Fresh as a daisy? Weekend maths

This past week and a half has definitely been one of the best weeks in my life. Planning, travelling, sightseeing, socialising, a potatoes&cheese diet, active and proactive listening are great fun indeed! But jeez, they are tiring! I've always assessed my level of tiredness based on what I was doing at weekends.

The first three years Edinburgh weekends = parties. Ok, maybe not every single weekend, but quite a few. You only live once, right?

Weekends in fourth year = dinners and quiet nights in (with some great company, I have to say). We seemed to realise that there was too much work to do for us to go out and then spend the whole of Sunday recovering.

Weekends during my master's = reading newspapers, watching the news, drinking tea and meeting friends. One's got to do what one's got to do.

Now, I seem to only have (de)Lux weekends. This time my Saturday can be summarised as follows:

- 17 hours of sleep hybernation
- 2 hours spent tidying up my flat
- 3 loads of laundry
- 30 euros spent on food for the week
- 1 long shower
- 1 great coffee (sadly enough, weekends are the only time when I manage to have good coffee)
- 2 chapters read from a very good book

The result? 

And suddenly the dormant party animal inside me awakened to this song. Not my kind of music at all, usually, but I guess I just needed to dance. With my face mask on, of course.

Jeune et conne

That's how you feel when you spend more time packing than actually living.

And yet, you realise how useful all that late-night packing for the burgh was, with dad standing at the door like a lieutenant going:

"Dana, focus, it's really important that you don't forget anything. Do you have:

- your passport
- any other documents you may need
- money
- keys
- tickets
- phone
- charger
- a piece of paper and a pen (never trust technology, it'll let you down when you need it the most)
- toothbrush
- toothpaste
- deodorant
- pijamas
- a bottle of water
- knickers
- socks
..."

Yes, dad. I even remembered to take four Allen keys with me in case my faithful companion needed fixed, a banana and today's LeMonde (which I obviously haven't read yet), as well as an extra pair of trousers, should I accidentally spill beer/hot chocolate on myself. That's what I call growing up. No, mum, sorry, but I refuse to iron my clothes. That's what I call being jeune et conne :)

Freedom is addictive

The more you have, the more you want. Today I can say I manage to cause a traffic jam in town because the ramp on the bus got stuck. All the passengers had to leave the bus and the poor bus driver had to deal with angry drivers waiting behind him. I then took the train and the ramp got stuck and wouldn't come back in there either. Yes, everyone has days off, even ramps!

Life is good. Very good. And yet, the better it gets, the more I want.

I want to be able to go to Swedish classes without having to worry about how I will get to the train station.

I want to get to the train station at the very last minute without being told that I should have got there at least 30 minutes earlier.

I don't want to have to plan everything ahead and pick a different wheelchair every morning, depending on what I am going to do (If I am going out with people/to someone's place, I need to take the manual wheelchair, if I am going for a longer walk which doesn't involve buses, I need to take the electric one).

I want people to stop patronising me (but still help me when I ask for help).

I want to be able to get dressed in 5 minutes (well, getting there :)

I want people to stop talking to my friends when, in fact, they should be talking to me directly.

I want to be always on the move without anything stopping me (yet, please let me sleep at weekends :)

That said, the world is not a bad place. I just hope each of us is doing their bit to make it even better. After all, what's important in life is to spread happiness. Hungry Mika certainly knows how to do that, don't you think?

Mood swings - Lux comme il faut (Part II)

Blame it on the cold, tiredness, sleep depravation or that time of the month... These days I simply don't get myself. Let me try to explain.

I go from:

"I cannot take this pace anymore! Bloody traffic, I want to sleep!"
 to
"I want to stay here, live here and work here"

From:

"I love this job and my colleagues are so nice!"

To:
"Oh, but I will never pass the EPSO test."

Followed by:                

"Bloody selection procedures, wish I was old enough in 2004."                                                    

or

"Why would I bother spending a whole year to prepare to then fail miserably?" (thinking I am going to fail is typical of me)

and

"I am not good enough, look at the mistakes I make"

yet, 10 seconds later...

"Oh, but look at this! Isn't this a BRILLIANT solution?"

and again

"Stop pretending, you are a fake Slovene, you can't be a translator/interpreter at the EU."

"Other people do it better."


Yes, it's hard to live with a head like mine!

*      *       *     *      *     *      *     *      *       *      *       *      *        *       *       *       *        *         *

You ask my dad and he goes:

- There is an exam, right?
- Yes, but it's difficult.
- Then what?
- And even if I do pass, it might take ages before I actually get hold of a job.
- Then what?! You've got time. Try and you'll ace it!

Oh, sometimes I wish I were a guy!

En roue libre...ou presque - Lux comme il faut (pas) Part II

This last week has been very demanding. Not only for the amount of work/meetings/activities planned, but also because of a terrible, terrible cold I caught. Of course I didn't want to stay at home with all the deadlines approaching so I kept going to work despite looking like a zombie and despite some people tried hard to scare me off: "The cold is just the first step. Then you get pneumonia. And then a heart infection. And then you die". Luckily I am still alive, although my red nose makes me look like a drunkard and laughing is still painful (every time I laugh I start caughing like a hardcore smoker in the morning). One of the worst things about having a cold is that you don't smell absolutely anything, while people around you keep going: "Mmmmm, ça sent bon!" Frustrating.

Cold aside I am happy. Very happy. And people seem to notice it. I know my happiness should not depend on what other people think of me, but let's be honest, positive feedback has never done any harm. So far people have been very happy with my translations (transterpretations is probably a more appropriate term, given that the first draft is almost always a sight translation) and I have even managed to make some quite clever comments (hard to belive, huh?) in a terminology meeting. Positive feedback is exactly what I need to get even better and faster at what I do. I now know for sure that I am a workaholic, and just as well I am, considering the number of hours I spend at work every day!

Happiness is a weird thing. We've all been taught that feeling too much happiness is never good because it can only be balanced out by something bad happening. I've personally never thought that this is true and I've always enjoyed that nice happy feeling when something good happens. Even more so in the last few months, since I've learnt to see the positive side of life starting from the most insignificant details. Yesterday was one of those days. I finally managed to book my tickets to Amsterdam to go see M. in two weeks. I had to ask for my deadlines to be moved back, take two days off, spend one hour discussing about my trip with the lady at the train station, organising assistance, making sure there is an early morning train to Luxville from where I live, figuring out how to carry my trolley from my flat to the train station, making sure my tyres get pumped before I leave... Little details which take time. Once I was able to cross out the last item on my to-do list I felt really satisfied and I realised that my organisational skills really weren't as bad as I thought. When I got home half an hour later and saw two missed calls on my mobile, I knew right away that something didn't work out. Apparently one of the trains I was supposed to take had been replaced by a bus and I wouldn't be able to get on it because the service does not include special assistance for people in wheelchairs. The fact that no assistance is provided is bad enough. What's even worse, though, is that the lady on the phone suggested I travel through Brussels and pay an extra 120 euros for the ticket!

Yes, some people obviously think that money grows on trees and that if you have special needs, then you should be ready to pay more to get what you need. The problem is that I am never going to agree to this. And maybe that's where I am wrong. Is there a point in trying to push the limits further and further, while knowing that the society we live in will always see you as a second-class citizen? Isn't that just a waste of energy and time? I have spoken to many disabled people who tried hard to live like "normal" people, but everything required so much more time and effort. In the end they got tired, frustrated and resentful so they decided to give up.  Have you ever asked yourself why you hardly see any wheelchair user on buses or simply going for a stroll in town by themselves? In most Asian countries the only disabled people you see on the street are those selling lottery tickets. Maybe I'd be better off doing that too, but I am still young and feel like I can still do my bit to make this world a bit more humane. It might not be enough, it might not lead to a concrete result, but if you don't try, you'll never know.

Life is a race. If you stop, you are screwed. Mika knows what I am talking about :)

Daljave

Ura bije zelene zvoke.

Dan je izrezan iz kosa srca.
Hrib je zapisan pod slavoloke.
Voda je bela godba sveta.

Jemljem si drevje. Jemljem si trave.
V žilah me od zanosa boli.
V meni je prostor za strašne daljave.
Naj že padejo v mojo kri.

Naj me požgejo soncni zahodi,
da za požarom ostane samo
temno zelena jelša od vodi
in nad njo neizmerno nebo.

(Kajetan Kovič.1992. Letni casi)

Lux comme il faut (pas)

Yes, despite all the excitement there are many things that should be improved here. I have already mentioned the traffic, which still is one of the main culprits for my daily (well, now they are becoming weekly) rants. I just cannot understand why I would need to spend 3h per day in a car.

I also mentioned nice people. T. is one of them. This girl from the Croatian translation unit is amazing: full of energy, funny, smart...She is also blind and here lies the problem. People from her unit knew she was coming at least two months before her arrival. They knew she was blind and they knew she would need a special programme to be able to work. What have they done? Nothing. Absolutely nothing! Now, a month after we got here, she is still struggling and is not able to translate at all (apparently the voices reading the texts mix so an English text is being read out half with a Croatian and half with a French pronounciation). She's been in contact with developers, IT geniuses, blind people's associations...Instead of working, learing and honing her skills, she has to deal with practical stuff she shouldn't even have to think about. And what do people from her unit say? "Have you considered becoming an interpreter?" "£$%&/($%&?!?!!!!?!

Stairlifts and sleepy lazy people. Every morning I have to send someone to the reception to tell the people there that I need help with the stair lift. Mind you, I get to work and leave work every day at the same time. Yet, they are never there and when they finally realise that I am waiting outside, it takes them ages to figure out what key they need to use for the lift. It then takes them another 5 minutes to figure out how the machine works and another five minutes to get me up the stairs. I have told them that I always need help around the same time and asked them if they could please get organised.

Answer 1: Oui Madame, mais pourquoi vous ne rentrez pas par derrière? ça serait plus simple pour vous."

Answer 2 (after I have explained to them that it wouldn't be plus simple pour moi at all): "Oui, mais on  n'est pas tojours les memes personnes ici."

Answer 3 (after I have asked them to leave a note to the colleagues, telling them what key to use and when to use it) "C'est la première fois que j'utilise cette machine et je ne sais pas trop bien comment ça marche".

As a result, I now have a sore throat and a sore head. I think I'd better make myself a cuppa before it's too late. Things will work out eventually (hopefully before the end of my traineeship here).

Potrpežljivost je božja mast./La pazienza è la virtù dei forti./What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, as they say.