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colitisandme · 6 years ago

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It’s no coincidence that ‘stressed’ is ‘desserts’ spelt backwards. That’s what I typically dived towards when I was stressed or sad. Desserts equaled gluttonous happiness. Whenever I was anxious, I ripped into packets, tubs and cake shaped items with joy and frenzy. Desserts and stress were my bed fellows. They were brilliant friends, hogging all the blankets under the duvet of my life, leaving me cold, plump, hyperactive, covered in sugar and shivering, with no cover on me, cursing the fact I didn’t wear fluffy socks to bed. my mind would whirl away like a washing machine. And so, cold and shivering with my hair on end, looking like a deranged Womble, I would end up seeking something sweet to eat. Instantly after the first mouthful, my hair would become less wild, my thoughts would be less chaotic and I would sink into a pile of sugary blissfulness. So when I had to give up sugar, I was, well stressed irronically.

Stress and worry have followed me around my whole life, from when I was in Primary school right up until present day. It has become such a huge part of my existence, I didn’t feel right unless I was worrying about something or constantly going over things in my brain. Not just tangible thoughts. Nope. My worries consisted about serious things that are going on in the world, my finances, my families happiness, the house, husband wellbeing, friends, have I upset anyone? Am I being a good wife? To other thoughts and worries like; Have I locked the door? Have I turned off the tap? To really helpful thoughts and worries like; ‘I am pretty sure I heard a crunch under my foot when I put out the rubbish? ... Why didn’t I turn the light on? Oh my god was that a snail? What if his family are waiting for him to come home. What if, because he never appears, the mum snail becomes an alcoholic, becomes hooked on nettle wine, and the children forgo their education to look after her. Eventually they leave because she’s just too much to handle, and so, alone and drunk, she sings songs about her lost love, while hiccuping and wailing in a nettle wine stupor ... And it will be all my fault.’ So round and round my thoughts and worries went, until I felt like a hamster on a wheel, running and running and going nowhere. I didn’t vocalise these worries. They were all internal. I just couldn’t switch off.

I beat myself up for anything that goes wrong. Nobody need punish me, I do a great job of that myself. Once when I was very young, I decided that the cat simply had too many whiskers that she didn’t need. Even at aged 5, I reasoned I was doing her a favour and she was probably absolutely fed up with having an even number of whiskers on each side. I was sure that if she could speak she would beg me to reduce her grooming time, as she was taking simply ages to preen her whiskers, tell me stories about when she would get laughed at by all the other cats for having rediculous symmetrically numbered and placed whiskers, and longed to remove herself from mediocrity and boredom. Well I certainly didn’t want her to be a laughing stock. Happy to oblige.... *snip* (I probably should have stopped when the cat tried to scrabble away from me, eyes wide with fright as I confidently strode over to her, gleefully, with arms outstretched looking like Edward Scissor Hands, but never the less I was convinced I was doing her a favour.)

I came downstairs clutching a traumatised, angry cat in one hand, and a pair of scissors and newly trimmed whiskers in another. I proudly showed off the new look to my parents. They were not as open to the new aerodynamic moggy as I had hoped, and freaked. I immediately lost it. I sobbed. I apologised over and over to the cat, I tried glueing her whiskers back on, I stroked her, cuddled her, I was convinced I had ruined her life. I was inconsolable. I spent many days after that setting up a makeshift counselling clinic for my cat, where I would stroke her and make sure she knew what a beautiful cat she was and I told her I was sorry that was going to be lob-sided, and struggle getting in to tiny gaps, and try and make up for what I did by taking extra special care of her. My parents didn’t chastise me, because nothing they could do could make me feel any worse than I did. Even at age 5, I worried a lot.

So you can imagine that as adulthood embraced me, just how easily worrying had become a part of me. As natural as breathing. Stressing about everything became normal. Overthinking was critical to my daily life. I lived each day on high alert, in case I needed to jump into action and fix whatever needed fixing, just like I tried to do with the cats whiskers. I am at my best in a crisis, and god knows I have had many to deal with in my life. I love being Superwoman. I love saving the day. But being in this hyper-alert state was not fun and certainly not healthy.

I became ill after a BIG burnout. I had been playing Superwoman for too long. I had been living on the edge for months, I was always stressed, I wasn’t sleeping, I was in pain, I was withdrawing, I was experiencing horrendous brain fog which was really sodding useful as I had just started an incredibly stressful job, where I would drill myself to be perfect and chastise myself for processing information incorrectly. On top of this I was dealing with a managerie of outside issues. Very quickly and surprisingly, (to me as everyone closest to me would describe me as the strongest person they knew,) my health and mental health imploded like a double whammy firework. I did not know it was coming, but oh my god when it did, I was floored. I had never been so ill. I was scared. I knew that I could not continue doing what I was doing. I needed to change my behaviours. I needed to spring clean my brain. I couldn’t turn to sweet treats anymore to relieve that anxiety because cake or sugar would make my bum explode. I needed to find another less ‘caboom, fire in the hole type way’ to manage my anxieties and stress.

IBD forces me to think purely in the present because I have to spend a huge amount of energy simply functioning. I have to stay in the moment. If I worry or think further past a day/ week it becomes impossible, as I am never sure what one day will look like from the other. Stress hugely exacerbates my IBD symptoms. I learnt this very quickly. The more I worried about why the hell my body was being so unco-operative, the worse my body felt and the more angry it got. And with IBD there is a lot to stress over. Finances, health, stigma of having an invisible illness, work, isolation, diet, questions over future plans etc. It’s a big thing to deal with. It’s enormous. So I worried and got worse and worried and got worse. And so eventually, feeling like I had been kicked by a horse, totally hungry, weak, prone to explode, sugar deprived and looking like a bum with eyes, with my wonderful Mum’s encouragement and support, I came across meditation and mindfulness.

Meditation and mindfulness have helped me manage my stress. After phone calls chasing mental health appointments, referrals and cursing the incompetence of Drs, mental health professionals and admin teams, I turn to mindfulness and meditation as a way of calming my mind. It has taught me to accept things, the way they are during the moment because that may change in the next moment, And be in the moment with it. For example, the pain I get with IBD can feel like your belly is being sawn in half. It feels like a group of can can dancers, jig about on my groin, back and stomach wearing high heels, and using exquisite timing and excellent rhythm, stomp on my intestines, causing me to chew my fist in distress. If I use mindfulness and meditation during painful episodes like this (sometimes whilst crossing my eyes, grinding my teeth and chewing the carpet) it helps me not to fight the pain, but to breathe through it and accept it in the present. When I am anxious, Meditation takes my mind away to another focus in a gentle way, and if my mind wonders off like a hyperactive butterfly, it gently brings it back again. It’s not easy. Sometimes it definitely does not work, but sometimes it does. I have learnt to focus on my breathing, I have trained my brain to change each thought. From a time where the thoughts on a day to day basis felt like they were running around my brain on fire, screaming fire engine noises, wearing a bucket on their head, careering into other thoughts who fanned the flames with a manual citing ‘50 ways to put out a fire’ and can’t work the hose, to a calmer place. One where my thoughts can pick flowers, float in a babbling brook, frolic with fluffy animals and where the fire extinguisher is readily available. Because IBD has forced me to strip everything back in my life, there is no room for extreme stress. No room for high anxiety, because it just hurts me. Physically and mentally. Where as before, I would keep my worries to myself because I didn’t like bothering people with them, now I talk about them, accept the things I cannot change, appreciate things in the moment and change the things I can change. So strangely in that way, IBD has probably saved my life. It’s very strange how things work. I am the most ill I have ever been and should be the most stressed I have ever been, but I can’t be, because that would make me even more ill. Don’t get me wrong it’s still a battle. But I try. I try to appreciate every moment. I appreciate every mouthful of food, and take ages eating it, where as before I would thoughtlessly shovel it in.

I start each day with a mantra and meditation, and even though sometimes Its not effective, I can honestly say that practicing Mindfullness and meditation, are the best stress relievers and stress deterrence I have ever had. They are also the best dessert substitute I have ever had, because meditation doesn’t make my jeans bulge, make me act like an over excited toddler at a birthday party or attract an enthusiastic colony of ants who desire to lick my sugary face. So if like me you are a natural worrier, I urge you to not get so stressed out, you end up gnawing on yourself like an Octopus and try it. Doing a little a day may just take the edge off and sometimes just doing that will help deal with things a little more positively. And when we are living with a long term chronic disease like IBD, being positive, even in the face of a huge challenge like this, is everything.

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kaette-kita-slayers · 7 years ago

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Slayers V.1 Translation Comparison (Part 1, ~p.24)

This is the first installment of a comparison of the Tokyopop translation of the Slayers novels against the original Japanese. There are a ton of changes, so it's not going to be possible for me to catalogue every single one---I'd have to retranslate almost everything in order to do that! I'm focusing on things that make some kind of difference to the narrative, or that strike me as being of interest.

I apologize if the formatting is kind of confusing; I haven’t been able to come up with a better way to present it. ^^;

If you don't have a copy of the Tokyopop edition handy, this post from The Slayers Blog has the first chapter.

To start off, the first book is just titled Slayers!, with no subtitle. "The Ruby Eye" was added by Tokyopop.

The opening paragraphs are a good example of the kind of minor changes that I may not cover, since practically the entire book is like this:

English:

So there I was, tearing through the woods at top speed, a gang of murderous bandits hot on my tail.

Why were they chasing me, you ask? Well, it’s a long, boring story and besides, where I come from, it’s not all that odd to find yourself being chased through the woods at top speed by a gang of murderous bandits. Especially if you’re me.

If you really want to know why I can tell you, but you don’t need to know why. Actually, it’s probably safer if you don’t know. Look, it might ruin the story for you, okay? And you wouldn’t want to ruin the story, would you? Of course, you wouldn’t.

So anyway, where were we before I was so rudely interrupted? Ah, yes: I was tearing through the woods at top speed, a gang of murderous bandits hot on my tail.

Japanese:

They were after me.

... Okay, if you say, "So what?", I have to admit you've got me there... It's true that this isn't all that unusual, generally speaking, and it's practically an everyday occurrence for me in particular.

Still, stories have a certain structure, and you have to build up to the good stuff, so I'd appreciate it if you could just put up with it for now.

Anyway, they'd almost caught up to me.

It’s pretty heavily embellished, but everything in the English version has some basis in the Japanese text.

Missing from the English version: Lina mentions that she's in need of money because she hasn't had any work lately.

The "speck of pixie dust" line is sort of in the Japanese text, though she actually says "dirt from under a pixie's nail".

English:

Not being big on precautionary measures, I screeched to a halt and peeked out from beneath my hood to evaluate my options. The trees on either side of the road were too dense for me to cut through. Even at midday, I wouldn’t be able to see two feet in front of me.

Japanese:

I had been letting my mind wander, but then I came to a sudden halt.

Both sides of the road had a dense overgrowth of trees, stretching like a canopy overhead. The highway, devoid of travelers, stretched on ahead, cutting through them. The midday sun blazed down.

There’s nothing about Lina trying to cut through the trees or having trouble seeing. Or wearing a hood, for that matter.

English:

Now, when I say road, bear in mind that the road we were running on was more like a path. It was as though some guy had hacked his way through the woods with a machete, figuring that hiking single file was a fine method of travel. Weeds grew high on either side, and starting a scuffle in them was not exactly appealing.

Japanese:

Although it was a path stretching straight through the forest, it was fairly wide, with plenty of space for a violent confrontation. If I were foolish enough to stop in a spot where the road was narrow, they'd be able to slash at me from the thickets on either side.

Overall, the English version seems to be trying to make her sound surprised and worried, while in Japanese it's more like she noticed the bandits’ trap ahead of time and successfully avoided getting caught in a bad situation.

English:

Still, I had to say something to flush them out. “I know you’re there,” I shouted...

Japanese:

I thought about saying something to them, but I couldn't come up with anything witty, so I kept silent for the time being.

I stood there waiting, as a way of declaring, "I know you're following me."

Exactly the opposite.

English:

“Well, hello there, toots.”

Who’s it gonna be this time? I wondered. A talking skeleton, maybe? A zombie? Nope.

Japanese:

Lina actually says that not even a skeleton or zombie would say such a crappy cliched line nowadays.

They cut a sentence where Lina says that the bandit looks like the type of character that would be easily defeated before the halfway point of a story.

English:

No duh, genius.

“And now, here ya are, all by yer lonesome and at our mercy.” He licked his lips.

Japanese:

I couldn't take it anymore. I mean, I've always thought that creeps like this guy probably can't manage to cram even a hundred words into their brains, but still, couldn't he manage to find something a little less stereotypical to say?

English:

“Ya look like a biter, ya do, and I don’t fancy tussling with a gal who’d leave me marked.”

Japanese:

“If I fought you for real, I'd probably end up in a world of hurt.”

I get that they’re trying to emphasize that the bandit is a creep, but this still made me raise an eyebrow.

English:

“Speaking strictly as a professional, I gotta say I was impressed.”

Japanese:

“Even we wouldn't go that far.”

English:

No rest for the wicked, I always say.

Japanese:

My motto is, "The bad guys have no rights".

I can see how that would turn into "No rest for the wicked" except it's used incorrectly here, making it sound like Lina is talking about herself in Tokyopop's version. She's justifying her attack on the bandits in the original.

English:

“At first we figured we’d chase ya down and exact our revenge, in a fashion befitting our scurrilous reputation...”

Japanese:

“Now, normally we'd have to kill you or pursue you until every last one of us is dead in order to get revenge for the boss...”

It’s not an important difference, I guess, but I’m not sure why they dropped those details.

English:

Join up with you? I feel like I need to take a shower just for talking to you, cretin.

Japanese:

Lina adds a little aside in the narration:

I hate getting involved in anything crooked. ...I swear, really.

English:

I acted like I was thinking it over.

Not there in Japanese.

English:

"It’s what ya might call nonviolent conflict resolution, makin’ the best out of a had situation. Give and take: We make use of yer talents, and ya got yerself a gang. Ya give us back our stolen treasure, and we let ya keep breathing."

Japanese:

“You just do what I tell you, that's all. I'll make it worth your while, you won't want for anything. So how about it, doesn't sound so bad, does it?”

The English version sounds oddly threatening, considering that he’s trying to win her over.

Missing in English: Lina mentions that her attack on the bandits was several days prior to this.

English:

"Never know what kind of scum’s roaming around this neck of the woods. Ain’t no place to be a-napping."

Japanese:

“We're not gonna get anywhere if we keep hanging around here. We've gotta find a new home base.”

The word used for "home (base)" has the kanji for "sleep" in it, so I guess that's why the English version reads the way it does?

English:

Bear in mind, I hadn’t said a word since he’d started yammering. I stood there silently while he went on and on and on. And on. And on, some more. What is it with men loving to hear the sound of their own voice?

Right about the time he started winding down with, “So, toots, how’s about it?” I sensed another presence entering our sphere. Hmmm…

Japanese:

He was feeling pressured because of me. I had been entirely silent the whole time.

I have a naturally chirpy, girlish voice, so he'd probably feel relieved if I started talking. Of course, I felt no obligation to do so.

He just kept talking at me, while I simply stood there silently. He was clearly getting more and more irritated as I let him talk until he was blue in the face.

"So? What do you think, huh?"

There’s nothing about Lina sensing a presence in Japanese.

English:

I dug my heels in the ground to emphasize my point.

Not there in Japanese.

English:

Oh, bravo. I can see why it took you so long to come up with that one.

Not there in Japanese.

English:

Oh sure, the ten guys puffed up their chests and made a show of how tough they were, which I suppose I appreciated, but really. Ten guys? It was as if they had no faith in me. Sad.

Japanese:

The man was clearly shaken, to a hilarious degree. It must have unsettled him that I wasn't upset by the number of men out there.

English:

Those peabrains were way beneath my talents, and I was starting to get bored, when…

Japanese:

In that case, I'll have to settle this through force...

English:

“Shall I wait for you to call some friends, so we can have a fair fight?”

The presence I’d sensed earlier!

Japanese:

"Hold it right there."

Again, there’s nothing about a presence.

English:

Somebody cue the chorus of angels, would you?

Japanese:

The scene deserved a fanfare.

I just wanted to point this one out because I like the English translation here.

English:

“Piece of advice, fellas: If you all take off at a dead sprint now, a few of you might actually make it back to the rock you’ve crawled from under before I catch up and exterminate you like the vermin you are. One or two of you might even escape with your lives. That is, if you start right now.”

Japanese:

“You'd better turn tail and run back where you came from, you thieves. If you do, I'll at least spare your lives.”

It’s not that different, but the English version makes it sound like he wants to chase them down and kill them regardless, which isn't like Gourry.

English:

Not a bad threat, I thought.

Not there in Japanese.

English:

So what if she could’ve handled the whole thing on her own and the handsome rescuer in question didn’t have the verbal acuity she was hoping for? A gal can’t afford to be too picky these days, can she?

I can't find anything like this in the Japanese text. This and the preceding paragraph are both just Lina complaining about how unbelievably cliched the situation is, up to and including the handsome guy showing up out of nowhere.

English:

“Ya little… !”

Oh no. You think he’ll do any better this time?

“Ya impertinent cad!”

Guess not.

“We’re gonna feed ya both yer livers now! Have at ‘em, boys!”

Japanese:

This is all one line of dialogue with no comments from Lina.

English:

Anyway, there I was, shrieking like my life depended on it and pretending I had no idea what was going on around me. Sadly, the whole thing wrapped up quickly.

Japanese:

I got completely caught up in the whole shrieking thing, so I'm not sure exactly what happened, but at any rate, it wrapped up quickly.

English:

... had I not been a gifted sorceress with the enhanced hearing that accompanies that role...

What? That's not in the original at all.

English:

Just a kid? Okay. That stung a little.

Not there in Japanese.

English:

I mean, I like kids. I want to be a standup guy, but c’mon! Ten guys, I fought! Ten guys!

Not there in Japanese.

English:

What's the big deal, huh? At least I can run fast and my clothes hang right. Boobs are overrated, if you ask me.

Japanese:

It's true that sometimes I look younger than I really am...

English:

I guessed maybe all that blond hair was making it hard for him to see. I mean, if it had been me, I’d like to think I’d have figured out pretty quickly that the lovely creature before me was no helpless little kid.

Japanese:

The man couldn't see, since it was hidden by my hair, but I could tell that my eyebrow was twitching like crazy.

(It literally says the area around her temple was twitching, but that sounds weird in English, at least to me?)

English:

"I don’t live anywhere, exactly… I was just heading to Atlas City—”

Japanese:

"I don't have any particular destination in mind... I thought I'd go see Atlas City, for the time being..."

English:

... he said in a maddeningly condescending tone.

This isn’t there in Japanese, at least not at this point. There is an almost identical line a little later in the scene, attached to a different bit of dialogue.

The English version has a weird habit of rearranging the text slightly, which I mostly haven’t noted, but moving this line seems like an awfully pointless choice.

English:

What?! I don’t even think I understand what it is you think that I think that you don’t understand!

In retrospect, I think he thought he’d rescued a helpless little girl who’d been forced to live on her own as a result of some sort of tragedy At the time, I suspected he was going to keep spewing the same reassurances until he died of suffocation or I died of embarrassment. One of us had to put an end to it.

Japanese:

Ugh.

I had been desperately trying to keep from exploding with anger, as I tend to do, so I had kept my head down while I spoke, holding back my emotions. Apparently this guy had mistaken that to mean that he'd asked me about something I couldn't bring myself to talk about. He must have assumed that I'm some unfortunate little girl who had been forced to leave her hometown due to some kind of circumstances.

English:

“I’m an adventuress, off to see the world.” I was telling him the truth—which, incidentally, was no small feat for me!

The word "adventuress" seems like a weird choice to me. That and the "no small feat" part aren't in the original.

English:

Okay, now, this just sucks. For once in my life, I’m not making excuses!

I didn’t know what else to say.

Japanese:

... he said, as though he were patiently explaining something to a small child.

... I'm getting nowhere.

English:

... without succumbing to the temptation to commit the premeditated murder of a blond.

Japanese:

... my stomach might dissolve from the stress.

I like this paragraph in the English translation!

English:

He was obviously committed to the idea.

Japanese:

Who are you to decide that for me?!

English:

We hadn’t been on the road twenty minutes before he felt the need to speak again.

Japanese:

It just says "a little while", not "twenty minutes".

English:

I considered giving him a fake name, but honestly, I was too tired to see the point.

Japanese:

For an instant, out of sheer irritation, I considered giving him a fake name, but I decided not to since it would be pointless.

I wonder why the English version keeps de-emphasizing Lina’s anger in this scene?

English:

And I am a traveler. So maybe I left out a few important details. So what? Gourry had already proven he wasn’t the type to ask penetrating questions. I figured that he’d buy pretty much anything I wanted to sell him about my circumstances, which, as far as I was concerned, was a point in his favor.

Japanese:

It was utterly obvious that the part about being an ordinary traveler was a lie, yet Gourry deliberately didn't ask any questions to try to get to the bottom of things. He probably thought that I was lying because of some kind of circumstances.

The English version implies that Gourry isn’t asking questions out of stupidity or complacency, while in Japanese Lina assumes that he’s doing so out of (mistaken) consideration for her feelings.

English:

And he really wasn’t getting under my skin like I’d figured he would. Still, the prospect of being treated like a kid all the way to Atlas City did not bode well for either of us. Not that I wanted him to flirt with me, that’s not what I’m saying. I just… I’m digging a hole here, aren’t I? Okay, whatever. Let’s just leave it at: He seemed like a nice guy.

Japanese:

"Man..." he muttered under his breath, thinking that I wouldn't be able to hear him. "I've gotta look after a little kid till we get to Atlas City, huh? Not the sexiest thing in the world, but I guess it's not so bad."

Yeah, he still pisses me off.

I'm not sure how they managed it, but it looks like someone confused Gourry’s dialogue with Lina’s narration here.

#slayers #comparison

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