The vixnix no holds barred thread

[buzzard]

If you'd prefer, Emma, I could simplify my sentences and make the language a little easier to manage.

In any case, I find it odd that a person could refer to their supposed ability to learn foreign languages as being somehow noteworthy without actually having the ability to to speak any foreign languages. Perhaps it might be simply that they once got some decent grades in a classroom setting and haven't necessarily been able to demonstrate any genuine ability outside of that limited context.

[vixnix]

Sure.

In that context, there were also people who were bad at foreign language learning, whose grades were bad, who asked constantly for help, who always selected the wrong case or verb ending, who forgot pronunciation rules, and who, even when they could remember them, were limited by the diction they had grown up with because they had only ever heard people speak the one set of vowels and consonants, and use the one kind of intonation, with no variation apart from maybe the evening news.

I was fortunate that my mother's family still spoke predominantly in Samoan and her own English was broken and had a heavy Samoan accent. It meant that new languages didn't surprise me so much.

My Samoan cousins who went to work on cruise ships picked up Italian very easily, of all the languages they encountered. Apparently the intonation and vowels are similar. They didn't have any language learning classes at school though.

I mean, it's not rocket science. Especially for girls, whose brains are usually wired for communication and relationship building.

You can do what you like with your English Cam but you seem to have missed the shift to plain language exposition. It's embraced in most disciplines these days, because it's easier for everyone, except people who want to hide their lack of actual knowledge behind deliberately obfuscatory sentence structure and word selection.

Pretty sure even lawyers are encouraged to use plain language these days. Which is probably why you are not working day and night for Bell Gully, etc. like the best of your graduating class.

[buzzard]

Oddly enough, my peers have never struggled with understanding me. Even those that don't speak English as a native language, which conveniently provides a nice example of people that are good at learning foreign languages.

You forgot Chapman Tripp and Russell McVeagh, by the way. You must have been too busy concentrating on getting personal and formulating assumptions to remember.

[vixnix]

Hahaha nobody wants to work for Russell McVeagh. Except people who have no chance anywhere else. God.

I dunno. I know of Bell Gully partly because it's where my cousin went before being head hunted and then sent to Harvard. And partly because my Dad while my dad worked at PHARMAC in the 90s, we heard repeated rants at the dinner table about how most of their govt funding went to paying their Belly Gully bill.

[hnibos]

I can feel vixnix's 9/11 coming soon

[Trotskilicious]

yknow sometimes i almost feel bad for vix and think she gets attacked too much but then she has convos like this where the sheer pompousity is difficult to bear

[vixnix]

Bell Gully actually invited Pharmac to their Christmas party every year, and it was the one night every year that my Dad came home totally shitfaced, he was so determined to get his money's worth of lobster and wine I guess.

One time my friend was over and he ran through the house to his room in only his business shirt and underpants giggling like a little girl. My friend's face lit up with pleasure and we locked eyes and I just knew she was like "ok. if any shit happens between us two, bitch I got you now."

[Trotskilicious]

i just dont give a fuuuuuuck

[vixnix]

about what, trots

[slunken]

anal sex

[The exploding boy]

So all the things vix has ever been good at were in the context of school and yet we have this:

Originally Posted by vixnix

She's like you...has never been good at anything at, ever...except diligently completing her homework and handing it in on time.

[MyOneAndOnly]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

yknow sometimes i almost feel bad for vix and think she gets attacked too much but then she has convos like this where the sheer pompousity is difficult to bear

Its a Netphoria conundrum

[vixnix]

Originally Posted by The exploding boy

So all the things vix has ever been good at were in the context of school and yet we have this:

Well no - piano was externally assessed by the ABRSM, and I played club soccer & tennis.

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

yknow sometimes i almost feel bad for vix and think she gets attacked too much but then she has convos like this where the sheer pompousity is difficult to bear

totally

[vixnix]

And you know what it's like with the swats. They all go into law and medicine because anybody who is diligent with their homework at high school lacks the imagination to choose anything else.

There are those kids that stay home on the weekend to get a better grade on their history internal assessment, even though it's 1996 and the pumpkins are playing on a saturday night.

One of my childhood besties is a lawyer - she went to Russell McVeagh actually Cam lol. I remember the first year she joined us in physics class - we had this horrible teacher who enjoyed announcing our test marks from the front of the class. The first time it happened, because he read from best to worst, she was at the bottom. I didn't even realise her name hadn't been called. He left this pause and I thought he was finished, and then he said "Oh and XX, you got 6." (out of 20). She was in tears after that. Then her father, who was a general manager who took her on ski holidays in Queenstown every winter, formed a personal relationship with the physics teacher and convinced him to come and give this friend of mine PRIVATE TUTORING lol. So wrong. And she was still shit!!

Meanwhile, in music class, she fretted over having nothing to give to our composition teacher, to workshop. She had this demented idea that she could write an oratorio on an A.A. Milne poem but couldn't even write a five note phrase, lol. She begged me to throw something together on the day it was due for the workshop, so I banged out the first shit that came into my mind. The composition teacher loved it and because this friend of mine was tall and slim and had really beautiful blue eyes, the head of music told her she was amazing and had the school competition choir (that I sang in!!) perform this piece in front of a huge audience with an internationally renowned opera singer. Such an ambitious piece of work, this girl. Of course I had told a few people and it got around that I had written it, and a couple of fellow music students encouraged me to see the dean. So we ended up in this meeting, and do you know what her defence was? "Well you didn't do everything on that composition. I wrote out the version that I handed in, in my own hand." Yeah. That's right. It was hers because she had copied it onto a new piece of paper.

But it turned out, when it came to parroting stuff that people had told her, and repeating and incorporating clever turns of phrase into her writing as if they were her own, she was very good.

Plus, she never went out anywhere.

Anyway, needless to say, she has done very well for herself as a lawyer. Well, as well as a lawyer can do without even one smidge of natural ability for anything.

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by vixnix

about what, trots

your fucking life story

[vixnix]

We were actually in the same tennis team at the local club. In our team of four, she was number 2. Guess who the number one seed was. Guess who wiped the court with her ass when we played, who aced her time and time again, who smashed topspin forehands into the back corner.

And then...guess who all the boys stammered in front of, because she was tall but delicate and slim with beautiful blue eyes and a shy smile. Not just the jocks. But the nerds, the musos, all of them. It didn't matter that she wasn't as good at anything, as I was. And that I had political opinions from my communist father and enjoyed a robust chess match in my spare time. She was pretty, and meek, and had blue eyes. And that was enough.

I could have quite happily blown up the world, when I was a teenager. But I settled for smoking pot and cutting my arms and listening to the pumpkins, like all the other emos. Even among them I was a curiosity, a novelty item, with my oversize shoulders and feet, and thick dark hair, and polynesian nose.

[Trotskilicious]

youre taking the piss right now

[The exploding boy]

Your therapy isnt working. I know because you keep mentioning how awful it is to be half samoan every other sentence and how badly that has allegedly affected your life. To the extent where one could almost think that you blame all your life's failings on it. I suppose it's a convenient scapegoat. We all need one.


Anyway this is all very damaging for me because it really does not give me an incentive to seek any therapy for myself. Clearly there seems to be no point to doing it.

[Trotskilicious]

shes such a seething ball of jealousy and resentment

[vixnix]

Therapy helps with acceptance.

I mean, all that stuff is in the past...I only mention it as my experience of who becomes a lawyer. I get angry and scathing when I think about it because anyone would. But it's ancient history, I wouldn't ordinarily think about it, for years at a time.

[vixnix]

Originally Posted by Poots

So vixnix, you're saying your friend has no talents or intelligence but happens to be extremely attractive and you don't know how she's been successful in life?

Oh no, I'm saying I do know how she's been successful in life and it's because human society is the sort of broken and shitty institution in most places in the world, that could be totally destroyed without the universe suffering any kind of loss. Yeah..I guess that's what I'm saying.

I mean, I'm part of that. Part of therapy was accepting that however I felt about her...there were others that actually felt that way about me. I think humans are like that - we compare ourselves rather than accepting and being happy with what we have. I guess that's why the Hebrews put words like "Do not desire what your neighbour has" in the mouth of God.

[Trotskilicious]

fuck, here we go

[vixnix]

Originally Posted by Poots

How is someone using their natural beauty to advance their life any different than someone using their natural intelligence?

Using your gifts purely for selfish ambition is pretty basic and vulgar, whatever they are.

But if beauty isn't a useful gift for your profession, like for instance, if you're an engineer on an oil rig, then you probably shouldn't be in a job like that. And I guess you wouldn't get hired.

I guess the problem with human societies is that they reward humans who are sexually attractive, by paying them large amounts of money in professions that one would think must be pretty unnecessary if a main qualifying attribute is simply, being attractive.

[slunken]

Originally Posted by vixnix

She had this demented idea that she could write an oratorio on an A.A. Milne poem but couldn't even write a five note phrase, lol.

lmao

[Lucky Day Spa]

Originally Posted by vixnix

Hahaha nobody wants to work for Russell McVeagh. Except people who have no chance anywhere else. God.

I dunno. I know of Bell Gully partly because it's where my cousin went before being head hunted and then sent to Harvard. And partly because my Dad while my dad worked at PHARMAC in the 90s, we heard repeated rants at the dinner table about how most of their govt funding went to paying their Belly Gully bill.

lol, who wants to play "how many lawyers do you know in auckland or wellington?"

willing to bet i'd be in the running for at least a consolation prize

[vixnix]

you'd have to agree that nobody goes to russell mcveagh unless they have no other options, though. I dunno, maybe it's changed.

Isn't every 4th employee in Wellington a lawyer? Useless administration town that it is.

[vixnix]

ratio in central wellington is roughly 1:1:1:1 doctor:lawyer:IT specialist:barista

[Lucky Day Spa]

Originally Posted by vixnix

you'd have to agree that nobody goes to russell mcveagh unless they have no other options, though. I dunno, maybe it's changed.

Isn't every 4th employee in Wellington a lawyer? Useless administration town that it is.

that's not my impression. i don't know anyone who still works there though

[vixnix]

I just realised the odds are you know practically everyone I've ever talked about here. :rem: We've probably talked IRL without realising it. Actually maybe not - how old are you again?