Recently, I have discovered that what I love most in this world is translation. Whether it's from the past to the present, English to Spanish, or even me to you, I love the power of words. It's like a slot machine of possibilities and if you get the same three items in a row, you hit the jackpot. Most people probably agree that writing is like a slot machine, just pull and pray that it comes out coherent. But for me, it's not so random. If I pull on the lever in a certain pattern, then I can get the prize I want. With an infinite number of combinations, I can reach a wide range of people and personalities, and that's the greatest prize in the world.
I suppose on some subconscious level I've always known that I was fascinated with language (I am after all, an English and Spanish double major). But I was never able to say why I chose those degrees, especially after my desk was piled a mile high with books and essays and short stories and poems in not one but two languages. Options for my future were no help either: teacher, years of graduate school to eventually become a teacher, or holed-up writer of boring manuals working with boring people forever. As you can see, I wasn't exactly thrilled with my prospects, but by then it was too late to change my degree, and there really wasn't any option I wanted to switch to anyway. I enjoyed seeing the world through another set of eyes, so I stayed.
Then this new show caught my attention. It's about a team of geniuses who work together to solve national dilemmas. Even though they're some of the smartest people in the world, they have difficulty trying to fit into society, and thus, they have a sort of interpreter. I love that. She takes the world, and morphs it into a form that they can understand, and she takes the musings and adventures of geniuses, and molds them into something that normal people understand. It's pure magic. That's what I want to do. Help people make sense of their world by re-framing it in a way that makes sense to them.
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