I struck out at the EMG test, which I guess was a good thing. The neurologist doesn't think it's carpal tunnel or a pinched nerve. He said he'd "think about it" and I should wear the wrist brace at night for three weeks and then come back and see if he came up with any new ideas. I don't think I'm going to pay to make that happen. I scheduled a PT appointment for this week, so we'll see how that goes. The neurologist also wrote me a prescription to try Topamax, but I haven't gotten it filled yet.
I've been having a good streak where I remember things that have given me trouble in the past, like TS and DZ, and remember to write them out in two strokes during realtime practice. I'm doing the same thing with words that are conflicts the "normal" way I would think to write them; nothing as simple as plague/playing, but that's the idea. I just have a general feeling that I shouldn't write it the easy way. I don't remember why right then, but it pays off. Before I would just kind of be stubborn about it and write it the easy way anyway, and then have to scramble to try to fix it.
I've had a small epiphany (can that be a thing?) about numbers, too, and I'm writing them one at a time more instead of garbling them. 12 is *really* difficult for me to write with my hand the way it is, and I realized I can just write it in two strokes, with much less chance of misstroking it.
I got Pyongyang right twice during practice today (without getting it wrong, to boot). I write it out a long way: PAOE/YONG/YANG. It's hard to start. It's almost like I want to bolt whenever I have to write it. But it's not so bad once I actually do it. I also fingerspelled a lot of names in practice today; some I knew right away weren't in there and fingerspelled the whole thing, like Lindy Boggs. Others I tried to do first (Pedro Vargas) and wound up fingerspelling them after they didn't come out right. I always do a thing where I think "I have -da defined, so I can just write Brunda, that'll come out fine."
My writing is really stilted with my hand being messed up, though. I wind up with a lot of dashes in the transcript that aren't preceeded by any mistakes. I just get lost and things start to feel wrong and I might hit one wrong letter and erase it, and then dash. At least I can pull it together and do it without dropping anything. Sometimes I don't catch the mistakes, though, and I wind up just hitting an S before writing SRAR, or hitting an N after writing something with N in it. I've got an average of 98.56% accuracy for my last five practice shows, though, so I'm keeping it together pretty well.
Words that end in -nal weren't coming out right, even though I don't think I've changed anything from theory (I just do NAL), so I re-wrote all 472 of those. I also wanted to start doing -tary with an asterisk to avoid any conflicts with tear, so I fixed 145 of those entries.
Showing posts with label Practice Strategies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Practice Strategies. Show all posts
CBC Strike Three
I went into this test with a more chill attitude. I did great on all my practice takes. I did about 10, and I got them all on my first try with 96% or better accuracy. I wasn't super rushed leaving the apartment, or getting set up. I was the first one there last time, but about three people beat me in this time.
I didn't practice any of my words this time; I didn't have time. There was practice material playing the whole time, so I tried it out, but I didn't do very well on any of it. The words for the test were super easy this time. I think last time it was something like Harley, and some other weird stuff, but this time it was just William, piano, Canada, and Hawaii. Hawaii is super easy for me to write. Canada's fine, so I decided it would only trip me up to write a brief for it. William trips me up sometimes (I'm supposed to put an asterisk in the YAM part), and so does piano, so I made an easy brief for both of those.
I didn't really feel comfortable with my writing at any point. I was super nervous during the 1-minute warm up. I tried to just be relaxed and calm. My mouth gets really tense when I get to tricky parts to write, and it was tensing up right away, so I tried to just relax it. That seemed to help a little. I just got like a deer in the headlights again. My hands wouldn't do what I wanted them to, and the more I tried to force it, the stiffer they got. I managed to keep going, but it wasn't good writing.
I couldn't stop thinking about things, and being upset that I had blown it already and it wasn't working. My fourth minute was great for some reason. I calmed down and wrote everything perfectly. It just kept going on forever, and I psyched myself out, and made some mistakes in the last minute. I didn't pass. Maybe next time. I forgot to use my brief for William, and then remembered, and screwed myself up by deleting "will" and writing my brief. I wrote "C*AN" for Canada instead of "CAN/D*A," so that cost me two points, since "C*AN" comes out as ^can.
It wasn't a hard test. The words were easy, the speed was slow. Easiest test you'll ever fail, for sure. It sucks that I have to wait until November to take it again. Doing it twice a year makes the pressure way worse. I don't know why they only let us have one take. Even if they would do 15 minutes of audio and pick a random 5-minute sample to grade, it would be better.
I got to do the CBC first this time, instead of having to listen to the CRR first. I liked that better, but then it was really boring sitting and waiting for the CRR to finish. I don't like that I have to send a SASE with my flash drive. I think I pay enough for the test that they could send it back to me for free.
Failing the CBC sucks. It's such a huge disappointment, especially when you know there's no reason you shouldn't have passed it. I might try watching the screen next time. I thought it would throw me off, and I would get freaked out when I saw mistakes, but it's really weird not watching it. Maybe if I had the usual distraction of reading as I write, my mind wouldn't be so free to freak out. I'll try it out when I start practicing in October and see how it goes.
I'd kind of like to sit for the state court reporter exam, just so I have some kind of certification. It's two 7-minute QA takes at 200 wpm. You transcribe whichever one you want, and they grade a random 5-minute part of it. It's so totally different from captioning/CART, though, and I don't have any practice material. I hate RTC. The material is so dense. Even at 180 wpm it takes me like 6 times to get 96% on a take. I want some nice, normal stuff to practice. It's also hard to rationalize sitting for, because it's in October, and the CBC is in November. I know I can pass the CBC, so it's hard to take the CR exam when I'm just about to, theoretically, pass the CBC.
I didn't practice any of my words this time; I didn't have time. There was practice material playing the whole time, so I tried it out, but I didn't do very well on any of it. The words for the test were super easy this time. I think last time it was something like Harley, and some other weird stuff, but this time it was just William, piano, Canada, and Hawaii. Hawaii is super easy for me to write. Canada's fine, so I decided it would only trip me up to write a brief for it. William trips me up sometimes (I'm supposed to put an asterisk in the YAM part), and so does piano, so I made an easy brief for both of those.
I didn't really feel comfortable with my writing at any point. I was super nervous during the 1-minute warm up. I tried to just be relaxed and calm. My mouth gets really tense when I get to tricky parts to write, and it was tensing up right away, so I tried to just relax it. That seemed to help a little. I just got like a deer in the headlights again. My hands wouldn't do what I wanted them to, and the more I tried to force it, the stiffer they got. I managed to keep going, but it wasn't good writing.
I couldn't stop thinking about things, and being upset that I had blown it already and it wasn't working. My fourth minute was great for some reason. I calmed down and wrote everything perfectly. It just kept going on forever, and I psyched myself out, and made some mistakes in the last minute. I didn't pass. Maybe next time. I forgot to use my brief for William, and then remembered, and screwed myself up by deleting "will" and writing my brief. I wrote "C*AN" for Canada instead of "CAN/D*A," so that cost me two points, since "C*AN" comes out as ^can.
It wasn't a hard test. The words were easy, the speed was slow. Easiest test you'll ever fail, for sure. It sucks that I have to wait until November to take it again. Doing it twice a year makes the pressure way worse. I don't know why they only let us have one take. Even if they would do 15 minutes of audio and pick a random 5-minute sample to grade, it would be better.
I got to do the CBC first this time, instead of having to listen to the CRR first. I liked that better, but then it was really boring sitting and waiting for the CRR to finish. I don't like that I have to send a SASE with my flash drive. I think I pay enough for the test that they could send it back to me for free.
Failing the CBC sucks. It's such a huge disappointment, especially when you know there's no reason you shouldn't have passed it. I might try watching the screen next time. I thought it would throw me off, and I would get freaked out when I saw mistakes, but it's really weird not watching it. Maybe if I had the usual distraction of reading as I write, my mind wouldn't be so free to freak out. I'll try it out when I start practicing in October and see how it goes.
I'd kind of like to sit for the state court reporter exam, just so I have some kind of certification. It's two 7-minute QA takes at 200 wpm. You transcribe whichever one you want, and they grade a random 5-minute part of it. It's so totally different from captioning/CART, though, and I don't have any practice material. I hate RTC. The material is so dense. Even at 180 wpm it takes me like 6 times to get 96% on a take. I want some nice, normal stuff to practice. It's also hard to rationalize sitting for, because it's in October, and the CBC is in November. I know I can pass the CBC, so it's hard to take the CR exam when I'm just about to, theoretically, pass the CBC.
4.20.13
I have had a couple of minor successes. I seem to be writing faster when I "talk to myself" during practice. It used to be always around 150, but now it's consistently getting up to 214. Maybe that's a sign of a faster writing mentality overall. I'm also getting better at realizing that a word probably isn't in my dictionary - or at least not the way that first comes to mind to write it - and fingerspelling it on the fly. I did a great job getting Adriatic and panacea like that the other day, without skipping a beat.
I also had the brilliant idea to start defining things that I often immediately dash, like cruise for crews. Crews is supposed to have an asterisk, and lots of times I'll remember that - right after I stroke cruise. So I defined "cruise -- crews" as "crews." I've done that with about 40 entries now. It hasn't actually helped yet, but it should in theory. According to the dictionary, the only stroke like that I've ever actually used is H-F D-RB, which would be me stroking a hyphen followed by a dash, which I wanted to translate as only a dash. Since creating it a month ago, I've used it 14 times. Apparently I write "hyphen dash" a lot.
I'm also trying to fix a problem where I'll write something, know or hear that a new speaker is coming up, stroke the >>, and then read that something in the previous speaker didn't translate properly. I have time to fix it, but not time to delete the >> and fix it, and without thinking, I just dash and fix it. It's weird, though. The new speaker isn't saying the correction. I have to just let it go. I'm past the point where it makes sense to fix it. So, what I'm trying to do is wait until everything tranlates out before I stroke the >>. I'm not having much success with that yet.
I finished all my -ia corrections, and now I'm working on 1086 entries that end in "i." I put most of these things on my list so long ago I don't remember exactly what was wrong with them anymore. Back in my "defining suffixes" days, I defined all the "-i"s as consonant + I + *P, so -ni is N*IP. I was really only intending to use it for name-building, but I use it for pretty much everything now. Unfortunately, nothing is defined that way, so it creates a lot of problems.
Step Back
I don't know why stenography has to be such a two steps forward, one step back kind of deal. Every time I think I'm getting somewhere, there's a setback. I felt like I was making real progress with my realtime. I was becoming more aware of what I wrote as I was writing it. FREX, I wrote "BLOGD," and it didn't tran, so I wrote BLOG/D, easy as pie, during realtime. I felt like I was understanding better, as I wrote, why things weren't translating them, and I was getting better at fixing them without getting tripped up.
I had the opportunity to go sit in with a captioner, and she reviewed a half-hour file I did of the local news. She pointed out something that I saw when I was looking over the file myself. Since I learned to start dashing for corrections, and not counting it as an error if I dashed, I would often write things like "An air ryaner crashed in Baltimore today -- liner. Five people were killed." And I wouldn't count it as an error. But in reading that particular file, I realized that doesn't really help. It's completely out of context, and I should count it as an error.
She also said I needed to pick my speed up just a bit, and not drop quite as many sentences. I can agree with that. But when I try to force myself to go fast, I just get nervous and I make tons of mistakes, that I then try to fix, and then I'm even more behind, and it's a huge mess. I haven't ever been able to force myself to go faster that way.
I spent about a week trying to do it anyway, combined with trying to write (or re-write) more words around my corrections to give them context. I also practiced letting errors go more without trying to fix them, if I wasn't going to have time to give them context, or if I was going to drop a lot trying to make the correction. My accuracy tanked. For about another week, I tried to go back to my old style - more "smart" writing and telling myself I only had to get the important stuff, even though I'd wind up getting most of it. It didn't work. I still felt nervous about it, and my accuracy still sucked.
I started having problems getting into the groove of writing. I felt like my hands would go fast, no problem, but they kept stroking the wrong things. I even started stacking things I'd never stacked before! Ugh. I finally had one good day yesterday. I barely dropped anything at all, and nothing that was important. I had context around all of my corrections. My accuracy was 98.79%.
I'm not going to be able to find out if that particular streak would continue, because for the next two weeks I'm going to switch to metered verbatim practice for the CBC/CCP. Which we have to bring a printer for. Kind of silly, I think. I wonder if anyone ever gets together and says, "You bring the printer, and we'll all use it, and give you a few bucks for your trouble?"
I'm still forging on ahead, but I feel like I'm right back to square one again, feeling like I haven't made any progress in who knows how long. It's got to be there, though. Someone used to tell me, "When you used to be able to do something, and you can't anymore, that's just your body changing and evolving. It means you'll be able to do it soon again, better than before." It's a nice thing to pretend is true, whether it is or not.
I had the opportunity to go sit in with a captioner, and she reviewed a half-hour file I did of the local news. She pointed out something that I saw when I was looking over the file myself. Since I learned to start dashing for corrections, and not counting it as an error if I dashed, I would often write things like "An air ryaner crashed in Baltimore today -- liner. Five people were killed." And I wouldn't count it as an error. But in reading that particular file, I realized that doesn't really help. It's completely out of context, and I should count it as an error.
She also said I needed to pick my speed up just a bit, and not drop quite as many sentences. I can agree with that. But when I try to force myself to go fast, I just get nervous and I make tons of mistakes, that I then try to fix, and then I'm even more behind, and it's a huge mess. I haven't ever been able to force myself to go faster that way.
I spent about a week trying to do it anyway, combined with trying to write (or re-write) more words around my corrections to give them context. I also practiced letting errors go more without trying to fix them, if I wasn't going to have time to give them context, or if I was going to drop a lot trying to make the correction. My accuracy tanked. For about another week, I tried to go back to my old style - more "smart" writing and telling myself I only had to get the important stuff, even though I'd wind up getting most of it. It didn't work. I still felt nervous about it, and my accuracy still sucked.
I started having problems getting into the groove of writing. I felt like my hands would go fast, no problem, but they kept stroking the wrong things. I even started stacking things I'd never stacked before! Ugh. I finally had one good day yesterday. I barely dropped anything at all, and nothing that was important. I had context around all of my corrections. My accuracy was 98.79%.
I'm not going to be able to find out if that particular streak would continue, because for the next two weeks I'm going to switch to metered verbatim practice for the CBC/CCP. Which we have to bring a printer for. Kind of silly, I think. I wonder if anyone ever gets together and says, "You bring the printer, and we'll all use it, and give you a few bucks for your trouble?"
I'm still forging on ahead, but I feel like I'm right back to square one again, feeling like I haven't made any progress in who knows how long. It's got to be there, though. Someone used to tell me, "When you used to be able to do something, and you can't anymore, that's just your body changing and evolving. It means you'll be able to do it soon again, better than before." It's a nice thing to pretend is true, whether it is or not.
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.
2.19.13
I've developed a couple of new habits recently. Writing the same 10 minutes of a news show has allowed me to more easily identify words that give me trouble. I'm being a lot more "lenient" in terms of admitting that I have trouble with a word, and adding it to my practice list. It also gives me a chance to see lots of sentences where I wrote "an" as AN, even though I'm trying (unsuccessfully at this point) to write A*N.
I keep a record of every setence in which I wrote AN, and gradually add them to my daily practice. I write the whole sentence once, and then the phrase (i.e., "an extraordinary") five times. I'm finding that I never, ever get used to writing "A*N." It just doesn't feel comfortable. But I'm determined to do it. It's important to have a distinction between an, an-, and -en a. Once I'm comfortable with both the sentence and the phrase, I take it off the list and replace it with a new one. I have a mandatory 5-session minimum requirement on all the sentences, too.
It's really fun when names translate properly. I use NAO*EP for a "-ney" suffix, and I was able to write "Rodney" on the fly the other day, and have it come up even though it wasn't in my dictionary.
I finished re-writing/entering all the proper names in my dictionary. There were about 10,000, and it took me almost three months. Hopefully that will help them translate better now, though. I decided, rather than going through the rest of the dictionary, it would be more beneficial to go back to focusing on groups of words that I know I write differently than the way they're defined right now, so that's another thing I have to watch out for when I review the 10-minute takes.
In just 10 minutes of audio, I found issues with -lous, -rous, "yore" sounds (meteor, senior, etc.), and -mic. In fact, I discovered I had no idea how to write -mic. I have Mick, -mic, mic, Mc-, and mechanic, so it's tricky, but I think I'll remember -mic now. There aren't that many words with it, anyway; most words that end in -mic are written with a final IK.
I was able to go through those four sets pretty quickly, rewriting every word in the group to make sure it was defined the way I'm most likely to write it. That will be my first priority next time I find words like that, but until then, I think I'm going to go back to my pass through the theory book. I'll probably hit on some good word groups that way, and it's really beneficial to go back and see what fingering is tripping me up. The only problem is I've been writing with my steno machine on top of my theory book, so I'll have to find another book to write on.
I keep a record of every setence in which I wrote AN, and gradually add them to my daily practice. I write the whole sentence once, and then the phrase (i.e., "an extraordinary") five times. I'm finding that I never, ever get used to writing "A*N." It just doesn't feel comfortable. But I'm determined to do it. It's important to have a distinction between an, an-, and -en a. Once I'm comfortable with both the sentence and the phrase, I take it off the list and replace it with a new one. I have a mandatory 5-session minimum requirement on all the sentences, too.
It's really fun when names translate properly. I use NAO*EP for a "-ney" suffix, and I was able to write "Rodney" on the fly the other day, and have it come up even though it wasn't in my dictionary.
I finished re-writing/entering all the proper names in my dictionary. There were about 10,000, and it took me almost three months. Hopefully that will help them translate better now, though. I decided, rather than going through the rest of the dictionary, it would be more beneficial to go back to focusing on groups of words that I know I write differently than the way they're defined right now, so that's another thing I have to watch out for when I review the 10-minute takes.
In just 10 minutes of audio, I found issues with -lous, -rous, "yore" sounds (meteor, senior, etc.), and -mic. In fact, I discovered I had no idea how to write -mic. I have Mick, -mic, mic, Mc-, and mechanic, so it's tricky, but I think I'll remember -mic now. There aren't that many words with it, anyway; most words that end in -mic are written with a final IK.
I was able to go through those four sets pretty quickly, rewriting every word in the group to make sure it was defined the way I'm most likely to write it. That will be my first priority next time I find words like that, but until then, I think I'm going to go back to my pass through the theory book. I'll probably hit on some good word groups that way, and it's really beneficial to go back and see what fingering is tripping me up. The only problem is I've been writing with my steno machine on top of my theory book, so I'll have to find another book to write on.
CBC Strike Two
I did much better this time. I still didn't pass, but I think I improved my score by leaps and bounds. I'm estimating about a 94%, which is a lot better than the 85% I got last time.
Last time, even though I arrived almost an hour early, I was the last one in the room. This time, I got there first, even before the chief examiner. It was nice to be able to set up without anyone else there. I still had to leave my seat about halfway through my warmup to check in. I managed to stay fairly calm while I was warming up, but it was really distracting that the examiner started playing some practice takes to "test the audio system."
She started playing the audio, and then left the room. It seemed to go on forever. I didn't want to listen to it! When she got back, she asked if we wanted to practice to that or our own material. I said I'd prefer our own material, so she didn't play anything else...until a little while later, when she asked again, and unfortunately someone said they wanted to hear it.
I was just about to start my own speedbuilding practice for the first time that session. I think it was about 8:10. I figured the best strategy for me would be to start with the non-audio stuff I do at home before I start speedbuilding practice, and then do a nice easy speedbuilding take that I already had the hang of to calm me down and get me in the groove of "getting" it.
So when the examiner started playing a different audio, I was less than thrilled. I turned up the volume loud enough that I could hear my own audio over what was coming out of the overhead speakers, and then took my earbuds out to make sure I wouldn't be bothering anyone else. It was distracting writing that way, to say the least.
Finally both sets of audio ended, and the examiner said they'd be doing the CRR first, again. I didn't listen to the recorded instructions because I thought they'd be played again before the CBC/CCP. Then I had to sit for 7 minutes and listen to the CRR practice and exam. It seemed way too fast. I didn't want to write it, get all tripped up, and have that be my mindset going into the CBC.
I also didn't want to sit there and do nothing for 7 minutes when I was all warmed up and ready to go. I wound up doing a little of both; not writing for most of the time, but jumping in once or twice to slowly see if I could get anything. Being Q&A, it wasn't geared toward what I'd been practicing at all, so it was hard not to stumble over the material.
Eventually it ended, and the examiner asked if it was okay if she didn't re-play the instructions. Ugh. Hope I didn't miss anything important. I did okay for a while once the CBC started, but I think I lost it a minute or two in. I just wasn't able to relax and write my best. I didn't "drop" any words this time, so much as I just couldn't exactly remember what the speaker said anymore by the time I was ready to write it, so I just kind of made something up that made sense. It's so much easier to write things when they don't have to be verbatim!
Last time, even though I arrived almost an hour early, I was the last one in the room. This time, I got there first, even before the chief examiner. It was nice to be able to set up without anyone else there. I still had to leave my seat about halfway through my warmup to check in. I managed to stay fairly calm while I was warming up, but it was really distracting that the examiner started playing some practice takes to "test the audio system."
She started playing the audio, and then left the room. It seemed to go on forever. I didn't want to listen to it! When she got back, she asked if we wanted to practice to that or our own material. I said I'd prefer our own material, so she didn't play anything else...until a little while later, when she asked again, and unfortunately someone said they wanted to hear it.
I was just about to start my own speedbuilding practice for the first time that session. I think it was about 8:10. I figured the best strategy for me would be to start with the non-audio stuff I do at home before I start speedbuilding practice, and then do a nice easy speedbuilding take that I already had the hang of to calm me down and get me in the groove of "getting" it.
So when the examiner started playing a different audio, I was less than thrilled. I turned up the volume loud enough that I could hear my own audio over what was coming out of the overhead speakers, and then took my earbuds out to make sure I wouldn't be bothering anyone else. It was distracting writing that way, to say the least.
Finally both sets of audio ended, and the examiner said they'd be doing the CRR first, again. I didn't listen to the recorded instructions because I thought they'd be played again before the CBC/CCP. Then I had to sit for 7 minutes and listen to the CRR practice and exam. It seemed way too fast. I didn't want to write it, get all tripped up, and have that be my mindset going into the CBC.
I also didn't want to sit there and do nothing for 7 minutes when I was all warmed up and ready to go. I wound up doing a little of both; not writing for most of the time, but jumping in once or twice to slowly see if I could get anything. Being Q&A, it wasn't geared toward what I'd been practicing at all, so it was hard not to stumble over the material.
Eventually it ended, and the examiner asked if it was okay if she didn't re-play the instructions. Ugh. Hope I didn't miss anything important. I did okay for a while once the CBC started, but I think I lost it a minute or two in. I just wasn't able to relax and write my best. I didn't "drop" any words this time, so much as I just couldn't exactly remember what the speaker said anymore by the time I was ready to write it, so I just kind of made something up that made sense. It's so much easier to write things when they don't have to be verbatim!
Breaking the Habit
I'm going to try to stop avoiding
updating this blog, and to post things when they come to me, rather than
saving them up for so long that I have to divide them into 5 different
posts.
I've been trying to get into the habit of dashing instead of "backspacing" with the asterisk. It's definitely a lot cleaner. I "talk" to myself a lot when I do my steno practice. I write what I'm "saying." If I made a mistake, I would often write "or [correction], rather." Instead of doing that, I've been training myself to dash and re-write the phrase.
That didn't really come in handy when I did my practice for the CBC exam. It doesn't do any good to dash on the exam. In fact, it's actually detrimental. If you do that, you're just giving yourself more of a chance to mess up on the "correction," and you're going to lose points for the incorrect words whether they're followed by a dash or not. It really just gets you farther behind for no reason.
So on the exam, if you have time to delete something, great - if not, you're better off just moving on than dashing and trying to clear it up for a potential reader.
It's kind of bothersome how I was originally training to do verbatim, not looking at the screen, and in order to do CART/captioning, I have to switch out of that mindset - but then to test, I have to switch back into it. Break a habit, intentionally re-form it, break it again..
I've been trying to get into the habit of dashing instead of "backspacing" with the asterisk. It's definitely a lot cleaner. I "talk" to myself a lot when I do my steno practice. I write what I'm "saying." If I made a mistake, I would often write "or [correction], rather." Instead of doing that, I've been training myself to dash and re-write the phrase.
That didn't really come in handy when I did my practice for the CBC exam. It doesn't do any good to dash on the exam. In fact, it's actually detrimental. If you do that, you're just giving yourself more of a chance to mess up on the "correction," and you're going to lose points for the incorrect words whether they're followed by a dash or not. It really just gets you farther behind for no reason.
So on the exam, if you have time to delete something, great - if not, you're better off just moving on than dashing and trying to clear it up for a potential reader.
It's kind of bothersome how I was originally training to do verbatim, not looking at the screen, and in order to do CART/captioning, I have to switch out of that mindset - but then to test, I have to switch back into it. Break a habit, intentionally re-form it, break it again..
New Focus
It seems like I haven't done anything drastic since September. I finished out the Caption Masters Series. I found it to be helpful in two major ways. First, it got me in the habit of striving for a stricter accuracy rate. I had been happy with 95% previously (why?), and the class made me realize 98.5% is a much more beneficial goal. And, as I mentioned before, the idea of "smart writing" was totally new to me. It's definitely the way you have to go with CART or captioning, so I'm glad I'm transitioning over to it now.
I responded to an ad advertising work for students at 185 wpm or better. I'm definitely in that category. It turned out to be a CART opportunity. I got to "shadow" a couple classes and turn in an unedited transcript. The speaker was very slow, and I knocked it out of the park. I barely had any drops, and certainly none that were vital to the content. I got better than 99% accuracy on what I wrote. I never heard back from the company after I sent in my transcripts, which I was pretty disappointed about, but there are plenty of companies out there to apply with when I feel like I've got a product worth selling.
However, that experience was also greatly beneficial in that it gave me an opportunity to feel like I was writing for a viewer, not just for practice. I realized that when I write for a viewer, I've got to look at what I'm writing. I can't just have mistakes going out willy-nilly, even if my accuracy rate is 98% or better. And I've got to practice fingerspelling, not just in general, but specifically while I'm writing. I had never tried to do it before. If I heard a proper name, I'd just stroke it out however I thought best, then during review I'd count it as an error and enter it in my dictionary.
That's not going to fly on air, or with a student. I need to be able to fingerspell things when I hear them, and not just that, but keep paying attention to what's being said as I'm fingerspelling so I can write that, too. One of my main focuses in practice now is to watch the screen, catch mistakes as I make them, dash, and fingerspell. I have a huge hangup with seeing a word that didn't translate (either because I stroked it incorrectly, or because it's just not in my dictionary the way I just decided it should be written), and stopping and completely ignoring what's said after it so I can write it 2-3 more times and see if I can get it to come up right.
So very wrong! The client doesn't want to see 3-4 weird, wrong versions of a word someone said. At best, I need to dash it, fingerspell it, and move on - at worst, I need to just move on. It's tough stuff, though. Just watching the screen alone is a challenge. It slows me down mentally. It's taxing to think about how to write things when I'm also reading what I just wrote and listening to what I need to write next.
The third thing I'm focusing on right now is drops. I have a couple of problem areas. Often when a person's name and title are given, I completely lose it and write only their first name. That's not acceptable. The client needs to know who that person is.
I also have hangups every now and then where I'll get lost, frustrated, and just completely stop writing for about a sentence. I feel like I just need to focus on composure. Aside from that, though, my accuracy's usually pretty good. I've been practicing to a rotation of 30 minutes each of ABC World News, CBS Evening News, PBS NewsHour, and a local news show. I'm only dropping one or two important titles/facts per show, and my accuracy is almost always above 98%. I feel like I am getting close to having a marketable product.
Whew, that took forever! About three hours, if you can believe it. I really shouldn't go such a long time without updating!
I responded to an ad advertising work for students at 185 wpm or better. I'm definitely in that category. It turned out to be a CART opportunity. I got to "shadow" a couple classes and turn in an unedited transcript. The speaker was very slow, and I knocked it out of the park. I barely had any drops, and certainly none that were vital to the content. I got better than 99% accuracy on what I wrote. I never heard back from the company after I sent in my transcripts, which I was pretty disappointed about, but there are plenty of companies out there to apply with when I feel like I've got a product worth selling.
However, that experience was also greatly beneficial in that it gave me an opportunity to feel like I was writing for a viewer, not just for practice. I realized that when I write for a viewer, I've got to look at what I'm writing. I can't just have mistakes going out willy-nilly, even if my accuracy rate is 98% or better. And I've got to practice fingerspelling, not just in general, but specifically while I'm writing. I had never tried to do it before. If I heard a proper name, I'd just stroke it out however I thought best, then during review I'd count it as an error and enter it in my dictionary.
That's not going to fly on air, or with a student. I need to be able to fingerspell things when I hear them, and not just that, but keep paying attention to what's being said as I'm fingerspelling so I can write that, too. One of my main focuses in practice now is to watch the screen, catch mistakes as I make them, dash, and fingerspell. I have a huge hangup with seeing a word that didn't translate (either because I stroked it incorrectly, or because it's just not in my dictionary the way I just decided it should be written), and stopping and completely ignoring what's said after it so I can write it 2-3 more times and see if I can get it to come up right.
So very wrong! The client doesn't want to see 3-4 weird, wrong versions of a word someone said. At best, I need to dash it, fingerspell it, and move on - at worst, I need to just move on. It's tough stuff, though. Just watching the screen alone is a challenge. It slows me down mentally. It's taxing to think about how to write things when I'm also reading what I just wrote and listening to what I need to write next.
The third thing I'm focusing on right now is drops. I have a couple of problem areas. Often when a person's name and title are given, I completely lose it and write only their first name. That's not acceptable. The client needs to know who that person is.
I also have hangups every now and then where I'll get lost, frustrated, and just completely stop writing for about a sentence. I feel like I just need to focus on composure. Aside from that, though, my accuracy's usually pretty good. I've been practicing to a rotation of 30 minutes each of ABC World News, CBS Evening News, PBS NewsHour, and a local news show. I'm only dropping one or two important titles/facts per show, and my accuracy is almost always above 98%. I feel like I am getting close to having a marketable product.
Whew, that took forever! About three hours, if you can believe it. I really shouldn't go such a long time without updating!
CBC Strike One
I had an interesting
time sitting for the CBC skills exam in November. The test site is about
half an hour away, and I got there about an hour before the exam was
scheduled to start. The RTC site was going up and down for some people,
and we weren't sure how we were going to test. I got some practice in,
but I was annoyed that I could hear other people's practice
recordings through their headphones. About 10 minutes before we were
scheduled to test, the chief examiner asked everyone to leave the room
so she could make sure the CD was working.
I think a couple of people stayed, because after a few minutes, one of them let us know we could come back in. I didn't like having to get up right before the test like that. I need some time to get settled into a spot before I'm ready to write. The CRR was played first. I can't remember if they had a pause between the minute of practice and the actual exam or not. The chief examiner gave the CBC testers a choice of having one or not. No one had a preference, and we got the opposite of what the CRR testers had. I remember thinking I would've preferred what they got.
Once the actual test started, my nerves got the best of me, and I felt like I was writing complete slop. I couldn't feel where the keys were, and I couldn't focus on the recording. I think I even dropped a setence or two because I was so zoned out. It was really disappointing, especially since the recording seemed really easy. It felt like something I should've been able to write, which made failing that much harder to take.
I got an 85% on it, which I guess isn't abysmal. I really lucked out, though; since there were problems with giving the test via RTC, it's being offered again for my site (and others) at half price on January 26th. I'll be taking it again, of course, and since I passed both the CBC and CCP written exams in October, I won't ever have to do those again.
My practice strategy, such as it was, was to carry on with my normal 2-hour practice routine every day, and to include the RTC practice take once a day for the week preceeding the exam. The take was a struggle at first, but by the end of the week I had it down pat. This time, for the two weeks preceeding the exam, I'm going to switch out the news portion of my practice for an hour of speedbuilding takes at 180 wpm. Getting back in the groove of metered verbatim is a huge hurdle, but hopefully two weeks will be enough to clear it.
I think a couple of people stayed, because after a few minutes, one of them let us know we could come back in. I didn't like having to get up right before the test like that. I need some time to get settled into a spot before I'm ready to write. The CRR was played first. I can't remember if they had a pause between the minute of practice and the actual exam or not. The chief examiner gave the CBC testers a choice of having one or not. No one had a preference, and we got the opposite of what the CRR testers had. I remember thinking I would've preferred what they got.
Once the actual test started, my nerves got the best of me, and I felt like I was writing complete slop. I couldn't feel where the keys were, and I couldn't focus on the recording. I think I even dropped a setence or two because I was so zoned out. It was really disappointing, especially since the recording seemed really easy. It felt like something I should've been able to write, which made failing that much harder to take.
I got an 85% on it, which I guess isn't abysmal. I really lucked out, though; since there were problems with giving the test via RTC, it's being offered again for my site (and others) at half price on January 26th. I'll be taking it again, of course, and since I passed both the CBC and CCP written exams in October, I won't ever have to do those again.
My practice strategy, such as it was, was to carry on with my normal 2-hour practice routine every day, and to include the RTC practice take once a day for the week preceeding the exam. The take was a struggle at first, but by the end of the week I had it down pat. This time, for the two weeks preceeding the exam, I'm going to switch out the news portion of my practice for an hour of speedbuilding takes at 180 wpm. Getting back in the groove of metered verbatim is a huge hurdle, but hopefully two weeks will be enough to clear it.
Practice and Theory
I'm
still having major problems with my dictionary. So many conflicts are
caused by the StenEd theory. I'm still working to get an asterisk in
every word ending that's also a standalone word - Nate, Kate, date,
nation, etc. It really helps to see my mistakes live as I make them,
though. Previously, after every take I would go through and check my
mistakes, and make note of words I wanted to practice. But it's
different when you're trying to write "live" and you actually see the
mistake come up. It has much more of an effect, and I'm more likely to
remember next time I write it that I need to write it differently,
because I don't want that mistake to happen again.
I'm also writing a larger volume of material now, because I only write a show once and move on. I don't repeat the same show over and over for weeks, or even twice. Seeing just how many words are coming up incorrectly solely because they're not in my dictionary the way I want to write them has made me feel like I need to just go through the whole dictionary and re-write every word to make sure it's going to come out right. I keep a record every show of how many of those "wrote it right but it wasn't in my dictionary that way" words there are, and after 32 shows, I've got an average of .32% right now. It's not horrendous, but it seems like it should be a lot closer to zero.
I've been at the process of re-writing all the words in my dictionary for about 6 weeks now, and I've made it through 7,000 entries. Only a year left to go before it's done at that rate!
I've developed an entirely new theory on defining conflicts. I now define a lot of misstrokes as conflicts. I figure, if it was only going to be defined as "fun" before, what's the harm in having the AI choose between "fun" and "gun" since what I wrote wasn't the correct outline for anything, let alone "fun" or "gun," in the first place?
I am staying away from defining correct outlines as conflicts, though, and trying to come up with different ways of writing things instead. I occasionally stack "N" and "A," like with "taken a," so I'm trying to write "A*N" for "an," but it's not sticking at all. I even write five sentences every day with "an" in them, and most of the time I can remember the asterisk when I write the sentences, but it's been months, and I haven't written it properly once during the news.
Instead of my old practice of going through a take and re-writing each incorrect word five times (that took forever), now I just try to remember as I go through and count errors/make dictionary entries, to also think about whether or not I need to practice that word more. If I do, I add it to a list. I have a list of 58 words I write five times each at the beginning of each practice session. I keep a record of when I added them to that list, and make sure I write them for at least five sessions before I take them off, although I often leave them on for longer. As words get deleted from that list, I add new ones that I found while writing the news.
There are all sorts of words on the list, from names that were hard to write (Ezekiel Emanuel) and new ways of trying to write things (MEN/TO*R, since TOR is a beginning for words like "torment"), to old ways of writing things that I still haven't quite gotten the hang of (EN/M*I so words like it won't conflict with "my"). It seems like an insurmountable task right now to get everything squared away in my dictionary and in my memory, but I guess I'll get there someday if I keep plugging away at it.
I'm still practicing two drills in the Phoenix book at the beginning of every practice session, and my average wpm on all of them is up to 178.5. It's been stuck there for a few weeks for some reason. I think having that cushion to drop words during the news (which I only do when I have to, of course) might be interfering with what little speedbuilding rhythm I had going. Whenever I get discouraged with it, though, I can look back to when I started using the book a year and a half ago, and my average was only 115 wpm. I am improving, whether it seems like it or not.
In support of my theory that I need to re-write all the words in my dictionary, is one particular word: Demetrius. I had it defined 15 different ways, and not one of them was the way I would write it today. I was originally going to identify word groups that I write differently, such as words that end in "cy" or "gy," and re-write only those groups as I identified them. I realized, though, that the problem was much larger than that. Before that, though, I fixed 60 "-cy" entries, 260 for "-gy," and 160 for "-ta," which I now write with an asterisk.
I also had about 1,000 entries ending in "ly" that I had defined with a tucked -L, but that I would never write. Those were causing lots of problems when I misstroked the -L in a word, so I spent some time getting rid of them. And I finally fixed my "di-" so it wasn't the same as my "-dy," but darned if I can remember to write it that way yet.
I'm also writing a larger volume of material now, because I only write a show once and move on. I don't repeat the same show over and over for weeks, or even twice. Seeing just how many words are coming up incorrectly solely because they're not in my dictionary the way I want to write them has made me feel like I need to just go through the whole dictionary and re-write every word to make sure it's going to come out right. I keep a record every show of how many of those "wrote it right but it wasn't in my dictionary that way" words there are, and after 32 shows, I've got an average of .32% right now. It's not horrendous, but it seems like it should be a lot closer to zero.
I've been at the process of re-writing all the words in my dictionary for about 6 weeks now, and I've made it through 7,000 entries. Only a year left to go before it's done at that rate!
I've developed an entirely new theory on defining conflicts. I now define a lot of misstrokes as conflicts. I figure, if it was only going to be defined as "fun" before, what's the harm in having the AI choose between "fun" and "gun" since what I wrote wasn't the correct outline for anything, let alone "fun" or "gun," in the first place?
I am staying away from defining correct outlines as conflicts, though, and trying to come up with different ways of writing things instead. I occasionally stack "N" and "A," like with "taken a," so I'm trying to write "A*N" for "an," but it's not sticking at all. I even write five sentences every day with "an" in them, and most of the time I can remember the asterisk when I write the sentences, but it's been months, and I haven't written it properly once during the news.
Instead of my old practice of going through a take and re-writing each incorrect word five times (that took forever), now I just try to remember as I go through and count errors/make dictionary entries, to also think about whether or not I need to practice that word more. If I do, I add it to a list. I have a list of 58 words I write five times each at the beginning of each practice session. I keep a record of when I added them to that list, and make sure I write them for at least five sessions before I take them off, although I often leave them on for longer. As words get deleted from that list, I add new ones that I found while writing the news.
There are all sorts of words on the list, from names that were hard to write (Ezekiel Emanuel) and new ways of trying to write things (MEN/TO*R, since TOR is a beginning for words like "torment"), to old ways of writing things that I still haven't quite gotten the hang of (EN/M*I so words like it won't conflict with "my"). It seems like an insurmountable task right now to get everything squared away in my dictionary and in my memory, but I guess I'll get there someday if I keep plugging away at it.
I'm still practicing two drills in the Phoenix book at the beginning of every practice session, and my average wpm on all of them is up to 178.5. It's been stuck there for a few weeks for some reason. I think having that cushion to drop words during the news (which I only do when I have to, of course) might be interfering with what little speedbuilding rhythm I had going. Whenever I get discouraged with it, though, I can look back to when I started using the book a year and a half ago, and my average was only 115 wpm. I am improving, whether it seems like it or not.
In support of my theory that I need to re-write all the words in my dictionary, is one particular word: Demetrius. I had it defined 15 different ways, and not one of them was the way I would write it today. I was originally going to identify word groups that I write differently, such as words that end in "cy" or "gy," and re-write only those groups as I identified them. I realized, though, that the problem was much larger than that. Before that, though, I fixed 60 "-cy" entries, 260 for "-gy," and 160 for "-ta," which I now write with an asterisk.
I also had about 1,000 entries ending in "ly" that I had defined with a tucked -L, but that I would never write. Those were causing lots of problems when I misstroked the -L in a word, so I spent some time getting rid of them. And I finally fixed my "di-" so it wasn't the same as my "-dy," but darned if I can remember to write it that way yet.
Finally, another big list of all the word endings
I went through and added asterisks to: –rat, -lator, -seen, -lent, -tor,
-clear, -tha, -sell, -cell, -mist, -gan, -trick, -dance, -phone, ax-, -con, -YOU, -el, -tel,
-tal, -don, -lop, -ger, -yam, -mat, –ture, -tin, -ten, -ron, -ster, -band,
-kate, -nate, -yum, -date, -late, -tize, and -ual (yule).
Back
Long time no post, again. I've still been plugging away with my two hours of practice every day. I kept up with my routine of using the actual live news for my speedbuilding practice until June, when I started doing the Caption Masters Series. I didn't exactly test into it, I just signed up for it, figuring I was probably good enough to do it. That's been true in some senses; I don't have any trouble at all keeping up with the homework, but I have yet to pass a test. You have to get 98.5% accuracy first-pass on live broadcasts, and I'm not quite there yet.
So far I've practiced the news and the weather. I can occasionally get a 5-7-minute weather segment at 98.5% accuracy on the first try, which is pretty cool. The teacher suggested we use "smart writing," which involves dropping adjectives and other things that might not be super important if it keeps us from dropping things that are important. It's been pretty effective. On the one hand, it's easier because you don't have to write things verbatim; on the other hand, it's harder because it adds an extra level of things you're thinking about the whole time. "What phrase wasn't important? What don't I have to write? How could I paraphrase that to make it quicker?" Of course, verbatim is always your ultimate goal. But it's more important to convey everything loosely than to convey half of it verbatim. Unfortunately, it's a strategy that's going to work against me whenever I take the CBC exam.
I don't use the tripod anymore. I felt like I couldn't reach the machine, so I went back to putting it on my lap. I just use a little leather portfolio folder to give it about 3/4 of an inch of extra height and keep it flat. That seems to be working out okay. I still feel like I'm a little shaky 75% of the time in terms of "finding" the keys, but I'm doing a lot better in that area than I was before.
I have a ton of free time to do steno stuff now, but I don't do it. I did spend about an hour working on a list of 30 "to-do" items I had come up with in the past few months, though. Here's what I fixed:
-Defined "out-" as "O*UT," yet I still had ~50 words in my dictionary defined like RAED/O*UT.
-Finally went into my pre/suf table and deleted all the StenoMaster stuff I don't actually use - the integrated -able, -en, -ful, -ive, -ize, -ment, -ness, dis-, and -ly. Hopefully that will result in TM suggesting fewer of those, although I've already got so many defined it's kind of a mess.
-Deleted 300 entries I made using "DZ" for "-ing."
-Fixed problematic word endings with -lick, -rat, -line, -rid, -rig, -man/-men, -woman/-women, -ard, -son, and -gan.
-Updated my "ego-" to AOEG.
-Updated "TAIR" to "TA*IR" in 100 words.
-Decided to do LAM/NAIT, etc. and NA*IT for Nate; COMP/KAIT, etc., and KA*IT for Kate
-Finally got around to changing all 113 of my leftover "nk" words from "*NG" to "FRNG"
I came up with a couple more things to fix after I did that. I also just started defining conflicts. I think I've stayed away from them all this time because I didn't want to take the time to sit down and train the AI. But I defined one, and it picked up on it almost immediately, so I thought, what better time to work out the kinks than when no one can see them?
So far I've practiced the news and the weather. I can occasionally get a 5-7-minute weather segment at 98.5% accuracy on the first try, which is pretty cool. The teacher suggested we use "smart writing," which involves dropping adjectives and other things that might not be super important if it keeps us from dropping things that are important. It's been pretty effective. On the one hand, it's easier because you don't have to write things verbatim; on the other hand, it's harder because it adds an extra level of things you're thinking about the whole time. "What phrase wasn't important? What don't I have to write? How could I paraphrase that to make it quicker?" Of course, verbatim is always your ultimate goal. But it's more important to convey everything loosely than to convey half of it verbatim. Unfortunately, it's a strategy that's going to work against me whenever I take the CBC exam.
I don't use the tripod anymore. I felt like I couldn't reach the machine, so I went back to putting it on my lap. I just use a little leather portfolio folder to give it about 3/4 of an inch of extra height and keep it flat. That seems to be working out okay. I still feel like I'm a little shaky 75% of the time in terms of "finding" the keys, but I'm doing a lot better in that area than I was before.
I have a ton of free time to do steno stuff now, but I don't do it. I did spend about an hour working on a list of 30 "to-do" items I had come up with in the past few months, though. Here's what I fixed:
-Defined "out-" as "O*UT," yet I still had ~50 words in my dictionary defined like RAED/O*UT.
-Finally went into my pre/suf table and deleted all the StenoMaster stuff I don't actually use - the integrated -able, -en, -ful, -ive, -ize, -ment, -ness, dis-, and -ly. Hopefully that will result in TM suggesting fewer of those, although I've already got so many defined it's kind of a mess.
-Deleted 300 entries I made using "DZ" for "-ing."
-Fixed problematic word endings with -lick, -rat, -line, -rid, -rig, -man/-men, -woman/-women, -ard, -son, and -gan.
-Updated my "ego-" to AOEG.
-Updated "TAIR" to "TA*IR" in 100 words.
-Decided to do LAM/NAIT, etc. and NA*IT for Nate; COMP/KAIT, etc., and KA*IT for Kate
-Finally got around to changing all 113 of my leftover "nk" words from "*NG" to "FRNG"
I came up with a couple more things to fix after I did that. I also just started defining conflicts. I think I've stayed away from them all this time because I didn't want to take the time to sit down and train the AI. But I defined one, and it picked up on it almost immediately, so I thought, what better time to work out the kinks than when no one can see them?
1.05.12
It's been a while since I updated. I'm still liking the tripod with my LS. I'd like to move away from it and go to a lapdesk at some point, but that's down the road when I've perfected my positioning. I think I'm making progress on that front, but it's definitely not dialed in yet. I've been working on my sitting posture, starting with getting comfortable in the legs and back, and adjusting everything else from there, on a daily basis. The past couple of days it's worked out pretty well.
I got probably about 3 minutes into my last piece, and then I was ready to try out a new strategy I've been planning to start for a while. I completely abandoned the speed "tapes." The VITAC book suggests recording national news and practicing to that, and that seems like a pretty solid strategy. I really need practice writing spontaneously, and it's great for practicing a variety of names and terms instead of the same ones for two months at a time.
The book suggests breaking the episode up into each individual story. First you listen to it in its entirity, and write down/practice any words you think might trip you up. I always come up with an alarming number of them, way more than I feel like I should have at this point. I've tweaked my theory so much though, I just don't have any of it in my muscle memory at all. Which is why I'm also going back through my theory book. That's something I've been trying to do for a long time, but I let myself get sidetracked with dictionary maintenance.
Speaking of which, I got a lot done there. I finished all of my P and B inflected endings, and did 2-3 other things that I don't remember anymore. I have yet more I need to do, but I'm going to try to do that during non-practice time.
After you run through the story without writing anything, you write the introduction alone until you've got it perfect, then the story, then the follow-up. It's awesome not having people blazing along at a constant 250 wpm anymore! I don't pick it up nearly as fast as I should; sometimes it takes me 2-3 hours just to get a 3 minute segment. But hopefully, you can't go wrong practicing at real speeds.
I'm up to at least 130 wpm on all of my Phoenix drills, with an average speed of 150. I've been using the drill book for 30 weeks so far. Only another 30 to go if I keep up at this rate..
For those of you following along, perhaps in your own dictionaries, here are the rest of the possible word-boundary errors I've fixed.
Final word parts:
light, ground, long, box, fish, hound, fight, shot, saw, bag, book, cuff, cap, string, sick, strong, break, sight, knife, pot, sake, proof, seed, spring, hood, cure, night, week, stop, pick, suit, shop, coat, drop, sack, paper, track, bite, lash, pipe, place, berry, play, lance, piece, field, spread, bug, bird, port, pit, beat, wood, weight, word, guard, bed
Instances that only affected one word:
heartthrob, hedgehog, henpeck, hitchhike, hoodwink, inkblot, ironclad, jackhammer, landlord, livestock, mankind, nightclub, paycheck, pinstripe, shoptalk, skyrocket, smokestack, spendthrift, sunroof, wisecrack, carefree, shipshape, sideswipe, switchblade, bedfellow, bellhop, jailbait, kidnap, netherworld, nosebleed, postpaid, postscript, snowplow, stopgap, teacup, wastebasket, watchdog, waterspout, wiretap, shopworn
I discovered that I was writing "fore-" and "fore" the same way (thanks StenEd), but I don't think I'm going to fix it. I also had a lot of problems with words that start with "up" (uphold, uphill, etc) and "air" (aircraft, airstrike, etc).
11.11
I got my new minute already. I really liked the strategy of starting at a slower speed. I think what worked for me was telling myself I wasn't allowed to move on until I was "comfortable" writing it, as opposed to just shooting for 95% accuracy. The minute was also only at 220 wpm, which is the speed RTC claims the entire piece is, and the speed at which I actually want to practice.
I decided to try getting a tripod for the LS, and today was the first time I used it. It was actually really nice not having to balance anything on my lap. It felt much more sturdy that way, and I think it's going to work out.
I have another list of potential word-boundary conflicts: cast, going, grade, heart, ward, stream, wind, bridge, found, wax, bound, rail, nail, comb, fill, hole, room, pile, mill, fare, house, made, and bulb. And there were a few words that only presented problems in one instance: printwheel, standstill, and handshake. I can't believe anyone would have STAND\STIL defined as one word! There were a lot of instances for "-house" and "-room" especially. I also changed "board" to BAORD a while ago, but I never went back and put asterisks in for "-board" or even fixed all instances of BORD, apparently, so I took care of that.
When I got to "-nk" in the Phoenix drills, I realized I never practiced doing FRNG instead of *NG. I started trying to think of the finger formation as "-nk" instead of thinking of words as, for example, DRAFRNG. That's what you're always supposed to do, but there are a lot of instances where I never quite got there. PB I think of as N, of course, and TK as D, etc., but for a lot of the other stuff, like IFM for "-ism," I'm still thinking "IFM." "-nk" words were dramatically easier to stroke once I started thinking of the position instead of the keys, so hopefully I can apply that to other aspects as well.
I decided to try getting a tripod for the LS, and today was the first time I used it. It was actually really nice not having to balance anything on my lap. It felt much more sturdy that way, and I think it's going to work out.
I have another list of potential word-boundary conflicts: cast, going, grade, heart, ward, stream, wind, bridge, found, wax, bound, rail, nail, comb, fill, hole, room, pile, mill, fare, house, made, and bulb. And there were a few words that only presented problems in one instance: printwheel, standstill, and handshake. I can't believe anyone would have STAND\STIL defined as one word! There were a lot of instances for "-house" and "-room" especially. I also changed "board" to BAORD a while ago, but I never went back and put asterisks in for "-board" or even fixed all instances of BORD, apparently, so I took care of that.
When I got to "-nk" in the Phoenix drills, I realized I never practiced doing FRNG instead of *NG. I started trying to think of the finger formation as "-nk" instead of thinking of words as, for example, DRAFRNG. That's what you're always supposed to do, but there are a lot of instances where I never quite got there. PB I think of as N, of course, and TK as D, etc., but for a lot of the other stuff, like IFM for "-ism," I'm still thinking "IFM." "-nk" words were dramatically easier to stroke once I started thinking of the position instead of the keys, so hopefully I can apply that to other aspects as well.
11.6
I finally got the two minutes together that I was working on. It only took me 7 weeks. Way longer than it should have, but I just can't get the positioning right. It's like when you type on someone else's keyboard. On your keyboard, you can type 100 wpm. On an unfamiliar keyboard, suddenly you're knocked down to 60. I feel like I've been writing on someone else's steno machine for the past 8 months, and it hasn't gotten any more familiar than it was on the very first day.
I decided to go back to my old teacher's strategy of speedbuilding: learn the minute at a slow speed, then bump it up a speed until you're comfortable with that, and then bump it up one last time to your goal speed. I don't know what kind of progress I'll make with that strategy, but for now I'm liking writing at 180 wpm.
I'm down to 8,440 entries with "B" in them that might need inflected endings added. I figured out a lot of ways to weed out things that weren't verbs, like looking at words that end in "y" or "s" or whatnot. I've also continued finding word parts that need to be asterisked: bone, stroke, nose, son, late, lock, hand, time, foot, wear, print, note, step, land, head, walk, and hold.
I ran into particularly tedious problems with "out-" and "sub-". The old StenEd "out-" is O*UT, which is my "-out," so I had to move the asterisks in those outlines from the first stroke to the second one. I don't like the idea of "sub" and "sub-" being the same outline, so I had to add an asterisk to all the strokes that come after "sub-" (or at least the ones that are words on their own), like "submarine" and whatnot.
I decided to go back to my old teacher's strategy of speedbuilding: learn the minute at a slow speed, then bump it up a speed until you're comfortable with that, and then bump it up one last time to your goal speed. I don't know what kind of progress I'll make with that strategy, but for now I'm liking writing at 180 wpm.
I'm down to 8,440 entries with "B" in them that might need inflected endings added. I figured out a lot of ways to weed out things that weren't verbs, like looking at words that end in "y" or "s" or whatnot. I've also continued finding word parts that need to be asterisked: bone, stroke, nose, son, late, lock, hand, time, foot, wear, print, note, step, land, head, walk, and hold.
I ran into particularly tedious problems with "out-" and "sub-". The old StenEd "out-" is O*UT, which is my "-out," so I had to move the asterisks in those outlines from the first stroke to the second one. I don't like the idea of "sub" and "sub-" being the same outline, so I had to add an asterisk to all the strokes that come after "sub-" (or at least the ones that are words on their own), like "submarine" and whatnot.
8.8
Lots of things have happened since I updated last. I got a new job, which I like lot better, and that kind of takes the pressure off of getting done with "school" as soon as possible. My boyfriend of six years broke up with me a week ago, but I didn’t take a single second off from homework. I think it actually helped me focus a little bit. I also didn’t care about much of anything for a few days, so I wasn’t stressed out about trying to get everything perfect when I was writing.
I got the 2 minutes together that I was working on last Saturday, at 97.8% accuracy, and 250 wpm at the end. I was also going at 250 wpm when I got the next minute last Wednesday (I just barely got it – 95.01% accuracy). That one only went so quickly because it was at about 210 wpm, though. Now all I have left to finish the piece is the last 2 minutes together!
Unfortunately, because of scheduling with my new job, I had to take 2 days off in a row. I used to take a day off once a week, and I haven’t been doing that for about seven months. Now I get to go back to it, which is great, but this particular set of weeks, the days had to be next to each other, and that didn’t help at all.
I feel like I spend 95% of my practice time writing in a position where I can’t properly reach the keys, and then, that one magical moment when I manage to get in the right position is when I get my minutes. I guess I’ll figure it out eventually. I discovered that slog, spake, and slub weren’t in my dictionary. I also got "boric flay" out of trying to write "work and play," which was interesting.
7.02
I finally finished my piece! I have been working on it for almost 14 weeks. That seems a little excessive. I got it at over 300 wpm and 96% accuracy. I start my speedbuilding every day by writing difficult words from the piece five times each. I don't take those words off the list until I finish the piece. I wound up with 53 words for this piece, and I decided I can write all but 16 of them well enough now. I’ve really been looking forward to not having to write all of those anymore.
You may remember that I came up with a great brief for "breast cancer" earlier in the piece. It turned out it wasn't so easy to stroke, but the misstrokes didn't conflict with anything, so I didn't worry about it. I now have 38 entries for it, and I wrote it the right way over 5,100 times. I wound up with a final total of 35 entries for mammogram, but I only wrote that 1,300 times.
You may remember that I came up with a great brief for "breast cancer" earlier in the piece. It turned out it wasn't so easy to stroke, but the misstrokes didn't conflict with anything, so I didn't worry about it. I now have 38 entries for it, and I wrote it the right way over 5,100 times. I wound up with a final total of 35 entries for mammogram, but I only wrote that 1,300 times.
My new piece seems like it’s going to be really hard, or at least the first minute is. There are a lot of names. It’s also at 235 wpm. I slowed it down to the next highest speed, and it was 211 wpm. I don’t want to drop down that low, so I guess I’m just stuck with 235. Today was my first day with it and I got up to 173 wpm. I had to slow it down to 140 in order to write it perfectly, though.
I figured out which drill I missed in the book. I only had a few drills left to check after that one, so I just went ahead and finished them, and tomorrow I go back to the ones I was really bad at. I’ve been working on a new strategy with the book, which is to kind of read ahead and get ready for the words that are coming up instead of just letting them be a surprise. It seems to be working well.
6.22
I got up to 250 on the new minute a few times today. With my current setup, I don't have anything under the LS - no case, no paper, nothing. I hope it stays that way when I get something permanent down. I felt like it was worth noting that when I do the Phoenix drills, anything I misstroke for the first time counts as a mistake, and I don't get to move on to the next speed. If it's already in my dictionary because I misstroked it last time, I don't count it as a misstroke. I decided today that if Translation Magic translates it properly even though it's a first-time misstroke, I'm not going to count that as a misstroke, either.
I moved up to 60 wpm on SKW (from 45), and 70 WPM on SHR (from 50), which I was happy with. I was not happy that it took me over half an hour to do it, but I'm committing to doing two drills every day. After I made it through all 107 drills (actually, I somehow missed a couple somewhere before #66, and I have no idea which ones, so I need to figure that out someday), my average speed was exactly 115 wpm. It was down to 110 before I got to the "strength-building drills," so I was happy enough to see it go back up to 115. Now after re-doing 3 drills, it's up to 116. Not exactly impressive, but I'll get there.
6.20
I’ve made things difficult for myself with the Report-It again. I realized that in the new position, I was focusing on keeping my shoulders down so I wouldn’t have tension in them. But that was a kind of tension, too, and I wasn’t completely relaxed in that position, either. So I needed to find a place to put the Report-It where my shoulders would be completely relaxed, and now that’s been driving me crazy again.
You know how sometimes, your machine just isn’t quite in the right spot, and you have to slightly adjust your own positioning to account for it, and really fight to get down every word, because you can’t stop to move the machine? I’ve been writing every word like that for the past month. It’s going to be good when I get it right though, I know it is.
I finally got something right today. It was a horrible day for practice. I spent the first 2 hours messing with the Report-It. I didn’t record how long I spent on the drill book, but it was a long time. I finally made it all the way through yesterday, and I also went back and re-did an exercise for the first time. Each day I’m going to do the two that I have the slowest currently recorded speeds for. My worst speed, which was only on one exercise thankfully (the FR one), was 50 wpm.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t best that speed yesterday. But today, I doubled it! I got the words at 100 wpm. I decided that if I have a misstroke already defined in my dictionary, and I write the word that way, it counts as being correct. It doesn’t matter if I’m training myself to write it incorrectly as long as it translates and doesn’t conflict with anything. That took a long time though, writing all 65 words enough times to double the speed, and then I had to do my next-slowest exercise. SKW, 55 wpm. I couldn’t even do it at 55 though. I had to drop it down to 50.
It was well past my normal homework time by the time I started speedbuilding in earnest (8 hours past, in fact) and I wasn’t expecting much out of it since I never really got the Report-It where I wanted it. But then, I wrote my piece (or at least the last two minutes, which is all I’m counting for accuracy) all the way through, and it was at 95% accuracy! After writing the same 4 minutes over and over for the past month, I finally get to move on to..the last minute on this piece!
I know what you’re thinking: if you could write 2 minutes individually at 95% accuracy, and it took you a month to be able to write them together at 95% (with 2 minutes in front of them), maybe that speed is too high. But I maintain that it would’ve happened a lot faster if I hadn’t been struggling with the Report-It the entire time.
StenEd teaches that "any" is NI and "-ny" is N*I. That’s a little weird, though. None of the other –y suffixes have asterisks, so why not just make "any" N*I or something? I was just going to leave it, even though the VITAC book says “-ny” should be NI, but I decided I’d rather go for consistency, so I changed all 176 dictionary entries that had the N*I. Now I have to learn to write "any" as NE. That’s what the book suggested, and I liked the idea of leaving N*I open for other things. I also found a few dozen entries that started with "OR," which I can’t have because that’s my stroke for the word "or," so I fixed those.
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