I'm on mission again, which is a direct calque from the French and which sounds a lot more exciting in English than in the original. Although I suppose if it were really exciting then I wouldn't be able to blog about it. No-one else is here yet and the conference doesn't start til Tuesday, so I'm at a loose end, not doing anything except sitting in the hotel room not catching up on sleep and blogging.
I travelled here on Ethiopian Airlines. For a child of the 80s, Ethiopia means Band Aid, Bob Geldof and 'eat your carrots, there are starving children in...'. At the time, I could never understand why my Mum wouldn't agree to physically send the carrots where they might be appreciated a bit more. Imagine my consternation when the cabin crew came round to collect the dinner trays. I almost apologised over the tell-tale carrots lying sheepishly uneaten in the gravy.
On landing, we were treated to tantalisingly spectacular views over the plains and mountains surrounding Addis Ababa. Unfortunately the rest of my Ethiopian experience consisted of dozing in the business lounge, in spite of the interest piqued by leaflets depicting pyramids, markets and ancient ruins.
And now here I am, in a rather different country that is not Ethiopia. I have inadvertently managed to do more or less everything I need to do to catch malaria: opening the windows on arriving in the hotel room (it's an automatic reflex, I just wanted to see the view), walking outside by the pool, sitting by the pool after dark eating pizza (because that's where the hotel bar food was). There's a winged insect that looks like a fly in my bathroom. I hope it is a fly. In a few weeks' time I expect I will know whether it was or not. And I accidentally drank from a glass of coke with ice, before I'd really had time to think about it, so I'm clearly well on the way to a nice bout of tummy trouble, if not full-blown cholera.
If I manage to survive all that, I may even take some photos...
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Rainy days and Mondays
I must have written a post with this title before. I'm sure I have. It's actually not rainy at all but brilliantly sunny, and has been for the past few days.
Here are some random observations about Monday, in no particular order.
- today I sat in a meeting almost entirely in English, German and - a surprise late entry - Polish, which I am fortunately not yet qualified to do. I switched the microphone on a grand total of once and thus escaped a quality control report due to scarcity of evidence.
- the fates were clearly on my side with the quality control thing because I had finally rolled into bed the night before at about 2am. Please don't think that this is because I had anything particularly exciting to do: I've simply discovered that having to climb up stairs to go to bed when you are even only slightly tired is hardly worth it when you could just doze on the sofa in front of BBC3. My evenings involve messing about on the interweb, tinkling away at the piano, flipping channels, occasionally doing something vaguely productive like reading a book or writing a blog post (rarely).
- I ran around the park three times instead of two (in the dark you can be tricked into thinking you haven't run as far) and had a bath for the first time in over a year. Please note that I have washed myself by other methods in the meantime. I reckon that since I'm here on my own and I've already cleaned the bath at least twice since I moved in* it's probably relatively hygienic. Also, I finally have a bathroom which has a window. I've always found it singularly dreary to sit in four inches of tepid, scummy water in a windowless box room, but the fact of being able to lie back and look up at the sunset reflecting off the clouds through the skylight is somehow much more appealing.
- I bought shoes. I can't decide whether I like them or not. I am fed up with the ubiquitous ballet pump slipping off my feet all the time so I bought some rather flimsy tan leather plimsoll-type things - as unlike a trainer as I could possibly find without risking toe cramps. I have not yet paid my accountant. Accountants, since I actually have two, one in Belgium and one in the UK. I owe money to both, but not as much as I would owe to the respective revenue and customs services if I did not pay an accountant to do it all for me.
- I am unable to organise a piss-up. It's meant to be at my home, not in a brewery, but since I live in Belgium I'm sure there must be a suitable brewery relatively near by. This is partly social ineptness, more than partly shyness and a large helping of anxiety, plus I don't really understand how these things work. Do people really want to come and drink wine at my flat? Do I have enough chairs? I certainly don't have enough wine glasses. If people don't have fun, is it my fault?
- I am in the throes of a crise sentimentale, which pretty unclear to both of us. I think at the moment it is back on, largely due to the soothing influence of gorgeous autumn sunshine for the whole weekend and a long, slightly hungover romantic walk in the woods. Maybe Belgium and its meteorology are on my side after all.
- I keep forgetting to water the plant. He gave it to me. I only have to water it once a week. The designated watering day is Wednesday and I keep missing it (Wednesday is an easy day to overlook, with all those other things going on to distract you, like Tuesday and Thursday). He says that this is ironically symbolic, or symbolically ironic, or something like that.
Right. Time to tackle those stairs.
*nearly two months ago, so not so good after all.
Here are some random observations about Monday, in no particular order.
- today I sat in a meeting almost entirely in English, German and - a surprise late entry - Polish, which I am fortunately not yet qualified to do. I switched the microphone on a grand total of once and thus escaped a quality control report due to scarcity of evidence.
- the fates were clearly on my side with the quality control thing because I had finally rolled into bed the night before at about 2am. Please don't think that this is because I had anything particularly exciting to do: I've simply discovered that having to climb up stairs to go to bed when you are even only slightly tired is hardly worth it when you could just doze on the sofa in front of BBC3. My evenings involve messing about on the interweb, tinkling away at the piano, flipping channels, occasionally doing something vaguely productive like reading a book or writing a blog post (rarely).
- I ran around the park three times instead of two (in the dark you can be tricked into thinking you haven't run as far) and had a bath for the first time in over a year. Please note that I have washed myself by other methods in the meantime. I reckon that since I'm here on my own and I've already cleaned the bath at least twice since I moved in* it's probably relatively hygienic. Also, I finally have a bathroom which has a window. I've always found it singularly dreary to sit in four inches of tepid, scummy water in a windowless box room, but the fact of being able to lie back and look up at the sunset reflecting off the clouds through the skylight is somehow much more appealing.
- I bought shoes. I can't decide whether I like them or not. I am fed up with the ubiquitous ballet pump slipping off my feet all the time so I bought some rather flimsy tan leather plimsoll-type things - as unlike a trainer as I could possibly find without risking toe cramps. I have not yet paid my accountant. Accountants, since I actually have two, one in Belgium and one in the UK. I owe money to both, but not as much as I would owe to the respective revenue and customs services if I did not pay an accountant to do it all for me.
- I am unable to organise a piss-up. It's meant to be at my home, not in a brewery, but since I live in Belgium I'm sure there must be a suitable brewery relatively near by. This is partly social ineptness, more than partly shyness and a large helping of anxiety, plus I don't really understand how these things work. Do people really want to come and drink wine at my flat? Do I have enough chairs? I certainly don't have enough wine glasses. If people don't have fun, is it my fault?
- I am in the throes of a crise sentimentale, which pretty unclear to both of us. I think at the moment it is back on, largely due to the soothing influence of gorgeous autumn sunshine for the whole weekend and a long, slightly hungover romantic walk in the woods. Maybe Belgium and its meteorology are on my side after all.
- I keep forgetting to water the plant. He gave it to me. I only have to water it once a week. The designated watering day is Wednesday and I keep missing it (Wednesday is an easy day to overlook, with all those other things going on to distract you, like Tuesday and Thursday). He says that this is ironically symbolic, or symbolically ironic, or something like that.
Right. Time to tackle those stairs.
*nearly two months ago, so not so good after all.
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Moving on up
I think I've written about Polish yuppies before. A couple of years ago maybe.
I just spent the weekend in Warsaw, visiting my old flatmate* and hanging out with some of her friends. My flatmate moved to Warsaw to work for a consulting company and she rents a studio of a rather similar size and layout to the one I rent in Brussels.
We took the tram out to her friends' place in the suburbs. The sky was overcast, rain threatened, blocks loomed grey and relentless out of the dusk. Then, after about twenty minutes, the blocks thinned out and started to look tidier. Some of them were painted in pastel colours. Sloping gables were added and frosted-glass balconies.
We stepped off the tram and scuttled across the road after waiting several minutes in vain for a green light at the pedestrian crossing. The directions led alongside one of the blocks. There were no pavements alongside the roads, only - in some places - gravel edging rather weedy land which may or may not have been destined for landscaping or lawns at a later date. This was not a place for pedestrians. On the ground floor of the block we passed two banks, a hairdresser, a sushi restaurant, a dental surgery. We crossed another road and walked alongside another block (this one so new that some of the flats still had tape on the windows) until we reached the furthest entrance.
Inside, the block of flats resembled nothing so much as a smart hotel. The concierge was seated behind a smooth, gunmetal grey desk. We called the lifts which - in stark contrast - were still lined with chipboard (my flatmate's friend later explained that this was because people were still moving in heavy items of furniture and they didn't want to damage the inside of the lift).
Inside the apartment was immaculate (although the owners and their kitten had moved in only a week or so before), pre-furnished, fully equipped. We were awestruck.
We ate courgettes with mozzarella, fried chicken, garlic bread. Washed down with Polish beer of course. The conversation touched on the housing market, flat pack furniture, Warsaw, work. The same things that young professionals in London and Brussels talk about. Although in London there's now an undercurrent of tension - young people work long hours, everyone is concerned for their job, their mortgage, their student loans.
Why did this strike me so much? I suppose because in London no-one I know can afford a fully-equipped new build: in London, even half an hour from the city centre is still more or less in the city centre and therefore too close to be affordable. Also all the old-fashioned stereotypes about Poland: that people live in tiny apartments, earn peanuts, are strict Catholics who would never dream of getting a mortgage with someone without the social and moral security of a wedding ring apiece first. Oh and the firm conviction that all young professionals have, that determination and hard work are enough to get you a good job and a comfortable lifestyle and that anyone who can't manage this is just lazy. Rather like the French, back in 2007...
I'm not so sure on this last point. I feel that I'm very lucky finally to be able to do what I've wanted to do at least since leaving university.
- yes, said my flatmate - but you did work hard to get there.
Yes, I did, but I was also born in Sevenoaks, in a country where women are free to get an education, leave the house unaccompanied, wear whatever we like. In a region where there was decent state education in the form of grammar schools. Lucky, right?
* warning: it's in Hungarian. Frustratingly, Google Translate is no use at all...
I just spent the weekend in Warsaw, visiting my old flatmate* and hanging out with some of her friends. My flatmate moved to Warsaw to work for a consulting company and she rents a studio of a rather similar size and layout to the one I rent in Brussels.
We took the tram out to her friends' place in the suburbs. The sky was overcast, rain threatened, blocks loomed grey and relentless out of the dusk. Then, after about twenty minutes, the blocks thinned out and started to look tidier. Some of them were painted in pastel colours. Sloping gables were added and frosted-glass balconies.
We stepped off the tram and scuttled across the road after waiting several minutes in vain for a green light at the pedestrian crossing. The directions led alongside one of the blocks. There were no pavements alongside the roads, only - in some places - gravel edging rather weedy land which may or may not have been destined for landscaping or lawns at a later date. This was not a place for pedestrians. On the ground floor of the block we passed two banks, a hairdresser, a sushi restaurant, a dental surgery. We crossed another road and walked alongside another block (this one so new that some of the flats still had tape on the windows) until we reached the furthest entrance.
Inside, the block of flats resembled nothing so much as a smart hotel. The concierge was seated behind a smooth, gunmetal grey desk. We called the lifts which - in stark contrast - were still lined with chipboard (my flatmate's friend later explained that this was because people were still moving in heavy items of furniture and they didn't want to damage the inside of the lift).
Inside the apartment was immaculate (although the owners and their kitten had moved in only a week or so before), pre-furnished, fully equipped. We were awestruck.
We ate courgettes with mozzarella, fried chicken, garlic bread. Washed down with Polish beer of course. The conversation touched on the housing market, flat pack furniture, Warsaw, work. The same things that young professionals in London and Brussels talk about. Although in London there's now an undercurrent of tension - young people work long hours, everyone is concerned for their job, their mortgage, their student loans.
Why did this strike me so much? I suppose because in London no-one I know can afford a fully-equipped new build: in London, even half an hour from the city centre is still more or less in the city centre and therefore too close to be affordable. Also all the old-fashioned stereotypes about Poland: that people live in tiny apartments, earn peanuts, are strict Catholics who would never dream of getting a mortgage with someone without the social and moral security of a wedding ring apiece first. Oh and the firm conviction that all young professionals have, that determination and hard work are enough to get you a good job and a comfortable lifestyle and that anyone who can't manage this is just lazy. Rather like the French, back in 2007...
I'm not so sure on this last point. I feel that I'm very lucky finally to be able to do what I've wanted to do at least since leaving university.
- yes, said my flatmate - but you did work hard to get there.
Yes, I did, but I was also born in Sevenoaks, in a country where women are free to get an education, leave the house unaccompanied, wear whatever we like. In a region where there was decent state education in the form of grammar schools. Lucky, right?
* warning: it's in Hungarian. Frustratingly, Google Translate is no use at all...
Sunday, 20 June 2010
On being Grown Up
I just lost an entire Saturday to a hangover, something which hasn't happened to me since at least... um.. well, since I left Poland anyway. As far as I can tell, I have a critical mass point where alcohol, lack of sleep and proper food are combined, and after which a full-blown vomiting migraine is guaranteed, regardless of how much I have actually drunk. On days like these, I can feel my brain swelling against the inside of my skull and I can't even keep down water. When I was a child, I used to get these attacks without the help of alcohol at all, so, looking on the bright side, at least these days I get to do something fun to deserve it first.
- but I didn't think you drank that much last night...
- *writhing* It's not really about how much.
- can I use your coffee machine?
- do whatever you like (but stop talking to me)
- would you like some baguette?
- *starts to retch*
- it's really fresh. mmm...
I am sure that by now I should know better. I should be able to listen to my instincts, and refuse that last pintje. I should eat sensibly, go jogging in the morning instead of last thing at night, and pay my bills As Soon As They Arrive, and not three days after the deadline (guilty). My life should be organised in all departments: but it's not...
- Work: I should go to bed at 10pm on a school night. I should file my glossaries Straight After The Meeting, and not three weeks later, when I'm looking for something else altogether, and when I can't remember which stray page belonged to which working group. I should not be flying down the hill at 9.50 am, with my hair only half-dry and make-up smeared on haphazardly, scattering a trail of scarves and documents and access badges behind me.
It is not grown-up to be childishly excited about working in the Parliament, which feels overwhelmingly like Darth Vadar's Death Star, or on the secret top floor of the Commission, which resembles nothing so much as the command bridge of the Starship Enterprise, poised to launch itself out over a - probably largely apathetic - Brussels. I resolve also to develop greater lift management skills. There must have been trainee Storm Troopers who leaned against the alarm button in the Death Star lifts on their second day and were startled by a disembodied voice saying 'Deespatcheeng bonjour?'. Fortunately the lift stopped at my floor before they had a chance to come and dispatch me and I left my fellow traveller explaining that 'oui, c'etait une erreur, il y avait une dame qui...'
- Housework: I am officially a slattern. I don't think I've vaccuumed the flat since before my sister's hen party in Edinburgh. The bath has a greasy grey scum ring around the plughole. I've run out of shelf space for books, so any new acquisitions (which are frequent) are piled up next to the sofa. I can't put down my keys or glasses on any surface because I won't be able to find them again. I am fielding gentle hints like: 'that bin looks ready to take itself out' and 'you know, it's so much nicer when things are tidy'. A lot of colleagues have cleaning ladies (mostly Polish), but I'm too embarrassed to admit that I can't keep fifteen square metres of studio clean all by myself. Plus I'd never tidy the flat in time for her arrival. And I seem - however improbably - to have inherited some hugely misplaced working class pride from somewhere. Possibly from my mother, who would have got it from her mother who spent most of her life as a maid, companion, dinner lady, etc. I'm faintly ashamed at the thought of someone else coming in and scrubbing my loo (in any case I would do it better: bordering on the obsessive).
- Luurve: uuf. I should be able to play it cool, instead of ... um... holding hands on the second date. I should not send drunk text messages. My mobile phone (and facebook) should come equipped with breathalysing devices. I must learn not to break out in a cold sweat or to visibly shudder at the sound of the words 'boyfriend', 'girlfriend', 'relationship' or 'children'. Eek.
- Food: I will finish a lettuce before it goes all slimy in the bottom of my fridge. I will do the washing up properly, and not leave it out until brackish dishwater stains the plates and I have to wash them all over again. I will eat fruit. Every day.
In my Masters year at Bath, things got a little competitive, and even the lunch table was not exempt from the madness. We would sit down together, sneak furtive glances across at our dining companions, and then whip open our lunchboxes. Out would come neat sticks of celery, chunks of cucumber, carrot batons. At particularly stressful moments, I would take a wholemeal pitta stuffed with lettuce, sliced tomatoes and the most fragile of reduced-fat cheddar shards scraped from the edge of the block. Mineral water was the order of the day, and there was a fierce contest to see who could get their full five-a-day into their packed lunch.
Oh, and the following do not constitute a healthy breakfast: chocolate cereal, waffles, Speculoos spread, leftover pizza.
Summer: I must organise a) my Poland trip b) a place to live in September. Before I leave in two weeks...
I will also go to the dentist, some time, definitely. Oh crap, and pay my social security.
Above all, I must stop splashing in puddles when it rains. Which after all in Brussels is pretty much all the time.
You see my problem?! Are you grown-up yet? Would you be afraid of your cleaning lady?
- but I didn't think you drank that much last night...
- *writhing* It's not really about how much.
- can I use your coffee machine?
- do whatever you like (but stop talking to me)
- would you like some baguette?
- *starts to retch*
- it's really fresh. mmm...
I am sure that by now I should know better. I should be able to listen to my instincts, and refuse that last pintje. I should eat sensibly, go jogging in the morning instead of last thing at night, and pay my bills As Soon As They Arrive, and not three days after the deadline (guilty). My life should be organised in all departments: but it's not...
- Work: I should go to bed at 10pm on a school night. I should file my glossaries Straight After The Meeting, and not three weeks later, when I'm looking for something else altogether, and when I can't remember which stray page belonged to which working group. I should not be flying down the hill at 9.50 am, with my hair only half-dry and make-up smeared on haphazardly, scattering a trail of scarves and documents and access badges behind me.
It is not grown-up to be childishly excited about working in the Parliament, which feels overwhelmingly like Darth Vadar's Death Star, or on the secret top floor of the Commission, which resembles nothing so much as the command bridge of the Starship Enterprise, poised to launch itself out over a - probably largely apathetic - Brussels. I resolve also to develop greater lift management skills. There must have been trainee Storm Troopers who leaned against the alarm button in the Death Star lifts on their second day and were startled by a disembodied voice saying 'Deespatcheeng bonjour?'. Fortunately the lift stopped at my floor before they had a chance to come and dispatch me and I left my fellow traveller explaining that 'oui, c'etait une erreur, il y avait une dame qui...'
- Housework: I am officially a slattern. I don't think I've vaccuumed the flat since before my sister's hen party in Edinburgh. The bath has a greasy grey scum ring around the plughole. I've run out of shelf space for books, so any new acquisitions (which are frequent) are piled up next to the sofa. I can't put down my keys or glasses on any surface because I won't be able to find them again. I am fielding gentle hints like: 'that bin looks ready to take itself out' and 'you know, it's so much nicer when things are tidy'. A lot of colleagues have cleaning ladies (mostly Polish), but I'm too embarrassed to admit that I can't keep fifteen square metres of studio clean all by myself. Plus I'd never tidy the flat in time for her arrival. And I seem - however improbably - to have inherited some hugely misplaced working class pride from somewhere. Possibly from my mother, who would have got it from her mother who spent most of her life as a maid, companion, dinner lady, etc. I'm faintly ashamed at the thought of someone else coming in and scrubbing my loo (in any case I would do it better: bordering on the obsessive).
- Luurve: uuf. I should be able to play it cool, instead of ... um... holding hands on the second date. I should not send drunk text messages. My mobile phone (and facebook) should come equipped with breathalysing devices. I must learn not to break out in a cold sweat or to visibly shudder at the sound of the words 'boyfriend', 'girlfriend', 'relationship' or 'children'. Eek.
- Food: I will finish a lettuce before it goes all slimy in the bottom of my fridge. I will do the washing up properly, and not leave it out until brackish dishwater stains the plates and I have to wash them all over again. I will eat fruit. Every day.
In my Masters year at Bath, things got a little competitive, and even the lunch table was not exempt from the madness. We would sit down together, sneak furtive glances across at our dining companions, and then whip open our lunchboxes. Out would come neat sticks of celery, chunks of cucumber, carrot batons. At particularly stressful moments, I would take a wholemeal pitta stuffed with lettuce, sliced tomatoes and the most fragile of reduced-fat cheddar shards scraped from the edge of the block. Mineral water was the order of the day, and there was a fierce contest to see who could get their full five-a-day into their packed lunch.
Oh, and the following do not constitute a healthy breakfast: chocolate cereal, waffles, Speculoos spread, leftover pizza.
Summer: I must organise a) my Poland trip b) a place to live in September. Before I leave in two weeks...
I will also go to the dentist, some time, definitely. Oh crap, and pay my social security.
Above all, I must stop splashing in puddles when it rains. Which after all in Brussels is pretty much all the time.
You see my problem?! Are you grown-up yet? Would you be afraid of your cleaning lady?
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Out of Office
Monday, 7 June 2010
Sunday, 21 February 2010
oh gosh... (again)
I am Working tomorrow, like, properly working, outside, with other people!
This means I have to:
- have a bath
- get dressed before midday
- put make-up on
- leave the flat
On the other hand, it also means that I must not:
- talk to myself
- check the blog during office hours
- take shoes off
- eat hair/pick nose/pick toenails* at desk
- get up every ten minutes to make tea
- mention Poland/my dog every other sentence.
oh gosh... it's going to be hard.
*not that I actually do any of those disgusting things, who me? What were you thinking?!
This means I have to:
- have a bath
- get dressed before midday
- put make-up on
- leave the flat
On the other hand, it also means that I must not:
- talk to myself
- check the blog during office hours
- take shoes off
- eat hair/pick nose/pick toenails* at desk
- get up every ten minutes to make tea
- mention Poland/my dog every other sentence.
oh gosh... it's going to be hard.
*not that I actually do any of those disgusting things, who me? What were you thinking?!
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Freelancing pour les nuls
A friend recently dived off the solid rock of in-house employment into the icy (often shark-infested) waters of the freelance market.
We were discussing the various aspects of working from home, cancelled contracts, weekends spent hunched over a hot laptop, a slave driver of a boss who has you up at all hours to meet a deadline (psst - by the way, that boss is You).
- But doesn't it drive you a bit nuts working from home on your own??
- No it's fine, really. I only ever go two or three days at the most without speaking to anyone.
- Two or three days?!
- It might be a good idea to get a television...
I've been going it alone for about a year and a half now, but only then did I suddenly realise how horrifying it all sounds.
Fortunately, I've found this helpful - if rather patronising - brief guide on how to be a freelancer. All you need to know on how to work from home... and not go utterly nuts.
1/ Make sure you eat properly. Properly means high-fibre breakfast cereal, lean proteins and green vegetables. You will be a lean, mean translating machine. It does not include Liegois waffles, Leffe brune or Nutella.
Eat at a table or - if no table is available - in front of the television. Munching over the computer keyboard (especially while Skyping) is strictly disgusting and we would never dream of doing such a thing.
2/ Leave the house once a day. Checking your letterbox does not count. Good excuses for leaving the house include: running out of milk, buying European Voice (I know you can read it online, but just pretend), visiting the Bureau des Etrangers, going jogging. If you are having trouble getting out of the house to do exercise, try buying new sports shoes or a high-tech sweat-absorbing hat. The prospect of sport is far more enticing when it involves outfits.
3/ Speak to at least one (real) person a day. This can be the lady at the Post Office, the bloke behind the counter at the 24-hour corner shop, the customer services staff at Mobistar, etc. NB Skype chat absolutely does not count.
4/ Maintain your sartorial elegance. Try to be out of your pyjamas by noon. Make sure you own more than one pair of sweatpants. So that you can wash them at least once a week. Remember where you left your hairbrush. Compensate for lack of grooming by wearing very girly earrings.
If you find yourself pulling on a pair of old comfy jeans every day... well done. You still haven't hit the bottom. Real home-workers find jeans formal and restrictive and are longing to ease them off and hang out in baggy tracksuit bottoms.
5/ Try to moderate time spent sitting in front of the computer screen. Do not on any account spend your evenings checking Facebook, scrawling on Twitter or writing blog posts. That is what office hours are for.
6/ Build up a good network of colleagues. You can then meet for regular lunch and coffee breaks. This is an excellent procrastination strategy as it will take you at least twenty minutes to get to the meeting point and back. Plus it counts as work (especially if you speak in foreign).
7/ Build up a good network ofother layabouts people who like to drink during the week. This is a lot more important than you would think: Monday morning deadlines are pretty common, which tends to put a damper on your weekend. Then, when you get to Wednesday and are gasping for a G&T, you have someone to call on. This network may include other freelancers, students, the long-term unemployed, musicians, British people.
8/ Remember what time of day it is. This is trickier than you might think. Investing in an alarm clock is probably a good idea. If you can, try and remember the days of the week. It's nice to have an Actual Paper Diary, with little paper corners you can tear off. When things become chronologically distressing, it gives you something comforting to hold on to.
9/ Remember that none of the following are abnormal: talking to yourself, talking to the television, jumping when the phone rings, giving names to household appliances.
That's about it.
Thank goodness for that.
We were discussing the various aspects of working from home, cancelled contracts, weekends spent hunched over a hot laptop, a slave driver of a boss who has you up at all hours to meet a deadline (psst - by the way, that boss is You).
- But doesn't it drive you a bit nuts working from home on your own??
- No it's fine, really. I only ever go two or three days at the most without speaking to anyone.
- Two or three days?!
- It might be a good idea to get a television...
I've been going it alone for about a year and a half now, but only then did I suddenly realise how horrifying it all sounds.
Fortunately, I've found this helpful - if rather patronising - brief guide on how to be a freelancer. All you need to know on how to work from home... and not go utterly nuts.
1/ Make sure you eat properly. Properly means high-fibre breakfast cereal, lean proteins and green vegetables. You will be a lean, mean translating machine. It does not include Liegois waffles, Leffe brune or Nutella.
Eat at a table or - if no table is available - in front of the television. Munching over the computer keyboard (especially while Skyping) is strictly disgusting and we would never dream of doing such a thing.
2/ Leave the house once a day. Checking your letterbox does not count. Good excuses for leaving the house include: running out of milk, buying European Voice (I know you can read it online, but just pretend), visiting the Bureau des Etrangers, going jogging. If you are having trouble getting out of the house to do exercise, try buying new sports shoes or a high-tech sweat-absorbing hat. The prospect of sport is far more enticing when it involves outfits.
3/ Speak to at least one (real) person a day. This can be the lady at the Post Office, the bloke behind the counter at the 24-hour corner shop, the customer services staff at Mobistar, etc. NB Skype chat absolutely does not count.
4/ Maintain your sartorial elegance. Try to be out of your pyjamas by noon. Make sure you own more than one pair of sweatpants. So that you can wash them at least once a week. Remember where you left your hairbrush. Compensate for lack of grooming by wearing very girly earrings.
If you find yourself pulling on a pair of old comfy jeans every day... well done. You still haven't hit the bottom. Real home-workers find jeans formal and restrictive and are longing to ease them off and hang out in baggy tracksuit bottoms.
5/ Try to moderate time spent sitting in front of the computer screen. Do not on any account spend your evenings checking Facebook, scrawling on Twitter or writing blog posts. That is what office hours are for.
6/ Build up a good network of colleagues. You can then meet for regular lunch and coffee breaks. This is an excellent procrastination strategy as it will take you at least twenty minutes to get to the meeting point and back. Plus it counts as work (especially if you speak in foreign).
7/ Build up a good network of
8/ Remember what time of day it is. This is trickier than you might think. Investing in an alarm clock is probably a good idea. If you can, try and remember the days of the week. It's nice to have an Actual Paper Diary, with little paper corners you can tear off. When things become chronologically distressing, it gives you something comforting to hold on to.
9/ Remember that none of the following are abnormal: talking to yourself, talking to the television, jumping when the phone rings, giving names to household appliances.
That's about it.
Thank goodness for that.
Sunday, 8 November 2009
Mąż do wynajęcia!
Or rather 'Husband for hire!'
Not the desperate cry of a frustrated housewife, but the name of a new agency recently set up in Warsaw and featured in GazetaPraca.pl.
Yep, in a bid to beat the recession, ordinary Polish guys are renting themselves out to put up shelves, deal with spiders, accompany single thirtysomethings to awkward family dinners, explain the off-side rule and generally make themselves useful. The owner of the firm, one Massymiliano Boscaro, is quick to add that more intimate services are most definitely off the cards.
Apparently the agency is popular with women who feel let down by their own less-than-perfect spouses as well as single over-thirties whom Mr Right has passed by. Sometimes even men call in.
Unlike real husbands, according to the author, these professionals actually clean up after themselves.
Poland never fails to surprise me.
Link to the article here.
Not the desperate cry of a frustrated housewife, but the name of a new agency recently set up in Warsaw and featured in GazetaPraca.pl.
Yep, in a bid to beat the recession, ordinary Polish guys are renting themselves out to put up shelves, deal with spiders, accompany single thirtysomethings to awkward family dinners, explain the off-side rule and generally make themselves useful. The owner of the firm, one Massymiliano Boscaro, is quick to add that more intimate services are most definitely off the cards.
Apparently the agency is popular with women who feel let down by their own less-than-perfect spouses as well as single over-thirties whom Mr Right has passed by. Sometimes even men call in.
Unlike real husbands, according to the author, these professionals actually clean up after themselves.
Poland never fails to surprise me.
Link to the article here.
Sunday, 1 March 2009
Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant
Phew it's been a little while.
I'm finding that after all perhaps I'm not able to continue translating away as usual while attending classes during the day and trying not to forget my zadanie domowe.
The past two weeks have seen me at the computer well into the evening most days, and it seems I can't do the one without affecting the other: silly errors creep into my work and I blabber out the wrong verb ending in grammar classes. Of course neither of these indicate the end of the world - but my feeling that I only exist to work and no longer have any time to do the things that make me an independent human being does. It is time to get organised.
But first, I have a confession to make.
In my first week back in Kraków, I went on a Big Adventure: I followed my flatmate to her salsa class and sat on the bench watching. All those couples, lined up around the room, rocking back and forth to the rhythm of the music*... before long I was tapping my feet and swaying along with them.
Three weeks later and I've (full of nervous excitement) signed up for a class myself.
Not the same one as my flatmate of course, she's on poziom 3, while I'm only 'podstawowe'. We do have one thing in common though: both of us dread that moment immediately after the warm-up and initial solo work, when everyone pairs up and the dance instructor's voice rings out with the hated words:
Kto nie ma partnera??
Then we look at the floor, or up at the ceiling, or at something very interesting on the far wall of the dance studio, or - when I'm feeling brave - at the other one or two ladies who happen to be unaccompanied on that particular evening.
Yes, I'm afraid it's true. The social depravity of your humble author knows no bounds. Not only does she engage in the highly inappropriate practice of Speaking Polish with other Foreigners**, oh no, worse still! On a regular basis she breaches the golden benchmark of social good taste:
Being a single woman at a salsa class.
Think about it. What normal guy goes to dance classes, except under duress and on the end of a short lead pulled by his girlfriend? For a girl to show up on her own at a dance class and knock the numbers out of shape is not only inappropriate, why, it's just plain rude!
Fortunately the whole process works on the basis of rotacja. There's no point learning to dance with just one person, in the same way that you have to learn to play on different pianos, work with different interpreting systems and change your socks from time to time. Every few bars the guys move on to the next girl and I get hazy flashbacks to alcohol-fuelled university ceilidhs (or perhaps the Ukrainian Man-snatching dance)
Effectively this means that I spend two evenings a week dancing with Other People's Boyfriends.
They usually look more nervous than I do about the whole endeavour.
Anyway, it's going well, and I can do three steps now (two of which involve turning around). I practice in front of the kitchen window in the dark, while the cat dashes itself against the table legs in excitement.
Some day I hope to take my new-found skills to a dance club... but not until I've finished my Polish homework.
*generally a bizarre Latino version of Coldplay's Clocks
**when the other linguistic options are Japanese, Hungarian or American, I think you can see my point.
I'm finding that after all perhaps I'm not able to continue translating away as usual while attending classes during the day and trying not to forget my zadanie domowe.
The past two weeks have seen me at the computer well into the evening most days, and it seems I can't do the one without affecting the other: silly errors creep into my work and I blabber out the wrong verb ending in grammar classes. Of course neither of these indicate the end of the world - but my feeling that I only exist to work and no longer have any time to do the things that make me an independent human being does. It is time to get organised.
But first, I have a confession to make.
In my first week back in Kraków, I went on a Big Adventure: I followed my flatmate to her salsa class and sat on the bench watching. All those couples, lined up around the room, rocking back and forth to the rhythm of the music*... before long I was tapping my feet and swaying along with them.
Three weeks later and I've (full of nervous excitement) signed up for a class myself.
Not the same one as my flatmate of course, she's on poziom 3, while I'm only 'podstawowe'. We do have one thing in common though: both of us dread that moment immediately after the warm-up and initial solo work, when everyone pairs up and the dance instructor's voice rings out with the hated words:
Kto nie ma partnera??
Then we look at the floor, or up at the ceiling, or at something very interesting on the far wall of the dance studio, or - when I'm feeling brave - at the other one or two ladies who happen to be unaccompanied on that particular evening.
Yes, I'm afraid it's true. The social depravity of your humble author knows no bounds. Not only does she engage in the highly inappropriate practice of Speaking Polish with other Foreigners**, oh no, worse still! On a regular basis she breaches the golden benchmark of social good taste:
Being a single woman at a salsa class.
Think about it. What normal guy goes to dance classes, except under duress and on the end of a short lead pulled by his girlfriend? For a girl to show up on her own at a dance class and knock the numbers out of shape is not only inappropriate, why, it's just plain rude!
Fortunately the whole process works on the basis of rotacja. There's no point learning to dance with just one person, in the same way that you have to learn to play on different pianos, work with different interpreting systems and change your socks from time to time. Every few bars the guys move on to the next girl and I get hazy flashbacks to alcohol-fuelled university ceilidhs (or perhaps the Ukrainian Man-snatching dance)
Effectively this means that I spend two evenings a week dancing with Other People's Boyfriends.
They usually look more nervous than I do about the whole endeavour.
Anyway, it's going well, and I can do three steps now (two of which involve turning around). I practice in front of the kitchen window in the dark, while the cat dashes itself against the table legs in excitement.
Some day I hope to take my new-found skills to a dance club... but not until I've finished my Polish homework.
*generally a bizarre Latino version of Coldplay's Clocks
**when the other linguistic options are Japanese, Hungarian or American, I think you can see my point.
Thursday, 29 January 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
