Shoulderblades' Pain

I've been working hard at the office and home, too.

I am currently translating chapters for a wine/tourism guide on my free time, even though it's been scarce, lately.

Now, friday at 10.14 p.m., my feet ache and my eyes and my shoulderblades also hurt. Funny place to have pain.

And, right now, out of nowhere, I just thought of an interesting and very true quote from a book I read: "the comfort of ignorance". It's from Alan Hollinghurst's The Swimming Pool Library. (yes, my book cover is exactly like that one, but with the Portuguese title).

And now, also out of the blue, I feel like writting a John Keat's dirty poem. Maybe later.

Surprise at Work

Back to work, already.

But today I had a surprise: I arrived to find out that I had been transferred to the translations section of the room! I think I will be diving into translations full time, now!

Here’s hoping...!

Have a good week!

New New Team Member

We're having a new team member here at work!

It's a girl (another!), Maria José, who will be starting today, doing project management.

Welcome!

New Team Member

We're having a new team member here at work!

It's a guy (yes!), Jordan, who will be starting next Monday during the afternoons. He's one of our freelance translator who came for a visit and decided to stay for a month to perfect his Portuguese.

He'll be doing in-house translations.

Welcome!

Sad Sara

Last week I did a translation about a PRODUCT that a PERSON created.

Today, the CLIENT sent us another document to be translated.

When I opened it, I realized that the PERSON who created the PRODUCT had died and I had to translate THE PERSON’S obituary.

Sad Sara

(Confidentiality agreements unable me from being more specific)

Girl Power

Today at work there are only women. The boss is at home, sick.

Today I am happy because

Now that I am a working girl (I have to take the metro, then a bus, then walk to go to work), I use the time it takes me to get there to read. I always liked to read, ever since I was a child, and since it takes me about 1 hour to go to work, I use that time to do something prolific. In my case, reading.

But this is my problem: today, I only had one book with me (!), the same book I’ve been reading since Monday, which means I was nearing the end of the book and forgot to bring another one. To many people, this may seem meaningless or idiotic, but to me it is a problem, because it means that I’ll spend about 1 ½ hour doing nothing but look away when people look at me on the bus and metro. Tis 1 1/2 hour is the rest of the time to go to work and the time of the way back.

So, I finished the book and then realised that I had my mp3 player with me, pressed play (Nada Surf, Billy Idol, Death Cab for Cuttie, …) and, when I got on the bus, I found an empty seat! Oh My God, I was so happy, because that meant I didn’t have to hold on for dear life while the bus driver transformed the bus in a race car.

I went to my seat, listed to the music and looked out the window and noticed how beautiful the view was. The sun was reflecting on the river water, really shiny, but the sky was still somewhat cloudy because it’s been raining for the past 3 days.

I can’t describe it any better, but it was so beautiful! The sun shinning through the clouds (gray and white), the blue sky, the sun reflecting on the water… it was the perfect beginning for a work day. That and the seat on the bus and knowing that tomorrow and the day after are public holidays, a.k.a. – no work.

Night update: the day didn't go so well. Today we had lots of work and I had to stay there for 1 extra hour.

1st days of work

So far so good.

I am now getting the grip of things, and everything seems to be running more smoothly, which is nice. The days don’t seem so endless and I can see I do things faster.

More pictures to come in the future.

Working girl

I finally found a job!

After 1 year of sending out résumés, it finally paid off.

I was already giving English lessons (so not 100% unemployed) and last week I received an e-mail from a translation company asking if I was still interested in a job. They were looking for someone for a position as project manager at the translation company who would later also do some translations. After an exchange of e-mails, they sent me some tests, I did them (somewhat difficult, I must admit) and we scheduled a meeting for Monday.

I thought I did well on the interview and they told me they would call me with an answer on the following they. Positive or negative. (at least that was fast). And they did. They called me on Tuesday and asked me to come in on Wednesday (today). I mean, I'll be interning for 1 year and after that I will be considered an emplyee of the company. The best part is that the internship is paid. 900 € plus 120 € for lunch per month. Not bad! And, of all the translation companies that there are out there in Portugal, I found out that a friend of mine is also working there! Small world.

So, today I went to work. What I do is more technical than creative (translation). I have to answer e-mail and phone call from people who make requests for budgets for translations, put the files through a server, fill in the name of the client and the project, establish a budget and send it to them.

So, I can know be considered as being part of cooperate Portugal.

Iei for me!!!