As Mother’s Day approaches, I find myself remembering my last day of training before I became a professional court interpreter. Part of my training (and the part I enjoyed the most) was sitting in courtrooms observing court procedures. “I am starving,” I thought, ready to...
It's been one year since the WHO declared Covid-19 a pandemic. Vaccinations bring hope that the virus can become less of a threat and we can get back to what we consider "normal." However, we, the world, and our profession have changed. We need to...
"I am going to make something special for dinner tonight," announced my mom on a cold February morning during one of her visits in the United States. I wasn't sure what she meant because anything my mom made was impressive. Cooking was my mom's love...
Well, folks, it’s December. And looking back, 2020 was just another boring year, right? Nothing momentous happened. Nothing eventful—just a year like any other. Same old, same old. With the exception, of, well, you know. EVERYTHING. The interesting thing about 2020 is that no matter who you...
"We are what we practice" –said Dr. Shauna's Shapiro in her famous TEDx talk. Whether we realize it or not, we result from what we choose to do every day, our belief system, the cultural roots we inherit from our ancestors, and customs we adopt...
On a sunny fall day in 2013, I received a phone call from Grace. Who is Grace, you ask? It is hard to say who Grace is to me. She is a colleague, certainly. A mentor. A friend. My personal interpreting fairy godmother. It was...
I am not a big fan of Halloween, but I appreciate spooky decorations, creative costumes, and chilling activities at this time of the year. Their purpose is to stimulate anxiety, fear, and tension for fun and entertainment. Halloween can be fun and enjoyable, and the...
“The terror of performing never goes away. Instead, you get very, very comfortable being terrified.” ~Eric Whitacre I like that quote. It speaks to me. I think you could replace the word “performing” with “interpreting” and paste it on the walls of all our offices. Interpreting...
Many of us are trying to figure out how much fun we can have this summer and avoid getting sick at the same time. It is not easy to know what to do based on information we get from the news, social media networks, federal...
We often think of self-care as a way to nurture our bodies so that we can stay healthy and age well, but self-care is much more than that. It is a form of language to communicate with our bodies. We use self-care methods to convey...