Summer Work

Well, farmer's market season is slowly picking up for Leigh and I here in Seattle. We both worked full days last weekend including a "training day" on Saturday and full days on Sunday. The farm expects to have fresh apricots for market this weekend, so we will have even fuller days. Hopefully soon we will be working the same hectic four day weeks I experienced last August: four 7-10 hour days of loading, hauling, markets, and work around the Seattle storage location. The more hours we work the more money we earn and the more exercise we get. These make up about 75% of our reason for coming to Seattle this summer. The other 25% is having fun, which requires money that we just can't justify spending at the moment.

So once again we have nearly a full week to enjoy being lazy around the house and exploring our old haunts. Today we're chilling out at the library for some time. It's nice to poke around on the Internet and be in a library atmosphere. I hope that libraries never become obsolete not matter how much the Internet changes our educational culture.

Leigh and I have started studying a little bit of German, including buying a workbook for home study and sticking Post-Its around the house with vocabulary words. I have no idea how effective this will be, but it's fun to try. I'm also studying some French from a workbook and today I plan to attend a French conversation meeting at a cafe in Capitol Hill. Honestly, I'm terrified. I haven't been around French at all in over a month and I've hardly spoken a word in as much time. Plus while in France I mostly listened to French and spoke very little, so my mouth isn't as fluent as my brain yet (does that make sense?).

I want to keep practicing so one day it's almost as easy to speak French as it is for me to speak English. There are several reasons for this, including that it's just fun, but also because I recently learned about a new visa program through the French government for young professionals under the age of 35. If I find a paid traineeship of some sort by the time I'm 35 I can get an 18 month visa to work in France. Not only would this be super fun, but Leigh is also eligible (and interested if the job is in English, which is very likely) if we do it in the next 5 years and it would be the perfect way for me to build an international career network. I'm thinking Strasbourg, Nancy-Metz, or Grenoble (because all of those areas border German speaking countries and are close to fun major cities). But that's another blog for another day down the road....

In the meantime I just want to improve my language skills. Last year was my gap year and this year is like my career training year. My job is best compared to a new doctor's residency year, a time for learning on a steep curve and meeting tons of professionals, and my free time will be spent trying to improve other skills like languages and academic writing. On top of all of this I want to have a life, make friends and keep up with hobbies. Phew! I'm exhausted already! But life is here to be lived, right?

Anyway, back to Seattle and my summer of fun and hard work. I'd love it if it got warmer and stopped raining for 5 minutes...