group dynamics: April 2007 Archives

Honest.

I was talking with Rachel just before the final panel on primary participant’s views on quality in interpreting. I asked if she was going in and she said, “No, we’re going to the ballet. Want to come?”

At the Sydney Opera House? What was I supposed to say?

“We’re leaving now,” she added.

Done. :-)

And what a show it was! Don Quixote: a romantic comedy as perfect prelude to my presentation on Saturday in which I dream of planting seeds to change the world. (shhhhhhhhhhh!)

Henry is as hilarious in person as he was during his spiel on opening professional membership to those least skilled and least qualified individuals whose job performance as interpreters brings down the public perception of the lot of us. (This is the only way to entice them into line, on the principle that “they have to be into you before they’re going to change,” with the caveat that “even then it might not work.”) Hannah is a firebrand: she told me about the Russian grandmothers who buy the least expensive tickets for classical shows, enter early, and watch like hawks for open seats, dashing for the front row just as the curtain rises.

Rachel, lo-and-behold, was a participant in the online conference where Anne Potter and I presented on American Deaf consumers’ perceptions of interpreters’ interrupting or even, unculturally-incorrect, “TAKING OVER.”

En route to the grand venue (which appears alive from up close under the stars), we stopped for a meat pie; a “very Down Under experience.” A bit greasy but rather tasty, similar to fast-food everywhere.

I grinned through most of the entire show by The Australian Ballet. The dancers were talented, the choreography fun, and the music delightful. The Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra is conducted by Nicolette Fraillon – the first female conductor I’ve witnessed in action! Post-show, we avoided what looked like a gathering sting operation by Australian paramilitary at the train station by exercising the “get out on time (or early)” principle, which is somewhat in contrast to my mode of living “in tomorrow, here.”

;-)

First flight (all the way) across the Pacific. First trip to the southern hemisphere. First time to take a twenty-two hour trip and arrive two days later, because I crossed the international date line. According to Betty, the time shift works out to “only three hours of Easter.” :-) Australian currency is pretty: bright and colorful. As far as I know, my car arrived in Amherst on time and in one piece. (I cannot say the same for the drivers.) There is no mail drop anywhere in the LA airport. Hello?! I refuse to take this personally.

Betty’s on her way to China. We talked about languages and translation. She mentioned Steven Pinker (who I suppose I really must read someday. I have even already bought The Language Instinct.) Later, in preparing for my presentation, I re-read this datum from my interviews with interpreters at the European Parliament:

“[Mentalese is] a level of communication that doesn’t necessarily have to be expressed in words. It’s the kind of gray area, the 'you know what I mean' area. He [Steven Pinker] talks literally about mental ease and almost refers to it as a language in its own right that we all possess, and some use it more effectively than others. I don’t think he expressly refers to interpreting per se, but with the background it automatically occurred to me that it’s something that is very relevant to any kind of interpreting, inference, that can be expressed through gesture, facial expression, obviously words as well, but not necessarily any of those. Even just the tone of voice. It’s a mode of translation, if you like, that is probably one of the most powerful tools that an interpreter possesses.”

Hmm. :-) Not exactly what I will present on this time around, but it might work it's way into future analysis!

On the second, longer leg of the journey I had a brief, also pleasant conversation with a woman on her way to surprise her family with a visit for the first time in eight years. Reminded my of my trip west a year and a half ago. She grew up in Mombasa, married a military man, now lives in Florida; her family is in New Zealand. I asked her about colonialism and race relations; she responded about the beauty of nature and that the natives were always all around. I thought we might not see as eye-to-eye as Betty and I had, but the connection was still warm.

I took my time departing the airport and finding my hotel in the western suburbs of Sydney. It was nice wandering the city pre-rush: quiet, mildly humid, only barely chill. I hope to make my way to Newtown tonight.

By the way, it is 9:45 on Monday morning here, some fourteen hours ahead of my friends in New England, who are still enjoying Sunday evening.

Shakespeare might have known it all.

Dada recently told the story of a friend of his who compared the duration of a dream to the duration of the universe. Our lives are short, whether considered on the timescale of the universe, or in the human terms of birth, development, aging, and death. What can one possibly accomplish when the hours of the day must be split among discharging and unlearning emotional residue, taking care of business, and trying to contribute to something larger than oneself?

I’ve just read the Introduction to John Gribbin’s “general interest history of science”: The Scientists. He is appropriate, limiting his scope to Western Science while acknowledging “the achievements of the Ancient Greeks, the Chinese, and the Islamic scientists and philosophers who did so much to keep the search for knowledge about our world alive during the period Europeans [and North Americans] refer to as the Dark and Middle Ages” (xix).

The logic of scientific thinking and technology are closely intertwined. Gribbin opens with the stark statement that “the most important thing that science has taught us about our place in the Universe is that we are not special” (xvii). Even humanity’s genius is conditional on technology, because “it is possible to make machines by trial and error without fully understanding the principles on which they operate” (xx). Here, Gribbin approaches a key tenet of the communication discipline. I am eager to read his subjective account of “stories that represent the development of science in its historical context” (xx), particularly because he believes science has been achieved “in the most part, by ordinarily clever people building step by step from the work of their predecessors” (xxii).

He proposes “to give a feel for the full sweep of science, which has taken us from the realization that the Earth is not at the center of the Universe and that human beings are ‘only’ animals, to the theory of the Big Bang and a complete map of the human genome in 450 years” (xxi).

A mere blink of the eye.