gategrrl

Ugh. I really slacked off this term. I was able to finish the final for 140B, but I'm not even going to attempt the final for 141B--which is dictation at 50 wpm in Q&A form, and 'literary' form.  I need to practice a LOT more over the summer to even consider taking the speed class at 60 wpm.

Fortunately, the lab is going to be open during the summer at the college, so I may go there while the kids are at camp (assuming that we can afford it at this point--the house needed some painting to protect structural wood, so...) OR, better yet, I've transferred ALL the dictations from the class onto my iPod, so I can take my stenomachine to a library and practice there with NO access to the internet. That was my downfall, really. My huge distraction. That and being in the house and walking off and doing laundry ( can't believe that) and dishes and other stuff and sometimes, even, watching TV. So yeah. My iPod is going to save my ass this summer. I am going to be using it a lot.

I really have to review and all that. And I'll probably have to retake 141b (that's the Theory Review class). Two people did that this semester, and they did amazingly well. They said it really helped them move forward.

Can't get out of doing some practicing, darn it. I've been putting it off, but it's really not in my best interest NOT to practice, so, off I am, to do some 50wpm dictations. Ugh. I'll probably have to do them at least five times each before I stop making mistakes, or losing my spot because I'm thinking to much about where my fingers should go.

It's just so much more fun to read or write (now that I'm getting back into my world-building). Maybe I can actually think about it while I practice. The teacher told us that's a *good* thing when you can think about something else while you're typing away on the stenomachine. And I have been able to do that, to a point., it's pretty crazy when that happens.

Good god, out of 25 people signed up for Theory Review B, three have already withdrawn. No one has withdrawn from Theory B (yet).

It'll be interesting to see how many people make it through this semester in both classes.

O.M.G. I finally was able to get my steno machine to talk to the Global CAT program. It works! Awesome! But it's still pretty fussy and I'll have to take notes for a little while to get the hang of convincing the two temperamental things to keep talking to each other. What I just did consists of much rebooting of Windows, unplugging of stenomachine and its USB Coolgear adaptor, and making sure it all goes on in sequence. Gah!

Anyhow, it really IS pretty cool to see how this CAT program is supposed to work. I think I'm going to be using this a lot more; heaven knows I need the practice and reinforcement.

Argh. I'm falling a leetle bit behind. I'm finishing up on Lesson 11, although I DO have to go over the aural dictations so that I can move my speed up and make sure I'm able to, you know, take dictation, which is the point of taking Steno! AND I have to do three reviews of earlier lessons (which I clearly need to do, based on my performance on their dictations). AND I have a couple of quizzes to do.

Yeah. Full plate. More folks are starting to fall behind right now, and I really don't want to do that.

My fingers/mind are having a real hard time finding the keys without hesitation, which is bad bad, bad. Which means--I have to start practicing everytime I sit down so I get over that. I should know where my fingers go without *thinking* about it. That could be part of my problem. I'm thinking about it.

I'm going to eat at McDonald's for lunch, dammit. I don't care. I FINALLY finished a freaking simple REVIEW lesson for Theory review that was busting my butt and I finally got through it with fewer than three mistakes, good enough to mail it in. Dammit.

And tonight is the Guy's birthday, so I have to get him a chocolate cake. I'm ordering pizza, I am NOT in the mood to cook tonight (I have a headache that started this morning and has only gotten worse plus I started my monthly this morning and I am NOT a happy camper). And in Theory for CR, there's this big big lesson coming up that some other folks in my class have already started/finished. And when I took a look at it myself, holy crap. It's huge. It's hugely long. And has a lot of memorization of briefs in it. I will have to do some work on it today, Saturday and Sunday or I am going to fall behind. There's no way you could do this stuff on only 40 hours of practice time per week.

Ah, boy. My second week of Steno Machine class is coming to a close. Whoa. Takes a LOT of repetition, smacking those little piano-type keys over and over and training the fingers to go where they're supposed to go. I think I spent about two hours today alone on about 10 little sentences total so I'd get over the hestitation of finding the correct keys to hit.

And it was frustrating today to work on my homework and with each repetition of the work, make more and more mistakes on the paper strip. Gah. I ended up mailing in the first one I did. It still had way more mistakes than I wanted on it (I'm trying for fewer than 3 per homework, preferably one or none) but oh well. I did find out that some of the errors that I thought were errors really *aren't*, so hopefully when the prof sees that one, it'll turn out better than I thought, grade-wise.

I keep thinking ahead and imagining how COOL it's going to be when all I have to do is *listen* to someone talking, and be able to transcribe what they've just said. For some reason that kicks my motivation. Hee. I am hoping to hire myself out to Creation Con at some point so I can transcribe the panels. That would very cool. Once I'm fast enough, of course. Or sit in on writer's meetings. Or whatever else meetings like that.

Yesterday was the first day I could sign up for the Theory and Theory Review classes, so I did! And surprise, they credited me $60 for the class I dropped earlier this summer, so I only had to pay about half. All I need now is to rent a steno machine. I already bought the books I need for the class back in May, so that's clear.

It's going to be hard work and tons of practice, and miracles of miracles, I'm still motivated and excited about this. Whee! I can't wait until I can type like the wind!

Universal Studios burned, and it smells AWFUL where I am! Which stinks (in more ways than one) because it's such a gorgeous day out this morning that I was actually considering going out onto our back porch and writing on my Asus Eee.

What I should do now is submit my three chapters of homework that I finished yesterday so I can move onto the quizzes. So far, I figured I'm doing a B+ or A- in the class, which is okay. But I was taking it too easy, thinking that because English was always one of my best subjects that I'd get perfect scores on the quizzes and tests with no studying. On my first exam I got 44/50 possible points.

And now the class is moving out of Superlatives - can you *believe* I actually wrote "Bad:Badder:Baddest" on a Quiz? I can't believe I did that. Talk about a stupid attack. Bad:Worse:Worst. What was I *thinking*! Anyhow, we're out of superlatives and into a really tricky (for me) section dealing with Subject/Verb agreement. Not as easy as you'd think, especially if you've developed bad habits or have lost the 'ear' for proper grammar. I'm talking Indefinite Pronouns, Predictive Nominatives (OUCH!), Appositives and Objective Forms.

Urgh. It IS useful. I keep missing mistakes in the sentences I'm alledgedly proofreading. Clearly, I'm not as good as I thought I was.