Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Those of you not in the United States - happy November 27th!

I have to be at work at 7am tomorrow, bleah.

I’m feeling tired and depressed this afternoon. I don’t want to go to class, but I’m already on campus. I couldn’t use the computer lab down the hall from my classroom because I left my ID at home, so I had to come over to the library. I’m going to have to work all day on Friday and I don’t particularly want to at the moment. Then on Saturday afternoon I’m going to a meeting for the EnchantedForestMD group I started.

The good news is that I am taking leave the week between Xmas and New Year’s. A and I are going up to NYC as a mini-vacation - we’ll stay with C and/or :R:. A has been making a list of shops and restaurants we want to try - among them is American Girl Place, which I suspect we will be visiting without C or :R:! (Poor boys.)

Today A gave me a gift she’s been saving for a while, and I screamed with delight! She’d been saving it for a time I was feeling upset, and she figured that injuring my back was a sad enough time to qualify. It’s a Zooth-made Hello Kitty electronic toothbrush, with matching Hello Kitty bubble gum toothpaste! I’ve been wanting an electronic toothbrush, but the heads on this one aren’t replaceable so I may not use it every day in an attempt to prolong its life. It’s really cool, and even though I can’t find a picture online right now (the only ones I can find are not the powered version) I might post a picture soon. It’s really cool!

Dammit! I just had to leave a message on the Potomac Paddlesports voicemail letting them know I can’t make it to class tonight. A and I were having trouble assembling some furniture and I ended up pulling a muscle in my lower back. I was really looking forward to the class, but even if the painkiller kicks in soon, I shouldn’t be working an injured muscle. It’s not bad enough to go to the doctor, but I am parking myself on the bed until further notice. Unfortunately the policy is supposedly that if you don’t give 48 hours notice before cancelling, you forfeit the lesson fee. A thinks they’ll be nice and let me reschedule, because I’ve taken classes with them before and I had bought a three-lesson package; plus it’s for a legitimate reason (instead of a hot date) and I did call immediately rather than just not showing up.

Today after work, A and I went to the mall to do some shoe shopping. She had found a great pair in the Naturalizer catalog, and also needs new walking shoes; I need new shoes for work because my loafers (also Naturalizers - the Cadet style - and I have two identical pairs) are so old and worn out. I was trying to find a link on the Naturalizer site so I could show what shoes I ended up buying, but I can’t seem to find them. The receipt says they’re the Heyday, but that’s not right - I had tried those on too and rejected them, and I guess they went back into the wrong box, which was then rung up. I’ll have to go back and find out what the style really is, and make sure I didn’t pay too much because she rang up the wrong shoes. I also already have a pair of dressy flats from Naturalizer that I bought back in January…I really love their shoes! A also put a pair of Cassidy shoes on order, but I can’t find a picture of that or even any reference to them online…so I’ll just say they’re really cute. She also already has a pair of the Westport style - it occurs to me that we are a Naturalizer household! I was also amused to find a shoe called the Meredith on their site, and also one called the Merry, which is what my mother called me when I was younger.

I also stopped in at Limited Too and picked up a free Rare Item Code card (they’re the Cloud Poogle design) and had A get one for me too, but the items I got only netted me about 1000 Neopoints.

My mother sent me a link to an article that describes research done on children with ADHD - it seems their MRIs look a little different from those of kids without ADHD. I’m so glad to hear they may eventually be able to develop some kind of test for ADHD - perhaps then it will be recognized as a medical condition across the board, rather than dismissed by some as all in the head (kid’s head, parents’ heads, doctor’s head, whatever). Many people out there think ADHD-like symptoms are just the result of bad parenting - and my mother knows that’s not the case! Then again, there are plenty of parents who don’t want to deal with their child (or can’t manage their own offspring) and get an ADHD diagnosis to “solve” the “problem” when that’s really not the right route to take. As of now, there’s plenty of support for multiple perspectives, but it will be nice when ADHD is something that can be proven through a brain scan or other test they develop.

Added - Somebody e-mailed me if I had a child with ADHD. I have no children! I will be 23 in January, and was diagnosed with ADHD at about age 7. I began daily medication at 12 (when I entered high school) and haven’t been off it since. My personal belief is that there may be a genetic component to ADHD, because my mother seems to have it and believes her mother did as well; unfortunately I’ve never seen any research on this matter.

I just love using the computer lab here at school. It’s even faster than A’s dad’s cable connection! I can’t play on There anywhere but at his house, though, which does make me sad. (I wonder what would happen if I tried installing it here at school? I doubt it would work.) I can whiz through my e-mail in no time at all here…it’s awesome. I have to pick my computers selectively, though - some have junkware that spams me with IE popup windows when I’m not even using IE, some don’t let you use Ctrl-N for a new browser window (”this feature has been disabled by your administrator”) but if I get a decent computer then I’m just fine.

I’m not sure if I’ll get online from home tonight or not; my class isn’t supposed to end until 9:10 and by that point I will have been away from home for more than 14 hours…aw hell, what am I saying? I’ll probably get online. Heh!

I didn’t take a nap, but I still have lots of homework to do. I hate this - now that I have a new professional job, I don’t feel the need to continue the education. I feel like I’m beyond it, even though I’m probably not. I’m particularly frustrated by my Interpreting Foundations class, where I am further in my career than anybody else in the class - most are considering becoming interpreters, whereas I have been interpreting full-time for a year and have at least two semesters more ASL instruction than many of my classmates. My Translation Skills class is more advanced, but the homework feels repetitive. I’ve already signed up for the Transliterating class next semester, and I think I will make that my only class. It should be a reasonably advanced level course, and having only one class will make things a lot easier on me. I’m also way behind in my online class that’s supposed to be preparing me for the RID written test, which I am taking December 12th. I feel like I want to put my education on hold (except for preparing for the written exam) and just work for a while, not have all this homework to do. (It might help if I did it when I was supposed to rather than putting it off, but the feelings I have when I walk into class don’t change.)

Yesterday I had my orientation at the new agency. It was supposed to last about six hours and I was supposed to have it all with my supervisor, but she was called out on an urgent assignment and so I was bounced among three different people instead. I started the day with one of the women who had interviewed me the week before, but she was working the VRS lines and ended up on a long call so I went and found somebody else to continue reading the Employee Handbook with me. We went through it page by page and then took a break for lunch; the guy was nice enough to pay for my lunch but he forgot to get a receipt (to make it a “business lunch”) so I felt kind of bad. We talked some more after lunch, and then I was turned over to the VP of Interpreting, who reviewed more policies and helped me get set up with both voicemail and the online scheduling system (which is really awesome; I wish I could figure out what company provides the database frontend). With all of that finished I was finally done; I took a few quick minutes in the interpreters’ room to use the computer and write down my assignment for the next day - I’d already been scheduled for the next several weeks! (So far I don’t seem to have anything scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving, but I won’t start accruing leave until after 60 days so I may have to work that day.)

Today I had my first day of interpreting work for the new agency. I can’t disclose much about it, of course, but I will say that the commute was a lot nicer than what I’ve been doing for the past year! I had a bit of trouble early on - the phone number I’d been given as a point of contact kept ringing to voicemail, so I had nobody to escort me from the security desk to the room where the class was being held. I arrived 30 minutes early as I was supposed to, but a combination of misunderstanding, mixed messages, and waiting around meant I didn’t get into the room itself until five minutes past the start time. My co-interpreter said it was fine and not to worry about it, but my first 20-minute shift in the hot seat felt like a disaster. My co-terp had a steno pad at the “cold seat” (what can I call that?) and left a note for me saying I was doing fine and not to worry; I got into the rhythm in my next 20-minute shift and did well the rest of the day. (She left more notes for me, including good things I’d done like de-idiomizing “put your finger on it” into “identify” and understanding the lecturer’s point and conveying the message well. That made me feel great!) The two of us had lunch with three other interpreters on-site, and it was awesome to have somebody to talk with at lunchtime…usually I’ve been on my own in the past. The afternoon went well but both of us were pretty tired by the time everything ended. Because I’m staff, I now work an eight-hour day, but if I can’t do at least 90 minutes of productive work back at the office, I don’t have to drive back to Silver Spring and can bill it on the timesheet as “overhead” to meet eight hours. So I got to come home a little early, but I am exhausted! If I can pry myself offline I might nap for a while, but I have a ton of homework to do and I don’t want to fall even further behind. I have the same assignment tomorrow and the next day, so I’d better get started.

I had my full-day orientation at the new agency today, and I start in the field tomorrow. I’ll post more about that later, but I am currently going through my backlog of e-mail (I didn’t get to go through it much over the weekend), and I found this:

Yo i need help,

I’m 13 and i’m a long ways away to get a good paying job. Well i put my name on all my CDs with permanent marker, and i’m telling you thats a lotta of d@mn Cds. And now they won’t play at all. Is there a way to get permanent marker off of the CDs, cuz i love my CDs, they are my prize possession. If there is pleaz tell me. Thx.

P.S sorry for the language.

This was sent to the address that’s on my sidebar, so the girl obviously visited my website. This wasn’t left as a comment on any entry, though, so I have no idea how she picked me to ask this question. It’s also a bizarre question - does she mean she wrote on the data side of the CDs?! How does anybody over the age of eight not know about the difference between the label side and the data side, and that you’re not supposed to touch the data side?

I wasn’t going to respond at all, but I came up with a possible answer so I did e-mail her (mentioning the “silver side” and the “picture side”). I suggested she check out the Skip Doctor, which is made by Digital Innovations. I have no idea if it’ll solve her problem, but it was all I could think of. And again…why me?