Ballet week!

So as previously stated, last week was also full of ballet, and I'm not talking about lessons. Actually I had fewer classes than usual, since the 19th of March is a public holiday in Spain.

Getting to the pointe, right before my slightly embarrassing interpretation of Christine I couldn't help but try to développé in that dress. Firstly, because it was nice and kinda Giselle-like in my head (yeah, you can call me crazy if you want); and secondly, because I had to wear my ballet slippers with the costume, since I had no other white shoes. Yay! Dancewear for the win!

Also I was  portraying a very realistic Christine, since she was a ballerina and a singer at the Opéra de Paris. See? I should have won the Best Actress Award or something. Instead, my friend (the Phantom; a super good singer) and I got eighth place out of sixteen. But I received a pretty white rose from my classmates which made me happy.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Ballet week!

The Royal Ballet (♥) has been specially adorable (♥♥♥) during these past days. First of all, they made a worldwide cinema relay of Romeo & Juliet. I absolutely LOVE them for doing this. I always want to see them dance and I never can because I live so far away (this must change). The thing is, I could see them live and it was amazing. Romeo & Juliet is one of my favourite ballets ever. It is just glorious. I really believe that Kenneth MacMillan was a genius, and the Royal Ballet can perform his works in such a flawless, wonderful way. The dancers were perfect. I found a particularly convincing Bennet Gartside as Tybalt, performing one of the most furious sword fights I've ever seen against Federico Bonelli, who played Romeo. Oh, Federico. I saw him live at the ROH some months ago and he was a perfect Prince Florimund (he signed my tiny pointe shoe too!). Now, as Romeo, he was spectacular. Strong, dreamy. The way he stared at Juliet's eyes right before their first kiss was sensational. Speaking about Juliet, Lauren Cuthbertson touched the whole world the other day. I honestly believe that it was a huge privilege to see her dance. So innocent, so emotional, so tragic. So tecnically flawless. They say I am a crybaby, but I cannot help whining every single time I see this ballet. I just can't! And I know it, so I always make sure there is a bag of tissues around.

Let's move on... though I could talk about the Royal Ballet for hours.

Oh wait, the next thing I want to talk about is actually... the Royal Ballet! Because, nice reader, the Royal Ballet rocks and last week they did something else to prove their awesomeness to the world. The Royal Ballet Live took place on Friday and it was basically a documentary on a day at the Royal Ballet, from the daily class to all the rehearsals... all of it broadcast live to the whole world via YouTube. Isn't it the most amazing idea ever? Well, for me it is. I had always dreamed of watching an entire class with professional dancers, and on Friday I could finally do it. It was so inspiring! Also, all the rehearsals were an absolute joy to watch. Well, the whole thing. It was just plain awesome. Did you read that, ballet companies?

The only thing was, I had to work at Munusal the whole day, so I had to divide my screen like this:

Have I already said that Marianela is lovely?

I also put one of my earphones on and I used my other ear to listen to my fellow translators. You can imagine the scene: translating from English into Spanish while my editors were speaking in German, my colleagues in Spanish most of the time; two girls in Romanian... and also listening to the Royal Ballet Live. Thankfully my simultaneous interpreting lessons taught me how to multitask!

Keep dancing!

Nerea.

Munusal 2012 and a festive atmosphere

Last week was very exciting for me, both as a translator and as a balletomane.

But since they are very different issues, I'm going to divide the story into two blog posts, being this one the entry on translation.

You may have noticed that I haven't written anything here for long. Well, let me explain why:

Firstly, because just like every year in March, my faculty celebrated an entire week of festive events, like a Trivial competition, an Eurovision-like contest called 'TraDocVisión' and a costume contest among others.

I participated in many of them. I even played Christine Daaé from 'The Phantom of the Opera' in TraDocVisión. And this is the proof:

Yep, that's me, and I'm singing. I never thought this could ever, EVER happen.

Secondly, because as a translation student, I can ask for an internship period with an institution, such as the UN, the Spanish Police, the University of Salamanca and many others. I decided I wanted to work for the Model of the United Nations of the University of Salamanca, also known as MUNUSAL. So after two weeks receiving and translating texts, my colleague and I were asked if we would like to work as press translators during the actual conference. We said yes, even though we didn't really know how it worked.

For those of you who've never heard of MUNs, they are basically simulations of the United Nations system, with all the organs and their respective committee sessions. They are held in many cities around the world and this one is called MUNUSAL because it takes place at the University of Salamanca once a year.

So that's what I did last week. I was one of the five translators at The Globe, the Munusal News Network.

Basically our work consisted of translating all the articles written by the journalists at MUNUSAL, from English into Spanish. At the beginning the texts were all abstracts of the sessions, but at some point, the committees simulated a global crisis, so the whole situation became very exciting! We received lots of articles and press statements from many countries, we all got very stressed and we really had to work as a team in order to hand everything in on time! It was such an amazing experience!

I really loved translating in a "real" context with my four colleagues, meeting our editors in chief and all the nice people at MUNUSAL. I enjoyed all my time at the "office" -some days I was there from 9 am. until 6.30 pm.-, the coffee breaks, the hours we spent at the canteen, having lunch together along with the delegates and chairpersons.

So basically it was fun, fun, FUN! I can't wait to do something similar again!

Look! I even got a Translator Pass with my name on it!

That's all regarding the translation matter. The balletic part is yet to come... :)

Keep translating!

Nerea.