Monthly Archives: February 2012

You can now adjust the closed-captions on my YouTube vlogs

Announced today: YouTube’s enhancements to closed-captioning. I’m glad to hear this! I am a longtime supporter of closed-captioning. I posted my first closed-captioned video on Google Video just after they implemented closed-captioning in 2006. Now YouTube has implemented CC settings that allow viewers to adjust the font, size, color, and background of captions. Even better, YouTube is now supporting older captioning formats so that videos captioned decades ago can now be uploaded along with their original caption files. This means millions more closed-captioned videos will now be viewable on YouTube!

Here’s that first closed-captioned video I posted on Google Video— now on YouTube. I’m glad people watching the videos I caption can now adjust the look of the subtitles to their preference. Feel free to fiddle with the CC settings to make the captions look just the way you like.

Participated in an ASL Hangout on Air on Google+

Feb 28

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I just realized I never blogged this! Did this last month on Google+ to help them test their Hangout On Air technology with other people using sign language.

Posted in Performances

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Branching out keeps you green– and so does pruning!

Branching out keeps you green– and so does pruning!

Feb 27

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Sure, it’s good to be a veteran, expert, master, pro. But mastery in a profession like interpreting is a journey, not a destination. I’ve been interpreting for 21 years, yet I feel green. Why? Because I’m branching out. I’m trying new ways, new skills, new settings. I’m trying new signs with my hands, face, and body; new words and intonations with my voice. It is often awkward!

When trees branch out, they sprout new leaves. These light green leaves are more vulnerable than the waxy dark ones. Yet their vulnerability is their strength. They’re open to the sun, air, and rain. They keep the tree alive.

Branching out is not the only act that keeps a tree alive. Fires blaze through forests, breaking branches, cracking pinecones, thinning woods so trees can see the light. Outside the forest, gardeners prune dead branches–and even sometimes living ones that are growing wrong. The fire doesn’t say, “I’m going to destroy that tree!” And the gardener takes no joy in cutting live growth. The fire just is and the gardener is, as Shakespeare said, “Cruel only to be kind.”

These internal and external forces make us stronger. So branch out! Go to workshops and conferences, keep learning and trying new things. Only you can do that for yourself. And when it feels like you’re on fire and a part of you is being cut away— that’s when life is doing for you what you can’t do for yourself. Accept the fire of life. Seek gardeners and ask them to “prune” you. Branch out and reach out! It’s the only way to thrive.

Posted in Essays

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Went to a mental health workshop this morning

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Where are the sign language interpreter blogs today?

Feb 22

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I began writing this website in 1996, and when I turned it into a blog in 2006 I searched the blogosphere and I found some other ASL interpreter blogs. Back then, two of the four blogs I found were inactive, and since then, the other two have become inactive.

Today, things are different. While I have continued to publish my posts about interpreting for the deaf and various topics, other blogs have emerged and thrived. Here are four that I am aware of:

  • Filipino Deaf from the Eyes of a Hearing Person: Issues, activities, experiences and technologies about Deaf People in the Philippines. This blog has been active since March 2007. Jojo, the blogger, offers a perspective slightly different from American Sign Language interpreters’— yet there are more similarities than differences between American and Filipino interpreters for the Deaf. Well worth checking out.
  • Reflexivity: Interpretations by Stephanie Jo Kent: From critical thinking to responsible action. This is an active blog, quite scholarly, by a woman working on her PhD who is an interpreter, researcher, speaker, etc. It is an insightful and eclectic blog.
  • Street Leverage: Amplifying the Voice of the Sign Language Interpreter. I just found out about this blog last week, and I could not remember the name of it. The domain streetleverage.com doesn’t help me remember that it’s an interpreter blog, but then I suppose neither does danielgreene.com. ;-) They make up for their domain name by putting “Sign Language Interpreter” or “Sign Language Interpreting” in all of their post titles. Street Leverage has only been publishing for six months now—since August 2011—but their contributors are well-known in the sign language interpreting community, including: Anna Witter-Merithew, Dennis Cokely, Carla Mathers, Brandon Arthur, Wing Butler, and Antonio Goodwin. I have met each of these authors through work and workshops, and I know they know their stuff. Street Leverage is only about sign language interpreting, so combined with their contributors, they have both credibility and focus.
  • Thoughts from a Sign Language Interpreter. The blog’s author, Jon Barad, just informed me of his blog this morning in a comment to my post called Where are the interpreter blogs?. He started his blog in June 2011, eight months ago. So far he has six posts, well written, from a business and professional practice perspective. Definitely another blog to watch.

If you know of any other blogs, I would be happy to blog about them!

Posted in Reviews

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