I might be a genious;)

OK, the semester is over at last. I'm so happy to finally enjoy my free time... Today I got to know that I passed both maths exams (for two Bs) in the economics that I took on Monday and Tuesday. This means..., yeah, what does this actually mean? That I'm a multi talent or have universal skills? Let's be modest... Well, I've always been into both fields - maths and foreign languages, and I can tell you - it makes so much fun to combine them instead of just sticking to one and getting bored soon. Some of my friends studying translation are shaking their heads when I tell them what I'm doing. Economists are regarded by linguists as boring and vice versa. But it's still wonderful to explain maths in a foreign language, don't you think so?;-) (I don't mind if you call me crazy;-)

The European circus continues

I can’t help it; it will be about my mother country once again. Honestly, I was trying very hard to find an interesting article, first on the Economist’s site, then on www.euronews.net. And what were the results of my efforts? Poland is in every top headline. That’s because we’re currently the biggest troublemakers in the EU;). Nevertheless, I found it hilarious once again to watch my favourite Polish president of all times – Lech Kaczynski in action(well, maybe only Walesa can contend with him for the prize for the most ridiculous key public figure). What I watched was a clip on www.euronews.net - “Sarkozy woos Poles over EU charter”. It showed the new French president visiting Warsaw. What struck me most were Sarkozy’s hand gestures during the press conference. He just confirmed a well know stereotype that Frenchmen have a strong body language. What is more, the Frenchman was making such funny faces while Kaczynski was speaking that I couldn’t help laughing. His face expression said it all: “What kind of f…… crap are you talking about?”

The main issue is Poland’s threat not to sign the new EU reform. Sarkozy was persuading the Polish president not to do so. By the way, which country was among three ones that didn’t sign the previous draft of the EU constitution? Poland? A wrong answer! France? Bull's-eye! Unfortunately under the present conservative government we have a slim chance to reach an agreement with the EU, which I thoroughly despair of. However, one week from now an important EU summit is taking place and the EU countries' representatives will try to make progress on the future EU constitution. Good luck!

Intimate, poetic, touching

I have to admit that my boyfriend’s film taste is outstanding. No matter what he borrows from the video shop, it’s always a good choice. This time he picked out a British film “Dear Frankie”, a beautiful tale of mother’s and child’s love taking place in magical surroundings of the Scottish coast.

Frankie, a nine year old death-mute boy, his mother Lizzy and grandmother are changing addresses every few months in order to escape Lizzy’s husband. The boy doesn’t know this and so he believes that his father works on a ship and is on the sea the whole year round. That’s why he has never seen him. To keep in touch with his father Frankie writes to him frequently. In reply his father sends him letters with descriptions of his adventures. However, this is Frankie’s mother who writes those letters in order to bring some joy in the boy’s life and to maintain a positive picture of the father’s figure in his life. The problem occurs when the ship “Accra” which Frankie’s father apparently sails with is supposed to arrive to their town. Lizzy suddenly has to find somebody who would imitate her son’s father for a day. She wants to protect him in this way. Finally she makes a deal with a Stranger who is gradually getting closer to Frankie and herself. After all he doesn’t accept any money for his favour.

Why do I like this film? It’s a modest, but a charming story. My personal best is Jack McElhone in Frankie’s role giving a very touching performance as a very sensitive, loving and talented child. We often see in the film how he struggles with his handicap trying to express his feelings through his drawings and written words. Furthermore, there’s his loving mother who is trying to do everything to protect him from an inconvenient truth about his father. “Dear Frankie” is a simple story of love and devotion that keeps your breath away till the very last moment. And this unbelievable Scottish accent!

Emigrant's reflections on the state of his motherland

http://www.drakkart.com/eire2/

Let me quote some of the entries of my fellow countryman in Ireland:
“Poland as a state is a monster of taxation, so having own business in Łódź is really hard, especially facing ruling corruption. Population is decreasing, and every plane heading Dublin or Shannon is full of passengers.”
“Today our city authorities are proud of decreasing unemployment rate, but there is no point to be proud of massive emigration to Ireland and UK.”
“I predict Polish emigration to the Western Europe is going to intensify. This time it won’t be mostly economical emigration, but also political one. Poland is changing into sea of absurd“

Dear Mr Newman, first of all I have to say that this guy’s English is getting better and better.
That’s why I think that it’s not a bad idea to read his blog now and then. It’s clear to me that I have some more interest in what he writes about as I’m Polish, I don’t love my mother country unconditionally and I’ve been to Ireland already. Nevertheless, this guy makes some important cultural observations which describe both Polish and Irish society in a very accurate way.

What I’d like to write about today is his feelings about visiting Poland recently. In his blog he uploaded some pictures of his declining home place. Łódź, the 2^nd biggest city in Poland (although I can’t believe this is true), used to be one of the industrial pumps of my nation, especially with its textile industry. Unfortunately, after the fall of communism Łódź faced plant closings and progressing economic crisis. This run-down city is a remain of the communist epoch, an ugly creature like most of the industrial cities in Poland. I don’t want to say that there aren’t any nice places in Poland, because there are some if fact, but industrial centres have a special kind of the space planning in general, so that they might shock people who are used to picturesque architecture and big park areas. However, what I’m getting at is MacKozer’s remark on the city authorities being proud of the falling unemployment rate. Right, but why is it falling? This is a country-wide phenomenon that people are just leaving Poland and that’s why the unemployment rate is falling. If it’s positive for our national economy – a matter of taste;) No people employed in Poland means no taxes for the government which means no pensions for us in a few years. This would be one of the absurd sides of our Polish reality – the government praising itself for reducing unemployment…;)
The other side of this parody is our usual political theatre. Austria is actually not far away from becoming as ridiculous as we are when it comes to the politics, but… have you ever thought of banning “Teletubbies” due to the fact that they might promote homosexuality? This is not a joke. A spokesman for children rights, Ewa Sowinska, came to the conclusion that Tinky Winky might be homosexual since he wears a lady’s purse. Now a group of psychologists is researching into potential negative influence of this programme on children!!! In an extreme case the authorities will really ban it. That’s why MacKozer’s predicts increased emigration from political reasons;) I sometimes can’t help laughing at our national ridiculousness although I feel that I should keep a perfect composure and try to promote my dear country even if it’s not always easy…

It's tea time!

Yesterday I took part in an interesting project which was called „International Tea“. It was an afternoon meeting for students, alumni and members of the university staff whose purpose was to encourage cross-cultural exchange. I got to know that it's organized every semester. This was the 16th time if I'm not mistaken.
As it turned out the students who came there were only foreigners. You can imagine how colourful, how multicultural it looked like in the ballroom in the Mozartstraße. People there were just supposed to meet each other, say something about their experiences as foreign students and let it develop in a natural way… I kind of got confused at the end, because I had to speak four languages within two hours which was quite an effort for my poor brain. The best side of this project was that I finally found a conversation partner whose mother language is Russian. Honestly I didn’t have any difficulties understanding him (this isn’t the biggest achievement in the world since you know that Russian and Polish sound a bit similar), but I could hardly utter any Russian words myself (which really bothers me:( Now I can practice my Russian with him in the summer!

However, it wouldn’t be the purpose of this blog if I didn’t s mention my activities in English. Yesterday I did communicate in English as well. What is more, I gave some tips to a nice elderly American as to where he can go to meet other native speakers. He told me he didn’t really like German and missed conversations in English. Now I hope I could help him!

Another one lost in translation

Honestly I was going to take a nap since I’m dead tired, but there’s suddenly so much to write about and most of all, I feel like doing it in English again. Is this maybe influence of the piece on blogging that Mr Newman uploaded at the beginning of the semester and that I'm holding in my hands at the moment? The end sentence says: REMEMBER, your blog is reflection of you and your attitude!

Now, we all are only human beings and failure is typical of our nature. So is doubt. That’s why we all have moments of weakness when we don’t know which way to go. And then we write a bit too little… ;) Let's say this is my way of excusing inconsistency.

I’ve been pretty busy recently, but I don’t want to go into detail about my life at fast pace. However, there’s one assignment, I’ve recently got, that is worth mentioning, and namely my first official translation I’m supposed to be paid for. On the one hand, it’s pretty bad time to do something like this just before final exams, especially considering that it’s a tough nut to crack. On the other hand, I find it a perfect opportunity to check firstly – if I’m into translation at all, secondly – how good my reading comprehension is, thirdly – what my current level of written German is (the translation is from Polish into German) and finally – how well I can interpret what the author is trying to say without losing the gist of his message.

Having finished the first ten pages I can already say that you should definitely give some thought to the idea of translation. It’s clear to me that lots of people study languages because they enjoy learning new vocabulary and interacting with people other nationalities. That’s the part that makes most fun. Translation, however, is much more complicated. It needs to be dealt with in a much more general context which makes it take longer. At any rate it’s not simply putting single words in an other language, but researching the meaning behind them (since you sometimes don’t know some more sophisticated vocabulary from your mother language as I’ve experienced the last few days), trying to paraphrase in order to make the text more understandable, etc. That’s why you shouldn’t be surprised/terrified/devastated when you realize that translating is a very time-consuming, confusing and sometimes irritating activity. I’m very curious if you've had any experiences with translating more demanding texts?

By the way, the language itself is such a fast developing field! I haven’t been living in Poland for over 2,5 years now and when I get to talk to my eighteen-year-old brother it turns out that I sometimes don’t understand his “school slang”. Furthermore, I had no idea how a USB stick was called in Polish since it wasn't popular or even well known at the time I was at high school. Now, that’s ridiculous, don’t you think so?;)

That's all for now about my struggle with finding the right words.

A mummy attacks!

I sometimes wonder where screenwriters get their ideas from… „Bubba Ho-tep“ is one of such bizarre screenplays. Let’s imagine an elderly resident of a nursing home who thinks he’s Elvis Presley. He claims that he switched roles with his imitator many years ago and that’s how he landed at this place in East Texas. Together with his “best friend”, a black J.F. Kennedy, he faces a mission of rescuing the nursing home from an evil Egyptian mummy which prowls the corridors of the house in search of the residents’ souls. It’s worth mentioning that this mummy sucks souls from their bodies through their… arseholes. If you add to this that one of the residents thinks he’s actually a cowboy from the Wild West who sleeps with his toy guns and the mummy itself is a ridiculous tacky shape from E class films you can more or less get a picture what kind of a parody this film is. I couldn’t help laughing all the time, because the whole idea of this piece was utterly ridiculous. Although I’m usually not into such kinds of films, I really enjoyed this one. You just have to treat it like a kind of simple entertainment which doesn’t lack imagination and has a more sophisticated plot than typical American mainstream comedies.

Among some highlights of this film I’d mention first of all the heavy Southern accent of Mr Presley which honestly made me switch on subtitles. This made me think of us, possible future interpreters, having to be extremely flexible and prepared for hundreds of different accents (which isn’t an easy task). Furthermore, I loved the atmosphere of the dark, half-dead nursing home where people were “disposed of” and now only wait for their death, living only from meal to meal. In one scene Elvis’s roommate dies and his daughter comes after a few days to take away his belongings. Elvis asks why she hadn’t visited his father within three years of his stay in the nursing home. She answers that she had been busy. That’s in lots of cases the essence of sending elderly relatives to such institutions. Last but not least I’d like to point out a very good performance of Bruce Campbell who played “Elvis”. He managed to convince me as a tired bored guy who seeks for something that would revive his life at last.
To sum up, if you need a big laugh, just grab for „Bubba Ho-tep“.