a rainy arvo

Enjoying a rainy blustery Sydney winter day while snuggly and warm at my desk. Feeling relatively uninterrupted as I plough through translated material which I am now feeling mostly upbeat about synthesizing (rather than despairing that it would never get done as was my experience a week ago). Have to giggle sometimes at the sentences I come across and as I do this I know that I am a terrible person sneering at someone else’s use of English when I can’t even get myself fed in their Mother Tongue. But noodle-packet English can be so funny! (I say in my defense). And then I read something about poor children not getting to go to school, or about families selling land and houses to cover medical expenses and I feel bad for ever thinking it was ok to make fun of even the most dense and obscure sentence. After all, this is my little piece of helping, right? I should be glad I have it and, you know, mostly I am. I find tasks like this much easier to engage with when I have cleared some blank space in my week and on my desk for them to expand out and get proper attention. Having too many wailing tasks on a to do list means I just don’t get right into the detail and nuance of any of them. (Don’t get me wrong, I can keep plates spinning, but not everything wants to be just a spinning plate). Right now I have nice wintery sh-boots (like sk-pant), a healthy pot plant and cheery tea cup in front of me, nice people at work to talk to, a window with city view, a comfortable house to head to at the end of the day and a lovely weekend in front of me. What’s a few errant sentences to wrangle?