… of Bruno Rossi, MATLM 2015!
I have been in the United States for almost 6 months now, yet sometimes I still have those moments where life is surreal and I can barely believe where I am. As the wheels of my bike roll downhill towards MIIS this morning, the fresh Monterey breeze hits my face and I feel very grateful for all the opportunities that I have.
Even if today turns out uneventful, it is still going to be an extraordinary day because living abroad is a dream-come-true for me. As a student in the second semester of Translation and Localization Management (TLM), I get to have exciting classes about translation, translation technology and business.
My first class today is Translation into Portuguese. I meet my classmates Alex and Nati and we chat for a few minutes before our class starts. Because our professor, Cris, lives in Colorado, we have to connect via Adobe Connect or Skype. We are few students in the Portuguese program, but what we lack in numbers we compensate in laughter! In these classes, we usually debate the word choices we made in our translation assignments or practice sight translation. This semester, our focus is on business and legal texts, so I am glad we have a very good collection of dictionaries in the library.
Our next class is Desktop Publishing. Today we are working with Adobe Photoshop to adjust translated text so that it fits the layout of the exercise files. We are also dealing with font issues. I have a lot of fun trying to solve these problems, which reassures me that TLM is the right program for me, since this is a very “real work situation” activity.
As the class ends, I remember that I have to do some grocery shopping. I bid my friends goodbye and head to the supermarket, where I quickly grab everything I need and check out. For some reason, walking home with the reusable bag I got from MIIS during Welcome Week full of groceries makes me feel very independent.
I have another class this evening, so I need to walk back to campus, where I also left my bike. There is an airship hovering over Downtown Monterey… Now that’s something I have never seen! The beauty of being a foreign student is that I get to experience things that I would never do back home. I find the garbage trucks here really amusing. It still surprises me that a “Trespassors will be persecuted” sign is enough to keep strangers away from your lot. No fences required! It’s silly, but the houses here look like the ones I used to build in “The Sims”. My thoughts move like a monkey jumping from branch to branch! The airship is far in the horizon…
Now I’m on campus, so I stop daydreaming and head to the classroom where I meet other TLM students for our Translation Management Systems class. I like my TLM classmates because everyone shares my excitement for language and technology, regardless of their native language (there are speakers of Portuguese, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean in this room… I would hardly have the chance to see such diversity elsewhere).
Once class is over, I return home. The seat of my bike is wet, but it hasn’t rained. Weird! Some streets in Monterey can be very dark at night, I wish there were more street lights. For now, I don’t have any more homework to do and my room is not too messy, so I can relax by practicing French with the Duolingo phone app or by reading Érico Veríssimo’s “O Tempo e o Vento”. Now it does start raining, and the sound of the rain lulls me to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be another great day…