Once again, I have been invited to interpret at Dragon*Con. Once again, I have to say no. In the past it’s been various reasons. Last year it was because of school. This year it’s because of school, too. I just don’t understand why they have to have it on Labor Day weekend, which is just one week after classes start. I can’t just fly off to Atlanta right after classes start!

Of course, there’s only a few people I’m sorry I’ll miss interpreting for. Sean Astin, Adam Baldwin, and Avery Brooks. Oh, and Michael Dorn, Brad Dourif, Jerry Doyle, Richard Hatch, and some guy named Walter Koenig. Have I already mentioned J.M. Linsner, some author chick named Anne McCaffrey, and Robert Picardo? Or James Randi? Did I mention Jewel Staite? There’s also this old guy named Adam West. Yeah, I won’t be interpreting for any of them.

I’ve already interpreted for Cirroc Lofton, Dean Haglund, and James Marsters, but I wouldn’t mind doing it again. And I’ve attended a con where George Takei was a guest, but I’d love to interpret for him. Yeah, Labor Day weekend is a bad, bad time for the biggest con of the year. Sigh.

I interpreted for friends from school today. They had emailed me a couple of days ago and asked if I could interpret for them for a special event, and I agreed. To be honest, I found it vaguely surreal. I’m pretty sure I was on good interpreter behavior, but at the same time, it was like - hey, I know these guys! Like, outside of an interpreting context! I can’t remember the last time I did actual interpreting for friends, other than a couple of times in a restaurant or something like that. It was cool though, I had a good time. We all went to dinner afterward, and they paid for my meal. My share was actually only about 10% of the actual check, partly because they don’t have tons of money, partly because I wanted to be on good dietary behavior, and partly because I felt like even though I donated my time, that didn’t mean I should go all out and order the most expensive thing on the menu. I was very happy with my salad but there wasn’t enough of it, so I am planning to have a snack when I get home.

I’m standing on a podium - actually it’s a gogo platform - at the Philadelphia Leather Contest. The music is rocking, the deaf people are here, I’ve got my water, fairerhiannon is awesome, the lighting is passable, I feel so awesome. The Broadway version of Nine Inch Nails’s Closer is going to be supertastic.

I had so much fun at the Academic Bowl game today. I had totally forgotten what it was like to do academic competition. I need to play more Trivial Pursuit or something! The coach was impressed with my enthusiasm; when we’d met in his office he thought I was quiet and reserved, but he saw that in competition I’m a firecracker! I did pretty well - I only played the second round, but I got most of the answers in the first round and most of them in the second round too! At least I think I did, I didn’t keep count. But it was so amazing, I loved it. Afterward I commented to the other players and the coach, “this was so much fun, I wish I could compete on the regular team!” The coach said “well, we could box your ears and then you could join us!” We all laughed.

I got to do a bit of interpreting today, about 10 minutes, and that was also terrific. I miss one-on-one interpreting a lot, too…VRS isn’t the same, and I don’t even do that very often. Afterward my friend apologized for needing me to interpret, and I said “seriously, I loved it, don’t even worry about it, okay?” He seemed to be okay with that.

I interpreted Capital Pride 2007 today with some very talented co-interpreters. Now I am tired. There are some website things I need to work on but I will do that stuff tomorrow. It was fun, I got this great shirt (a parody of this one), I saw cool people. I love Pride.

I was having a hard time posting a comment about this in a friend’s journal, so I decided to post it here instead. This is just venting about the message board at the Video Relay Services Consumer Association website. As far as I can tell, people who post over there feel exempt from the requirement to consider the needs of others as well as their own, and they don’t think it’s necessary to do any research before spouting.

There are many people on the board saying “save VRS and cut TTY” - don’t people realize that the majority of D/HH Americans do not use ASL? There are more than 25 million Americans with severe to profound hearing loss, and only about 1-2 million use ASL. All those other people are using text relay on either TTY or computers. I fully support keeping VRS - not just because I am a VI myself, but because Deaf people have a right to communicate in their first language - but if the FCC is looking to cut costs, as that website indicates, I would think they will cut the service used by a few people than the service used by a lot of people. I know I’ll get flamed for this, so I’ll repeat - VRS interpreting is my job. So I don’t want them to get rid of it, that would put me out of a job. But the people on that board are not thinking logically (needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few) or considering the needs of non-signing deaf Americans alongside their own needs as signers.

Another person said “if VRS terps are paid more than $40/hr then reduce their salary to $30/hr and don’t let it go above that.” This person apparently has no idea how VRS interpreters are paid, or even interpreters in general. I’m not sure they even realize how much actual work is involved in interpreting, how much training costs, how much experience is factored into the situation…sure, $30/hr interpreting beats working at the local burger joint for minimum wage, but it is not necessarily commensurate with what the job actually entails.

Let the flaming begin.

There is video communication equipment all over my building. In addition to the deaf employees who have videophones at their desks, there’s also multiple small rooms that are set up for video conferencing - some are casual and some are more formal. I do at least one video conference a week, in one of the small informal rooms; sometimes there will also be an additional meeting in one of the small formal rooms. Only once have I interpreted in the giant VTC room in the basement - there are multiple screens, multiple cameras, a big “audience” section, and a little camera that’s targeted on a copystand so you can easily show documents to people who are at a remote site. There are two women who work in the big VTC room, and I’m pretty sure their sole job is the scheduling, operation, and maintenance of that room.

I think video conference technology is neat, but as an interpreter, though, I don’t really like doing them. It’s often very difficult to identify who is speaking, because all the voices are coming through the same speaker and the picture is sometimes too fuzzy to even see whose mouth is moving - not to mention the fact that I don’t usually know the names of people at remote sites, so even if I can figure out who is speaking, it’s hard to identify them!

But back to the video equipment the deaf people in my building have - they’re videophones, designed to connect directly to a video relay service. (They have several to choose from, including FedVRS for sensitive communications.) And to be honest, having the videophones in the building has made life easier for the onsite terps, too! It is such a pain to try to balance the phone on your shoulder while you’re signing for a phone call, but now the deaf employees can call through relay. I think some are still in the habit of calling through the other onsite terps, but I’m not in that position anymore - my current clients are perfectly happy to use VRS now.

In the global economy we live with today, translation services are essential. Language123.com is a translation marketplace, where translators and interpreters can list their profiles, and clients can list jobs they have available. Proofreading services are also offered. The site doesn’t have all the world’s languages for translation, but it has a very good set with some interesting ones like Yoruba and Azerbaijani.

What caught my attention in particular was that “Sign Language” is one of the offered languages. It seems a bit odd that someone would seek such translation services in a traditionally text-based medium, but I can actually think of a really good use for this. Many deaf people do not feel confident in their command of English, and may seek proofreading help from native English speakers. I do this for some of my clients as part of my regular interpreting work, and I find it is easier to figure out what was intended because I know ASL grammar and construction. So I definitely see a place for “Sign Language” in an online translation marketplace; it’s really cool that Language123.com thought to add it!

I took my CI test yesterday at Gallaudet. I can’t go into details because we sign a confidentiality agreement - I can’t tell anything about the warmup or test materials themselves. I got there right on time, though, and there was hardly anybody in Fay House (the home of Gallaudet Interpreting Services). I filled out my initial paperwork and waited patiently while the LTA explained everything to the woman who was going to be replacing her on Monday. They set me up with the practice tapes and I chose which speakers I wanted to work with, and then I reviewed the practice speeches for each one.

I took a short break while the LTA set up the tapes for the actual test. I think I did okay; there were some parts I fumbled. I didn’t walk out of there with the same “I aced this!” feeling I had after my CT test, but I think I did okay.

I will say one thing about one of the tapes I picked. It was related to computers, but these tapes are from the early-to-mid 1980’s at best. So it was pretty funny to hear the guy describing what is now archaic technology! At one point he mentioned the name of a long-defunct service, and I really had to dig deep in my brain to remember the what that company was called.

The wait is apparently three to four months for results now, which beats the nine months I waited for my CT test results. I think I have also heard of results coming as fast as two and a half months, so hopefully I’ll hear those results around the same time as I hear back about whether I’ve been accepted (!) to Gallaudet.