September 12, 2009

  • WIT

    WIT - stands for Weekend Interpreter Training.  Here's the story - I am in a sign language study group that we call JAVAS.  There are 4 of us, who have taken most of our ASL and interpreting classes together, and a few years ago, we formed a study group.  We had the initials - JAVAS - first, because we always met in a coffee shop.  Then we had to come up with the full name - so we decided on Jubilantly Aspiring Virginia ASL Signers.  We meet once a week on Monday nights and we do a variety of things - we go through different ASL curriculum, we practice fingerspelling, watch videos and DVD's of ASL and interpreting-related things, etc.  Sometimes we have special people come and teach us something in their field of expertise, like ASL storytelling, idioms, use of signing space, special terminology, how to set up an interpreting practice, etc.

    Two of us are now doing interpreting in our local school systems!  That is so exciting!  Two of us, me and Gina, are not.  The area we live in has an opportunity for further education for anyone working in the area of interpreting in the schools, called WEIT - which stands for Weekend Educational Interpreter Training.  It is an entire weekend, once a month, of classes at a community college an hour or so away.  Gina and I wanted to do something similar, so we decided on WIT - Weekend Interpreter Training.  Neither of us can really spend the number of hours the educational interpreters do on their weekends away, but we can still do quite a bit.

    So, we started this weekend, last night, meeting to work on signing skills, continued this morning at the rehearsal for the show "Scrooge," which my daughter Betsy is directing and which will have one interpreted performance by JAVAS along with 2 other interpreters.  This afternoon and evening, we continued working with some books and DVDs that we have to study with.  We felt like we made a lot of good progress!

    On a side note - late last night, we were at Starbucks - it was close to closing time - when a young college student pulled out of her parking place right into my car!  I was in Starbucks blissfully drinking my decaf mocha and signing with Gina when someone else saw it happen.  Not much damage, but a little - enough to have to spend this week taking my car to the shop, driving a rental, talking to the insurance co again, I am sure.  The poor girl was pretty shaken up about it!  I imagine that her father, who pays for her car and her insurance, isn't very happy right about now!  Everyone was fine, and I tried to calm her down, but she was pretty shaky!  No one was hurt and cars can be fixed!