Nothing like hours of unending, difficult work to snap you out of your summer down period.
My latest project was about art, a subject I am admittedly rather uneducated about. I embrace certain forms of art myself (writing mostly, music as well, and film sort of as a hobby) but my knowledge of the visual arts in particular (by which my limited vocabulary is trying to indicate "painting" and "sculpture") is pretty limited. It's just something that I've never really been able to grasp. Occasionally I come across something that really speaks to me, but I can't tell you why. I can relate to the works of art my friends produce more readily, perhaps because I have a relationship with the artist and understand the efforts put into creating it. But if I look at a piece of art hanging in a museum, chances are I won't have much to say.
In a way, it's a lot like a language that I simply don't speak.
My comprehension of art closely parallels my language skills, actually. I know English as a native language - that's like writing for me. I know German fluently as a second language - that's like music. I can understand a bit of French and Dutch - that's like film. I don't understand any Mandarin Chinese at all - there's the visual arts.
The only difference is that I feel like the education factor would not fully apply here. I know that I could learn Chinese if I devoted enough time to it. But for some reason, I don't feel like I could ever foster a true appreciation for certain forms of art. It's just not the way I see the world.
I don't know about your business, but mine seems to slow down during the Summer months.
I was never really sure why this was - is there some cosmic language cycle related to the position of the Earth's axis that influences people's need to understand foreign tongues? Do people simply talk less during the Summer because it's too damn hot to move?
At a wedding on Lake George, NY over the weekend, I heard a small-talk comment about Summer and how it was "vacation season." That seemed to fit well in my mind. A much simpler explanation than the pull of heavenly bodies on the linguistic workings of our minds.
There must be a lot of Project Managers on vacation right now.
This is absolutely despicable:
http://msn.foxsports.com/id/2593080
That is probably the most horrific example of poor sportsmanship (spectatorship?) that I can recall. It's absolutely unbelievable.
Never mind the fact that Lance is the greatest cyclist in the history of the sport. Never mind his life-changing experience with cancer and his incredible comeback. Never mind that if there was an athelete who deserved to be spit on, it would be anybody but Mellow Johnny.
What really bothers me is the lengths that Lance has gone to in order to appease the Europeans (in particular the French). He was not well-liked when he began dominating the sport of cycling. The French press hounded him, the organization targeted him ridiculously for countless doping tests (including one instance while his wife was in labor and they were on the way to the hospital). His life was made extremely difficult because of his success.
His response? Class.
He learned French. Now Lance gives his interviews with the French press in their native tongue. He lives in Girona for part of the year. He did everything possible to adapt to the European perceptions related to the sport so that he gained respect, while remaining a singularly unique champion.
Lance has said all along that Jan Ullrich is the most dangerous competition he has. He is the only cyclist that Lance fears. Each year that Ullrich has participated, with the possible exception of this year, Armstrong has been proven right. Ullrich is a caliber of cyclist above nearly all others. Armstrong understands this and has always accorded him the corresponding respect and admiration.
And then, on the slopes of l'Alpe d'Huez, the incomparable showcase of cycling glory, German fans actually spit on him. I have seen photos of one fan (of nationality unknown to me) actually extending his middle finger at Lance as he storms up the mountain.
Is this an anti-American sentiment? Is it a political response? Is it simply sour grapes, the reaction of fans whose favorites have been broken by Armstrong's unstoppable power?
Whatever it is, it is disgusting. I hope I never see it again.
Had some trouble with my webhost again. It all seems to be resolved now, though the outage was rather frustrating - especially considering the poor response activity from the host. But then, this promotion I snagged gets me three years of full-package hosting for free, so I suppose I'm getting what I pay for.
I've been talking with a German friend of mine recently about job searching and the differences between the German system and the system we have here in the USA, if one could call it that.
I went to school for German and writing, not necessarily assuming that I would then later use either one in my employment. In Germany, it would be nearly a guarantee - the academic and professional tracks are much more rigid over there. Here, you can do virtually anything with a bachelor's degree, as long as you show the aptitude for it. In Germany it's not that simple.
There are advantages on both sides. There's flexibility on the one side and focus on the other. It can cause problems, though, when a flexible person is stuck in a focused system, or vice versa.
I have a sizeable list of banned IP addresses that has grown since I started using Movable Type. I collect these numbers from people who post spam in the comments on my entries. It's really annoying, because it forces me to go through and delete individual comments from the system. Luckily, MT does me the service of recording the IP address of every commenter, so I can ban them from commenting again. (This isn't always 100% effective, of course, because it is dependent on the person's type of connection to the Internet and the individual computer they are using, but it's better than nothing).
I find it bizarre that people do this, though. I'm sure they must be using some sort of spider or other automated system that combs the Internet looking for Movable Type blogs and automatically posts spam content in them. That seems even more bizarre to me than email spam. Who is devoting the time to do something like this? And is it even worth it? Is anyone taking this bait?
On another note, my computer is driving me insane. It recently went through a bizarre series of crashes and faulty restarts. My wit's end having been reached, I opened it up and blew the dust off everything on the inside with my compressed air duster. Now Windows is not recognizing all of my RAM for some strange reason. It recognizes that two slots have RAM in them, but it says that they are only 256 MB each (in reality they are 512 MB each). What's weirder is that when I look at the "System" item in Control Panel, it shows 1 GB of RAM under the "General" tab. When I look at "System Information" under Accessories, however, it shows "Total Physical Memory" = 512 MB. Bizarre.
I ran this diagnostic tool, and that reported that there were two bars of 256 MB RAM installed for a total of 1024. Which doesn't make any sense at all.
Computers make our life so easy.
A recent couple of projects I did for a client proved themselves to be fairly illuminating in terms of my abilities and inclinations when it comes to translation. In fact, they surprised me.
The first was a manual for a piece of machinery, close to 80 pages long. It was quite detailed in its description of the machine and its systems, and described fully the operations and maintenance actions for the equipment.
I breezed through that one.
The second project was much smaller - a total of only about six pages. It was what I would term a "technical press release," containing promotional information for the company's website (the same company that issued the operating manual above). These documents were very detailed in their description of how the machinery was applied to certain tasks, as well as the difficulties they encountered and the statistics of the work they did.
I had a much harder time with that one.
It would seem that I have developed a fairly solid vocabulary for operating and service manuals for larger-scale machinery. I've done several, for several different types of equipment from varying industries. It is always when I'm translating these types of documents that I feel most comfortable and the translation is nearly like writing in English sometimes.
When I encounter projects like the second one I mentioned, though, things get more difficult. There seems to be a line between the vocabulary of mechanical engineering, which applies to the design and operation of most kinds of manufactured machinery, and the application of those machines. The vocabulary of the machines themselves - the parts, the functions, the steps for cleaning or troubleshooting - seem to be fairly common through many industries. When you get to the application, though, there the vocabulary really starts to specialize because you have to talk about what the machine is actually doing.
An automobile and a boat are comprised of many of the same parts. Yet putting one to use is quite different from putting the other to use.
Seems obvious, I suppose, when put that simply. But I hadn't realized this fully myself until now.
Over the weekend, my wife and I visted the Mount Independence State Historic Site in Orwell, Vermont. We wandered around the museum and welcoming center, then did an easy hike through the forest where the fort once stood, over 200 years ago. There isn't much left to see of it, since it was razed to the ground by the British after they finally succeeded in driving the rebel Americans away from the shores of Lake Champlain. There are remnants of bunkers, though, and stone foundations are visible in many places.
One of the aspects of the visit that I found most interesting was the language. In the museum and on exhibit descriptions, excerpts from soldiers' journals and letters were on display. In some cases, reading their accounts was like reading a strangely familiar yet foreign language.
"...went with ye Qr. M. Genl. and laid out a large gardin at ye foot of the Mount..."
It is strange to think that the language spoken in this country has changed so much in a mere two centuries. Without having given it all that much thought before, I admittedly hadn't thought that it would have evolved so fast.
We no longer speak British English in the States, though. Sometimes I have difficulty understanding anything some Brits say, depending on the dialect.
And yet on paper, we all speak "English". Fascinating.
Having an account overseas has proven to be a very useful thing. I've been paid by my European clients more promptly than ever before, because it's so much easier for them. I have complete access to the account from here in the US, so it makes things better for both sides of the equation.
The only thing I haven't yet fully investigated is the best strategy for getting the money to my accounts here in the States. I'm not sure if it's cheapest to wire it, to extract it here with my ATM card for the German account and then deposit the cash into my accounts in the US, or to use another method.
All in all though, it's been a successful choice so far and I recommend it to any other freelancers who regularly get paid in Euros or Euro transfers.
I have finally taken the plunge and joined the ranks of those whose pockets vibrate, whose briefcases sing funny songs and whose attention spans while driving are slightly less focused than everyone else's.
That's right, I got a cellular phone.
How could someone take this long to get around to it you ask, especially when they work for themselves? The answer is: I live in Vermont. Some of you may not have heard that the entire state of Vermont has been placed on the National Register of Historical Places. Having a cell phone here is a decided luxury.
However, since my wife and I do travel a bit and since coverage improves here day by day (and is actually quite good in the area around my house), I think it makes a lot of sense. Now, armed with my laptop and my cell phone, I can go anywhere (mostly) and do the work that I want, where I want. That's a good feeling.
Moderating my forum at Translators Cafe is turning out to be quite an adventure. There's a lot more going on behind the scenes at that site than I had ever really expected. I also get a ton of emails telling me when certain forums and threads have been updated. It's a bit overwhelming at first, but I think I'm getting the hang of managing it.
I was in Montreal over the weekend and noticed once again how I seem to have developed a minor, almost subconscious ability to read French. It's not much more than Survival French, but I find that I can pretty much understand most of what I see when I walk around town. This surprises me because I only "studied" French for two years in junior high school - ages ago.
It must come from having lived 3 miles from the Canadian border for most of my life. I've been to Canada many times. When I was younger it was so much more convenient to cross the border. Most of the time when we came back to the USA, the border agents wouldn't even stop us. They would just wave us through. In high school, one of my teachers worked for the Border Patrol during the Summer. Driving back through his station just meant a friendly conversation before continuing on our way.
I wonder if there's a level of language-learning that is below the surface, that you don't do consciously. I don't mean just the normal way you "pick things up" from a language when you're learning it - I mean more like an osmosis effect. If you live close enough to it, it just seeps into your skin.
Guess that would give credibility to those "Learn German While You Sleep!" cassette tapes you always see in stores...
There are a few questions that I get asked fairly often when I tell people that I'm a translator.
The first is usually something like this: "Oh, so you travel around to different places where people need you and translate what they are saying? That sounds pretty cool."
Of course, then I have to explain that I'm a translator, not an interpreter, so no, I don't travel anywhere usually - I sit at home and stare into a computer screen most of the day. That's always a let-down because it's much less dramatic.
That's the sort of question one might expect from a person who doesn't have any experience with languages, but another question that I get alarmingly frequently really surprises me sometimes.
People often ask me, "So you think there's going to be enough business for that in the future?"
The implication they make is that the world is growing so small that eventually we won't need translators anymore. They usually mean this for one of two reasons: either they think that eventually, computers will do everything automatically, or they think that eventually, everyone will be speaking English.
The first is the more understandable statement and is usually the hardest for me to refute. No matter how I word my response, I always feel like I'm coming across as a conservative, snobby intellectual type - the type that is probably anti-technology and likes to read dusty old books. Which is silly, of course, because I'm just the opposite. It's difficult to explain why computers can't really do what I do - at least, it's hard to do in two sentences or less at a crowded bar (since I usually get asked this at social events where extended conversation is rare).
The latter implication that language will eventually converge so that everyone in the world knows enough English is frightening to me, and not for reasons of job security. If that were to really happen, imagine the cultural identities that would be lost! It's scary sometimes to hear people speak casually about such things.
I suppose I have to admit, though, that it's the American's mentality in most cases. Most Americans are bothered by foreign languages and want people to be able to speak English no matter where they are. It's unfortunate.
My social calendar is fully booked with two whole parties this weekend, so I'm sure this stuff will come up again in one form or another.
I just need to think of some clever come-backs.
Mobility is good. I'm up at my parents's house now, helping them pack up and move the last of their things out of the place before they close on the sale this weekend. The new laptop came with me and I'm able to function pretty much like normal here, if I want and need to. Admittedly though, I've spent most of my time working on the house here. But it's nice to know I'm connected if I need to be. The only thing missing from the equation is a mobile phone.
I want to try and get myself out of the house more. I am, after all, under my own power. I answer to no one but myself. Yet still I find myself feeling shackled to my desk, to my office, my computer, my phone.
The greatest advantage to this job is the freedom it gives me. If I don't take advantage of it, I'm doing myself a disservice.
One of my greatest pet peeves is websites that have a bilingual option that redirects to a different page than the one you are currently looking at.
That is, you find a website that claims to have content in English and in German. You find a particular page on that site in German and you want to see it in English, so you click the language selection button on the site. Do you get the English version of the page? No. You get the homepage. And then good luck finding that specific page in the language you want, especially if you surfed in from Google.
This is terribly annoying because it's one way that I occasionally do research for translation. Finding webpages that are "live" uses of the subject matter I'm working with is a great help in confirming word choice and understanding things in a functional context. If I'm translating something about construction equipment, it's useful to look up certain pages on the manufacturer's website, for example, and see how they use certain terms. It would be even more helpful to switch directly between languages, but alas, it is rarely so convenient.
Rest assured, when my new website goes live, the language selection option will switch you to the other language without sending you away from the content you're looking at. It's the least I can do after all my complaining.
Workflow when working as a freelance translator can only be compared to a roller coaster. There are periods of climbing when there's not much to do but wait, and there are periods of screaming falls when there is nothing else to do but work. There seems to be very little in between.
Of course, one should always focus on other important things during the uphill climbs, such as business development, marketing and so forth. Sometimes it is very difficult to maintain the focus, however.
I am just entering a new downhill plunge at the moment. I have a lot of work to do on my new website, which I want to launch as soon as possible because it's the first step in all of my new efforts for marketing myself. On top of that, I have a queue of five translation jobs that need to get done, each with its own special little deadline.
Freelance work seems to be a long-term course in learning to enjoy the time that you have and being effective when there's little of it.
They say that Germans are the most well-traveled Europeans. I think I read some statistics in a magazine a while back that demonstrated how they get more vacation time than any other nation in the EU.
While many Americans scoff with superiority at this notion, perhaps unconsciously denying their bitter jealousy, I find it fascinating that Germany remains one of the most industrious nations on Earth. They take a lot of time off, but they get a lot done, too. Most Americans would see six weeks of vacation as an indulgence, but most Germans I know would talk to you quite frankly about the restorative effects of time off, and how the mental and emotional healing that is brought about by a vacation does not properly begin until after at least a week and a half. I think that's a message that corporate America should take to heart.
In any case, the fact that Germans like to travel during their time off often means that you run into them in the strangest places. I run into Germans in Vermont all the time. Just this weekend I met one who was on a ski vacation in Stowe. We didn't actually speak any German, though.
It's nice to run into Germans. It puts me on the spot with my language skills sometimes, but that's a good thing in the end. I am looking forward to my trip to Germany in April.
My wife's birthday is tomorrow. Coincidentally, some of her relatives are driving up this way from the City. This means that we're going to be having a rather social weekend. Sarah and I aren't socialites by any means so it's nice to have a lot going on once in a while.
One of the biggest challenges I've had to face since starting this little venture is the social isolation. I think this is something that every freelancer faces, at least in the beginning. I went from working in a building with over 30 other people to working in my house by myself.
The cats don't count because they can't make coffee.
Sometimes I really like being on my own in isolation - when I'm focused, I can get an incredible amount of work done. I can work 10 hours straight without noticing that time has even passed.
On the other hand, maintaining focus is much more difficult when you're alone all day. If you don't have a lot to keep you busy, you need to have the discipline to set yourself to work on getting more work and maintaining the other aspects of your business. That's difficult when there's nobody in the room with you.