It seems to be the done thing to have a New Year's post to look back at the year that's been and at the year ahead, etc. and who am I to argue against the collective wisdom of the Internet; that many people can't be wrong (/sarcasm).
I actually achieved most of the goals that I set for myself last year. Namely, I had some business cards made (they are now depressingly out-of-date), went to IJET in Hiroshima (it was great) and set up a website (I'm averaging about a half dozen hits a day, maybe more), all of which were discussed at the time. The only thing on the list I didn't do was being a bit more active in responding to blog posts and the like. In fact, I think I went backward in that area. For a start, I have been posting less on my own blog. Furthermore, I have accounts on Facebook, Google+ (Don't bother looking me up. If I haven't met you, I won't add you. I'm weird like that) and Twitter and I don't remember the last time I posted anything to any of them, I barely even look at them. I just don't 'do' social media.
Sometime over the coming year, I need to think about improving my website. There are some good ideas that I saw on other websites that I didn't put in because I wanted to get mine up and running, like a page with standard terms and conditions. I'll also need to think about a Japanese version (will I write it myself or get someone else to do it for me?) and the mechanics of how it will be set up. I know of at least one example where the button to change language is actually a link that goes to a separate website with exactly the same layout so it looks like the same site. I thought this was a clever idea and probably the simplest to implement given my level of web design ability and I can make it work very easily with my given set up.
I also want to get new business cards. I like the design of the ones that I have but I've moved house and I want to put my website on them as well. I also picked up a few ideas from other people's business cards at IJET that I want to incorporate.
Speaking of IJET, I'm not sure if I will go this year. I would like to go (especially since they have put up some hints of what will be discussed on the website and it looks to be very interesting), but I'm not sure if I will be able to afford it (one of the downsides to living in regional Australia) and I want to be sure that I can afford to go to next year's, which I hear is in Tokyo.
The other big thing is my NAATI accreditation expires this year and I need to decide if I will just let it expire or if I will renew it. On the one hand, I like being accredited and it looks good on my CV; on the other hand, I don't think I've had any work from an agency interested in my NAATI accreditation for at least two years and I'm not sure what work I did have justifies the trouble and expense of meeting the revalidation requirements. It's a big thing because in addition to translating an average of 10,000 words a year (this is not an issue; I've occasionally done more than that in a week) there are professional development requirements, some of which I don't agree with and I've been a little slack in this regard in any case. As any example of the former, there is a compulsory ethics component that can involve taking ethics classes every year and I don't think this necessary or even helpful. If you have the accreditation, you have already passed an ethics exam to start with, rendering this component unnecessary, or you lied well enough to pass, rendering it useless. Further, I doubt people's ethics will be seriously affected by anything short of a major life altering event (or possibly a study of philosophy and meta-physics) and no course will make a difference in such a case. Anyway, it mostly boils down to 'play nice' and 'don't bite off more than you can chew'. As for the latter, I'm sure I can make all sorts of excuses to justify myself but I won't. It'll only come across as whining anyway. Regardless, revalidation costs $165 and I'm not sure if it's worthwhile.
Lastly, and apropos of nothing, over the Christmas period I was watching a Danish politico-drama called Borgen and I noticed that they sometimes used English for emphasis. This happened quite a bit in the first episode, in cases where we would rely on tone of voice or air quotes to convey a point, they were able to do so by speaking English. (For example, a character quoted Nixon saying "I'm not a crook". In English, you would need to imitate his voice to get the point across but here the point came across because it was in English. This was not the only example, just the one that sticks in my mind.) I suppose we do a similar thing using French, saying that something lacks that je ne sais quoi or experiencing a frisson of delight, but it seems to be something that we don't see very often any more given how anglocentric English-speakers tend to be. Still, it was interesting to see from the other side.
