Ewandro Magalhães

By popular demand, here's the audio file of my talk "Unlocking the Booth - Interpreters Tactics and Secrets Revealed", which I delivered last year at the 50th Annual ATA Conference in New York City.

I have edited the file somewhat, and it's now barely over one hour in length (split in two files of about 30min.).

Click HERE to listen to Part 1, and HERE to listen to Part 2.

A copy of the powerpoint that goes with it can be downloaded from the web site of the Portuguese Language Division (PLData Net), courtesy of Elena Langdon and Eloisa Marques, present and former Administrators of PLD, respectively. Incidentally, I should thank both of them for the kind invitation to present as Distinguished Speaker at that landmark conference.

This talk -- as well as a second conference on the use of portable equipment in interpretation -- is also included in the official Conference DVD you can buy from ATA.

I hope you enjoy it. Several colleagues found it useful and kindly sent me their feedback. I encourage you to share your opinion as well.

Other than that, enjoy the New Year and keep safe out there in the cold... or in the heat, as the case may be.

Dear friends and family [Amigos e familiares],

Here's a reminder to all of you about the importance of wearing suncreen in 2010. Kind of old advice, but well worth your time. I wish you a joyous 2010.

Um lembrete quanto à importância de usarmos filtro solar em 2010. O conselho é meio velho, mas o vídeo abaixo vale a pena cada segundo de seus sete minutos de duração.
A todos, um Feliz Ano Novo.

A moving commencement speech by JK Rowling to Harvard graduates in 2008. I took a lot out of this piece, and so will you I am sure. My favorite highlights are listed down the page, below the video screen. For the entire script, please click on the title of this posting.

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

"I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools."

"I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew."

"So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."

"The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned."

I have never read any Harry Potter book, but I am now a fan!