and another thing

Hello dear neglected blog. Yes I know the extent of my flakiness, but it's not like you are going to thwack me over the head every time I fail to blog consistently. Although the whole carrot and stick technique might well be the only one that works on me...
So what has happened in the meantime? Well, I have acquired another job, on top of the three I had already. Translation is making me lose the will to live. My new job makes me wake up with a delightful knot of anxiety in the pit of my stomach. Same old, same old essentially.
Gothenburg is showing us its best sunny side (with the occasional shower, just to keep you on your toes). I have learned to blow dry my hair. The results are sadly lacking in glam aura, but it does show a marked improvement in the grooming area. What else, oh yes, I have been to 3 baby showers in as many months, a completely new appointment on my social diary as I had never attended anything remotely baby showeresque in my life before. It may be some time before I venture out to another such event.
Am I going to write more? Well, no promises, but maybe, just maybe.

Silence! on bosse

Now things are picking up, I find I have less time to dwell on, well, whatever it was I was dwelling on (pretty dresses, make up and world peace probably). It's exciting and I'm even overcoming my deep-seated phobia of picking up the phone. Progress!
The bottom line is, I like being active, but I'm not good at making sure there is always some activity going on. If nothing turns up, then I'm not going to go out of my way to chase after something, not when there are reruns of the West Wing to watch. But now, there are more pencilled in scribblings in my diary and that makes me very happy.

Plus ca change et tout et tout

I think my body needs some exercise. It's trying to tell me something anyway, and it's telling me by making me feel stiff and crap after I stay put for too long. I cannot understand it: when I run, it is certainly not an exercise in mind over body or graceful form over decrepit body parts. When I exercise, I look deranged and in no way could anyone be fooled into thinking I'm doing my physical shell any good at all. My brain though, it seems to like the airing. It enjoys the opportunity to focus without interruption on podcasts or thoughts. It wants me to be out there pounding the pavement, shattering my bones.

Today has been a day of truths. I'm good at teaching people how to use the word thriving or legacy. I'm not so good at picking up the phone and getting things sorted. I want to be better and stop having the fear of failure balancing over my head. Failure is after all not so bad once you get up close and personal, and it certainly isn't a permanent state. It's just a shame that the thing I'm good at (teaching people) is not what I want to be doing on a full time basis. I think I do know what I want to be doing, but I have a more than sneaking suspicion that because of certain life decisions (hello living in Sweden!) that's not going to happen. Still, looking on the bright side, I'm not squandering my days looking at sitcoms. Oh.

Today, I had the first of what I hope will be many 'business' lunches with my new associate. A business plan was discussed, sophisticated (well, sophisticated in terms of lunch) foods were consumed and much ego-massaging was performed. I like! It felt so grown up and efficient. After that, I was quite overcome and had to recover by wasting an entire afternoon reading nonsense and blowing my nose.

So where were we?

So you are reaching the end of your 6000 word translation project, and with 700 measly words left to go, you are dawdling all over the internet, plucking virtual daisies and humming tunelessly to yourself. Instead of, you know, finishig and moving on to something more interesting like eating lunch, doing some much needed planning or even just rewarding yourself with a half hour read.

Is this how everyone works? Or is it just me who needs an evil taskmaster with a vicious prodding device?

The loneliness of the part-time translator

Lately, I've been doing a fair bit of translation, and I'm sad to say that it does tend to sap my will to live somewhat. It is a bit like writing that awful essay about 'industrial themes in French 19th century literature', when you rewarded yourself for writing a whole sentence by staring out of the window for a full 15 minutes and wondering if your bladder could withstand yet another cup of tea. Translation in my field is equal parts detective work, dull formulations and rage inducing formatting. No wonder I'm so breezy and light hearted when I have lessons, I mean it's such a relief to have a NORMAL (well relatively) conversation with ANOTHER HUMAN BEING, rather than the usual monologues that go something like:
Is 'fabrication' production or manufacture? Do I care at this stage?

I know I'm very lucky to have the linguistic abilities that I do, but it seems that I've fallen into the default position of someone who sort of speaks five languages, i.e. a translator. I always said I would never translate (or teach for that matter - ha!), but here I am, knee deep in the stuff, and while I do enjoy the freedom that being a freelancer entails, I must admit that I feel frustrated as I sit in front of my computer for the 10th consecutive hour and my 18th cup of tea.

God knows how I would survive if I did this full time!

Translation is not the most glamorous business...

Working against the clock

Yup, another deadline I'm sweating against. Boy, do I regret reading all that stuff about the Republican VP candidate instead of translating that annual report.


Hope there's a question about her in the next pub quiz

That old chestnut about Mondays

Posting will be very slight on Mondays because they are going to be real work humdingers.

Au travail

Going back to work was far from the big trauma I had imagined it to be. It was even *whispers* quite fun being back with my co-workers and having a giggle.



So many projects and so pepped up to do them. My god! Is this what being an adult is all about?





Gasp