Here I Come, Hollywood

I love translation because it’s like acting without the stage fright. Got a contract? I can pretend to be Mitchell McDeere from The Firm. Have a PowerPoint presentation on a fly-by-night company? You can trust your pal, Bernie Ebbers. Want to threaten a competitor with legal action? Look out, here comes John Gotti. When the role (read: text) fits, it just flows. Some texts I don’t even have to finish reading: once I start one part, I know exactly how it rolls out.

The flip side is that you spend your entire day thinking someone else’s thoughts. It’s like being possessed by an evil spirit, except you get paid for it. Maybe that was really what was wrong with that girl in The Exorcist. She got a lousy text. A really lousy text.


Another case of overwork?