Category: Musings (Page 3 of 3)

Æbleskiver

Whenever I used to come home from my Danish class, I felt like I had done a hefty physical workout while simultaneously working on a particularly demanding translation. Simply put, I was exhausted, and usually also socially drained to the point that my response to everything was irritation and hostility. I have told M countless times that I hate both the Danish language and Denmark as a whole, neither of which is actually true. Both frustrate me from time to time, but more often than not, I enjoy them. Yes, even the inane language.

Towards the end of last year, the classes left me less crippled. Tired, definitely, but not the same way as before. At some point the teaching turned from complete gibberish to understandable words and then sentences. I still don’t understand everything, but I do get the gist of most everything that is said in class. It’s considerably harder for me to actually produce Danish, but I’m getting better at it. It’s hard for me to tolerate the mistakes I inevitable make, especially when trying to talk, but I keep trying.

Today was my first class after the Christmas break, which ended up lasting for over a month because I couldn’t attend class last week. And boy, does it show! Whenever I was asked to say something, I struggled. The words I needed would pop into my head in Spanish and Swedish, but certainly not in the language I was supposed to use. So frustrating! By the time I got home, I was totally beat. Granted, it’s not as bad as it was when I only just started the classes, but there’s still a clear difference to how it was in December. Still, I did manage to borrow a book from the library all in Danish, which made me immensely proud. I’m learning, and while the pace is snail-like in my own mind, the progress I’ve made is undeniable.

(The post title is the first word I learnt in Danish a long time ago. It’s the name of a typical Danish Christmas dessert that M adores. Æbleskiver are small pancake-y spheres that are eaten by hand after dipping them in strawberry jam and powdered sugar. I’m not a huge fan of the Danish way of serving them, but I quite enjoy them with apple marmalade, no powdered sugar required… Of course, M thinks I’m a total heretic.)

Sink or Swim

I’m home sick and feeling guilty about it. I always feel guilty about it even though I know it’s ridiculous. I didn’t get sick on purpose, and I couldn’t do my job right now even if I tried, so there’s nothing to feel guilty about. Yet… Yeah. So, I decided to try and do something worthwhile with the unexpected free alone time. I’ve been meaning to get this blog running ever since I moved to Denmark almost six months ago, but you know how life gets in the way of all the things you allow yourself to procrastinate over?

See, there are some issues that I haven’t managed to resolve yet when it comes to this blog project, and so it fell entirely dormant for much longer than I had intended. Originally I wanted to document the whole “moving to another country” experience, but frankly, I had enough on my plate just trying to live through it. I had neither the time nor the energy to write about it, too, which is also evident in how little I’ve written to my friends and family back in Finland. It was simply too overwhelming. It’s something I still worry about, because I’m afraid the blog will simply never take off properly. I’ll write for a few weeks and then it’ll be a few posts each month, and then one, and then none. It’s happened before.

I’m also quite unhappy with the way the blog looks right now. It’s been a long time since I designed anything more complex than a single webpage here and there, and I have no skill when it comes to actual graphic design. I have ideas regarding how I might like the blog to look, but I don’t have the skills or the patience to actually pull any of them off, and I feel like the important thing right now is to get the words flowing instead of polishing the site until it glows while there is still no actual content. So, either I’ll end up leaving it as it is, or it’ll go through all kinds of changes in the future. We’ll see.

So, while it’s entirely possible this poor thing will die a sad death before it ever gets off the ground, I’m going to give it a try anyway. I wrote a few blog-like entries on my very first days here, which I may or may not actually end up publishing retroactively, but beyond that, I’ll set myself a goal of posting (at least) once a week. It doesn’t have to be anything grand and exciting, but there needs to be some sort of consistency to the pace or there’s really no point in this. So there we are. Welcome aboard.

Of Hopelessness

I’m starting work tomorrow. It’s been a year since I last had a job, and I quite miss it. I have no idea if I’ll enjoy the actual work or not, but at least it offers the opportunity to learn new things, form new social contacts and generally just have routines in each day, and I welcome all that. Not to mention the ability to earn a living, which is obviously extremely important on its own.

If there is one thing I’d like to avoid from now on, it’s unemployment. I don’t know anything quite as soul-sapping as the hollow feeling of browsing job ads one by one, desperately hoping to find something that is even remotely applicable to your own qualifications and coming up empty again and again. Of course, there are the few exceptions when you find something, write an application for it and for a while you feel like you actually accomplished something worthwhile again – only to receive the dreaded “thank you but no thank you” email in your inbox some days or weeks later. Back to square one. Back to feeling utterly worthless.

It spreads everywhere after a while. As the number on your bank account dwindles, you narrow down your choices little by little. No more shopping for anything but the bare necessities, and even those should be a cheap brand or on discount. You don’t really need cheese on your bread, after all. It’s also best to not meet your friends in the city centre, because that means expenses you can’t really afford, or squirming when they offer to pay instead. Buying presents becomes a nightmare, because you can’t really afford anything anyone would want. If anything breaks, you really need to consider whether you can’t actually survive without it. Repairing or replacing it might well be beyond your means. It’s not real deprivation; not yet. It’s just a slow slide towards the tears in society’s fabric where ultimately you’ll end up incapable of affecting your situation anymore. That way lays hunger, mental and physical illness, and isolation.

I didn’t fall that far. I still had options by the time my soon-to-be employer said yes instead of no thank you. You have no idea how grateful of that I am.

Page 3 of 3

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén