Coworker B, from the back room: "Jennifer, do you know how to say 'funnel'?"
Me: "Embudo."
Coworker B, from the back room: "Embudo."
Coworker A, from the back room: "Embudo."
Client standing with coworkers A&B in back room: "Embudo."
Me to Coworker G, at the next desk: "It's a good thing I tell those guys the right words."
Oh, OK.
I guess I thought more people knew more about me than they do. And yet why would they? So now they will.
Born & raised:
North eastern United States, including Pennsylvania (before age 1), Rhode Island, (7 years), Connecticut (3 years) and New York state (through high school).
College:
Lacking any specific career goals, I decided to choose a school that had a really solid exchange program. I had always felt an affinity for Asian cultures, and was looking for a college that offered a Junior year abroad in one of them. Boy, did I find one. Friends World College was founded by Quakers and, although it was not a Quaker school, per se, it did retain many Quaker ways and values. At that time, the program had centers in eight countries (US, Costa Rica, England, Israel, Kenya, India, China, Japan) and each student was required to spend at least one semester in each of at least two centers, although in most cases the entire sophomore and junior years are spent abroad. The college offered a non-traditional approach to education that relied on experience and internships with very little formal classroom study. Learning was documented in written form for evaluation by a faculty advisor.
First year was spent in the United States, with a core curriculum in the first semester and an internship in the second. Mine was at a farm that formed part of a residential facility for emotionally disturbed children in Brewster, NY.
Knowing that I wanted to spend Junior and possibly Senior year at the Japan center, I decided to spend my first year abroad in a culture as different from that as possible. To that end, I spent my Sophomore year in Kenya (East Africa). Again, the first semester was spent on the campus of the center, and the second in an internship. My internship was spent at Bombolulu, an organization located in Mombasa, through which physically disabled adults learned to earn income by making and selling craft items.
The year in Kenya was a difficult experience due to culture shock, and without giving it a lot of conscious thought, by the end of the second semester I realized I had decided not to go on to Japan, at least not immediately. I found myself planning to spend the following year at the Latin American Center, which was physically the closest to the United States, and culturally probably more similar than any other center except London (which I think I may have viewed as something of a cop-out because it is so similar.)
So it was that I entered Costa Rica for the first time on September 8, 1989, despite never having felt any particular interest in either the Spanish language or the Latin culture. Once again, the first semester was spent covering a core curriculum and the second in independent study which, in my case, meant traveling to Nicaragua to observe the 1990 elections.
As my senior year approached, I found that I was heartily sick of moving around. Every single college semester to date had been spent in a different city; it was time to sit still. I had felt much more comfortable in both Costa Rica and Nicaragua than I had in Kenya (interestingly, one of my friends had happened to spend all three years in the same countries I did, and she had the opposite reaction to the two cultures.) Figuring that moving back to the US at that point would probably invoke return culture shock, I reasoned that I knew my way around San José, I spoke enough of the language to get by, and I knew a few of the students who were currently studying at the Latin American Center. I decided to remain in Costa Rica for my senior year.
I had taken the most basic of Spanish courses as part of my first semester in Costa Rica, but the time in Nicaragua had not included any formal language study. I asked to be placed back into the Spanish classes for the first semester of Senior year, although I was a little disappointed to find that, when they gave me a placement test, they put me in a class that emphasized phonics and pronunciation rather than, say, correct Spanish grammar.
I don't remember what (other than phonics) I studied in the first semester of Senior year, but one thing I did do was sit down with my advisor and review the credits I had earned to date. Looking at the distribution, it appeared that I was majoring in Social Sciences, so we went ahead and designed the Senior year to round out any missing requirements. My Senior Project was a study of women's literature (in English), in which I read and reviewed as wide a variety of women's writing as I had access to, and wrote a series of my own poetry and essays.
Oh! I just remembered part of what I did in that first semester. I was the student representative for that particular group of students, and participated in faculty meetings, facilitated community meetings, and such.
Employment
As graduation drew near, the faculty discussed and eventually approved the idea of hiring me as a kind of student liaison for the following year. So it was that I decided to go ahead and stay in Costa Rica beyond graduation. (Oh by the way, I met and began dating Alex just before beginning my final semester, not that that influenced my decision at all...)
OK, I'm getting a little bored of writing all this, so let's start skimming.
I returned to Costa Rica after graduation and worked with current students, translating lectures, offering a cross-cultural seminar, discussing culture shock, etc.
By the time I felt the need to move on, my Spanish was strong enough to land me a job as a translator for IPS, an international news agency based in San José. When the agency decided to move its Latin American headquarters to Montevideo, Uruguay, the translators were invited to relocate since, apparently, there are precious few native English speakers in Uruguay. Alex and I considered going, but ultimately decided not to. One result of considering the whole issue, though, was that we decided to get married.
Married
August 6, 1994 (which we just discussed a couple of days ago.)
Once the translation job left town, I found work with a small Internet company in San José. The job involved mainly web design and installation of Internet software (which at that time meant configuring dial-up scripts on Win 3.1 machines). I knew nothing about either of these things, but learned a lot and ultimately even designed and offered a course in HTML when the company struck a deal with a local computer training school. I also did freelance translation for a client passed on to my by one of the other translators from IPS.
Firstborn
I left the office job when Robin was born in 1998, but continued working with my translation clients.
Big move
As Robin grew older, Alex and I decided it was time to spend some time in the States. We made a 3-month trip to see how it all looked, and then decided to move up for a longer period, which we did when Robin was 18 months old. Alex found work with a small survey company and, after a few months with my parents, we moved into our own apartment in High Point, NC.
More progeny
Julia was born in August 2001. Alex took Robin to Costa Rica for Christmas that year, while Julia and I stayed back in NC with my family.
Alex began to feel it was time to move back to Costa Rica, especially when work became slow at the (very small) company where he worked, and he was laid off for a while.
Small move
However, the new house he had designed (as you know) wasn't actually built yet so when a Costa Rican friend of Alex's offered him a short-term job in Mississippi he decided to take it. The girls and I moved in with my parents (who had moved to eastern NC by then) while he worked and construction began on the house in CR.
Another move
Three months turned into six, and by the time he left the Mississippi job he had been told about other work in other places and wanted to look into the options before leaving the country. As a result, he took a job with a survey company in Charlotte, NC and the four of us moved into an apartment there.
And another
The job wasn't bad, but the pull of Costa Rica (on Alex) was stronger and as soon as we could get out of our lease, we went ahead and moved back down in February 2004. The girls were 5 and 2.5 years old.
We all lived together in the new house for one year before Alex got a phone call from someone offering him another job in North Carolina. We discussed it and ultimately decided he should go, at least for a month, and see how it went. It went fine (for both of us) and he stayed for what turned out to be a year and a half, with one month-long visit from us and several shorter visits by him. He returned in September 2006.
And that is all.
Oh, hi. Er. Yeah. Sorry about that. I know everyone understands about not being able to post much during the retreats. And we've all noticed that I kind of slack off when I have visitors. And the week following a visit is clearly...well...anyway, here I am.
Let's see. News. Well, I finally quit my day job. I had told my translation clients that I would be unavailable during Mom's whole visit (not just the retreat), and I heartlessly turned down the documents they kept sending me during that time. Finally it occurred to me that right in the middle of a declared hiatus was probably the ideal time to go ahead and quit, so I did. I got a couple of well-wishing E-mails and one begging phone call, but no more documents.
Now the idea is to actively--yea, proactively even--pursue quilt retreats and quilting related activities. Of course that will cut into my lying-around-at-home (and possibly even blogging) time while the kids are at school, but it's infinitely more fun than translating, so that's the plan. On Monday I downloaded a bunch of software I'm going to need on my new computer to edit the retreat website, manage my photos, etc. I had been planning to wait for the DSL but you know what? Maybe it's like taking an umbrella so it won't rain. Or, you know, sentiments to that effect.
On Tuesday I updated the quilt guild membership list and reconfigured the way I keep track of meeting attendance and payment of dues (I'm co-co-treasurer) and sent it out to the other board members. On Wednesday Rita told me about a charity that has requested a donated quilt and an upcoming craft bazaar here in Costa Rica, so I cleared off my work table (without a backhoe!), traced two copies of the leaf block, selected a pair of my hand dyed fabric and started making one of the blocks. I also cleared up some billing issues with my biggest former client.
Today I'm skipping the gym (sore throat...again) and plan to start creating an online gift shop for the retreat. I made a mug for Mom on Zazzle last weekend and she got it yesterday. She says the quality is as good as they claim, so I'll go ahead and design custom mugs for each retreat we've had (group photo on one side, retreat logo on the other) and some general retreat t-shirts to add to our website. There's no cost or obligation for making the designs, and I get a small commission on any that sell. My kind of venture!
Oh, I'm also making Julia's birthday cake today. She takes it to school tomorrow and they have a ceremony there. Then on Saturday José and Yolanda will join the girls and I and four of Julia's friends for a trip to ZooAve (a bird zoo and rehabilitation center that we go to as part of the retreat) and then to Pizza Hut (with playground) for lunch.
[Aside: I just discovered that the frame that supports the oven racks has slipped, so the rack is lopsided and the cake...the cake is a very special shape. Not only lopsided within the pan, but with a high peak (and crack) at the thickest part which, needless to say, is not in the center. Good thing kindergarteners aren't too picky about cakes.]
What else? Oh, when last you heard, Alex had resigned his job in North Carolina to finally move back home. He has ended up working a few extra weeks to help them with the transition, but he has bought his return ticket and will be home on September 9. (Can I call it or what? I told several people that I figured he'd want to be home for his birthday - which is September 9.)
And that's the latest news from here, at least for now. I should really get to work. My new boss is totally laid back, but I should probably take the job seriously anyway.
Whee! I am soooo in the know. I am totally privileged. So far ahead of the game, the game is a dot in the middle distance to me.
Twelve years of tedious, urgent, repetitive translations has finally paid off. Yesterday my client sent me a Power Point presentation for a McDonald's marketing campaign based on Shrek 3, so now I know not only that there IS a Shrek 3, I even know what it's going to be about. Hah! Revere me, mere mortals.
Oh. Wait. Maybe it's common knowledge. Maybe it's not even called Shrek 3. Maybe I'm quitting again.
So Alex is here and we're having a good time. I told my clients that I would accept small jobs, but nothing major for the next three weeks. And there isn't usually that much around the holidays anyway.
On Monday night they sent me a document. I translated it and sent it back yesterday morning. We were out and about for much of the late morning and early afternoon.
On the way home, we went looking for a Christmas tree. First we went to the place where we got last year's tree. There were still a few decent ones there, but we decided to check out other options before buying one.
The restaurant across the street from my house has quite a bit of land around it. There are outdoor tables and some very scary playground equipment. And they have a little grove of Christmas trees.
So we went to look there. The trees have been shaped as they grow, and are a little odd in that they are very triangular. Not ice-cream cone triangular or, indeed, Christmas-tree triangular, but startlingly close to equilateral-triangle triangular.
Sometimes I care deeply about the Christmas tree selection and sometimes I don't. This year I didn't. I said to Alex, in all honesty, that whatever he and the girls liked was fine with me. (Part of it is that the trees here are not the kind we grew up with. They don't have needles. They're cyprus or some other kind of evergreen that isn't a real Christmas tree, to me anyway. So why care?) (Another part of it is that the girls had been truly insufferable for most of the day and I didn't care much about anything by then.)
That was when my client called me up to ask when I was sending the translation. The question surprised me, since I told him at 9:30 I'd have it to him within an hour, and he should know by now that I am never late. But it's not the first time that's happened. So I came back across the street to start up the computer and re-send the document.
Once I had done so, I tried to call and confirm, but the client's phone system was apparently having the same spasm as their E-mail system, and after three tries the secretary still wasn't having any luck transferring my call, so I suggested she just tell Luis Diego to call me. She thought that was a great idea.
I sat there waiting (and playing spider solitaire) but received no call. Finally I called back again and was informed that Luis Diego appeared to have "stepped out" for a moment. I gave her the name of someone else who could help me, but her line was busy. Finally, the secretary IM-ed (IMed? IM'ed?) her and was able to confirm that the document had been received.
Good. I headed back across the street to where I had left Alex chatting with the bartender and showing him photos of the Great White North (well, you know, a little ice in North Carolina. Cut them a break, they're from the tropics.)
The bar was empty, so I headed back into the grove, where Alex and the bartender had just finished cutting down The Monster That Ate My Living Room.
Based on the blueprints for my house, I calculated that the thing is a little over 8 feet high. But it's not the height. Not really. It's also over 8 feet WIDE. You can't sit next to the thing because it's too close. Your eyes won't focus.
Yesterday was the last day of school. We went over to José & Yolanda's after the girls got out, had some lunch and hung around because we hadn't done that for a few days. I read my book in the sun while Julia colored and Robin and José played an invented game where she writes a string of numbers in her notebook, he adds them up in his head, then she comes over to ask me if he got it right.
My cell phone rang and I heard--for the first time in several weeks--the dreaded voice of my contact at the PR agency (my most frequent translation client). I like the guy very much, but am invariably disappointed to hear his voice on the line.
He said he had just E-mailed me a page and a half and how soon could I have it back to them. Although I told him I was not at home and that I couldn't have it to him until the next day around noon, I did in fact start to move in the direction of getting home so I could download it and get it out of the way.
For some reason, the size of the document is almost invariably understated - as if by telling me it's only five pages long they can make it take less time than if they admit it's seven. But in this case, the document was in fact just a page and a half long...less, in fact, because it was a page and a half in finished form, with a large photo and many small ones, and the text itself sort of poured in around it.
So the page estimate was accurate, but the text. Oh, the text.
It was a brochure of background information about a young artist who has a photography exhibit coming up. I like art. Who doesn't? But just imagine the artist's statement for a guy whose brochure shows him riding a (no doubt artistic) contraption made out of a unicycle and a barstool:
I just finished translating a Very Serious document by a Very Serious NGO about a Very Serious program they run at several universities (doubtless highly serious ones). Now I need you to tell me something: am I the only one who thinks they should reconsider the phrase interactive horizontal methodology? Is it just me? Have I been spending too much time on the Internet?
Most importantly, if it's not just me then should I say anything about it to the client? Tell me! What should I do? What would you do? WWJD? Click that comment link and give me your two cents...it's free!
(Actually I already made my decision, but I want some second opinions...And comments! I love comments! Only Lisa & Anita ever leave them!)
My newest (and most demanding) client actually called to make a reservation yesterday - they would be sending me little mini-documents throughout today for immediate translation. No problem.
So when the secretary called just now I figured she had just sent a new one. But no. She wants to know how much it would cost to translate a 300-page document. Not 200 pages like the one that ate up the entire month of February (and half of January), oh no. Three hundred pages. Yikes!
Not that she can actually give me a word count, or even tell me if the dastardly thing will be coming out today or next week or next month, or really any kind of specific information whatsoever. Just how much please...
Please let them sit on it at least until my parrot quilt is done! Maybe my taxes too...Please!
The big computer is completely dead. It's at Informatica, has been for nearly two weeks, but since it's a charity case (I hope it is anyway), Javier hasn't had time to even look at it. I did some testing and trying things out myself, but it just got worse and worse. Now it doesn't even send any information to the monitor when turned on.
We sent the social security stuff and Alex's hardlock out by Interlink two weeks ago next Tuesday. (The hardlock is going straight to TDS). We didn't send them by any kind of priority, and I think in the past I had discoveredthat things sent through them pile up till they have a planeful (or whatever) and then they send it all out. Robin's Consular Report of Birth Abroad can not be reissued if lost, and I've already had to show it for several different things - I'm not sure what we'd do if something happened to it.
Robin has been sick - some kind of stomach virus. She had a fever last Saturday, was feeling okay but didn't eat anything at all on Sunday, and on Monday was feverish and completely lethargic, just lying still in whateverposition she slumped into. She threw up once in the morning and once at the doctor's office. The next day she had diarrhea but was feeling better. She also had weird red blotches that came and went from her face during the day on Tuesday. She was drinking liquids, but didn't eat any food until Wednesday.
She has felt better each day, and yesterday we sent her to Yolanda's house again for the first time. She seems fine now, and is eating again, but just bland, mushy stuff. We ended up leaving her there overnight, and Yolanda said she threw up last night, but I know they took her to a birthday party across the street, and I assume someone slipped her some rice & chicken or something else she wasn't up to.
I am working on a 50-page guidebook to the orchids, cacti & bromeliads in the Nicoya area. Fortunately, I had three weeks in which to do it, so I was able to abandon it while Robin was sick.
Now I'm trying to get back to it,but it is proving to be quite a challenge with just one computer. Alex is planning to go to a friend's house and use the computer there today, and I hope to get some good work done here at home.
Yesterday someone came by to look at the pool table and made a reasonable offer. We haven't let him know yet. We were hoping to get 250,000 colones for it, and that's what he offered, but it's a situation where he was told 300,000 so the guy who made the contact could make a 50,000 commission. If we accept the offer, it will mean a much lower actual price for us once we pay the guy his commission and also a finder's fee to Jose, who made contact with the guy who contacted the guy who made the offer (got that?). So we'll let him know tonight.
Robin says "Carla" to call the girl who lives across the street from Yolanda and plays with Robin when she's there. She also calls "Ana" to our next-door neighbor. She still says doggie and agua, and yesterday morning after she got up, she came to me, patted her diaper and said "agua". She likes to pat me and say "mama" or "mommy". She also says "otro" when she wants more of something. Or rather, she nods her head and grunts when she wants more, and if we ask her if she wants "otro" she'll nod again and say "oto". Very cute.Okay, I really have to get to work on the document.
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