First Week of School

If you want to know about the Fairly Reasonable Goal, click here.

First, a bit of accountability.  This week has been the first week of the semester, and I do academic CART captioning onsite. So oftentimes this is a very hectic time for me until the schedule settles down, students are done adding and dropping classes, etc., and I can get into a routine.  Monday and Tuesday I did NOT do any practice, but I found some time the rest of the week to get it done.

  I did state that I don't have to practice if I'm writing 5+ hours in a day due to my arms wearing out, but you know what?  I've got a few of those in my schedule this semester, so I'll have to try to get in at least one short practice session to keep things up.  Real-world writing and test-taking writing are two different things for me.  Real world isn't a steady speed, isn't measured for syllabic density, and isn't scored and graded.

  But as to my weekly progress: Three takes a day probably doesn't sound like a lot, but over the past two weeks I've felt my speed and accuracy starting to -- solidify?  Steno people, do you know what I mean? It's nice to pass a particular test once in a while, but it's better to pass them consistently.  Because then you KNOW you've got it!

The first week of class is done, and I've had some additions to my schedule starting next week, so hopefully I'll be able to maintain the parameters I've set for myself!

Parameters of the Fairly Reasonable Goal

Greetings, greetings!  This is my official post whereby I state my clear objective:  passing each and every leg of the NCRA speed and realtime contests in 2016 in one go.  I've passed each leg except the realtime testimony -- now it's time to pass them all together.  This is what I refer to as the Fairly Reasonable Goal (in homage to the Impossible Goal, what I named my 2013 Guinness record quest -- see entries tagged The Impossible Goal).

So here are my parameters, for those of you playing at home.  I need parameters or I won't get it done.  The parameters for my training will be much like those used during The Impossible Goal, which were developed by pulling them out of my butt as the situation merited.

The minimum amount of practice is three takes a day, preferably of different categories.  A "take" is usually five minutes, but if I speed up/slow down a Magnum Steno take, the time will vary and that's okay because I said it's okay.  A Magnum Steno take practiced twice counts as two times, but if I repeat it again it still only counts as two times.  One legal opinion take a day is optimal, but I'll probably get sick of the few dictations I have, but then again, I'll get ninja awesome at those and probably reinflate my legal brief arsenal, won't I?

The final practice take will be done at 9 pm, and I've set an alarm on my phone for that time.  This final practice may be skipped if:

• I'm physically at an event like a movie, work, or a friend's house. 
• I'm sick where I can't practice effectively.  If it's just a cold, too bad.
• I just finished a late job where my arms are killing me.

And I am giving myself a complete pass for the weekend of September 11, because that's the ILCRA annual convention, and you should totally go because we have Margie Wakeman-Wells and Anissa Nierenberger speaking.  And ILCRA won't have a convention next year because NCRA is in Chicago.

After Christmas (or a few days after Christmas because it's Christmastime), the minimum amount will increase to four takes a day, the last two being at 5 pm and 9 pm.

After the spring semester is done, the minimum will increase to five takes a day.

Practice may be skipped entirely if I have a job where I write 5+ hours in one day.  I've already got some nerve thing happening in my arm -- don't want to wear out the organic equipment.  (My schedule this fall does have two days of five-plus work hours, but I should still be able to get in two practice sessions.)

Once a week, probably Saturday or Sunday, depending on stuff, I'll test myself on a leg and post the APPROXIMATE results here.  This will be a BALLPARK result, because I like my weekends.  But I will go through my test and give me a rough pass/fail.  I'm not going to test EVERY leg each week because, jeez, that's five five-minute takes to go over; three to fully transcribe and grade and two to grade. I'm not doing that every week because I don't want to.

Ready?  Begin!

The Fairly Reasonable Goal

Greetings, everyone!  It's been a while, yes, and last time I wrote a blog post it's been a while.  I'm going to do another blogging adventure through this coming year, because my goal this time is NOT to achieve 370 wpm, but rather to pass all NCRA contest legs in one sitting.  All the speed, all the realtime.  I've passed all the legs (except for the testimony realtime) of the contests before -- just not all in one sitting. Fairly reasonable, right?

I'll do much like I did for the Guinness attempt, blogging once a week with my progress.  Starting tomorrow, my goal will be to have three practice sessions of five minutes each, with my final practice at 9 pm.  I'm going to set an alarm in the evening, like I did for the Guinness attempt.

Addendum:  This is what I look like on the first day of the NCRA annual convention:

I assure you that my husband and I are in no way related.

And this is what I look like on the last day of the convention:

I'm not even kidding.

So stay tuned!