Lesson 3: Occupation

Peter: You know Rachel, I feel truly blessed to do what I do for a living.

Rachel: Oh yeah? You know not many people have that opportunity to actually
love what they do. So you’re really lucky.

Peter: Yes, I do count my blessings.

Rachel: What do you do by the way, specifically?

Peter: I can’t tell you, because I’d have to kill you. No, I’m not a secret agent. I’m a
freelancer so I do lots of different things. I guess you could say I’m a jack-of-all-
trades.

Rachel: You’re like a renaissance man. You can do anything and everything.

Peter: Yeah, everything to a certain degree, but not an expert in anything

Rachel: Sometimes, that’s better.

Peter: I hope so. I have got fingers in lots of different pies.

Rachel: That’s awesome. Do you like your colleagues?

Peter: Some of them. You know, I think in any walk of life, you like some people,
you don’t like some people, but I’m fortunate enough that I don’t spend too long
in any one place. So if I don’t like someone, I’m just going to a different job.

Rachel: You’re super lucky.

Peter: How about you? Do you like what you do?

Rachel: I do like what I do. You know, I worked as a news anchor at a radio
station and I absolutely loved it, because basically I was getting paid to learn, to
put it simply, right? Because I was reading about the news, current events and I
was learning about the world while I was getting paid to do it.

Peter: That’s true, everyone reads the news anyway.

Rachel: Exactly.

Peter: You get paid to do it. You’re a genius.

Rachel: Thank you. So I did a lot of editing and also translating, which helped me
a lot, say, for doing domestic news, so Korean into English translations, so I
learned a lot in that sense too.
Peter: That’s interesting. I don’t think there are too many people who are like us.
Maybe people watching this will be saying, “I hate my job”, but just stick with it
and something will come of it.

Rachel: Exactly. You make it what it is.

Peter: There you go.

feel blessed: grateful, happy or contended
*count one’s blessings: to think about the good things in life instead of being unhappy
about the bad
*jack-of-all-trades: a person that talented in many different fields
have fingers in different pies = have a finger in every pie
to be involved in many different activities
*stick with it: continue to do it
*something will come of it: something (good) will happen
you make it what it is: everything is up to you
count one’s blessings
There was a pay cut but I’m counting my blessings for not getting fired.
stick with someone or something
Just stick with me. You won’t regret it.
I think you should stick with your job. It’s what you do best.
come out of something
Everything happens for a reason. And I feel that some good will come out of all this.
Things have been tough but I hope that something wonderful will come out of it.

As a writer, author and occasional entrepreneur, I’ve been very lucky in my

career and have quite enjoyed the different things that happen each week…
the different turns I take and the different projects I get to work on. Everything
from working on things for the Korean government to helping them improve
their international relations or doing things for some large companies… the
projects can be very exciting.
I also have a lot of free time, so I get to spend more time with my family than
people with normal jobs, so that’s been very rewarding. As an author of books,
it's a very time consuming process. So having the free time from other projects
occasionally is very nice.
I try to do new and interesting things as much as possible, so I look forward to
creating new things and new ideas. I’ve got many new books for children in the
works and hopefully I’ll get those done in the coming months and years.

Everything from + verb-ing to + verb-ing… makes my job + adjective.

Everything from planning to creating designs makes my job interesting.
Everything from travelling to meeting new people makes my job exciting.

Everything from + A to + B… makes my job + adjective.

Everything from my colleagues to the work environment makes my job fun.

Be lucky in one’s + noun.

I’ve been lucky in my career with so many wonderful opportunities to grow.
I’ve been lucky in my life. I’ve met the most incredible people.