Today I am feeling out of my depth in this new country. This has happened a couple of times now and its never pleasant (although of course there are WORSE things)
In my profession there is different lingo, not that many words or phrases but enough to make me feel like an idiot or question what I am hearing. Sometimes the feeling like an idiot erodes away a bit more of my confidence.
I also miss my old working environment and the ease of fitting in. We went to the pub at lunchtime sometimes and I always knew what was acceptable to discuss/eat/drink and what wasn’t. I felt comfortable in my behaviour. Here I am looking to how others behave .
I am changing many words – eg: accounts dept is now accounting, finance director is Director of Finance, authorise is now authorize, soft copies are electronic copies (that sounds so 80’s to me!)
These are little things but the effort of re-learning what came so naturally is sometimes too much.
I am pleased that I have finally sussed one thing out though, the fact that we chose a good spot to live in, yes its 40 mins from the city but that means that I am 40 mins away from city life and all the things that I hate about city life.
We live in a little community with a mix of people , there are some rednecks (self-confessed) and some professionals. Regardless most people are extremely friendly, they lift a hand to wave as they pass, say good morning from their front porch or lawn. Many have big trucks on their driveway, some even putt putt around on Harleys in the summertime, a noise I happen to love.
We are half way between amazing beaches – north and south, we have burgeoning friendships all around us and some great schools. I am yet to meet anyone/ anything I don’t like that I live near to.
So, I shall soldier on, pay attention to all the good things and try to get comfortable with all the new things. Hopefully this “out of depth” feeling will pass today.
I'm sorry you have been feeling like this. I can relate in terms of jargon and re-learning terms, not from a country perspective but a language perspective. I went through a french immersion program from grades 6-12, so all my science and math was french. When I started my Bachelor of Science (later turned B.A.), I was so out of my depth in terms of re-learning everything in english. It was probably a contributing factor to my doing extremely poorly that term.
ReplyDeleteI hope the feeling did indeed pass. It would be impossible not to feel like that sometimes after moving from overseas.
thank you. I had never thought about that issue re French Immersion. I can see how that would be hard. It is hard moving from overseas, you think that the differences will be subtle or just enjoyable ones - i.e we have an A&W - how cool! But its not, theres many many cultural differences that are hard to adjust to. We will get there.
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