I'm moving!

No, not in the literal sense but I'm moving my blog.

After reading about Weblog usability and the top 10 design mistakes I got convinced that it might be time to have my own domain.

According to Jacob Nielsen it's a design mistake to have a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service :

The longer you stay at someone else's domain name, the higher the cost of going independent. Yes, it's tempting to start a new weblog on one of the services that offer free accounts. It's easy, it's quick, and it's obviously cheap. But it only costs $8 per year to get your personal domain name and own your own future. As soon as you realize you're serious about blogging, move it away from a domain name that's controlled by somebody else. The longer you delay, the more pain you'll feel when you finally make the move.

Well I'd like to think that I'm serious about blogging. I certainly enjoy doing it just for my own benefit. I also enjoy learning all about blogging, the little bit of programming that's involved (yes, Michael, that's correct) and I'd like to extend my skills in that field.

Also there were just a few things that weren't possible with Blogger that I can now do with my blog once I've learnt how to do that with WordPress (like categorizing all my posts or sending automatic emails about follow-up comments).

So I'm about to enter on the steepest learning curve in a long time. If you'd like to be part of that and stay in touch please visit: www.omaisforgrandma.net and of course change your subscription and links.

Integration: are we there yet?

Yes, I'm still writing about the whole immigrant-expat issue that started with
me questioning am I or am I not?

In response to one of my posts Alice asked me this:

... I like to think that anyone who lives in Australia and wants to be Australian (or German-Australian, Thai-Australian etc) is accepted as such.

I am interested in your experiences with the locals accepting you as an 'Australian'.

I thought it necessary to write a whole new post on this, maybe cause I'm suffering from verbal diarrhea, but I'd like to say that it's also because I'd love to discuss this further with anybody who's interested.

I've got to say that I've never had a problem being accepted as an 'Australian', it was more that I never really wanted to be 'Australian'. I've always insisted on being 'German'.

When I first arrived in Australia I was regularly asked "So, how do you like Australia?" to which I usually answered "It's OK, I'm getting used to it." Partly because I wanted to stir them up a bit but I also hadn't come here (as most Australians seem to expect and want to hear) because it's the land of my dreams, paradise on earth. At the time it was the best thing for my husband and I to do, but I did miss home incredibly and did not want to just become 'Australian' and forget about home.
Later people asked me "So when are you gonna become Australian?" meaning that I should take out citizenship. Well being me I couldn't help but say "Never!".
I think in hinsight I have become quite Australian over the years but I still feel very German too (and I hope this will never change).

So I think that Australians are keen for their migrants to become 'Australian' and to integrate and assimilate into the Australian culture but they find the opposite quite threatening (I'm happy to be wrong on this if someone would like to show me why): I feel that as long as you're keen to embrace Australia and it's culture fully and try to become Australian you're very much accepted though in my experience this might be harder if you're not of Caucasian appearance. Yet, if you try to keep your culture and language you can be perceived as a threat, particularly if you're not Caucasian.

Don't get me wrong I think Integration is essential to living in another country but Assimilation to me is a total loss of ones own culture and not a favourable outcome of immigration in my point of view.

On the other side friends of my husband's who were either born in Australia or came her at a very young age and would most definitely think of themselfes as Australian have experienced racism or discrimination against them. They have been made to feel like immigrants and pretty much said, if not in words, "We don't want you here, you're not Australian!"

People might say that these are very specific stories that might only reflect isolated cases, but this is how I've experienced things and the only conclusion that I can come to (and I'd be very happy to hear otherwise) is: I, a person of Caucasian appearance, was invited, nearly pressured to be Australian yet friends who really are Australian were made to feel unwelcome only because they are of African or Asian appearance.

a photo for my profile

Everybody seems to have a nice photo for their user profile.
Well, I want one TOO!!!
This one always cracks me up and I've decided to put it as my profile.
Mim looks like a little fighter pilot wearing her cousin's goggles over her hat. And then with that little serious look of hers (really she's the borne auntie) I can never quite contain myself ... the day we took the photo I had to keep on laughing really hard every time I looked at her but it never put her off wearing the goggles (actually it's become her main swimming accessory she'll never go without)

Oh, I've been falling behind!

I haven't been very active in my 'blogging life' recently and today I opened up my bloglines account only to find that I've got 53 unread blog posts ... SCARY!!
That put me right off and I began to think that maybe this whole blogging thing is just one of those new fads after all. Hope not! So maybe by posting something myself I'll break the lazy cycle.

It all started with me looking for pyjamas for the little girl on eBay and then I was spending soooo much time on eBay that I got totally frustrated with eBay, the internet and the computer ... I didn't wanna be doing anything in front of the computer.

So ... I started a crochet project and as is the case with everything I do I just did that for the next week straight in every free minute that I had. So I was successfull at least for a while to abstain from using the computer (btw Bernat has loads of free patterns, really I could keep knitting and crocheting forever without ever having to touch the computer again ... well except to download patterns :-)
After that I really started to get into my book (I always read while breast feeding the baby cause she gets too distracted when I talk) and started reading whenever I could (Michael Ende's "Die Unendliche Geschichte" the English title is "The Neverending Story"). That was a really nice distraction too but now I've finished that book and I never seem to quite manage to jump straight from one story into the next one, though I do have another book by him ready ("Momo"). So, since I've got no more excuses why I don't have time to spend on the computer I might just write a post for my blog though I do have this strange feeling that this might be the last post for a long while to come ...

expat or immigrant?

As you can see I'm still thinking about the whole expat thing and Michael and I were starting to wonder how the term 'immigrant' fits into the whole argument.
Well the blonde librarian put it very nicely in an email. I thought I should really put this on my blog as it adds a whole new perspective to the discussion (and I hope it might encourage us to take our thoughts a little further 'round a different bend)

According to one definition I found, as opposed to an immigrant who comes to a country to live, an expat is one who always intends to return to their home country, so that made me wonder if I should call myself an immigrant instead.

I guess all in all it doesn't really matter what I am, but I have found that by labeling myself as an expat I have encountered lots of people going through the same types of experiences as I am and that makes for a great sense of community.

I totally agree with that and think that the label 'immigrant' might fit my situation a lot better but so why don't we adopt the label 'immigrant'? Is one more favourable than the other? Maybe going with what the blonde librarian said, going by 'expat' just allows us to whine and complain a little better (doesn't it just make you feel so much better to complain a bit when things aren't quite the way we like them, it certainly always works for me), whereas 'immigrants' might be more prone to loving their host country rather unconditionally, cause they have chosen to leave their country of origin (presumably cause it wasn't as good as the new place). Hmmm ..... it is all rather confusing.

So I guess as Christina also pointed out in her comment after all they're just labels that might make it easier to find people in similar situations (it's certainly what it's been for me) and I do agree with that but being German with a need for exactness I can't help feeling that those different words do mean very distinctly different things ... but that somehow brings me back to the beginning, so I might just have to contend that the label 'expat' is a perfectly well functioning one that seems to unite us all no matter what the specifics of our situation.

am I or am I not?

I haven't been writing anything lately and that that was partly due to our family going away, me deciding that a lunch time nap might be the better option (to be energetic enough for my two monkeys in the arvo ... though today I've decided that a cuppa will have to do) and me reading other blogs. Most of those blogs are labeled expat-blogs and I started wondering whether I fit the description.

Am I or am I not?? Do I qualify as an "expat"?

According to dictionary.com an expat is:

1. One who has taken up residence in a foreign country.
2. One who has renounced one's native land.

I certainly haven't renounced Germany and Australia was a foreign country to me, but after living here for 4 1/2 years married to an Australian I can't help but feel that it really shouldn't be a foreign country any more.
Maybe that's partly connected to the attitude that any immigrant should assimilate and become Australian (whatever that means).
Gotta share a little story here:

I was sitting with a bunch of people I know when they started talking about "those immigrants" that just keep their own culture and don't assimilate. So I wanted to stir them up a bit and said "You mean people like me!" cause really I try to maintain a German culture in our home (not just for the kids' sake).
One of them answered "No, you're not like that, you're practically Australian." (or something to that effect, I do have to admit the conversation happened about a year ago.)
I said "No, I'm not!"
"Have you eaten a meat pie?"
"Yes, I've even cooked one once."
"There you go, you're practically Australian!"
Hmmm ... is that what it takes to be Australian? I might as well be Thai, since I cook Thai food at least once a week. But since national identity is a topic way to complex for what I was wanting to write about here I won't go any further with this.

So to get back to my original thought, Australia is not really a foreign country any more. I am quite accustomed to it (maybe Germany has even become a foreign country to me ... since I do think I'll find a lot of things qute weird over there after living here). But does that mean I am not an expat, could I possibly become an expat in Germany were we to go and live there??
I certainly don't think of myself as Australian. If someone asks I always say without hesitation, that I am German. But what is expatriation linked to, the nationality you've got or where you feel home is or isn't (which could easily bring me to my next topic, where is home, do I have two homes, one home or none ... two half homes might be most accurate but how is that possible??).

So maybe that's just what it comes down to if I look at the whole thing from the perspective of our family as a whole, it's not an issue since the BFG is an Australian (in his passport, by birth, place of residence, his parents and grandparents were born in here, the country that is home for him and probably the culture and customs he feels most at ease with are also Australian). Our family is most definitely not an expatriate family (neither here or in Germany).

But I as an individual have been an expat here and for the sake of our family, my relationship with Michael and my own sanity, have taken on this place as home.

So am I or am I not? I think I have been, and am not anymore!!

But I think I'll still read the expat blogs and identify with them to some degree, I guess I'll never again be either one or the other. I'm a bit of both, we are very much both and so the expat perspective is probably the closest for someone like me.

books, glorious books!

I Read this book just the other day by Mem Fox, a brilliant children's book author and literacy consultant as well as literacy professor (not that that gives her greater credibility, but I just love her stuff).

I found the book truly inspiring ... maybe cause it says what I've wanted to hear anyway "Go ahead, indulge yourself in books!! Have as many as you like ... and maybe even a few more!" I had a similar reaction of "Yes, yes, yes!" when I read the poem 'Television' from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

Forget about the subtitle of the book, which is quite offputting. I don't like this sort of self-help stuff that claims to tell you the secret of how you can achieve the impossible in 2 weeks.

The book itself is a really good read for any parent or person looking after children and reading to/with children. It has reminded me once again of how much fun there is to be had with books and that it is also extremely beneficial for children to be read with (even if it doesn't teach them how to read before they start school).

And for ideas on where to find good Australian children's books check out the Children's Book Council of Australia.