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April 2015

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The Blogger's Prayer

Lo, there do I see my posts.
Lo, there do I see my tweets.
Lo, there do I see my gifsets and my picspams.
Lo, there do I see the line of my blog, back to the beginning.
Lo, they do call to me.
They bid me take my place among them on the Internets,
Where the geek may live forever.

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Mom: Have you been to church for recollections^* this Lent?
Me: Nope.
Mom: Are you going to go?
Me: Nope.
Mom: Are you mad at the Church?
Me: Nope. I just don't feel the need to go.
Mom: Just don't tell your grandmother that, please.

And sure, I can understand why it's theoretically better not to say anything. My grandmother is old and fragile and she has her delusions about me being a deeply religious person, among other things, and it's best to keep the peace. But is it really better? I'm essentially lying to my grandparents, going to church only because they want me to go. I'm lying to them and lying to myself. I'm doing the thing I really hate other people for doing - going to church not for religious reasons, but for appearances' sake. Does the fact that I'm trying to do right by grandparents outweigh the hypocrisy of what I'm doing?

* Recollections are kinda like spiritual retreats, a series of lectures/prayer days where you go to church and listen to a super long homily on selected subjects. I don't know about other countries, but they're really popular here in Poland. The last ones I went to featured a homily for "women, wives, and mothers," which contained an anecdote about a wife who found a letter from her husband's mistress in his jacket, and when he came home, it was sitting on the family altar and he sat down with her and said "pray with me" and so they did, and when they got to the "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" he gave her an eloquent look and squeezed her hand, and now it's twenty years later, and they attend church together, holding hands, blah blah blah, and another one about... I don't actually remember what it was about, but it had a story about a guy who was a drunk and he spent his money on booze and then thought his kids had stolen it, so he beat the crap out of his daughter, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire, and then when she was in the hospital, dying, she asked to see her father, so they brought him from the prison, and she said to him, as he sat at her side and held her hand, "but daddy, I really didn't take the money." That was the last time I've ever gone to one of these things, and I'm never going back again if I can help it

Current Mood: uncomfortable
Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1745502.html

Being a Writer and a Translator

Translating literature is basically rewriting it from scratch—you have to take what you’re reading, and rephrase it in a way that’ll be appropriate for the culture you’re translating into. It’s hard to reconcile the inner writer, with the constant “I’d do this differently” thoughts, with the translator’s task of trying to match the author’s original style and not changing the story. The task is made much harder if you’re also a writer, and if the work you’re translating falls outside of the genres you normally read, or if it falls within certain genre conventions that you don’t like.

Do the Legwork on the Paperwork

If you’re like me, and you’ve never had to come up with a contract for a translation job, trust me, ask for advice. If you get advice that says “just Google it, there’s plenty of templates out there,” look further. Ask more people. Do the Google search, put together a contract, and then ask someone to look it over. Ask your friends, ask in forums, get a second opinion (and a third, and a fifth). Don’t just assume that just because it looks pretty good to your untrained eye, it’s fine. If the person you’re signing the contract with makes changes, make sure you get someone else to look them over. I’m speaking from experience here — things I said would fall under my purview in the conversations before the contract didn’t make it in there, and things that shouldn’t be my responsibility did.

Learn from Your Mistakes

If you’re like me, just starting out in the field, you’re bound to make mistakes. Don’t get discouraged. One job that doesn’t go quite the way you thought it would doesn’t mean the end of the world. Get the job done, do the best you can under the circumstances, and carry on. There will be other jobs, other opportunities to do better. Don’t sweep the mistakes you’ve made under the carpet, though. Remember them, learn from them, and keep them in mind so you don’t make them again.

Don’t Give Up

It’s a difficult balancing act—staying involved in the work so you get it done on time, and at the same time remembering to step back when needed so you don’t get discouraged and disheartened and start to dislike the work. Because if you don’t like what you’re doing—and this goes for writing your own stuff, too… hell, it goes for any job you do—it’ll show in the final product, and it’ll affect your ability to work in the future. And if you can’t make it work, well, maybe you shouldn’t be doing the work.

Mirrored from Tangents and Digressions.

Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1742604.html

So I'm reading this novel right now that I might be translating, and I keep thinking about translations and how the different languages and different styles translate across to various audiences. I'm not a super-experienced translator (which is why I keep bemoaning the lack of more literary translation under- and graduate programs in Polish universities - I know that sworn translation is where the money is, but a little more diversity would be nice), so I can't really judge the technical aspects of the translated books I've read, so I'm speaking as a reader rather than as a translator. Although now that I've studied some aspects of it, it's kind of hard to turn that part of my brain off.

A few years back, I saw the movie Night Watch, which was based on Sergei Lukyanenko's novel of the same title. And I loved it, and wanted to know more about the world Lukyanenko created. Seeing as I was working in a bookstore at the time, I took advantage of my employee discount and picked up the three books in the series that were available at the time. I started reading Night Watch, but I never finished, because the translation read so awkwardly to me that it kept jarring me out of the novel. I don't remember what exactly it was about it that made me stop, but I suspect the translator had attempted to maintain the style and diction of the original language, which just doesn't work for me. I don't really know Russian beyond a few words and phrases, but iirc it's similar to Polish (they're both Slavic languages, but Polish is West Slavic, and Russian is East Slavic, although I expect they have some commonalities) and I imagine that just as Polish sentence structure and syntax don't really translate straight across, Russian wouldn't either. There is a translation of Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita where the translators specifically said in the introduction that they tried to maintain the original style and diction, and it made for such awkward reading that I ended up finding a different translation (and eventually ended up picking a Polish translation, which read better, possibly because of the similarity of the languages?) (that reminds me, I really should try and finish reading that one of these days).

This one is a romance novel with a strong intrigue subplot, and while it reads similar to other novels that have been pretty popular lately, plot-wise, it's actually quite easy reading. I haven't read enough in Polish lately to be able to say whether it's well written, but as a reader, it's good enough to keep me engaged and turning the pages. It's slightly formulaic, but that doesn't make it a bad read. I've tried to read some Polish translations of less-than-reputable popular fiction, and it was a bad experience all around. Although I guess I have to give kudos to the translator for maintaining the style of the original (which was hard to read not just because of plot/characterization elements, but also because it was badly written).

I don't know. Again, I'm not really experienced enough in translating, so I'm not speaking as a translator, only as a reader. And while I'm sure some of my impressions are colored by what I've studied, and what I've started picking up automatically (ask me about how much I hate watching movies with voice-over translation on TV *shudder*) I think most of my reading experience is still that of a reader. It's sometimes hard to shut off my inner translator, though, so I notice things that seem artificial, like purposefully imposing characteristics of one language onto another, and with the combination of "reader" and "translator," they don't always work for me the way they might work for other readers.

Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1668670.html

I blocked another shawl yesterday! I've got an Ishbel to photograph and write up, and I've taken the pins out of a Bridgewater this morning, so I may do both at the same time. I miss my blocking wires terribly, because blocking lace with waste yarn threaded through (waste yarn that's kinda thin and not very strong and at risk of breaking) isn't very convenient, especially since it stretches and then the tension goes all to hell. Marta helped me pin this one out, and I'm thinking we did a pretty good job. I'd have liked to block it a bit more aggressively, but given how big this thing is (the pattern calls for 42.5" x 42.5", this thing right now is about 53" x 53", and although I expect it'll shrink a little bit, it probably won't be 10" on each side), I'm gonna say it's big enough. push comes to shove, when I get home at the end of March, I can always repin with the wires and get it more aggressively blocked.

After the moping last night, I do have to say I'm feeling better this morning. Whether that's because I'm actually feeling better or because I'm in "fake it 'til you make it" mode remains to be seen, but for the moment, it's mostly good.

Last night, after I turned off the light and pulled the covers up, I had a brief moment when I almost got back up again and started writing, but I forced myself not to, because seriously, 3am is no time to be writing porn. At least not when you're tired and cranky.

And now I'm going to go upstairs and get some cereal and fruit for breakfast. Marta and I realized that too much junk food was making us feel kinda grody, so we're trying to eat more healthy and cutting out sugary snacks and the like. It's like we're being adults or something, it's quite disconcerting. O_o

Current Mood: awake
Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1646838.html

Hey, AO3, let's talk about being able to download a whole fic series in one file, hmm? There are probably way more multi-fic series out there than I'm aware of, but I've run into quite a few myself, and it's kind of a pain, managing them on a Kindle, especially when the series name is not encoded in the metadata title. Like, even that would be helpful, maybe appended to the title as (Series, Part x of y). I know I can do this sort of thing myself with something like Calibre, but I also know I'm not the only person who wishes series downloading was a thing. Also, while we're on the subject of things we'd like to see, as

moonie pointed out the other day, "notify upon completion" would be a cool thing for those of us who don't like to read WIPs until they're finished.

I've been in kind of a funk lately, swinging back and forth between good days and bad, with the latter being far more prevalent. Like yesterday, for example. I was determined to actually be productive, so I packed up the computer, grabbed a banana for lunch, and went to the library. And sat there for the better part of an hour, staring at the computer screen and accomplishing absolutely nothing. So I figured, OK, a mental health day may be in order, where I focus solely on making myself feel better, and went home. And then I sat there at home, stressing out over how I was wasting time on a mental health day. *sigh* Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

But then I decided that I needed to try some relaxation and possibly just unwind some more, so I googled and found a 30 minute thing on YouTube. There's some binaural sounds for deep relaxation added in there, but I have no idea how they're supposed to work, so IDK. I put on my headphones, got comfortable on the bed, and played the thing. And then the next thing I knew, it was three hours later, and I was getting woken up by knocking on my door. I do feel a little better, although I wish I hadn't slept for so long, because it's now past 2am, and I'm still up. Although judging by the yawning and the encroaching grogginess, it might not be too long before I faceplant into a pillow.

Current Mood: moody
Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1646450.html

If I were a better Catholic, I'd be more upset that Lent starts five days before my birthday. Well, if I were planning to actually have any sort of birthday party. As it is, I'm not planning any festivities beyond maybe going to the movies and out to dinner (which is what I traditionally do for my birthday), so I'd be good, even if I cared about the Lent.

Come to think of it, I suppose I should do something a bit more special for the birthday, given that I'm turning *gasp!* 35. Also, there's another girl here on the Erasmus program whose birthday is on the same day, so maybe we can do a nice dinner together with her or something.

I finally made a doctor's appointment to get my back seen to, and it turns out that it's "an inflammation of the sciatic nerve" so I've got some prescription anti-inflammatories. I'm a little disappointed and kinda taken aback, because she had me lie down and lift my legs, and poked at my back a bit, but the whole thing was over in like, five minutes. She said it didn't look to be too serious, and that she didn't think it required any further tests, but IDK. I guess I was expecting a bit more than a prescription for naproxen and a booklet on how to deal with back pain. Tomorrow, I'm going to call and make an appointment for an assessment at the chiropractic clinic for next week, so maybe between one and the other, I can get my back in semi-functional shape again. I know I should try to exercise more, maybe swimming or something, but there's no swimming pool here, and on top of that, I can't swim (yes, I know). I need to look into something like a yoga class or something, maybe that'll loosen things up a bit and get me moving slowly.

Current Mood: apathetic
Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1643538.html

So the last few days, there have been... attempts made at snowing. There even was a day with the hills opposite our house dusted with snow!

True, it was gone in less than an hour, but you know, GOLD STAR EFFORT.

Yesterday in class, people were saying, "oh, they'll close the uni tomorrow for sure, it's going to be MENTAL." I readjusted the value of "mental" to the "Welsh" setting and planned to point and laugh. At 1am last night, there was no sign of snow, so I figured we'd be waiting for the 10cm we're supposed to get on Monday (OMG APOCALYPSE).

And then today, I got up, opened the blinds, and BOOM, SNOW!

Now, if we could take the snow from the last picture and combine it with the blue skies of the first one, that'd be perfect.

Also, this happened:

FIRST OFFICIAL SNOW DAY EVER FOR ME! OK, I don't actually have classes on Fridays, but still, whee! :D

Current Mood: excited
Current Music: Melissa Ferrick - Everything I Need
Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1639213.html

ignipes mentioned making cross-stitch samplers out of a few points from Chuck Wendig's 25 Writer Resolutions for 2013 (And Beyond) and now I'm all MUST. MAKE. CROSS-STITCH. Because 1) the knitting project I put on the needles today might actually be too complicated for my skillset and might have to be scrapped, and 2) I've been feeling like I need a break from knitting for a while now. So now I'm googling places to get cross-stitch fabric and other supplies, and bookmarking sites where you can make your own sampler patterns, and ahhhh, this is not the time, self.

Current Mood: cold
Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1637063.html

I'm going to follow last year's precedent and break this up into a review post and a "favorites" post. The latter of which will come tomorrow, because it's after 3am and I should have been asleep a couple of hours ago already.

( Fannish and meatspace things. )

Current Mood: tired
Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1635983.html

So in an effort to keep myself distracted from all the bad stuff, I'm fiddling with layouts and stuff, and I have a question. There used to be a way on LJ - through layer styles, I believe - to align the mood theme picture to the right/left of the metadata, so the metadata text wasn't displaced by the image. Is there a way to do that on Dreamwidth?

Current Mood: numb
Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1635030.html

I play this game sometimes. You know the one. The "if I was a published author" one. And I've always thought, even when I was little, writing long and involved stories about princesses and their adventures, that I wouldn't actually publish under my real name. When I was little, I decided my pen name would be "Paula Cattani," which was the name of the daughter of the police inspector from La Piovra ("The Octopus," it's an Italian series about the Mafia) (oh my god, Wikipedia, why do you call it a "miniseries," IT HAD TEN SEASONS WTF). And OK, her name was actually "Paola," by my grandfather calls me that sometimes, so it works, too. IDK about it now, though, there are a lot of people with that name (although there don't seem to be any writers by that name, in either variation), and I want something ~~~unique.

This probably works better for people with non-English names, but basically, I ended up taking family names and Anglicizing them.

From the root of my mom's maiden name, I got "cart," which makes the last name the rather obvious Carter.
From the room of my maternal grandmother's maiden name I got "yew" (as in the tree). I was a little lost as to what to do with that, until through some lucky clicking on Tumblr, I discovered that, in some backwards etymology, "yew" is related to Eboracum, which is the Latinized name for York, so that works out pretty well. (see the Wikipedia entry for more, if you want)
My last name means anything from "pagan god" to "idol" to other things along those lines, and, well, IDK what I'd do with that.
The root of my paternal grandmother's maiden name is the name of a town, which I'm gonna say derives from the word for the fava bean, so I guess I could dig into that and get something like Fabia/Fabian, if I go with the ancient Roman family name. ~~Or I can just go with Lecter?~~

Shut up, I totally have different a name planned for when I want to write torrid paranormal romances.

Current Mood: awake
Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1625815.html

So I deleted my Facebook accounts, both the one I was using and then one I'd made for secretly friending people who weren't family or classmates or work-related people. And then I went back through my e-mail addresses and checked that I didn't have any other ones. My mom sent me an e-mail a while back (after I first deactivated my account) that was all NOOOO DON'T LEAAAAAVE, but yeah, no. The people I actually *want to interact with are on Twitter/Tumblr/DW/LJ, and the main thing Facebook was doing was frustrating me. Plus, I was starting to get dangerously close to some of the streams crossing, and as much as I love my family, my DW/LJ is definitely not something I want them to see.

( Cut for thinky thoughts on jobs and school and stuff. )

Current Mood: gloomy
Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1623140.html

Fright Night 2 casting news & plot! Sounds kinda sorta basically like the first movie, but this time with Jaime Murray! This one's going to be direct-to-video, but eee, Jaime Murray!

I'm finishing up the Bridgewater Shawl and I'm up to the knitted-on border. I would have said the center square of garter stitch in laceweight would be the most boring part of this, but OH MY GOD I WAS SO WRONG. This thing has like, a dozen stitches per row, and a six row repeat, and it's SO BORING. I'm about 40% done with the edging, so I'm thinking I'll be able to take it with me when I go to Poland for the holidays and block it there. It'll be a belated present for my mom, since she's the only one who likes the color of the yarn (a sort of muddy green, which is why I'm calling my project "Swampwater" on Ravelry). I'm trying to be good and not start anything else until this is done, and that's actually proving to be pretty good motivation.

Tomorrow is going to be a library day, since I have an assignment due on Monday, and I'd like to have it finished earlier than at the very last minute. And then I have to give some serious thought to the two essays due at the beginning of December, because holy crap how is it already the middle of November? O_o

And now I'm going to go to bed, because I am tired, and hopefully I'll be asleep and dead to the world by the time the roommates come back from wherever the hell they went and won't notice if they bring people back with them. *crosses crossables for peace and quiet*

Current Mood: sleepy
Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1622114.html

Hello new friends! ( Here's a little about me. )

Current Mood: dorky
Current Music: Hans Zimmer - I Don't Think Now Is The Best Time
Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1615993.html

I'm off to London in the morning! Assuming of course I don't wake up in the morning with a hideous migraine or the plague doesn't make a comeback. Because as much as I do feel obligated to go for my mom's sake, I'm sorry, I'm not going to suffer through anything if I'm sick. Bleh. I should have been asleep a couple of hours ago, but this headache isn't letting up, and I keep alternating between being too warm and shivering, and I just can't shut my brain off. :(

BTW, if I do go, Friday's uploads will be up on... Sunday? Monday? Whenever I come back. IDK.

Marta and I watched Brave tonight. FEELINGS were had, tears were shed, she accused me of trying to break her heart. I pointed out that at least we've proven she has one. <3

In other news, LOOK AT THESE AWESOME NAIL POLISH SHADES. OPI's Skyfall collection. I WANT THEM ALLLLLL.

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Adele - Skyfall
Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1614690.html

Passing this on from a friend of my mom's, please pass it on to your friends if you think anyone might be interested (I'm unlocking the entry so you can link freely). The cats are fixed and vaccinated, they are 6 years old (born around January 2006). The current owners would prefer to give both cats away together.

( More ADORABLE pictures of the cats under here. )

Current Mood: hopeful
Crossposts: http://wtfbrain.livejournal.com/1593295.html

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Entries tagged with me: i haz thoughts

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April 2015

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The Blogger's Prayer

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you mean I can't just publicly proclaim myself a Pastafarian?

on being a translator

Being a Writer and a Translator

Do the Legwork on the Paperwork

Learn from Your Mistakes

Don’t Give Up

Whatever Wednesday - on translation and the personal reading experience

omg where is the coffee?

meh, I say

I am giving up fuck-giving for Lent

SNOW DAY!

facepalm

2012: the year in review

DW layout question

how I come up with pen names

what is a "sunlight"?

hopefully the fog won't eat us in the night

Welcome! Enter freely and leave some of the happiness you bring.

we will stand tall, face it all together

two cats looking for a new home in the New York area