A Thank You, Fearful Symmetry, and Cooking

Being in a court reporting program has its interesting quirks when it comes to class.  A normal college class, you sit in a chair and listen to the teacher talk at you.  In a court reporting dictation class, the same thing happens only this time you’re actually taking notes.  Hanging on the teacher’s every word, in fact.

Tests are five-minute recorded dictations—meaning our teachers record the dictation and we have to listen to the audio later to see how bad we did.  We do about two to four tests a day.  You have to pass 99% to move onto the next speed level; so to pass a 120 word-per-minute test, I’m only allowed to miss 12 words.

I haven’t made it to less than 12 words yet, but that doesn’t make the tests worthless to me.  I still have to type up two transcripts a week from any of the recorded tests and turn them in for credit.  Here is where my story starts:

Yesterday, I had my two transcripts ready and had grabbed the tape to listen to so I could see how many words I missed.  And yes, you read that correctly: I grabbed the tape.  You know, those little plastic boxes called cassettes, and you have to press REWIND and FAST FORWARD and it can take you an entire minute to find the place you’re looking for.  Can you believe the things we as a species have had to put up with?

So I have my tape and I stick it in the tape player, throw on the headphones (those monster earmuffs with the cord sticking out at one end—they are so thick I would be happy to wear them in wintertime at Washington) hit PLAY and start correcting my first transcript for the week.

I’ve gotten through an entire page (roughly a minute to a minute-and-a-half has passed) when my teacher comes in from her other dictation speed class to let me that she could hear herself from the other room.  That’s when I realize that my headphones aren’t connected to the right source so everybody in the big room can hear the tape and it was definitely interrupting their own work.  Of course, I was oblivious to the odd stares I was getting until my teacher pointed it out.

That was the nicest thing anybody’s done for me all year.  I mean that sincerely, no joke.  When I’m doing something stupid, I appreciate somebody stopping what they’re doing and letting me know what I’m doing wrong.  It’s the surest sign of knowing who my real friends are.

By the way, the headphones thing not being connected but still thinking they were… not the first time I’ve done anything like that, although it was the first time in a public setting.

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I’m a pretty big fan of Dan Wells.  I’ve only read his John Cleaver trilogy (I Am Not A Serial Killer, Mr. Monster, and I Don’t Want to Kill You), but they were fantastic reads and I am not opposed to reading his new post-apocalyptic Partials series sometime in the near future.

Good as his writing is, though, my first introduction to him was from the Writing Excuses podcast and more recently, his other podcast, Do I Dare To Eat A Peach? that he does with his brother, Rob Wells.

I’ve plugged all of these before, but now I have to give a shout to Dan Wells’ blog at www.fearfulsymmetry.net.  It’s his latest post, “Art and Life, Imitating Each Other,” that I really wanted to bring to your attention.  Apparently, reality has caught up with science-fiction, as per a document the United Nations report on drones, and the moral question of designing robotics to fight our wars.

This is a real thing and I think everybody should check this blog out just to get an idea of what’s going on and this writer’s take on what this means for the human race.

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I don’t know whether I’ll ever go back to a real college after I’m done with my court reporting program.  The whole point of going to college for me was to get set on a career path, and with court reporting, I’m put into a profession where I don’t need the degree, just the certifications.

Education is an ongoing thing, though.  I’m never going to be satisfied with just this, and while paying for classes is expensive, knowledge is priceless.  It’s the only thing you carry with you for all life, and I firmly believe that knowledge is one treasure we keep after we die and move on.

So I already have plans to be taking classes after I’m done here and moving onto new things.  My interests: cooking and dancing, because I am terrible at both.

With dancing, I’ve taken lessons before but they never lasted long either because of time and/or money.  So on the rare occasion that I go to a dance, there’s always that one couple that’s showing off some swing dance or ballroom move they’ve been practicing for years and I get jealous.  I’m really hoping to change that as soon as I can.

When it comes to cooking, though, it’s something that I can do, but my skills are very limited in that field.  I can do nearly any breakfast dish you can name: pancakes, waffles, French toast, bacon, eggs (scrambled, fried, poached, runny yoke, sunny-side up, boiled), oatmeal (with various additions of fruit or nuts), and hashbrowns.  Haven’t done spinach frittatas or grits, but I’m pretty sure I could handle the first.  I’ve had grits a couple times before and I have no desire to learn.

I have made forays into dinners and desserts, but they’ve been average attempts at best.  And considering that I might have to cook for myself for a while to come, I’d like to make sure that I’m eating right and maybe healthier than I currently do.  My family has a chilling medical history and I’m sure my diet of breakfast burritos and hot dogs isn’t conducive to preventing anything.

But really, this is just my roundabout way of saying that I’m happy Masterchef is back for its next season.  I used to make fun of my brother and his wife for always having Food Network on.  I mean, all you can do look.  You can’t smell the delicious odors or taste the food, so why torture yourselves for hours on end?

So here I am doing the same thing.  To be honest, though, I don’t feel all that upset that I don’t get to try any of the food.  I’m fascinated by the challenges each contestant goes through to make perfect dishes.  I mean, these are home cooks working at a professional level.  That takes a lot of guts, especially considering the quality of their judges, and many of them pull it off week after week. It’s a cool show to watch.

Of course, since I’m watching it via Hulu, I’m always going to be eight days behind, but whatever.  I’m really happy that in our day and age, we have so many options instead of hoping that a rerun will play a couple months down the road.