Failure

Like most people, I make commitments that I don't always follow through on. If you have followed through with every single thing you have committed to do over the entirety of your life then congratulations, you are not like most people, are you even human because I think that failure is an intrinsic trait of humanity. No one is perfect, and as my favorite JK Rowling quote goes

"You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all―in which case, you fail by default."*

Not posting on the first Sunday after I said I would post every Sunday probably counts as a failure, but not as much as it would be if I failed Semantics for example. Which it is quite possible I could do considering I understand type theory about as much as I understand what it would be like to hate chocolate. All things considered I'm lactose intolerant and dark chocolate is definitely my least favorite desert, so there is some understanding, but mostly confusion. I'm being over dramatic of course, it is highly unlikely that I will fail Semantics. I do think my GPA might take a hit, but not an irreparable one.

To be honest, I spent most of my break reading. I read Swing Time by Zadie Smith, Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour, Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, The Grownup by Gillian Flynn and am halfway through The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. I'd like to think I could have read more books, but I was actually working throughout the break too.

Mostly I focused on my translations, because I have been struggling with them throughout the semester. At the beginning, it really was like pulling teeth, because for some reason the words just wouldn't flow. Now that we are closer to the end however, I feel like I am closer to the text, and one night mid semester I actually woke up wide awake at half past midnight only to start translating. I would have thought it was just a bizarre dream, but in the morning, I had 100 new lines of poetry. It was a distinctly unpolished work in the light of day, but I have been pecking at what I have translated ever since and now I think it is starting to be more cohesive.

Translating poetry is difficult, because on the one hand I feel like I am betraying the words, but on the other hand English isn't formed in the same way. I suppose this is something I will struggle with for the entirety of my life, but that prospect doesn't make it any better. I am very excited for this summer though because I will be going to Middlebury's Bread Loaf Translator's Conference, and that is something to get really excited over. You can bet I will make a blog post or two about that. I’ll also just write lots of posts about translation in general though, because that’s kind of the point of this blog.

Cheers,
Talia

*This quote is now the end quote for all my emails. Previously it was “We often just accept the things that we like and complain a lot about the things that we don’t like. But if we could, like, intensely dwell on the really great things in life the way we intensely dwell on the negative things in life. I think that would be fantastic.” ― Hank Green
But the aesthetic I am going for fits better with the JKR Quote, which is from her 2008 Commencement Address at Harvard. The printed version is called Very Good Lives and sales benefit her charity Lumos, as well as university-wide financial aid at Harvard.

Word-for-Sense

The title for this blog is based on a classic and basic issue in translation: word-for-word or sense-for-sense. That said, even though the very name of this blog is based on translation, I haven't really been talking about translation on here. I suppose that is because for me, translation is an intimate process, and I don't always feel comfortable talking about it. It’s probably because of the imposter syndrome I tend to feel about anything and everything I've ever done or do. The feeling is an uncomfortable one, but confidence doesn't come easy for me.

My translations themselves, well, I don't particularly like sharing. I'm always terrified that I have mistranslated something, or that something is somehow 'not right' in ways I'm not fully sure I can explain. I worry that my fluency in Spanish is not good enough for proper translation and find myself hounding down words in dictionaries, picking at the poem until it is nothing but words. I tend to go for very literal translations, keeping faithful to the word, and yet my heart longs for giving instead the sense that comes from such rich poetry. Translating is maddening and sometimes I wonder why I ever thought I could do it, and others I wonder how I could possibly do anything else.

I'm doing an independent study on translation this semester and even though there are only five weeks left of class I haven't sent my professor any poems because I am terrified he will hate them. That said if I don't send him something soon he will probably fail me, so I have resolved to send him at least two poems by Friday, no matter how much I dislike the verse. (My translation I mean, the original poems are gorgeous). The only way I can improve is if I get feedback, but like most people, I am scared of rejection. Everyone fails sometimes, it's a fact of life, but that doesn't make it comfortable.

Imposter Syndrome

I think I did terribly on my last Semantics assignment. Granted, I feel that whenever I turn in any assignment it's terrible (Imposter Syndrome anyone?) but I'm actually pretty scared for the outcome. You see, the problem is that I understood the assignment and what all the questions were asking. Not to mention that I think I came up with satisfactory answers and stated them well. 

So obviously I'm going to fail the assignment. 

Yes, I know that what I said makes no sense, and no that does not change my mind.  

This is the thing about living with anxiety. No matter how well I am doing I constantly wait for something to screw up, because of course then it will and I will be sad and miserable and wail that I brought this upon myself. (I'm a drama queen, just go with it)* To be fair, the whole point of saying this is that I do bring these things on myself. If one expects to fail, they probably will. If I keep worrying about things, I'll never get anything done. Hence, I just submitted my homework and went along on my merry business. Voice in the back of my head is still saying I'm going to fail, but I'm not going to worry about it. As Newt Scamander helpfully points out "Worrying means suffering twice." 

Cheers, 

Talia 

PS check out this proof I made for the assignment, I'm kind of excited that I was able to finally understand my class work: