TRPG General Chat

wax eagle

00:00

4 - [okeefe](http://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/307/okeefe)
2 - [Seven Sided Die](http://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/321/sevensideddie)
2 - [tynam](http://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/862/tynam)
4 - [waxeagle](http://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/1084/wax-eagle)
4 - [Magician](http://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/1421/magician)
2 - [pconcepcion](http://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/1557/pconcepcion)
4 - [Erik Schmidt](http://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/1871/erik-schmidt)
2 - [Extrakun](http://rpg.stackexchange.com/users/1981/extrakun)

Grace Note

Alright then!

mxyzplk

Wooooooooooooo!

BESW

[yey]

wax eagle

huh, quotes don't get the whole text...that's odd

SevenSidedDie

We could havea meta-contest and take bets on who wins.

Grace Note

00:00

So, for those who don't know, today we're rolling out the winners for the RPG Birthday Anniversary Contest!

wax eagle linked the scoreboard, the point total is 50 points across everyone. So, to do the rolling, I'll be rolling 2d10 for a hundred options, and will reference the following table:

01-08 | okeefe
09-12 | Seven Sided Die
13-16 | tynam
17-24 | wax eagle
25-32 | Magician
33-36 | pconcepcion
37-44 | ErikSchmidt
45-48 | Extrakun
49-52 | Lunin
53-56 | Dan Rasmussen
57-60 | Standback
61-64 | Thomax
65-68 | MrJinPengyou
69-88 | BESW
89-96 | Dakeyras
97-00 | Thunderforge

Lunin

The middle belongs to me :D

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Nice!

SevenSidedDie

Nicely RPG-themed. :)

You enter the forest and... lemme check for wandering monsters... you encounter a... band of Lunins!

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Thanks for drawing that ip

Grace Note

So, we've got 2 prize sets. 3 users will get swag items like stickers or T-Shirts and the like. 2 users will get RPG sourcebooks and/or PDFs, based on the games they happened to earn their ticket here.

KRyan

00:03

...someone should totally draw up a random-battle table based on that

Grace Note

Which shall I draw up first? ♪

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Site swag

SevenSidedDie

Concur.

C. Ross

Swag

KRyan

I'm fine with that

Grace Note

00:04

We have a motion and it is seconded! Let us commence! Our first roll...

2d10

Dice Service

4

5

KRyan

@GraceNote is the "♪" the eponymous Grace Note?

Grace Note

@KRyan It is a quarter note, as it were.

...I think? Or was it eighth note?

I already forgot, ahahaha

Lunin

looks like an eigth

eighth*

Grace Note

Anyway, 45 gets us @Extrakun as our first site swag winner.

3

KRyan

00:05

\o/

Lunin

woo!

Grace Note

Next roll...

SevenSidedDie

Congrats!

Grace Note

2d10

Dice Service

10

2

SevenSidedDie

00:06

Reroll for previous winners, or multiple wins possible?

BESW

NATURAL CRIT.

Lunin

how about that

Grace Note

Wow. A straight 100. Fancy. For @Thunderforge, our second site swag winner!

3

SevenSidedDie

Thunderforge!

KRyan

ahaha, awesome

Grace Note

00:06

@SevenSidedDie I'm going to go with reroll, unless people feel strongly otherwise.

SevenSidedDie

I think that's fair.

wax eagle

@GraceNote yes to the reroll

Lunin

agreed

Grace Note

Okay. We've got one more roll to go for site swag, so without further ado...

2d10

Dice Service

6

9

wax eagle

00:07

@KRyan fc04.deviantart.net/fs43/f/2009/123/7/b/… more this than the note.

mxyzplk

69, dude!!!

SevenSidedDie

Also an auspicious roll. v.v

Grace Note

Right at the tail end of his massive 20-point spread, @BESW, our third site swag winner!

4

SevenSidedDie

Congrats @BESW!

Lunin

congrats!

C. Ross

00:08

You've got to ship that where? ;-)

2

trogdor

lol

yeah

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Congrats to all three of you

trogdor

furthest reaches of the earth gogogo

KRyan

@C.Ross ahaha

mxyzplk

Yay peeps

Grace Note

00:09

That concludes our drawing for the site swag. Congratulations once again to @Extrakun, @Thunderforge, and @BESW!

5

BESW

The phone rang, and I got swagged!

trogdor

lol

that's ok

Grace Note

Now then, let's go onwards - the bookening shall begin!

trogdor

I will just take it for you then

BESW

(Handy hint: ship it USPS and it's likely cheaper.)

Grace Note

00:09

For our first roll...

2d10

Dice Service

3

7

shatterspike1

37?

SevenSidedDie

Oh nice, Erik was one of the first to earn a ticket.

Grace Note

Our roll of 37 goes to @ErikSchmidt, who earns a fancy book or PDF of his domain in this contest!

BESW

Wooo!

KRyan

00:11

nice

Grace Note

The mods will work with him on that bit. He had 4 points so he had two posts with which to pick his domain.

SevenSidedDie

Some people are going to have some exciting super-pings when they visit the site next. :)

KRyan

heh, yup!

Grace Note

And now, our last roll of the night, at least if we don't need to reroll...

2d10

Dice Service

10

Lunin

00:12

haha

Grace Note

That. That is another 100.

2

SevenSidedDie

Speak of the devil.

BESW

[blink]

KRyan

whoa

trogdor

I don't think we can re roll that

C. Ross

00:12

I think we must.

Grace Note

I mean, I expected maybe hitting the same scope at once but, the same number? That's some roll there.

mxyzplk

yeah

SevenSidedDie

Dice Service is just being cute.

Lunin

critpocolypse

C. Ross

Who wrote this random algorithm anyway? :-)

KRyan

00:13

heh

Grace Note

Well, I do have a history of having crit-streak'd my PCs to death on more than once occasion...

2

I digress!

2d10

Dice Service

9

1

SevenSidedDie

Dakeyras! Barely missed Thunderforge again. ;)

BESW

High roller all around.

Grace Note

Our second winner, rolling in at 91, is @Dakeyras, who also earns a book or PDF belonging to the domain of participation!

3

That's another 4-pointer, so that's also two posts again.

mxyzplk

00:15

woot

BESW

Sweet.

Grace Note

That wraps up our domain sourcebook/PF drawing. Congratulations once again to @ErikSchmidt and @Dakeyras!

4

C. Ross

Hooray!

Grace Note

Thanks to everyone! Everyone who won summat, everyone who participated to make this contest work and help RPG grow, and to everyone who could show up to make this contest drawing a super event! ♪

BESW

[wild cheering]

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

00:16

Congrats everyone

KRyan

\o/

mxyzplk

Thanks all!

Grace Note

Extra thanks to the moderators in helping organize these things and putting up with the delays and radio silence I admittedly produced! Give your mods a big round of applause!

mxyzplk

And thanks @GraceNote

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Thank you so much, @GraceNote

Grace Note

00:17

And a bigger round of applause for all of your winners from tonight: @Extrakun, @Thunderforge, @BESW, @ErikSchmidt, and @Dakeyras!

7

SevenSidedDie

Hip-hip hooray!

wax eagle

@BrianBallsun-Stanton @mxyzplk @C.Ross great job all around

and yes, very many thanks to you @GraceNote

Grace Note

♪~

Lunin

Hmm... would that be a trilled grace note?

BESW

Yes, indeed, it was a great contest and I know it must've been a headache for those behind the scenes.

Grace Note

00:20

RPG 2013 Anniversary Contest Drawing

20 mins ago, 17 minutes total – 119 messages, 12 users, 28 stars

Bookmarked 5 secs ago by Grace Note

Gonna go plop this in our anniversary thread.

BESW

afk a bit

KRyan

later all, congrats to the winners!

BESW

Back.

SevenSidedDie

And I'm off. Kitchen needs cleaning, even if I'd rather be conquering Pomerania or prepping for the Friday game.

BESW

ttfn

So, what's the enswaggening process?

Oblivious Sage

00:33

@BESW traditionally you get an e-mail directing you to a Google form where you fill in what you want (if you have a choice) and where to send it

then, later, you receive it

BESW

Ahah.

A civilized process for a more civilized site.

Lunin

now I'm imagining less civilized processes for swag transport

Grace Note

Oblivious got the right of it.

It is, however, late for me at the moment, so unless I want to botch the spreadsheet in emailing you, I'm going to hold off until the morning to set it up.

Oblivious Sage

Do note, however, that the entire process can take several months to complete. The AnswerSwarm winners were announced in late March and they still haven't shipped the T-shirts.

Grace Note

@ObliviousSage Warehouse had a kind of issue thing happenin'.

Oblivious Sage

00:37

I thought that might be the case.

Grace Note

To my advantage, Aarthi included both "Prize Fulfillment" and "Collapse from Exhaustion" on the checklist of items to perform for the contest, so I'm going to be super proactive and check off "Collapse from Exhaustion" first.

Oblivious Sage

I got my plush zergling, so I don't really care about the T-shirt.

How cunning of you.

Grace Note

@ObliviousSage Ooh, you got one of those? Luuucky~

Oblivious Sage

Yep, I was pretty pleased.

BESW

@GraceNote Yeah, no rush. Just wanted to know if I needed to do anything.

Grace Note

00:38

@BESW Y'will need to. Just not tonight. Heh.

Magician

You invoke the true names of moderators, having done the proper appeasement rituals. A stranger will knock on your door. Do not let him in. He will howl like a wolf, then plead like a maiden. Do not let him in. He will leave site swag on the doorstep, to signify the transaction is complete. Do not open the door until the sun rises.

9

'grats, by the way. I witnessed the tail end of events, but wasn't quite coherent enough to say anything :)

BESW

Thanks. I didn't really expect to even get many tickets; it just sort of snowballed because of the PbC Fate game.

@JonathanHobbs [waves] Problematic's typing indicator script works for me now!

doppelgreener

@BESW What!?!?!?

@Problematic Did you just get the server to handle a custom event!?

@BESW Does it work with every user or just other users with the script?

BESW

@JonathanHobbs Others with the script.

So not universally useful, but very handy for our game!

doppelgreener

@Problematic Wait, now I see. It communicates with something on your server which keeps information about who's typing?

wax eagle

00:49

@JonathanHobbs that's the way I read it

Obvs that's not something for wide use probably :)

unless @Problematic want's to become the defacto SE chat server :)

Problematic

@JonathanHobbs doesn't keep, just rebroadcasts events.

@waxeagle I'll open-source it in a bit, but its usefulness is somewhat diminished with multiple sources of truth.

BESW

@Problematic Are you running it now? Because I think it broke again.

wax eagle

@Problematic yeah, though if SE likes the idea and someone's alreayd written a basic implementation sometimes they will implement it

Problematic

@BESW it's running... I will look into it.

BESW

Yeah, no big rush. It's probably something on my end.

Problematic

00:54

... I see. I'm grabbing the room title, and forgot that occasionally, the room title gets prepended with things like "(*)" when someone wants your attention.

Silly me.

BESW

Hee.

wax eagle

ok, time to go get some gas in the wife's car. back in a bit y'all

BESW

ttfn

Problematic

Okay, upgrade to latest and refresh, and that shouldn't happen any more.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

does it work for all rooms that shared suers are in?

Problematic

00:59

Yep.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

huh, so... I've installed it?

Problematic

... assuming I didn't make any more silly assumptions.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

ooooh, you do stuff over there, cool.

BESW

I see you typing!

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

yeah, my model for this is completely different in my head

glad I didn't write this.

Problematic

01:00

@BrianBallsun-Stanton first-pass lazymode. I'm open to suggestions for a more refined product.

BESW

The original vision we hashed out has a small pencil icon overlaid on top of the icon.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

(write ... to chat, capture the text box. Detect when user hits enter, edit the ... to the text)

Problematic

@BrianBallsun-Stanton @BESW was firmly opposed to that.

BESW

@BrianBallsun-Stanton Yeah, I have fundamental problems with that approach.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

ok

BESW

01:00

a) When five people are typing, it'll clutter up the chat something fierce.

b) What about when somebody changes their mind and deletes their text? The chat starts jumping up and down.

c) I know I've often accidentally dropped a single character into the box and walked away.

That kind of system is okay (but not great) for one-on-one chat, but in a chat room designed for near-unlimited simultaneous use....

Problematic

My problem with current method is having my attention drawn away from where the chat is actually happening.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

yeah, it needs to make the icons float above the text box

or in the brown space to the side

BESW

Aye, I'll admit that's an issue.

Any situation where icons or text are added to the page will promptly bring up the question of what to do when too many people are typing at once, and the allocated space is insufficient.

Modifying the existing icon bank doesn't take up any more space than it already does.

Problematic

Speaking of silly mistakes, I think it's firing socket events when the page loses focus.

Alas, edge case testing!

BESW

Ooh. That'd be... awkward. I usually tab away and keep a half eye on the tab name to see if anyone's said anything.

Problematic

01:08

Well, it's just firing "stoptyping" events, so that's some consolation.

doppelgreener

01:19

I've added it, let's see how this works out :)

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

?

BESW

typeytypeytypeytypeytypeytypey?

doppelgreener

I see it :)

That's done very neatly!

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@BESW typey again?

huh, fancy.

hard to see on my side

BESW

Bleep bloop.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

01:28

we need to put a black stroke around everyone

and change it to green

wait, yellow?

what's yellow?

Problematic

idle

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

cute.

but yeah, we need black and grey strokes

BESW

Not everything that a man knoweth can be disclosed, nor can everything that he can disclose be regarded as timely, nor can every timely utterance be considered as suited to the capacity of those who hear it.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

grey for "person isn't using magical thingo"

black for "using, but not typing"

Problematic

@BrianBallsun-Stanton interesting.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

01:30

yellow for idle, and green for typing.

also 2px stroke would be nice

Problematic

@BrianBallsun-Stanton I'll put it on GitHub. Is there a way to easily manage modifications to the script without going and reuploading to userscripts all the time?

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

@Problematic no?

Problematic

Harrumph.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

wait

reupl...

waait

you're updating the source, yes?

you're not making new scripts, yes?

Problematic

Yes.

Brian Ballsun-Stanton

01:38

then yes, that's... the thing

Problematic

How tedious.

doppelgreener

@Problematic Indeed! For the Fudge dice repo I've just said "develop and fork on this repo, upload your versions yourself to userscripts.org"

BESW

02:07

Digger omnibus Kickstarter.

BESW

02:20

It includes commemorative hand-forged pickaxes.

BESW

06:03

@Pureferret Hi!

C. Ross

12:48

Morning alll

BESW

Hafa.

C. Ross

@BESW do you speak another language or is that ...?

BESW

Hafa adai, used as "hello," but more literally translated as "what's up?"

wax eagle

@BESW the history sounds like it's a polynesian creole

BESW

I'm not fluent by any means --the language is on the cusp of dying out, and most people in my generation don't speak it-- but bits of it are deeply embedded in the local dialogue.

wax eagle

12:53

@BESW languages dying makes me sad. Glad y'all have adopted some phrases though.

BESW

Hard to say where it comes from; it's Malayo-Polynesian-ish, with a very very heavy-handed overlay of Spanish.

wax eagle

especially beautiful indigenous languages. The tend to capture a lot of subtext or very beautifully descriptive

BESW

Mmm. There are words to describe aspects of the culture that require essays to translate into English properly.

C. Ross

@BESW Yes, cultural context is important.

BESW

Like, mamåhlao is usually translated as "having shame" or "showing respect."

C. Ross

12:58

You can spend years studying Wa

BESW

But it's also about making choices that support the community over the individual when necessary, and about following the traditions and rituals which are in place to ensure that a tiny island community can resolve its problems without direct confrontation.

In that context, "shame" is about the sense of personal responsibility for the community and being taimamåhlao (without shame) is about taking actions which advance yourself at the expense of others.

...I've grown up here, I've actively studied this stuff and worked with the leading cultural scholars, and I still can't explain it better than that.

C. Ross

@BESW that sounds vaguely like the Japanese concept of Wa

BESW

Small island societies tend to develop strong sense of communal existence. Societies with more room to expand and move away from people they've offended, and with room to expand into new resources, tend toward more individualistic identities.

That's a broad and often unjustified generalization, but it's true as a general trend.

C. Ross

sound reasonable :-)

BESW

One amusing/tragic element in these islands is that we've had a Western government system forced on us.

The American government system is designed on a basic assumption about human nature: if we aren't getting our way, we'll whine about it.

This assumption works... tolerably well... in many modern Western societies.

wax eagle

13:08

@BESW so in a sense "Shame" is a concept of Honor as much as it is the more western traditional meaning of shame

C. Ross

Yeah, I'm not sure why so many think the form (of government) will work for all cultures, especially those that aren't interested

BESW

But in a place like the Marianas, where making a fuss about yourself as an individual is frowned upon...

@waxeagle Something like that. Of course, having been occupied by Spain for a few hundred years, there's also a very strong thread of good old Catholic shame.

wax eagle

@BESW sure :)

BESW

If there's a problem on a tiny island, you resolve it quietly. The system of matriarchs, chiefs, elders, and suruhana (umm... herbal/divine healers?) supports that.

When you try to translate that ethos to the American government, it turns into fraud, corruption, under-the-table dealings...

And in our culture, if you come into prosperity you share it: the food will spoil and the typhoon will blow away your stuff, so don't hoard it.

This means that when someone gets a high political office, kickbacks and nepotism follow naturally.

wax eagle

@BESW makes sense. Explains a lot of why Democracies tend not to work well in Latin America and Africa where tribal cultures are still very strong

BESW

13:14

Democracy can work there... it just needs to be tempered with an understanding of the reality of the situation.

Often a system of appointed "learned" --elders, the wise, the experienced and trusted-- alongside the elected bodies can help.

Sort of like the President's cabinet, but on a more public scale, and only just barely sort of like.

It's been interesting growing up here, as an outsider; I'm Caucasian-American by parentage, but was born and raised here. I spent four years in the mainland US for college, but otherwise I've lived here all my life.

However, I'm local but not native. My ethnicity means that although I'm a minority, most people think I expect to be treated with privilege. I'm expected to be clueless about the local reality and offended when I'm forced to see that it's not like the mainland US.

Then when I went to college in South Carolina, I was assumed to be a member of a plurality that I didn't know how to act like.

This is a major contributor to my enthusiasm for things like the Same Page Tool, and my interest in non-divisive social engineering solutions to problem-players.

wax eagle

makes sense.

BESW

I've found that as someone who has to navigate multiple cultures, I've developed more ability to speak about the local culture than many people who understand it much better than I; for them, it's just the way things are. I have to be able to articulate and codify it.

wax eagle

@BESW this.

have you seen: whenyoureathirdculturekid.tumblr.com

I found it very cathartic yesterday

BESW

13:32

Heheheh.

I was so embarrassed when our neighbor learned I'd memorized some prayers in Chamorro, and gathered all her (grown adult!) kids for me to recite them.

wax eagle

yes. One of my fellow Mks linked that on facebook yesterday

@BESW oh wow, that's uncomfortable

BESW

The unspoken but glaringly obvious not-actually-subtext was "This haole knows more Chamorro than you!"

(Haole means American/white guy/Westerner/foreigner; it's apocryphally derived from the Hawaiian for someone who doesn't know manners.)

wax eagle

@BESW interesting :)

BESW

Oh, dear. My sound just cut out. Excuse me.

[troubleshoots]

wax eagle

@BESW ick. How hard is it to source PCs/replacement parts over there?

BESW

14:03

@waxeagle Shipping is costly, and many places won't ship hardware to us at all.

Even for those which will, it's usually an uphill struggle to get them to ship it by USPS instead of a private company like FedEx, which can more than triple the cost.

And then, I'm on a Mac, and that makes things even more "fun."

wax eagle

@BESW yeah I can imagine. So no local sourcing? or is that also prohibitively expensive?

BESW

We have a local Mac-licensed place, but it's a third-party outlet with a license, not a Mac Store.

All the local places just pass the shipping costs on to the customer, and we don't have the kind of all-things-in-one-roof warehouse stores the mainland enjoys.

My mother tells a hilarious story about an obviously-new-to-the-island guy who came into the library and asked where he could find "a warehouse store that sold cameras."

wax eagle

@BESW snicker

BESW

The librarian couldn't fathom what he was talking about (our only 'warehouse' type store at the time was mostly food-oriented, and carried off-brand electronics as the mood took it), and he couldn't understand what was giving her a problem.

wax eagle

I had the luxury of living in a couple of huge cities when I lived overseas. But we got out enough to know that feel.

BESW

14:08

Throw in that it was a Sunday and hardly anything was open (something she finally figured out he didn't understand, but couldn't explain in a way that he'd get)...

That guy is what people expect me to be like: expecting things to be like they are on the mainland, and either unable to notice when they aren't, or offended when I do notice.

Okay, I actually love this one.

wax eagle

@BESW yes. oh so yes.

BESW

Things I learned about Guam while I was in college: It's in the Middle East, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and off the coast of Peru. There are brown snakes that hang off the trees "like brown spaghetti," and I am overwhelmed by the wealth and technology of the mainland. Also, I live in a hut and the women wear coconut bras.

I also learned that "GU" is the postal abbreviation for Georgia.

wax eagle

it'd be like me telling you all about the friend I went to college with who lived in Guam as an MK :) (which I have so far resisted)

BESW

Heheh. Honestly, there's a better chance that I know them than you'd think. Guam... isn't that big.

And we're roughly the same age.

Though granted, I didn't see a lot of the "military brat" crowd.

Oh, man.

wax eagle

@BESW she was a missionary kid so maybe?

last name Troxel

BESW

14:15

Missionary... guessing SDA.

wax eagle

@BESW probably not actually, I met her at a Presbyterian school, not sure what group her parents were with.

BESW

Troxel isn't ringing any bells.

Do you know which high school she went to? [grin] The process of establishing connections is a lot easier for Chamorros, and I've had to learn to compensate by offering the connections I do have upfront.

Around here, "Where are you from?" means "What village do you identify with?" "Where do you live?" means "Where is your family's house?" and "Where do you stay?" means "Where do you usually go to sleep at night?"

wax eagle

Trinity Christian School in Yigo

and my google stalking suggests they were with Trans World Radio

BESW

Oh. Okay, that's... sorry, there are a lot of little Christian schools on Guam. One moment, let me ring that bell.

Ah, it's the one up north. Not sure I know anyone from our age range who went there, but yeah, okay.

For some reason I kept thinking Yona instead of Yigo. Bah.

I spent 20 years in the south end of the island; the north is still something of a mystery to me.

wax eagle

@BESW I have no context?

pulls up map of guam

BESW

14:24

Different villages. Yona's middle-south, Yigo's far north.

wax eagle

@BESW gotcha

BESW

I spent 20 years in... it's probably Inarajan on the map.

wax eagle

@BESW so far south and east gotcha

BESW

Possibly Inalahan, depending on whose academic/political agenda the mapmaker chose.

wax eagle

google has the first

BESW

14:26

I'm actually from Malojloj, which is kind of a... burgh? It's a sub-village. Politically it's part of Inarajan, but we've got our own church, parish, and fiesta, and that means we're separate.

wax eagle

@BESW gotcha, so it would be a suburb if the city it was a suburb of was big enough to be called a city?

BESW

About a third of this TCK stuff I identify with, and the rest is "...Okay, yeah, I knew that kid."

@waxeagle Probably?

People from the mainland call our capital "cute."

wax eagle

@BESW lol gotcha :)

BESW

So I don't have a lot of real-life context for a lot of the stuff I've read about.

Going to South Carolina, I was all "oooh, I read about that in the Hardy Boys!"

wax eagle

I've gotta ask, how did you end up in South Carolina of all places for college?

BESW

14:30

Long version or short?

Short version: relatives in the area.

wax eagle

@BESW gotcha

I'm always up for a long version if you have the time :)

BESW

Long version starts with my mother's whole family moving to Guam from Michigan when she was nine.

wax eagle

@BESW any particular reason?

BESW

Her dad was an air traffic controller.

wax eagle

gotcha. Makes sense

BESW

14:32

They'd also lived in Puerto Rico and Hawaii before my mother was old enough to remember.

(I don't use the ' in Hawaii because there's a school of thought that if you can't make the proper symbol for it, you shouldn't try.)

wax eagle

@BESW fair enough

(I'm not familiar enough with the area languages to know...but I'm with yah)

BESW

All her family slowly trickled back to the mainland over the next few decades, and one of my aunts wound up in SC because she married a golf course superintendent. Myrtle Beach has one of the highest concentration of world-class golf courses in the US.

wax eagle

@BESW yep

BESW

When my grandmother retired (she taught homebound students math), she moved from Guam to Myrtle Beach to be closer to her other daughters (one was in Florida by that time).

I'd visited MB a few times as a kid/teen, and when we went to Israel for pilgrimage on the summer between 11th and 12th grade, we stopped by on our way back.

We planned to go campus-shopping in the Northwest after, since that's where I was looking to go to college, and my aunt mentioned that there was a campus nearby and we should go see it, just for practice.

C. Ross

@BESW If you're ever back in Carolina let me know ...

BESW

14:37

It was beautiful and small and friendly and integrated and had a decent program in what I was interested in, and offered me a pittance scholarship which also made me qualify for in-state tuition.

wax eagle

@BESW nice :)

BESW

Most of the other colleges I applied to were either too creepy, too expensive, or lost my paperwork. And being near family was nice.

(Also, I quickly realized that the Northwest was not for me; the sky needs variation or I'll go stir-crazy.)

wax eagle

@BESW I can deal with no variation...provided that the lack of variation is due to clarity and not rain rain rain

BESW

@C.Ross I was hoping to go this summer, but my mother's going instead; my grandmother had a stroke last year, so she's visiting as often as possible, and this time around her university is paying for it so she can go to a conference.

@waxeagle I need clouds with outlines.

wax eagle

@BESW I gotcha

BESW

14:40

For all its problems (and it has plenty), Guam is a tropical paradise and I'm spoilt rotten by it.

C. Ross

@BESW ah, makes sense

BESW

Haven't been back since I graduated in 2007.

"You speak very nice English, congratulations!"

Although I also once got "Honey, yuh seem awful sweet, but Ah cahn't unnerstan' a wurd yer sayin'."

wax eagle

@BESW lol

BESW

Heh. There's a Baha'i-sponsored youth conference for community-building resources this fall, in Fiji, and probably 3/4 of the youth who are interested in going have never left the Marianas. Maybe up to half have never left the island.

C. Ross

@BESW I work regularly with people from India and China, and people from the hills of NC ... the communication difficulties can be epic

BESW

14:50

@C.Ross Oh, man.

wax eagle

@BESW isolated island is isolated :)

@C.Ross oh dear. I can imagine

C. Ross

We have a man from India who is insistent on learning the local culture, including NASCAR and "Lord willin' and the creek don't rise ..."

though he usually says "Lord loving and the creek don't rise ..." :-S

wax eagle

I work with two native Spanish speakers as my main coworkers and our company is based in north Alabama and east Tennessee...But both of my coworkers have been in the area for a long time so it's not too much of an issue

BESW

@waxeagle There was a lot of anti-Hispanic sentiment around my college. Mostly they at least felt some shame about the black/white divide.

@C.Ross That's so cute.

wax eagle

@BESW yes, that's unfortunately common in much of the US, but especially in the South where immigrants tend to now do jobs that poorly educated Southerners often did for better wages. (that's obviously a bit simplified)

C. Ross

14:54

@BESW it's odd to see someone take an interest in my culture that so many consider undesirable ...

BESW

The RPG groups at my SC college had, among others, an Indian (the "from India" kind, not the "cultural faux pas" kind), some rednecks, a couple rich town boys, a guy from Ohio, and... me.

wax eagle

we actually had a "diversity program" because most of my school was upper or upper middle class white kids and so the few of us who didn't fit that mode got together on occasions to...I'm really not sure what...

BESW

@waxeagle There's a similar and possibly even more complicated attitude here toward what are called the "outer islanders," which somehow manages to encompass people from the northern islands in our own chain along with everyone from Chuuk, the Philippines, Palau, the Marshalls....

@waxeagle Be awkward?

wax eagle

@BESW yeah, I stopped going...didn't really make sense and I didn't have to

BESW

My first year in college all three of my dormmates were black. We mostly ignored each other and did our own thing, but at the end of the year after the other two had left, the last guy and I were packing up and he asked me what it was like to spend the year living with three black guys.

wax eagle

14:57

@BESW people are funny like that, when we can differentiate we tend to...whether conciously or not

BESW

I basically laughed and said "Like home." He gawked, and I explained about growing up as a minority. He was absolutely floored.

@waxeagle A lot of it has to do with Guam being a US territory, with the prosperity and opportunity --and elitism-- that entails. It separates us from the rest of Micronesia, and gives us an excuse to look down on the people who come here from the other islands.

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