Archive for February, 2008

Speaking of Cars…

February 25, 2008 at 11:19 am · Filed under translation ·Tagged , ,


I am so glad I made it—I finally finished all the Ford Mondeo stuff, a translation job that I completed (thank God!) last night.

It’s several videos without no transcripts, mostly of interviews/conferences where supervisors and engineers from Ford Europe giving talks on the design of the new Mondeo. Honestly, I really hadn’t expected it to be so difficult. After all, I did have translated some automotive documents so supposedly, I was somewhat experienced in the area, wasn’t I?

It turned out, however, not only do a great deal of jargons appear in the videos, but the accents (Taiwanese, French, and a few other non-English-speaking countries) and poor sound quality (couldn’t even hear some of the questions asked) just boosted the level of difficulty. Like, how do you translate the stuff if it’s very technical, involving the terminology you aren’t familiar with, pronounced with a thick accent, and recorded poorly?

That’s why I spent hours after hours learning about cars via the internet, trying to decipher things like injection system, active/passive safety, and rubber bush.

Thank God, I made it. And I also learned a great deal about automobiles(I never/never could drive, and never got to know anything about cars). It reminds me of a video that I translated a while ago, which is about “one of the most dangerous jobs in the world—high voltage worker.”

I wish I could make a video that says “one of the most exciting jobs in the world—translator.”

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To Live in a Big City

February 21, 2008 at 8:41 pm · Filed under Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,


Monday, I visited a room D, a friend of mine, had rented. It’s a Japanese-style room (i.e. “washitsu”), so it’s got no locks and is located right next to the living room with wood-framed sliding doors in between. To be honest, I kind of like it, but not so much as to ignore its privacy (I can be heard and vaguely “seen” when the doors are drawn) and security problems. But what’s most important, it’s rented at only NT$3,000 per month!My friends told me it’s way too early to start looking for a place now because, after all, school doesn’t start until September. But the thing is I might move to Taipei early and, after some research, I realized that those apartment located in the Daan District (the area of my school) is sooooooooooo freaking expensive (at least NT$10,000/month for a room!). Considering I need to support myself and pay for my own tuition (nope, turning to my parents for financial support is not an option, ’cause I DON’T WANNA), I seriously doubt it’s doable to rent a place that would cost me more than NT$6,000 a month.Fortunately, now I know that Yonghe, a part of Taiepi County which is very close to Daan, might have some place just for me. Hope I can find a nice and not-so-expensive room soon. Wish me good luck.

Gosh, it really ain’t easy to live in a big city.

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Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

February 13, 2008 at 9:18 am · Filed under To Dear J ·Tagged , ,


I know, I know, J and I’ve never even been together, so we couldn’t possibly have broken up. But somehow, it just feels like it. Especially this morning, when I realized that it might just be the best for me to stay away from J as far as possible.Before we “officially” ended our I-don’t-even-know-what-to-call-it relationship, we were talking about applying for Chunghua Telecom’s F2 service, which would enable us to call each other at a much cheaper rate. There was, however, some technical problem that prevented us from doing it, so we never did it.

Just this morning, J called me and told me he’d figured out a way (which I didn’t like so much for some reason) to work it out. We were discussing, trying to reach agreement when all of a sudden it occurred to me: Maybe, it’s better for me to call at a expensive rate, so that I would manage to stop calling him so often, and get over it sooner.

It felt exactly like when I broke up with Hsiao, my ex, whom I dated a few years ago. We still call each other like friends do now.

Once every other or three months, that is.

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First Phone Call

February 13, 2008 at 9:16 am · Filed under To Dear J ·Tagged , ,


The first phone call I made since our “just-good-friends” relation officially started, it was.

You were asleep when you got the call. It was past 12 noon. You said you’d been watching TV until really late the night before.

So it got nothing to do with me.

You sounded so sleepy, so I-ain’t-woken-up-yet, so I told you I should let you go for it’s really nothing that I called you for. “No, no, it’s okay. Go on,” said you. Then we had a nice, warm, friendly conversation—like old friends. Seemed almost like how we used to talk to one another before those things happened. But not quite.

So it really is over, after I hung up I thought.

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