Webinar (8/26/2010)
　"Thank you for attending our recent Translation Workplace webinar."
　This is an initial sentence of an e-mail I received this morning. I don't remember I attended that kind of meeting in the first place and the word "webinar" was new to me. I could guess it has something to do with "the Internet" as it has the term "web" in it; however, my imagination wasn't able to go further enough to decipher the gibberish. It is, in fact, the combination of "web and seminar", as some of you may have analogized.

　"Through Translation Workspace, you can discover new business, and new business opportunities can discover you."
　This is another intriguing usage of the word. The second discover means that you could fully understand how interesting and blessing new business opportunities are. I like the rhetoric of contrasting two discovers.


Full-time thinker (5/18/2010)
　I once decided to do something creative and significant, which means to do things to make a difference. I’ve come to realize I have to be much more aware of the issues which happen around me in my daily lives, not just by getting information through the Internet and other mass media but by taking pains to see what is really happening and to meet people. If I could obtain anything significant there, I think I am a right person capable of doing something different.
　I know many people who are good commentators of the social issues but few people who go all the way to solve them and I must admit I am one of commentators. Commentators could talk and write something on the issues for a copious amount of information is easily available on the web. So now it doesn’t matter whether one has information or not but matters whether one has real experience. I want to be a full-time thinker, and more importantly I should be one lined by experiences.


サラリーマン川柳の英訳に挑戦

羞恥心　なくした妻は　ポーニョポニョ
　My wife was once quite body-conscious and was very well put together. Now, some twenty years after marriage, she's lost even a bit of sense of shame and got out of shape. She looks like Ponyo, a popular animated character.

　My wife, once body-conscious
　now free of it, has turned Ponyo

久しぶり　ハローワークで　同窓会
　I lost my job and went to the unemployment office for the first claim for unemployment insurance.
　While waiting, I met not a few of my friends I haven't seen for many years. We laughed out, saying "It's like a alumni reunion.

　At the unemployment office
　did I meet some friends
　as if it were a alumni reunion
　

やせたのは　一緒に歩いた　犬の方
　It was not myself but a companion dog
　that I walked
　that got slim

「ストレスか？」　聞かれる上司が　その原因
　Anything to worry?
　My boss, who asked this question,
　is the root of all evil

「パパがいい」　それがいつしか　「パパはいいい」
　"I'd rather have Dad with me."
　As time goes by
　"I'd rather not any more."