colin.get("true_true_trini") != NULL ? steups : dammit

Right. Like I was good at slang anyway... To get to the root of that, rewind to my okayish childhood, and my definitely unhappy teenage years.

Ha, ha, you say. You didn't have an abusive step-father, you didn't live the hopelessness of urban ghetto life, you have all your limbs, you're a male - you had no real problems.

Tell that to my hormones. (Back then, of course.) The big problem was that I felt like shite when in truth I was living a comfortable middle-class teenage life. Too nerdy to fit in (anywhere), but not nerdy enough to bring home good enough grades to keep the parents really happy.

I was lucky in that I finally found friends among a few kindred spirits (read: fellow misfits). But for the most part I was derided for speaking in a proper manner, and basically not being really, really crazy about girls. And not making up sexual conquests and harrassing girls as they passed through our school compound (got hit on by a couple of'em though...). And bullied by some, shunned by (many) others because popular opinion was that I was gay. Hey, wanna prove you're cool!? Beat up on Colin! Scrawl "for a good time, call <my phone number>" on a blackboard somewhere! But I digress...

You probably do not know how I really speak, to myself. I do, in fact, speak "Trini" to myself and some close friends and relatives. But to friends I don't know well enough, or relatives, there was always this slight, like Americanised twang to my voice. I blame Sesame Street and my computer books. To this day, I spell the word "program" instead of "programme".

The old reason I put up on the page still holds, though. I did get tired of having to repeat myself, of having to say bad-dur-rees instead of batteries, of having the clerk giggle when I said Scottish instead of Scah-ddish. Yes, I'm sensitive. And a bit of a time-saver, too. Why repeat yourself when you can brush up on your American accent?

In a way, I was never really into Trini culture. The Carnival "thing" escaped me; when my sister would play mas, Mom would go and support her, and then both parents would go to Panorama finals or to a Carnival Saturday lime with friends. I, however, would stay home and play (or make!) video games.

And then, college was more of high school. Many Trinidadians attended there. And no, not the type of Trini that would get into MIT (with a few notable exceptions, like my roommate from sophomore year). And they would just sit at the same tables every day, in their own enclave of sorts, and just talk about the good ole days in Trinidad, the next party, sports or people who live lifestyles they don't agree with (euphemistic expression for, say, gays or atheists...).

While the general student body was less recalcitrant than us Trinis, it was only so many times you could hear sermons about white prejudice, white racism, the one-drop rule ... "so what if you're from the Caribbean? And your grandfather was Indian? And your great grandfather was Chinese? And your great-great-grandmother was Amerindian?They'll still see you as Black!!" Right. And so - as is usually the case in America - I'll end up liming with blacks only, listening to rap, calling women hos etc...

(But I love my skin colour, though.)

Oh, where to fit in.

I took off -- into the city, just to get to know Atlanta, to get away from the dull atmosphere back in college, to just -- get a life.

Most Atlantans have a standard American accent, so that's what I learned.

Next question.