Job Discussion Forums

[Hod]

I wasn�t always a teacher you know, I once had a proper job jet-setting and going to meetings and stuff. It was during one such drinking session that I visited some long-distant relatives in Los Angeles. Our conversation went something like this:

Hod: Hello
Uncle Hod III: Excuse me?
Hod: I�m Hod.
Uncle Hod III: Oh hey Hoddle (it�s always the full name, isn�t it!). Come in and have an Irish whisk(e)y.
Hod: But it�s only 4 o�clock in the afternoon!
Uncle Hod II: Excuse me?

Minutes later (felt like a decade)�

Uncle Hod III: Hoddle, can I ask you a question?
Hod: By all means, if I can understand you.
Uncle Hod III: What�s your nationality?
Hod: I dunno. English I guess.
Uncle Hod III: Me and Hodette. We�re Irish Americans
Hod: Excuse me?

Some time before the last ice age, Hodd the Irish caveman (painter decorator), ended up in America, couldn�t control himself and reproduced. Generations later, on a sunny January teatime in LA, Uncle Hod III (as Irish as an igloo) made this hilarious claim. It was partly the whisky, but doesn�t hide the fact that he, like most Americans, believes they have roots elsewhere.

To you Americans I ask only this: Why do you love Europe so much? I know Americans working in dustbowls like Morocco, or in some former communist vodka factory masquerading as a country, just so they can be oh so close to that Holy Grail, the Mecca - Europe.

If that�s not enough, some of you go one step further! You actually pluck up courage to get on a boat to Europe itself. There you fill in enough paperwork to destroy Brazil and go to work for 10 Euros an hour! This is understandable for Vietnamese boat people, but you lot come from the Land of Freedom.

Please explain.

Didn�t we all come from Adam and Eve anyway? You wouldn�t catch me wanting to grow a beard and teach naked in some garden in Africa.

Have you seen my school?:

[leeroy]

er..

I've wondered about this "Irish-American", "Italian-American" thing too. Does this actually translate into Americans wanting to live in Europe though? I had always interpreted this more as "remembering your roots" in some way. I imagine that more Europeans want to live in America than the other way around.

[dmb]

don't people say they are Irish-American in order to get a legal high paying EFL job in Europe?

[Snoopy]

I think the answer is called civilisation.

[Roger]

[ls650]

If it's any consolation, I don't want to go to Europe. I can't stand the place. But then I'm not American...

[Ludwig]

Could it perhaps be because Europe has a culture, indeed, numerous wholly distinct cultures?

[leeroy]

I can see where this thread is going...

[Will.]

Hi Leeroy,
Do you think we should try and disrupt the direction it takes?
Let's all start validating our British/Canadian/ Australian/Australian/New Zealand/South African/Irish/Scottish/Welsh/Manx/New Caledonian etc ancestry.

Well then boys and girls; are you sitting comfortably? then I'll begin...

I am a 50/50 NI&Eng which makes mw 100% Brit but one parent was from NI so for all of youse out there who understand this I am 50/50 Brit. From Irish immigrant extraction, so I am calling this Irish British and specifically Northern Irish/British.

[leeroy]

As far as I know I am 100% English. Boring, I know...

For me, my ethnicity does not affect my identity a great deal - and I think it's sad when I see cases where that does happen.

[Hod]

Gosh, I leave you alone for five minutes�

My original words weren�t knocking Americans. I�d like to include Canadians too.

I�m just interested in the way the North American mind thinks. Do you really believe you have roots in places like Germany? What about those who�ve gone on to work in Germany, Spain or similar places where slavery has been reintroduced, now known as TEFL. Do your distant relatives welcome you back to the fatherland with open arms? No.

[Sekhmet]

I'm just curious... What about all the people who don't claim to have "roots" in these countries, but just an "interest"?? Does that make them wannabe Europeans too??
Not that I'm an American - British (kinda) and proud of it most of the time!!! But just because I'm living in Egypt, doesn't mean I want to become Egyptian, or even have any familial connection to the place. I just like it.

[JosephP]

I spent many years toiling away in the TEFL mines of Asia. Even in Hawaii and New Zealand almost all of my students were East Asians.
I've never been to Europe. Is it nice?

[mesmerod]

i am american and i dont want to be in europe.
south america is much better and the people are friendly

[Hod]