I've been back at work now after my paternity leave for about three weeks now,and I'm really feeling the grind. The feeling is compounded by being the new guy, the non-native Swedish speaker and still being a a bit rusty.

It hasn't helped being given some real turds of projects. The first proper one I got wasn't possible unless we changed major parts of the application (ironically, it was a tool to make using that part of the system more usable). The second a small piece of work also uncovered a reasonably large flaw in their site navigation (oops!).

All of this has left me feeling a bit exposed. It's also been compounded by a feeling that my ability to speak Swedish is deteriorating. Out of frustration at my own vocabulary and a need to get my actual work done, at the moment I have to communicate mostly in English. This feels like a bit of a failure, and I can't help feeling that when our technical lead explains things I get the slight feeling of being talked down to. Perhaps it's just paranoia, or him wanted me to feel at ease, either way it's slightly unsettling.

There are lots of positive aspects of my job, for example: everyone is very pleasant, the working conditions are relaxed: one of my colleagues brings her dog in everyday. Unfortunately her dog spends a large part of the day licking his large and very prominent ball bag directly in my line of sight. Yes, you might think, but do you have to look at him doing it? Well, the meaty slapping of a canine tongue (think soggy towel swung at wall) against scrotal sack is quite hard to tune out some days. I'll try and get a picture, but I can't get over how pink they are and how they are totally at odds with his dark brown coat. I also feel I'm learning lots and reactivating the part of my brain that used to be good at writing code.

From a linguistic perspective I quickly realized that up to now I had learnt many words for different social situations and day to day interactions, to the extent where I feel happy making small talk, but asking questions about work uncovered large gaping holes in my knowledge. I've therefore taken to keeping a browser open at work with two tabs open. One is a online Swedish to English dictionary, the other is the site which my flashcards are on. So when I hear a new word, I can quickly look it up, and add it to my new work vocabulary list which I study each morning on the way to work. I've also been involved a lot of exchanges like this:

Me: "What's the swedish for modify?"
Colleague: "modifierar"
Me: "*sigh"

Still slowly but surely I'm getting