Hey! I wanted to tell you about the crazy year I've had... 🙀 Aside from being my birthday, June 30 also marked 1 year since I was a victim of the video game industry's "restructuring" craze. More importantly, it's also been almost 1 year since I started my freelance translator career, which is probably the best thing that could have happened to me after this. Indeed, I'm happy to say I've been working on the localization of A LOT of very cool video games in collaboration with amazing linguists, project managers and ethical agencies 😎 So, it all started when I randomly applied for a freelance job for a very well-known localization agency. I took their test. It was a success. Shit was getting real, I would have to create my company! After a few weeks, I thought "might as well commit to the freelance experience and apply for other agencies and try to get better rates", and so I did. At the time, I didn't even know if the world of freelance was made for me. All of a sudden, I simultaneously had 5 translation tests, real projects to translate, invoice processes and multiple new websites and platforms to understand. It was overwhelming, but it became less and less overwhelming as months passed, and I had a community of amazing translators to answer my questions. Sure, I might have done a few mistakes in the beginning, but it takes time to process this overflow of new information and adapt to it. That's fine, that's how you learn! And I’ve enjoyed learning as I keep evolving in the industry I love 🎮 Of course, there are stressful parts. You never know what tomorrow will be made of, sometimes you’ll be getting 8 projects a day and then you’ll be getting nothing for 3 days in a row, you’ll be feeling like you’re missing out on opportunities or like you’re not doing enough, and it might start to feel a bit lonely to be in front of your computer all day (or night) long. But I consider myself very lucky to have found the clients I work with, to have started at a time when crediting has become a more common part of the conversation (thanks to the #TranslatorsInTheCredits movement started by my amazing peers), and to be able to live thanks to my activity after such a short period of time and so quickly after what happened 💨 What I was trying to say with all this is you shouldn’t underestimate yourself. You might think you’re not made for certain things: you won’t know until you try. You might overthink your work schedule and methods: there's not one single way to get to the end result. I'm pretty sure it's the norm to NOT work a perfect 9 to 5 with regular breaks when you're freelance. As long as it works for YOU and your clients, what matters is you get the job done. And after all, none of this would have happened if I didn’t get out of my comfort zone in the first place and moved to Amsterdam for the amazing (but short-lived) experience at Gearbox Publishing , which I’m still so grateful for. Maybe things really do happen for a reason! 🤗

Hello LinkedIn, Just wanted to brag a little: I'm in the credits of Content Warning as a Freelance Translator 🥳 This game was a surprise hit that was released for free on April Fools' day, and it has so much potential to grow even bigger. The players' objective is basically to... become famous! They have to dive into the 'Old World' to film scary stuff, which they'll later have to upload to 'SpöökTube' (if they managed to survive) to garner views, go viral, and make money. It's a super fun time with friends! It's been such a pleasure working on it with Deborah Giorgetti and the entire team at Lockit QA, I'm so lucky to be able to work in such good conditions with such good people. And it's not over yet! 🫶