Questions of translation

I am quite conflicted on the whole translation thing.

One the one hand, sharing texts/concepts/ideas with people/cultures who otherwise never would've been exposed to them is awesome and important (imagine life with no Dante, no Confucius, no Aristotle etc.).

On the other hand, things undoubtedly "get lost in translation," the original is always better (imagine Shakespeare not in English - it wouldn't be the same - I know for a fact it isn't) and this concept from the Italian traddure = tradire (to translate = to betray).

Recently I wrote an essay comparing the French and Italian translations of Harry Potter to the English.

The Italian translation was pretty bad and when I asked my cousin in Italy if she'd read Harry Potter she said no, which I found astounding, but after reading the translation I can sort of understand why. It's just not the same. Granted, word choice isn't exactly Rowling's forte her creativity and wit regarding names is and that wit and creativity sometimes can't be translated. If you think about how much word play goes on in Harry Potter in particular, some of that just can't be translated. Especially considering how much exposure there is to Harry Potter in other countries thanks to the movies, somethings you can't change, and some translations don't change names and the like.

How do you get the same feel and meaning of (or lack thereof) of names or words like Hogwarts or Whomping Willow?
It's hard, if not impossible, and requires a lot more creativity than I think translators think they need, after all translation is just copying right, imitation? All you need to translate is be bilingual, right? How hard is it to exchange one word in one language for the same word in another language?

The best translators are writers themselves in their native language, because they understand writing in general, but particularly how it works in their native language. But why translate another's work when you can write your own?

Sure, translating literature (especially poetry/songs) is at the top end of the "most difficult things ever" scale and translating political thought, ideologies, technical/scientific advances is easier as it's the meaning that's important, not so much the form. For example, MLK's "I have a dream" speech gets the idea across in Italian and if you watched the video with Italian subtitles you'd be able to feel his whole awesomeness thing (the same way, even though you don't understand German, Hitler's speeches sound really compelling - probably because you can't understand the subject matter).

Studying interpreting and translating is bringing up more philosophical and ethical questions than I would've thought.

Define me this

How do you define "best friend"?

Is it the person you've known the longest?
Talk to the most?
See the most?
Have the most in common with?
Spend the most time with?

Is it the person you tell those silly little random thoughts to? You know those ones like, "I saw a number plate that said PEN15 today" (because I basically have the maturity of a 13 year old boy tbh).
Or is it the person you don't have to see or speak to for weeks but when you do catch up again everything falls back into place like no time has passed at all?

Because, with a few exceptions, the answer to every one of those questions are different people for me.

Or is at any and all of those things at varying times throughout a friendship and life?

I think "best friend" is a pretty abstract and ephemeral concept. It's fluid but the whole "BFF/BFFL" concept threw us off a little bit, at least it did me. If someone doesn't stay my best friend forever/for life, does that mean they never were my best friend at all? Merely a close, but not best, friend?

I have had best friends that at one point in my life I thought I would love and be close to for the rest of my life. I could never have imagined not being ridiculously close with that person. Yet, at one point or another, we drifted apart. Sometimes we drifted back together again, and sometimes we didn't. Does that negate the fact that we were once "best friends"? Because we aren't anymore? Like, if you say you love someone and then in future you break up, or realise you don't, does that mean you never did? Because if you had truly loved someone then you never would've stopped. Or are there just different types of love? Different types of "best friend"?

I don't think so. At one point, someone can mean the world to you and you can't imagine what your life would be without them but just because it doesn't stay that way forever doesn't mean it wasn't the case in that moment. I don't think that because I don't love you anymore, or because you aren't my best friend anymore, that I never did or that you never were. It's not like you cease to exist in my memory as an important person because you no longer are. Present feelings don't affect the memory of the past.

These are just the things I think about sometimes (read: a lot).

Polyglot Problems #5

After listening to the advanced interpreters do their thing today I think I've come to the conclusion that I don't love Italian the way I love French.

Maybe it's because I haven't reached that point in Italian where it all makes sense. That culminating point where everything's solidified, I know enough words to get my point across, conjugating verbs is second nature,  forming sentences that are grammatically correct isn't so impossible and, lastly, confidence. 

Maybe it's because I haven't been to Italy. 

France is such a massive part of French to me, Paris, the Eiffel Tower, Versailles, croissants, all of these things that I love about French. And while I was still nervous about speaking in France, despite my host family being wonderfully patient, when I came home I felt 100 times better and more confident. 

French is just something I sort of...fell into (and don't all the best things happen that way? By accident?). I wanted to learn Italian and French was the next best thing. And I loved it. I was good at it, it was challenging in all its foreigness yet also simple - memorise everything. 

French sucked me in and Madame is the most amazing teacher I've ever had. I worked hard for it too and my hard work paid off. 

On the other hand Italian was always just something I wanted to understand because I've been surrounded by it all my life. Half-Italian, half-English conversations, half understood requests and "secret" conversations. 

I think that I wanted it so long that I've just kept on wanting it and forgotten why. 

Maybe it's just this interpreting thing has got me burnt out. 

I need a holiday. 

 

Horoscopes

So, don't laugh but sometimes I wonder about astrology... 

I always read the astrology things in the paper for fun. And sometimes they are just seriously accurate, 100% that Taurus bit is me, completely. 

Sometimes they're so irrelevant I can't even connect to half of it.

I always find it just that little bit ridiculous though. 

But just sometimes I wonder if it's all sort of legit... Sometimes it's so right it's seriously uncanny. Then I think of the "Weird Al" Yankovich parody.... 


"Now you may find it inconceivable or at the very least a bit unlikely

that the relative position of the planets and the stars could have

a special deep significance or meaning that exclusively applies to only you, but let me give you my assurance that these forecasts and predictions are all based on solid, scientific, documented evidence, so you would have to be some kind of moron not to realize that every single one of them is absolutely true."

Write it all down, let it all out

Writing things down really is therapeutic. It's cathartic. 

I write letters. 

I write hate letters, I write whining letters, I write love letters and friendship letters. I write letters where I rage, I write letters where I laugh, I write letters where I cry. 

I write them to myself, to my friends and family, to people I've never even met.

No one ever sees them of course but, like this blog, just the act of writing it all down, or typing it out, helps me get it out of my head, my version of Dumbeldore's pensive I suppose. Of course it doesn't quite work as well as Dumbeldore's pensive (nothing ever does in the muggle world) and sometimes I write letter after letter, a whole series of them, spanning weeks, months or even years, tucked away all just for one person. 

Sometimes it helps to just say what I want to say, what I know I can't, or shouldn't, say out loud in real life, to have a record of it somewhere outside of my head that, even though it's highly unlikely the person to whom it pertains will ever find out, still exists. 

Sometimes it does the exact opposite of help, that it's seemingly so easy for me to say what I want to say on paper, in a letter, just makes it that much worse when I can't say it in real life. 

Sometimes I pour my hopes and dreams through ink (or lead, I am a fan of the pencil) on to paper, making them something real, something concrete, and it's awful when those hopes and dreams come to nothing or crash and burn at my feet. 

Sometimes, I think I'll look back at these letters, all the highs and lows, and see how much has changed and say that I need not have worried so much, all turned out well.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll share the letters with their owners, the people I wrote them to. To show them how they made me happy or made me sad or proud or angry.

Peace

I hate conflict. I hate arguing. I think it is because it doesn't matter if I win or lose I still end up feeling bad. Each person tries to make their point heard but wont listen to the other, and end up riling each other up beyond proportion, which happens quite often in my own household. I think I argue with my family so much because I always know they will be there for me. But I want to aim to argue with them less. I want to be as calm and peaceful with them as I am my friends. I hardly remember a single argument with any of my friends. I believe this hate of conflict is why my partner and I get along so well. He hates conflict more than me, and will avoid arguing with anyone, even his parents at all costs. He puts up with my imperfections, and I put up with his (though to be fair there aren't that many). I know you're thinking that it is not a healthy environment and that eventually feelings bottle up and one day we will implode abruptly and be ruined beyond repair of even the elder wand! But we are honest with each other and if something is weighing on our minds we speak openly. I mean we do burst into a fight once in a blue moon, but it usually lasts about 10 minutes and we come crawling back to each other.
So is it too late to make a new years resolution to live in calmer existence with my family? I know it is already february, but I went to buy a diary the other day and they are not yet on sale so I think it's acceptable.

The troubles of friending - part 2

Do you ever wonder in a relationship who's the "better friend"?

Who texts first? Who tries more? Who buys the better (more thoughtful) presents? Who talks more? Who listens more? Who gives more? Who takes more?

For a long time I thought it was me. I was more thoughtful, I was more giving, I didn't have a boyfriend to distract me and take away from friend time, I was always there. 

Now though...now I'm pretty sure it's not me. 

Maybe the tables have turned, maybe the years of "being the better friend" are paying off, maybe my friends are realising how lucky they are to have me. 

Those are awful, self-centered and selfish things to say and not at all in the spirit of friendship.

I wish I was the better friend, or rather on equal footing (where true friendship really should be) but I don't think I'm either anymore. 

Maybe there's a little bit in all of us

I wonder sometimes, especially with all the time I spend on the Internet, if perhaps I have a slight case of social anxiety. I've always been pretty shy, though extremely talkative once I get to know you. 

Catching a plane by myself this week (not for the first time and not to anywhere I haven't been before) caused me a bit of worry, over what exactly I couldn't tell you. It's not the flying part, I have no problem with flying and in fact I love turbulence (it's like a free roller coaster!). I just grew anxious as the car skirted the city towards Tullamarine. Not enough to stop me though. I got out of the car, said goodbye to mum and dad and didn't look back. So perhaps calling it social anxiety is too strong, after all it's in no way crippling. 

Still, faced with the plan to go visit my cousin via public transport and all the necessary, though basic, knowledge that requires I'm again a bit anxious. I know how to catch a bus and a train but travelling in a different city where I have no sense of direction makes me a bit nervous. What if I get lost? What if I end up going in the complete opposite direction? What if I can't find where I'm meant to be going? Silly things really, remedied easily enough with Google Maps and asking for directions, but still enough to cause me worry. 

I'm a bit of a control freak too and I think part of it is that it's the unknown. I don't know how people I come into contact with will react, what the situation will be, how I'll deal with my plans going awry. 

Most of the time I'm pretty good at grinning and bearing it, so to speak. I know it's something that has to be done so I do it. I apply this method to other things too, ringing up for appointments, speaking to people in stores, talking to people at uni. I've got significantly better since starting a job that involved approaching and calling people. Approaching people still takes a bit of effort for me and sometimes I do still put it off. 

I'm a bit socially awkward too I suppose, even with people I know (though not the ones I know well), either I ramble aimlessly or sit there in what I perceive as awkward silence. I hate the awkward period before you really get to know someone, where you just sprout niceties and ask the same inane, if perhaps necessary, questions. 

The rational side of my brain knows, whatever it is, I'll get through and come out the other side one way or another but the (perhaps) irrational side of me still worries. Maybe it's just doubt. And maybe there's a little bit of that in all of us. 

Hey Han, remember that time you started up an illegal gambling ring in my laundry at my 21st birthday?

This is why you're my best friend.

Hair❤️

You know what I love about my hair?

I can tie it up, out of my face, with itself. Like, no hair ties, no pins, no clips just hair on hair. 

It's not the most secure hairstyle in the world obviously and maybe it'll only work during the full moon or on days with Ts in them or something ridiculous like that but it's kind of awesome for now. 

Especially for me, as some one who is loathe to have any and all my hair in my face and yet also loathe to cut it al off short because of the dreaded ball of fuzz it'll produce. 

So for now, I'm having a serious win moment. 

List of things I'm excited to eat when I go to Italy

Cheese

Possibly bread and coffee. 

But mostly cheese. 

Addio Nonno

So, my grandfather passed away today. It was a weird day. It was a long day. Mum woke me up at 6 to tell me and it's not like you can go back to sleep after that. But I couldn't go and see Nonna or anything either. So I just lay there for an hour, not really asleep and not really awake until I got up and did go to Nonna's. Where pretty much all of my cousins were, my aunties, my uncles, mum and dad, my immediate extended family basically.

Then I went to work. And took one of my younger cousins with me. Because what was he supposed to do at Nonna's all day? Sit there and watch her cry as every new person arrived? So he came with me and we sat at work and I read while he watched movies (except for when there were customers/things to do). It was a weird day.

I'm almost glad though, that he's gone. Because he was suffering and Nonna was suffering and all of us hated seeing him like that, reduced to invalidity. And I'm glad it's happened now while I'm here and not overseas because even though I'd hate myself if I didn't, spending $2,500 to get to a funeral is more than I can probably afford.

I didn't really tell anyone about it, because what are you supposed to do? Send out a mass text that says:
"Hey everyone, just letting you know my grandfather passed away so I'll be MIA for a few days. Much love, Zoe"?

I heard from a few people though, my Aunt posted something on Facebook so I got a few texts. I don't mind that I didn't hear from everyone because I don't really know what to say. Thanks?
I feel like getting all that sympathy is undeserved because I don't feel really all that sad. My Nonno had dementia for a long time so he died for me a long time ago and now I feel like we're just mourning a shell. I get that that 'shell' represents his soul, his life, all of the memories we had of him but he hasn't been Nonno for a very long time. He hasn't been the man that took me for a walk up to the Milkbar while my bratty cousin had his nap, or let us made pizza bases out of his bread dough for us to run upstairs with them to put toppings on with Nonna, and then run back downstairs to cook them in the wood fire oven. Or come back with Nonno's chicken (KFC) or Nonno's cheese (Kraft singles) or Nonno's bread (actually made by him).

Maybe it just hasn't hit me yet, I'll cry at the funeral though, if nothing else, seeing people I love and care about crying never fails to make me do so too.

Reply

So I just found 3 new posts from Zo, which gets me excited because I am the lazy one who writes 1 post for every 10 of hers and the page had been quiet for a while now. Not that anyone really cares. But I enjoy seeing into the depths of Zo's mind, and I know for a fact that some of our friends do too (hi Patto).
So in relation to her last post, I cooked pearl couscous monday night and put it in with a can of vegetable soup and it was delicious. I did also go through the outwardbound-couscous despise phase and I am happy to say it can and will end.

I am also glad to see she is reading the book I gave her around 2 years ago.

Zo failed to mention that she now speaks 3 languages, and well on her way to becoming a professional  translator so if thats not interesting I don't know what is. Everyone knows some shit.

Talking of teaching Zo biology I had the funniest conversation about birds with her, in which she pretty much asked how birds breathed while flying because if they opened their mouth they would be pushed backwards. I don't know whether to be proud of her knowledge in aerodynamics or concerned.

Anyhoo, so a few fun things that have been happening in the past few months.

Orphan Black is an addictive TV show.

There is such thing as large couscous and it is delicious in stews/soups.

House sparrows are mental energetic critters out to destroy my life.

Agricola and Dominion are the flavour of the month(s).

When you spend your time between 4 houses you car gets very messy and full of energy drink cans.

You always find a little time for friends!

It's been getting warmer and I have been getting happier.

Marvellous Creations Ice-creams are yumyum (Get on it Zo!)

I am currently procrastinating, and should be doing a Literature Review on the evolution of bird beaks as a thermoregulatory organ.

I play netball in a women's netball team (being that I am a woman and all) but my point is that I play with women that are older than me as well as women my own age.

I play with women in their 30s and 40s who have kids, are married/not married/de facto/divorced etc. Some of them even have kids that are my age, one has almost literally a brand new baby and the others have everything in between.

It's awesome not only because hey, physical activity + clumsiness = (usually) hilarity and hanging out with friends is always good times.

It's awesome because these women know things that I don't, they know things (and this is the real kicker) that mum doesn't know (I know, right? Mum doesn't actually know everything).

And while they do take great pleasure in scarring me for life when it comes to the topic of children I love seeing them and talking to them and learning new things. They're different to me, they come for different walks of life, different cultures, different classes different everything and it's fascinating to me.
'How do you cook quinoa?' one asked.
I didn't even know what quinoa was, let alone how to cook it!
But someone knew, and someone explained and now I do know how to cook quinoa (not that I ever will because it's basically couscous and Outward Bound was enough couscous to last me literally forever)/

That's like, my favourite thing in the world: learning new things. Just, tell me stuff, teach me a thing, I want to know it. I wish I could understand more of what you're saying but I'm sorry, you're the one with Bachelor of Science not me (Hannah). I wish I had the time to learn about everything I wanted.

And yet I read the same genre over and over and I watch the same genre of TV shows and I keep studying subjects in the same school.

Froyo dates and the troubles of friending

So my friend just invited me out for froyo after netball tonight, which is a thing we do quite regularly post-game. 

I'm just feeling kind of weird, sort of guilty, because I didn't even think to ask her. We've been a bit weird lately...not as close as before. I don't know if I've given up putting in any effort or if I'm just a bit out of practice. 

Still, no one wants to be the person asking all the time. 

***

And just now, having come home much too late from said froyo date she text me saying how glad she is we hung out. I feel bad that she was the one that text me. I mean, I thought about it in the car on the way home but in this case it's not really the thought that counts if she doesn't know it was thought. 

I don't know if maybe I'm seeing this as retribution or payback or something for us not speaking, I don't know if it was her fault, or if I even think it was. I've been pretty mad at her about this for a while though so maybe I'm not sending texts first because it's "her turn". 

I wish relationships didn't have all this drama and I'd honestly never thought it would've happened between us.