Learning translation with ITBM (Part I)

As I have mentioned in my previous post, I recently completed a professional course in general translation, hosted by ITBM. I have only been professionally translating in the past year or so. It started when I was thrown into a BM environment when I started a new job. I started at ZERO. I mean, I was used to translating subtitles for videos at another job, but in colloquial language, and I wouldn't say I had quite the grasp of BM. And then, I was given the task of translating news articles at this new job. It was quite the transition.

However, I was lucky because I had a mentor whose love for the language and skills in translation consumed me. I fell in love ... with the language and translation! So, I decided that was the path to embark on. Getting formally educated in translation would be my first step. Now, I must say, completing this course would not make me an expert, but it helped tremendously in laying the foundation for my wavering experience. 

Prior to taking the course, apart from a few friends sharing, I couldn't find any other account of the experience. So I thought I'd share mine, as a reference for prospective students.

I will make separate posts on this topic because I have attention problems (haha! No, but really ..)

Let's start with the basics:

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Opening note: 2022

HAS IT NOT BEEN A WHILE?!

In my last post, over a year ago, I said I was going to start blogging again, but staying true to my character, I did not follow through (haha!)

I have been thinking about coming back to blogging for a while now, but did not initiate. It's not that I have nothing to write about, in fact I often think about things to write, just that ... life gets in the way – yeah that's the excuse I am sticking to.

I'll try harder, not for anyone else (because c'mon, my blog has little to no traction), but I need to keep my writing skills sharp. I can't afford to keep it dormant.

So what's been up in my life in the past year or so?

BAM!

Well, hello there, here I am, three years later.

It felt like I have turned into a completely different person from my last post in 2018. But maybe not. Maybe essentially, I am still the same old me, just some parts, grew, developed and matured.

I have decided to come back to blogging because it's been close to two years since I've produced any written word, personally and professionally. (I may or may not divulge on the details, when relevant)

So maybe I could keep to a schedule here -- once or twice a week? Just to clear my mind and heart; the "clogging" seems to have been affecting my system.

So, yeah. Laters, baby.

(Oh yeah, I think I might also be writing more in BM going forward)

Personal updates (II): Boundaries

As I had mentioned in Part I, I had recently left a workplace in which I bloomed, because of the love I received there, and now I am throwing myself into an endeavour that gets me excited, but also scares me.

It involves creating content in various forms, not far away from I've been doing all these while, but the tables have quite turned. Previously, I'm more of an editor than a creator (even when I'm in the creating position, I still do the editing). But now, I'm mostly a creator, and being in a field that's quite foreign to me, it feels like I'm starting over. But luckily, the environment helps. Everyone is open to bouncing ideas around if you get stuck (so far, at least).

Personal updates (I): A place of love

Wow, 8 months, has it been really 8 months since I last posted here?
To be fair, I've had many ideas for blog entries, but I never got around to putting them down.

Some personal updates - I've recently started a new writing/social media job at a production house. I would say, it's quite close to being a dream job because mostly, I get to be on YouTube and social media platforms, and then be creative. The environment is entirely creative - just about anything can become a video or a new show. And you can imagine that this is the most creative lot I've ever been around. I'm not completely confident how well I could do this, but I'm determined to keep doing it.

My mechanical romance

Today I dug up and dusted the lomo camera I had picked up as a hobby about 6 years ago.

It's a Holga 135BC - a completely mechanical toy camera that my friends couldn't believe doesn't run on batteries.

Sadly, I no longer keep any film rolls and couldn't find them in any photo shops in such short notice.(#TeamHybridKL is having a day out riding ATV in Kemensah tomorrow - I had thought I could bring the Holga along).

I remembered the first time I saw a lomo camera. In 2011, at the height of the lomography hype, a colleague had brought it to the office and I couldn't keep my eyes off it. A few months later, I picked up my first - a Superheadz Ultra Wide and Slim.

Lari

Photo credit: The Odyssey Online

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Well, fancy that

Fancy we found each other like this

In the rhythm of our chatter

And the roars of our laughter

Fancy we found each other like this

When I finally have season tickets

To the theatrics of politics

And the symphony of the eccentric

Fancy we found each other like this

You, a precocious seed planted in toxic land

Where I wither in the wrong set of hands

*too much feels, brb watching that pen-pineapple-apple-pen shit*

Cooler Lumpur Festival 2016

The Cooler Lumpur Festival is one event I will put aside time for each year.
It is my Good Vibes, my Coachella.
I clear my schedule for the weekend it is held and block my time for the forums, talks, or exhibitions I am interested in.

World within me

No amount of coaxing can come from the dearest people in my life that could egg me into travelling.

My romantic idea of a vacation is a quiet retreat in a five-star hotel room, wrapped up in cloudy soft white sheets, having mental conversations with what I am reading and then falling asleep watching TV.

This means I could not care less about stories or conversations about "travelling", which makes me an unchallenging (read: boring) sparring partner in discussions of said topic.

I am willing to concede I will enjoy meeting people of cultures different from mine, or witnessing picture-perfect views of beaches or mountains. Also the notion that travelling "changes" you.

Choices and non-choices

I concur it is definitely more satisfying to be a bitch.
Trust me I know, I have a lifetime experience in it.

There will be times when we will have no control of whatever going on inside, it happens to everyone, even to the best of people.
There can't be rainbows and unicorns in there all the time.

Or nyan cat and rainbows

However, I believe we have a choice in what we project.

Open door, shut door

It should be about time I start dating again, I think.
But oh how boring dating has become!

It always starts with mutual attraction, then maybe a first date (which is rarely ever impressive -- but in keeping with my principle of giving everything a chance and following through, will usually be followed up with other dates I plan), and then they will be nice for a while, jerks for a while, wrapped up with an expected "ghosting".

I believe 2016 is when we should progress further than dinner-and-movie dates.
Unless dinner happens at a baba restaurant with mind-blowing nyonya laksa and cendol, followed up with going to open movie screenings like the Movies under the Stars at Frisky Rooftop Bar.

I do more interesting things by myself or with my girlfriends.

Where We Belong

“A nearsighted man standing two feet away from the wall of a house and staring at it, would declare that the map of the city’s street is an artificial, invented contrivance. That is not what an airplane pilot would say, flying two thousand feet above a city.”

Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto, 1969.

IN her essay Basic Principles of Literature, Ayn Rand used this analogy to explain the objectivity of the “observer’s viewpoint”. In simpler terms, looking at things too closely might make the details lose their meanings, but taking a step back and taking in things as a whole could give us a different perspective altogether.

Throwback: March 2012

I have opened this new blog to hone my writing skills.
Writing assignments come and go for me, but I cannot just stay idle in between, so my initial goal for this blog is to use it as a training ground so that 1000-word pieces become effortless for me.
Clearly, that's not happening. It's too soon to give up though.
In the meantime, I will populate this blog with throwback pieces, from my old blog, that didn't make me squeamish and go nope-nope-nope-nope.

From March 2012...

Count your blessings

But love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to stretch out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even if that means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness.
The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us. And to save us.

Paulo Coelho (By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept)

 

I've always believed that love is the seed of every single deed. So, take love where you find it & count your blessings.

On Acquaintanceship

I’ve closed down my previous blog, Phrankenlife. It’s time to leave behind that chapter of my life and start a new one. The content of the blog is intact because I would like to go back once in a while and be reminded of who I was. 

Come June, I will turn 27. 

The turning of my 3^rd decade of life is discreetly sneaking up on me.

Among other things, my goal this year is making connections. For the past 4-5 years, my social/professional network had been limited to the people I work & live with. That’s cool, but I have started to wonder what else is out there for me to discover, where is the limit of my horizon?