Introvert, Interpreter

I’m back in crisp, autumnal Bath. It’s two weeks since my postgraduate studies in Interpreting and Translating began. In complete contrast to my undergraduate years, where I studied lots and befriended barely anyone, I’ve so far managed to ‘network’ (God I hate that word) with a whole crowd of delightful people, a truly international bunch, and even party with some of them, without quite getting the hang of timetabling my studies. You see, it’s all so ridiculously independent at postgrad level, and your brain (or mine, at least) needs time to compute the fact that dramatically less classroom hours should mean considerably more lab sessions, memory exercises and hours mumbling headphoned at a computer screen.

Don’t get me wrong; I really, really do want to do this. Like in undergrad, I was awarded a bursary, a financial pat on the back. All the course units are reasonably interesting. I definitely don’t want a career just yet. My parents even got me a dictaphone- an adorable mobile phone-sized thing with its own little pouch. Pro: I felt like a secret agent when I played with it. Con: I sounded like such a massive prat when I played myself back that I haven’t touched it since. Therein lie(s) the problem(s). I am, by nature, an introverted, softhearted perfectionist who takes criticism to heart and still blushes at childhood transgressions and adolescent lapses of judgement. I’m a long-term depressive for whom entire evenings spent crying in the foetal position, wrapped in a duvet, are sometimes necessary. And the person I want to be is a quick-thinking, high-flying jet-setter, a go-getter, Queen of the Booth at UN conferences, generals and officials the world round gasping at my effortless speed, my dazzling turns of phrase. She is a mornings person, even though she still can’t stand coffee. She is never slow or socially awkward. She is beautiful, accomplished, and unfortunately for me, eternally fictitious.

Living in an emotionally grey world, I’ve always tormented myself with big, bold technicolour dreams. But I’m no longer naive enough to believe everything will be perfect, even if I do manage to press on through the clinging mists and burst out into the warming sunlight. I just don’t want my illness to define me. I don’t want it to restrict me any more than it has to- I have to be strong-willed and focused enough not to let it. I resent all that I have already lost to it; still miss the vivid girl who was sacrificed upon its heartless altar all those years ago. Yes, a stubborn, proud part of me does want people to have an inkling (hey hey listen I’m not actually as slow and stupid as I seem it’s mostly my brain not my ineptitude honest) but at the same time, it would undermine the integrity of everything I am striving to become if I were to be given any sort of special treatment. My favourite times are those spent shadowing in one of the interpreting lab’s soundproof booths, murmuring over the voice of an invisible and non-judgemental speaker, heard only by the lecturer, whose presence I entirely forget because she is not stood next to me. At these times, I don’t have to worry about making an idiot of myself. The small soundproofed space belongs to me and me alone.  

Introvert, interpreter. Can I ever hope to reconcile the two traits? Is that even possible? Maybe I can be a new breed, a hybrid intervert. If anyone’s hiring one of those in about a year’s time, please would they be so kind as to let me know?