A great gadget

Celena recently turned me on to a great gadget every court reporting student should have. It's a tape player that has varying speeds.



I got it on Amazon

It's great for practice. You can practice a take and then, when it gets too hard to keep up, just turn the speed down to go over the fingering. Then, turn it back up when you learn it. Eventually, when you get the whole thing you can turn it up even more and do it faster. Of course, I haven't gotten to that point, but maybe soon. I'm gonna try to get to class early every day so I can listen to a few takes right before I have to take a test.

Thanks, Celena!

More fails than passes

I'm trying to accept the fact that in court reporting school, there are always going to be more failed tests than passed tests. I'm sure it's like this for everyone. It's hard because throughout my life, I've always been a fast learner and I can pick up new things without too much effort. I know it drove a lot of people crazy, but that's just how I am. In school, I could get decent grades and only do a minimal amount of work, kind of a jack-of-all-trades, you know.

In court reporting I feel like I try harder than I have at almost anything I've done in my life and yet I'm not progressing very fast. With this much effort I feel like I should have been done ages ago. Grrrrr, school can be so frustrating.

I got 96% on ANOTHER 1-minute, 140 4-voice, test. I'm going to keep telling myself, "More fails than passes, more fails than passes, more fails than passes."

On a lighter note, the theme for the court reporting club's homecoming float is Cinderella. We're going to make a pumpkin carriage! I'm pretty excited about it, but I'm also anxious because I have no idea how to build a pumpkin carriage for a parade of floats. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Failure stinks!

Recently, people have been telling me I'm too hard on myself. I suppose there is truth to this. I have been getting very frustrated when I don't pass tests or when I make mistakes. I'm not sure where this stems froms but it reminds me of something I heard almost ten years ago.

When my brother graduated from college, UPENN, my whole family drove from Massachusetts down to Philly. Like most college graduations, mine excluded..grrrr,(I'm not bitter or anything) they had a guest speaker. It was John McCain. And although I don't completely agree with his politics, I can't deny that he is an incredible man, who has led and extraordinary life.

During his speech, he said something I will never forget. He said, "Many people tell you not to be afraid of failure, but I'm telling you this: Be afraid of failure. Failure stinks!" He went on to say that we can learn from failure and you shouldn't let one failure ruin all ventures you make in your lives, but that we should always strive for perfection, and try to eliminate the possiblity of failure. He also said that it is okay to be upset when you fail at something, as long as you acknowledge that you gave it your best and strive to do better in the future.

I think that is why I'm so hard on myself. I'm afraid of failure, yet in court reporting school a little failure is inevitable. I suppose I just need to learn from it and strive to do better in the future.

But it's okay for me to be upset and hard on myself sometimes, John McCain said so.

Running in place

Am I just running in place? I feel like no matter what I do, I do the same on my tests. I got 96% on my 1-minute 140, 4-voice test. I know that is pretty good but I can't help feeling discouraged. I'm not improving. I have gotten 96% on quite a few 1-minute, 140 tests but I just can't seem to pass them. The mistakes I make are so minor, I know that if it were a real transcript, no one would even notice them. Sometimes I write "this" instead of "that" or "a" instead of "the". It's really annoying. Why do I make mistakes like that? Is it that I just don't hear properly? Or maybe I'm trailing and trying to remember what the teacher says and my brain puts the wrong words in. Whatever it is, I wish I would stop doing it. I want to improve. I really want to. It's hard because when I get frustrated, I don't want to practice because I'm mad at myself, and mad at Lexi, and mad at school. When I do well, I like school better, and I like Lexi, and I want to practice more. Does this happen to anyone else? I've just got to power through it I suppose.

Anyway, big club meeting tomorrow, plus more tests. Wish me luck on both.

Club news

This may not be the most interesting blog post, but I'm really excited about it.

I'm very excited about the club this semester. I mentioned that I was the vice president of the court reporting club. My friend, Celena, is the president, Kristal is the secretary, and Anne is the treasurer. Celena managed it get a bunch of stuff donated to the club. It's pretty amazing. She got pizza for the meeting, prizes for students who come, and a free stay at the Sheraton Hotel to raffle off. She even got a free writer for one lucky student to use the whole time they're in school. Anne is getting all squared away with the money and Kristal is going to get t-shirts made for us to sell as a fundraiser. (Any suggestions as to what they should say?) I just made a handout for our first meeting with all of the fun stuff we want to do. We're gonna have two guest speakers! I'm pretty excited about it.

Yes, I know I'm a dork.

Besides the club, I set my machine up right after I got home from school on Friday and I've practiced a few times this even though I worked long shifts every day this weekend. My motivation is improving. Hopefully, my speed will too. I'm hoping I pass at least a one-minute 140 test on Monday. Here's to hoping.

Laboring and Writers

Sorry I haven't added in a few days. I work two jobs so sometimes I get pretty backed up. I have been going to school, of course, but adding to the blog has been hard. On Friday in class, we did jury charge. I had only five mistakes on the one-minute test. Unfortunately, that's not 97.5%; it's 96%. Not bad though. But again, the five-minute was a different story. I guess I need to work on my stamina.

Yesterday was labor day. I worked. I suppose laboring on labor day is not that awful, but it does remind me that hopefully soon I won't have to work on labor day because I'll be a court reporter. I didn't get a chance to practice yesterday, but I am on my machine now so, that's good. Normally, I have class on Mondays so I don't want to go too long without being on this machine.

My writer is noisy when the paper goes through it. Does anyone know how to make it quieter? I write on a Stentura 8000 LX. I bought it on eBay and besides the noisy paper thing, it works great. I named her Lexi (because she's an LX). I would recommend old Lexi to someone looking. The hookups are a little outdated but they sell adapters for things like that, so, no biggy. What machines are you all writing on? Any problems? Any praises? Anybody having the same paper noise I am? I saw a demonstration of Stenograph's new writer, the Diamante. It's pretty freaking cool; it doesn't use paper so I'm sure that sound is gone. Plus, it has all the bells and whistles. Maybe someday, I'll have one. I'd better practice some more if that's gonna happen.

That's all for now.

A minor accomplishment, but an accomplishment all the same

At my school, when a student passes their 130 exams, and moves up to 140 goal speed, they now have to start four-voice testimony. Four-voice testimony and I don't have the best relationship. We've definitely had a rocky start. Before I reached the 140 class, the most I had to do was Q and A; there is only ever two people at the most to take down. Q and A isn't so bad because if I miss a Q or an A sign change on my machine, I can usually figure out where I missed it and and can fix it in the transcript, but on a four-voice testimony, it's not so clear. I can't cheat by putting them in later. It's also hard because there's not really four people talking during the test; it's just my teacher with a light board. When I get nervous, I look at my hands. During a four voice test, I'm usually nervous so I have been really trying to force myself to look at the lights and not at my hands, but it's a hard habit to break.

So, the question we all want to know is: How did I do? Well, I got over 87% of it, which is only okay as tests go. But I'm really proud of two things: The first is that I didn't miss a single speaker, I had all the sign changes in there. And the second is that, I made a huge mistake in the middle of the test, but I didn't give up like a usually do. I let it go, and finished strong! Hopefully I'll do even better on the next one.

Totally unrealated, but it's my husband's birthday today. Happy birthday, honey!