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Tomorrow’s International Translation Day September 29, 2010

Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Translation.
5 comments

International Translation Day is celebrated every year on September 30th – on the feast day of St. Jerome, the Bible translator who is considered as the patron saint of translators. This year there is apparently a big ProZ.com virtual conference going on. Has anyone attended and can vouch that it is a good thing? Since it’s a ProZ thing I’m not all that inclined to participate. But I do have an open mind and would love to hear others’ opinions on it.

Instead I will be translating and hopefully taking some time off to read a good book on the couch. With the weather cooling down it is starting to be my favorite time of year – Fall – when there is nothing I enjoy more than cuddling on the couch with a mug of chai and a good book. This year I have a cat to cuddle on me. She got spayed on Monday and is feeling extra-clingy. Should be a good day. Happy International Translation Day tomorrow, everyone!

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A scam that isn’t translation related September 27, 2010

Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Scam alert.
4 comments

I thought you all might need a chuckle this Monday. I received an e-mail from an acquaintance this morning informing me she was stuck in London and needed a loan. Yeah, right. I listen to the news and know not to believe this stuff. I responded to the e-mail telling her it looked like she had been hacked. The hacker actually had the nerve to respond to me.

It’s me.. this is for real, i’m doing everything i can to work my way out of here peacefully.. i have checked with the consulate but there is nothing really working out, most important is i dont have enough money on please, please i need you to loan me some, i can pay you back in couple of days.

I called her at work and let her know that she needed to call the police and her ISP as soon as possible. Since I know this kind of thing is brushed off by the police I took it upon myself to write the hacker back and inform them that I had just spoken with her and had given her the number to my “colleagues at the FBI.” I thought about mentioning the fact that she has a good friend with the State Department that would help her in a situation like this, but I didn’t want to give them too much information. I hope they soiled themselves just a little bit, but probably they will just cross her off the list and move on to the next victim. If you get an e-mail from a friend who was “mugged in London” and needs “help flying back home” don’t believe it or call the person and verify the information.

Back in the saddle again September 23, 2010

Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Random musings, Work-related injuries.
7 comments

I’m back, baby! I can’t believe it’s been one month to the day since my last post. My only excuse is that I was completely overwhelmed with work and life – so much so that I decided to go on vacation and then actually went on vacation – with a Trados-free computer! I spent 9 glorious days on Seabrook Island, South Carolina and am pretty refreshed. I have been digging my way out of the backlog of e-mails, blog posts and listserv e-mails for the last day or so (not to mention sending in my quarterly payments to the federal and state government a week late – hope they don’t mind too much) and finally feel like I have control of things again.

Work consumed my life for the last several months. I had two very large jobs for a client in Germany two months in a row and a 12,000 word job for my favorite client. My arm really hurt (and to some extent still hurts), so I took some desperately-needed time off. In my case, I occasionally get a case of tendonitis in my arm from being overworked. My massage at the beginning of the month was one hour of torture on my upper body. My massage therapist didn’t even get to my legs or lower body. She spent the entire hour on my arms, hands, shoulders and neck. She said it’s the worst I’ve ever been. Every single muscle was tight, and it extended to other muscles that you wouldn’t expect (like the muscles over my collarbone – which made me cry out in pain at the slightest pressure). I was a writhing mass of pain. The muscles in my forearms were particularly sore, and the pain eventually moved into the elbow. I can’t straighten my arm without pain, and it’s actually gotten better with 9 days away from the computer!

As fate would have it, Ted Wozniak mentioned a homeopathic remedy for wrist pain and carpal tunnel during a discussion of disability insurance on the ATA German Language Division listserv the other day.

I’ve been using apis for years and I swear it not only takes the pain away but prevents carpal tunnel and arthritis. Apis is concentrated bee venom and is an old homeopathic remedy for arthritis. The best part is that you only take it when you have pain. When the pain goes away, you stop taking it. And the periods between pain have gotten increasingly longer each time – from 2 or 3 times a year 6 ot 7 years ago to maybe once a year now. I’m still using the same $5 bottle of apis I bought 3 years ago.
I buy mine at www.homeopathyworks.com and use Apis Mellifica 30C in the 4 dram bottle. (I see the price has gone up to $7.19 for that.)

I have ordered a bottle and will report on the results in a little while. I have also resolved to take it a little easier and am also looking forward to life calming down a bit.

But it’s good to be back.