kareina

A few days ago I had commented over on FB that having passed my driving test I have now been licensed to drive in three different countries, but this may by my last, since I may not be moving again. In reply to that one of my friends from highschool asked me "What is it about the life of an ex-pat in Sweden that draws you?" This turned out to be a much more difficult question to answer than I think he was expecting it to be--not because of what features I like about living in Sweden, but because of the concept of "ex-pat".

Sure, I had heard the term before, but I had never looked it up, and didn't really know how/if it applied to me. When I looked it up on the day he asked the question read only the first bit, where says: "An expatriate (sometimes shortened to expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing. The word comes from the Latin terms ex ("out of") and patria ("country, fatherland")."

This got me to wondering just what is my "country and culture of upbringing"? This question ties in with why I don't list a "hometown" on FB (the web page recently asked me, again, to list my hometown, but this time, when I refused it asked me why not, and one of the options they gave is "I don't have one", so I picked that, and, hopefully, it won't bother me on that topic again.

Because, really, I don't have a "hometown", I didn't grow up in any one place. A brief summary, for those of you who have missed it, by the time I was I was nine years old I had lived in: Japan, Germany, Crete, Michigan, Texas, and Alaska, with not more than 3 years in any one place. My little sister lists her home town as Anchorage, but she was only 6 when we moved there, and I don't know how much, if any, she remembers of the earlier places. My memories go back a few more stops than hers do, I think. Sure, when asked for a one-word answer to the question "where are you from" I often claim "Alaska", but, really, that feels like I am cheating, since I didn't move there till I was nine. It is only the fact that I have have spent more years there than any where else (I don't feel like doing the exact math at the moment, but I have spent something like 12 to 15 years total living in Alaska--three different occasions, with breaks to live in other states in between--the next closest record is the five years I spent in Tasmania) that makes it a truthful statement.

So, that covers the part about "country", but what about "culture"? Since my dad was in the air force perhaps the culture was the same for me in all of those locations as it would have been in the US? Well, perhaps, but not so much as you might think--my parents normally chose to live "on the economy", rather than on base, and their friends were a mix of locals and other military people. However, for me, the biggest factor was the fact that while we were in Japan (arrived when I was about 10 months old, and left when I was about 3.5 years old) the exchange rate was good enough that my parents could afford to hire a full time maid/babysitter to stay home with me while they both worked. "Hako" (as I called her, since my early baby-talk wasn't up for "Hanako", and the name stuck and she became Hako to everyone we knew) spoke to me only in Japanese, and she raised me in her own culture, but my parents were home in the evenings and one weekends and holidays, and they spoke to me in English and raised me in their own cultures. Cultures? Plural? Yes, I think so: my mom grew up in the small town of Ewen, in the upper peninsula Michigan in a largely Finnish community where the people of her grandparent's generation were usually Finnish speakers who may or may not have much English, and dad grew up in Manhanoy City Pennsylvania as the son of Polish immigrants, in a neighborhood where the adults spoke a variety of languages, since they all came from somewhere else, but the kids all spoke English. One could argue that while my parent's cultures may have been similar, they were not the same, so it is appropriate to assume that my early years in Japan saw me being raised under at least* three distinct cultures.

I don't remember anything from before Japan, but I can report that my move from there to Germany was the single hardest move I ever made in that it brought about the most abrupt and extreme changes to my life and lifestyle. I lost my beloved Hako, and no longer had anyone who understood one of my two languages, and most of the people around didn't speak English, either. In protest I claimed I couldn't speak a word of German, yet my mother reports that when the adults were speaking, in German, about going somewhere I would pipe in, in English "can I go too?". In addition I got a little sister, and lost my place at the center of the universe, for which it took many years before I could forgive her, though it certainly wasn't her intent to usurp me, it is just what babies do.

After that all of the other moves we (and later just I) have made have been easy--everywhere has something in common with everywhere else, if you look for it, and everywhere has some way in which it differs from the last place, too. But, as a result of the variety of places I have lived, I really don't feel like I have a single "culture" in which I was raised, so in that respect I can't claim to be an ex-pat, either.

But today I read a bit further in the definition, and I see that another definition has to do with legal citizenship. Just at this moment I hold passports from two countries: the US and Australia, but I live in Sweden, so in that case I do count as an ex-pat, BUT a bit further along there is a part about "intent to return", and I have none. In fact, I have marked on my calender the day next year wherein I can apply for Swedish citizenship, so therefore I probably don't really count as an "ex-pat".

But all that only covers a reply to one single (ok, hyphenated as he wrote it) word in his question. What I think he really wanted to know was the part about "why Sweden"? I think that deserves a post of its very own, and will hope to get to it tomorrow...

*I say "at least", because I suspect that the "culture" I was exposed to while attending "nursery school" in Japan would have been, at least in part, different from those I saw at home, too.

( I went down the hill this morning )

( then I found some other distractions )

Before finally settling in to uni work at 20:00! An hour and a half later I reached the end of the last of the calculations I've been plugging away at the past few days, but, feeling sleepy, opted to call it a day without actually writing them up. With luck tomorrow morning will see me motivated to do that writing before heading down the hill to deal with the newly created zircon (etc.) mounts.

Work was broken up today with a trip down the hill in the afternoon to uni to learn how to mix the epoxy and mount the zircons (plus other misc tiny, heavy, non magnetic minerals which may still be present) I'd separated from their rock last week. I did manage to finish up calculations from yesterday in the morning, and this evening wrote up the results, giving me 401 new words today, and a total of eight new figures/tables between yesterday and today (I forgot to count them yesterday). It is still fairly early, but I'm going to call it a day so that I can get to sleep at a reasonable hours, as tomorrow morning I need to go back to Uni to get the mount out of the oven where it is setting, and while I'm there separate the zircons from the other sample and get them mounted. On my way home (assuming I'm done early enough) I'll swing by and drop off my application for Australian Citizenship, since tomorrow marks two full years since I became a permanent resident, and that was the magic number in effect when I moved here (people moving down here these days have to wait four full years from becoming a permanent resident).

In other news, the Barony of Ynys Fawr once again has a dance practice venue! We will now be meeting at Irish Murphy's in Salamanca on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of the month from 7 to 9pm, so if you can get to Hobart on Monday evenings, come dance with us! No charge for dancing, as the venue is free, but you can purchase a beverage from the pub in thanks for the space if you are so inclined.

In four more weeks I will have been a permanent resident of Australia for two years, at which point I will be eligible to become an Australian Citizen and hold dual US-Australian citizenship (only because of when I moved here--the rules have since changed to make it a four year requirement, but I got in under the wire). However, before I can lodge my application, it is necessary to take a "citizenship test". When baronsnorri took it last year, he pronounced it very easy (multiple choice!), so I should be ok, I've always been a good test-taker. Besides, they let you take it over if needed (but, boy would it be embarrassing to need to take it more than once!). So, anyway, I've finally booked my test--next week Thursday at 10:00. That will give me three more weeks to get my paperwork ready for the actual application, assuming I pass the test on the first go, which I should do. Now I just need to make time to read over the book again between now and then--I would so much rather get a perfect score than the simple "pass" required of me...

Some sample questions from the book:

How are Members of parliament chosen?
In what year did the European Settlement of Australia start?
What is the floral emblem of Australia?