May 15, 2006
English marathon
One of the most tiring things about working in another country is the second-language thing. Spending the entire day, reading, talking, and hardest of all, listening, in a second-language is exhausting when you haven't worked in that language for a while, no matter how well you know it. I can still remember blanking out every afternoon about 3.00pm unable to absorb one-more-word-of-dutch and just hoping to God no one in those late-afternoon meetings was actually saying anything important.
Ron's English is a lot better than my Dutch was then but still, we've planned to take things easy for the first month or two of his new job. Not too many evenings out (who are we kidding here?), quite weekends with lots of time for naps, brain-cell-replenishing beer and wine on tap....
The first few weeks weren't too bad, after all, with all the public holidays it was three weeks in before he had to work a full week and he has spent most of the time on training. Last week was his first full week that also entailed working so I guess it wasn't coincidence that saw him napping away most of Saturday afternoon before falling asleep with Jacob at 7.30pm! Ah the gezelligheid!
Posted by Faith