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.

It’s December again, and Xmas decorations are popping up all over. My aisle has some tinsel and ornaments on a few cubes, the next aisle over has ornaments on every cube. The flowers in the planters in the hallway are now red with green leaves, the door-decorating contest is in full swing, and there’s a giant Xmas tree in the main atrium, which will have its own special lighting ceremony this week.

I am seriously considering putting up a little Hanukkah decoration in my cube. I don’t know what it will be, and I don’t have a color printer so it won’t look too great, and I’m not even really intensely Jewish. But I do have Jewish heritage, and I was raised Unitarian Universalist, and the entirely Xmas-related decorations are kind of overwhelming. It’s time for a little diversity up in here. I just have to find a good printout, and maybe some magic markers.

I didn’t sleep well on Friday night, but I had to get up early for the PCRID conference in Annapolis. I ended up getting there at 8:00, about half an hour before the keynote was scheduled to begin, so I socialized with the co-workers who were manning my company’s booth - and I also chatted with people who used to work for my company but transferred to a rival company. It was good to see them again, at least.

The opening meeting was fun. Janet Bailey did a slide show about the history of RID - nobody has really recorded in pictures just how the profession of interpreting came to be, so she gathered some old photographs she managed to find and showed them off. She also asked those present to dig through their archives and contribute whatever they could find, as she’s hoping to create a book detailing the history of RID and the interpreting profession. She pointed out that even though RID was founded in 1964, nobody really put down “interpreter” on their tax forms until the late 1970’s - prior to that they would always have other duties that were their “real” jobs, and they’d interpret in addition to that. After Janet’s presentation, Lauren Potempa, the current PCRID president (who I co-interpreted with for a meeting some years back), gave a State of the Association speech which wasn’t really memorable enough for me to tell you about it. I earned 0.1 CEU’s each for the slideshow presentation and the speech - in RID, an hour is equal to 0.1 CEU’s, and we have to earn 8 CEU’s in a 4-year period.

The next item on the agenda was the business meeting, which I figured would be fabulously boring. So I went back out to my company’s booth, which had a pretty good location, and chatted with the people there. It turned out one of the people who was supposed to work the booth hadn’t turned up, so instead of milling about and relaxing I got behind the table and actually did work. I was there for a couple of hours at least, which I’m not sure I’ll be compensated for…I know the people who were scheduled to be there got paid for their time, but I think the compliments from the president and HR director (who were there) is all the appreciation I’m going to get. It was fun though, we had a bunch of prizes to raffle off so I had a lot of people coming by to sign up for things.

In the afternoon, I went to a workshop given by Betty Colonomos called “CDI and HI: Who Does What?” (That’s Certified Deaf Interpreter and Hearing Interpreter.) I’ve never worked with a deaf interpreter, so I was hoping to find out about the mechanics, protocol, etc. Instead the workshop seemed to be geared directly to CDI’s (there were several present), and I felt like the hearing attendees were only there so we could tell the CDI’s about our perspective - not to do any actual learning ourselves. Betty was great to watch though, I’d have thought she was Deaf if she hadn’t mentioned early on that she’s a CODA. Unfortunately somebody in the back of the room wasn’t fluent in sign and was using an FM system, and the voice interpreters were seated just a little bit in front of me so for part of the time I had my fingers in my ears so I wouldn’t be distracted by them whispering into the FM system’s microphone. It was an interesting workshop, and I earned 0.3 CEU’s for it, but I did note on the evaluation that I wished there could have been more information for the hearing interpreters who were there.

Afterward I went back to my company’s table to say goodbye, and since one of the people there was supposed to be at the DC Eagle that night I said I’d see him later. I was sleepy from not having slept well but I went straight to the bar, which was very easy - Route 50, where Annapolis is, turns into New York Ave, where the bar is, so I just had a straight shot all the way there.

• I am getting to play travel agent. I like playing travel agent. The numbers are alarmingly large, but I still like playing travel agent!
• I don’t have to go to the office tomorrow after all! I will either be in my normal job all day, or I will have a holiday lunch assignment at a restaurant near here, and I’ll be teamed with my supervisor who will creatively schedule my annual review around the lunch assignment so I will have a short day! And fortunately I was able to put my Diet-to-Go food back to my usual pickup location, instead of the place in McLean I’d moved it to when I thought I was going to be in Silver Spring.
• My Coexist sticker finally arrived, I put my DOD decals on, I have my own license plates on, I have insurance, and everything is happy skippy with my car. She looks good!
• I mailed my application to Gallaudet yesterday. I know I’ve mentioned it a billion times, but it’s on my mind a lot. I am excited and scared! Fortunately the school-provided health insurance is United Healthcare’s Choice Plus plan, and my current physician already accepts them, so I won’t even have to switch doctors!
• Today is a woot-off! It’s been going very slowly though.

I thought today was going to be light, but instead I had the meeting from hell. They dropped it in my lap as soon as I walked in the door - which was before I technically start work - and they said it was going to be three hours long. Well, it turned out to be four hours, but I didn’t have to do the first 90 minutes because the one deaf guy in that session was teleworking anyway. But still, the only reason it ended at four hours was because I started to stretch my hands between phrases, and my deaf clients realized how long I’d been working and said they didn’t need to stay for the rest of the meeting. I think it ended up going on another 30 minutes after we left. It left me functionally brain-dead until about 3:00 though.

Today I am picking up a nice Freecycle score, even if it is way the heck out in what the boonies (people have a pretty broad definition of “McLean, VA” it seems). I’m getting both French Scrabble and Make Your Own-Opoly, which A has suggested I turn into Hello Kitty-Opoly.