Late Summer Coffee

The last week of summer is the perfect time for a coffee and a catch-up (in Norway it is called “late summer” but it really reminds more an early autumn). It’s been a while since the last time. Getting back to my favorite format: chatting about everything at once :))

If we were having coffee, I would tell you how I feel about blogging. I’ve been grinding many thoughts about it lately. My biggest revelation is that: I don’t want to work hard on blog because I already have my job. To be honest, when I just started this blog, I was playing with the idea of making it into my income source. I was tired of my career path, unsure where I wanted to move next (a bit burned out and out of motivation). I quit my job, walked into unemployment for several months – and at the same time I started this blog. Of course, I imagined myself being this cool blogger, sitting in some nice Italian inspired cafe, posting exciting content, building my platform (growing popular, oh yes).

With the time I realized there was more work to it than “just create awesome content” (which is the popular advice for new bloggers). First, how do you make it awesome especially when you are new? Second, it is not “just”. There is so much work to it. And I didn’t want to study a new profession and work hard on it (remember, I had just finished working hard and wanted a break). I wanted to play. Then my thoughts were crystallized when I read an Instagram post of a Ukrainian girl who has the following of 100k but doesn’t want to become a blogger. She said: “People say to me: “you have so many followers, why don’t you become a blogger?” But I already have a profession I love. And being a blogger is work, just like any other”. This is when I thought: bingo!

Being a blogger is not what we can imagine. Traveling, taking photos and posting them on the blog over some coffee cup in some hipster place. Where you get discount if you mention them too. It is a job, like any other. You need some form of training or education to do it, you have to learn how to create your blog – but more: how to make money out of it. And then you have to work hard, because it is not 10 years ago when blogging was all fresh and new. There are a lot of people in this industry now, and sometimes they have a professional team behind them, they have built a business, – and you have to compete with them too. So giving advice like “just post regularly and make awesome content” – come on, guys, seriously? Is that’s all what it takes these days?

I have had a period of searching and thinking about work – and this year I started teaching again. I used to teach at the primary school – and now I teach to adults (I teach Norwegian as a foreign language). And I totally love it. I love teaching. I even miss my kids sometimes. But I enjoy the adult groups so much more. And this brought me to the same idea: why learn a new profession (blogger) when I already have a profession I love? I have the formal education, training and experience in it. Why start somewhere else from the scratch? If I wasn’t 100% content with a place where I was (like I was) – well, there are still many other directions in the same job. Why not explore them, why not make an effort getting to another level?

And I have noticed one thing: the more I teach, the more I use my voice in the classroom – the less desire I have to blog. The less I want to use my voice online :)) Soon I will become, maybe, that kind of blogger who posts only photos, hehe. Maybe, there is enough self-expression in teaching, that this need falls off. I remember, that when I started teaching, 5 years ago, I totally stopped writing on my Russian blog. I had no energy for it, honestly. But also – I didn’t feel the need. But I really hope that I will not stop blogging this time!

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I really enjoy my job. I guess, you have already noticed :)) I get the air under my wings after a class. I remember I had the same feeling when I was teaching German at a language school in my home town. It was 13 years ago. I had groups of kids, teens and adults. And classes with adults gave me that amazing feeling. Since then I wanted to become a teacher for adults, and when I came to Norway, my ambition was to become a professor of a subject I love.

I studied sociology, and I really liked it – but when the time came to write a master thesis, I fell off. I suddenly realized that being professor is not about teaching, it is about researching, and this is a very lonesome work. Add to it my insecure status of an immigrant in Norway, and I knew I would have difficulties finding a relevant job with a master degree in sociology. So I chose to quit my master and search for a teacher job. Which allowed me to stay in this country with a work visa. The work in the primary school was not my dream job, and gosh, so much stress there was for me, a new teacher. But when I look back, I really appreciate the experience it gave me. Among other things, it made me quite unafraid :)) After jumping into teaching arts and crafts or P.E. to a new class, without any experience of it, what can scare me now?:))

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that this affair of selling a flat is such a carousel. One day, tired of cleaning and fixing, I want to throw in the towel and say: “Gosh, let us just sell it as it is!” Another day, I would walk around our flat, looking at our sunny balcony, and sigh: “We have such a lovely place! It is heart-cutting to leave it to somebody else”.

And the more I think of moving out of Norway, the more Norway becomes nice, sweet and attractive to me. I used to complain about it so much! About the weather (of course), about the reservedness of Norwegians, about the tranquil vibe of this city… Now everything is just fine! I even enjoy the rainy days, with my cardigan, coffee cup and writing or reading! And the reserved Norwegians don’t bother me, and the city is ok. What happened? Did Norway turn its pretty side to me? Or is it a normal process or re-evaluating when you get the alternative of leaving/losing something?

Well then, the coffee is done and it’s time to get up and go about our daily business. Hope, there will be also some pleasure to it, not just routine.

How are you, guys? What’s cooking in your heads? What would you share if we were having coffee?