For a while I thought that the above was only the title of a confusing and not very enjoyable movie starring Bill Murray, then in studying the topic here at Kent State I realize how much truth is contained in the maxim, but never did I think that the phrase would apply to my own life. Everything I have ever known has changed, and I often think it is for the better, but life is one of those things whose progress we cannot well evaluate when we are in the middle of it. Here in Kent there are so many opportunities, and yet I only feel driven to pursue very few. The classes are interesting, but not inspiring; the inspiration comes when the tools are used to communicate with those Spanish-speakers that I encounter: at the clinic, at the church, in El Salvador, and in Cuba. Life is too short I believe to spend all of our lives working, and perhaps this is why I so much struggle with my stay here. I know that I am learning, but in a way that I would prefer not to learn, in a way that is comparable to shoving food down the throat as opposed to enjoying its flavor and consistency as it falls and fulfills the cravings of the stomach.
One can say that it is only two years, but when you're twenty-four, this is a life-time. It is one-twelfth of my existence, one-twelfth that will surely help me in the future, but one-twelfth that I will struggle through while I am here. I want only to find peace, to find my place and learn where I need go to bring faith, hope, and love to the world. Language is important, but here we learn not even that. We learn systems to categorize our languages, software to capture and alter them, strategies to tear them apart and build them back up again. Granted this is not true for all, but it is one way of looking at translation. My mind falls back on the idea of "traduttore, tradittore" and as with most things, there is a degree of truth in this. What are we as translators? We do perform our own work, use our own strategies, but only based on the work of others. We are a third-party in the act of communication, rarely formulating our own message, but instead ensuring the accurate transmission of someone else's words.
I do not mean to denounce the profession, for I think it in many ways noble, I only offer these perspectives in order that someone else might share their somewhat different way of viewing what I have here described. This for me is a breaking out of my months of silence to express myself once again. I hope that this can be a forum in which we discuss our differing views of the world and thereby gain insight into what we are called to do in it.
For right now, I can only describe myself as lost in translation....
