美語情景對話 第975期:Work from Abroad 在國外工作

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...

朱莉婭：好，我們討論了用自己的技能從事自由職業，在國外生活和工作。你有這樣做過嗎？你有沒有生活和工作在……

Todd: Like digitally, just like a kind of nomad?

託德：你是指那種流浪生活嗎？

Julia: Yeah.

朱莉婭：對。

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.

託德：我做過。我做了大概一年的時間。當時我就像流浪一樣。我在五個國家生活過，當時我所有的工作都在網上完成。我基本都是做網絡工作，那是一段很有意思的經歷。我從來……我以前認爲那會是完美的生活，當我和別人說我要做這件事時，所有人都說那很不可思議。我說我要去環遊世界，在我去到的每個城市工作。我自己安排行程、選擇目的地，在我想工作的時候工作，我這樣度過了10個月的時間。

Julia: And then why did you quit?

朱莉婭：那你爲什麼結束這種生活？

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.

託德：我想你之前提到過。這種生活非常孤單。我對我竟然如此孤獨感到驚訝。我是會遇到不同的人，雖然作爲遊客會遇到不同的人，可是身邊沒有家人陪伴，沒有社交生活。沒有每天在上班時都會遇到的同事。

Julia: No workmates?

朱莉婭：沒有同事？

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.

託德：對。沒有同事，沒有可以一起外出喝酒的同伴，一段時間以後，就會開始渴望社交互動，而不想再當陌生人、或是剛認識的人，就像那些你知道名字的人，所以在一段時間以後我就放棄了。我記得改變最大的事情是，有一天，我在酒店房間裏，其實那是一間小公寓，我突然意識到我沒有地方可去，我沒有可以見面的朋友，可是我可以去世界上任何地方，我有完全的自由。我可以去機場買張機票飛巴黎，也可以飛去布宜諾斯艾利斯或是悉尼。我可以去世界上任何地方。沒有什麼能阻攔我。沒有行程安排，沒有約會，不用向誰報告，這其實有些可怕。這令人窒息。

Julia: It's like standing on the edge of an abyss looking down.

朱莉婭：就好像站在萬丈深淵邊緣向下看一樣。

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.

託德：沒錯。我意識到我想回歸正常狀態。我想有行程計劃。我希望迴歸以前的正常狀態，所以我回到大學教書，現在我是大學老師，在寒暑假期間我有很多時間可以去旅遊，不過只是去世界各地旅遊而已，不是那麼精彩。

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.

朱莉婭：我認爲有機會嘗試各種選擇非常棒。我確定所有人都會從嘗試中獲益，然後確定它們的真正價值，我肯定現在我們都明白，自由、那種絕對的自由並不是最終目標，當你真正擁有絕對自由時，你會發現曾經的那種約束其實還不錯。

Todd: Right.

託德：對。

Julia: They gave me a sense of being or they give structure to my life or meaning to my life.

朱莉婭：那給我一種感覺，那構造了我的生活，讓我的生活充滿意義。

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.

託德：因爲我已經做過了，我可能會再做一次。我知道如何正確地去做。我會用和以前不同的方法，所以我從中學到了東西。我並不是說那不值得，只不過沒有被吹捧得那麼好。

Julia: No, and I guess ten months is a long time maybe that's the only thing, enough of a...

朱莉婭：對，我認爲10個月是一段很長的時間，也許那是唯一的事情，足夠……

Todd: Exactly.

託德：沒錯。

Julia: But it sounds cool though. I can see the attraction definitely.

朱莉婭：不過聽起來確實很酷。我完全可以看出它的魅力之處。

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重點講解：
1. give up 投降；認輸；放棄；
例句：He gradually gave up his reformist ideas.
他逐步放棄了自己的改良主義思想。
2. in between （時間上）在…之間，介於…之間；
例句：In between, they had snatches of private talk.
在這中間，他們有時私下談上幾句。
3. benefit from 獲益；對…有益；有利於；
例句：She has never benefited from all that experience.
她從未得益於那個經驗教訓。
4. work out 想出，得到(解決方法)；解(謎)；
例句：She's all there; she will soon work out how to do it.
她很精明。她會馬上知道怎樣做。
5. sth. is not all it's cracked up to be 不如別人說的那麼好；
例句：Package holidays are not always all they're cracked up to be.
全包旅遊並不總像人們說的那麼好。