Why is it that, when I have a day off, I wake up at 4.30 a.m. and can't get to sleep again, no matter how I try, so I get up and do stuff, but when I have to do work, I sleep until 6 a.m. and am then so groggy that I can't get myself into gear [mich aufraffen]? I then lie in bed for an hour or so, semi-comatose, unable to move, incapable of even opening my eyes - despite the fact that work awaits me.
It's so unfair.
Last Friday, I did a short 11 km walk which nearly killed me, so hilly it was. Since I had about 40 minutes to kill before the train came, I rewarded myself with a nice cup of tea in a newly opened cafe. At least...I thought it was going to be a pleasant sit-down in the place.
Unfortunately, I can understand German perfectly and there was a 74-year-old man, talking to a 42-year-old women (so detailed were they that I got all this information within a minute or two) about ill health, strokes, and "Scheintod", or "apparent death".
He went on about how people have been buried alive and that was only discovered when they had to open the casket or coffin again long after the burial. The people who opened the coffin found scratch marks on the inside. Ugh!
Could I ignore the morbid nature of the talk? Could I heck. They were the only two other guests in the smallish place. After a few minutes and a couple of glares in their direction, I picked up my stuff and the tea cup and moved outside.
Oh, what a difference. Sunshine. Peace. And pleasantness restored.
Yes, bereft [beraubt] is how I feel.
A couple of weeks ago, I wondered why I hadn't had any articles on the subject of stationery [Schreibwaren] to translate for a while and looked up "Insights-X", the name of the stationery trade fair [Messe] organised by the people in Nuremberg. I discovered that, after 8 years, it had been discontinued. How sad.
I mentioned this to the agency that had given me the articles to translate and got another piece of bad news. The organisers of one of the largest trade fairs in Germany - the Spielwarenmesse or International Toy Fair - had decided to use artificial intelligence, AI, to translate all the articles in the future. The trade fair company offered the agency the chance to "tidy up" the translations, which they refused.
So now, I feel bereft. No longer will I learn about the innovations in the world of model railways. Never again will I be in the know when it comes to the latest board games, new toys for toddlers, smart building blocks, creative games, learning games and the like. And I shall never hear of the latest trends in stationery either: scrap-booking, calligraphy, marker pens and diaries...
One thing I like about translation is that you're never quite sure what you are going to get from one day to the next. One minute, you're translating something relating to the environment or economics and the next text to come along is all about glitter pens or jigsaw puzzles.
Life has become just a little bit more boring and flat.
