Catching up on the conversation :)

Wow - I would never have known English was a second language until you told me. My native language is Mandarin but after growing up in the US basically my entire life I've let it rust alas.

Check in the spoiler below (and btw this spoiler is for Cinnamon only!! No one else is allowed to look!)

I've added "Ivory Tower" to my to-watch-list. Which is getting ridiculously long xD So the pet store you work at also offers grooming services? Here in Belgium, it's either a pet store or a grooming service, I don't think we have places that do both!

Learning Dutch is probably not very easy or a lot of fun. My sister-in-law's fiance is from Crete and he takes classes to learn Dutch... It's both funny and sad to see him struggle with it sometimes. Funny because of situational humour and sad because you realise that Dutch doesn't have a lot of rules and so the only way to learn it is by rote and experience. A bit like English, except that Dutch pronunciation is probably more difficult for an English speaker than the other way around.

Haha, I'm sure it's all those years of reading fanfiction and roleplaying that have made my English as fluent-seeming as it does =P Also, I might have a genetic predisposition towards languages, considering that my mother speaks even more languages than I do! She speaks fluent Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghai dialect, Dutch, French, English and a smattering of German and some words in Korean and Japanese. Meanwhile I can barely pronounce my own full name, which is why I just tell everybody to call me Hong (Dutch people can -not- pronounce Xiao, but then again neither can I without sounding like a foreigner). I used to be more fluent in Shanghai dialect, but my parents decided that we should speak Dutch at home once I started going to school.

Also, I couldn't help myself. I looked at the spoiler. It is magnificent.

excuse u, they're called 'penetration testers.' Have some r e s p e c t (I used to jerk my family around by insisting on the terminology— but you're absolutely right! I was interested in what they call 'ethical hacking', and I totally could've Snowden'd my way to infamy).

ahh dude, same. Pretty sure I just keep my Hulu account for the 'watch list' more than actually watching anything.

Our store offers supplies, grooming services, boarding services, and adoption services. We also sell fish, birds, and some species of rodents (mice, guinea pigs, gerbils, and the occasional chinchilla). Not all locations do all that, but most these days have a grooming salon! The convenience gives us a steady clientele, so even though we get 'cushy' groom jobs (most of our groomers don't groom for dog shows, for example) it's a pretty solid job financially.

for Bug only!

I don't have a Hulu account, so I'm making do with a simple to-do-list (Google Keep) to keep track of my to-watch and to-read lists.

Wow, that's a lot of services that you offer! Like I said, here in Belgium it's pretty separated.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL, by the way. I'm not fully recovered yet from the food-induced coma I had been in due to the festivities, but I'm getting there xD

As usual, I slept through New Year. No fireworks here, they're banned anyway and bad wind kept official displays off.

Modern Spanish speakers here are a joke. The phrase "your English is worse than your Spanish" is getting to be more true. Me and my siblings speak natively, but not some of my nieces or younger cousins.

If there was a fireworks display here, then I missed it because I was too busy falling into a food coma xD

If you don't mind my asking, where do you live?

First day of BECHA. Your birthday too. It can be fun to have them on these days. Just to compare mine is on May 10th, Dia de las Madres .

Excuse me now, those pecans won't shell themselves.

What's BECHA? Also, thanks for the reminder ;) How have you been? This thread has been pretty quiet...

BECHA is Russian for spring. "Vyesna", sounds familiar... And I've been busy as always, just a few minutes ago me and some aunts have cleaned up my house.

I had pinged you seeing the birthday icon next to you username.

Spring cleaning then? We should probably get to doing that as well, but things are a bit hectic right now so it'll have to wait xD

My cleaning was finished yesterday, I wonder how long I can keep the mess under control.

Are you a messy person by nature then? I'm rather neat (and so is my fiance, thankfully) so spring cleaning for us consists of moving about stuff that is normally never moved to dust it, and airing out the house. Not much cleaning needed otherwise.

Yes and no, I keep busy outside so interior cleaning is usually last. In about an hour I'll resume some spots I've neglected. But after being outside for said hour.

Oh, I see. I'm not a very outdoors-y type of person... I prefer staying inside, tbh xD