I felt the need to start blogging when I started to teach German to refugees in the fall of 2015. I wanted to share my experiences, mainly with friends. Since I have German and English speaking friends it became a bilingual blog: I wrote every piece once in German, once in English, alternating the starting language (today it is English first).
This had two unexpected by-products. For one, my writing became clearer and more succinct because it had to make sense in both languages. Being a professional translator I know that translating a text can lay bare its inherent bullshit. Writing in two languages I caught myself waffling on occasion and tried to be more precise. My pieces, btw, are not straightforward translations. Rather they are written in one language, and then transcribed in the other. In the process I’ll switch from one text to the other, and in that way it will grow.
And secondly, I became a teacher of a different kind. Some friends told me that they started reading the blog because they were interested in the subject but stayed because they enjoyed testing their German or English, whatever the case may be, and learning in the process.
I’ve been writing this blog since August 2015. I’d be honoured if you had a look: Refugees Welcome.
From time to time I wanted to say something that had nothing at all to do with teaching, so I started a secondary blog called Debris of the Mind. I don’t write in it very often, sometimes months go by without a new post. This is also in English and German.
In 2018 we became servants to a black cat and at least the first year of our master, friend, and bedfellow is well documented in Henry is our cat. By now I had realised how much work a bilingual blog is and hence, I only write about Henry in English. He has mostly English speaking fans in any case.
Today, my main blogging is done in Pictures Imperfect (i.e.: this one), a blog consisting mainly of photos, usually responding to a photo challenge prompt, with the occasional short text. What started out as an attempt to show a few pics has developed into a more serious hobby in which I indulge when I need to switch off or just to procrastinate.
pictures imperfect blog 
I found you through Refugees Welcome, and I still enjoy your posts and find your thoughts on your- and their – experiences so interesting. Pictures Imperfect is fun, though I confess to being somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer number of posts you often create in a single day. Debris of the Mind looks interesting, but I’m not at the moment going to subscribe as I already have too many things going on in the Reader!
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Thanks for your comments on my Refugee Welcome blog. I know about the feeling of having too many subscriptions in my feed – and I feel obliged to look at them (silly, I know) but once I see them in my feed it’s like a teaser: I really want to look.
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This was interesting to read! I know you from this blog and now I looked at your other blogs.
Blogging takes time, I know! I started blogging in 2005 and at the best (or worst…), I had way too many blogs! One for my Finnish stories and poems, one for photographs, one for my art, one in English, one in Swedish, one a mock-fashion blog.
Days were different then, there was no Facebook, no Instagram, people had blogs.
Today I have only three blogs, the one for my Finnish stories, the one for photographs and one for my art. That’s enough. Oh, and on Instagram I publish manipulated photos.
Debris of the mind seemed interesting!
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Thanks for checking them out. I wrote the second to last thing on debris two years ago! Thanks for your kind comments. — That really sounds like a lot of blogs. I’ll check out the art one. The Finnish stories won’t do it for me, I’m afraid. 😉
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Wow! You have done so much!
Now, not switch off or procrastinate — that is the switch from sympathetic nervous system to parasympathetic, the relaxed state that is not fight or flight. We need a term for it: lie low and flow? I think the world could use a lot more lie low and flow and less fight or flight. Thank you so much for your blogs!
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My pleasure. I’m just happy that somebody reads them.
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