My Holiday Wish List

I’ve been thinking about the lists of wonderful gifts children wish for when the holiday season rolls around, and what I would want on my list if I could have any of those gifts delivered, as if by magic.

For one thing, I would want to have a prodigious memory so that my consecutive renditions were always effortlessly flawless. I would never have to worry about forgetting a term and would learn new ones in the blink of an eye, so I would have the most extensive vocabulary any interpreter could ever wish for.

With my extraordinary memory, I would learn about any subject matter, and all the special terminology related to that subject, without ever having to create a glossary. I would never have to worry about studying before a trial, either. It would all be there, ready for me to recall any time I wanted to.

I would also wish for the gift of learning new languages with ease, so I could speak and read and understand all those languages I always wanted to learn and for one reason or another never did. Oh, I confess I started to learn French at different points in my life, and Portuguese too, but I never got beyond the most basic lessons. I love not only the sounds of the different vowels and consonants, but also the cadences that give each language its unique identity. I would learn them all, if I could: Japanese, Quechua, Tagalog, German, Arabic, Italian… if I could have that gift.

Perhaps lower on the list but still particularly important would be a floor-to-ceiling library of books to read just for the pleasure of reading and the time to actually sit down and relax with a book in my hands with nothing else to think or worry about. I would want all the classics and all the young new writers I have never even heard of. I would want to read the ones in English and the ones in other languages (yes, the new languages I am going to be learning!). I like to read fiction, so this is not going to be a “learning” library; this is going to be my leisure library, my escape library, my place to “suspend disbelief” and dive head-first into the myriad worlds created by the writers.

Of course, this wish list is my grown-up version of a kid’s “Letter to Santa” and both me and the kid have about the same chances of getting what’s on that list. But it’s always fun to dream.

So… what’s on your holiday wish list?

Janis Palma has been a federally certified English<>Spanish judiciary interpreter since 1981. Her experience includes conference work in the private sector and seminar interpreting for the U.S. State Department. She has been a consultant for various higher education institutions, professional associations, and government agencies on judiciary interpreting and translating issues. She worked as an independent contractor for over 20 years in federal, state and immigration courts around the U.S. before taking a full-time job. Janis joined the U.S. District Courts in Puerto Rico as a staff interpreter in April 2002 and retired in 2017. She now lives in San Antonio, Texas, embracing the joys of being a grandmother. She also enjoys volunteering for her professional associations, has been on the SSTI and TAJIT Boards, and is currently on the NAJIT Board of Directors. Contact: jpalma@najit.org

Read other posts by Janis Palma.