 | 50 As a 1930s wife, I am |
The heat wave broke this week with severe thunderstorms, high wind speeds and tornado warnings. I went to my 5K trail race that night (in between storms) to find it cancelled with large branches fallen all over the place. Because it was hot, and we have been travelling every weekend (just one more weekend in Western MA, woohoo!), my shawl is only a slightly larger triangle, which I probably won't have time to photograph before we leave for MA tonight. I tried knitting a bit before the heat broke, and it was just not happening because despite the yarn being laceweight, it's still wool.
Work has been exhausting me this week. The hours have been long and the Russian Fulbright Scholar has been tagging along. That itself can be exhausting in itself, as he doesn't really speak English and just tends to mess things up. The Fulbright Scholarship is a prestigious award, so the guy must be bright, but lack of language is such a huge barrier.
A few weeks ago we were doing an experiment and I asked him to get me some liquid nitrogen (which is used to freeze things very quickly).
I asked if he understood and he said, "Yes, yes."
He came back in the process of pulling on gloves, with surgical scissors in his hands. I know this might be amusing, but he's been here since last October, and the fact that he can't differentiate between "liquid nitrogen" and "dissect" or "take the blood" (I still don't know exactly what he was trying to do) just kind of makes me want to hit my head against a wall. This is not the first time I've had to train and work with someone whose English was practically non-existent; it's not even the first time I've had to work with a Russian with poor English. I think with every poor language experience, my patience slows starts to ebb more quickly. Maybe I should just try to be more like my new coworker and try to learn Russian and teach them cultural traditions like the pinky swear :)
I'm sure by now, everyone's seen the new Knitty. I must say that I like more of their patterns this issue than last. Because I have sooooo much time to knit. I better work on my 1930s housewife skills...
2 comments:
TOTALLY having the same issue at work. Not the first time I have had a language barrier either. This man is chinese and doesn't say "what?" or "excuse me" or anything, he says yes like he knows what I'm saying and then goes and does completely the wrong thing. It's quite frustrating!!!
I am glad you are done traveling. ;)*phew!
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