#27 - The Intersection of Social Media and Court Reporting with Miss Steno

Transcript

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Court reporters hold one of the most important roles in the justice system.

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We're entrusted with the official records of the courts and we also have to run our own businesses, which is not something most of us were prepared for.

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I'm Bryn Seymour and I invite you to join the discussion about the problems we face and the solutions we create on the unique journey of a stenographer.

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Welcome to the entrepreneurial Court Reporter podcast.

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Hi, I'm Ms Teno.

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Hello, how are you?

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I'm good.

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I've been very excited.

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How are you?

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I'm doing well.

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Did you have a nice long weekend?

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I did actually.

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Yes, I performed in a concert.

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How about you?

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Oh, fun.

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I ate a lot of food and then ate more food.

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I ate more food and slept and it was really nice.

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That is awesome Well let's go All right.

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So today, welcome to the Court Reporter podcast.

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We're going to talk a little bit about court reporting and your journey to becoming a court reporter, how you learned about it, and then we'll talk about your journey on TikTok and how you got into that.

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So why don't you first start by telling us a little bit about yourself?

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Okay, so my name is Vanessa.

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I have been a stenographer for 17 years now.

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So when I graduated I was trained to be a deposition reporter.

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So that's what I did when I graduated, and about two years into it I got a random call from a college that was looking for a cart captioner and I was like, sure, I'll give it a whirl, I'll see what that's like.

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So for a while I did cart captioning and deposition reporting and I got really busy with the two.

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So I had to pick which one I wanted to do, and so I picked cart captioning.

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So cart captioning is writing real time for deaf or hard of hearing college students in the classroom or remotely.

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I find it to be very rewarding.

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I'm providing equal access for them to participate in class and when they're successful, I feel like I was a part of that and it helps to push me to just be better and better every day and be more accurate, because it's so important.

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So it's really neat.

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The stenography is more than just being in the courtroom.

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It's everywhere.

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Yeah yeah, providing captions to the hard of hearing is really important.

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That's very important work that you're doing, and do you currently do that, or was that before?

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I do the classroom captioning, but it's mostly remote now.

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So I still do that a little bit, but not so much on site.

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So I'm guessing you liked the cart a little bit better than deposition reporting.

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I did.

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I really liked not having transcripts.

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Yeah.

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The most that I have to do is a lot of clients will like a roughly edited file afterwards, so I just do a quick scan through a quick spell check and send the file and I'm done, and I really enjoyed that part of it.

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Yeah, I think that's definitely a reason that a lot of court reporters end up switching to cart is because the time management that it requires for depositions and especially in states like New York, where every single I know there are some states where you don't not all of them are ordered, but here in New York and in probably most other states every single one you have to complete to perfection within, at least I mean, at most 10 business days.

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So it's definitely requires a lot of time management.

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And on the court reporter podcast we talk a lot about time management and how to manage your time and how to delegate, and so I was going to ask you about how do you manage your time and how do you like, do you have any tips on on time saving time with your transcripts?

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But if you're doing mostly cart then, yeah, may not really apply as much, but I mean, if you have an answer for that, I would love to hear it.

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Yeah, I do.

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So.

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I primarily work from home and that can be tricky for some people because there are a lot of distractions when you work from home.

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It can be a hard adjustment to kind of ignore those distractions and remember that you know you're working like you have a job that you have to do.

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So luckily for me, my office is upstairs and the rest of my house is downstairs, so upstairs is work, downstairs is living, so upstairs I have fewer distractions and I just live up here so I don't get distracted.

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So having a designated space that's just for work in a place that maybe has the least amount of distractions is pretty good.

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So how did you learn?

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about court reporting.

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So I wanted to be a paralegal, and so I was looking into a trade school, because I didn't really want to go to like a community college, because I knew that I would have to take a lot of courses that didn't have anything to do with being a paralegal.

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And so I was looking at a trade school and I found out, well, I still needed those college credits, but I didn't have.

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So my options were to go back to a community college and get like a degree before I could even enroll in the paralegal program or find something else.

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And so I was like okay, I don't think being a paralegal is gonna be a good fit for me, for all of the college.

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And the person I was talking to pulled out a Steno machine and was like hey, have you ever heard of court reporting?

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And I looked at that machine and I was like sign me up.

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21 years old, I had no idea what court reporting was.

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I didn't know what the machine was, but I was like I can type really fast on a keyboard.

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I got this.

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You didn't even like get to touch it or try it, You're just like sign me up.

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Yeah, I was like sign me up.

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I was like let's do this, like when can I start?

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Wow, like, how did you get to that conclusion?

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Just by looking at the Steno machine.

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I just I'm a really good hands-on learner and it looked fun.

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I was like that machine looks really cool.

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I don't know how it works, but Did you ever see people in the courtroom typing on it?

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Or you just kind of put the two and two together and you were like, okay, these are the keys and you learn how to.

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Yeah, I was just like okay, use this weird machine to type up what people say, and that sounds really fun.

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So I was like sign me up.

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Okay, so you signed up immediately.

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I signed up.

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And how did your?

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How was school?

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Did you catch on quickly?

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Did you finish fast?

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How did that go?

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So school went really well.

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I did really well in theory.

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My program was very self-paced and self-taught.

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So there were instructors there but they were not interact.

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Okay.

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So I had a place to go in a classroom to sit in.

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But on the first day of school they brought me a Stenograph bag that had a Steno machine, a tripod, steno paper, an ink cartridge, some cassette tapes, some books, and they were like have fun and just kind of left the room.

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So we were kind of all staring at each other on the first day of class figuring out like, okay, so the machine goes on this tripod, the paper must go in this thing, but where does this thing connect on the machine and then an ink cartridge.

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So it was kind of a fun learning experience.

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So you guys kind of worked together.

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I'm sure that was a good bonding experience.

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Yeah, it was, and then we didn't know.

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Like, do we listen to the cassette tapes first and then read through the book, or do we do them at the same times?

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I've heard that things are a lot more structured now, so that makes me happy.

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Wow, yeah, I mean, my school was very structured.

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I don't remember having to really figure that kind of thing out.

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We had our theory classes where the teacher would stand in the front and just teach us word by word, like how to write them on the machine, and it was very.

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It was very hands-on from the beginning, which I've loved about it too.

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Yes, yes, I loved that part about it because it was just easier for me to learn that way, to be so hands-on.

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But I have a funny story about that because I didn't look into court reporting, didn't really know what it was.

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I saw the machine signed me up, I started I was 21, super young, I was actually pressing one key at a time on this dental machine instead of courting, because there was no instruction.

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Wow.

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So I was like okay, for cat, I pressed K-A-T, you know, like you would on a regular keyboard, and I did that for an entire week.

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And I sat in front of the teacher, who didn't notice, for an entire week, and when I went to test out of my first theory lesson, he was like whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing?

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You're pressing one key at a time.

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And I'm like and Like what's the problem?

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And so then I was like devastated when I found out like I had spent an entire week doing everything wrong, and so I was like maybe this isn't for me after all, like maybe it's not my thing.

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So I had two choices I could quit, which is what I wanted to do.

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I was only a weekend, like super easy, just quit, walk away.

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Or I could spend my whole weekend learning that whole one week lesson over a weekend.

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Test out of that on the following Monday.

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And that's what I did.

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I showed up Monday, I tested out of it and I was just kind of like, okay, I'm on my own to figure stuff out.

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So it was a rocky start and I'm really glad that I didn't quit.

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But I wanted to quit.

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So I was only a weekend and it was.

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It was fine.

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Nobody knew me, I could walk away Like it'd be fine.

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Glad you didn't quit.

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So how many of your classmates did you graduate with?

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I mean, I know it's kind of like people graduate like one by one and it's not really not really together, because everyone has their own pace.

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But, like you know, the dropout rate is very it's like 90%.

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So I'm curious to know.

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I think we had a pretty small class, maybe like 12 to 15 people, I would say, and out of that there are two of us that made it and are working out of my particular class.

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Okay so now back to the video question, because the school topic actually leads right into that perfectly.

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So there was one video I mentioned this to you when we were chatting on Facebook and I told you about the video that I saw where you were typing entrepreneur, the word entrepreneur.

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I was really shocked that you typed it out with four strokes.

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So it was on truh pruh, newer.

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That's how you learned to do it in theory.

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So I'm curious, like do you use brief forms at all?

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Not really.

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No, I write entrepreneur in one stroke.

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I have found some really good briefs from some other amazing court reporters that were like, listen, this is how I do it and I'm like I could probably remember that.

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Wow, so your theory didn't teach briefs at all.

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So my theory was different.

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And then it taught how to write everything out, and then it also taught a brief form For me.

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I could never remember the brief, and by the time I remembered the brief I could have just written that word out like five different times, and so a few of them stuck with me and like jury charged, like you know.

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A few of them stuck with me, but not a whole lot.

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It's just easier, the way my brain works, I can just write it out faster than I can remember what the brief is.

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Yeah, I know, that's the thing.

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That's the tricky thing about brief forms how do you explain what a stroke is?

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I kind of explain it as like a syllable.

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That's kind of how it is to me, since we write in syllable.

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That's like one stroke.

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Stroke would be one syllable, I guess.

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I, I don't know.

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Like a snap, but it's phonetic.

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So, yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly how I would explain it.

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So thank you for that, welcome.

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Welcome, it's really hard for me to explain court reporting because I feel like people ask us questions a lot and they want to know how it works and it's difficult to explain.

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How do you explain it to your followers?

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How do you explain it to people?

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Like if you had to sum it up, so usually when I have tried to explain it in a video for like TikTok, I just end up making people even more angry and confused.

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So I just try different ways of explaining it to see if maybe I can get one in there that might stick.

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Because I try to explain that you know, we write by sound, we write by syllable and then I give examples and because the machine shorthand how it is, people get mad that like PW makes a B and stuff like that.

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So it ends up being really fun and I just try and I think it's fun.

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That's awesome, and has there been one that has worked, or you're still working on finding the right one?

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I'm still working on finding the right one.

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Okay, okay.

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Cool.

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Well, let me know when you do find it.

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Yes, I will definitely let you know.

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Okay, getting into your TikTok journey.

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So how long have you been using TikTok?

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So I think that it's been close to three years now, maybe Is.

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TikTok like three years old.

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Oh my gosh.

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So a little bit of a backstory.

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It used to be called Musically, and Musically was a platform where people just like danced to music and TikTok is kind of known for.

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Yeah.

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So in some of the dances were like professional dancers, you know, and others were like my niece and I.

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You know where she was trying to make it choreographed and it just didn't work.

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So my niece created a Musically for me and I had 11 followers and they were like all her friends and we just posted dancing videos and I didn't even know how to use it.

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Like she did everything.

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And when the pandemic hit, social media was so negative everywhere Like I'm always online and like being on Facebook, instagram, twitter, everything was just so sad.

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And I was like, well, what about this Musically?

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Like I haven't been on this Musically for a while and I was like, oh, it's TikTok.

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I don't know what that is.

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So I went into it and it was like all these cute kitten videos and puppy videos and all this happy stuff and I was like this place is awesome.

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So I was like I'm going to stay here for a while.

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You know, I've got this account.

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And then I noticed that like there wasn't any stenography on there really and I was like, hmm, well, I wonder I only have 11 followers, or all my niece's friends.

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So it's like a great time to post a video and just, you know, see if my 11 followers like it.

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So what had happened is that I was working one day and my husband took video of me captioning in my home office and I didn't know, because it was like it was a hard job that I was captioning, so I was just like laser focused on the job.

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And afterwards he showed it to me and I was like, oh my gosh, you know, this is a really cool video.

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And then I was like, wait, I already have a video I could put on this TikTok for my 11 followers that are my niece's friends.

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So I was like I'll put that one up because I already have a video, so I don't have to try to figure out how to make one in here, you know, in the TikTok TikTok app.

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And so I posted it and then it it didn't really make sense because it was just this random video of me like captioning, and so I was like, well, I'll add captions to it, because I'm a captioner, you know, and kind of explain, you know what I'm doing and that sort of thing.

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And I posted it and I text my niece and I was like I just posted my first TikTok and she's like oh no, you know, and she, she texts me back and she's like that is so cringy, like why'd you put that on there?

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And she started like deleting her friends from my account because she's like oh my gosh.

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And then she's like wait, wait, it has like 10,000 views and I'm like I don't know what that means, oh yeah.

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And she's like wait, you have like comments and stuff and and you have like a thousand likes and I'm like I don't know what any of this means, you know.

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And she's like it's going viral and I'm like I don't know what that means.

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So that first video got like over 400,000 views and I think, like 15,000 likes and like 300 comments.

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So just just like that it was, it was really really cool.

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Wow, like the world really doesn't know about court reporting they don't and they find it fascinating.

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And I was like I think I just found a thing.

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You know, I was like but I'm like, I'm gonna I don't know how to make videos and I don't know how to work TikTok and I was like I don't know, but I'm like I found a thing.

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That's amazing, okay, and then.

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So then you just continued to make more videos about court reporting.

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Yeah, it was really nice because that first video I had like 300 comments and it was pretty much all questions and my niece was like, well, you can answer the questions in a video.

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And I was like, well, that's cool, how do you do that, you know?

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And so I had like all this stuff that I could make content out of, I just needed a little help from, from the younger generation to show me how to, you know, actually make a video in TikTok and do all of that stuff with it.

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So yeah, I have a TikTok and I posted a couple of videos and I'm like the amount of time I have my attention span to try to figure this out is very, very minimal.

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Yes, that's someone showing you the ropes, so that's awesome.

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So tell us about your most viral video, or I think my most viral video is 4.6 million views.

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Wow, I think it has over 400,000 likes.

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That's a really silly video, to me anyway.

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It's just a video like I do type a typing test on my core reporting machine and then I do one on my care recorder and then I do one on like one of my Seno keyboards and just show the different speeds and it blew up.

00:17:53.924 --> 00:17:58.654
It was really basic and boring, but I guess TikTok liked it.

00:17:58.974 --> 00:18:00.218
That's not boring, okay.

00:18:00.218 --> 00:18:03.432
So tell us, what are these three things?

00:18:03.432 --> 00:18:03.713
Okay?

00:18:03.713 --> 00:18:06.230
I mean, obviously we know about the Seno machine, okay.

00:18:07.045 --> 00:18:09.319
I was like do you need to pull that out, because I've got it right by me?

00:18:09.319 --> 00:18:11.710
But I'm assuming that we probably all know what that is.

00:18:12.352 --> 00:18:16.913
Yeah, well, I mean, since this is mostly an audio podcast, it's probably oh okay.

00:18:16.913 --> 00:18:25.409
Yeah, I know the best way to explain core reporting is to show like that's literally the only way people can fully understand.

00:18:25.409 --> 00:18:27.955
It was just to see a demo of us doing it, but yeah.

00:18:28.565 --> 00:18:36.174
It was a test with my core reporting machine, and then it was a test with my care recorder, which is my regular keyboard, and so Wait a minute, okay.

00:18:36.174 --> 00:18:40.592
So this is really cool, this.

00:18:40.972 --> 00:18:42.098
I found on TikTok.

00:18:42.500 --> 00:18:43.444
I found it on TikTok.

00:18:43.444 --> 00:18:46.237
Stay off of TikTok if you don't want hobbies.

00:18:46.237 --> 00:18:47.321
Oh my gosh.

00:18:47.342 --> 00:18:48.025
No, that's not.

00:18:48.025 --> 00:18:49.108
This is a care recorder.

00:18:50.224 --> 00:19:05.771
And so what's really cool about it is that it does character entry one letter at a time, like a regular keyboard, but then it also does ported entry, like our Seno machines, so I can press multiple Recorded, recorded, ported entry.

00:19:05.771 --> 00:19:13.355
Oh, okay, like our Seno machines, I can press multiple keys at once to output entire words, just like we do on our Seno machine.

00:19:13.355 --> 00:19:25.532
Wow, and so I found it on TikTok and like two years ago, and it's been my primary computer keyboard for two years Wait, but how many keys does that have?

00:19:25.532 --> 00:19:29.532
Oh gosh, I might need some help 2018.

00:19:31.790 --> 00:19:32.733
Oh, thank you, Maverick.

00:19:32.733 --> 00:19:36.012
Maverick says 18 total, five directions per switch.

00:19:36.012 --> 00:19:53.856
Okay, so I was thinking that that was kind of like a Steno machine that you could connect to your computer to type like as your regular keyboard, which I guess you're saying that that is what it is, but you have to learn separately how to type on that keyboard because it looks very different.

00:19:54.258 --> 00:20:03.336
Yeah, it has a different layout, much like our Seno machine, and so I didn't think I'd be able to learn that because Steno was easy for me.

00:20:03.336 --> 00:20:04.597
But that was 17.

00:20:04.597 --> 00:20:10.204
Well, if you count school, it was 21 years ago, so I'm a little bit older now.

00:20:10.204 --> 00:20:12.913
So I was like I don't know if I can learn something new, but I'm going to try.

00:20:12.913 --> 00:20:24.364
Wow, that is so cool For me, like typing on a regular keyboard is actually like physically painful for me, like it hurts my fingers, it hurts my wrist, yeah.

00:20:24.364 --> 00:20:32.428
So I have been trying different things to try and find something that was more comfortable and I found it so yay, so how do you?

00:20:32.567 --> 00:20:42.854
I mean, can you use it with a laptop, or do you have to just like use I mean because it's an extra thing, I guess so you can't attach it to your computer and make it like part of?

00:20:44.005 --> 00:20:46.594
So it is just like an external keyboard.

00:20:46.594 --> 00:20:48.951
You can plug it into your computer and it's ready to go.

00:20:48.951 --> 00:20:49.914
No software.

00:20:50.285 --> 00:20:55.242
And you can use the Steno theory, but you just have to learn the different positioning of the keys Is that?

00:20:55.242 --> 00:20:55.544
Is that right?

00:20:56.125 --> 00:21:04.749
Well, this is actually all like a regular keyboard, so it doesn't have any Steno, so it's just like typing on a regular keyboard.

00:21:04.749 --> 00:21:10.689
It's just that the keys are in different places on the care recorder versus on a regular keyboard.

00:21:12.319 --> 00:21:16.084
But it's so many less keys it is so many less keys.

00:21:17.027 --> 00:21:20.368
It's a very cool, though, because it also has a cord library.

00:21:20.368 --> 00:21:28.279
That's a lot like our dictionaries, so like I can add custom words to that for my care recorder.

00:21:28.279 --> 00:21:32.892
So I have like things like my email address is a cord.

00:21:32.892 --> 00:21:37.285
It's a really quick, like press two buttons, you know, and there's my email address.

00:21:37.967 --> 00:21:38.509
Oh my gosh.

00:21:38.509 --> 00:21:40.165
This is really mind blowing.

00:21:40.165 --> 00:21:42.019
I'm my mind is boggled right now.

00:21:42.019 --> 00:21:42.260
I don't.

00:21:42.260 --> 00:21:45.383
That's really cool, though, Okay so what's that?

00:21:45.403 --> 00:21:45.964
third device?

00:21:45.964 --> 00:21:53.489
And so the other one is an actual Steno keyboard that was created by somebody in the clever community, clever.

00:21:53.489 --> 00:22:03.386
Clever Clever designed a free, open source computer aided transcription software, and with that they have made their own devices.

00:22:04.410 --> 00:22:06.530
Oh, okay, so that looks more like a Steno machine.

00:22:06.680 --> 00:22:24.059
Yeah, so this is a mini Steno machine, kind of it's called a uni, and somebody from their community 3D printed these Steno key caps for me, because they normally just have regular keyboard key caps on them For those listening there is.

00:22:24.300 --> 00:22:39.545
So she's holding up a flat keyboard, but it's in the shape of a Steno keyboard and it has exactly the same amount of keys and it looks exactly like a Steno machine, except the two sides are split a little bit more than an actual Steno machine.

00:22:39.545 --> 00:22:45.287
And then the other one was two round circles with like nine keys on each circle.

00:22:45.287 --> 00:22:51.528
Yeah, okay, so that one, that one that you were just holding up, the flat one, that looks exactly like a Steno keyboard.

00:22:51.528 --> 00:22:54.762
What does that also connect to a computer and you can type with it.

00:22:55.440 --> 00:23:09.651
Yeah, so you do have to have Plumber installed to use this, but I was able to bring over, like my case, catalyst, dictionary and everything else, so it's literally like a backup Steno machine Really.

00:23:10.071 --> 00:23:10.313
What.

00:23:10.900 --> 00:23:11.723
So it's very cool.

00:23:12.682 --> 00:23:13.546
I'm blown away right now.

00:23:13.920 --> 00:23:17.087
I have a couple of them because I have a keyboard problem now because of TikTok.

00:23:17.420 --> 00:23:19.982
So oh my gosh, and which one do you like?

00:23:20.002 --> 00:23:20.444
the best.

00:23:20.444 --> 00:23:24.529
Well, I use my care recorder like a regular keyboard.

00:23:24.529 --> 00:23:29.085
So if I'm not using my Steno machine working, then I'm using my care recorder.

00:23:29.440 --> 00:23:38.059
So do you think that it's important for court reporters to like to get active on TikTok or to learn about it and also start promoting the profession Like?

00:23:38.059 --> 00:23:39.064
What do you think about that?

00:23:39.625 --> 00:23:40.368
I think it is.

00:23:40.368 --> 00:23:45.890
I think the more that we promote it, the more people we can get interested in pursuing it.

00:23:45.890 --> 00:23:48.026
I'm trying to make it look fun and cool.

00:23:48.969 --> 00:23:51.067
Yeah, you're definitely succeeding at that.

00:23:52.844 --> 00:24:00.945
So I think that it can be kind of perceived as something like boring because it's been around for so long and we still have fun.

00:24:00.945 --> 00:24:03.405
We can still have fun doing it.

00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:05.746
Yeah, totally.

00:24:05.746 --> 00:24:08.467
I mean, it is definitely really cool.

00:24:08.467 --> 00:24:15.423
I mean, most people I didn't know what court reporting was until someone was like you should look into court reporting and I was like what is that?

00:24:15.423 --> 00:24:21.586
Yeah, exactly, people don't really know about it and they don't know that it exists.

00:24:21.586 --> 00:24:28.111
Right right, how do you think you can solve the dropout rate?

00:24:28.111 --> 00:24:30.026
Do you think there's a solution for that?

00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:32.246
That one is so tough.

00:24:32.246 --> 00:24:43.981
So I think that a really big issue that we have is that schools are giving misleading information about the time it takes to finish school Really.

00:24:43.981 --> 00:24:49.704
So I know for me personally, when I was told it was an 18 month program, it took me four years.

00:24:49.704 --> 00:24:55.407
I almost dropped out at 18 months because at 18 months I was nowhere near 225 words per minute.

00:24:56.380 --> 00:25:14.449
So, again, I thought maybe this isn't for me because it's an 18 month program and I'm nowhere near being finished and I know that that's an issue with a lot of other programs advertising, you know you can do it in two years or less, which there are a lot of people that do do that, but there are a lot of people who it also takes longer.

00:25:14.449 --> 00:25:24.386
So I think being more transparent about what to expect might help New students have a better understanding of what the process is gonna look like.

00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:26.106
Okay, so it took you about four years.

00:25:26.106 --> 00:25:29.328
Were you also working or did you focus 100% on school?

00:25:29.839 --> 00:25:30.805
Nope, I was 21.

00:25:30.805 --> 00:25:32.365
I was living at home with my parents.

00:25:32.365 --> 00:25:40.487
I worked part-time at night, so I went to school five days a week and it was a year round program, so it was through the summer as well.

00:25:41.039 --> 00:25:47.826
You worked hard and you did the work and you were diligent Like, but it took four years because it's not easy.

00:25:47.885 --> 00:25:53.191
Right, right, because I think 180 to 225 was two years.

00:25:53.191 --> 00:25:56.919
If I'm being honest, 180 to 25.

00:25:57.039 --> 00:26:01.576
Wow, I mean technically, you could have started working at 180.

00:26:03.061 --> 00:26:03.723
Yeah, I don't.

00:26:03.723 --> 00:26:04.125
I don't.

00:26:04.125 --> 00:26:12.352
Maybe back then people didn't talk that fast, but I know like today there's no way that I'd be able to keep up at only 180.

00:26:14.099 --> 00:26:14.422
I think.

00:26:14.422 --> 00:26:18.198
I mean I know that there was one, I can't remember his name.

00:26:18.198 --> 00:26:23.240
There was one guy that went to my school and he he got stuck and he got frustrated at 180.

00:26:23.240 --> 00:26:27.565
And so he somehow found a way to start working, I think I mean in the state of New York.

00:26:27.565 --> 00:26:30.271
That's not like illegal or anything, oh, okay, okay.

00:26:30.271 --> 00:26:40.567
So he started working and just like, I don't even know if he ever finished school, but he's, he's like a working court reporter, loving it, doing great, so that's so awesome.

00:26:40.720 --> 00:26:46.231
I know like in this state I live in, you have to have a certification which is at 200 words per minute.

00:26:46.231 --> 00:26:53.819
So if you're only at 180, you're probably not going to be able to pass that state certification to start working, unfortunately.

00:26:54.300 --> 00:26:55.202
What state are you in again?

00:26:55.865 --> 00:26:56.445
Washington.

00:26:57.008 --> 00:26:57.509
Washington.

00:26:57.509 --> 00:27:00.104
Okay, so I think that's the state wide test.

00:27:00.104 --> 00:27:00.846
Is that called the?

00:27:01.359 --> 00:27:04.380
That one is the certified court reporter, the CCR.

00:27:05.284 --> 00:27:05.545
CCR okay.

00:27:06.140 --> 00:27:13.365
So we had to be different and have it not be CSR for some reason Interesting Everybody at CSR, I feel like.

00:27:13.365 --> 00:27:14.348
And then we're over here at CCR.

00:27:15.862 --> 00:27:16.303
Yeah, I know.

00:27:16.303 --> 00:27:24.128
I mean, I know in California it's CSR, I don't know, because in New York it's so weird, they don't require like a specific certification.

00:27:24.128 --> 00:27:27.462
You just graduate from school and start working, and then you have to be more.

00:27:27.462 --> 00:27:30.730
In this other guy's case, you don't even graduate from school and you start working.

00:27:30.829 --> 00:27:31.632
And you start working.

00:27:31.632 --> 00:27:33.345
Yeah, no, I think that's great.

00:27:34.059 --> 00:27:38.414
I mean it's weird because you wouldn't think of I would think of New York as having higher standards than that.

00:27:38.414 --> 00:27:41.017
But hey, I don't know, who am I to judge, I don't know.

00:27:41.017 --> 00:27:58.390
I mean I do kind of wish that it was a little bit of a higher standard here, because I think that would be a nice push to kind of get those certifications and get those higher level certifications that I I've been talking about on the podcast, like I do have the goal of getting those, but it just hasn't been necessary for me.

00:27:59.441 --> 00:28:00.884
Right, I totally understand.

00:28:03.200 --> 00:28:07.371
So like how do, how does one go about starting their own TikTok channel?

00:28:08.444 --> 00:28:10.781
Yeah, that's a really good question, but.

00:28:10.781 --> 00:28:14.816
I will say there's, there's one person from the talk that I gave.

00:28:14.816 --> 00:28:18.867
She's 67 years old and she is now posting videos on TikTok.

00:28:18.867 --> 00:28:24.151
So because of my, of coming to my seminar, so I'm like yay.

00:28:25.481 --> 00:28:30.886
You should do a seminar online so that other people can join remotely or like it would be so fun to share it with something.

00:28:31.381 --> 00:28:36.210
Yeah, it would be so fun, like this slide deck that I put together, for it is is a lot of fun.

00:28:36.210 --> 00:28:37.742
It's a very interactive.

00:28:37.742 --> 00:28:40.983
It was a very interactive session, so it would be a lot of fun.

00:28:42.339 --> 00:28:43.804
Maybe we can plan something in the future.

00:28:43.804 --> 00:28:47.766
And, yeah, a seminar, yeah, that would be so fun.

00:28:47.766 --> 00:28:50.807
So your videos look really good and really professional.

00:28:50.807 --> 00:29:01.228
Do you have like a tripod or how do you record your videos, because you have a step, so that you can really see different angles and you can see like your hands typing and then you can see the screen.

00:29:01.228 --> 00:29:03.085
How do you make that happen?

00:29:04.021 --> 00:29:04.142
Okay.

00:29:04.142 --> 00:29:05.426
So this is really funny.

00:29:05.426 --> 00:29:44.242
I used to stack boxes on top of each other to like hold my phone when I made videos, so I would be sitting on the floor like writing on the floor, because I was like using boxes as a stand, so I had to like be where my phone was, and I ended up buying just a really cheap ring light so I had a place to hold my phone, but I still couldn't get like a good angle of me writing on my machine, and so what I do is I have my big screens that are behind me, my big monitors Excuse me, I have.

00:29:44.242 --> 00:29:54.073
So I'm sitting back, I have my ring light in front of me, and then I have my steno machine in front of my ring light.

00:29:54.073 --> 00:30:03.587
So in my videos I'm actually like stretched and bent over, like as far as possible, while I'm writing on my machine.

00:30:03.587 --> 00:30:05.740
In my videos, oh my gosh.

00:30:06.583 --> 00:30:07.226
We should take that.

00:30:07.226 --> 00:30:20.813
That's the best way that I found, because I am not putting a lot of like time or effort into my setup, because I do this for fun and that works and it makes good videos.

00:30:22.344 --> 00:30:25.299
So I mean, it looks like you have like a very professional setup.

00:30:25.299 --> 00:30:28.384
I'm like I'm watching your videos, Like how did she do that?

00:30:29.259 --> 00:30:32.548
So I'm just like stretched, like as far as I can Wow.

00:30:32.548 --> 00:30:37.645
So you have to kind of over my ring light and then my machines in front of my ring light.

00:30:38.162 --> 00:30:44.400
You have to kind of like you can just strain yourself a little bit for the shorter time that you're taking that video.

00:30:44.740 --> 00:30:45.782
Yep absolutely.

00:30:46.832 --> 00:30:50.781
But you still managed to type everything quickly and accurately, which is very impressive.

00:30:51.351 --> 00:30:55.400
Yeah, especially because of how far away my machine actually is from me.

00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:55.800
Yeah.

00:30:57.311 --> 00:30:58.497
I'm like stretching for it.

00:30:58.910 --> 00:31:01.455
One of your videos was reposted by the Bear.

00:31:01.455 --> 00:31:03.380
Naked Ladies is the name of the band.

00:31:03.780 --> 00:31:04.221
Yeah.

00:31:05.771 --> 00:31:10.461
I mean, I watched that video and I saw that you typed that extremely fast.

00:31:10.461 --> 00:31:15.519
I don't think I could have done it that fast unless I had practiced it like a million times.

00:31:15.519 --> 00:31:22.511
Created like huge brief forms, but so so, wow, yeah, you must be.

00:31:22.511 --> 00:31:24.336
You're just like you're, very talented.

00:31:24.939 --> 00:31:25.721
Oh, thank you.

00:31:25.721 --> 00:31:41.661
That one was really exciting because that was like the first time that someone like famous which most of my friends don't know who they are, but that's okay, they're famous to me had actually like watched a video that I had done and like acknowledged it.

00:31:41.661 --> 00:31:46.381
So I took like 24 hours before I could even respond because I just didn't know what to do.

00:31:46.381 --> 00:31:55.143
I was just like, oh my God, you know, I was like they reposted my video and they said nice things and I need to do something, but I don't know what and I'm freaking out.

00:31:56.471 --> 00:31:58.898
So I'm just going to wait, I know that yeah.

00:32:00.332 --> 00:32:02.201
So if that one was really exciting.

00:32:03.428 --> 00:32:03.869
That's awesome.

00:32:03.869 --> 00:32:06.902
I can't imagine like seeing that they reposted your video.

00:32:06.902 --> 00:32:07.483
Yeah.

00:32:08.307 --> 00:32:14.556
Yeah, they said that I was hot like wasabi, so that was really awesome Right?

00:32:14.635 --> 00:32:16.200
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:32:16.200 --> 00:32:21.800
I need fair naked ladies fans out there Go check out the video.

00:32:21.800 --> 00:32:26.641
Well, of course, we'll link everything in the description so that everyone can check out your channel.

00:32:26.641 --> 00:32:29.153
I know I have.

00:32:29.153 --> 00:32:30.076
I have another question.

00:32:30.076 --> 00:32:32.435
Hold on, okay.

00:32:33.313 --> 00:32:34.622
It was just on the top of my head.

00:32:35.933 --> 00:32:39.511
No worries, okay, so do you have.

00:32:39.511 --> 00:32:40.113
Do you um sorry?

00:32:40.113 --> 00:32:41.175
Do you have your RPR?

00:32:42.097 --> 00:32:42.638
I do not.

00:32:42.638 --> 00:32:44.934
I do not have any NCRA certs.

00:32:44.934 --> 00:32:47.046
Okay, Me either.

00:32:47.046 --> 00:33:00.849
So for me, for me as a captioner, um, my uh, my skills are assessed by my captioning companies.

00:33:00.849 --> 00:33:07.849

#27 - The Intersection of Social Media and Court Reporting with Miss Steno

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