Ne tič ne miš

Lep večer v dobri družbi, veliko (res veliko!) smeha in dobre hrane...
...ampak nekaj mi vseeno ni jasno.

Zamejci se mamo za drugačne. Mi "nismo Taljani", mi smo iz Trsta. Ko gremo v Milano, gremo "v Italijo".  Je že res, nismo Italijani, Slovenci pa tudi ne. "Oni" so drugačni (?), mi smo k večjemu Kraševci. Ne bom se spuščala v politične razprave, blog res ni primerno mesto za to. Narodna zavest je osebna izbira in resnici na ljubo mi za vse skupaj niti ni mar, ker se ponavadi držim načela "Živi in pusti živeti".

Dejstvo je, da naš jezik umira. Na večerji nas je bilo osem. Vsi smo zaključili slovensko srednjo šolo, vsi prihajamo iz slovenskih družin. Zakaj se potem ne šalimo/hecamo, ampak škerciramo? Zakaj se nečesa ne nalezemo, ampak nas nekdo contagira? Zakaj se ne zavedamo, se rendiramo conto? Takih primerov je še in še. Vsakič, ko slišim kakšno tako spakedranščino, me zaboli srce. Na to, da prijateljem moj naglas zveni ljubljansko (?) sem se že navadila, zato vsakič, ko se dobimo, zavestno razširim svoje vokale in v stavke začnem vrinjati ma-je in però-je ter spraševati, če mi làhko nalijejo malo vode. Večkrat to ni dovolj, ker moji stavki še vedno zvenijo preveč "slovensko", zato si tu pa tam dovolim reči, da "ne vidim ure" ali kaj podobnega. Danes niti to ni zaleglo. 80 % pogovora je potekalo v eni taki čudni italijanščini, kjer se glagoli spregajo, samostalniki pa sklanjajo, 15 % v zamejščini in samo 5 % v slovenščini. Mogoče bo kdo rekel, da sem preveč črnogleda, da situacija sploh ni tako tragična, da se glede na okoliščine uporabljajo različne zvrsti jezika. Se strinjam. Tudi sama doma govorim drugače kot v kabini. Težava je v tem, da tu ne gre za zavestno izbiro oziroma za prilagajanje okoliščinam. Ljudje se preprosto ne znajo več tekoče izražati v svojem maternem jeziku. Niti v narečju svojih nonotov ne.

Pri nas dvojezičnosti ni. Kdor trdi, da obvladamo oba jezika, se slepi. Smo izobraženi, a funkcionalno nepismeni, največja težava pa je, da je ljudem vseeno. Ker hočemo biti drugačni. Nismo ne "tisti iz Italije" ne "oni iz Slovenije". Smo samo čudna živalska vrsta, ki ji ni mar za obstanek in umira v zamejskem rezervatu.  

Accès intérdit!

Let me tell you, it can get terribly lonely at DG TRAD. Each translator has their own office and translations keep coming in regularly. We are all busy staring at our screens, looking things up in three different dictionaries at once and, in my case, downing litres of water with aspirin (my head is still not ok after the injury).

One of my objectives after my last work experience was to have a better relationship with my boss and colleagues. I have decided that it was ok to be friendly, but there were certain rules I needed to follow:

- my private life (wait, do I have one?) is private. No one needs to know about the men queueing up in front of my house every day of the week.
- never complain (one of my biggest mistakes)
- do not make up excuses if you make a mistake (another thing I've always been good at)
- express yourself clearly and succintly
- remember you are here to work

At first sticking to them is not easy, I admit, but it worked. My social interaction with colleagues was limited to a sleepy: "Jutro!" in the morning and an occasional smile, until I decided that establishing some kind of human contact wouldn't do any harm to anyone. I started taking regular breaks and go for a fast "walk" down the corridor. Most doors are closed and all you can hear is the sound of frantic typing. However, some colleagues have discovered they actually don't mind interacting with other human beings, albeit for a quick: "Is everything alright?"

That's what my tutor does too. She's a very reserved and quiet person indeed, but she's also incredibly nice, competent and efficient. Since she's such a nice tutor, I have decided I am going to be a good tutee and make sure she's not working too much. The day before yesterday, ten minutes before I had to leave, I decided to go to say 'hi' to her. As I walked in she looked at me and shook her head going:

"I am going crazy with this financial report. Just as well I have someone to keep me company here in the office."

True, our offices are big, but not so big for me not to notice another human being in the room. I looked around thinking that maybe she had managed to bring in a dog/cat/rabbit, but all I could see were heaps of paper, more paper, dictionaries and more dictionaries. I thought:

"This is it, she's lost it, buh-bye tutor!"

She noticed my bewildered look and turned quickly to her desk. On the right side of the keyboard was an upside-down yoghurt lid and on it lied a tiny wee brown beetle.

"I just couldn't throw him out of the window. With this cold weather he would freeze instantly!" she said. "I gave him water, thinking he might be thirsty. I then thought he is probably also hungry. I had no idea what I could feed him, so I tried with a piece of tangerine. You wouldn't imagine how happy he was. He just wouldn't get away from it. I even started talking to him, but in the afternoon he suddenly disappeared and I have to admit I was a bit offended, I thought he liked me!" she said, clearly amused.

Her face darkened and she went:

"I really hope the cleaning ladies won't kill him. They seem to have the urge to re-arrange things their own way."

I couldn't agree more: cleaning ladies can be extremely annoying. I also felt sympathy for these two lost souls who just found each other, so I suggested:

"Why don't you write a note saying: 'Vous êtes priés de ne pas toucher mon animal de compagnie' or put a notice on your door saying: 'Accès intérdit - bête à l'intérieur'."

Both of us probably imagined the face the cleaning lady would make and we burst out laughing. We just couldn't stop. It took us about ten minutes to pull ourselves together. When I eventually managed to make a straight enough face to leave my tutor's office, we both had tears in our eyes and I am pretty sure some colleagues who saw me teary-eyed wondered what was wrong.

I guess this was the end of my career as a a serious and professional trainee. The good side of the story is that I now know the words for beetle, cockroach and cockchafer in all six languages (yes, even in Swedish). The bad side is that I'll associate beetles with my tutor for the rest of my life!

P.S. In case you were wondering what happened to the new institutional pet...He's alive and happy in his new environment. Let's see if he survives the weekend :)

Winter Wonderland

It's been snowing for three days now and when I say snowing I mean almost uninterruptedly. I feel like I've been living in one of those glass snow globes you buy in cheap souvenir shops. It's all very nice if you decide to treat yourself to the luxury of a transport free-weekend like I did this time (I think it was the first weekend I've spent at home since moving to Lux) and drink tea/hot chocolate/coffee...but sometimes it's a bit too much.

There is so much snow outside that I couldn't even get to the cinema (which is literaly across the street) to see The Theory of Everything. I thought I could roll at least for a couple of metres before getting stuck, but no, these wheels are really not designed for snow. Why would they be? Disabled people are sensible enough to know they should stay inside when the weather gets rough. Alternatively they can always take a taxi for a 200-metres ride. Too much of a hassle? Bollocks! They get a pension so they can obviously afford it.

There is so much snow outside that I cannot even meet my potential future husband and invite him over for a cup of tea.

There is so much snow outside that it gets caught on my wheels and when I get indoors it melts, leaving large puddles under my wheelchair and making it look like I just peed myself. Not the best way to impress my potential future husband.

There is so much snow outside that the lift is broken (again!) and there's no one to fix it.

There is so much snow outside that the postman decided to make his job a bit more interesting, turning it into a treasure hunt. He stopped putting the letters in the right post boxes, thinking it is way too easy. Instead, he leaves them in another building on top of a very high shelf (T., that's probably why I still haven't got hold of your card!).

There is so much snow outside that it feels like half a metre, when in fact it's probably more like 10 centimetres. Enough to make my life exciting and for me to finally relax and read a book. Hope you are all warm and cosy. :)

Late start

Hello, lovely people! Happy New Year!!! It's been a long time since I last wrote on here, but (I really shouldn't start every post with the same sentence and just make sure I post more often!) here I am, relaxed and happy after a long, eventful and...ehm...filling Christmas break. Life is back to normal, with lots of (interesting) work and a fair bit of socialising (mostly at weekends).

I have realised there are many things I haven't had the time to write about on here. My trips to Strasbourg, Brussels and The Hague would probably deserve a post each. Not only because they were good (seeing M. is always very very nice!), but also because they were complicated. I find it crazy that whenever I go anywhere I always have so many anecdotes to tell (from the replacement bus, to the guy who forgot me on the train because he had diarrhoea, to inaccessible trains...). The journey back to Lux (via Charleroi) was also quite adventurous. The assistance was about 20 minutes late so new passengers were already boarding by the time I managed to get off the plane. They also lost my wheelchair, made me walk out of the plane and made it clear that "It would be nice if Madame walked faster". When I finally got into the terminal building my wheelchair still hadn't reappeared and I got asked if I was absolutely sure I had my own wheelchair. I didn't even bother responding, otherwise I would have said to them: "No, I just like to tell people I have one and see how they react when it gets lost." Well, eventually they found it, but they still managed to drop me off at the wrong bus stop. Luckily I am now an expert when it comes to wheeling trolleys along.

Accidents aside, travelling on your own is fun. Had I been with friends I would never have met an Indian raw-vegan guy who gave me a suspicipious-looking mushroom (they are called Chaga mushrooms, Siberian stuff) which is rich in antioxydants. Or started a conversation with the father of two wee boys while the train broke down in the middle of nowhere and have got a chocolate bar from him for admitting that I get just as dirty as his two kinds when I eat chocolate. Nor would I get to high-five a little cheeky girl on the platform. It's little things, I agree, but they're enough for me to keep being an optimist and believing in human beings.

I know the world out there can be cruel, tough or even dangerous, but I firmly believe that we are all connected and that we are meant to interact and get along. Of course it's a bit idealistic and naive to think that we all love each other - it would be impossible...but hey, let me believe this world is a good decent place. Yesterday, I forgot my wallet containing a large sum of money, bank cards and documents in my office (first time this has ever happened to me - I blame it on the lack of sugar in my diet). I found it buried under a heap of paper, intact. The cleaning lady obviously thought it was better to hide it. Today, in town, at least five people offered to help when they saw I was fighting against very strong wind...

These are only some of the many reasons why I am not afraid. I am not afraid of travelling by myself. I am not afraid of talking to strangers. I am not afraid of trusting people and I am not afraid of people who are different from me.*

In case your blood sugar level wasn't high enough by now, here's an extra fix of sweetness for you.

* This holds true for everyone but Luxembourghish bus drivers who are total arseholes and I have been planning to take revenge. Short-term action plan: a newspaper article, long-term action plan: a book. Yes, I have started keeping track of all the weird things that have happened to me so far and I believe something's going to come out of it sooner or later :)

At least

Ryanair should seriously get a proofreader or at least learn how to use the polite form in Italian. Despite their broken Italian, I have just learnt that on Friday I need to be at the airport at least two hours before departure.

If I want to catch the train, I need to tell my name, surname, type of wheelchair, time of arrival at the station, time of departure from the station, my destination, as well as my shoe size at least two hours in advance ("But ideally you should be able to tell us at least six hours in advance, so we can get organised"). Say I went out at 6 pm. The CFL guys would need to know about my plans at 12 pm (probably before I event started considering going out), and I should make sure I take the train home at midnight. That's logical, isn't it? Everyone who goes out knows exactly when they are coming back. Why? So that the CFL people can take 10 minutes to get from their office to the main entrance,  where I am waiting for them, and take me to the platform walking like a snail on crutches. Now, most times there's two of them (what for, I wonder?). Most times they tell me off for being late even if I am there 20 minutes earlier. Most times they ask me to find the platform by myself and meet them there directly ("Ca ira plus vite, madame." Plus vite pour qui?!)

If I want to get a lift in a shopping centre, I usually have to wait for at least ten minutes before I can get in. People see me waiting, and yet all they can say is: "Il doit être vraiment difficile de se déplacer en fauteuil quand il y a autant de monde!" and give me a pitiful look. Well, it wouldn't be that difficult if all that walking monde moved their arse and took the stairs, wouldn't it?!

I came to the conclusion that it is often easier to do as you are told than to continue complaining and going against "the system". But there is another problem: nowadays, no one (apart from my dad, a control freak par excellence) plans ahead. People decide where and when to meet at the very last minute. "We'll see.", "I'll text you.", "I'll let you know." What they don't seem to get is that I would love to live the way they do, without fixed plans. I would love to take last-minute decisions and just go with the flow. Unfortunately, Ryanair/the CFL/lazy lift users/you name it don't let me do it. And that's is how Dana the rebel, the girl who was always messy, disorganised and late, became a control freak.  Yes, not all stories have a happy ending :)))

Odi et amo

Yes, these days like never before I have been constantly hearing two voices inside my head having endless arguments. Here's an extract from one of my many internal monologues, clearly showing my love-hate relationship with Lux. 

L: "Oh, I love my job. Respect, independence, long deadlines, a quiet office...that's all I need!"

H: "Quiet?! You call that quiet?! It's quieter than being in a forest in the middle of Siberia!"

L: "Oh yes, I do love my job. I couldn't live without constantly excercising my brain like I do now."

H: "But do you really care about minutes, petitions, amendments, resolutions? You think you are going to save the world. Yeah, right! Bullshit. This is utter bullshit. People are dying and you are in an office, sitting at a desk and staring at a screen 8 hours a day. Is that your contribution to creating a better world?!"

L: "But still, I do love my job!"

H: "Do you also love spending two hours per day to get to work and back? It's not even a train where you could at least read or meet hot guys (?). It's a bloody minivan so reading is not possible and the drivers are so talkative that you cannot even listen to podcasts like you used to. Gone are the times when you were an informed individual who took the time to listen to the news in five different languages every day. What a waste of time that was!"

L: "But I have met lots of nice people here and seen lots of nice places."

H: "Let's talk about that! You just spent an hour dealing with a guy from an insurance company who still doesn't want to tell you the company's IBAN number for you to be able to pay, because: "It's written on the invoice" (there are for of them and they all look the same!). And remember the grumpy bus drivers and the lazy people at the train station. You call them nice?!"

And it goes on and on and on... I have never been a big fan of coaching but a friend introduced me to this guy here who often talks about our "internal dialogue", the bitchy voice in our heads and self-fulfilling prophecies. Yes, sometimes he does state the obvious but, let's face it: our brains can be easily tricked. So if you understand Italian and if you haven't seen the video yet, do have a look!  

Ko zadiši po domu

Oziroma, ko je na meniju kislo zelje, ki si ga ti ne moreš privoščiti, ker nimaš časa. In potem se ti ves dan cedijo sline ob misli na to (ja, tudi brez klobas je dobro, pravi moj vegi notranji glas, ki je zadnje čase vse glasnejši). Isti dan ti prijateljica pošlje sporočilo, da manjka samo še 16 dni do božičnih počitnic, ko boš končno doma. In naenkrat se ti zalušta še po grahovi mineštri, fižolovi mineštri, radiču in fižolu (tudi tistem "poznem", grenkem radiču, ki ga je treba pošteno prežvečiti), vrzuotah (ja, J., meni so vrzuote všeč :), mamini potici in/ali industrijskem panetonu oziroma pandoru, kostanjih (ki se pečejo na štedilniku na drva špargertu, medtem ko ogenj veselo prasketa) in teranovem likerju.

Naenkrat si spet otrok, ki v kuhinji, kjer diši po sveže pečenem kruhu in praženi čebuli, piše pismo Miklavžu. Pismo potem mama nese na balkon, da ga bo Miklavž lahko vzel. "Mama, misliš, da sem bila letos dovolj pridna?" sprašuješ, čeprav že veš, da je Miklavž vedno radodaren. Dva dni zatem, ti papà pove, da je z vrta slišati cingljanje, da je to gotovo Miklavž. Z iskricami v očeh oblečeš bundo, se oviješ v topel šal in stečeš (?) ven pogledat, če je kje pustil kaj zate. Gledaš in gledaš, nato jo končno vidiš: pod orehom stoji vreča, polna daril, čokolade in mandarin. Ni kaj, tudi tokrat je bradati mož prinesel točno to, kar si si želela.

Preblisk na poti domov po napornem dnevu v Bruslju, osmih urah vožnje z vlakom, 20-minutnem premoru za kosilo, norem tekanju iz stavbe v stavbo, čakanju v vrstah za varnostno kontrolo in obujanju (lepih) tolmaških spominov. Ker je to samo dom (in ne dom dom), ni nihče skuhal večerje, tudi stanovanje se čez dan ni samo pospravilo in čez nekaj ur moram spet v službo. Oh, ko mi le zjutraj ne bi bilo treba skrbeti, ali je v denarnici dovolj gotovine in ali so ključi, kartonček, telefon in glava na pravem mestu. Saj vem, da mi doma doma tega ne bo treba početi vsak dan. Če grem kam s starši, včasih torbico preprosto pustim doma samo zato, da sem lahko za nekaj ur spet otrok, ki brezskrbno in zvedavo opazuje svet okrog sebe.