I live next to a college named Finlandia. Sounds like a ride a Disney Land.

A college named for a brand of Vodka? http://i.imgur.com/BNfntdL.jpg

Well, probably not. But, would be amusing if it was sponsored by the distillery or similar.

My girlfriend and I have been together for a year and a half now and she has Aspergers and I am bipolar and ADHD. Great match for certain medical professions to make a mint off eh? After spending years going through the orthodox medical system taking pills that either made me numb, not myself or worse(great to function in meaningless monotonous jobs though eh?) I started to look into what I could do for myself and followed the path of natural medicines. I don't need a "cure" because there isn't one and I refuse to take medication that makes me a zombie and has who knows what side-effects in the long-run.

Speaking of which, this guy rocks for giving a great perspective and understanding of Aspergers, as he is an Aspie :) He has children too!

http://aspiewarrior.com/2012/08/07/on-finding-a-cure/

My girlfriend and I work well together. Amazingly well! The first year was fairly difficult as we didn't have much of an understanding of our differences and had some challenging lessons with communication. Doesn't everyone when getting to know another human being? Maybe not but wow has it been worthwhile :)

Understanding and appreciation of difference is the key to love. Our differences compliment each other in ways I didn't think possible when we were struggling.

As for the original question. I am disliked for choosing my own path forward in life irrespective of what others think. I wasted so much precious time in my youth trying to please everyone but myself. I came from a financially privileged upbringing with great education opportunities and was told a lot of "you shoulds" in life and was constantly told that I was never living up to my potential. You know what, in many ways those people were right. Why? Because my "potential" was being defined by others and the lessons and experiences I've had in life don't hold much value as I have NO focus on earning money, accumulating wealth, buying a house or doing what I consider to be soul-destroying monotonous work(which to me seems to be selling myself short to waste my life making someone else wealthy).

Instead I followed what felt right to me. I learned survival skills when I realised if the shit hit the fan that I would struggle to survive. I learned herbalism knowledge and to trust my intuition. I am learning to appreciate my talents and to use them as best I can, such as a love of storytelling and helping others to realise that adversity when one sinks to the lowest of lows can be overcome and that others do care.

Be the change you wish to see in the world holds a lot of truth to me :)

Well, in italian we call Finland... Finlandia

everything in italian ends with an I and an A, no?

Yeah, it's probably Finlandia in Latin as well, and names/words from Latin and Greek tend to be popular with colleges and universities. So probably no vodka connection. :[

But, awalterj, you have a village dialect, do you not? Or maybe you are Swiss French or Italian?

An asian friend of mine works in Olten having the sole Chinese language skill that her company needs...

...but her colleagues would rather repeat louder and slower the Swiss German Dialect they might coincidentally know, as opposed to Hoch Deutsch they should all know, and she would understand. What say you to that?

Thanks for taking the time to write this :)

As I mentioned above, my girlfriend has Aspergers and she was fortunate to mimic others well as many female Aspies do, as well as drop out of school when she was 14 so she didn't experience some of the horrors that my ex's brother did. He is a very large man who weighs around 150kg(330lb) and had his growth spurt early, so was that large shy guy who wouldn't do anything to defend himself and was bashed and teased until he left school.

I lived with him for 6 years, and it took him about 2 years to start opening up to me. And when he did, I found him to be one of the most philosophically intelligent people I had ever conversed with. As I said in my post above, he has so many talents but others don't know or see him for who he is because they don't take the time to try and understand and appreciate his differences.

LOL no, but.. I see what you did there :P

I'm sorry, no vodka or drunken students.. wait..

I have a very good friend and he is transgendered. When he lived in my area, which is a series of small towns along a mountain range(30k people in the upper area where I am, 4k in my town), he found it very difficult to be accepted for who he was unfortunately. I would ask my other friends if they met him to please be respectful of his gender, which is male, and one of them on that occasion was extremely disrespectful by continuing to call my friend a "she" and to try to hit on him all night because my friend was "a hot chick". Needless to say I didn't invite him to any further gatherings and due to multiple reasons I no longer associate with him.

My trans friend then moved to Sydney, which has a very large LGBT population. He found his home, his community, his place of belonging and is sooo much happier :)

Sorry to seem a little rude by our Scandinavian standard, especially after the best Eurovision stage ever, wow, but: you Danes really seem to wish to affiliate yourselves rather with the anglo-saxons as opposed to the Scandinavians.

To me, pan-Scadinavnian mobility predecessing EU-mobility was a matter of a greater principle, and I was rather disappointed when Denmark positioned itself as a victim of immigration, as opposed to the benefactor. After all, Helle probably financed her Guggis by Europarlament, after all. :-p

The dialect I learned at home isn't the same that is spoken in my village but I can speak various dialects and often adapt my vocabulary depending on where I go. Not necessarily the entire dialect but using the right vocabulary is very effective. Makes everything easier! Say I walk into a super remote mountain pub somewhere and people go like 'was bisch de dui für einä?" I switch to whatever the indigenous dialect is and order "es kafi träsch". Gotta know the lingo! :)

I'm a firm believer in adapting to the environment and not vice versa. Now in the workplace - if I was working with a Chinese coworker I would ask them if they prefer me to switch to High German of course, work wouldn't be efficient otherwise and I wouldn't want that person to feel stressed out. But if said person is planning to stay for a long time, I strongly urge them to learn the local colloquial (!) language, not just High German.
The reasons why even Germans often feel disillusioned when they come here is because they think everything is the same as back home, just with higher salaries. Well, the language is different too because Swiss Germans don't use High German when they hang out and talk together.
There's two types of Germans: The ones who can't get used to this and go back to Germany, and the ones who like the Swiss German dialect and want to learn it. Bavarians have it the easiest and unsurprisingly, they are the ones that get along the best with the natives.
Keep in mind that in the countryside, even Swiss people from the neighboring village are considered to be "outsiders", even if they speak just a slightly different dialect. Foreigners often don't understand the dynamics of the Swiss microcosmos and take everything personal. Now take a look at the rivalries between Swiss cities and towns and even villages and you will start to look at things a lot differently. I also recommend studying Swiss history, you'll see that the rivalries between some cities are ancient. In the archives of my hometown, there's funny accounts of people stealing cows from a neighboring village etc.

I know not a single gamer at my school.

hahahaha

shut your filthy lie-hole!

Christians are make believe like unicorns and leprechauns. EVERYBODY knows that the internet has proven all religions false (except for Islam)

baaaaah, I'm just messin' wit'cha

but yeah, I totally know what you're talking about. I don't personally subscribe to any but, people who are openly religious these days get a lot of unwarranted flack. There's this hive-mind sort of mentality about these things and anythings that exist anywhere outside of this preconceived notion is met with arbitrary hostility.