About: djiboutigirl

Name:djiboutigirl
2007-11-26 02:13:28
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Posts by djiboutigirl:

Venting…

I just found out that one of my friends from high school (and a bit of background… none of my high school friends had e-mail addresses when we left Djibouti, so I have had no idea where any of my high school friends are, and didn’t know/didn’t think that I’d ever see any of them again. My dream is to run into some of them in random places. anyways, so yeah, I thought I’d never see them again.) anyways, I just found out that one of my friends lives in Guatemala City, and I was in Guatemala City over Christmas, and I won’t be going back anytime soon! It just pisses me off that I could have seen her, but didn’t. UGH.

February 23, 2008 | Filed Under General Forum | 3 Comments 

Obama the TCK

Here’s a video I found… all of it is interesting, but look at 1min 40 seconds especially. (I hope this works… I’ve never put a video up before. here’s the web address, in case it doesn’t work :-) http://youtube.com/watch?v=JAPD8COEPnc )

February 17, 2008 | Filed Under General Forum | 17 Comments 

Here we go again…

Every year my school has several native Spanish speakers come and help teach Spanish through one-on-one conversations. This has been great… we get to know more people from all over, and it really does help to learn a language. The only ‘problem’ is that they only stay a year. So this year, there are 3 girls, from Bolivia, Nicaragua and Colombia. I have become fairly good friends with the girl from Bolivia. We’re the same age, have the same interests, like the same songs etc… Since I work with her (I am the French conversation partner), we hang out a lot. Last semester it was great, but this semester I’m started to get annoyed at her over the smallest things. In the TCK book, it points out that when we know that we’re going to be leaving someone/someplace, we start pushing away, possibly even causing arguments or fights to make it easier to leave (or be left in this case) because there’s no longer an emotional attachment to that person or place. So, I know what I’m doing (pushing her away so it’s easier to say goodbye… in May). So now what do I do to stop it?

In other news, it’s 19 degrees (F. -7C)  outside, and all I want to do is go somewhere warm.

January 20, 2008 | Filed Under Ask Uncle, General Forum | 5 Comments 

my semi-eventful day

Today started like any other day… decent. then, in my Spanish class, a girl gave a presentation on “Cuando Era Puertorriquena” (when I was puertorican), which is about a girl who moved to the US from PR, and was never considered American, so she moved back to PR after graduating from Harvard. When she got there, no one considered her PRican anymore either. So… here she was, stuck between these two cultures (sound familiar anyone?). That led to an interesting discussion between several gringos, 4 immigrants, and 2 TCKs (my teacher and I). My teacher and I were trying to explain how it feels to have no home, no homecountry, no hometown, no  homeculture, no home address, no home. Several people didn’t understand. So my prof. and I decided to buy an island and make that every TCKs homebase (a typical TCK dream I’d say) where we could easily travel from, but always come back and be “home”. Or would we rather be homeless? I love having a TCK teacher. (besides the fact that I get good grades any time I write about not belonging anywhere :-))

Then…  our campus had a “security threat” and we all had to be locked in our offices/rooms. It reminded me of my days at middle and high school, though slightly scary still.

AND… like Charm, I just finished my huge research paper tonight too, and now today is officially Friday!!!

December 6, 2007 | Filed Under General Forum | 9 Comments 

Djiboutigirl aka. Jess

Hello all…. I figured it’s time to introduce myself as well.

My name is Jess(ica), and I now live/study in the US, in the same city/town I was born in. But in the 17 years in between, my parents took me to live in France (Strasbourg and Avignon) when I was about a year old. Then we moved to Djibouti for 16 years (I’m 20 now). When I got my BAC from the lycee, my whole family moved to the US, them in Pennsylvania, and me in Virginia. Then, my family (two parents, two siblings) moved to Kenya, where my brother is going to an American high school, and my sister is going to a Kenyan/British kindergarten. Last year, I spent a semester in Spain, loved it.

I can’t wait to go live somewhere else. My plans for after I graduate (as of now) are to pick somewhere I’ve never been, find a job and live there til I feel like moving again. :-)

December 2, 2007 | Filed Under Introduction | 3 Comments 

Why is it so important for me to be FROM somewhere?

If anyone sees me in the street in the US, they’d see a typical American college student. She’d be talking with a group of friends in American English, she’d be dressed like them and everything would look normal. If they talked to me, they’d find out that I’m from France.

If anyone sees me in the streets in France, they’d see a typical French university student. She’d be talking with a group of friends in French, she’d be dressed like them and everything would look normal. If they talked to me, they’d find out I’m from Djibouti.

If anyone sees me in the streets in Djibouti, they’d see a white girl, walking and talking in French and some Somali with her Djiboutian friends and dressed like her Djiboutian friends and everything would look abnormal. If they talked to me, they’d find out I’m from the States.

Why is it so important for me to be FROM somewhere? I’m not FROM anywhere.

November 25, 2007 | Filed Under General Forum, Stories | 17 Comments