on untranslatability, and the point of this blog

This blog has been years in the making; some of you might even remember trying to encourage me to start one two years ago, when I was about to start my hiatus from Princeton University. Clearly, that never happened. Since then, a lot has occurred: I've fallen in and out of love, learned two new languages, bought and sold a car in Australia, learned how to farm, returned to school, made new friends, become vegan, and more.

Whether or not it sounds cliché, I've changed a lot. As we all do. After all, we are living beings, evolving and aging as time goes by. Neither are our identities static, even if we try to convince ourselves otherwise. The person I am today is not the same person I was yesterday, or will be tomorrow. 

The first part of the title of this blog, "onvertaalbaar," is the Flemish/Dutch word for untranslatable. This is meant to express my increasingly complicated relationship with language in my (daily) life. For the most part, I speak and write in English, but in total I can communicate in five different languages, and in each one my identity is slightly different. 

My ranges of vocabulary for each language (English, Flemish, French, German, and Italian) varies, which can make it difficult to express myself. But what does that even mean? Why is language simultaneously an enabler and a limiter? For over a year, I was in a romantic relationship where we spoke almost exclusively German together. Although this was great for me in many ways, i.e. expanding my own skills and vocabulary in German, it also meant that there were times that I could not express my emotions properly, which was one of the factors that ultimately led to the conclusion of that chapter of my life.

Yet, even in English, the language in which I consider myself most fluent, I have a hard time expressing myself. Especially in conversations. Which brings me to the second part of this blog's title: "an open dialogue." I find that I can say what I want to say better when I write it down, when I have the chance to think through words, meanings, and intentions. That said, I want this blog to be a chance for me to communicate with people that are important to me in my life, and with whom I might otherwise have a limited dialogue with. I encourage you to reach out to me if you have something to say; I don't want this to be a one-sided conversation. My hope is that if you read this, you can learn a little more about me, so that we can have more meaningful interactions in the future. 

P.S. Another goal of this blog is to share with you my experiences, especially over the next three months: I will be spending time in Nepal, Hawaii, and Europe, partly for work, partly for traveling, and partly for "research." I will post another blog soon about the third aspect; primarily, what my research will consist of and why?