Carpe Coffeam

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Elsa Maria
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Elsa Maria » Thu Apr 28, 2022 11:22 pm

Congratulations! It is wonderful to read your exciting job update!
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Xenops
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Xenops » Thu Apr 28, 2022 11:51 pm

Congrats! :D It is an answer to many prayers. In case you didn't know...Some of us find you inspirational. ;)
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby PeterMollenburg » Fri Apr 29, 2022 1:03 am

Awesome, Cavesa!!

As far as multilingual countries in Western Europe go, you're going from one really interesting one to another!! Next step Andorra? Luxembourg?

I'm curious about in which linguistic region you'll be based. I see you're working on three of the four languages of Switzerland. Good luck, Cavesa!
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Maiwenn » Fri Apr 29, 2022 1:24 pm

Congratulations, Cavesa!!! That's fantastic news!!!
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Beli Tsar » Fri Apr 29, 2022 2:25 pm

Congratulations, really good news! Hope the new job is much more enjoyable than the present one, and that the mad adventure of relocating over the next few days goes well.
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby iguanamon » Fri Apr 29, 2022 3:01 pm

I will add my congratulations, Cavesa to the others. I hope that you will be happy in your new life in your new, exciting country. May you be fulfilled in a challenging new environment, culturally, linguistically and in your new work position! Most of all, good luck!
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Cavesa » Sun May 08, 2022 9:59 am

Thank you, everyone! It's been a wonderful start, even though a really mad relocation and everything. The speed also gives me some very useful brownie points everywhere I go, truth be told. :-D And also some great advantages, like a small chamber to live in at first, before I have all my papers and find an appartment (yep, this part will be highly annoying and discouraging, but it will end well and I have a roof above my head for now). Not every fresh incomer gets such support, but "yes, we know you had to relocate within a few days" really helps. :-)

I will spare you the details of my progressive ending of stuff in Belgium and acquiring administrative and other important stuff in the Switzerland. Even though there is one question that really burns my mind: do people creating online forms every try them out? A simple form for a phone contract took me like 3 hours, 2 computers, 2 phones, 3 browsers, to really complete. :-D

Thank you for your support and good wishes. Laywzyer&Mum, those comedy videos are awesome! Thanks! I am learning stuff, but above all laughing a lot.

The different communication and humour in various countries, that is always a bit of an issue (I was one of the objects of a complaint on my first day of the job :-D but it was not my fault, someone else pre-screwed up a lot, and then it was not salvagable in spite of all the efforts of several people. Yep, a lesson :the Swiss often don't admit right away, that they cannot understand something and need more explanation. Pride. ). I am lucky that people have more in common within the same job/field than within the same nation/region/town. So, communication with most coworkers is very good and natural, and the ones I need to adapt to more are very well fitting within the puzzle. And the difference is more in expectations and personality, not based on nationality.

PeterMollenburg wrote:Awesome, Cavesa!!

As far as multilingual countries in Western Europe go, you're going from one really interesting one to another!! Next step Andorra? Luxembourg?

I'm curious about in which linguistic region you'll be based. I see you're working on three of the four languages of Switzerland. Good luck, Cavesa!


NOOO, please no more country changes for a few years! :-D :-D :-D :-D Passing through Luxembourg from time to time is enough. I actually looked up the options of a career there, but I wasn't too convinced for a few reasons. Btw, now I am pretty knowledgeable about the available Luxembourgish resources :-D And nope, Andorra is not on my list. I think it is also part of the Spanish system, when it comes to the young doctors.

My new job is very enjoyable,but very hard. I have so much to learn! I often feel like making more work for others than solving, as I need supervision (all the new ones do) and I feel like a moron all the time. But that is partially ok. We've agreed with a colleague, that we are already happy to be getting from the very very dumb level to the very dumb level :-D It's a progress! :-D There is so much to learn and I love it!

This is the first time I actually feel the good kind of motivation for medicine. Not despair, not trauma, no saviour complex, nothing of the usual motivations of people entering the healthcare. This time, I am entering a healthy environment, for a job that is just objectively very hard due to all the skills and knowledge I need. And I am enjoying it, just need to learn fast, put more system in my knowledge, get new habits, different from those in my previous medical jobs.

Learning in between work days, that would be great. But I started with 2 days of formation (very useful, just very tiring) and then followed up with 4 days of 12h shifts (somebody fell ill, otherwise it would have been just 3). As you see, not much time to really study or do anything. But I am now profiting from a Sunday in one of the most beautiful regions on this planet! In a few moments, I will get a book, and go to the lake. Perhaps have a coffee or a glass of wine while studying. But it will be hard to get the eyes to it, to unglue them from the view.

My linguistic skills are very useful here too.

1.French: my primary language. I am a bit ashamed of my accent in French, I really think it had gotten much worse in Belgium, not sure how to fix it. (a translation of a bit too spontaneous funny exchange we had with one nurse: "And your accent, where does it come from?" "From the Czech Republic, and so do I. We've arrived togehter, my accent and I, we haven't just met here". :-D I was a bit risking here, making jokes in a new workplace, but this one was appreciated. And also, this was an automatic response that just flew out of my mouth as I was too tired to self-censor, true :-D But I also don't think that people with totally understandable accents and B2 or better level should keep giving those incessant apologetic little speeches, that we are socially expected to give every time we get asked. Fortunately, I am by far not the only foreigner and not the only doctor with a persisting foreign accent) But I am more than functional. :-)

2.Italian! Extremely useful. Just yesterday, it was the obvious choice with an italophone swiss. When he spoke with my supervisor in English, it wasn't too smooth. My Italian leaves a lot to be desired, but it is already well useable at work. Yeah, I don't have an official certificate, I cannot apply to a job in Italian yet, but it already serves very well.

3.English. used rarely, in similar circumstances. I think it is now less comfortable, when I speak it, than Italian.

4.German. Could have already been useful, but I really need to study German more. I got to B2 extremely fast, that's not a problem. Any attrition is not due to the speed, but to the fact I haven't made much time for it lately.

5.Czech. Yep. It was already useful. I really should learn Croatian, to communicate with natives of Croatian, Bosnian, Serbiean, Montenegrin, and even some Macedonians. For now, the rather approximative comprehension Czech-Croation (or any of its close relatives) is a very useful part of the communication loop, as an added bit to someone's weak French. I've been really thinking of Radioclare lately. Natives of these languages are everywhere!
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Cavesa
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby Cavesa » Sun May 08, 2022 10:03 am

Good, first post got out inspite of my very limited and unstable internet!

Another note concerning something we discuss on llorg from time to time: keyboards! The swiss have their own! Merde! I was proud of being very fast on the normal French one and also my native one. But nope, not anymore, now I am a slow writer again. The Swiss have a wonderful one, for someone with my language combination. But it is not natural at all. Yet. Not just the special symbols and accents, but I am getting used back to either azerty or qwertz or I don't even know, and to the "normal" position of M and ?, and I am sometimes struggling to find my favourite special symbols NOOOOOO :-D :-D :-D
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DaveAgain
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby DaveAgain » Sun May 08, 2022 10:25 am

Cavesa wrote:1.French: my primary language. I am a bit ashamed of my accent in French, I really think it had gotten much worse in Belgium, not sure how to fix it. (a translation of a bit too spontaneous funny exchange we had with one nurse: "And your accent, where does it come from?" "From the Czech Republic, and so do I. We've arrived togehter, my accent and I, we haven't just met here". :-D I was a bit risking here, making jokes in a new workplace, but this one was appreciated. And also, this was an automatic response that just flew out of my mouth as I was too tired to self-censor, true :-D But I also don't think that people with totally understandable accents and B2 or better level should keep giving those incessant apologetic little speeches, that we are socially expected to give every time we get asked. Fortunately, I am by far not the only foreigner and not the only doctor with a persisting foreign accent) But I am more than functional. :-)
I was watching one of the Liga Romanica videos earlier, the suggestion there was that France does not have regional accents to any great degree, so any variation from the norm must be especially novel to francophones.
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Re: Carpe Coffeam

Postby zenmonkey » Sun May 08, 2022 10:35 am

DaveAgain wrote:I was watching one of the Liga Romanica videos earlier, the suggestion there was that France does not have regional accents to any great degree, so any variation from the norm must be especially novel to francophones.


Umm, that's just not true.

France has a lot of regional accents/dialects etc (add to that French spoken outside of France). There is a term "glottophobie" for discrimination within France for the different accents. It's pretty much of an unfortunate but accepted pastime to make fun of regional accents and I've had to put my foot down many times with my daughters to really make them aware that this is socio/economic discrimination.

https://youtu.be/06ZBsaEB0Y8

Sorry for the log hijack.
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