Karen in Translation
Things have been a little quiet here at Karen Nerds Out. The holiday season and the new year completely got away from me but in a good way. Over the last few months, I've taken time to re-evaluate some goals and objectives. The biggest obstacle about being a nerdy lifestyle blogger is that it isn't simply a competitive niche, but many are very discerning about what qualifies as "nerd culture."
Writing about my nerdy lifestyle is one of my absolutely favorite things, but I've realized that there's been this nagging itch to talk about Japan: things I learned, things I miss, and things I love. One of my biggest frustrations since returning home from Japan has been a steady decline in my proficiency level. I've also been searching for a rejuvenation of my passion for not only writing but content creation across multiple platforms.
Karen in Translation will be a separate social media presence, focused on how I am incorporating my various experiences from living and traveling to Japan into my lifestyle here in Orlando, Florida. The Japanese community in Orlando is fairly small, but slowly hidden gems are starting to surface!
Karen In Translation Projects
Japanese Culture & Florida Living - Small local business appreciation as well as how this gaijin brings Japan into her daily life
Japanese Language Proficiency Test - Business Level Studying - In the last twelve years, I've taken this test twice missing a passing score by less than 2%.
Nomunication Podcast - talking about my life in 10-minutes or less.
Pro-Wrestling Translation Projects - current queue: a novel, an article collect and a podcast. All done to help increase interest in the western audience toward Japanese pro-wrestling.
Twitch Streaming - Using the #JustChatting category on Twitch, I want to improve my on-camera confidence in speaking Japanese. This will be on my Twitch Channel.
KiT YouTube Channel - A separate channel from KNO because the content will be very different in format from what I want to present on KNOW.
Reading Ikigai along with several other goal-setting, self-help books, I came to the conclusion that while I am here in the US, my life's work with Japan is not finished. Although I may not be moving back to Japan, there are ways I can satisfy my desires to remain connected with the place I discovered myself. Japan and I have lots of unfinished business.
When I lived there, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter were merely science fiction and pipedreams. I had a very humble, but small LiveJournal and a Japanese blog at Ameba, but most of my documentation from that time are in hard copy form: letters from students, articles from newsletters, photographs, and mementos. Not only have I finally started unpacking all of these treasures from my time in Japan, but I've discovered a renewed interest in achieving a goal I set for myself when I moved to Japan.
I want to become a freelance translator/interpreter. Simply passing the business-level of Japanese Language Proficiency Test is no longer enough for me. Taking my experiences from teaching in Japan, working at a bilingual boarding school, traveling the world as a bilingual flight attendant, and now sculpting my life in Orlando, my goal is to cobble them together into a new career path. As I make strides toward my forties, I have decided that complacency has no room in my house. It certainly doesn't spark any joy, so according to Marie Kondo, I'm going to thank it, but let it go.
It is my sincerest hope that you'll not only continue visiting Karen Nerds Out but that you discover something you love about Karen in Translation, I'll be over the moon! Thanks again for your continued support. I cannot begin to express how much it means to me. Do you have any questions about Japan? Let me know in the comments!