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JAT Bulletin 184-185, July-August 2000
先日、JAT-list で "How translators can stay
healthy and be
productive" についてコメントをお願いしたところ、多数の方々からアドバイスや経験談などが寄せられました。皆様、ありがとうございました。
数が多いのでPart I （７月４日までの投稿分）と
II（それ以降）に分けて ご紹介します。Part
IIでは肩こりに悩まされる二人（katakolists）のつぶやきと、専門家の方からのアドバイス、おすすめのサイトなどもご紹介します。
Physical and
Mental Fitness for Translators
Karen Sandness
Here are some miscellaneous ideas I've picked up (partly
through experience) for staying physically and mentally
healthy as a freelance translator.
1. Pursue a variety of activities besides translation. If
you don't have any outside interests, you can easily burn out
or become unpleasantly obsessive.
2. As I've said any number of times, weight training is
great for preventing muscle problems. Also, don't drive
anywhere if time and distance allow you to walk or ride a
bike.
3. To prevent afternoon fatigue, don't eat a
high-carbohydrate lunch (i.e. pasta, soba, pizza, French
fries, sandwiches made with thick bread, desserts). Instead,
have soup and salad or a meat/vegetable stir-fry or curry
with very little rice.
4. If you can't concentrate, play some serious music. If
you're tired, play some lively music. If that doesn't work,
look at your work environment. Is it really messy? If so, you
may actually save time by stopping to tidy up before
continuing with your work.
5. If that doesn't work, reward yourself at major points.
For example, tell yourself, "When I finish this page, I can
have a cup of coffee. When I finish this section, I can go
check the mail. When I finish this whole assignment, I can go
see a movie."
6. If you are sleepy in spite of everything (perhaps due to
sleep deprivation), lie down for ten to twenty minutes.
These are my favorite coping mechanisms. I hope they're
helpful to other people.
Kevin Kirton
This is what I do when I'm in a situation where I'm close to
deadline and don't have time to leave the computer room. For
example, the deadline is in 4 hours and there are over 3
hours of work remaining.
1) Put in a good CD but don't turn on the speakers.
2) Look at the CD cover while lovingly remembering normal
life.
3) Work as hard as you can, for as long as you can, until
your first break in concentration. (This is between 20
minutes and 80 minutes for me, depending on the job.)
4) At the first break in concentration stand up quickly,
switch on the speakers and the music CD, then dance and/or
shadow box around the computer. Make sure to dance and/or
shadow box with controlled recklessness and abandon.
5) When you first start to feel silly, sit down and work
again.
6) Follow steps 3, 4, and 5 until assignment is
finished. 〜♪
Time Out
Ray Roman
◆ Work pattern (break )
I set a timer for 45 or 50 minutes. When it goes off, I get
up, walk around, look out at the Cascade mountain range (if
visible — I live in Seattle), put on some Rock or Blues, and
recharge for a bit.
Actually, my wife Junko also sometimes uses a timer for her
translation work (not for breaks, but to keep track of hourly
jobs). And we use a timer for laundry as well on some days.
So there is sometimes a whole lot of beeping going on.
◆ Exercising
I exercise for 1 to 1.5 hours a day, five to seven days a
week — a combination of weights and aerobic stuff (walking,
cycling. . .). This means I can usually get enough sleep and
I don't notice any stiff shoulders (just bulky ones).
Beating Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Norman Havens
I have started taking a capsule combination of Glucosamine
hydrochloride (500mg) and Chondroitin Sulfate (400mg) three
times a day. This was recommended on another forum for
sufferers of carpal tunnel syndrome and related joint
ailments. I don't know whether it has really worked or
not, but a recent bad case of CTS has gone away since
beginning the Chondroitin and Glucosamine supplements.
Coincidence, perhaps.
I currently buy mine from an online place called
PlanetRx.com, but I have to have them shipped to relatives
in the US and thence forwarded to me, since PlanetRx doesn't
ship directly to Japan. For that reason I'm thinking of
shifting to a different supplier.
Note: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS or手根管症候群 ―
手・指の疼痛・異常感覚を伴う) is an occupational hazard—an
affliction related directly to work habits, somewhat like
"tennis elbow"; it will go away if you stop using the mouse
and computer, while arthritis won't go away merely by
changing work habits.
Some Alternatives to Translation
Peter Ball
Suggestion:
Alternate (or combine?!) translating with an outdoor
activity:
- gardening
- bird-watching (instead of word-botching!?)
- sprinting up/down nearby mountain.....if you have
one
- etc
Then how about the next one.....
Translator and Country Living
Rick Davis
Out here in the country I have a comfortable office chair,
nice monitor, good natural lighting, an office that is as big
as the apartments of many city dwellers, and lots of quiet.
Nevertheless, decoding 悪文 for hours on end stresses me out,
and sitting in front of a computer all day does little for
one's physical health. To maintain my mental and physical
health, I therefore have a kitchen garden and three rice
paddies.
Up at between 6:00 and 6:30 in the morning, I don muddy
boots and my Green Bay Packers cap to go let water into my
paddies. It takes about three hours to fill them, so I just
open the sluice gate and go back home for breakfast, picking
up the newspaper on the way. Since the paddies are several
hundred meters up the road, I get my first exercise of the
day.
After breakfast I put on my 麦わら帽子, grab some tools,
seedlings to be planted, straw, and whatever, put them in my
wheelbarrow, and go off to the garden. There is always plenty
to do, if nothing more than weeding and picking things that
are ready to eat. Pushing the loaded wheelbarrow all that way
— sometimes piled high with compost, potatoes, or other
heavy things — really gives me good exercise, especially
because our village is very hilly. On some days part of my
garden time is spent weeding the paddies (close to the
garden), cutting the grass around them, mending fences (we
have a big population of boars), and in other tasks. Once the
paddies are full, I knock off and go home to work. Some days
if I'm particularly stressed and need a breather, I walk to
the paddies in the evening just to look at the water and for
a few minutes observe all the living things going on about
their business above and below water level.
The result is that I'm less stressed, in better physical
health, and more productive than when I lived in town. Not
only that, my family gets organically grown vegetables and
rice. One couldn't ask for more.
＃Bonus Quiz＃
Do you know these rice farming terms? No, I am not going to
ask you something as obvious as 田植え.