Can I have that disease in English, please?

When I was working in the City of London, I found it perfectly acceptable to shout to my colleague across the dealing room: I’m not your dotdotdot secretary! Answer your own dotdotphone. I do admit though, that kind of language was par for the course there. So, it didn’t really feel that bad. At all. Liquid lunches were also the norm. When I was about to quit my job at a Japanese investment bank, my girlfriends and I naturally headed to the pub for a gin and tonic and a bag of salt & vinegar crisps to line our stomachs. At midday. I was already plastered after the first swig - yeah, you tend to make strange choices when you’re deliberating in English about how to tell your Japanese boss - in Japanese - you want to resign. But quit that job I did. And it was a good decision.…

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Movie

What do other people know, that I don’t? Everybody appears to have seen the movie, all of it, every scene. Even the parts that were later cut. And the bloopers. Ah, and the bonus material about what might happen if…. the audience shivers, brrrr, imagine having that condition! Can you pass the popcorn please, come on, let’s watch another movie, this one’s not cool. The thing is, I’m the only one who’s not in the audience. Even though the movie is all about me and the 60,000 other parkinson’s patients in the Netherlands. Even though it’s about the scenarios already laid out for us. I never ever ask myself who wrote that scenario. Never. But I do continually wonder: what did all those people see, that I haven’t seen yet? I mean, they must have seen more than I have, or why else would they keep saying: stay strong, live…

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