Moving Hell

Yup, moving again. Some would think that as often as I engage in this particularly stressful pastime that I would be good at it by now. But alas, it is not so! Not by a long shot. As a matter of fact, I usually cry, fight with my husband and overall become a stressed, tired, cranky bitch. I hate it in other words. I would love to say that I won't move again until we have enough money to pay someone to do the whole shebang for us. But that is unlikely. But I swear, I SWEAR that the next time that I move it will be into a house that I will own, so it will be worth it all!!!

Sucker's Day

So I have decided that I will now refer to this day that most of our society calls Valentine's Day as Sucker's Day. I say this not from a place of bitterness (if you haven't read it before, I am married). Since before I was married I began to look at this holiday differently.

First I hated it because I was frequently single and bitter about it. Then I spent years working as a server then manager at a restaurant. First off, it is hard to see the romance in the holiday after you have watched it from the 'other side' for a while. There is nothing romantic about all of the pressure that couples put on each other to be romantic and special and find just the right gift and make the right reservations and so on and so forth. It is just more stress. Then there is the fact that it isn't romantic to do the same thing as every other couple (or person trying to get laid) out there on the same day that they do it! Just not romantic.

Now that being said, I do love all of the cute stuff that they sell for the holiday, I can't help it, it gets me! So I buy the stuff before and after the holiday and give it to hubby when the mood strikes, to show him that I love him and am thinking about him, not to show him that I can read the calendar or that the Hallmark commercials have gotten through to me.

So..... Happy Sucker's Day!!!!!!!!

Rant and then some good!

So, we were always warned in our Interpreter Training program that we would encounter professionals who had issues with us, working with interpreters that is! Professionals such as teachers, lawyers, doctors and such are not used to having to share authority or feel that they are not entirely in control of the situation. Having another educated adult, not to mention one who effectively has the reins of control of communication in their hands can be a difficult change for them.


Well, up until this point I haven't really encountered too much of this. But today, boy howdy did I ever! Not to mention that this geriatric (and she is, technically) teacher acted as if she was in high school!!! After an hour and a half of straight interpreting, the class went on break and I let her and the client know that I was running to the bathroom. While I was in there, the classic cliche situation out of a bad high school drama occurred to me! And I am over 30! The teacher was talking with another teacher about my client, and then began to discuss me! And she trash talked me. While I was in the stall!

Up until this point I had done my best to communicate effectively with this teacher, explain to her the interpreting process and inform her of things that she needed to know about in relation to the client. I viewed us as a team that was working in conjunction to get this client the best education we could. Well, apparently this teacher does not look at it the same way!
I had explained to the teacher that this class almost, and I said ALMOST required a team for interpreting because it was 2 1/2 hours and the only break wasn't until an hour and a half in. It may not sound like much, but this class is ALL talking, rarely an instance of independent work, which means that while the teacher may only be saying so much, I have to interpret every word that she, the client and all of the other students say. It is mentally taxing and much harder than it may seem to those who don't do it. So I mentioned this to her and she told the other teacher that apparently she talks too fast because I can't keep up and need help! She also told the other teacher that she wasn't sure if the information she was getting was correct or just my version. I am not sure if she is saying that I don't interpret correctly or if she is calling into question the information I have discussed with her about the process and the client's progress with me on that. Either way!

So I confronted her! I told her that I was in the bathroom and heard her conversation. I told her that I interpret everything and that if she is ever unsure of what is going on, to just ask me. I also told her that I can more than keep up with her but tried to explain what I did in this blog, and told her that our industry standard is 45 - 50 minutes of straight interpreting and then a break, that is what is determined as optimal time for quality interpreting.

What really gets me is that she didn't apologize or act in the least bit embarrassed for having been caught trash talking someone like that. That had never happened to me in grade school! But it happened to me at this age! It is nuts. That b$%h. Screw her. I am good at what I do, and I know what I am talking about, I can't account for her lack of professionalism or bad judgement!

Onto the good news! We are moving into a great house in 2 weeks! While I have loved being where I am at the moment, very cute comfy condo, we are going to move into a bigger house (yay, space for animals AND mom!) and have a big backyard for the pupster! It is a cute house, and has 3 bedrooms and I get my own office too (gotta love a tax write off!). It is very well maintained and I think we will be very happy there until it is time to FINALLY buy a house! It will be nice to be settled into somewhere for a while and feel really established. Wish us luck!

SuperBowl Sunday!

I am such an idiot for not having posted this earlier, of course it would only really matter if anyone other than my sister actually read this thing, but I just want to make sure that as many people as possible know what is going to happen today! During the pregame show, Pepsi is airing a one minute commercial that will be done entirely in ASL (American Sign Language) and it will be captioned for those hearing folks not lucky enough to know the language! This is a great coup for ASL and the Deaf community. Please check it out! When the TV goes silent, look up!

House Hunting?

So, if anyone has themselves, or knows someone who has just under 2 million to spend on a gorgeous custom built beach house, check out some pics and fun facts about this place. I can personally attest that it is one of the most unique and fun houses ever built! No cookie cutter construction here!

Ah, taxes!

So, first year doing taxes as a married person, and as a self employed person. As well, have forms for 2 states and hubby has had a thousand and one jobs! Ugh. Fun fun fun.

Sick...for real

Ugh, looks like I won't fight it off, damnit. Oh well. Now time for the Maker's Mark!

Sick...kinda....

I hate being sick, but almost worse than that I hate being KINDA sick. You know what I mean, when you feel it all coming on, and you don't really hurt, but you feel like your throat isn't right, your head kinda hurts, you feel sorta achy. Blech. Now the only good thing about it could be that I head it off before it gets really bad. But if I don't, and I have to go through full blown feeling like crap, in addition to days of building up to it, well that would really blow!

EEEEK!!!!!!!!

Where did my goodreads go?? I just tried to sign in and the page is supposedly not there any longer! What am I going to do??????????????????

Good News

So I am thrilled to death. You know how sometimes you get screwed, I mean you just have something happen to you that makes you want to kick your tires, spit at everyone, scream, maybe run your car into a trash can? Well I have, of course, being the emotional basket case that I can be.

Last month, I drove an hour and a half for an interpreting job, to a place which was SOOO set out of the way that they really should have made a note of that to the agency when they set the appointment. But they didn't. Of course, this is the day that I cannot for the life of me find my phone before I set off. I arrive in the area, should have been on time, but spend precious minutes driving around trying to find the building, which is hidden off directly behind another building. I arrive at the front desk exactly 8 minutes late. They ask me to have a seat and wait, apparently they have started the appointment without me. Now, I cannot divulge much about this appointment because intepreters have a Code of Conduct that says we can't divulge this kind of info. But suffice it to say that this was the type of event that SHOULD NOT have proceeded without an interpreter!

After waiting for a bit more than 10 minutes, someone comes out and says that they won't be able to use me and that I won't be getting paid for the job! I understand that being on time is important, and those of you who know me might find this hard to believe, but I am always 15 minutes early for my jobs, unless I am coming directly from another one and I just got there as soon as I could! So this was a double blow.

Now, the reason that I am soooo happy is that I was just informed by my agency that I will in fact be getting paid for the job! It turns out that my agency stood up for me and pointed out that I handled myself professionally, and that interpreters wait for 30 minutes for the client to show up, they could have waited or attempted to contact the agency to find out what was going on! Things, like life, happen, and their response was ridiculous, especially in light of the small time that I was late. So yay! I am getting paid. HAHAHA to them! And they were rude about it when they told me, so I really like the feeling that they got it stuck to them! Ha!