實(shí)戰(zhàn)口語(yǔ)情景對(duì)話：Work from Abroad 在國(guó)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(yè)，在國(guó)外生活和工作。你有這樣做過(guò)嗎?你有沒有生活和工作在……

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

托德：你是指那種流浪生活嗎?

Julia: Yeah.

朱莉婭：對(duì)。

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：我做過(guò)。我做了大概一年的時(shí)間。當(dāng)時(shí)我就像流浪一樣。我在五個(gè)國(guó)家生活過(guò)，當(dāng)時(shí)我所有的工作都在網(wǎng)上完成。我基本都是做網(wǎng)絡(luò)工作，那是一段很有意思的經(jīng)歷。我從來(lái)……我以前認(rèn)為那會(huì)是完美的生活，當(dāng)我和別人說(shuō)我要做這件事時(shí)，所有人都說(shuō)那很不可思議。我說(shuō)我要去環(huán)游世界，在我去到的每個(gè)城市工作。我自己安排行程、選擇目的地，在我想工作的時(shí)候工作，我這樣度過(guò)了10個(gè)月的時(shí)間。

Julia: And then why did you quit?

朱莉婭：那你為什么結(jié)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.

托德：我想你之前提到過(guò)。這種生活非常孤單。我對(duì)我竟然如此孤獨(dú)感到驚訝。我是會(huì)遇到不同的人，雖然作為游客會(huì)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(shí)都會(huì)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.

托德：對(duì)。沒有同事，沒有可以一起外出喝酒的同伴，一段時(shí)間以后，就會(huì)開始渴望社交互動(dòng)，而不想再當(dāng)陌生人、或是剛認(rèn)識(shí)的人，就像那些你知道名字的人，所以在一段時(shí)間以后我就放棄了。我記得改變最大的事情是，有一天，我在酒店房間里，其實(shí)那是一間小公寓，我突然意識(shí)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(jī)場(chǎng)買張機(jī)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。沒有什么能阻攔我。沒有行程安排，沒有約會(huì)，不用向誰(shuí)報(bào)告，這其實(shí)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(wàn)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.

托德：沒錯(cuò)。我意識(shí)到我想回歸正常狀態(tài)。我想有行程計(jì)劃。我希望回歸以前的正常狀態(tài)，所以我回到大學(xué)教書，現(xiàn)在我是大學(xué)老師，在寒暑假期間我有很多時(shí)間可以去旅游，不過(guò)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.

朱莉婭：我認(rèn)為有機(jī)會(huì)嘗試各種選擇非常棒。我確定所有人都會(huì)從嘗試中獲益，然后確定它們的真正價(jià)值，我肯定現(xiàn)在我們都明白，自由、那種絕對(duì)的自由并不是最終目標(biāo)，當(dāng)你真正擁有絕對(duì)自由時(shí)，你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)曾經(jīng)的那種約束其實(shí)還不錯(cuò)。

Todd: Right.

托德：對(duì)。

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(gòu)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.

托德：因?yàn)槲乙呀?jīng)做過(guò)了，我可能會(huì)再做一次。我知道如何正確地去做。我會(huì)用和以前不同的方法，所以我從中學(xué)到了東西。我并不是說(shuō)那不值得，只不過(guò)沒有被吹捧得那么好。

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

朱莉婭：對(duì)，我認(rèn)為10個(gè)月是一段很長(zhǎng)的時(shí)間，也許那是唯一的事情，足夠……

Todd: Exactly.

托德：沒錯(cuò)。

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

朱莉婭：不過(guò)聽起來(lái)確實(shí)很酷。我完全可以看出它的魅力之處。