Waldelfe

Mir persönlich schmeckt die NO milk von Lidl am besten. Ich finde aber die Geschmacksunterschiede sind so deutlich, dass man kaum eine klare Empfehlung geben kann. Eigentlich hilft nur durchprobieren.

"Just do it" is helpful in some cases, but mostly not. E.g. you think that a hobby is cool but you don't feel like you could start it? Just do it, take a course, try it out. It becomes unhelpful quickly when the realities of your life are just different. Telling in unemployed person with debt who is fascinated with flying to "just get a pilot license" ignores their reality. But telling a business analyst who's interested in manga but feels like this hobby would destroy his image, to "just do it and buy some mangas" is totally valid.

I have been struggling financially for most of my life and have received way too often the unhelpful advice to "just do it. Live a little." Just book that 100€ flight to Italy and see Rome. Just get a smartphone, everyone has one now! (That was when smartphoneplans were very expensive here and I couldn't justify such a high monthly cost. Yes I'm older.)

There is way too much "just do it" advise by people that live in their nice little bubble of a well-off, supportive family system and never realize that the only reason they can "just do it" is because they never had to eat rice with tomato sauce for 3 days in a row because there were only 10€ on the bank account by the 26th.

On a similar note, "just get a job, just learn something more profitable/in an industry with high wages" is also an often unhelpful advice. Not everyone can be good at everything. And not everyone can just uproot their lives and go back to school for a few years. Yes, some people can do amazing things like get a masters degree while working full-time and having kids. But this advise, too, ignores the reality of many people. If you have no support system or if you simply aren't cut out for the currently profitable jobs, you can't just magically switch careers. And even if you do: things change so quickly and there is no guarantee, that the currently well-paid job will still be like that in 5-10 years.

That sounds to me like she doesn't even know you are infatuated with her, correct? You mention that you never told her you're in love. What you are doing is unfair both to yourself and to her: If she thinks you are friends, she has no reason to treat you any differently than her other friends. So it's understandable she might take some time to answer if she's busy. How would she know you are expecting more of her?

It is unfair to yourself, because you're keeping yourself in that limbo by obsessing over it. You are expecting her to magically behave in exactly the way you want - without ever having communicated your feelings and expectations. And then you get stressed because another person didn't behave the way you wanted them to. That's like getting depressed because the sky is blue and you got it into your head that it ought to be yellow. The only reasonable thing you can do is work on your own expectations and reactions to other people. You have no influence over other people's feelings, how they behave or whether they like you or not. If you allow things you have no influence over to take control of you so much, you will never be happy in life.

Even if she told you today "I love you" and you get together - how would a relationship work if you can't even communicate a simple need such as "I noticed you take a long time to answer - is something up? I'd appreciate if you could at least write a short 'I'm busy, let's text later'."

And yes, the people who tell you to work on yourself DO get it. One person not reciprocating your feelings should not throw you into such a deep depression and if it does, you need to work on yourself and not date.

Ich bestell größere Sachen wie teure Elektronik direkt über die Herstellerseiten. Eigentlich alle Hersteller haben mittlerweile gute Onlineshops, oft mit besserer Auswahl und der Möglichkeit zur Gastbestellung ohne ein Konto einzurichten. Für kleinere Sachen nutze ich Otto oder Bonprix (letztere schicken auch per DHL). Ich hab zur Zeit Windows und Ubuntu parrallel laufen. Für die Uni brauche ich noch die Microsoftprodukte, alles andere mache ich nur noch unter Linux. Netflix habe ich gar nicht, unter anderem auch, weil ich sonst zu viel Zeit damit verschwenden würde. Ich schau mir neue Serien für ein paar Folgen auf einschlägigen Seiten an und wenn es mir gefällt, kauf ich die DVD.

Bei Softdrinks finde ich die deutschen Alternativen sowieso eigentlich immer besser. Und Kleidung hole ich wo es geht Second Hand.

You had to choose between a small set of approved groups you could belong to. It was especially bad in my small village in western Germany: you could be either a fashion victim (all with the same hair, clothing style, one year they ALL dyed their hair red), a computer nerd, a sporty person, a hip-hop or a techno fan. If you didn't belong to any of the approved groups, you were an outsider and bullied.

Obviously I'm writing this because my best friend and I were among the outcast. We bought our stuff at thrift shops and didn't care much for fashion, neither what was 'in style' nor the geek/techno/hip-hop fashion. One year I cut my hair really short and got so much shit for it, because apparently you could only do that if you 100% subscribed to a matching Goth aesthetic. (Still have short hair, so take that stupid mean girls!)

It was probably partially a small-town-thing, but if you look at the media from the 90s you'll rarely see characters that don't neatly fit a certain type.

I live close to the border so we go to the Netherlands about every other month. I have tried learning some common dutch tourist phrases like ordering food or asking for the toilets. Unfortunately, so far most shops or waiters have just insisted on using English or German and I've been told numerous times something along the lines of "Why would you try to learn Dutch? We can all speak English."

The front desk lady at one of the hotels we stayed at in Noord-Holland even told me "Oh, don't learn Dutch, that's such a waste of time." I don't know, I love learning at least a few sentences of the local language when I go somewhere on vacation. But I've never met so much resistance to it as in the Netherlands.

Die verweigern es, so weit zu denken. Aus eigener Erfahrung: "Ja, wird sich dann schon regeln." "Dann müssen halt mal ein paar von den faulen Hartzern schuften gehen." "Ach, wird schon nicht passieren." Das ist alles, was denen zum Thema Konsequenzen einfällt.

That's a cool concept, hadn't heard of it. Nanotech might also be an option for this. You have a bunch of nanobots in your brain and when you encounter a new language, some AI will decipher it and rewire your brain to understand it.

The Webshifter Series might be a good start (Book 1 is Beholder's eye). The main character is a shape shifter, so we get to see the world from the point of view of someone who can change her form between different alien races. The book has a lot of interesting descriptions about her changing senses, e.g. suddenly being able to perceive different colors or having an organ to feel the magnetic field etc.

Star Trek has a common language in the federation or not? It would be cool if they encountered a new species and get out their communicators, record for a bit and have an AI figure out the new language. Wouldn't take up a lot of screen time and explain the communication.

That's a good point. Or even poorer parts of the population not being able to afford the newest tech.

I like that. They had a ton of cameras on all Star Trek ships - but then a scandal involving sex tapes and an illegal porn trade between Star Fleet officers happened and cameras in Star Fleet ships were completely outlawed.