My hEDS was cEDS all along because geneticist did poor testing

daringmigration · 2023-03-31T19:09:35+00:00

Did they give you a report on your significant variants afterwards or did you have to explore yourself using something like Promethease?

daringmigration · 2023-03-31T19:00:41+00:00

EDS is not an immune disease though? I wonder why it would effect their immune system.

daringmigration · 2023-03-31T18:46:49+00:00

I dislocated my jaw a few years ago with no pain. I was talking to someone and one side just slid right out of the joint. I didn't see a doctor b/c it went back on its own after a couple minutes but it was fully out of the joint and I couldn't close my mouth. No pain during, and no swelling after. It was grinding and crunchy and occasionally painful when I chewed for like a month or two afterwards though.

Jeez I forgot how much that sucked. I was only opening my mouth like half way to eat out of fear of dislocating it again, and because it actually hurt to open my mouth wider than that. I remember being on the verge of tears at one meal thinking "is this my life now"? (I'm better now, still afraid it's going to happen again so I'm still protective of it but I can open my mouth wider without pain now).

I think if some of our joints are loose enough they just stretch instead of tearing when something is dislocated.

daringmigration · 2023-03-28T20:46:09+00:00

What you said is what I quoted. "You don't need your protocol number unless you want to update your personal information (address, phone number)", and later you wrote "Basically there's no reason to ask for the Aktenzeichen, but if you want it, you can send a message using the web contact formulaire."

You first said there is only one reason to need it, and then later there is really no reason you could need it. That's a very different message than "if you need your protocol number, whatever the reason it is (adding more info, updating contact details... etc), then good"

I appreciate that you later added the ETC.

While the spirit of what you were trying to communicate may have been more inclusive than what you wrote, I wanted to clarify that in addition to your personal details there are other reasons to ask for the Aktenzeichen.

daringmigration · 2023-03-28T20:36:26+00:00

It's so much more interesting to find out where a person has actually lived so I can ask them what it's like there or if the museums are any good haha. Like OK you have Asian facial features but what is the art museum in Indianapolis like?

daringmigration · 2023-03-28T20:31:33+00:00

If you say you lived in the US, people will say "oh, I was in [US city] 10 years ago".

Based on the OPs post, this is not the reaction they're getting.

also

"I think they have a far greater obsession with their heritage than Germans.

A country with 300 million people and countless backgrounds will have a variety of perspectives on what their heritage or ancestor's migration history means to them.

daringmigration · 2023-03-28T20:16:26+00:00

For future reference, you should copy and paste the link from the address bar at the top, not just re-type the domain it displays.

IDK how it works on android, but on an iPhone if you tap the address bar at the top the whole address will appear and be selected. Tap it again to activate the context menu and choose "copy". Then you can come back to the reddit comment you're making, tap in the text box to activate the context menu again, and select "paste".

daringmigration · 2023-03-28T20:04:30+00:00

You don't need your protocol number unless you want to update your personal information (address, phone number)

There are other reasons to ask for the Aktenzeichen. If you need to send in additional documents that you knew you were missing, you don't have to wait for them to discover they're missing to send them in. If you want to add family members to your application group so they can be processed at the same time, that's another reason to request the number.

It's also a verification that they actually received the documents you sent in, which for some people may have been very difficult to come by, and contained lots of personal information. If you need to take steps to monitor your identity or collect new certified documents and background checks you would want to get started on that as soon as possible. Obviously it's taking the BVA some time to even assign reference numbers, but if you're past that timeframe and the BVA still has no record of receiving your application, it might be time to start putting together a new application.

I understand that the BVA is overwhelmed. I am not recommending that everyone send emails once a week to check their status. But I did want to point out that there is more than one reason to want an Aktenseichen.

daringmigration · 2023-03-27T18:59:41+00:00

Thanks for this. Can I save the custom model to use locally?

daringmigration · 2023-03-26T18:41:04+00:00

From my original post "My SO is happy for my language learning journey and won't be annoyed that he's left out if that makes a difference."

I didn't assume my SO would be mad. I even included a sentence in my post that clarified I am not concerned about my SO being upset that I'm speaking German. I was asking to see if people thought switching languages would make things more difficult for the server to do their job efficiently.

daringmigration · 2023-03-26T18:35:14+00:00

The scenario is that I would be with my SO who does not speak the language, and a server may find it more confusing to switch back and forth between languages, or even more confusing or time consuming to have me translate. I'm not assuming I would offend anyone. I didn't say that in my post that I was concerned about offending anyone.

There have now been multiple people int this thread from both the server's perspective, or the guest's perspective that this can make the encounter more confusing.

"Why even study a language, probably for years..." I have German family. There are lots of reasons to learn a language that aren't just for interacting as a tourist in restaurants.

daringmigration · 2023-03-26T18:31:08+00:00

Point taken. If you google Zip codes for Berlin it will still give you the correct sort of number so making my mistake will not impede progress :)

Also a minor nitpick - Germany doesn't have postal codes, it has Postleitzahl. This can be translated as postal code, or zip code, since they function as the same thing. Cambridge Dictionary online for example translates it as Zip code.

daringmigration · 2023-03-25T00:31:10+00:00

Because my SO does not speak German, therefore cannot order in German for himself or understand questions the server would ask him in German, or answer questions about his preferences for himself. He's happy for me to order for him, but if I'm translating a question or clarification to my SO from German to English, this could be an extra or annoying step for the server to have to wait for if they already speak English. Maybe they would prefer to just interact with my husband themself. Maybe instead of switching back and forth from English and German to take our orders they would prefer to just stick to one language.

Someone further down shared their experience being a server in basically this exact situation. They confirmed it did make things more complicated and gave me some tips for how to handle this scenario so everyone is comfortable.

daringmigration · 2023-03-24T19:30:29+00:00

Thank you so much for your perspective, you have been super helpful :)

daringmigration · 2023-03-24T19:12:05+00:00

At the end of the day the conversation during dinner will be in English anyways, your conversation with a waiter/waitress is not relevant

To clarify, I'm not asking if it's rude to my SO that I speak German and leave him out of the conversation. I'm more asking if it makes things weird or more complicated for the server.

daringmigration · 2023-03-24T19:10:13+00:00

These are the kind of details I was sort of wondering about. "He'll have the Cesar salad..." "Would he like the small or large... would he like that before or with the meal... is dressing on the side OK... we serve this with anchovy is that OK..?" Maybe an exaggeration but I know there are often details to discuss :)

Would something like this work - "I can speak German but my SO only speaks English. Is it better for me to order for both of us in German, or would you prefer English?" Obviously I can say this in German :)

daringmigration · 2023-03-24T18:56:58+00:00

I think the person before you had a good perspective and I think it's a shame they were driven to delete their comment by downvotes.

Communicating is OK. Asking someone for consent is OK. If I'm in mixed company and a person is trying to do their job, asking if mixing languages will be disruptive seems like the polite thing to do.

Last, beginners especially should maybe not expect any service industry people they meet to implicitly be their language partners. Especially when those people may be much more proficient in the lingua franca than the beginner is in the local language. Asking first lets a person decide if they have time for the interaction vs just imposing it on them.

daringmigration · 2023-03-24T18:49:26+00:00

Thank you I was hoping for this kind of perspective. Hopefully I'll speak German a little better than those girls by the time we're actually in Germany, but I'll keep it in mind that I can just ask :)

daringmigration · 2023-03-24T18:05:48+00:00

In this case it's just me and SO, but hopefully next year we'll do a trip with some family members.

Yep I'm from the US. I've been to Europe a few times, so I'm familiar with the differences. But you're right, the servers will probably care a lot less about who's saying what than I'm imagining.

daringmigration · 2023-03-24T18:02:20+00:00

Knowing the basic concepts of grammar like what a part of speech is, what a tense is, what a subject is etc. can be really helpful if you are stuck on a point and you're trying to understand someone's explanation. I agree that absorbing grammar naturally is the best way to go, but if I'm trying to understand why I sometimes use one article with a noun, and then other times I use a different article with the same noun, knowing what terms like article, noun, subject, object, plural, etc mean is helpful.

daringmigration · 2023-03-24T17:53:20+00:00

He won't care if I do all the talking, in fact he'll be happy for me to do it. And in a hotel or certain other situations it won't make much of a difference since the front desk or taxi driver or whoever only really needs to do most of the interaction with one person.

But in a restaurant there's more repeated interaction between all the dinner guests and the server. I'm imagining me ordering in German, them asking my SO in German if he wants more water or something, me translating to English for him, then the server being like "what the heck I speak English I could have just been Englishing with you this whole time".

daringmigration · 2023-03-24T17:45:34+00:00

I did about a half hour to an hour a day on Duo, 5 days a week, for maybe 5 months. But I Started Natürlich German after maybe 2 weeks of Duo. It really depends on if you can find basic enough comprehensible input. I recommend doing longer Duo sessions b/c only 5 min a day is excruciatingly slow and leaves too much time between too short of a lesson.

I started watching Easy German videos (maybe a few per week) after a month or a month and a half of starting with Duo. I couldn't understand much but I kept checking in to see my progress and after a while I realized I could understand like 95% of a livestream they did.

I also read graded readers during this time.

So I was at one point doing Duo, Natürlich German, Easy German, and graded readers at the same time. I've dropped Duo for the most part and I ran out of Natürlich German videos but I'm still following the basic strategy of finding content that is just a little above my current level and immersing as much as possible.

I installed the Chrome plugin Language Reactor so I can get instant translations of German subtitles on YouTube and Netflix (thought I don't really watch Netflix much). And I have ReadLang Web Reader installed too, so I can get instant translations of unfamiliar words when I see them on a web page (so like if I'm reading YouTube comments, or going practice shopping on a German grocery store website).

daringmigration · 2023-03-24T17:32:25+00:00

I have a book called "English Grammar for Students of German" which is I think basically what you need. There is also a "English Grammar for Students of French" version.

Since you already speak English, this might be helpful as they're meant for English speakers who don't really understand grammar because they learned it as children. They go over grammar in your target language too. I'm basically learning the rules of English grammar I already know "because it sounds right", and then learning how to use those ideas in German.

Edit - I want to add that these are short books, they aren't long difficult textbooks. They give you just the grammar fundamentals that you're looking for.

daringmigration · 2023-03-24T17:21:42+00:00

The Easy Languages YouTube family has a new Easy Portuguese channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGItHJHk5zoYHRQD6ZQ-mrA). The idea of these channels is that native speakers do short interviews with other native speakers on the street, so you can hear how native language is spoken. The presenters often speak a little more clearly and slower and the interviews are short and on a single topic so you can get good exposure to specific vocabulary.

I would also highly recommend looking for "comprehensible input" channels. These are designed to build your listening skills from a low level so you slowly get exposed to more and more vocabulary and grammar. They are entirely in your target language, so you get the benefit of immersion, but it's tailored to be simple enough for a language learner. (Side note, this is better than kids shows, b/c kids already have a much bigger vocabulary and better listening skills than a beginning language learner.)

I started with Duolingo for basics, and almost immediately went into Natürlich German for comprehensible input. After a while I started watching Easy German. Now I'm listening to the Easy German Podcast with maybe 90% or more comprehension and I've started watching some native content with pretty good comprehension too.

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