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psheth.bsky.social@psheth.bsky.social |
35 followers 264 following 25 posts
American expat in Wellington, NZ. Mostly lurking.
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@psheth.bsky.social
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Impending fascism (and guns everywhere with no progress in sight) is why we left - we had the opportunity and couldn't justify staying with small kids. But I definitely feel guilt about it...
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@psheth.bsky.social
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Same. Very happy I left. And the chances of even one of them dying between now and November is very low (~1% based on actuarial data if I recall correctly)
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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@psheth.bsky.social
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I don't think it's just that. He didn't have a huge base of support in the Democratic primary (party elites coalesced around him as a not-Bernie consensus), and he won in 2020 as a "Not Trump" candidate. But even then, he dragged Dem congressional performance down relative to 2018 and 2022
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@psheth.bsky.social
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A plausible explanation is that Biden himself is particularly unpopular, even as people broadly like the Democratic party (or recoil from the Republican party)
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@psheth.bsky.social
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The worst thing about having small children is the never-ending stream of daycare illnesses!
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@psheth.bsky.social
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I almost exclusively use Firefox with ublock origin, and on the rare times I have to use a different browsing setup, it's amazing how BAD the experience of visiting any website is
1 replies 0 reposts 22 likes
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Faine Greenwood
@faineg.bsky.social
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I do think this kind of thing has a bigger impact on the collective mental well-being of Americans than we’d like to admit
29 replies 131 reposts 734 likes
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@psheth.bsky.social
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Literally the reason we moved abroad was so that our kids wouldn't have to grow up with that hanging over them their entire childhood. I miss a lot of things about the US, but being able to exist peacefully in public makes it worth it.
1 replies 3 reposts 42 likes
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@psheth.bsky.social
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We landed in winter with a 2 year old who loves berries and figured out the hard way on the first day that you can't just find berries year-round here...
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@psheth.bsky.social
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My first week here, I had a meltdown in a New World trying to figure out what toilet paper and yogurt to buy...
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@psheth.bsky.social
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It finally got me after 4 years. But symptoms are mild (probably thanks to all the boosters), and my partner (who got boosted a month ago) has managed to avoid it
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@psheth.bsky.social
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I will never forgive the city for fencing it off that fall because they couldn't stand not being in control
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@psheth.bsky.social
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We moved 3 blocks away from there a couple months before the protests. It was such an amazing transformation that summer. The community turned it from a slaver monument into an open, welcoming community space.
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@psheth.bsky.social
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It's not objectively ever that cold in Wellington (never below freezing). But I routinely feel colder here and run the heater more than I ever did in Boston (even in old student apartments). Kiwis think nothing of it, but expats from US, Canada, UK, Ireland all are appalled...
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@psheth.bsky.social
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New Zealand is notorious for this. It's the single biggest drawback, especially coming from the US. The quality of the housing (especially when it comes to insulation and heating/cooling), even in multimillion dollar properties, is atrocious.
1 replies 0 reposts 7 likes
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Osita Nwanevu
@ositanwanevu.bsky.social
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All this nonsense post-2016 about how Trump's victory illustrated the dangers of the democracy when most people voted against him. Twice now. Meanwhile the holy institutions we're all supposed to be praying to and prostrating ourselves before have saved or elevated him at every opportunity.
11 replies 307 reposts 1667 likes
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@psheth.bsky.social
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Long distance move (in our case international)
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@psheth.bsky.social
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On the opposite side of that in Wellington right now, and it's terrible. Already dark by the time I pick the kid up from daycare and only going to get worse
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@psheth.bsky.social
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Yeah the poor housing quality was one of the big surprises when moving here haha. Luckily our current rental is much warmer
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@psheth.bsky.social
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Oh sorry my previous post was poorly worded. Boston housing is much better insulated (I guess it has to be with snow and temps going down to - 10 or worse)
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@psheth.bsky.social
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Hah you would love Boston or the American Midwest then. Wellington isn't nearly as cold, but the housing insulation is so much worse, so it's hard to get nice and toasty inside...
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@psheth.bsky.social
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Yes though as someone who recently moved to NZ from the US, the expectations around using vacation time, after-hours availability, etc are markedly better in NZ. It is striking how low the quality of the management-types is here though
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@psheth.bsky.social
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His Foundryside series also has some pretty incredible worldbuilding
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@psheth.bsky.social
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Suspect that a large part of the problem is that Biden himself is a hardcore zionist and doesn't view Palestinians as fully human. It's a substantive problem more than a messaging problem (which unfortunately makes it less likely to change)...
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@psheth.bsky.social
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I never understood what you were supposed to do with an infant passport? Pretend to sign it for them? A thumbprint?
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@psheth.bsky.social
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Had my son's vaccination appointment today and found out we had to pay at the office (for what it's worth, the vaccination nurse was rightly pissed off). We can afford to pay, but many can't and will skip out, leading to more hospitalizations. Hell, even the US provides free vaccines for children.
1 replies 1 reposts 9 likes
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Danielle, Petty Hate Machine
@dimsie.bsky.social
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Voting men of #nzpol: once again, being trash
4 replies 6 reposts 24 likes
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@psheth.bsky.social
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As a recent American expat to NZ, it's striking how American this implementation is in terms of administrative burden. Well-established that this structure will negatively impact those who need it most.
1 replies 1 reposts 15 likes