Storm Doris and Lithuanian presents
Thursday, 23 of February 2017. We try to make our way to London, but there are no trains departing or coming to St. Albans. Feels like Christmas. Completely isolated from London, full streets of people and cars heading home... to work remotely.
Oh, happy days! One more day spent on video quality assurance, but my minds are elsewhere. In London, in Vilnius, in Pasvalys. Anywhere, but not at work.
A great present from my friend Agnė arrived this morning - fresh and beautiful ''Šiaurietiški atsivėrimai'' (http://siaurietiskiatsiverimai.psvb.lt/), a reminder of the past time, present and future time of Pasvalys region. And even if my childhood slipped away (haven't seen it) in a village almost 20 kilometres away from this small Lithuanian city, I feel proud and excited that they still have this wonderful cultural journal going. It comes out twice a year, which is just enough to gather cultural news, remember honourable writers, musicians, scholars, teachers and all other big people who were born in this area.
Sometimes I contribute with an article or interview, however, for the past 2 years it's getting harder and harder to write in any language. It scares me. I keep forgetting the grammar, punctuation and stylistic rules of my own language! On the other hand, I feel that my spoken Lithuanian is better than ever before as I'm choosing the words more carefully and thoughtfully. Many times when I speak about London realities, I can't avoid translating English into Lithuanian in my head. Here is the funny part! Literal translation in localisation project managers life is a real horror leading to trouble, so when I ''Google translate'' in my mind, I just hear myself being literal and then I start thinking about tasty Lithuanian adjectives, playful nouns and intriguing verbs. In short, exile is forcing me to remember words that were long forgotten, sometimes not even used anymore in modern Lithuanian. And invent some...
I always thought that I'm not interested in linguistics, it's a waste of time and the only real thing that I want to be lectured about is literature. Literature, life, feeling, meaning, existential questions that can reveal some life secrets, support and justify your own actions, explain your past and present. All the emotional depths were what I really did care about... just 4 years ago. Today I work with hundreds of linguists, my colleagues come from more than 50 different countries and what I really enjoy is listening to words, thinking about their etymology, evolving and relation of languages. If one day I would decide to connect my still unexplained allure to history and now to linguistics, I would probably get back to study some papers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. I day dreamed during half of my linguistic courses back at University and now it's something that I would love to repeat like a guilty pleasure.
I have only 1-2 hours a day and weekends to be really excited about something. And now I'm torn between an urge to watch costume TV series, start one of the online courses on linguistics and keep reading the books about intercultural communication, management, decision making and problem solving. I know that it makes me a bit smarter or just a little more professional in my daily activities, but at the same time I really miss reading some Lithuanian books and poetry just to feel the masterly flow of the words, the perfect yarns of the sentences.
Here, on 23 of February 2017, I'm ''in the middle of insanity'', lost in the city of possibilities, dreaming about careless days in the village, thinking that this exile is something very strong and life-changing.
And after all of this, I enjoy simple administration tasks. Updating trackers and timelines, writing e-mails, reading CVs and even the Storm called Doris.
Sometimes I contribute with an article or interview, however, for the past 2 years it's getting harder and harder to write in any language. It scares me. I keep forgetting the grammar, punctuation and stylistic rules of my own language! On the other hand, I feel that my spoken Lithuanian is better than ever before as I'm choosing the words more carefully and thoughtfully. Many times when I speak about London realities, I can't avoid translating English into Lithuanian in my head. Here is the funny part! Literal translation in localisation project managers life is a real horror leading to trouble, so when I ''Google translate'' in my mind, I just hear myself being literal and then I start thinking about tasty Lithuanian adjectives, playful nouns and intriguing verbs. In short, exile is forcing me to remember words that were long forgotten, sometimes not even used anymore in modern Lithuanian. And invent some...
I always thought that I'm not interested in linguistics, it's a waste of time and the only real thing that I want to be lectured about is literature. Literature, life, feeling, meaning, existential questions that can reveal some life secrets, support and justify your own actions, explain your past and present. All the emotional depths were what I really did care about... just 4 years ago. Today I work with hundreds of linguists, my colleagues come from more than 50 different countries and what I really enjoy is listening to words, thinking about their etymology, evolving and relation of languages. If one day I would decide to connect my still unexplained allure to history and now to linguistics, I would probably get back to study some papers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. I day dreamed during half of my linguistic courses back at University and now it's something that I would love to repeat like a guilty pleasure.
I have only 1-2 hours a day and weekends to be really excited about something. And now I'm torn between an urge to watch costume TV series, start one of the online courses on linguistics and keep reading the books about intercultural communication, management, decision making and problem solving. I know that it makes me a bit smarter or just a little more professional in my daily activities, but at the same time I really miss reading some Lithuanian books and poetry just to feel the masterly flow of the words, the perfect yarns of the sentences.
Here, on 23 of February 2017, I'm ''in the middle of insanity'', lost in the city of possibilities, dreaming about careless days in the village, thinking that this exile is something very strong and life-changing.
And after all of this, I enjoy simple administration tasks. Updating trackers and timelines, writing e-mails, reading CVs and even the Storm called Doris.
