I'm finally starting to feel good about my realtime. Out of the last three news broadcasts I've practiced, my lowest accuracy was 98.83%. I'm starting to not get freaked out when I make a mistake, and be aware of what's being said while I fix mistakes. I still haven't gotten any work from the company I signed a contract with, though. I'd really like to get my feet wet and see where I stand on some actual CART work.
I'm feeling so confident that I even sent out "applications" to five CART/captioning companies, but I haven't heard anything back. It's frustrating because I've been working so long to be "ready," and now that I've put myself out there, no one seems interested in taking me on.
I'm intimidated by the captioning aspect, too. I live in an apartment, and we don't have a single landline, let alone the three or four I might need for captioning. We only have basic cable, and if I started captioning the traditional way, I'd have to buy a TV, modem, coupler, and amplifier, at least, plus AccuCap, which would be $3k alone. I have enough saved up for all of those things, but I'd much rather not have to get them.
In less stressful news, I finally hit an average of 180 wpm on all of my speed drills! I've been gunning for that goal for a while. I'm also doing a lot better making my corrections make sense when I practice realtime; making sure I have a dash before and after the correction word, if it doesn't come right after the error. I was having a problem with dashing before and using a comma after, but that's only happening rarely now.
I finally finished all my -NAIR corrections, and I've moved on to -ia, which I now write as KWRA*. Nothing in that group of 744 words seems to be defined the way I write it now, so that's my next project.
I made some changes to auto-brief; namely, I learned that you can tell it not to suggest certain letter combinations, which is really helpful. I don't ever write -TD or -SZ (or at least, not on purpose), and now I won't get suggestions with them. I also noticed sometimes it would suggest a brief with -TZ in it, which was just crazy (for me, anyway). For some reason after I did that, I lost my pop-up window. It was really weird, and I couldn't figure out how to get it back, until a few days later, it magically reappeared on its own!
Proficient
I tested out my skills on QVC and The Weather Channel, and I did
great. I even got above 99% on the weather. I did those two, plus three
national news broadcasts and four local ones. My lowest rate was 98.1%,
and when I averaged them all together, it came out at 98.55%. So, obviously, I don't always hit 98.5% accuracy, but 98% is the minimum to get hired at some companies, at least. And if I could get a gig captioning something like QVC or the weather, I'd be set.
I decided to start out checking back in with the company I shadowed classes for in November. They said my notes looked good, so I got all set up with them. I bought the professional version of Eclipse, since I'll be using it for profit now. I didn't need to get the AccuCap portion, so that was $3,000 off the price, but I'm sure I'll wind up getting it sooner or later. Since it's the middle of the semester, the only CART work they've got is basically just filling in during emergencies. I was hoping I'd get more experience than that, but I guess it's only logical.
I still hate doing "homework." It's such a drag practicing for two hours every day, first thing in the morning. I would feel bad if I didn't do it, though. Lazy. And it's not like I'm doing anything else all that important or interesting. I was so disappointed the first time I failed the CBC, feeling like "now I have to go back to doing homework." For some reason I thought if I passed, I wouldn't have to do it anymore. I felt the same way to a certain degree when I was getting set up with this company. I had planned to keep up with the reinforcement/speed drills/dictionary maintenance, but at least I'd get paid for the "realtime practice" part, instead of doing the news for no one every day.
But the reality is, I don't think I'm anywhere near "perfect" at this yet (and I suppose no one ever is). As long as there are words that are difficult for me to write (which will probably be forever), I have to carve out time every day to practice them. Until I can do all the drills at at least 225, I have to keep doing them. And until there's nothing in my dictionary that's incongruent with how I'm writing it, I have to keep fixing things. No matter where I get hired, for how many hours, the "homework" isn't going away. That doesn't make it any easier to keep doing, unfortunately.
I decided to start out checking back in with the company I shadowed classes for in November. They said my notes looked good, so I got all set up with them. I bought the professional version of Eclipse, since I'll be using it for profit now. I didn't need to get the AccuCap portion, so that was $3,000 off the price, but I'm sure I'll wind up getting it sooner or later. Since it's the middle of the semester, the only CART work they've got is basically just filling in during emergencies. I was hoping I'd get more experience than that, but I guess it's only logical.
I still hate doing "homework." It's such a drag practicing for two hours every day, first thing in the morning. I would feel bad if I didn't do it, though. Lazy. And it's not like I'm doing anything else all that important or interesting. I was so disappointed the first time I failed the CBC, feeling like "now I have to go back to doing homework." For some reason I thought if I passed, I wouldn't have to do it anymore. I felt the same way to a certain degree when I was getting set up with this company. I had planned to keep up with the reinforcement/speed drills/dictionary maintenance, but at least I'd get paid for the "realtime practice" part, instead of doing the news for no one every day.
But the reality is, I don't think I'm anywhere near "perfect" at this yet (and I suppose no one ever is). As long as there are words that are difficult for me to write (which will probably be forever), I have to carve out time every day to practice them. Until I can do all the drills at at least 225, I have to keep doing them. And until there's nothing in my dictionary that's incongruent with how I'm writing it, I have to keep fixing things. No matter where I get hired, for how many hours, the "homework" isn't going away. That doesn't make it any easier to keep doing, unfortunately.
3.16.13
I started using the plastic case my LS came in as a lapdesk for the LS when I write, which is awesome. It's great not having to take anything extra to balance it on. I still haven't quite gotten my sitting position down perfectly. I feel like I have to write at speed for about 10 minutes before I can get into the groove, no matter how much other practice I do beforehand.
I've got a new system for my "reinforcement" practice. 50 words, and about 20-30 sentences. I was working on writing fractions properly - "two-thirds" in general, 2.5 million, 2 1/2 bars, etc. I'd been always doing "2.5" because I got a little mixed up when I read the style guidelines once, so that was totally natural. It didn't take too long to get used to "two-thirds"-style, and then I started working on things like 2 1/2. Now that's my default, and I have to focus really hard on using the other two when it's appropriate. My system for writing the latter is to just do 2/*1/*2, which seems to be working so far.
I've still got some sentences I'm practicing with that. I'll be practicing "an" sentences forever. I am slowly starting to remember to write A*N during realtime practice, though. Right now I'm also working on "-nent" sentences; pertinent, imminent, etc. I have a tendency to write the ending as -NT, which is my "n't." I could (and do) define the words that way, but I feel like it's better to write them properly, which would be NENT.
I ran into a major roadblock in my project of re-defining groups of words. I had a few that just related to the way I started writing ending word parts a long time ago, to help with writing names on the fly. It's not really intended for use in words that aren't proper nouns, but now that I've learned to use it with proper nouns, I tend to use it with everything. So I went back and fixed 360 instances of consonant +-ie (+ AO*IP), 515 of + ey (+ AO*EP), and 392 of -ee (AO*EP).
Then I ran into "-ive." I had 1544 "-ive" entries in my dictionary. The problem is, at best, I've got three ways to write those words. Take "combatative." I could write it COM/BAT/TIVE, COM/BAT/IVE, or COM/BA*FT. None of those are incorrect. For every word that's in there, I wind up writing it 3-6 different ways, and it's only actually in my dictionary one or two of those ways. Terrible. So I've been working on those for a while, and the other issues I've identified are piling up like mad. But I think I'm getting close to the end on those, finally.
I'm starting to regularly hit 250 wpm when I do realtime practice, which is awesome. I'm getting a pretty good feel for when/how to fix something, and when to let it go. Just not freaking out/freezing up when I make a mistake is a huge factor, and something I'm working on. I think my two biggest hurdles are still fingerspelling names, and not getting tripped up. I still have instances where I focus so much on one thing that's not working, that I lose what they're saying for about a sentence.
I've got a new system for my "reinforcement" practice. 50 words, and about 20-30 sentences. I was working on writing fractions properly - "two-thirds" in general, 2.5 million, 2 1/2 bars, etc. I'd been always doing "2.5" because I got a little mixed up when I read the style guidelines once, so that was totally natural. It didn't take too long to get used to "two-thirds"-style, and then I started working on things like 2 1/2. Now that's my default, and I have to focus really hard on using the other two when it's appropriate. My system for writing the latter is to just do 2/*1/*2, which seems to be working so far.
I've still got some sentences I'm practicing with that. I'll be practicing "an" sentences forever. I am slowly starting to remember to write A*N during realtime practice, though. Right now I'm also working on "-nent" sentences; pertinent, imminent, etc. I have a tendency to write the ending as -NT, which is my "n't." I could (and do) define the words that way, but I feel like it's better to write them properly, which would be NENT.
I ran into a major roadblock in my project of re-defining groups of words. I had a few that just related to the way I started writing ending word parts a long time ago, to help with writing names on the fly. It's not really intended for use in words that aren't proper nouns, but now that I've learned to use it with proper nouns, I tend to use it with everything. So I went back and fixed 360 instances of consonant +-ie (+ AO*IP), 515 of + ey (+ AO*EP), and 392 of -ee (AO*EP).
Then I ran into "-ive." I had 1544 "-ive" entries in my dictionary. The problem is, at best, I've got three ways to write those words. Take "combatative." I could write it COM/BAT/TIVE, COM/BAT/IVE, or COM/BA*FT. None of those are incorrect. For every word that's in there, I wind up writing it 3-6 different ways, and it's only actually in my dictionary one or two of those ways. Terrible. So I've been working on those for a while, and the other issues I've identified are piling up like mad. But I think I'm getting close to the end on those, finally.
I'm starting to regularly hit 250 wpm when I do realtime practice, which is awesome. I'm getting a pretty good feel for when/how to fix something, and when to let it go. Just not freaking out/freezing up when I make a mistake is a huge factor, and something I'm working on. I think my two biggest hurdles are still fingerspelling names, and not getting tripped up. I still have instances where I focus so much on one thing that's not working, that I lose what they're saying for about a sentence.
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