Back again

Welcome back!

How are you?

First of all, I'd like to apologise for not having written since April. Believe me, it was not because I was uninspired. Neither because I had lost interest. Nothing could be further from the truth as these things. There have been several things that have forced me to put off the moment to sit down and write a post.

Last year was not the happiest of years. Personally, I had to face problems with friends and health problems in the family, which, fortunately, ended well. This would be the negative side, but there is a good one too! During the summer I worked as an English teacher on a camp for kids for a couple of weeks, I had to work a lot in the office and I went to India with a very good friend. By the beginning of autumn, I made up my mind and applied for a postgraduate course which I am currently finishing. This course, on Catalan language assessment on the Media, has been, for the last five months, the reason which has been holding me from writing. Juggling with a 40 h per week translation job, 8 h per week university lessons, a 1 h per week guitar lesson, guitar playing practice, doing homework and studying, as well as fulfilling home tasks results in complete chaos sometimes!

But I must confess I chose this myself. I love the postgraduate course, it's one of the best decisions I have ever taken and I'm really enjoying it, even though it is a very demanding. It covers a wide range of language-related areas: the use of references for proper language assessment, writing style, terminology, syntax, orthotypography, punctuation, dubbing, subtitling, foreign anthroponomy and toponimy in the Catalan language, and oral language assessment. I have learned and am learning a lot of new and useful things, sometimes through a bit of pain (but which at the end of the day has made me some good).

I have changed completely my view on language, and I find the oral-related aspects of language amazing and complex: a challenge I'm willing to take some day. I have already tried the written language challenge, so it's time for oral language now! The day is coming: when lessons finish in May, I will have a 100 h internship on the Catalan public TV station, I can't believe my luck! I'm eager to begin!

I could speak for hours about everything related to the postgraduate course, but I would end up being annoying...So time for focusing on the blog now.

As you see I have changed the layout, I thought it would be a way to say I had resumed the blog. Besides, I wanted to try the new hundreds of templates available now! I hope you like it and that colours do not make reading difficult. If so, please let me know.

Now that I have more free time, I will try to set myself to writing regularly at least once a week; that will be my aim now. I will start by a brief summary of relevant things that went on last year in Catalonia, because diverse things such as the biggest snowfall on the coastline since 1986 or a change in the autonomic government occurred and these cannot be left unexplained.

This said, I only have to say that I am very glad to be back here :).

Welcome letter / Carta de benvinguda

Dear reader,

I welcome you from a place called Catalonia. What is this place? Where is it located in the world's map? Maybe if I tell you a key word you will easily spot it: Barcelona. So, here you have the relationship: Barcelona, the ‘cool’ city for Erasmus students and seat of the Olympic Games in 1992, is in Catalonia, a region in the north-east of Spain. But we will talk about geography later, because it is not free from its own geopolitical problems.

First of all I would like you to tell you who I am, what I do and why I decided to begin this blog. Well, my name is Anna (a pretty universal name) and I am 24. I was born in the Empordà area (in the north-east of Catalonia, bordering with France) but I live and work as a translator in Barcelona. I am passionate about languages and culture. That is the main reason why I write this blog. I like all languages, but I have a special feeling towards my own language and culture: Catalan. Besides, I feel there is a lot of miscomprehension and misunderstanding around them, or ideas which I deem as wrong or full of bad intentions. These ideas hurt me. My aim is to present my language and culture as something worth of interest (as any other subject) and, if possible, make you like, appreciate and understand them. I do no wish to be unrespectful or to give my opinion in a rude way about the polemic political battle there is in Spain because of that.

In this blog you will find all that is related to Catalonia:

- Geography and demography (where is Catalonia located, landmarks, facts and figures)
- History (a journey through time)
- Travelling (places of interest, ideas for little trips around the land)
- Literature (authors and books)
- Art (what are our most international artists, theatre, music, cinema)
- Traditions (monographic posts about one aspect of our traditions
- Gastronomy (what we eat and what we cook)
- Politics (a tricky subject)
- Language (all about the Catalan language)

Please, feel free to comment or ask what you like to know.

I hope that you enjoy it and that, one day or another, you will visit this curious land called Catalonia.

Thanks for your interest and best wishes, or as we say in Catalan, “Una abraçada”,

Anna