I'm in a strange situation this semester. I have two classes over four days for the same student, and for whatever reason, that student often doesn't need CART for those classes. However, they don't notify the company, so I dutifully get all set up and ready to go every time, only to wind up with an extra hour and a half of free time on my hands. That adds up to six hours a week that I'm getting paid without having my time used up, so I've got a lot more time to work with this semester than I've had before.
I don't seem to get any more done than usual, but I do feel a lot more relaxed about things. At the moment, I'm booked solid for the next two weeks, which is a nice feeling. When I go into a week not having my normal amount of hours pre-booked, my schedule is totally up in the air. So far this semester I haven't had a time when I couldn't fill the hours by the end of the week, but it often comes down to booking something on Thursday for Friday, and it's stressful letting it go for that long. I could book something ahead of time for less money, but I'm experimenting with sticking to the rate I've set, and so far it's worked. I know I'll have to lower it for December and January, though, when there aren't going to be many classes to cover.
I thought about expanding my captioning hours during that time, but for now I think I'm just going to see what happens if I don't. I do average about two hours a week of captioning, so that will fill in the gaps at least a little bit. I've been doing a bit of government meeting work, but that's going to go away for December and January, too. I could send out "increased availability" emails to some companies that pay less than my rate but more than captioning, but I'm going to hold off on that for now, too.
I love the accuracy I'm able to get with CART. Even with captioning, my tran rate is usually 99.95% or better, and with CART it's typically 99.97% or better. And at least two-thirds of what didn't translate came out right anyway because of TM. I even get 100% all the time, and my wpm hits 300 quite a bit. My best average wpm for captioning is still around 215. I want it to be higher, but I don't get to practice captioning much. I write the news for four days straight, and I feel great about it by the fourth day, but then I have a week off from it before I do the four days again.
Bloopers
I can't remember the last time I actually got to the point where I had written everything I could think of; I always run out of time to write before that happens. But, here we are. I've been saving up some errors that I thought were funny, and now that it's been so long since I actually made these mistakes, I can post them without feeling bad about my work.
I was also trying to write that someone "was a Carolina Cobra" and it came out "was a kookaburra" thanks to TM, although when you think about it, it's not any more silly for someone to be a kookaburra than to be a cobra.
Apparently, I also noted that I learned the word exoteric (commonplace). Previously, I only knew about esoteric, which means the exact opposite (confidential).
- the line is beefing up = the shine beef (dragged S in "line")
- "Malinowski was going to be put in the camp as an Emmy alien" (EM instead of EN)
- "I'm going to go bang to my paper" (dragged P in "back")
- contradict trialternative (same stroke for tri- and -try)
- cyber operations = quiche operations (hit K instead of S)
- "Anything else on your ox vacations -- observations?" (dragged G)
- Forgot my stroke for "-ment" and wrote about the Garmin industry in 1911
- Evolution = "evil Louis that we've seen in workload scheduling" (dragged L)
- Santa Day O'Connor (missed K)
- motivation = meat vacation (A for O)
I was also trying to write that someone "was a Carolina Cobra" and it came out "was a kookaburra" thanks to TM, although when you think about it, it's not any more silly for someone to be a kookaburra than to be a cobra.
Apparently, I also noted that I learned the word exoteric (commonplace). Previously, I only knew about esoteric, which means the exact opposite (confidential).
10.21.14
I've always had a terrible time writing "equilibrium"; it's defined 30 ways in my dictionary, and it still comes out wrong when I write it. I noticed AB was reminding me one of the ways I have it is BR*UM. It comes up a lot in my leadership class, and I've totally memorized it now. So much easier! Another new one I use a lot is AO*LG for "algorithm." It's surprising how many different contexts that word comes up in.
I recently set my AB to remind/give me briefs for things even if it would only save one stroke. That's probably too sensitive if you're just starting out with AB, but now that I've been using it for a while, I think I'm going to like it. It's giving me lots of helpful things, and there were times before when I wasn't getting anything for words I wanted briefs for. Just today it gave me one for "annotated outline," which really saved me.
Looking that up reminded me that I couldn't figure out how to write "cedar." Luckily I fingerspelled it and got a brief for it (which I used 19 times in an hour). I just checked on what the problem was, and it's the fact that I recently changed -dar from DAR to DA*R. I was having conflicts with Darlene, Darnell, etc., and I figured it should've been DA*R all along. But it's going to take some getting used to writing it - radar is probably the first one I'll learn, although it isn't sticking yet.
A couple other items of note are that I was pleasantly surprised to stroke out "Tiananmen Square" as best I could and have it actually translate, and I successfully fingerspelled "heterogenous." I miss the asterisk in "help" sometimes, and I wind up with "hep," so I'm used to seeing and erasing "hep" quite a bit, but I finally got to actually use it the other day when someone said "hep C."
I recently set my AB to remind/give me briefs for things even if it would only save one stroke. That's probably too sensitive if you're just starting out with AB, but now that I've been using it for a while, I think I'm going to like it. It's giving me lots of helpful things, and there were times before when I wasn't getting anything for words I wanted briefs for. Just today it gave me one for "annotated outline," which really saved me.
Looking that up reminded me that I couldn't figure out how to write "cedar." Luckily I fingerspelled it and got a brief for it (which I used 19 times in an hour). I just checked on what the problem was, and it's the fact that I recently changed -dar from DAR to DA*R. I was having conflicts with Darlene, Darnell, etc., and I figured it should've been DA*R all along. But it's going to take some getting used to writing it - radar is probably the first one I'll learn, although it isn't sticking yet.
A couple other items of note are that I was pleasantly surprised to stroke out "Tiananmen Square" as best I could and have it actually translate, and I successfully fingerspelled "heterogenous." I miss the asterisk in "help" sometimes, and I wind up with "hep," so I'm used to seeing and erasing "hep" quite a bit, but I finally got to actually use it the other day when someone said "hep C."
Tips from Kosmo
I think I've settled into a good work routine. I have 13 hours a week standard with classes, which seems to be the perfect number, and I fill in the rest with teleconferences and government meetings. I wasn't too thrilled about the government meetings, but I figured it would be good to work for companies that might have work during the off season; only after I accepted the offers did it occur to me that there probably won't be that much government work during off times. It's still a good standby to have, though.
Writing this post reminds me I think it's time to make some more three-stroke briefs. Apparently I've written avant-garde 987 times, but it doesn't seem like I write it enough that I would remember a brief for it. I tried to do briefs for five words last time, and only three of them "stuck." I've written "especially" 1700 times the three-stroke way, and since I made a brief for it four months ago, I've written it in one stroke 1800 times, so that's definitely the shining example.
"Agriculture" and "organic" were also successful. Now I'm going to try to remember "invitation" and "degrees," which didn't stick last time, and I guess I'll go down the list in order and do "avant-garde," too. I did start using the degree symbol when I write the weather, though, so that's one degree-related practice that stuck.
Another awesome trick I learned from Kosmo's Korner is the "join paragraph" macro. I knew you could join paragraphs, but I never thought of doing it while realtiming. There are tons of times, though, when I start a new paragraph, and then one or two sentences into the paragraph, someone else says something, and I wish I could stick those one or two sentences back onto the first paragraph. And now I can! It doesn't affect StreamText, but it does make the transcript look a lot better. It's a little bit corny, but it's like Kosmo says - it's all about making you look better.
I had a bit of trouble making it work because I only have one space after a period by default, but when the paragraphs joined, there were two. I had noticed that in editing, too, and it was really annoying, so I called support about it, but they didn't know what to do. Then I realized that at least during realtime, I was using a macro, so I could just program the macro to delete the extra space, which I did, and now it's perfect!
Writing this post reminds me I think it's time to make some more three-stroke briefs. Apparently I've written avant-garde 987 times, but it doesn't seem like I write it enough that I would remember a brief for it. I tried to do briefs for five words last time, and only three of them "stuck." I've written "especially" 1700 times the three-stroke way, and since I made a brief for it four months ago, I've written it in one stroke 1800 times, so that's definitely the shining example.
"Agriculture" and "organic" were also successful. Now I'm going to try to remember "invitation" and "degrees," which didn't stick last time, and I guess I'll go down the list in order and do "avant-garde," too. I did start using the degree symbol when I write the weather, though, so that's one degree-related practice that stuck.
Another awesome trick I learned from Kosmo's Korner is the "join paragraph" macro. I knew you could join paragraphs, but I never thought of doing it while realtiming. There are tons of times, though, when I start a new paragraph, and then one or two sentences into the paragraph, someone else says something, and I wish I could stick those one or two sentences back onto the first paragraph. And now I can! It doesn't affect StreamText, but it does make the transcript look a lot better. It's a little bit corny, but it's like Kosmo says - it's all about making you look better.
I had a bit of trouble making it work because I only have one space after a period by default, but when the paragraphs joined, there were two. I had noticed that in editing, too, and it was really annoying, so I called support about it, but they didn't know what to do. Then I realized that at least during realtime, I was using a macro, so I could just program the macro to delete the extra space, which I did, and now it's perfect!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)