TGIF: Punctuation Police January 23, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.1 comment so far
Come on, admit it… don’t you sometimes wish you could do this to language offenders 🙂 ?
Procrastination and flow January 21, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Random musings, Translation Sites.4 comments
Ryan at the GITS Blog has a fabulous post on Translator Flow. Rather than me summarize his insights, I encourage you to check it out.
It took me forever to get into the flow this week, but now I am firmly in it – and am now taking a few minutes to write about it and hope to get back into it when I’m done. I had a client call on Monday with a 3,000 word job due Wednesday morning. I procrastinated on Monday and only translated 500 words of it, because I figured I could finish it yesterday – forgetting all about the Inauguration. Oops. I spent yesterday scrambling to finish and stressed out. I moved my work computer into the living room to listen with half an ear while translating (never a good idea, BTW). I took time out to watch the actual swearing in ceremony, but then promptly turned off the TV to devote myself to my translation. I finally started getting into the flow about 4, which only left me about two hours before I had to leave for my dinner plans. Since I was the organizer I couldn’t bail, but I did cut out earlier than everyone else to go home and finish the translation. I finished it at 2 AM and sent it to my colleague to proofread, who wakes up earlier than me and had it ready for me when I woke up this morning. I delivered it on time – maybe even an hour early – and the PM told me she looks forward to working with me again soon.
Procrastination is a hard habit to break, but as a freelance translator with deadlines you soon learn how to not procrastinate in order to meet your deadlines and be ready to start another job. Back in November Scientific American explored the topic of procrastination in its article Procrastinating Again? How to Kick the Habit. The article defines procrastination as:
Procrastination does not mean deliberately scheduling less critical tasks for later time slots. The term is more apt when a person fails to adhere to that logic and ends up putting off the tasks of greater importance or urgency. That is, if just thinking about tomorrow’s job pricks the hair on the back of your neck or compels you to do something more trivial, you are probably procrastinating.
A penchant for postponement carries a financial penalty, endangers health, harms relationships and ends careers.
The article goes on to state that most people procrastinate and offers tips on how to break the habit of procrastination. I find if I am dreading translating a text or even a sentence or paragraph in a text I have a tendency to procrastinate (the article calls it “task aversiveness”). It is hard to motivate yourself and break through the wall, but it can be done. I am pretty good at not procrastinating if a deadline is far away, but if I have no deadline (just a “oh, whenever you can get to it”) I will procrastinate until I finally realize it’s been a week and I haven’t even touched it.
The article claims “the third oft-cited explanation for unreasonable delay is arousal”:
The “arousal procrastinator” swears that he works best under pressure, loving—perhaps needing—the rush of a last-minute deadline to get started. Such a person believes procrastinating affords a “peak” or “flow” experience, defined by psychologist Mihály CsĂkszentmihályi of the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University as being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. Time disappears. The ego dissolves. … But procrastination does not facilitate flow.
Which made me think of Ryan’s blog post, which I had just read moments before. Funny how I read two similar articles today on the subject. I think the universe is trying to tell me something, so I should probably wrap this up and get back to my 12,000 word job that is due Friday.
The best way to avoid procrastination for me is to stick to my job board and ensure it always has a couple jobs on it at all times. But I’d love to hear from you as well. Are you a big procrastinator? It’s ok to admit it as long as you always make your deadlines. As Ryan states, the client doesn’t care how long it takes you to translate something; they only want it delivered on time.
What strategies do you invoke to keep from procrastinating? Share your tips in the comments.
TGIF: Some more Victor Borge brilliance January 16, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.add a comment
OK, now that I’ve gotten started watching Victor Borge videos on YouTube I can’t stop. Here are a couple more showing off his talent for humor and classical piano.
The Muppet Show was a “don’t miss” show for me when I was growing up. The Muppet Show was a television program featuring a cast of Muppets that was produced by Jim Henson and his team of Muppeteers from 1976 to 1981. The idea behind The Muppet Show was that the Muppets had a weekly show that would have famous human guest stars in a kind of vaudeville theater atmosphere.
Here is Victor Borge playing Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 and trading puns with my favorite Muppet of all-time, Rolf the Dog. Since I was learning how to play the piano at that time the show aired Rolf was a natural choice for me.
And here he is performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Bobby Benson and the Baby Band.
And last but not least, here he is performing the William Tell Overture backwards (from “The Best of Borge”).
TGIF: Victor Borge and Phonetic Punctuation January 16, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in TGIF.add a comment
Sorry to those of you who subscribe with a reader. I changed my focus mid-post and the title didn’t jibe with the content of the post, which I didn’t notice until I had already published it. So I ended up deleting the entire post and reposting it here. This is without a doubt my favorite TGIF video subject so far. I hope you like it too.
Corinne at Thoughts on Translation got on my case today because I hadn’t posted a video. I took today off after finishing a big translation yesterday and was going to skip it, but I apparently can’t disappoint my fans of TGIF. 🙂 Here is an oldie but goodie – Victor Borge. My apologies for not posting sooner.
Victor Borge is a Danish-American entertainer whose nicknames were the Clown Prince of Denmark and the Great Dane. He is also a phenomenal pianist. His act blended comedy and piano playing. He was also outspoken against the Nazis. He escaped the Nazis because he was playing a concert in Switzerland. He escaped to Finland and, according to his Wikipedia entry, “traveled to America on “the last passenger ship that made it out of Europe prior to the war.” He died in December 2000 in Greenwich, Connecticut, after more than 75 years of entertaining.
He is most famous for his phonetic punctuation bit. I remember watching him on The Electric Company and Sesame Street as a child. He is absolutely brilliant. Enjoy!
And here is a variation on the classic with one of my favorite singers of all time, Dean Martin.
Translator, heal thyself January 15, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Tech tips.10 comments
I’m not one of those religious zealots, but certain Bible verses have crept into common language and I had to play off the phrase “Physician, heal thyself” from Luke 4:23 for this post because it fits. Despite the fact that I have written articles about the importance of backing up your work and the fact that I bought an external Maxtor hard drive a few months ago to replace my dead hard drive but never got around to installing Ghost to back up my data, I have learned my lesson and am about to eat crow.
Yesterday morning I woke up ready to translate all day to finish a large job that is due today. Unfortunately my computer would not boot up. It beeped a lot and the hard drive revved, but it wouldn’t boot. I called Susanne of In-House Translators – A Dying Breed in a panic, and we tried to troubleshoot the problem over the phone. Nothing we tried could make the computer boot up.
At that point I admitted defeat and called in a professional. I called a local computer troubleshooter who was able to come over within a half hour and take a look. He figured it was the power source and took it to his office to work on it. He e-mailed me the file I needed, and I was able to work on my backup computer in the living room. He is bringing the fixed computer back at any moment.
So what have I learned from this incident and what do I want you to realize? It does no good to have an external hard drive if you don’t back your data up on it. I had also gotten lax and stopped e-mailing the files I’m working on to my Gmail account. No more! As soon as I get the computer back and have finished my translation (should be done in the next half hour) I am downloading Ghost and implementing a backup solution. The computer guy is also suggesting I use his off-site backup service, which costs $20 a month. I think that might be a good investment.
So do what I say and not what I do and heal thyself! Get a computer backup system up and running if you haven’t yet. I was lucky – I had a backup computer with Trados already installed and could continue working once the tech recovered my file off my hard drive.
Mmm, crow pie sure tastes good!
How I feel today January 13, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff.1 comment so far
I don’t know about you, but I feel like a truck hit me this morning. Don’t you just hate days when you feel like Adam in the above comic strip?
What to do when you accidentally delete files January 11, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Tech tips, Tools.7 comments
One of my friends called me Saturday night at 11:30 PM in a panic because she had deleted 6 hours of work from her jump drive (thinking she was deleting superfluous files off her laptop). She knew I’d be up and needed someone to talk to because her boyfriend was already asleep. Having been in her position myself I was able to sympathize, but I was under the impression that once files are deleted off a jump drive they are gone. Not true! She called me back about twenty minutes later to inform me she had found a great little program that recovered her deleted files within seconds. The program she used was Undeletemyfiles.
As the software advertises:
“UndeleteMyFiles is a quick and easy way to find and recover deleted media and digital devices. It employs a simplified two-step process that enables you recover any files that used to reside on your system. The interface is very easy to use, just select the device that contains the files that need to be recovered and specify the folder to save the files to.”
What program do you swear by to recover deleted files?
TGIF: Lewis Black on Bad Language January 10, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff.add a comment
OK, so technically it isn’t Friday anymore, but most of you don’t read this on Friday anyway. I’ve been fighting the post-holiday malaise, so it’s been hard to motivate myself to sit at the computer. Luckily business picked up today, so I look forward to being back to normal next week.
Here is a little comedy bit on bad language by Lewis Black from his Red, White & Screwed comedy show. For those of you who don’t know him he is a rather caustic and cranky comedian who focuses mainly on politics. No politician is safe, regardless of their political affiliation. I don’t normally feature politics here, but all politicians are his targets so there isn’t any bias.
Some of the highlights from this show are:
“Dick Cheney. And that’s all I’ve got to say. Isn’t it great that we’ve reached that point? You don’t even have to say Dick Cheney, the vice president who shot his friend in the face. …
“The last year and a half has by far been the toughest time to be a comedian. It’s just become more and more difficult. I just can’t keep up. … It used to be easy. There used to be one or two things that happened in a week. … I don’t even have a ports of Dubai joke and we’re on to immigration. You tell me how we’re going to catch 11 million people. … And build a fence that’s 700 miles long? A fence that would basically be the distance from Washington to Chicago. We’re going to build that fence and then it’s going to take Congress five years to decide what color to paint it. We’re going to build a fence that’s 700 miles long and we couldn’t build levees in New Orleans?”
“About six months ago, I was home alone watching the president speak on television and … realized that one of us was nuts. And for the first time in my life, it wasn’t me.”
“It’s not like I’m saying Kerry would have been any better. Let’s face it. When you when into that voting booth, you had a choice between two bowls of shit. The only difference was the smell. How did you Democrats find Kerry? What’s the matter with you people? … The first time I heard him speak, I thought … ‘I don’t have enough bread crumbs to get me home.’ The fact of the matter is the Democrats not being able to find somebody to defeat George Bush is beyond belief. It’s stunning. It would be like finding a normal person who would lose in the Special Olympics.”
Enjoy!
Showing the Gate to 2008 January 9, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff.add a comment
“Showing the Gate to 2008”
by Rob Kyff
The old year has passed, so now’s just the time
To lambaste its buzzwords and do so in rhyme.
With “downturns” and “crashes,” please call the cops!
And don’t even mention those defaulted “swaps.”
“Wall Street” trashed “Main Street,” we’re sorry to say,
But “bail outs” and “rescues” claimed, “Help’s on the way!”
The “drumbeat” of bad news was loud and so steady,
And projects to help us were deemed “shovel ready.”
When anchors told experts to just “walk us through it,”
They all said, “my sense is,” which had no grit to it.
They backtracked and wavered with “having said that,”
Till viewers had no idea where they were at.
The sports guys on cable were never in doubt,
When showing us highlights, they said, “Check this out!”
And weather folk felt they’d just never make sense
Without all their talking of snow-sleet “events.”
When these fell together, they knew they’d transfix
By hyping the dangers of cold “wintry mix.”
Describing the nighttime, just one term seemed right;
Without any question, ’twas “the overnight.”
They talked of “YOUR forecast” for “YOUR Saturday,”
Please pray to YOUR God, make this go away!
When newspaper readers wrote letters to papers,
They started their missives with two standard capers.
While “I read with interest” seemed mild enough,
“Let me get this straight” just sounded too gruff.
Yes, Deep Throat passed on, but Watergate’s slime
Still lingered when people said, “that point in time.”
“Efforting,” “footprint” — Have you had enough?
These phrases, we pleaded, “throw under the bus!”
Seeking “engagement,” we rallied “the base”;
“Way forward,” “proactive” all over the place.
We “blogged,” and we “twittered” on gadgets of gab
And sometimes we traded a feisty “fist jab.”
Obama, he started each sentence with “Look . . .”
While Palin’s “you betcha” swam like a chinook.
This mommy of hockey put “lipstick on pigs,”
And Fey nailed her hairdo, with no need for wigs.
We heard about “change,” and then met a comer:
An unabashed “maverick” named ol’ “Joe the Plumber.”
Obama said, “fired up, ready to go,”
With “Yes, we can!” “Yes, we did!” he stole the show.
The buzzwords of last year deserve no ovation,
From twenty-oh-eight, we demand a “staycation.”
========
Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045. To find out more about Rob Kyff and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
Wanted by the FBI: Employees January 6, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings, Translation Sites.comments closed
NPR reports this morning:
The FBI has launched one of its biggest hiring blitzes ever. It needs to fill 850 special agent positions. It also has openings for more than 2,000 support staff. Officials say this is the agency’s largest job posting since just after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The openings are largely due to attrition and a wave of retirements.
If you want to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a linguist, you need to be aware that it will take at least a year for the background check after you have completed the 12-page application and passed the testing process. You also must be a U.S. citizen. The linguist test is a battery of tests that includes oral and written comprehension as well as translation ability from the foreign language into English. The first part is a written test with multiple choice questions testing reading and listening comprehension and then the translation of several texts. Most of those who take it (70 or 80%) fail this test. If you have passed the written test you will be invited back for a 20-to-50-minute telephone interview. The telephone interview tests your listening and speaking comprehension in the foreign language. The interviewers rate you based on the linguistic content of your responses and not on your knowledge of the subject matter. If you are fluent I can guarantee that you won’t notice when the interviewers raise the linguistic register and will find the phone interview quite enjoyable.
Once you have passed the battery of language tests, you will then have to pass the polygraph and an audiometer (hearing) test. The polygraph is mentally and emotionally grueling. They ask you about anything you may have omitted on the application and questions that might preclude your employment by the Bureau and about your character. I was so mentally exhausted after the polygraph that I took a 1-hour nap when I got home. You may also have to submit to a drug test, especially if you are offered a language specialist position. As a contract linguist, the folks in Cleveland decided I didn’t need to take it, but I was more than willing to. If you are an upstanding citizen you will have nothing to worry about from the polygraph or drug tests.
Having passed the language tests and polygraph, they will then begin conducting your background check. The application has you list every address you have ever lived at and name one person who can attest to your having lived there for each address. I also had to include a list of all of my clients at the time. The FBI visited everyone listed on the application and asked them about me and my character. They even went door-to-door on my parents’ street (and I imagine the street I grew up on for 21 years) asking the neighbors about me. I was glad I had warned my clients that I was applying to the FBI, because the secretary at one agency called my project manager to tell her “there are people from the FBI here who want to speak with you” – not something you hear every day and not something a foreign national usually wants to hear 🙂 .
I was a contract linguist for four years. It took them a while to finally start sending me work and even longer until they sent me to DC for training. However, it might have just been my field office and supervisor. I eventually got disillusioned and decided I no longer wanted to work with them. However, I know plenty of people who are contract linguists and enjoy the work. The texts I translated were indeed very interesting – Internet and banking fraud, letters rogatory, and extradition documentation. If you specialize in legal and financial texts this might be a good choice for you. If you are working at a field office as a contract linguist you will be expected to bring your dictionaries with you to the office. They never provided me with any dictionaries. Headquarters, on the other hand, has plenty of dictionaries. You will need to insist on having Internet access, because a lot of the things you translate and terms you encounter will not be found in a dictionary.
Contract linguists are paid by the hour, and the hourly rate is determined by language. As a contract linguist you would be self-employed and will not receive benefits. This means you will also be responsible for paying taxes out of the $34 or $35 an hour you are paid. You will keep a monthly time log and submit it at the end of the month in order to be paid. It is a nice little side job, but if you are chosen as a contract linguist you may or may not be given steady work depending on the needs for your language. Language specialists are considered full-time employees, and the assignments are rare. You may also be required to relocate or work from headquarters. Most people are contract linguists. Contract linguists may be given opportunities to travel (but assignments tend to require long stretches of time) or may remain in their city of choice and work from the local field office. Due to security concerns and the need to protect evidence, contract linguists must work in the field office instead of their own home or office.
The FBI does not distinguish between translators and interpreters, or between people who translate in one direction or another. The bulk of their work (perhaps 80%) goes into English, but a similar percentage of contract linguists and language specialists are non-native English speakers, so by definition most of their translators are working into their non-native language. Language specialists do not have the luxury of turning down assignments because it is into their non-native language or requires a skill set one may not have (such as interpreting). As a contract linguist you may have the luxury if there is a competent native speaker who can accept the assignment, but if you are in a language of limited diffusion you will most likely translate in both directions.
On a positive note, the FBI and other government entities are one of the few steady in-house jobs out there for translators. I have my fair share of gripes with them, but realistically it enabled several of my friends to keep freelancing until they establish a stable of regular clients. In-house jobs in the private sector are almost nonexistent, especially if you translate into English. You are also doing your part and helping your government in its dealings with other countries, which I really liked.
For even more information about working for the FBI and other government entities, I encourage you to read “Translating and Interpreting in the Federal Government” by Ted Crump. Many thanks to Corinne McKay for fact-checking, feedback and a couple additions to this post!
Musings from an overworked translator 