Hello bold, brave world!

By: Lindsay Tatum
Lindsay has completed her first year of study at the University of Georgia School of Law and is one of three students participating in the 2012 pilot of the InteRDom Correspondent Program. She is participating in the 2012 10-week Graduate and Gap Year Program. You can read more about her, her interest in the Correspondent Program and her career ambitions here.

As usual, I am here to update you on my time and travels in the Dominican Republic. And further, per the usual, those time and travels have been fruitful and enjoyable. I have spent these last few weeks traveling and as you can probably guess from the title of this post... working HARD! La Universal Seguros has set me up with another fantastic working opportunity with yet another prestigious law firm in this country. For the past two weeks, and for the rest of my time here, I will be working at this law firm. And when I say working.... I really mean working! I was recently given the monumental task of translating one of the firm's attorney's billable hours from Spanish to English!

Now some of you may think to yourselves... Translating? I mean, how bad can that be? WELL LET ME TELL YOU.... It takes forever!!! Not only am I translating from a different language into my own, but I have translating the professional, legal usage of this language (And if you don't already know...NO! This is not the Spanish they teach you in school!), and FURTHER, I'm trying to translate the attorney's Dominican slang into regular Spanish AND THEN into English!!!

ARE YOU GETTING THE JIST NOW?! M-O-N-U-M-E-N-T-A-L!

While this is taking me a while to complete, I am learning quite a lot! For example... The word hipoteca means, "mortgage". And the phrase en ocasión does not mean on occasion. In fact it means, "regarding". I am so proud of my newfound knowledge and I look forward to continuing to work through the EIGHT PAGES of translation I have to complete.

The other good news about this task is that the deadline for its completion is after I will be gone. Therefore, I do not feel ridiculous pressure to finish this task in two days. I can take my time and make sure it’s correct. Not only that, I can learn in the process! I mean... isn't that what they are "paying" me to do?! "Paying" me in experience!

So I will remain at my little desk... working hard, but not for the money... but for the EXPERIENCE!!!

VIVA LA REPÚBLICA!