Stray thoughts, tamed.
Sources of Joy - Day 70 It may have been gifts of money from Christmas or my birthday, but what I do know is that one day early in 1981 I found myself in a bookstore browsing through piles and chaotic piles of sale items. It was a hot day, and I was nauseous, having... Continue Reading →
Sources of Joy - Days 54 – 56 A eulogy of sorts During this, my officially designated "respite", I have made honest attempts to achieve more regular days, manage my time with greater precision, and render plans and strategies conceived thus far more concrete. All this, yet still, days flow one into the other as the... Continue Reading →
Sources of Joy - Days 38 and 39 I am not sure that there should be a space between these two days. They form a contiguous blob in my mind. Each blob contained high anxiety levels tempered only by the calming effect of having a mountain of work from saving me from having to think... Continue Reading →
Sources of Joy - Days 36 and 37 Note: All graphic material on this page is the sole copyright of Toni Le Busque, who so engagingly illustrated my brief but informative memoirs in Scatterling. Seeing as she had so much fun drawing them, I am, as far as I know, the only one who is... Continue Reading →
Private and Personal I freely admit that up until very recently I answered all translator forum polls regarding Facebook with the comment that I reserve Facebook for friends and family, and use ProZ, LinkedIn and Google+ and, to a certain extent, my blog, for interaction on a professional level. I had this idea that I... Continue Reading →
Today These two daisies - one white and one purple, both fully open for the first time - greeted me as I gazed out of the kitchen window this morning. Neither has any thought for yesterday, yet without the sum of all yesterdays neither would be here today. The same is true of me -... Continue Reading →
I do have a good laugh when I choose to write on a subject about which I know so very little. When I was still at school, we had to read a novel by George Duhamel entitled Le Notaire du Havre which, as now expected with so much of modern literature, had nothing - and... Continue Reading →
I was checking online whether my translation from Portuguese into English of a Chinese proverb matched the commonly accepted rendition in English. As one does. I should mention that I do not normally take the answers found at wiki.answers.com as Gospel for obvious reasons, but have occasionally found some useful leads there by way of... Continue Reading →
Bitstrip is a new Facebook app which is quite fun to use - provided your good friends also create their own Bitstrip avatar. It proved so popular within the first few days that the program crashed. The app writers were a little ambitious, and have now removed a few of the flexibility features which made... Continue Reading →
Eventually - about half way down the page, you will be able to read about my freelance translation summer survival plan. But first, the historical preamble: I am relatively new to the whole experience of the European summer. As a recent immigrant to Portugal from Zimbabwe, this is only my fifth one. Southern African seasons... Continue Reading →
That elusive pair of jeans 