实战口语情景对话 第975期:Work from Abroad 在国外工作

Julia: OK, so we've talked about freelancing your skills and living and working abroad. Have you ever done that? Have you ever lived and worked in a...
朱莉娅：好，我们讨论了用自己的技能从事自由职业，在国外生活和工作。你有这样做过吗？你有没有生活和工作在……

Todd: Like digitally, just like a kind of nomad?
托德：你是指那种流浪生活吗？

Julia: Yeah.
朱莉娅：对。

Todd: Yeah, I did. I did it for a year. I was actually a nomad. I lived in five different countries and I did all my work online. I mainly was just doing web stuff but it was an interesting experience. I mean I had never, I thought it would be the perfect life and when I told people what I was going to do, everybody said that's amazing. You know, I mean basically I said that I was gonna just travel the world and I would just work from whatever city I was in. I would choose my own itinerary and my own destination and I would work when I wanted to and, yeah, I did it for ten months.
托德：我做过。我做了大概一年的时间。当时我就像流浪一样。我在五个国家生活过，当时我所有的工作都在网上完成。我基本都是做网络工作，那是一段很有意思的经历。我从来……我以前认为那会是完美的生活，当我和别人说我要做这件事时，所有人都说那很不可思议。我说我要去环游世界，在我去到的每个城市工作。我自己安排行程、选择目的地，在我想工作的时候工作，我这样度过了10个月的时间。

Julia: And then why did you quit?
朱莉娅：那你为什么结束这种生活？

Todd: Well, I think you referenced it earlier. It actually became incredibly lonely. I was surprised how lonely I became. I would meet people but you would always meet people as a tourist and you didn't have family and you didn't have your social network. You didn't have people that you would see every day at work.
托德：我想你之前提到过。这种生活非常孤单。我对我竟然如此孤独感到惊讶。我是会遇到不同的人，虽然作为游客会遇到不同的人，可是身边没有家人陪伴，没有社交生活。没有每天在上班时都会遇到的同事。

Julia: No workmates?
朱莉娅：没有同事？

Todd: Right. You got no workmates, no-one to go out and have a drink with and after a while you really crave like social interaction and not always being the stranger, not always being the new person, like people that know your name and yeah, so after a while I gave it up. I remember the big thing that changed is one day I was in my hotel room, actually it was a little apartment, and I realised I had nowhere to go, I had no-one to see and I can go anywhere in the world. I had complete freedom. I could go to the airport and buy a ticket to Paris and go to Paris that day or I can go to Buenos Aires or Sydney. I could have gone anywhere in the world. There was nothing to stop me. No schedule, no appointments, no-one to report to and it was actually kind of frightening. Like it was almost paralyzing.
托德：对。没有同事，没有可以一起外出喝酒的同伴，一段时间以后，就会开始渴望社交互动，而不想再当陌生人、或是刚认识的人，就像那些你知道名字的人，所以在一段时间以后我就放弃了。我记得改变最大的事情是，有一天，我在酒店房间里，其实那是一间小公寓，我突然意识到我没有地方可去，我没有可以见面的朋友，可是我可以去世界上任何地方，我有完全的自由。我可以去机场买张机票飞巴黎，也可以飞去布宜诺斯艾利斯或是悉尼。我可以去世界上任何地方。没有什么能阻拦我。没有行程安排，没有约会，不用向谁报告，这其实有些可怕。这令人窒息。

Julia: It's like standing on the edge of an abyss looking down.
朱莉娅：就好像站在万丈深渊边缘向下看一样。

Todd: It was. It was like, you know, I realized I wanted normalcy again. I wanted to have a schedule. I wanted to, you know, have the norm that I had before so I went back to teaching at university and now in my university job I have a lot of time to travel in between but just living around the world going from place to place, yeah, it wasn't so great.
托德：没错。我意识到我想回归正常状态。我想有行程计划。我希望回归以前的正常状态，所以我回到大学教书，现在我是大学老师，在寒暑假期间我有很多时间可以去旅游，不过只是去世界各地旅游而已，不是那么精彩。

Julia: Well, I think it's great that you had the chance to explore this option. I'm sure everyone would benefit maybe from trying it and then working out what it is they really value because I'm sure we all think now freedom, absolute freedom, isn't that like the ultimate goal but then when you have it, you realize well actually no, some of those constraints that I had were quite good.
朱莉娅：我认为有机会尝试各种选择非常棒。我确定所有人都会从尝试中获益，然后确定它们的真正价值，我肯定现在我们都明白，自由、那种绝对的自由并不是最终目标，当你真正拥有绝对自由时，你会发现曾经的那种约束其实还不错。

Todd: Right.
托德：对。

Julia: They gave me a sense of being or they give structure to my life or meaning to my life.
朱莉娅：那给我一种感觉，那构造了我的生活，让我的生活充满意义。

Todd: Totally, totally and actually now that I've done it, I would do it again. I would know how to do it right. I would do it different than I did it before so, yeah, I learned. I'm not saying it's not worth it, I'm just saying it's not all it's cracked up to be.
托德：因为我已经做过了，我可能会再做一次。我知道如何正确地去做。我会用和以前不同的方法，所以我从中学到了东西。我并不是说那不值得，只不过没有被吹捧得那么好。

Julia: No, and I guess ten months is a long time maybe that's the only thing, enough of a...
朱莉娅：对，我认为10个月是一段很长的时间，也许那是唯一的事情，足够……

Todd: Exactly.
托德：没错。

Julia: But it sounds cool though. I can see the attraction definitely.
朱莉娅：不过听起来确实很酷。我完全可以看出它的魅力之处。