Notes by Nectar

Apart from work (and lots of it) and the gym (some form of exercise every day), I wasn’t all that busy. I decided to go to Spa Zen for a massage on Sunday evening. What better way than that to start the week?

On Monday I was busy as usual. I had a session with Pete on Monday and a piano lesson that afternoon. My Intermediate II Arabic class started that evening as well. It had only been ten days since the last class and I’d already forgotten all the new vocabulary I’d learned!

I was home all day on Tuesday, working.

I had another session with Pete on Wednesday morning. That afternoon I met a friend for coffee at Caffe Nero in DIFC. I’d really forgotten what it’s like to go out in the week – I seem to have become a bit of a recluse recently. On my way out I bumped into another friend of mine. I should really get out more! I had another Arabic class that evening.

I went to a yoga class on Thursday morning and was at home working the rest of the day. In fact, I was at home working the entire weekend. My parents were out most of the time so I had the place to myself.

On Friday morning one of my clients emailed to ask if I could fast-track an article for them – it was about Chinese local government and debt. I said I could return it to them by Saturday – they were thrilled. However, when I saw the document, I was horrified. It was 12,000 words of complete nonsense which had clearly been written using Google Translate. Here’s an example:

This paper try to resolve the unbalance relationship between the “power, responsibility and interests” of the local debt in China, which is on the view of the power endowment, the responsibility restriction and the interests transformation.

And that’s not even the worst of it. It needed to be completely rewritten – and I wasn’t even sure what the author was trying to say, so rewriting it was difficult. On Saturday afternoon, I gave up. I emailed my client to say that it was impossible to edit, and that it should be returned to the author to be translated by an English-speaking professional. Thankfully my client agreed with me! Seriously, though – what a complete waste of time that was.

I went to the beach on Saturday evening for a walk, but I went late and did most of my walk in the dark which wasn’t much fun. The track is mostly well lit but I felt a bit uncomfortable and exposed (even though there were several other people around). I’m definitely sticking to daytime/sunset walks from now on!

I love my life.

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