translating (the) translated translations

Been fairly busy these past 2 months with my translation jobs.. my freelance translations jobs.. With my mind constantly thinking of how to translate certain sentences from English to Chinese or English to Malay, it can't really do much creative thinking.. :p When I am not translating, I am either watching TV dramas (House, Dexter, Glee, Nikita and many more) that I've gotten off the Net or reading magazines (Newsweek, Fortune, etc).

Anyway, here are a quick run-through of my freelancing jobs..

The first one is an online hotel booking site, based in Europe, which means that I am being paid in Euro! With the exchange rate between Euro and Ringgit being 1:4, it pays rather well.. ;) In fact, during the last 2 months, I am making enough to pay for my daily expenses, to give some (a token sum) to my parents and still manages to save a little.. All I need to do is to translate  a minimum number of words per week. So I can either complete the quota all in 2 days or spread it out over 7, there is no restrictions.

The other one was a long-time freelance job that I had for more than 4 years now. It is with a Japanese company, translating user/product manuals for a major international Japanese brand.. For this gig, I am being paid Japanese Yen.. Again, the exchange rate is in my favor.. :) Product launches are more frequent in the 3rd and 4th quarter of the year, thus I am being swamped by jobs almost every day for the past 2 months.. For this year, I have received close to 100 jobs from them to date.. hope to reach or cross the century mark this year..

One of the perks for translating for the hotel booking site is that I get to know more about cities in the world and their attractions. Hotels all around the world are trying to woo tourists and visitors to stay with them, so they will list out all the benefits and advantages they have over other hotels in the vicinity.. And that is just what I like about this job!  I get to read about all these places as part of what I am supposed to translate!! Already, I am making a list of new places that I would like to visit someday.. :)

While for the other job, I am exposed to what digital cameras and video camcorders are capable of. The irony of it is that I don't own a single product from this major electronic brand.. I've said it before, I am no tech geek and I don't get excited with new electronic products. I won't buy a product and then find a need for it, nor do I think that by owning a piece of the latest tech is going to somehow make me superior/popular/whatever. In fact, I am one of those super late adopters.. I was very proud of myself when I realized that I was the last among my friends/colleagues to own a mobile phone (yeah, back in THOSE days). I only signed up for one because my job required me to..

Of course, I have not lose sight of the fact that both these jobs are freelance, meaning there is no guarantee or safety net and that I might lose one or both of them overnight. But again, who can feel safe under these tumultuous economic times? Even for permanent staff, job security is the last thing any company can promise, much less deliver to its employees when times are bad.. So I am just gonna make hay while the sun is still shining.. earn and save as much as possible when I am still with them..

And frankly, I like the freedom of a freelancer. I never thought I would say this, but I am willing to sacrifice job security (or the false sense of it) for the freedom to do things on my own schedule. I don't have to answer to anyone except my "handlers" (aka people whom I liase for the jobs), no need to wear those uncomfortable office attire, won't get stuck in traffic or get packed into trains/buses like sardines, no need to deal with office politics, etc.. and the only downside that really bothers me is that I don't have a life! Living in this country when most of my friends are somewhere else meant that I don't have meet-ups, dinner/lunch appointments, karaoke sessions or even face-to-face chatting.. All I have is FB and MSN, my 2 most important tools that enable me to still keep (somewhat) in contact with friends..

But I will not pretend that being physically unavailable to my friends isn't hurting my social life, it is, and there is no doubt about that. Yet, I wanna believe that the friendships I made over the years can withstand the test of time. I don't make friends easily as I must admit I am not a very friendly person. Thus hopefully those whom I regard as friends reciprocate my friendship, solidarity and endearment even if we aren't to meet for the next few months/years.. Most of the time, I am the sentimental one as I hold on to the maxim, "Friends (not diamonds) are forever".  Unless you have done something really bad/evil to me, once a friend, always a friend.. :)