I was working on a project with some of my fellow classmates when one of them laughed and remarked “You know, you sound like a teacher.” I joked that it made sense because I had been a teacher for a year. Then I realized that it was actually more like four years, considering my two years on the JET Program and my private tutoring endeavors. When I finally did the math, I realized I had been a teacher for almost all of my adult professional life, and now I’m suddenly back in school pursuing a Master’s Degree in Translation and Localization Management. The answer had been building for a long time.
I’ve always had a high opinion of teachers, both of my parents worked as a teachers and now still work in education, but my respect for teachers has grown tremendously since I worked as one. To be brief, lest this entire post become an exploration on the woes of teachers, it is an incredibly unforgiving and taxing job. Teachers, especially in the US, have become criminally undervalued, underrespected, and underpaid. But with all of the downsides, teachers persevere and help students grow every day. I watched my coworkers live through the same awful days that I did, ones that made me question my career choice, and become more dedicated for it. Wanting to find the same kind of drive I doubled down and gave teaching my all for a good while. After everything was said and done, and I still had yet to find the drive, I had to recognize that my heart was not in teaching, and I would need to find my passion elsewhere. The soul-searching began.
In January of this year I played an indie lovecraftian sci-fi survival horror video game called Signalis.
It’s a great game, and you should definitely give it a try if you’re a fan of any of those genres, but I mention it here specifically because of it’s use of language. It smashes German, Mandarin, English, Japanese together in a cohesive and entirely unique way. After finishing it, all I could think about was how cool the experience was and how much I wanted to be a part of a project like that. My brother would later tell me that was the first time in a long while that he had seen me know what I wanted to do. With a new idea of what I wanted to do I proudly strode forward, and had no idea what to do with that knowledge. It became buried in the back of my mind as I continued working.
While discussing languages and language learning with one of my friends and coworkers, he mentioned the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. Out of curiosity, after work that day, I spent some time on the website and found the Master’s in Translation and Localization Management. I realized that THAT was how I could become part of a project like Signalis. I typed in my info into the “Contact” box, immediately got a response, and found out I had two weeks to get all of my records in order before the application deadline. However, I liken those two weeks to dominos: everything just fell into place nicely and quickly. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you find your passion.
And here I am, two weeks into the program and absolutely loving it. I hope in several years I can write a new post about my journey and pick up here where I left off. But for now, this is where I am at, and I can hardly express how excited I am for what is to come at MIIS.
