in order to attract large amounts of shoppers. People began to line up (cue) to be the first in line to get the "great deals". Of course, this led to an ever-spiraling race to see which store could do outdo the others... which led to even more retail insanity. Then, countries without a Thanksgiving holiday on a Thursday a month out from Christmas- which is all of them except the US, (Canada has a Thanksgiving holiday in October- too far out from Christmas) their retailers knew a good thing for their bottom-line when they saw it and decided to adopt this day as well... with all the retail-insanity that comes with it. So, don't blame the US for "Black Friday". If it goes on in your country, you did it to yourselves without even the excuse of Thanksgiving as a holiday. So, there!

While I may technically live in the US, we don't do that here, I'd much rather go to the beach!

[sfuqua]

As I study my other languages, I live in a very Philippines oriented environment at home. I have become very used to the same telenovela themes played out over and over again with variations on TV. Some of these shows are excellent and rise above their genre. But with most teleserye are quite predictable.
DNA tests. Long term coma. Evil rich people. Good poor people. Unfaithful wives always come to a bad end. Young lovers from feuding families...
Recently something has shaken up the system, at least at ABS-CBN https://www.iwanttfc.com/#!/ where we do most of our watching. They have started to deal with middle class families, not super rich, not super poor. They have begun to deal with somewhat more realistic problems.
Recently they cam up with a show that hit me like a punch in the gut.
ABS-CBN has a fairly realistic show about rape, roofies, sex videos, and social media. I can barely watch it, it is such a horror. I am the father of a teenaged daughter. I am the former teacher of teenagers. I am a former sex-education teacher, so I've heard these stories more and been on the edge or some pretty nasty situations from time to time. What a nightmare can ensue from a few bad decisions. It is so easy to fall into a horrible mess.

Anyway, it is very different from faked DNA tests and scheming mistresses. The show is "Viral Scandal". Apparently the rape vicitm in the show, played by Charlie Dizon, really sets off my "Dad" reflexes. I keep wanting to jump into the TV and protect her.

If anybody is learning Tagalog, and wants to see how most urban Filipinos live, this show would work. There are many other fairly realistic movies on the site, although most of the TV shows are very stylized.