MY DAUGHTER'S FIRST BIRTHDAY

October, 11 is the day that my little sunshine was born. I still remember the day I went to do my regular monitor check at the hospital and it turned out, that my blood pressure was high, and I had to stay at the hospital the same day. It was Friday, 9 October and the weather was still nice, hot for that months. They had to induce the birth cause the doctor was afraid that the high blood pressure would affect the baby. The do me lots of checks and it resulted that the pressure stabilized and they starting giving me hormones so that the neck of the uterus would mature quickly and that would provoke contractions.

The process was so long to me, it started on Friday afternoon and on Saturday I still didn't have contractions strong enough to give birth. On Sunday morning the doctor decided that it would be the d-day because on Saturday I was too tired to go through all the process. And on Sunday morning, when I slept well, they started in the morning by giving me hormones to start contractions. I wasn't sure about the epidural, but as the contractions went stronger, I decided it would be for the best. And after the epidural, the little one started to knock very quickly so I started to push and at 5.40 p.m she was born.

My daughter right after birth

She was so tiny. My husband was present at the moment of her birth and we both got eyes wet for the great happiness to finally see her. What a day, full of the great emotions possible. It is really a magical event, to see your little baby and to take her into your arms after nine months. It was fantastic to hold her and to see her little body. The emotions that one feels at the moment of birth are indescribable, it is a moment between you, your baby and your beloved husband.
I remember each minute of it. Well, it isn't so far that moment, but still, it is a moment that mother and father remember forever.
From that day it is now one year already and our little miss is a big baby girl.

She is such a lovely kid now, very very stubborn, but very lovely. She has her own character and I can tell she will be a very brave person when grown up. The desire of the parents is that their kids will be nice human beings and will be happy. Their health and happiness are the first.

But it is not easy to be a parent, not at all. Our little miss is a very demanding little person, very curious about everything. But kids are all curious about life, about their surrounding, they are still learning about the world they were born in. Me and my husband are trying to do the best so she will grow up in a healthy and happy person.

CHINESE PAINTING AND PAINTING ON SILK

When I was studying in the University I was walking every day to the Faculty where I studied Italian, and I was passing by a book shop, where I saw a book on Chinese painting. I passed the book shop by so many times that each time I promised myself that when I had the money I would buy the book. So I did. I bought the book and started to paint.

I painted a lot and I gave many of my paintings to my friends for their birthdays as a present.

Here goes some examples of my paintings.

The inspiration for this painting were the flowers
from my mother's garden. Flowers are my favourite.


The inspiration of this painting were the Slovenian Alps.


This painting was inspired by the tiger on the doors
of the Castle in Prague. If I am not wrong the tiger is of
the Slovene architect Plečnik who did various buildings
and other objects in Prague.

The paintings above are just some of the many I did. This hobby is at the moment on a standby because I am occupied with my translation jobs and with my little daughter, so it really doesn't remain much time for the art.
Besides my Chinese paintings, which technique I will explain on other occasion, I started to paint on silk, when a friend of mine who was always my neighbour in my village and also in the student house, gave me as a present, when I finished my University studies, a box for painting on silk. I never imagined than that I would like so much paint on silk. It is a wonderful hobby. You can make wonderful paintings, and not only paintings, you can paint also cloths and other things to decorate your house. What to paint? Well, there are plenty of things one can use as the inspiration. Mine is the nature. In my opinion, the nature is the best artist, just think of the wonderful things that surround us.
Here are some of my paintings on silk:

I don't need to mention that I was inspired by the sea.
I love the sea and I think it is so relaxing.
This painting makes me feel just at the seaside.
I used the window of a room where I stayed
as a frame to put on the silk and paint.

A dragon, one of my favourite subjects to paint.


And again flowers, the best subject to paint and to decorate a room.

I like to paint on silk for a simple reason that silk gave a special glow to the painting. Besides, throwing salt on the silk, but after you put the colour on the silk, makes fascinating effects, just as the one on the painting with the dragon. It is fascinating, what pieces of art can one do with just some salt. Besides, painting is the best hobby in my opinion, it is so relaxing, and one expresses oneself. Really wonderful. I hope my daughter will love painting just as much as me.

EARNING MY LIVING WITH LANGUAGES

It is now almost more than 15 years that I make my living out of languages. I started at the University, when I was still a student, studying a two program studies in Italian and journalism. It was not only a two program studies, but also a two Faculties studies, since I had to ping pong myself between the two Universities. My study schedule was really all day long, and sometimes I couldn't manage to attend to all the lectures, it was really impossible, to be at two lectures at the same time or be there in ten minutes, as the bus took half an hour from one Faculty to the other. Oh, those were the days. I wanted interested studies and so it was.
Nowadays my working days are not so moved, as I work from home and I collaborate with several translation agencies. I will name all the agencies I work and worked for.
The first translation agency I worked for was Skrivanek. I started to work for the agency in the 1999, when I was finishing my studies at the University.
Then I worked as a translator for the textile company in Ljubljana, Julon, from 2001 to 2003.
In 2006 I started to work for Optimus lingua translation agency.
In 2007 I started to cooperate also with Julija translation agency and in 2008 I started to work for Alkemist translatio agency, Multilingual and Eurotranslate.
In 2010 I cooperated also with Preteks translation service.
Besides the translation agencies I translated also for private persons and for companies. I translated internet pages into Italian for Bio-pharma, and I translated Instruction manuals for Balavto d.o.o., they are both Slovene companies. I also did simultaneous translation for some Slovene companies.
I still cooperate with most of the agencies. Some of them stopped to cooperate with me, the most of them are still sending me translation projects.
I hope I will cooperate with new agencies in the future or maybe publishing houses. This would be great, to translate also books.
As for the languages I work with, the combinations are the following:
Italian-Slovene, Slovene-Italian, Spanish-Slovene, Slovene-Spanish, English-Slovene, Slovene-English.
Besides the four languages mentioned above, I speak some French and German, an a little Portuguese. I am still learning the three of them. I would like to learn Chinese, but for now I have no time left to learn a new language, maybe in the future.

Languages are great, not only because they help you in your journeys but also for work. Besides they make you understand not only different people, but also different cultures, as cultures and languages are closely linked one to the other.

And as Ludwig Wittgenstein said: "The limits of my language are the limits of my world."