BOSTON HERE I COME!

I had applied to a few schools that I wanted to go to. I really should have just applied to Gallaudet because that's the only school I was willing to pack up stuff and move to. I didn't get in and that was heart breaking and I really didn't want to tell anyone. Then a series of circumstances in the Las Vegas Interpreter market happened and getting National Interpreter Certification (NIC) became a matter of survival. So i bit the bullet and took the test. Worst case scenario is that I failed but then I would know what the test was like and be better prepared to study for the next attempt. The test had a 40% failure rate among people who had been working for YEARS and here I come not even graduated from an ITP, with 5 semesters worth of language classes and... I PASSED. That piece of paper flung open the door to so many professional opportunities that I still haven't realized them all yet.

So now that I knew I was not going to Gallaudet but I had Certification I began looking into places I just wanted to live. Being near an Ocean was at the top of the list and followed places like Califonia, Florida, or BOSTON. Further down on the list were just cool cities like New York and Chicago. I even applied to a Video Relay call center in NYC. Boston has always been a place I wanted to live. I talked with an interpreter friend who packed up everything and moved to Vegas from Texas. She suggested I contact local interpreters in the area through the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID). So I did, using an email identical to the one she used to contact Vegas terps I asked questions about the area the atmosphere and the work volume. The more responses I got the more I felt good about the city.

I contacted the Massachusetts (I guess I need to learn to spell that without spellcheck) Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing MCDHH. I received a contract in the mail and was so nervous I waited 3 weeks to sign it and send it back. Then it took until now but I got it. My contract approval notice. In a couple weeks I'll be loading up my car and moving across the country to sleep on the couch of another interpreter that I met at TerpExpo in Irvine, CA. Then I'll go to an orientation and begin work at a new job, in a new city, with a new marital status.

This is my journey and you're welcome to watch me do it.