Positive Influences

I had the opportunity to talk with Stan after the CBC exam, which was really cool. I got to test out his LSS (with pads on the keys), and I did not like that at all. It was like trying to write on a squishy mattress. I also got to see him write, and one thing I picked up was that he writes periods with both hands. I'd read before that's a good idea, to avoid stacking, but I just couldn't wrap my brain around the idea of doing it.

Seeing Stan do it made me realize how easy it would be, though, and now I've got a two-handed stroke for periods, commas, and new speakers. Getting myself trained to use those strokes is easily the hardest thing I can ever remember doing in steno. It felt so unnatural! It seemed like there was absolutely no way it would ever work. But after a few days, it did. I still have hiccups and confusion with it from time to time, but I don't have stacking issues anymore, so it's probably worth it.

I was reading Mirabai's blog over the summer, and I read that she did transcription for offline captioning while she was in school. That sounded like the perfect job for a steno student. I wanted to look into it, but I wasn't sure what to do, so I asked on Depoman. I received some great advice, and one of the members pointed me in the direction of the WAHM forum for work at home moms.

Through that forum, I found an opportunity to do transcription at home. I don't use my steno machine, and it doesn't pay very much, so I tend to wind up working more hours than I might somewhere else, but I absolutely love being able to work from home whenever I want, completely at the whim of my own schedule. And it's about a thousand times better than where I was working, so I can't thank Mirabai and the Depoman forum enough!