5 week challenge

In a Finnish-Lebanese marriage neither side has it easy when it comes to learning the mother tongue of the other. In the first 6 months of our relationship I was keen on learning Arabic, and impressed my future mother-in-law with my Arabic when I talked with her for the first time on the phone: "marhaba ... kifik ... mniha kamen ... mapsuta ktir" (hi ... how are you ... I'm good too ... I'm very happy). That was 6 years ago. My phone conversations with her still repeats the same four lines.

In addition to those lines I have quite good food-related vocabulary, complimented with "delicious", "can I have some ____ please" and "that's enough, thank you". Also, obviously speaking Arabic is easier when you are face to face at the dinner table, because you can always gesture the rest of your words. And nod a lot.

I've been to Lebanon once, 3 years ago. It was a wonderful trip; the country was surpsingly lush, food was amazing, people were warm and welcoming. Traffic was the only part I didn't like: every one makes their own rules regarding which way one can drive on the one-way roads, how many cars can drive next to each other in multilane roads, which traffic lights to obey and so on. Just close your eyes and hope you're still alive when you arrive to the destination.

I learnt more Arabic during the trip, and was able to follow some conversations by picking up words here and there and guessing the rest. When we returned to Canada I hoped to continue learning Arabic, but unfortunately hoping isn't enough, since one should also dedicate some time for it. I didn't. I have a good variety of excuses why not. "It's so difficult .. in order to learn I have to see the words, but I can't understand Arabic alphabet .. I want to learn Lebanese dialect and there's no books on it .." list goes on. When 2012 switched to 2013, I decided that this year it is, I'm finally going to take Arabic seriously. I got a program called Pimsleur, which promises that by spending 20-30 minutes a day you will be fluent (enough) in no time.

All excited I started, repeating words after the cd like a parrot. Lot of the stuff was familiar to me and it was all easy. In 10 days I was in lesson 7 and ... then I stopped. Not sure why; it got too difficult? I was too busy with other stuff? Another great excuse.

That was two months ago, and the guilt of not even trying to learn has been brewing ever since. But last night my husband presented me with a 5 week challenge and a great prize: 5 weeks to cover the rest of the Pimsleur lessons, because then we'll be in Lebanon! Great challenges and tight deadlines, that's what the perfectionist in me loves! Kamil!

Fine line

I like working. I like working so much, that sometimes it's too much. It seems that I'm able to convince myself that I'm perfectly ok to work, even though I know I'm not. It happened again this week; I had felt under the weather over the weekend, and on Monday when co-running a workshop I started to lose my voice. I decided, wisely, to rest on Tuesday instead of going to a full day event. And how did my resting look like? Working. For about 4 hours I was going through emails and organizing stuff with colleagues and partners in other agencies. When I finally decided to have a nap, it only resulted in coming up with a great idea (in my opinion), which I wanted to try out. NOW. I got up and played with excel pie charts for 45 min. It was fun, and most likely the results will be useful to my organization, but I didn't have to do it then. I could have easily waited until later.

I think I'm a workaholic. Probably not the worst kind of, but worse than I should. None of my bosses ever had to tell me to work more, most of them have told me to work less. I know they were right, even though I didn't admit it to them then.

Back to this week. After I "rested" on Tuesday, I attended the second half of the event on Wednesday morning. Bad idea. The event was great, but after 30 minutes I was feeling everything but great. Suddenly I was also worried that someone else will catch a cold from me, even though I was frantically using hand sanitizer. I had another workshop scheduled for the same evening, but fortunately this time I listened to my boss, and decided not to even try to go there. Instead I went to a clinic, got antibiotics for a self-diagnosed and doctor-confirmed ear infection.

Came Thursday morning, and another decision time - should I stay or should I go. I would have a 2 hour meeting, not a big deal, but at the same time I knew it would not help with my recovery. I decided to stay at home and rest. And this time resting would really mean resting, not working via emails.

In addition to napping and blowing my nose, I've been thinking about my relationship with work. I really like my work, and working. I'm passionate about it, and determined to get things done. However, both of these have a flip side. Passion can turn into obsession, and determination into stubbornness - or pure stupidness - like this week when I ignored what my body was trying to tell me. Add to the mix dedication, which can turn into addiction by crossing that fine line that separates them. Doesn't sound so good any more?

But I have hope. First of all, even though I like working, I like leisure time and holidays even more. Second, since I can admit my problem, I can also address it: therefore less work, and more naps, saunas, laziness and good time with friends and family will be in my schedule for the weekend, and onwards.

And I am certain that if my brain again let's the balance flip, my body will take control and come up with another clever game stopper, like an ear infection.