• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

What do you do for a living?

The Reed Amendment has never been enforced, and isn't likely to be. Unsurprising, since it would require the Attorney General to declare a specific renounciation was for taxation purposes and there's no system for doing that.

OK, that's what I wasn't sure about. I knew what the law says (inadmissible into the United States), but I didn't know about the practical effect.
 
I am a solicitor who prosecutes sex offences. Low pay, poor conditions, a terrible success rate in our unit and a conversation-killer at parties.

Somehow, though, it feels like where I am meant to be, and the few successes do make it worthwhile.
 
I very much agree with that conclusion, donners22. Even one little success helps getting a few pebbles out of the rocky road to justice. It'll propably take generations, but one day we'll get there (btw, in my country, one of the leading "civilized" nations, rape by a husband has been declared illegal as recently as the 1990s. The maximum penalty is 4 years prison which equals the minimum penalty for an economy-crime. Kinda shows how much a woman is worth nowadays).

Holdfast for stuff like that, we Germans coined the expression 'paperwar'. Sadly, for the average citizen and taxpayer the chances to win even one battle are about the same as they were for the Romans at Cannae.
 
Holdfast for stuff like that, we Germans coined the expression 'paperwar'. Sadly, for the average citizen and taxpayer the chances to win even one battle are about the same as they were for the Romans at Cannae.

:lol: nice comparison.

Well, to keep to the same Punic (and Punning) theme, I suppose my eventual renunciation solution was analogous to that of the Romans: Civis Americanus delenda est! :D
 
Civitas Americana. :p

Oh, well, I'll take your word for it. But I would have thought Civitas Americana would translate as American Civilisation rather than American Citizenship? But it's been far too years since I did any Latin, so yeah, I cede to your version. Still works as an awesomely appropriate pun. :D
 
According to my memory, civitas means both "state", "nation" and "citizenship", so civitas Americana would translate as "American nation" or "American citizenship", depending on context. It's one of those weird language hiccups. On the other hand, cives Americanus would translate as "American citizen": a person, not a status. I did a quick search on on-line sources, and they seem to agree.

At least, that's how I read it.
 
LOL I created a monster! err, I mean: *clare ridens* Exegi monstrum, aere perennium :D

German/Latin dictionaries make a difference:
Cives is a citizen in the legal sense. An inhabitant of a country, regardless of his/her status would be an incola.
Civitas consequently would refer to the political state. A geographical one in the sense of a nation would be gens, natio or populus, the latter being the most neutral of the three as it includes newcomers as well, with gens implying a genetical relationship and natio being derived from nasci [being born], referring mainly (or possibly exclusively) to people who were born in a geographical region.
 
I think the level of Latin here is now so far ahead of what I learnt as a kid that discretion is now certainly the better part of valour. Or, to put in another way, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur...

(*waits patiently for corrections of that well-known - and probably misrembered - quote!*)
 
LOL, actually, I didn't know that quote.
I have an unfair advantage since Latin was one of my A levels (GB) / I majored in Latin (US) - sorry, I am not sure wat the equivalent might be in other countries' school systems.

Having avoided Latin for decades, I discovered only quite recently that I now find Latin far easier than I used to at school. I think it has something to do with both experience in life and experience in foreign languages. Over the years one gets a better feeling for the structure and the correct flow of a language and is able to detect common principles in other languages.


In my job as a biologist / labtech for biology, Latin isn't necessarily required, but it is a good deal easier to remember all these scientific names if you know what they mean. For example: Philopotamus ludificatus is harder to memorize if you are unaware that it means 'the river-loving playful one'
 
Last edited:
Or perhaps you do one thing with the goal of eventually living off that and something else you are less passionate about to pay the bills?

I have an ulterior motive for starting this thread as I'm looking to poach career (maybe not specifics, but industry definitely) ideas from anyone and everything and for some reason I'm find that hard to do in the bread and butter world that I currently inhabit - nobody I know seems to do anything particularly exciting!

So what do you do?

I just turned in my two week notice to Bartell Drugs (its a Seattle drugstore chain. Fun fact, its the oldest Drugstore chain in the country. It was founded in 1890) as an assistant manager and will soon become a store manager at Radio Shack. However before I needed to work a job that made money I was a video game tester. You can eventually make good money doing that, but it was gonna take to long and doing it was gonna bankrupt my family.

:borg:
 
Do you like your new job or do you do it just for the money?
Just curious because I have a badly payed but interesting job and am convinced that if one doesn't like one's job, one can't be really good at it.
 
Im an Office Manager at a residential care home for the elderly, i've been in this position for about 18 months, I started here as a basic admin assistant about 9 years ago.
 
suffering from a rather dement landlady in her mid-80s, you have my heartfelt commiseration :D I imagine that both as an office manager and admin assistant you have/had to deal a lot with complaints and requests that aren't exactly realistic. It can't be easy to always stay patient and friendly.
 
I'm a madman with box.

Granted, it's a big white box with flashy things that I use to try and outrun death. Unfortunately it doesn't do much over 75.

The cops do call me "Doc" so that's kinda cool.
 
Assuming I got that right, that's the coolest description I've ever read for an ambulance driver! :lol:
 
I'm a madman with box.

Granted, it's a big white box with flashy things that I use to try and outrun death. Unfortunately it doesn't do much over 75.

The cops do call me "Doc" so that's kinda cool.


That is a great description!!
 
and an example of medical humour (which is almost as bad as biologist humour :D )

Is there still a heatwave in the US? I imagine with that you'll have a lot of elderly patients with heart failure, stroke and other blood-pressure related problems.
 
It has been abnormally hot here this summer where I live, more days in the 90s than I can remember. It also rains 4 days a week, and if it isn't raining, it just has or is about to.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top