A Year of Song Titles: Breathe

I decided to follow Duussi's lead and will this year name my entries after song titles. Today's title is brought to you by The Prodigy, just because I'm beginning to feel slightly panicky about having again embarked on the mission of writing a thesis and need to remind myself of some of life's necessities. This time the thesis will be about translation - if for no other reason than wanting to do everything the wrong way round. I go to Germany to learn about Britain, so why shouldn't I take part in an interdisciplinary course just to write about translation. Simples. 20,000 words, two months - let's get crackin'.

Once again, it appears I have a fairly decent (broad) topic. My research will combine the typically German cultural transfer studies with ideas about the role of the translator as a mediator of cultures à la Venuti. The focus of analysis will be Ben Moor's More Trees to Climb and especially its first story/play Coelacanth, which I have already translated. I will have to write a few paragraphs on drama vs prose translation as well, and then let the concoction simmer under the influence of Mr Moor's delightful and wonderfully quirky storytelling. I'm not afraid of the final writing process, which I know will be rewarding and inspiring, but this whole starting to write business... now that's another story.

To try and bring some structure to my life, I drew up an Excel spreadsheet which records my progress. On the left you see the date. To the right you'll see how many words I have written, then how many words I still have to write and lastly the number of written words as a percentage of the target. Yes, this is how I spend my sad, lonely days - apart from blogging, of course. Yesterday I went for dinner and didn't write. But I did read a few pages of Interkultureller Transfer zwischen Deutschland und Großbritannien - Einführung in ein Forschungskonzept, so I'm excused.

2.1.2011 738 19262 3,69 3.1.2011 738 19262 3,69 4.1.2011 1025 18975 5,13

In more exciting news, I'm beginning to plan moving back to Finland. My wonderful parents have agreed to come and pick up some of my stuff by car at the end of May which means I will be back in Finland and Turku come next summer! Be prepared for a bacchanalia - there will be a number of reasons to celebrate in July.