My First Day

For those of you who don't know, I did get hired to work as an interpreter at UC Davis, and I currently have seven hours a week of classes. I started work today as well as school.

Highlights:

There was a "walkout" demonstration against the budget cuts and furloughs today, so many classes were shorter than usual, or class time was spent discussing the current economic climate. I had two classes today- Greek and Second Language Acquisition (SLA). I enjoyed both, and already have homework. I didn't end up actually working at all today, but am still receiving three hours of pay. I am coming down with a cold.

Current mood: tired

Details:

I took the bus to school today since I was planning on being on campus for awhile and, due to the proximity of the buildings, didn't need to ride my bike across campus. It is free for students (read: part of our tuition fees go toward bus service) and quite convenient. I was a minute late to my first class to interpret because I couldn't find the room. I have decided that monkeys suffering from ADHD and near-sightedness designed the buildings at Davis with paper bags and banana peels, which were then translated into bricks and ramps. If you take the wrong staircase you will end up in a Twilight-zonesque hallway from which all logically ordered room numbers hide. It is lassiez-faire engineering. The first floor could be the basement or the second floor, and occasionally it is a floor reserved for staircases that go up or down one flight and then force you to exit the building. Other than that, the layout makes perfect sense.

My first class lasted only 15 minutes, which my team interpreted, so we went back to the office. I have asked Dave (my boss at the CMB) for a lab-issued laptop so I can work remotely while on campus during my breaks. If he issues one I'll be able to work in the interpreter's office. I went to Greek class, held in one of the smallest university classrooms I have ever seen. The professor regaled us with how elite we are for selecting classical Greek as a course, and we took our swollen egos off to practice writing the Greek alphabet like very elite... first-graders. I got my student ID during the break between Greek and SLA, then ate lunch and wrote very pretty Greek letters. In SLA we discussed the syllabus (there will be a lot of reading) and I got approval for my topic for the final paper: English language acquisition in native Deaf signers. Good luck to me finding ten sources on the subject...

I took the bus home and am nursing the beginning stages of a cold, so this weekend will be low-key. I have reading to do for Tuesday, and will undoubtedly have more tomorrow.