The GirlAlive Blog

Unemployed

Okay, so I’m unemployed.  I’ve been unemployed a lot before and I’ve always gotten through it okay.  It’s mostly the same being unemployed in Scotland, but there are a few differences.

1. Health insurance is not a problem.  I can still go to the doctor and I can still get my prescriptions dirt cheap.  I got a whole years’ worth of birth control for the equivalent of $11.

2. No one thinks that it is a bad thing that I’m unemployed.  Most of the people here are somehow living off the government.  They get housing allowances and disability payments for papercuts and it seems like most of them are on some kind of unemployment or welfare.  I think that this is because the taxes here have gotten so high that people reached their breaking point, and they do whatever they can to get some of their money back.  But it does not work for me because I am an immigrant.  I can’t get any government money, and neither can my husband because I am an immigrant.  In America, when I was poor my friends and family helped me out.  Here, no one offers to help because they all assume that we’ll just get in line for some government money.

3. They call resumes "CV’s" for some reason.  

4. People think that I am overqualified because I have a college degree.  They don’t realize that everyone in the US has a college degree.  They didn’t fight in Vietnam, so they didn’t have the educational inflation that happened when everyone went to college to avoid the draft.  In the US, I worked with a janitor with a doctorate and a data entry clerk with a master’s degree.   I just have a history degree.  That qualifies me to work at McDonald’s.

In a lot of ways, being unemployed is the same as back home.

1. Daytime tv is still bad here.  I watch Mythbusters at noon and then go upstairs and play on the computer and watch old tapes of Mystery Science Theater.

2. Being poor sucks.  My husband and I are trying to get into Costco as guests so we can stock up on rice and baked beans.  We can afford most of our bills.  As long as we don’t eat.

3. I’m still really bored.

4. I still have occasional panic attacks about running out of money and losing our house and getting deported.  Okay, so back in the US I had to worry about moving back in with my parents instead of being deported.  Other than that, it’s the same.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

P.S. If you want to help me out, buy some t-shirts and crap. 

Don’t force your lack of religion on me.

I don’t know how many times you’ve heard this, but I’ve heard this far too many times:

"Follow which ever one you wish, just don’t push anyone into believing as you do."

The problem of this statement isn’t the statement itself, but what inevitably follows, which is some story about how some Christian was telling them how they should be a Christian. Why is this a problem? Because it shows a very basic lack of understanding of Christianity.

As a Christian, my belief system has two parts that these people find offensive. First of all, there is a belief in absolute truth. What is true is true. What is false is false. There is no such thing as "true for you but not for me". Something is either true or it isn’t. So telling a Christian to treat your lack of belief as truth, or your beliefs that conflict with Christianity as truth is telling that Christian to stop practicing their religion. You are not going to get a Christian to say, "That’s fine for you and I’m sure that you’ll find your way to heaven." That is against our religion. And a non-Christian expecting me to follow that line of thinking is really just trying to force their lack of religion on me. Forcing their belief system on the Christians.

The other complaint that non-Christians always level against Christians is that they’re trying to "convert" everyone. In most cases that I’ve seen where that charge is leveled against a Christian, what they really mean is that the Christian stands up for what they believe and won’t just agree with their lack of conviction. In cases where the Christian really is evangelizing, they are doing it because that is part of our religion. The Bible tells us to tell the world about the truth of Jesus. So telling a Christian not to try to tell anyone else what they believe is really just telling them to stop being a Christian. It’s the same as saying, "Go ahead and practice Islam, but just don’t do any praying to Allah," or "You’re free to practice Buddhism, as long as you don’t meditate."

No one can ever "force" someone into believing anything. No Christian on earth has ever made someone else become a Christian. It’s impossible. Christianity is a belief system, and a spiritual state. No person can cause spiritual change or belief in another person. So accusations of "forcing" a religion on someone else are always just a situation where a non-Christian is trying to make a Christian stop practicing their religion. And the really funny part is that the non-Christians never notice their own hypocracy. Whenever they tell a Christian to stop "pushing people into believing as they do", they themselves are trying to push the Christians into believing as they do. They are guilty of the very thing they accuse the Christians of.

And by the way, you can believe whatever you want. But believing whatever you want won’t get you into heaven. Only Jesus can do that. I know that it is true, not because I’m better than you or because I’m smarter than you or any crap like that. I know that Jesus is the true way to heaven the same way that I know that I love my family. It’s not something I can explain. It just is. I know that for a non-Christian it isn’t like that. It isn’t that simple. And I can’t make it that simple for you. I just wish you could see Christianity from our side sometime. We aren’t trying to hurt you or force you into something bad. We just want to give you the chance to have the peace and understanding that we’ve experienced. I love God, and I wish you could see Him the way I do because I’m sure you’d love Him too.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

Men Keep Giving Me Terry Pratchet Books

I’ve got three Terry Pratchett books that were given to me by my friend who I have referred to as the Poopsmith.  Now my husband has been cleaning his old room (I’ll explain in a bit) and keeps piling all the Terry Pratchett books that he finds on my bedside table to read.  So I keep getting to read funny books for free because men keep giving them to me.

My husband has been cleaning because we live in his parents’ old room now (he bought the house from his parents) and his sister is going to be moving into his old room.  I would complain more about his sister moving in, but frankly, the timing is really good.  I’m almost out of money and they rent they’ll be paying will help cover food, which is what I’ve been paying for out of my savings.  

I’m hoping to get a job I applied for.  It’s the same kind of work I did in the US, but the other end of it.  What I mean is I used to process insurance claims which were covered in medical codes.  This job is to be the person who records all the codes.  Not for insurance here, but for medical records and such.  I could totally do it, and it would be great pay and benefits.

I’ve also been thinking about my husband’s lack of a nickname in my blog.  At first I thought about calling him Homestar, but that’s my guinea pig’s name so it could be confusing.  I have finally decided to call him Larry (which is totally not his real name).  My brother calls me Bob and when I married Larry he said that he needed a name to call him that would go with Bob.  So he settled on Larry, in honor of Veggietales.  So I’ll use that name.  Also, Larry insisted that I not call him "Fluffy", which was another option mentioned.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

New Headquarters

I have just set up new world headquarters for girlalive.com.  I used to do all my work from my laptop, in the living room.  But my husband’s sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law are moving in with us while they find a new apartment.  Because of that, I didn’t want to be spending so much time in the common areas of the house, so I got my laptop and a desk moved upstairs into my new office space, which happens to be the corner of my bedroom.

That is my new office.  I have a desk and a chair, and I can entertain visitors and clients, as long as they don’t mind sitting on the bed.  As you can see, I even have a lovely Homer Simpson mug that my husband got me for my birthday.  And since this picture was taken, I have added a thermos, for extra tea with fewer trips to the kitchen.

I need to go to bed because I told my husband I’d go to bed as soon as I finished a bunch of new food reviews, but that was about 2 hours ago and I need to eventually get some sleep.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

British Food

So, I finally got my British food thing up and running on my web site.  It’s pretty good so far.  Most people rip on British food, saying that it is all bland or deep fried.  It is very similar to the food I ate in the US, and isn’t all bland or deep fried any more than all American food is hamburgers and pizza. 

I’m just hoping that my British food reviews won’t offend my husband.  He loves most of the food here, but I find a large portion of it weird.  I don’t like the dried fruit-based desserts, and I don’t particularly like haggis.  He might have a tendency to take the food reviews personally, because he’s very proud of his Scottishness.  But the truth is, for every British food I don’t like (fruit cake and organ meat), there are dozens of other British foods I love (tikka masala, jaffa cakes, mushy peas, and English cucumbers).

Not that I’m going to stop looking for American foods.  I miss Jif and Velveeta.

Alana

www.girlalive.com 

The food thing

I’ve been working for the last few days on a new web project.  My husband and I were discussing ways to increase traffic, thereby selling more t-shirts and making more money.  We decided I need to do a wacky stunt.  But I’m not telling you any more until I get some more content ready on my new project.  But I will tell you that there is food involved.  And also some things I barely consider food.

I think I’ve also finally worked out the issues with this blog.  It’s annoying, but I do have a work-around for it.  I need to update 3 different things to get the blog to update.  Grr.

Ooo!  I also found out that CostCo has American peanut butter!  Some of our friends have offered to bring us there.  It isn’t Jif, but it is Skippy, which is almost as good.  I guess they also have some other American stuff like maple syrup.

Alana

www.girlalive.com