It's only been three days (four days, actually, although it's only Thursday morning here), but my week had already been a bit of a roller-coaster, of both disappointments and, strangely enough, some satisfaction here and there. Yesterday I received an email telling me that I'm not going to get that position that I wanted, which I suppose is expected since I was competing with the rest of the country for only a dozen positions. It was actually a lot of fun writing the cover letter, believe it or not. With that being said, I really think I should work harder. I thought I worked hard enough but that's a really bad mentality to get into. You can't get to a plateau and stay there, you have to strive to be as good as you can. And the hard thing about it is that you can't get salty afterwards. Well, just a little saltiness can't hurt.
I got a translation gig the other day, which admittedly was really, really fun. It was from a marketing consultant from a public relations firm called Dentsu (apparently it's the biggest PR firm in Japan), and she wanted me to translate her presentation slides into English. It was a lot of work, not only because I wasn't familiar with marketing jargon but also because she's going to showing this to some really big clients, and I really didn't want to mess it up. Her clients wanted to invest in a new shopping centre and her job was to come up with a plan to get people to buy things they don't actually need. It was really hard work, but I learned a lot, especially about how presenting marketing ideas is, in itself, a matter of marketing and how much rhetoric there is to the so-called 'hard data' they always present. And I received good pay for it as well, although I retrospect I really should've charged more.
If I had more of those gigs and worked from 9-5, 5 days a week for a year, I could be earning a six figure salary. Well, I could be, if exchange rates were better, and if I got more gigs. She paid me quite a bit for the standards of her country, but it really isn't very much here in New Zealand. It's probably enough to buy a figure or something, but for six hours work I really expected something more. Then again, (to quote what HR people have always told us), it's the 'experience' that really counts. Translation is such an easy thing for me to do, and the only hard part is learning new jargon and adopting the right voice. It's hard because different clients and different types of people talk in really different ways. Business and marketing talk in one way, academia talks in another, and instruction manuals are really different from all of these. I think the task for me, right now, is to read as widely as I can and try learn a new language. By the time I'm 25, I hope that I can speak four languages, with Japanese and probably German next in line.
The reason why I picked Japanese was because I think I can master this language a lot quicker than, let's say, Russian. It's also more versatile, I guess, and if I get really good at it I might even be more employable! Well, scratch the last part. I'm going to try memorize the fifty kana first before I move onto conversation, and I'll try get my mother to talk as much Japanese as I can. She was actually a Japanese teacher, although she's a businesswoman now and she probably won't bother with me any more. Someone once joked to me that I have the perfect learning environment for Japanese because my room is completely filled with junk from Japan. It felt almost like a compliment, except for the fact that they were all made in China.
I don't really have time for entertainment any more. The only video game I play with any real frequency is Hearthstone, and I'm thinking of quitting that soon so I could focus solely on my work. I don't really watch anime, either, although there's still a few more figures I want to get (and a really, really cute pair of Yuru Yuri headphones I'm thinking of getting, just because I will look super cool in them). Cardcaptor Sakura is the only show I've watched for the past year or so, and the one I've genuinely enjoyed. The show is completely innocent, completely naive, and yet at the same time it's packed full of emotions, especially when the backstory of Sakura's mother pops up (over and over again, in fact). The show is really beautiful, although I have to make sure I don't watch too much of it. Otherwise I'd get into the fantasy that people are really that sweet, beautiful, charming and innocent in real life, when the people of the real world are far less 'nice', so to speak. It takes months and years to build a relationship, but one argument is enough to break it apart. In fiction, you find love at first sight and love that is unbreakable. There's a pretty big difference between the two.
(A bit of info about the picture on the right: it's by an artist called 'moonknives' and I really like his work. I actually have a few of his art hanging in my room, actually. And it turns out he watches most of the stuff I do, too).
I have a lot do in the next few years. Idleness is no longer really an option for me any more, and I can no longer really bear the feel of idleness. It does not feel good at all. This year had been such an incredible journey, and after thousands of miles of travelling I just don't think I can stop walking. Two years ago I promised that I would get the grades I want at university. I climbed that plateau and there's a thousand more plateaus to ascend. There are so many climbs in front of me, and I think I might get really badly hurt, bruised and I might even fall into despair. But those are just emotions. The best cure to nostalgia, to sorrow and the departure of those you love, to those emotions, is to devote yourself so completely in your work, that you lose yourself in your own passions.
I got a translation gig the other day, which admittedly was really, really fun. It was from a marketing consultant from a public relations firm called Dentsu (apparently it's the biggest PR firm in Japan), and she wanted me to translate her presentation slides into English. It was a lot of work, not only because I wasn't familiar with marketing jargon but also because she's going to showing this to some really big clients, and I really didn't want to mess it up. Her clients wanted to invest in a new shopping centre and her job was to come up with a plan to get people to buy things they don't actually need. It was really hard work, but I learned a lot, especially about how presenting marketing ideas is, in itself, a matter of marketing and how much rhetoric there is to the so-called 'hard data' they always present. And I received good pay for it as well, although I retrospect I really should've charged more.
If I had more of those gigs and worked from 9-5, 5 days a week for a year, I could be earning a six figure salary. Well, I could be, if exchange rates were better, and if I got more gigs. She paid me quite a bit for the standards of her country, but it really isn't very much here in New Zealand. It's probably enough to buy a figure or something, but for six hours work I really expected something more. Then again, (to quote what HR people have always told us), it's the 'experience' that really counts. Translation is such an easy thing for me to do, and the only hard part is learning new jargon and adopting the right voice. It's hard because different clients and different types of people talk in really different ways. Business and marketing talk in one way, academia talks in another, and instruction manuals are really different from all of these. I think the task for me, right now, is to read as widely as I can and try learn a new language. By the time I'm 25, I hope that I can speak four languages, with Japanese and probably German next in line.
The reason why I picked Japanese was because I think I can master this language a lot quicker than, let's say, Russian. It's also more versatile, I guess, and if I get really good at it I might even be more employable! Well, scratch the last part. I'm going to try memorize the fifty kana first before I move onto conversation, and I'll try get my mother to talk as much Japanese as I can. She was actually a Japanese teacher, although she's a businesswoman now and she probably won't bother with me any more. Someone once joked to me that I have the perfect learning environment for Japanese because my room is completely filled with junk from Japan. It felt almost like a compliment, except for the fact that they were all made in China.
I don't really have time for entertainment any more. The only video game I play with any real frequency is Hearthstone, and I'm thinking of quitting that soon so I could focus solely on my work. I don't really watch anime, either, although there's still a few more figures I want to get (and a really, really cute pair of Yuru Yuri headphones I'm thinking of getting, just because I will look super cool in them). Cardcaptor Sakura is the only show I've watched for the past year or so, and the one I've genuinely enjoyed. The show is completely innocent, completely naive, and yet at the same time it's packed full of emotions, especially when the backstory of Sakura's mother pops up (over and over again, in fact). The show is really beautiful, although I have to make sure I don't watch too much of it. Otherwise I'd get into the fantasy that people are really that sweet, beautiful, charming and innocent in real life, when the people of the real world are far less 'nice', so to speak. It takes months and years to build a relationship, but one argument is enough to break it apart. In fiction, you find love at first sight and love that is unbreakable. There's a pretty big difference between the two.
(A bit of info about the picture on the right: it's by an artist called 'moonknives' and I really like his work. I actually have a few of his art hanging in my room, actually. And it turns out he watches most of the stuff I do, too).I have a lot do in the next few years. Idleness is no longer really an option for me any more, and I can no longer really bear the feel of idleness. It does not feel good at all. This year had been such an incredible journey, and after thousands of miles of travelling I just don't think I can stop walking. Two years ago I promised that I would get the grades I want at university. I climbed that plateau and there's a thousand more plateaus to ascend. There are so many climbs in front of me, and I think I might get really badly hurt, bruised and I might even fall into despair. But those are just emotions. The best cure to nostalgia, to sorrow and the departure of those you love, to those emotions, is to devote yourself so completely in your work, that you lose yourself in your own passions.
