trinacriabob

Some claim the vowel opening/closure as one way to tell.For me, it's the cadence....all the way. When I am in Sicily and a local is speaking standard Italian to me, one just listens to the underlying flow and it is Sicilian to the bone, though the Italian being delivered is grammatically correct. Then, I come back to the north of Italy to my cousins, with whom we are clustered within a 5 year age group or so, and it's nonstop making fun of the Sicilians and our relatives who still live down there (in a nice way for the Sicilians and in a bad way for the relatives). As for the Espanol, try pretending you are another person altogether (just like Sybil did, but without trying )

nuclear

And that's cool. Smart and discerning people know how to use this vehicle correctly and can accomplish results. Some people may be smart in money or books or career related issues, but not so smart when it comes to judging people and knowing who may be a powder keg waiting to go off. I was a dumb$h! when it came to judging people. That ended by about the time I finished college. My Dad had WAAAAY too many street smarts (having lived in Australia, an Italian colony in Africa and ultimately the U.S.) for the street smarts and "quick study" ability to not rub off.

With a graduate business degree and your underlying experience, you certainly would have mobility. Heck, keep in mind that even the brightest of MBAs make a lot of switches early on to find their niche and the company that's right for them. Sorry to hear about your foster mom. Thanks for sharing this. What are your origins? It appears to you have a handle on some languages. All the better for your marketability. I learned to hate management pop books, except for those that are RAW and tell it like it is. I had to read "Good to Great" by Collins, this granolafied ex-Stanford prof now living in Boulder CO - why does this not surprise me. It was the Academy Awards of the corporate world. He painted a stellar picture of his hand picked companies -- spare me Dr. Collins and please admit that the same politics and bull$h! that are elsewhere are found in these companies as well. One of the ones I like is called "The Fifth Discipline" which talks about a lot of organizational problems as being cultural and systemic and, trust me, this dude is spot on. See, I am a geek. I like my numbers (and my languages ). My BSBA was in Accounting and I found that, on a stand alone basis, one doesn't understand the environment in which it operates. About three kick-ass finance courses (Corp. Finance, Short Term Finance and Investments) and suddenly you're a better bean-counter for it.

You know I usually agree with you on many things. But I differ a bit on this one. I switched careers after staying in my first one for a handful of years. The second career (architecture) was something people told me I was given a talent for that I was wasting ....and I wondered every day if that's what I should have done. I am now going back to my first career because it is (a) easier - no apologies, (b) earns the same amount of money, or more, and © is more stable. Sitting in a grad program for architecture in a part of the country I would never considered making home meant no relationships, plus I was about 5 years older than most of my classmates which, in your 20s, is a big deal...stupid, I know. I watched virtually all of my friends pair up with their equals...in education, looks, age, ethnicity, religion, etc. I think that is NORMAL. I am conservative as for my own needs and fairly liberal about what others do, though it wouldn't work for me. The package of EQUALITY after people make the big first cut during or immediately after college or university is not easily found...trust me, I've looked. If people want to view me as a snob or as sexually maladjusted (as one person on this site alludes to repeatedly, given his years of worldliness), then go to it. One of my friends in Portland says I am a little bitter about this and am now "holding court," as he puts it, delighting in snubbing women who have kids, who do not have careers and who are not educated. He's probably right. But I am sure there is a fix or a match somewhere. I am just having fun pursuing my intellectual interests and not worrying about it, though I probably should.

underwater

Many say this, including the language guides. And one can tell this as he or she listens to Brazilian jazz with some vocals in it. I found it easier to understand the Brazilians, but would NOT vacation there though Rio is the most stunning city in the world, bar none. I would rather go to quaint Portugal over and over....and struggle with the language a bit. I don't know the details, but I have one theory. The Portuguese (and Portugal) like their tranquility. Some transplanted Brazilians and colonials coming in have brought their more lawless ways with them. For example, one Lisboeta told me how pissed he was about the "parking assistants" -- losers, mostly from Brazil, who have a monopoly on a neighborhood where you would just normally pull over and park your car...at no cost. You have to tip them to "watch your car" or they might do something to it in retaliation. The same is true in Naples, where I have cousins. In the North of Europe, this would not fly. I told my cousins that some big redneck boys back in the States would delight in beating the living f@#k out of such scum. I mean, could you imagine, on a Sunday in downtown Toronto, wanting to park your car on Danforth or College when it might be free and you would have to "tip" somebody $1 or so? Is this your partner who has the December 13th birthday? Does he make lists for everything and is he super-organized?

Wow, you Bronx types are that literate? Just kidding...one WOP ribbing another. Seriously, the words show a lot of thought. You process things very differently than I do. I was only dumped in the early years. When it happened, I made it a point to be psychologically incisive, knowing where the insecurity spots were. You will process this and move on, to be sure. If you can do the dog thing, do it. There is NOTHING cooler than a dog. NOTHING.

And it is sad. I was in the Veneto for 3 days and met some wonderful people running the hotel or at eating places. And, so it became learned that I am a Sicilian-American. Better, I guess, than just being a Sicilian.They got pretty honest with me in our discussions about Italy and Italians. I asked them if a Sicilian were to move up into the area, was well-bred, spoke "neutrally accented" Italian, was a professional and did not look like he floated over from Morocco (as a small percentage does), would he or she be accepted. The answer was "well, in the North, it could take a while." It pissed me off internally because, if we had not come back to the states, that could have been MY story. I know that in the states, people with a heavy Bible Belt twang, are initially put under the "what's up with this" microscope by those of us in no-accent zones or the north. However, I think that when people figure out that (1) they are generally nice people, and (2) they are on the ball in terms of abilities or education, the "what's up with this" is dropped INSTANTLY.

Reg, you are funny.I don't know about the first sentence...I think they are hetero but just had too many brothers that preceded them in the birth order. Every chick I know born after 3 or 4 boys knows how to handle the boys. Usually, there is no L factor here because the mother has a sigh of relief that she finally got a GIRL and their bond is healthy and the dad often feels the same way. Depression ... hmmm ... the question is how much? I am somewhat prone. However, it's what they call exogenous which means it is brought on by external stresses. Endogenous depression means it's there in perpetuity...ouch. I am almost sympathetic. Yes, the princesses and the daddy's girls. That's an interesting phenomenon...the entitlement concept. What's amazing is that even those that have needed instructions still feel entitled. Sorry, you can't expect pedestal treatment when you need to be given instructions....now do this, yes, that's right, yes, a little more, ok, good....you get the idea. The combustion has to be spontaneous, not orchestrated.

TMITMI ...Madonna...

ATLANTAMarta is their train system

Oh, good, another cheap person. Let's keep that moolah in our wallets. I find that every never-married woman over 35 has one of the following: (1) not that attractive (2) earlier sexual trauma (3) a little too "punch in the arm, let's go get a beer" -- tomboyish, though thoroughly straight (4) combination of the above As my friend Vince says, "Well, if they were decently packaged, they'd be scooped up by now, now wouldn't they"

Not so fast. Ouch. Italian and Spanish, IMHO, are extremely close. Portuguese is a stretch, not because of the words nor the grammatical structure. It is the pronounciation which is maddening. Everything with an S is pronounced SH if in the middle or at the end of a word. How that ever surfaced is beyond me. For example, Lisboa is Leeshboa, the town of Cascais is Kash-kaish, and "as praias" (the beaches) is osh praiash. If that were removed and an S was pronounced like an S is in the other related languages, Portuguese would be a snap...or at least easier. Every Portuguese person tells me it is easier for them to learn Spanish than for a Spaniard to learn Portuguese.

Dude, it was also a French/Norman possession for at least 200 years...that's probably why people in France immediately speak French to me (since I guess I look like them) but a Spaniard will hold off. Case in point: armoire in English - armadio in Italian - "a muarra" in Sicilian Ventana in Sicilian? Seriously? It must a regional finessing of the dialect. On the eastern side of the island, we pronounced it "a fineshia."

You have to stop relating them. It's a handicap. I did the same thing. This is corny but think of yourself in another body, walking around a street in Spain or in Latin America. Don't you have a large Hispanic representation on LI? About 1/3 of my friends in LA were from Spanish speaking families, so that helped. I had NO problem with the Spanish accent...none. Reason: I learned it "clean," in college and from good profs. As for Italian, one of the biggest disadvantages is having had to learn Sicilian prior to Italian. It has made me extremely self conscious (since I am in Northern Italy right now) in that I try not to let out a "meridionale" cadence. (Don't get me started) In fact, people here ask me where I'm from. Instead, in Spain, they told me my Spanish was excellent. In fact, one person said "Usted habla un Espanol correcto...no es el Castellano." It appears that the non-lisped clean Latin American Spanish, as might be spoken in Colombia or Venezuela, is more of the standard than is the Castilian.

Disagree. Only Pontiac could pull off full size looks with rallye wheels and it would look good. It would not have worked for the equivalent years of Olds and Buick.

I dunno. It might look like $h!. Just kidding.

I remember when you posted this. Hopefully, you peeled back on your hours somewhat.

Oops, Carbiz, I hope I didn't come across as a jerk. It's very UN-Catholic of me, but I think the Dual Income No Kids route is the way to go. I've had too painful and prolonged of a climb.

C'mon, B, you mean when your wife says "Jump", you don't respond with "How High?" and THEN use that as an opportunity to take off/get into your pants.

She seems (seemed) like a good hearted Southern lady, much like Dolly Parton.I don't know much about her, but am sad about this. The gaudiness, make up and her get-ups make her unforgettable.

Listen to your gut instinct. You shouldn't go to one because you feel you have to....you should go to one because you want to.

Be careful of what you ask for because you just might find it! You list a couple of attributes and demographic conditions and they just might be met. Nothing went wrong per se, it's just that I don't want children and this became an issue. I was honest within a matter of months. I think she was very hurt. I know that she threw herself into her work (has an Ivy League MBA and made more money than me at ANY point in time) is apparently still single. Once I got into my early 30s, I no longer wanted kids. And if I don't want my very own, I certainly don't want anyone else's.

stuffy