back in the saddle agaaaaaaain

did ya miss me?
the conference on the whole was pretty lame...they somehow thought 1200 people were going to show up and 1600 showed up, so everything was crowded beyond belief. (which, btw, i don't know HOW they screwed that up, since everyone had to register) i got sick of it by the second day, b/c i'd walk into a session and people were sitting in the aisles and standing up all along the back, etc. LAME. i didn't pay a boatload o' money to not be able to get into the sessions i wanted to. i guess a lot of hotels just don't have enough bigger rooms to accommodate that many people, so they put a bunch of sessions in really tiny rooms, and everyone and their dog tried to get in the door. plus, a lot of the sessions i did attend were boring and/or we already knew the material from our program here at ksu. i did get a few good contacts that i'm going to follow up on, but were they really worth $500? dunno. i did get my rings welded together, since braden bought them out in WA, and i like it much better. i also got to see a little bit of the in-laws, which was nice.
some happy news: my waiver form went through! i only have to take 2 classes next semester (sci/tech/med translation and case study in translation). the latter class is pretty much an individual investigation, so i'm reasonably sure we don't have to meet for that, which means i'd only actually have to physically go to one class. SWEET. i'm planning on devoting christmas break to my case study, since i haven't really had any time this semester to work on it, even though technically you're supposed to. i only know a handful of people who have, though, since we're all so busy. i found out that we're allowed to defend our case study as early as we want to, so i'm going to set a goal to get mine done early. we'll see how that goes. i'm considering not working at all during the break, so i can entirely devote that time to translating. i also want to start researching translation companies and start sending out resumes... it occurred to me this morning that i could see what internships are available for the summer and see what i could get...you never know. everything depends on where it is, for how long, how much it pays, etc, but braden's open to it as well. i wasn't able to apply for anything this past summer, b/c of my GA-ship, but i could next summer... we'll see.

so i saw the night before i left for the conference that we have this huge project due today: a 30 term bilingual glossary, plus 5 hospital forms translated into Spanish. And of course, i couldn't work on it while i was gone, so i started on monday. not only did i manage to get the entire thing done by tuesday night (with some help from braden, who went and got some forms for me and was freaking awesome), but i also finished our regular homework, which was doubled, since we didn't meet the week of the conference. that is some HIGH productivity. i love that sense of accomplishment. i still have plenty of work to do, as always, but i really didn't think i'd get all that done so quickly. YAY!

an fbi guy came and spoke to us yesterday. he was pretty funny, and had a lot of interesting things to say about becoming a contract linguist there. it sounds pretty interesting, but there are some drawbacks to it that i don't know if i could handle (i'll explain in greater detail later), plus the clearance/background check process takes at least a yr, but more like 18 months, so people have to apply and then get another job and quit that one if they finally get cleared.

well, i need to prepare some stuff for today, so peace out.

all my bags are packed, i'm ready to go...

actually, my bags are only partly packed. MOST-ly dead.
Anyway, i got my business cards from kinkos on friday, and they didn't put a spaces where they should have in "Spanish<>English Translator". they had it like i wrote it just now, no spaces whatsoever, even though that was specified. grr. it's not horrible, and it's not like i can't hand them out, but it's just annoying that even when they were told that, and i also asked if they had any questions, to which they replied no, and they still messed it up. plus, every time i talked to someone, their estimated delivery time kept going up and up (3 different times, 3 different employees). when i pointed this out to the one guy, he very quickly started explaining, "well, blah, blah, blah.." whatever...just pick one and tell that to everyone. i don't care which it is; it's the inconsistency that bothers me.

i leave tomorrow way early in the morning. i hope i can get to bed early tonight. i'll have to get up at like 4am or something crazy like that. yuck. :)

i made "rabbit in the hole" yesterday for brunch, just like Grandma S. used to make, except she probably never had to recook it after noticing that it wasn't actually cooked all the way. it's where you cut a hole in the middle of a slice of bread and then cook an egg in there. delish. i saw it on ER the other day, although they called it something else, so i had a hankering for it. a hanker for a hunk 'a cheese. who remembers school rock or whatever it's called?

for one of my exercises (ie, homework) for healthcare interpreting, we have to find 4 derogatory terms and 4 vulgar terms in our languages and then try to find equivalents in english. i had fun telling braden yesterday (when he asked what i'd been doing) that i'd been looking up ethnic slurs (that's all i said). lol. the point of the exercise is that in an interpreting situation, you have to translate EVERYTHING, including swearing and derogatory terms....thus, you have to know what they are, and how to translate them. that wouldn't be my favorite part, b/c it's one thing to hear a bad word in a foreign language, since it doesn't mean anything to you and it's not as harsh...and another if you have to drop the f-bomb numerous times to a doctor b/c your hispanic patient has a foul mouth. mmm, good times.

well, probably no new posts for a week, although we'll see...

wish me luck!

one more thing

i may be able to only take two classes next semester instead of 3, b/c i have 8 more credits b/c of the web design classes i've taken last spring and during the summer. apparently there's a waiver form that will enable me to still keep my assistantship even if i'm not a full-time student. that will rock the hizzouse. i just need 3 signatures from deans, and i need to check with my graduate coordinator to make sure that i can count the web courses toward my degree and still be able to graduate in the spring. i hope it all works out, b/c then i will be able to devote more time to my case study. :)

update

i finally finished the localization midterm late tuesday night...and then in class yesterday, the prof gave us ANOTHER project that looks pretty time-consuming. he's not very popular right now. more than half the class is going to the American Translators Association (ATA) conference in Seattle next week, including him, so how about not giving us homework, or at least giving us until a week after we get back to turn it in. grrr.

so yeah, i'll be gone from Wed the 9th to Sun morning the 13th. i'm looking forward to it; it will be a great chance to network and make some contacts so i can get some freelance work after i graduate. hopefully i'll be taken more seriously this year, since i'm about to graduate in May and haven't JUST started my program, which is how it was last year (or so it seemed to me).

braden has noted that he got me DDR a few days ago, and that has been very fun to play. aside from story mode, that is. story mode was pretty lame...toad's solution to everything was, "dance, Mario, dance your way out of trouble!" one of the dance routines was WHILE mario and toad are sledding down a mountain trying to outrun an avalanche. yeah, b/c it's so easy to dance and sled at the same time. :)

a bunch of us old married couples with no kids are going out tomorrow night. we may play miniature golf or go out to eat or both. nobody's really sure what we're doing yet. but it should be fun, since we've only done something with herman and anna (herman's a 1st yr in my program).

gotta get back to work!