I
have been working as a full-time self-employed professional language
teacher, translator & proof-reader since 2000.
Between
2004 and 2008 I bolted to the side and made a professional escape in
tourism sales & marketing.
The
job was nice & I travelled a lot, mainly to trade fairs all over Europe & Italy, but living in tiny Trentino mountain villages was not my cup of tea, and I
eventually returned to funkier urban settings.
All
the better to go back to stimulating international classes (sometimes 11 different nationalities sit in a room of 12 students!) and take up again on
the challenges of teaching & translating, especially now that
courses focus on business communication, international tourism
marketing and multiculturalism.
As an additional work & pleasure, in 2009 I started mentoring students graduating in literary translation at the Trento ISIT faculty of translation and interpretation, where I teach Spanish > Italian translation.
As
I'm addicted to reading
and learning,
you'll
often find me "book-walking"© along the beautiful river Adige (Trentino) in the summer, and "book-pedalling"© on an exercise bike at
the gym in the winter.
As for lifelong
education, the
latest courses I've attended disclosed to me the wonders
of multicultural counseling and voluntary work in
prison.
My translation studies background and professional
experience mean I am meticulous, accurate (yes, I know, even a
fastidious proof-reader, sometimes) and deeply concerned about the
quality of my work.
Finally, I guess you have to know my
studio library is my pride – there I store, dust and cuddle my
dictionaries, grammars, school material and other treasured
volumes: George Orwell* & Freud are in good company, as Asimov's works are piling up along with Granta issues, anthropology manuals, marketing handbooks and many other wonderful books.
* including the little-known "George Orwell at Home (and among the Anarchists) - Essays and Photographs)": .... As you can see, _He_ is comfortably sitting in my library!
Scripta
manent, luckily!
In the long (and a bit boring) debate on e-book readers vs. paperbacks, I guess I'll stick to paper forever and a day.
Even, I'm
a sucker for early 1900's magazines –
a snap-shot of my early 20th century magazines collection
the "treasures" in
my library being some 1962 issues of the Italian monthly "La Storia Illustrata"
I inherited from my grandfather, and 15 years (1959/1974)
of the monthly "La cucina italiana", that my grandmother left behind.. (guess what? she didn't even like cooking!)
two snap-shots from a 1968 issue of the Italian monthly
"La cucina italiana",
(from my grandma Anna's collection)
Well, I do like cooking, so
I must avoid buying too many cookbooks, but sure, there's plenty of them in my home, too.
My collection includes a recipe book of the ancient Romans and a cute booklet of pirates' cooking secrets.
As to "old journalism", last
year at the
tremendously inspiring second-hand market in Fortezza da Basso in
Florence I found some great bargains, namely a 1919, 1921 and 1922 issue of the Italian
Touring Club monthly, a photo crime & love story dating
from the 1970's and a few more invaluable articles.
Of course, what happens next is that my
friends & translation students have to bear with me
when I get all excited and start showing them my old, dainty, peculiar, nowhere-else-to-be-found magazines,
quoting old Italian style, long-forgotten, old-time unique words we no longer use,
and I get overheated at the sometimes surreal atmosphere evoked by
magazine advertisments of indestructible pots & pans (grandma Anna actually
left 4 indestructible pots, too!), caravans,
cigarettes, 1970's state-of-the-art colour TVs that promise
"you'll
get people that look like people automatically. Even when you change
channels".
This
authentic piece of artwork from the April 1972 issue of "Life" magazine is a gift I got from the USA from my supportive brother, who never forgets
to feed my eccentric passion for quaint-bordering-brainy
periodicals.
I can't wait to see what he'll get his hands on in China & Russia!
As a side note: no matter how much I love real-paper books,
I cannot live without the Internet, where a lot of wonderful books can be found.
Consider books in a foreign language were not easily found when I was a teenager in Trento... I guess I'll never make up for all that pre-Internet time:
Amazon.uk
&
You
are welcome to take a peek at my library on Anobii, too
and, of course, to leaf through my books if you happen to come over to my studio. See you there!
§ from my early 20th century magazines collection, an array of beautifully revealing snapshots.
Enjoy!
Thank you!
