The Christianville Spirit: The Truth about Expatriation Remixed

The Christianville Spirit

The Spirit that Keeps Learning with Hope and Resilience

February 21st, 2018-TCS # 584

Hola, My Readers! This is a Special Greeting for a Special Newsletter. So, Expatriation. It is a Very Interesting Topic to Me. Expatriation is also known to a lot of People as Expatting. Basically, It means that You are a Citizen of a Home Country, be it an American, Englishman, Australian, or Whatever Your Home Country is and then, Moving to Another Country for Whatever Reason (There are Many) that I am going to explain in a Minute. People expat to Another Country for Anywhere from a Year, A Couple Years, and Yes, Some even Expat for a Lifetime. Life is an Adventure to Them. In Fact, Some People don’t just Expat to One Country, Sometimes, It’s Two or Even Three Countries before They Repatriate (or “Repat”) Repatriate, basically means that You come back to Your Home Country. I am told that it is Much Harder to Repat than to Expat. So, Why do People Expat? Many Reasons, Some of Them I list in The Newsletter that I am going to Rerun. I List them as “Needing Some Adventure or Something Different in Life, Learning about Another Culture and Soaking in that Culture, Because You may not be happy with The Way your Home Country is going, Retirement, or Most Commonly, Because Your Spouse (Husband or Wife) getting a New Job Opportunity in a New Country” Additionally, Some People expat to Retire or There are Tired to “The Box Life” of America. So, Question Time! How do I know so much about Expatting?and Why is This Newsletter so Special? Well, for One, I have had Two Friends of Mine, Monica and Heidi expat from The United States. Monica, a Former-Student and Gal-pal of My Mom, expatted to Stockholm, Sweden for 4 Years. She has since Repatriated back to The United States. Heidi, a Friend, I met through Monica (Because They are Walking Buddies in Stockholm), She actually Expatted Twice, Once to France and Second to Stockholm. She actually did both Expatriation and Repatriation twice. The Other Reason I know so much about Expatting is that Every Once and a While, I research People Expatting to Various Countries by Reading some of Their Blogs. Yes, Believe it or not, There are People who have “Expat Blogs” that really give you a sense of Expatting (and, sometimes Repatting) to Other Countries. Typically, I find them via a Site called Expatsblog.com. That Site is basically a Huge Directory of Expat Blogs literally All over The World. Basically, You go to The Site and Click “Expat Blogs” and Select from The List of Countries that have People expatting, Pick a Country, What type of Expat (American or Otherwise), and Happy Reading of Countries! Ones that I found Interesting was The Following, 

1. A Blog of An Adventurous Couple from Washington DC in Search of Wild Adventure and Something Different than as The Writer refers to as “The Box Life”. They expatted to Thailand. (https://www.tielandtothailand.com/thoughts-before-i-quit-m…/) Their Blog is called “From Tieland to Thailand”
2. A Blog about Two Formerly-Hard Working People who Expatted from Florida to Yucatan, Mexico. The Writer refers to Himself as “Q-Roo Paul”. (www.qroo.us)
3. For Something Really Different. A Blog of a Couple from Dallas, Expatting Temporarily to Haiti. If You want a Taste of That, Check It Out. 

So, Then that brings me to the Specialness of This Double Newsletter. My Former Neighbors down the Street are Expatting and Repatting at The Same Time. Shelagh (an American) is Expatting and Fernando (A Mexican) is Repatting. Their Reason is to Retire in a Beautiful Town called Merida, Mexico. We will miss them terribly. But, I hope that They have a Great Time living down there and to come back to Dallas to visit soon! So, This Rerun Newsletter is for You and For People interested around Expatting!

This Newsletter was written on February 1st of 2017 (Refer to Newsletter 531)

Guten tag, My Readers! Okay, that is an Actual German Greeting that means Hello. There actually is a Difference between Swiss German and Real German. Swiss German is a dialect of German, German in Switzerland is either Swiss German or “High German”, which is The German from Germany. Anyway, on to This Week’s Newsletter! So, There is something that Fascinates My Geography/Politics/History Mixed Mind. Something that More People than You think Do. A Unique Life to not only Spiced up Your life, but also Open Your Mind about The World. Something known as Ex-patting (Expatriation). Okay, so There are actually Two of that Same Concept, Expatriation and Repatriation, Moving to a Another Country and Coming Back respectively. “That’s Absurd”! “There’s NO Place like America”! “America #1”!, You would hear Americans say if You said You wanted to Expat. Okay, so, Maybe I am exaggerating The American Stereotype, but I will tell you, some Americans think that way. No Offense to Anyone in The Process! Now, I will be Honest, I kind of thought that when My Mom’s Former Student and Gal Pal, Monica was Nuts (Not in an Extreme Patriot Way though!) for Ex-patting to Stockholm, Sweden back then. After Reading The Book that I told you about Last Week Swiss Life: The 30 Things that I wish I’d Known, I kind of Understand a little more about Ex-patting. So, First, about Ex-patting, There could be Several Reasons for Ex-patting to Another Country like Needing Some Adventure or Something Different in Life, Learning about Another Culture and Soaking in that Culture, Because You may not be happy with The Way your Home Country is going, Retirement, or Most Commonly, Because Your Spouse (Husband or Wife) getting a New Job Opportunity in a New Country eventually leading to “Okay, What the Heck, Let’s Do It and See What Happens!”. Respectively, Monica and The Woman in The Book Ex-patted because of Their Husband’s Job. Now, When Monica went to Sweden, They speak much Better English and Their Nation’s Official Language, Swedish as well. Switzerland, on the other hand, has Four Official Languages, German, French, Italian, and Romansh. So that means that Anything and Everything, even Work (Hiring and Firing) works in either of Those Languages and English in there too! The Writer of The Book, Chantal Panozzo explains that The Book that in fact, You could be Hired in English and Fired in German, among Many other Things about Life in a Different Country. One Thing that I picked up that was The Most Important or Notable in Switzerland (Other than The Mountains and Neutrality) is Two Things, One is that The Swiss are Very Clean and Organized, and Two that The Swiss are Very Punctual, like to The Second, kind of Punctual. Sounds like My Kind of Place, right? Very Clean, Organized, and On Time. But, Oh! When I say Clean, I mean like In The Book, Chantal mentions that If You share a Laundry Room with Your Neighbors, They expect You to keep those things Very Clean, like No Lint in The Machine at All! The Organized Segment of The Swiss is Easy though, You walk in to a Store, Say Hallo (Swiss German is Hello), Take a Number, and Make Yourself be Known. The Segment of Being Punctual, No Worries There! Chantal mentions that The Clock Tower gongs every 15 Minutes or so. That and The Swiss Watch REALLY comes in Handy. Everything is always on Time, The Planes, The Trains, The Buses, and The People. I think The Punctuality Thing is common among Northern Europeans, because Swedes are like that too! The Thing that Shocked me The Most was Something I did not think of When It comes to Expats from The US moving to Another Country. Now, For The Record, Expats come from More than just The United States, but This is about an American Ex-patting. So, Whenever Expats live in a Another Country, Their Americans friends usually ask, What They can bring them anytime that they would like to Visit. Most usually say Peanut Butter; Anything that It is only sold in The United States; A Texan would probably say Good Mexican Food (unless You are Ex-patting to Mexico proper, in which case, You are Good!); and, Maybe a Box of Macaroni and Cheese, You never know. Chantal says that She wished for Someone who spoke American English (because They speak mainly German in Switzerland), The Wal-Mart Greeter (Because in Europe, There is No Small Talk; If You ask “What’s Up” to Europeans, They will tell you What’s Up in Detail where as Americans would say “Not Much” or “I’m Fine”), and Just Talk about Nothing (The Weather, Sports, or General Things). It made me wonder, What was going on in Monica’s Head when She ex-patted. Now, would I expat in My Life if I could, Sure Why not, for Maybe 1 or 2 Years, It would be Fun! I told Myself that If I ex-patted anywhere, I would go to Europe because it fascinates Me in Many Ways. I would expat to Stockholm, Sweden, just like Monica. When I went there, I loved it, It was clean too and like I said, They speak Brilliant English, and There is Plenty of Nature Abound! Now, Friends, as I laugh at Myself writing the Following, Don’t listen to Me! I actually did convince a Friend of My Mom and Aunt’s to move from Plano to Austin because as I told This Person, “Austin is a Cool Place!” and Apparently, She listened! So, One thought that again I never thought of, It is Nerve Racking to Expat to Another Country. But, You know what is Scarier than Expatriation? Repatriation! “It’s Home”, “Good ol’ America”! You might think. But, After You have seen The Way the Country You ex-patted to Works, You might have a Hard Time coming back to The United States. Truth be told, I have read Expat Blogs, where People Ex-patted from The United States, Only were going to Expat for maybe Two Years and After being there for Two Years, Don’t want to come back here. In Fact, Some just Expat to a Second Country (and, Yes, even Third Country) once They get tired of The First Country that They ex-patted to. Now, The Biggest Struggle that Chantal mentions is with The Distance between You and Your Family (or Friends) back here in The US. Yes, Facebook Works, Skype Works, and FaceTime Works, but as Chantal says, You can’t use All Five Senses when You talk to A Loved One on Skype. It, in a way, Lacks Connection and Love that You need. Because You should be able to Hug, Touch, and Talk to Your Loved Ones. Unfortunately, That is The Thing about Ex-patting that No One really tells you about, probably because It is Hard to admit or even Say. All in all, If You are Interested in Different Places, Read some Expat Blogs to see if It looks Interesting to You.

Thanks for Reading The Christianville Spirit. The World is smaller than You think. Open Your Mind to Traveling The World. 

The Christianville Spirit: An Unconventional Love Story

The Christianville Spirit

The Spirit that Keeps Learning with Hope and Resilience

February 14th, 2018-TCS # 583

Happy Valentine’s Day, My Readers! Today is The Day of Love! Okay, so Not Everyone calls Valentine’s Day, “The Day of Love”, although It really should be referred to as that. I would imagine that It would make Those People who don’t believe in Valentine’s Day feel loved, because They feel that Valentine’s Day is only about Couples. Let Me Tell You, that is Further from The Truth!

So, After 11 Years of Writing The Christianville Spirit, I have written some Really Good Newsletters in The Topic of Love during Valentine’s Day. These are Newsletters of Mine that I feel deserve The Gold Metal (Get It? The Olympics!) for Valentine’s Day and The Day of Love Newsletters in My Valentine’s Day Newsletter Roster. So, I am going to Help You enjoy Valentine’s Day, in whatever Mood You may be in or You Think of Valentine’s Day in One Way or Another. It was Very Hard for Me to Choose Which were The Best of The Best in My 11 Years of Writing, but These are The Gold Ones! 

The Gold Valentine’s Day Newsletters go by Title and Year so that They are Easy to find!

Destiny in The Making (2015) 

In Search of Bridgett (2014)

 Infectious: A Love Story (2012)

 Different Kinds of Love (2010)

You are Loved This Valentine’s Day (2009)

Now, Don’t Worry, I am not going leave you out of The Mushiness, Non-Believers. You may call This Day, Single’s Awareness Day or “Day of Evil” according to a PTLS Family Member I knew. Well, What if You believe in Love but, Aren’t feeling it This Year? I feel like I am Ted Mosby of The TV Show How I Met Your Mother right before He meets The Mother. You believe in Love with All Your Heart but, You are Ready for Your “Person”, quoting Christina Yang of Grey’s Anatomy, to Come into Your Life. You want to see that Kind of Love! Anyway, so This is an Unconventional Love Story that pertains to that, at least until I meet Her. 

So, My Dog, Paco. You have heard briefly about Him from Time to Time, but I never told You the Actual Story. Probably because, for One, It did not turn out that way I thought it would and Two, Paco was Intended to be My Brother’s Dog and for The sake of My Brother’s Feelings, I did not want to boast about it. But, It seems that Paco and I have bonded. So, First Off, Paco is a Boy Dog, We have always avoided having a Boy Dog, what with The Raising of The Leg, Humping, and The (Clearing Throat) Oscar Meyer Weiner of It all. People that have Boy Dogs will know exactly what I mean. So, My Mom has always gotten Our Family Girl Dogs. Well, My Mom’s High School Friend, Barb, was at a Flea Market in a Town called Canton, about an Hour East of Dallas. She was walking through The Place and Discovered This Guy giving away Puppies. Well, Said Guy was not a Very Nice Guy giving away These Puppies! Barb saw Literally the Cutest Brindle Boy Dog and She had to have Him. She tried to get More than just Him because The Seller was commenting to another person saying “They’d Make Great Bait Dogs!” (Yes, Really He said that in the Open!). Barb was like “Let Me have Them” and Sadly, She only got The Brindle Boy. It happened to be at The Time that Michael, My Brother, saw a Brindle dog and wanted it but, The Guy that had him decided to keep Him

  So, Barb called up My Mom and told her to come over to Check Out The Brindle Boy Dog who was like 4 Months Old at The Time and Not Potty Trained. My Mom thought, “Well, We can take The Dog up to Colorado for Michael”. The Thing was that We were not going to Colorado for Two Weeks, So We cared for This Boy Dog who Barb referred to as “Baby Boy”. At First, Between My Mom and I, We were Very Wary about having a Un-Potty Trained Boy Dog in Our House. Now, Bearing in Mind that We had Potty Trained Dogs that We have had before, so It was Nothing New but, This Boy Dog was Harder to Potty Train because He is a Rather Stubborn Dog. Through Those Two Weeks, That Boy Dog really tested My Texture Issue Limits with His Pooping and Peeing on Training Pads and Me having to clean it up and throw it away. A lot of It I had to do while My Mom was at Work. I tried Very Hard not to Get to Close to Him because for All I knew, He was going to Michael’s House and It would hurt more letting him go. So, After Two Weeks of Trying to Potty Train Him, he still was not Trained yet but, We put Him in his Crate and Got on The Road. We found after about an Hour of Driving that He would rather be in The Crate with The Door open so He could freely come to See us and Sleep in The Crate. Now, Barb started training Him before We had him with Crate Training. Now, I have not had Great Experiences traveling with Dogs, but I have to say that This Boy Dog was The Best Traveller! He was Quiet, Did not Bark too much (although Sadie Good-Lord was in the Process of teaching him to Bark), and He did not bother us that much. So, After We got to Michael’s House and The Boy Dog “Baby Boy” to Our Surprise, He knew exactly where His House was before We had even been up to See It. He is a Very Smart Dog! Now, I will tell you, It did sting a little bit along The Way up there to know that This Boy Dog was going to be My Brother’s because although I did not admit, It was Hard not to Bond with Him, even though I did not want him because He was My Brothers and I did not want to deal with Anymore Potty Training. Well, Michael wanted to keep him but, His Roommate did not want him. Michael kept saying He thought there might be a No Dog Rule at His Place but, yet allowed Nicole’s Small Dog and Zack’s Dog to come over all the time, but Why not Michael? He deserved a Dog! After a Few Days at Michael’s, We left “Baby Boy” at Michael’s because He was Michael’s Dog. We let My Brother name The Boy Dog. He first started with “Grandpa” (as in, “Let’s Take Grandpa for a Walk”); Nicole said No. My Brother’s Humor! “Grandpa Banjo” (From the Nintendo 64 Video Game, Banjo-Kazooie); Nope! “Banjo”. Well, that worked for a While, until He responded with a sound like The Word, “Taco” and Then Came the Name “Paco”.

 Long Story Short, The Roommate got Very Upset about The Dog being there and Michael being Nice said He would be with Him for 2 Weeks, 2 Weeks went up, and then, My Mom and Michael drove halfway to Kansas and Michael sadly gave Paco back to us. This is Where I start to say, No! This is not Fair for My Brother! He deserves a Dog! Of Course, I was still Wary about having to Potty Train Him and then, getting attached to Him. Well, Paco came back and He was happy to be with Us again. We told My Brother that We would meet him again and Exchange Paco back later, but Low and Behold, Me and Paco got attached to Each other and I grew more and more attached to Him as He did to Me. The Dog picks The Person, NOT The Other Way around, Folks! After a while, after I got used to Him being around and caring for Him, finally Potty Training Him, I got less and less of wanting to send him back to My Brother. I learned Paco’s Ways and He learned Mine. I like to say that He is a “PTLS Dog” because of Many Things including needing to be told what is going on, He hops in The Yard like a Gazelle, He runs around without a Purpose getting Excited but, Not knowing What it is that He is getting excited about. Because He is an Excellent Traveller, We take him with us on Our Trips, among them, We took him with us to Atlanta to see Grandma Honey and Of Course, for Christmas, We took All 3 Dogs (Paco included) to Colorado and Bringing Him back This Time! He is Very Smart Dog! On The Trip to Atlanta, He knew where Our Hotel Room was the second time We walked Him, He knew where Grandma Honey’s House was, Where Uncle Bruce’s House was, and Yes, Our House included. Is He still stubborn? Yep, about as Stubborn as I am. Do I still talk to Paco about Events of The Day like PTLSers need to have? Yes, I do. I tell Him what’s going on and other things as well. I call them “Pac’ Talks”. I Love My Boy Dog! and, Yes, He is still cute as Ever! It took a Long Time to admit to Myself, My Mom, and My Brother that I was growing attached to Paco. So, to be Fair, Michael and I share Parenting this Boy Dog, and We both love him a lot. All in all, This Valentine’s Day, Know that You are loved!

Thanks for Reading The Christianville Spirit. Love the One  You are with even if They have Four Legs!

The Christianville Spirit: PTLSers Translated-A Christianville Classic

The Christianville Spirit

The Spirit that Keeps Learning with Hope and Resilience

February 7th, 2018-TCS # 582

Ahoj, My Readers! Yes, I am sure that You have heard This Greeting before, but It actually is a Greeting used to Not One, but Two European Countries! It is also used in Slovakia, not to be Confused with Slovenia. In Local Languages it is even more confusing, Slovenia is SLOVENIJA (SLO) and Slovakia is SLOVENSKO (SK). Sounds Confusing, doesn’t it? I digress.

To be Fair, Slovak and Czech are Very Close Languages. For Two Separate but, Divorced Countries, not only does Czech Republic (Czechia) and Slovakia, formerly Czechoslovakia speak Languages that are close to one Another and They are still Very Good Friends. Anyway, Speaking of Languages, I was looking at “On This Day” posts on Facebook the other day and Found a Gold Newsletter that kind of seems like It is in It’s Language. PTLS Language. I know, You are thinking that This is another Language to learn next to National Languages (Like English, Swedish, Czech), Love Language (Refer to “5 Love Languages” Newsletter”), and Language of Music (Refer to “The Language of Music” Newsletter). But, Here’s another Language to Learn. PTLS Language! Now, Luckily, PTLS Language is Pretty Easy to Learn if You know how to Translate It. In This Case, that is What I am going to do! with PTLS Awareness Month and Day coming up Next Month, It is always a Time of Spread Awareness about Potocki-Lupski Syndrome, talking about What It Means, Refreshing People’s Memories of What is coming for Their PTLS Child, and Of Course, Most Importantly, to Teach New PTLS Family Members about Potocki-Lupski Syndrome (or PTLS) and What it is about.

Now, a lot of PTLS Members always want to know about Certain Questions, like What on Their Young PTLS Mind.

You See, For PTLS Family Members, It is One of those Questions that They are curious about, but Are not sure whether They want to hear The Answer or not. Sometimes, In Our PTLS Family, We get Questions that that more Standard, “Will My Child be Okay? (Yes They will), Potty Training Related (Me, at Age 3); Walking or Talking Related (Me at Age 4 or 5); When They got Diagnosed (Me at Age 3); You know, The Basics. Then, There are PTLS Family Members who are Curious about Deep Things like Thoughts, Intuition (which We are Very Good At), Adulthood, and Struggles (Refer to “PTLS Adult Struggles” Newsletter for that!) as well as Many Other Things. So, What was I thinking when I was Younger? Well, This is It. I have figured that I should make This Newsletter a Christianville Classic, That Way PTLS Family Members can always go to This Newsletter and Many Others in My Christianville Classics List to Reference to Any of Their Questions. So, without Further A due This is The New Christianville Classic, “PTLSers Translated”

This Newsletter was written back in March (Marzo) of 2014, Refer to Newsletter 395. First though, I should mention a Disclaimer* This may or may not apply to Your Child but, I hope that It is Easy to Understand. Happy February! And, I can Wait until PTLS Awareness Month! Enjoy!

So, Everyone, This is The Last Newsletter of March (Marzo), PTLS Awareness Month. In Honor of PTLS Awareness Month, I’m going to help PTLS Family Members “Translate” Their Child’s Behavior. The Way I am going to “Translate” is that I am going to share My Experiences on some of The Things I did when I was Young. There was a time when I did something called Stimming. I stim in a different way now, by way of being on My Computer. But, The Stimming I did was called pacing. You See, One Day at Our House, I found a little section of Grass and Dirt under a Big Tree, I would make sure No One was around and then, I started walking back and forth. In My Mom’s Words, “I would hippity hop, back and forth.” Back then, I didn’t really know what it was called or what it looked like to others, I just knew that I liked the feeling of it. As Soon as I started going, I would start mimicking the Sounds of The Road in Dallas. To explain to those who live Elsewhere, To Me, it sounded like someone was hollering. When I was a Kid, I called it “The Holler Road.” I later found that it is grooves in the road that help with Tire Traction that made a High Pitch Noise. Anyway, I would hear the sound of The Holler Road and I would mimic it. Other Times, I had a Wild Imagination! In My Mind, Our House was sort of a Welcome Center, in the Events I pretended that We lived in Oklahoma and The Other Side of The Creek we lived on, was in Texas. Now, that I think about it, It probably was because Our Lake House was close to Oklahoma. Other Times, In My Mind, Our House would be a Welcome Center/Customs House on The Texas/Mexico Border. Our House was in Laredo, Texas; The Creek was The Rio Grade River, and Across The Creek was Nuevo Laredo, Mexico (This Thought came from My Dad taking me down to Laredo & Nuevo Laredo, because it sounded cool and I wanted to check out Mexico). You Know, When You are a Child with a Creek in Your Backyard, Anything is Possible! While I was pacing, I would look at the ground, even though The Ground was the Same going to Back and Forth but, I would picture these things I Mentioned in My Mind. Once I started pacing more, I actually could picture the ground showing me driving on “The Holler Road” or Picture People coming into Our “Welcome Center” and Signs that lead people through The House to Laredo, Texas or Marietta, Oklahoma. Usually, Someone would come out to see what I was doing and Redirecting Me by Jumping on The Trampoline with Me or Go Inside to Play Video Games. So, The Next Thing I want to “Translate” is an Obsession that I have noticed that A lot of PTLSers have when They are Young. It seems like we PTLSers are Obsessed at One Point about Doors. I’m not sure exactly why But, I can tell you that I, in fact, have gone through that Obsession. Now, Keep in Mind though, It may or may not be The Same as Your Child, but This is How I saw it. For Example, The Elementary School that We went to, was an Open Plan School, Where You would walk into the Center of The School and You entered into The Library. From There, There were two-paired wood doors that led to Each Grade. Two Glass and Wood Doors to Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Grades. Well, I believe, back then I was in 3rd Grade, The 3rd Grade Doors had a unique sound to them that I liked. They made a “Doke-Doke-Doke” Noise. For Some Reason, I loved that, “Doke-Doke-Doke” Noise, so Any Chance that I got to Open the Door and Hear it make that Noise, I took it. I’m sure at One Point, it annoyed all the Students and I stopped doing it until The Next Time I had a Chance. I should mention that Our Old Elementary School doesn’t have that Open Floor plan like it did in The 90’s. The City of Plano redid it a Few Years Ago. Really, The Only thing that is Original, is The Gym. To be Honest, Although Off Topic, I kind of Miss the Old Days of Elementary School and All the Fun that We, The Barsi’s, and The Herricks had together. But, The Door Thing, I’m wondering that PTLS Kids like that same, “Doke-Doke-Doke” Noise, “Bang”, or “Squeak” Noise but only with different things like Cabinets or Other Doors. My Mom tells me that I used to sit on The Kitchen Floor and Open and Close Cabinets. I don’t do it anymore and I haven’t for a Very Long Time. All in all, Doors and Stimming are Fun to us Kid PTLSers but, It doesn’t last long because It would look silly.

Thanks for Reading The Christianville Spirit. Sometimes, You have to see The World through Someone Else’s Mind.