About me
I grew up in a small town close to Nuremberg, Germany, home to the best Bratwurst. From an early age, I have been fascinated with foreign languages, which is why I opted
to learn English, Latin and French in Middle and High School. After graduating from High School, I decided to pursue my passion for languages and
since I had zero interest in becoming a teacher, I decided to become a conference interpreter instead. Off to university I went, namely to the -- at least in
the interpreting and translating world -- renowned Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics and Cultural Studies of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germersheim.
The highlight of my university years was the opportunity to study as an exchange student. First, I spent six months in Dijon, France, the home of Dijon mustard and crème de cassis where
I devoured my fair share (or maybe more) of croissants and pain au chocolat. My second semester abroad was at the University of Salford, right next to Manchester. I had the time
of my life. Fell in love with Manchester, spent many nights out dancing in Fifth Ave and met one of my best friends.
I graduated as a Diplom-Dolmetscher (German equivalent to a M.A. in conference interpreting) for German, English and French in 2008. Immediately after graduating,
I accepted a position as a translator and occasional interpreter with the Federal Office of Languages, the language service of the German military. My workplace was
in Koblenz, where the rivers Rhine-Moselle Region, that is famous for its castles and wine.
As part of the job, I had to undergo a very abbreviated basic military training, since translators of the Federal Office of Languages were regularly sent to accompany the
German troops in areas of operation so as to provide translation services in various camps. During the military training, I became aware of how out of shape I was
(I might have enjoyed that good wine a little bit too much). I picked up running again and joined a gym for the first time, just doing cardio and machines, though. My most fateful assignment as an interpreter occurred in April 2009 in Ingolstadt
, a medium-sized town in Bavaria. I was sent to interpret for
Canadian soldiers who were sent to Germany for four weeks, in order to learn how to operate the AEV Badger, a German tank that they would be using in Afghanistan.
One of the Canadian soldiers was Alan Vardy (alanvardy.com), who is now my
husband of more than a decade. He is also the one who introduced me to my other big love: the barbell and all things lifting. Lifting kept me somewhat sane during the
two years of long-distance relationship that followed. The longest time that we spent in the same country in those two years were the few months that our respective
deployments to Afghanistan overlapped. Of course we did not see each other during that time: I was the deputy head of the language service in a German military camp
in Mazaer-e-Sharif, while he was clearing bombs down in the South.
In February 2011, I was finally able to move to Canada and join Alan in Edmonton, Alberta. It was not fun. Because it was February and a tough
winter even for Edmonton: we hit -40 Celsius quite a few times that year. I started working as a freelance translator for English and German, became a certified member of
Associations of Translators and Interpreters of Alberta and built a successful one-woman translation business over the years. Our son Ulrik was born in 2015 and at the end of
2019 we finally moved away from Edmonton to Victoria on Vancouver Island in beautiful British Columbia.
And this is where I am at right now, living the dream. I love hiking, swimming in the lake and in the ocean. Going for
bike rides with my family. In the summer, I enjoy having my morning coffee outside on the deck listening to the birds. A glass of wine with a good book in the evening
is also quite nice. And last but not least: I love lifting in my garage gym and being a "BRO". As for programming, the second part of being a "BROGRAMMER":
over the past few years I have started to receive less and less traditional translation assignments and more and more requests for editing machine translated texts.
Regardless of the machine translation quality (which can be remarkable), I found that I did not enjoy post editing. What I do enjoy, however, is writing
Elixir code. This is why I have decided to turn this new passion for Elixir into my next career. Feel free to head over to my blog to see how this endeavor is coming along.