ANYWAY. Here's what's going on:
- I am doing French translations with this guy. It's like deciding that I want to be a cage fighter and training with Voltron once a week.
- World History is as insane as expected. I fear that I'll stretch my goodwill with the nutty dude teaching it to the breaking point, as I'm just straight-up not doing some of the stuff. If I did (do the stuff), I'd end up a guy in a clock tower w/ a rifle in no time, so I think it's best that I don't.
- My TA assignment this term is...adjective. I don't think the kids are going to learn very much. But I will try.
- I have three 10-hour days a week on campus, which is tiring. So far, I've been hiding in a cubicle in The Dungeon, our new facility that compliments The Bunker rather nicely.
- I am so freaked out about the translation thing. This guy...seriously...he's the lingual Bruce Lee.
-KFR
4 comments:
If he is the lingual Bruce Lee, then you must "be like water." Or in French... "Be like Perrier?" Sorry dude, I only know spanish (or at least enough for the language testers approval), so "se como agua"...uh I think...????
So, has Bruce Lee clarified his philosophy of translation? When I took translation (granted it was at the undergrad level), the prof said something along the lines of "si on soit juste, on ne soit pas fidele. Si on soit fidele, on ne noit pas juste" ('juste,' I think, was word-for-word translation). The leeway between between being faithful to what is written and what is meant has to give you some room. Can you just go on the "there's room for interpretation here" in order to make the experience less stressful?
The guy has written quite a bit on translation theory; we just dove right in last time, so I didn't get the theoretical preface. In practice, he favors the "get the right meaning" over the "word for word" approach.
You will thank yourself for that TA assignment in the future for two reasons:
1 - you can do whatever the hell you want in section and control that part of the grade. Because the course content was worthless I did what I thought was best: I taught the kids how to write a damned research paper to the best of my ability. I showed them how to use online library catalogs, article databases, and how to weed out the wikipedia from the JSTOR. We talked about taking notes and we also spent a hefty amount of time on how to write. They may not have learned history, but given most were 1st/2nd year non-majors I think some can now write half-decently. Be encouraging of them in their writing and if it sucks straight up tell them. They can handle it.
2 - the better advantage to this assignment: you can do your own work and get paid like you're actually TA'ing.
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