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For Arabic Speakers

No Sound Needed

- You've heard this 'textbook' definition of a TCK before: "A third culture kid is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside their parents' culture. The third culture kid builds relationships to all the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the third culture kid's life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of the same background, other TCKs."

- "Where are you from?" has more than one reasonable answer.
- You've said that you're from foreign country X, and your audience has asked you which US state X is in.
- You flew before you could walk.
- You speak two languages, but can't spell in either.
- You feel odd being in the ethnic majority.
- You have three passports.
- You have a passport but no driver's license.
- You go into culture shock upon returning to your "home" country.
- Your life story uses the phrase "Then we moved to..." three (or four, or five...) times.
- You wince when people mispronounce foreign words.
- You don't know whether to write the date as day/month/year, month/day/year, or some variation thereof.
- The best word for something is the word you learned first, regardless of the language.
- You get confused because US money isn't colour-coded.
- You think VISA is a document that's stamped in your passport, not a plastic card you carry in your wallet.
- You own personal appliances with 3 types of plugs, know the difference between 110 and 220 volts, 50 and 60 cycle current, and realize that a trasnsformer isn't always enough to make your appliances work.
- You fried a number of appliances during the learning process.
- You think the Pledge of Allegiance might possibly begin with "Four-score and seven years ago...."
- Half of your phone calls are unintelligible to those around you.
- You believe vehemently that football is played with a round, spotted ball.
- You consider a city 500 miles away "very close."
- You've read National Geographic and recognized someone.
- You cruise the Internet looking for fonts that can support foreign alphabets.
- You think in the metric system and Celsius.
- You may have learned to think in feet and miles as well, after a few years of living (and driving) in the US. (But not Fahrenheit. You will *never* learn to think in Fahrenheit).
- You haggle with the checkout clerk for a lower price.
- Your minor is a foreign language you already speak.
- When asked a question in a certain language, you've absentmindedly respond in a different one.
- You miss the subtitles when you see the latest movie.
- You've gotten out of school because of monsoons, bomb threats, and/or popular demonstrations.
- You speak with authority on the subject of airline travel.
- You have frequent flyer accounts on multiple airlines.
- You constantly want to use said frequent flyer accounts to travel to new places.
- You know how to pack.
- You have the urge to move to a new country every couple of years.
- The thought of sending your (hypothetical) kids to public school scares you, while the thought of letting them fly alone doesn't at all.
- You think that high school reunions are all but impossible.
- You have friends from 29 different countries.
- You sort your friends by continent.
- You have a time zone map next to your telephone.
- You realize what a small world it is, after all.
- it takes at least 15minutes answering the question "Where are You From"
-You know more about certain cultures than people who belong to the culture themselves!
- You can speak more than 2 languages
-People leave you with a Confused/Bewildered Look after having a conversation with you
-When you can complain about the state of "ethnic" food on your campus or in places like Chinatown.
-When you practically jump someone when you find out they're also a TCK.
-When you have a favourite seat in your airports.
-You switch between words like "jumper" and "sweater" or "airplane" and "aeroplane", depending on location and company.
-You swear in a foreign language routinely, until you realise you're doing it in the class that's supposed to teach you it...
-You swear in a myriad of languages.
-If you're not paying attention, you'll talk in one of them to someone who only speaks English (I do it when I'm extremely tired).
-Sleep is for the weak. Or layovers.
-Itchy feet has nothing to do with the health of your feet.
-You have to get NetFlix to see some of your favourite movies.
- When you've memorized the airplane safety precautions by heart
- When you find both your airplane tickets and phone bills (long distance) comparable to your tuition...
-When people say you have an accent but never know what country it belongs to!
- when you feel like your birth town is less of a home than some other city
- when you can speak with great certainty and authority on the pros and cons of other countries, yet have no idea about your 'own' country
- when you speak in what you've learned to be 'English' (or any other language for that matter) and yet people at 'home' don't understand you
- when you know more about a 'foreign' culture than your 'own'
- You feel very, very alone and no one around youi seems to understand why.
- You speak more languages than they've heard of.
- When discussing global issues, you're all sides of an argument by yourself.
- You understand all sorts of accents, having a mix of them yourself.
-when you understand languages you've never heard before just from the speaker's body language
-when 'going to see a friend' generally means travelling halfway across the world
-when you've got no idea how to spell a word, because you've been taught different ways wherever you went
- when every other one of your school yearbooks are signed, "Have a nice life." (or something to that effect).
-you move back to/visit UK/US and feel awkward touching people because you don't know how they will react
-LOVED Borat mostly because you thought it was just a matter of time before people in the US/UK decide the double kiss is a good idea!
-have taken or have had sibling who have taken speaking lessons because of muddled accents
-your relatives tell you you aren't from the place they know you were born
-you close your eyes in foreign showers because you know that waterbourne diseases transmit just as much through the tear ducts as the mouth
-when you saw Titanic in the cinema it had foreign subtitles
-(mostly pertains to the british) you can sing all the national anthems of countries you may have only been in for a month but still refuse to sing the American national anthem and/or say the pledge of allegiance because it's about the downfall of your country even though England had a huge number of colonies and was kindof a bitch to the world for quite a time.
-You use MSN messenger religiously
-You don't get homesick but you miss the years you had in the really exciting places you'Ve been