First Half of September

Things I've Learned in Arizona and Arizona RID Conference

We've done so much since we arrived here that we needed a weekend off. So, instead of posting about something fun we've done, because there isn't really much to report, I will post about some of my observations and things I've learned while I've been here.

1. I. Love. Mountains! I never imagined that I would be learning to navigate a new city and using mountains as landmarks. I can tell which way is North by the shape of certain mountains and I can see how close I am to home based on how far away a mountain is. Also, mountains are beautiful. As the sun starts to approach the horizon, the shadows lengthen and each undulation of the mountainside comes into view. As evening falls, they turn from coppery reds and browns into royal blues and purples.

2. Humidity is what makes heat unbearable. When I was getting ready to move, I thought everyone was crazy, telling me that the dry heat is more bearable than humid heat. I figured that 100 degrees would feel horrible no matter what the humidity was. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was wrong! Humidity makes all the difference! When it's humid, you sweat and it can't really evaporate to cool you off as well as it can if it's dry. Around here they complain during the "monsoon" season about the humidity being around 20%. I'd take 20% humidity any day over the kind of humidity we had back East!

3. Monsoons - The word monsoon always made me think of tropical storms hitting the coast of India, where it would rain for days on end and everything would be flooded. I never thought that anywhere in the United States would have a monsoon season. Thankfully, what Arizonans call their "Monsoon Season" is what we would call a rainy season anywhere else. The reason they call them monsoons is because of the clouds lingering all day, the storms will come up quickly, rain like hell and then move on. Personally, I prefer that over a constant rain day after day!

 

4. New vocabulary word - Wash: A wash is like a riverbed, but there's almost never any water in it. Because the soil is so dry and hard, when it rains, the water needs somewhere to go, and quickly. It drains into these washes and then seeps down into the ground, evaporates, or just moves on to somewhere else. Often, outside of the city, washes will cross the road, so there are signs everywhere cautioning drivers to not enter when flooded. There are so many washes, they each have a name.

5. Blue on Google Maps doesn't always mean there's water. Just like there is no water in the washes, there is almost never any water in the rivers, either. When I went to Phoenix for the conference, I inwardly chuckled at the blue river that Google Maps told me was up ahead. I was shocked to see that there was enough water that there were boats docked around it! Come to find out, they blocked off the river to make for a nice riverside area of the city

6. Speed/Red Light Cameras - In Rochester I knew we had red-light cameras, but they take it a step further here and have certain sections of road where they catch speeders by using cameras and sensors in the road. They then mail you a notice, but it's not an official ticket. People skirt these things by waiting for the police to send a "process server" to serve you with your ticket. They avoid answering the door and if they do it for 120 days, the ticket goes away because you never got it in time. Additionally, if the picture doesn't catch your face well enough, they can't identify who was driving the car, so they can't send you a ticket. I read a story about some guy in Phoenix driving around wearing a gorilla mask so they couldn't ticket him!

Arizona RID Conference

 

 I drove into Phoenix for the weekend to attend an interpreting conference. I didn't have much time to explore the area, so there will have to be a return trip to do the typical touristy stuff. I felt a little awkward attending a conference where there was nobody I knew, but thankfully I found a colleague from Tucson early on who introduced me to some people.

The Keynote presentation was very interesting. It was about how the interpreting profession has a drama/performance side to it, not just interpreting for plays and concerts, but how, as interpreters, we are acting in order to match the speaker and their intent. I wish that it was a full workshop instead of a 45 minute presentation.

The plenary panel was about how interpreters work together on an assignment, and I like how they made sure to split the panel into both hearing and deaf interpreters. It was interesting to hear the point of view of a deaf interpreter and how they see the working relationship. Then again, a lot of questions, while they led to good discussion, could almost always have been answered with "it depends." 

Friday night, after everything wrapped up, I decided to drive into the city to have dinner at the Hard Rock and add to my pin collection. There was some major sporting event going on, so lots of streets were closed and cops were directing traffic. I finally found a place to park and walked to the cafe. It wasn't as big as I thought it would be, but it was nice. I had dinner while listening to a local woman play on stage. There also was an autograph signing going on for a WNBA player who used to be on the Phoenix team. After dinner I grabbed two pins - a special 100th anniversary of Arizona pin and a guitar that was shaped like the state of Arizona.

Saturday at the conference I attended a workshop about social media and how we need to think about our Code of Professional Conduct when putting things out there on the web. There were a lot of great points. Mostly, it comes down to trying to think of everyone that could potentially see your post and decide if it would:

A. Break any sort of confidentiality (even if you don't use specifics, sometimes people can still figure out who/what you're talking about),

B. Give people the wrong impression of you and/or the profession,

C. Be viewed as disrespectful of any of your consumers, or

D. Be viewed as disrespectful to anyone else in the profession.

We went over lots of examples and talked them through. Things that I didn't think twice of before, I now realize could be misconstrued. It gave me a lot to think about!

After the workshop, I relaxed at the hotel before heading to catch the performance for the night. It was a one-woman show about growing up with Deaf parents. It was amazing - funny yet poignant. It made me remember the great times of my own childhood as well as my teenage years of rebellion, just as she had. The performer was Arlene Malinowski and I highly recommend you catch any of her shows if you get the chance!

Side note: There's an ostrich ranch between Phoenix and Tucson. You can feed the ostriches, as well as other animals. MUST do that some time!!!