Asklemmy

I live in America, and I would say America. During COVID I was completely shocked on how stupid we were about masks and vaccine guidelines. I am nearly 40 now but at the time I didn't know this country was so stupid.

Even if it was possible to feel at ease and not in a work mindset while hanging with them, it's just wise not to get that close, it makes it harder in future to be selective in what you divulge about your private life which can give your boss leverage over you. Sometimes you may need a "sick" day and it's just better if they don't know enough personal information to be able to determine how sick you are and make everything awkward.

That might seem dishonest, but there's reasons why you might need to the employer to know only what they need to know and they aren't necessarily laziness or incompetence. It's a shame because it's nice that your boss wanted to be friends but unfortunately there's always going to be that fact that they're your boss which gets in the way of that and everyone is better off keeping things arm's length

If you can afford it, I found that the Pimsleur technique taught me how to speak well better than anything else I tried. I've forgotten the Spanish I know because I didn't keep using it, but it got me to a decent adult conversational level in about a month at half an hour a day and I was always speaking 'adult' sentences right from the start, both copying then making new ones.

South American bidets.

Not the pathetic little add-on ones you sometimes see in Australia, but stand alone bidets with enough water pressure for the water jet to touch the roof of the bathroom! A shot of high power jet of water to the crotch at 3am when I was only half awake is something I will not forget in a hurry!

Probably moving to a big city from a prondomity Mennonite village I grew up in. I am not a Mennonite myself, not religious either, just grew up in that kind of environment. A tiny unfinished suburb surrounded by miles of corn fields and cows.

Highlights include

• having to idea how public transit worked I was riding the bus without paying for the first few months because I didn't realize I needed to.

• saw my first homeless people, saw women dressed "imodestly", and tall buildings. These are not things that bothered me but certainly things I should have seen prior to my 20s. I had no clue how to interact with people outside my bubble.

• having grown up with many siblings and close friends I was hit with a lot of loneliness. Definetly a low point.

• I also had none of the skills needed to survive life on my own in a big city. Schools teach budgeting but they didn't teach me to avoid scammers, where to shop, how to get places, housing, access to health services ect.

I'm still learning about 15 years later. Now it's about assertive communication skills, legal knowledge, cultural histories, how to pay respects to indigionous cultures and why its important to do so, im understanding local politics and how to work with it.

Frankly that's my favorite part of all this. I'm (slowly) learning, and feel like I am growing from being a part of the culture and not in a bubble.

Returning to the US from living in Estonia for several years as a teen. Nothing made sense at all to me culturally, and in many ways still doesn’t.