Differences because of culture or inequality.

I've been reading a book by I.Pillar in which she claims that problems encountered in intercultural communication stem not from different cultures but inequalities between people. It's all very well, since she's trying to shift the focus of failed communication on to the unequal financial and educational status of the two people conversing, but does it mean that she's denying cultural differences and culture all together? Does she mean that had we all come from backgrounds of similar financial status the communication would be smoother because we would perform it in exactly the same way? Would there be no difficulties in intercultural communication had we treated each other with mutual respect? Would that solve everything?

Great talk on cultural differences by Sheena Iyengar: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/pl/sheena_iyengar_on_the_art_of_choosing.html

Sunny day.

What a wonderful day! It's sunny, I'm off work meaning that I can concentrate on translation. My body's screaming to go out though. Drinking a cup of tea by the river and reading a book seems like so much a better way of spending the day than sitting at the desk.

Sheena Iyengar(http://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_choosing_what_to_choose.html) Someone to look up to. According to her it takes up to 9 minutes on average to an CEO of a big company to make a decision. I'm not really managing a corporation here, barely my own free time. It's 3 o'clock, time to make an executive decision. I'm going to do 3 hours of translating today. Redy, Steady, GO!

Present moment.

Do you know any people with real careers? People your age I mean? People who do what they truly love, not just because it pays well.

I do. One or two. The rest is either trying to get established in the field of their interest or hasn't even worked out what it is that they want to put a lifetime into.

I work for free and I love doing it. Then I do overtime in a fucking restaurant. I choose to believe that there is no way that I won't succeed as a translator. Then I brake down for a week and feel like I have to run away, make a radical change.

I want to be a translator. I am a translator.

Learning takes time. Learning to be patient takes time.

Panic.

I've panicked. Rysia sent me correction of my last TEDTalk translation. The sheer number of yellow lines really disappointed me since I've worked so hard. Then I read the corrected translation and panicked. It's gibberish and doesn't make any sense in Polish. The next mistake I made was showing the subtitles to my mother (the most criticizing person on the planet. no, it's not your mother. it's my mother. I'll introduce you if you don't believe me). She slagged it off completely, straight after reading the first line! And then she went on and on... "Who's that idiot speaking? What's he trying to say? What is this newspeak language? What a load of crap is this??"

What a kick in the ass. I probably needed it. As a person with the tendency to rest on my laurels I often need a reminder that I'm nowhere near as good as I want to be.

So here I am, it's Thursday evening, I'm off work for a week and what am I doing? Translating. I could be in the pub right now with my friends but screw it. I want to translate for money and getting drunk isn't going to get me to Brussels.

Is anybody out there also trying to better themselves? How are you doing? Keep it up, you're doing great!

Raising money for a masters degree.

It's a challenge. I need money for a masters degree. How am I going to get it? I'll try everything.

Hello. My name is Karolina. My dream is to become a translator. My dream is to study Translation at a university. I don't have any money. But it won't stop me.

Let me explain my current situation. I work in a restaurant cause-I-need-money. I could find some sort of a 'real job', but I don't want to. I want to be a translator and an expert in Intercultural Communication.

It's not a joke, I've always wanted to be a translator. Maybe for some time I pushed the dream away to the back of my head but it's always been there. My name is Karolina and I badly want to be a translator.

It's not like I'm not doing anything that could bring me closer to fulfilling my dream. I do, I translate. For free. I don't have any qualifications. My English isn't as good as I'd like it to be, but that doesn't stop me from pushing. I will get there.

For now, free translation has to do. I'm grateful to TEDTalks for taking me on as one of their volunteer translators. I'm grateful to Rysia for her feedback on my translation and her review of them. She teaches me more than she could imagine.

My name is Karolina and I want to be a translator and an expert in Intercultural Communication. I have one year to raise £8000.