Happy Easter!

An inquiry on ProZ (about how best to wish a native Russian-speaking person a happy Easter) caused me to wonder whether this was one of those rare years when the "Catholic" and the "Orthodox" Easter coincide. (Unlike Christmas, the date of which depends on which of two calendars one uses, the date of Easter is determined by other criteria. The "Catholic" Easter appears to be the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox; I'm not sure how the "Orthodox" Easter is reckoned.)

In any event, for reasons best known to ecclesiastical scholars, the date of Orthodox Easter this year is May 1.

I am in the middle of aligning a number of files for the urgent set of items due tomorrow. "Alignment" is the process by which you take a source file and its translation and run it through a piece of software that segments the text into manageable chunks (typically called "translation units" or something similar) and then associates corresponding units from source and translation files.

Normally, the associations selected by the software aren't perfect, so you end up moving things around and reassociating units, but Trados does a fairly good job of alignment on the front end, so for the translator, alignment consists mostly of verifying everything is properly aligned.

Once you're finished, you can export the associated segments into a "translation memory" file that is essentially a database of corresponding source and target segments that is consulted, in the course of translating new material, to find sentences that are similar (to one degree or another) to those in the new file, and for which a translation already exists (again, to one degree or another).

The "freelance" edition of Trados only lets you align 10 files at a time, but I think 10 files is all I have time for, seeing as one of the tasks I've been asked to do is to translate some "omissions," where one such "omission" (normally a term used to describe a sentence or perhaps even a paragraph that was overlooked the first time around) is almost 6000 words long!

Yikes!

(I'm not complaining, mind you, and I only noticed this morning that while some part of the job is due tomorrow morning, the rest is due by COB tomorrow. Whew!)

Shannon's parents have invited me over for Easter dinner around 6 pm. I'll have to get superproductive really quick to do that and get the work done.

Cheers...

Update...

The time spent aligning files has been recovered in the translation of a 1000-source word file, where I ended up translating perhaps 250 words in new sentences, the remaining sentences being either exact or close copies of sentences previously translated in this "project." Instead of Wordfast, I used Trados for this document - again proving the worth of investing in a variety of tools - and was pleased to see how well the so-called 'concordance' feature worked.

So, two of four items are done (agenda and list of regulatory documents). The huge "omission" is still undone. Besides that file, I have omissions to translate in one other file and two files to rework.

A little less than 5 hours before I'm due for supper, and that does not count time to dress, drive, etc. I'm seriously thinking of bowing out, since there is simply Too Much To Do™.

We'll see.

Cheers...

UPDATE (2:45 pm): The omissions in the other file are done, and both files for rework have been completed. That pretty much leaves only the Big Omission™, and Trados continues to pay dividends, as I've managed to pare the 5300 source words of the "Big-O" down to 3800 source words in fairly short order (though I think that may be all I can squeeze, this time around.)

I'm beginning to think Easter dinner may be back on. Heck, I may even take a nap.

Easter night...

Well, I did take a nap, for about 90 minutes, and it actually felt like a nap and not a sleep session. I then got dressed and went by Shannon's parents' house for a plate of Easter dinner.

The place certainly was crowded with kids, grandkids, relatives, and friends. It's certainly a far cry from the staid surroundings I find myself in right now: sitting by myself in my basement office, rapping away at my keyboard. (Heck, I halfway expect a big black bird to come tapping, but I digress...) Nevertheless, I couldn't really relax over there, between all of the hubbub and knowing I still had work to do.

At any rate, since coming home, I've managed to winnow what's left for tomorrow down to below 3000 source words (which ought, therefore, to be eminently do-able by COB tomorrow) and I've sent back everything I can to the client for tomorrow morning. I checked the due date on the medical item and can safely review it tomorrow (or even Tuesday morning, although I think that's my tired eyes talking right now).
* * *Daylight Savings Time is still a week away for those of us in the U.S., and when it comes, it hits at 2 am local time, turning 2 am into 3 am in one time zone after another. However, the EU (and Russia) have already gone over to "Summer Time" today, and fortunately, the whole escapade is a done deal, as it is my understanding that all European time zones change at the same moment, at 0100 GMT (or is that UTC? or does anyone care?).

This week is going to be merry hell for telephone conferences between the U.S. and Russia (particuarly Moscow), if my past experience in Houston is any guide. Fortunately, although the "spring foward" date differs between Here and There, at least the "fall back" date in October is the same (but don't ask about implementation details).

At any rate, the point of this ramble is to figure out just what time it is now in Moscow, as I have been instructed to call my sister-in-law and convey happy birthday greetings, and naturally, I don't want to be calling at some untoward hour. So let's see, Moscow is my time (Mountain Standard) plus 10 hours, or about 7 am, but factoring in the summer time shift, that means it's almost 8 am.

I should probably try to call soon, before she leaves for work.

Cheers...

UPDATE: Skype rules!