Editing and Translating
Originally Written February 1, 2010
Dear Readers,
After I post this, I’ll be heading to help out with a project called ALMA (Actividades de Liderazgo para Mujeres Adolescentes – Leadership Activities for Adolescent Women) a three day camp that the Peace Corps does (there’s also one for young men called VALOR that we put together later in the year). All of the attendees are people from the volunteers’ towns. I was unable to bring anyone, but it’s just as well because at least I’ll be freed up to help other people with whatever tasks they need help with. It’s also easier since the Volunteers designated me as the photographer for the three days, which I’m happy about.
These past days I have been tired a lot. I’m sure the weather plays a role: it hasn’t been raining nearly as hard as I thought it would by this time, which I’m grateful for, but it has been overcast, which affects me. I recently acquired a key to start up art classes again, not in the primary school as I prefer, but instead in the secondary school. So that will start when I get back to site. However, since work at my site is generally slow, I’ve been keeping myself occupied with personal activities in my downtime. I’m learning French, and having worked my way through a course book, and preparing to go over it again to translate examples, I have now taken it upon myself to read some Verne in the original; but to help me focus on the language, I’m adding a twist: not only am I reading it, but I am also doing a translation of the whole novel as I go along. Not a delicate translation where I focus a lot on the English, but a crude, rough one to help me focus more on the French. For the past decade or more I have put so much work into finding the right learning method for me that it almost has felt like a family or a full-time job (I didn’t have much time to pursue languages in college, but they were still on my mind constantly and I dabbled when I could). So far I have found: I need grammatical instruction: learning by immersion alone doesn’t work, and using methods that focus on language examples alone don’t work for me…It’s actually too boring. There is a school of thought among many learners that you should not put so much effort on grammar as you do on examples, but for me I need the grammar. It’s fun, but building models or playing with Legos. There is bare and beautiful structure for my mind to grasp.
I’ve also spent a lot of time editing another lexicon, which I have spent a large portion of my time on every day, and at the end of my day I actually am quite tired because I do pour my heart and soul into these works. This is an expected surprise from my experience: I thought I’d be more among the people in my town, but I have to face a fact about myself: I do much better when I spend most of my time alone. Not all of my time, mind you, I’m not a complete hermit at all. But when I look back at some of my favorite jobs, I was by myself, whether it was mowing the lot by my aunt and uncle’s furniture warehouse, or shampooing the carpets or nearly all of residential rooms and lobbies on my college campus, or even digging the garbage pit for my host family, a straight-forward task where I am working alone is where I’ve been happiest. Even when I was younger it was like that: I always seemed to be inclined to be by myself, sitting on the swing set, reading, playing on the computer. I had a few friends back then, and I was very happy to spend time with them, play games, go to the lake, go to the movies, and so on, but even more than that I kept my own council.
But sometimes I felt very suspicious of being a party of one. My parents have always been very supportive of me, but would question me from time to time why I didn’t want to go to sporting events or even had an interest in sports. I did participate in Cross Country, which I loved, and Track, which I abhorred, and intramurals (which I did through high school and college) which I enjoyed for the light-heartedness of it, but beyond that I couldn’t answer. For what it’s worth, those are answers, I’ve come to learn. I’ve also come to learn this: there was never any reason to doubt myself for feeling inclined to spend more time alone than what I think is average. It wasn’t out of a dislike of people. Indeed, I love the company of others. But when focusing on those around me, or on tons of stimuli, such as at a party, or in a loud setting, it’s hard for me to draw on my energy from within. Even when I am in such environments, I go right back into my imagination anyways, otherwise I’d exhaust myself much more quickly.
So to my fellow, and fellow-ine, introverts, be your (inner) self! Take heart (from within!) and know that it’s OK, in case you ever doubt it, as I have for so long. I have felt more confident about myself than I ever have before, by believing, finally, that I am acting the way that is true to me. And just because you work alone doesn’t mean you don’t work hard. Even though at the moment I’m working mostly off of my computer, and it’s very fun, it’s still very taxing at the end of the day.
I also am considering a career in becoming a translator, after Peace Corps. That’s another reason I want to do the translation of the book I’m reading. While I was a senior in college, I translated my senior thesis into German, and that project sucked. God, I hated it. Thankfully, translators don’t go into foreign languages, only into their native languages, rather. Yet, because of the above experience and similar ones like it, I’m still very reluctant to say that’s what I want to do, but I have time to decide. At this point it’s still only a mere idea. But one that I am beginning to look at more in-depth.
There are some advantages. For many years I wanted a job that would let me travel so I could be free to live where I wanted. I am reading a book about the Foreign Service, which would allow that, but quite honestly, some of it sounds a lot like the Peace Corps and I think that when I’m done with my service in November, I’m done with this kind of work. I don’t think the FS is devoted to development work (I haven’t researched what kind of work they do; this book is aspects of the life, not the work), but I don’t know how much time I want to spend in the developing parts of the world. I do know however that it’s probably going to be very little time. I think this work is valuable and can be very fulfilling personally, but it requires a lot of stamina and frankly I’m getting tired. I can recount a variety of excuses – many of which I feel are valid – such as the difficulty of working outside of a clearer structure where encouraging results are more easily seen, but it would be beside the point. Living in a small community where I am not even guaranteed a bottle of delicious refreshing Coke, and where a hot shower is completely out of the question is OK. I can do that. I can do a lot more than that. I’m willing to make those sacrifices. But I just don’t want to make them for the rest of my life. I’m so thankful for this experience, I’ve grown so much and yes, I’ve enjoyed it…usually. And to prospective volunteers, reading this, I encourage you to go on and give it a shot if you think it might be for you. But also, I’m glad it’s for two years.
And look, I’ve gotten completely off track. I was going to talk about the advantages. Well, that’s how my mind wanders, and it’s my blog, ain’t it? ;-) While being a translator is no doubt a taxing job, for me the advantages would be working a lot on my own, which I really enjoy, and also if I want to travel, I can do so. I don’t have to rely on my job to send me somewhere where my job lets me travel; I can have a job that *lets* me travel. I suppose if I wanted, I could translate a text from my parents’ kitchen in Nebraska, to my own place that I’ll someday own, God-willing in Europe or maybe on a coast (if I could just add Midwest American thunderstorms, it would be perfect). I love writing, and I am very much surprised how much office-ish work appeals to me now. I thought I’d live an Indiana Jones type of existence, which I still want to up to a point, but now I think I need to balance that off with serious doses of movie theatres and bubble baths with water so hot your skin practically drops off of you in fleshy clumps when you emerge again. It’s about finding a happy medium.
But as I tried to point out earlier, I’m finding more and more, it’s about being happy with yourself. I think sometimes we all needed to be reminded of that.
Tristan
Dear Readers,
After I post this, I’ll be heading to help out with a project called ALMA (Actividades de Liderazgo para Mujeres Adolescentes – Leadership Activities for Adolescent Women) a three day camp that the Peace Corps does (there’s also one for young men called VALOR that we put together later in the year). All of the attendees are people from the volunteers’ towns. I was unable to bring anyone, but it’s just as well because at least I’ll be freed up to help other people with whatever tasks they need help with. It’s also easier since the Volunteers designated me as the photographer for the three days, which I’m happy about.
These past days I have been tired a lot. I’m sure the weather plays a role: it hasn’t been raining nearly as hard as I thought it would by this time, which I’m grateful for, but it has been overcast, which affects me. I recently acquired a key to start up art classes again, not in the primary school as I prefer, but instead in the secondary school. So that will start when I get back to site. However, since work at my site is generally slow, I’ve been keeping myself occupied with personal activities in my downtime. I’m learning French, and having worked my way through a course book, and preparing to go over it again to translate examples, I have now taken it upon myself to read some Verne in the original; but to help me focus on the language, I’m adding a twist: not only am I reading it, but I am also doing a translation of the whole novel as I go along. Not a delicate translation where I focus a lot on the English, but a crude, rough one to help me focus more on the French. For the past decade or more I have put so much work into finding the right learning method for me that it almost has felt like a family or a full-time job (I didn’t have much time to pursue languages in college, but they were still on my mind constantly and I dabbled when I could). So far I have found: I need grammatical instruction: learning by immersion alone doesn’t work, and using methods that focus on language examples alone don’t work for me…It’s actually too boring. There is a school of thought among many learners that you should not put so much effort on grammar as you do on examples, but for me I need the grammar. It’s fun, but building models or playing with Legos. There is bare and beautiful structure for my mind to grasp.
I’ve also spent a lot of time editing another lexicon, which I have spent a large portion of my time on every day, and at the end of my day I actually am quite tired because I do pour my heart and soul into these works. This is an expected surprise from my experience: I thought I’d be more among the people in my town, but I have to face a fact about myself: I do much better when I spend most of my time alone. Not all of my time, mind you, I’m not a complete hermit at all. But when I look back at some of my favorite jobs, I was by myself, whether it was mowing the lot by my aunt and uncle’s furniture warehouse, or shampooing the carpets or nearly all of residential rooms and lobbies on my college campus, or even digging the garbage pit for my host family, a straight-forward task where I am working alone is where I’ve been happiest. Even when I was younger it was like that: I always seemed to be inclined to be by myself, sitting on the swing set, reading, playing on the computer. I had a few friends back then, and I was very happy to spend time with them, play games, go to the lake, go to the movies, and so on, but even more than that I kept my own council.
But sometimes I felt very suspicious of being a party of one. My parents have always been very supportive of me, but would question me from time to time why I didn’t want to go to sporting events or even had an interest in sports. I did participate in Cross Country, which I loved, and Track, which I abhorred, and intramurals (which I did through high school and college) which I enjoyed for the light-heartedness of it, but beyond that I couldn’t answer. For what it’s worth, those are answers, I’ve come to learn. I’ve also come to learn this: there was never any reason to doubt myself for feeling inclined to spend more time alone than what I think is average. It wasn’t out of a dislike of people. Indeed, I love the company of others. But when focusing on those around me, or on tons of stimuli, such as at a party, or in a loud setting, it’s hard for me to draw on my energy from within. Even when I am in such environments, I go right back into my imagination anyways, otherwise I’d exhaust myself much more quickly.
So to my fellow, and fellow-ine, introverts, be your (inner) self! Take heart (from within!) and know that it’s OK, in case you ever doubt it, as I have for so long. I have felt more confident about myself than I ever have before, by believing, finally, that I am acting the way that is true to me. And just because you work alone doesn’t mean you don’t work hard. Even though at the moment I’m working mostly off of my computer, and it’s very fun, it’s still very taxing at the end of the day.
I also am considering a career in becoming a translator, after Peace Corps. That’s another reason I want to do the translation of the book I’m reading. While I was a senior in college, I translated my senior thesis into German, and that project sucked. God, I hated it. Thankfully, translators don’t go into foreign languages, only into their native languages, rather. Yet, because of the above experience and similar ones like it, I’m still very reluctant to say that’s what I want to do, but I have time to decide. At this point it’s still only a mere idea. But one that I am beginning to look at more in-depth.
There are some advantages. For many years I wanted a job that would let me travel so I could be free to live where I wanted. I am reading a book about the Foreign Service, which would allow that, but quite honestly, some of it sounds a lot like the Peace Corps and I think that when I’m done with my service in November, I’m done with this kind of work. I don’t think the FS is devoted to development work (I haven’t researched what kind of work they do; this book is aspects of the life, not the work), but I don’t know how much time I want to spend in the developing parts of the world. I do know however that it’s probably going to be very little time. I think this work is valuable and can be very fulfilling personally, but it requires a lot of stamina and frankly I’m getting tired. I can recount a variety of excuses – many of which I feel are valid – such as the difficulty of working outside of a clearer structure where encouraging results are more easily seen, but it would be beside the point. Living in a small community where I am not even guaranteed a bottle of delicious refreshing Coke, and where a hot shower is completely out of the question is OK. I can do that. I can do a lot more than that. I’m willing to make those sacrifices. But I just don’t want to make them for the rest of my life. I’m so thankful for this experience, I’ve grown so much and yes, I’ve enjoyed it…usually. And to prospective volunteers, reading this, I encourage you to go on and give it a shot if you think it might be for you. But also, I’m glad it’s for two years.
And look, I’ve gotten completely off track. I was going to talk about the advantages. Well, that’s how my mind wanders, and it’s my blog, ain’t it? ;-) While being a translator is no doubt a taxing job, for me the advantages would be working a lot on my own, which I really enjoy, and also if I want to travel, I can do so. I don’t have to rely on my job to send me somewhere where my job lets me travel; I can have a job that *lets* me travel. I suppose if I wanted, I could translate a text from my parents’ kitchen in Nebraska, to my own place that I’ll someday own, God-willing in Europe or maybe on a coast (if I could just add Midwest American thunderstorms, it would be perfect). I love writing, and I am very much surprised how much office-ish work appeals to me now. I thought I’d live an Indiana Jones type of existence, which I still want to up to a point, but now I think I need to balance that off with serious doses of movie theatres and bubble baths with water so hot your skin practically drops off of you in fleshy clumps when you emerge again. It’s about finding a happy medium.
But as I tried to point out earlier, I’m finding more and more, it’s about being happy with yourself. I think sometimes we all needed to be reminded of that.
Tristan
posted by Tristan | 8:46 AM
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