The Struggle Continues...

        Welcome to my third blog post in a row about my inability to find a mentor for my project. Since my last post, I have continued to knock on the doors of possible mentorships and they have all been opened a crack and then slammed in my face. I can honestly say that I have been doing everything I can to find a mentorship, but nothing has come through yet.
        It did not work out for me to mentor with my first interviewee because of confidentiality issues. I did find another possible opportunity with an interpreter at Parents' Place, a parents resource center, last weekend. It looked like it would be a good fit, but every event she would be interpreting for that I could shadow at is during school hours. I emailed her again to see if there were any others, and now she is not getting back to me. Currently, I am looking at any options that might be available with LACOE interpreters with the help of Mrs. Ortega, my English teacher. Today my dad emailed two contacts he has who might know of something I could pursue, and I asked Mrs. Bazaldua at IPoly if she knew of anyone in interpretation.
        And so my grueling search for a mentor continues. Exasperated, discouraged, and impotent are some pretty good words to describe how I am feeling about this right now. It is very stressful, and, like I said in an earlier post, I feel that I cannot fully commit myself to my project and move on with it until I have my mentorship nailed down. For example, I have not thought about Independent Component 1 at all because I have been so consumed with finding a mentor. Also, since I do not know what field of interpretation my mentorship will be in (at this point the field or type does not matter to me), I have been unable to focus my research and instead am reading articles on all different types of interpretation and fields in which it is used. Because of this it often seems to me that I am wasting time reading very long, tedious articles that may or not be relevant to my project, but I have no way of determining this at the moment. I hate that senior project has barely started and I am already having major difficulties which I feel are out of my control.
        Well, that's basically all I have to say. The only thing I can do is keep chasing any possibilities that come up and keep praying and hoping that I find something soon.

Here is a kinda-funny comic to lighten up this depressing post. :)

Mentorship Difficulites

        I know this post is supposed to be identifying my mentor and listing five questions I will be asking them to establish them as an expert in the field of interpretation. However, I have been unable to find someone who can mentor me. I have been working on this for about a month. I had hoped that I would find a mentorship by today so I could post Blog 6, but obviously that didn't happen. I honestly did everything possible in order to get one by the Blog 6 post date. The following is a list of everything I have tried. I haven't yet given up hope that I will find one at all, it's just taking longer than ideal.

• Talked to the head clerk and the interpreters' office at the Pomona Courthouse. Not possible because of court regulations.
• Talked to the supervisor at the center for interpreters at the Los Angeles Superior Court. Also not possible because of court regulations.
• Called multiple interpreters from the listing of all certified interpreters for courthouses. Not possible.
• Talked to the head nurse at Foothill Presbyterian Hospital. Not possible because they no longer use in-person interpreters due to the installation of a new phone system that does the interpreting.
• Talked to a doctor and board member at the Pomona Valley Hospital. Not possible due to HIPAA rules.
• Asked a Department of Children and Family Services social worker for possible opportunities. There are none.
• Asked the woman I interviewed if she would be able to mentor me where she interprets at the Family Center in Covina. No response yet.
• Called several interpreter service companies. Waiting for replies.
• Contacted Karen Rusikoff at Cal Poly. She does not know any interpreters.

Next, I plan to contact more local interpreting agencies to see if they allow job shadowing, as well as follow up with my first interviewee. I also asked my Chinese professor today if she knew any interpreters, and she gave me a couple of ideas of who to contact. Hopefully something comes through soon.

Blog 5: Mentorship and Research Reflection

Based on what you have done for your senior project so far, answer the following questions. Be specific and use examples.

1. Mentorship Question: Describe your experience in how you found your mentorship. If you haven't found one yet, describe your experience so far in the search for a mentor.
        Unfortunately, I am still working on finding a mentor. The thing is that the number of contacts I have who are currently working as interpreters is ZERO. Someone I know from my church who used to be an interpreter put me in touch with my interviewee, who was very helpful and whom I liked very much. However she cannot mentor me because she interprets for therapy sessions at a family center, and due to the confidential nature of these sessions, I would not be able to shadow her. In the interview I asked her if she knew any other interpreters I could talk to, and she said no.
        This past Friday I also contacted a social worker friend of my family who works in the foster care system and who often interacts with court interpreters to see if she knew of anyone who would be willing to mentor me. She did not reply, but I'm going to follow up with her. However, she is very slow at replying to any form of communication so I'm honestly not sure if I can get ahold of her before the find-a-mentor deadline.
        Really the only sort-of lead I have at the moment is through a family friend who works for corporate Taco Bell. My dad emailed him to see if they use interpreters in any areas of their business. As of tonight he had not replied with any information.
        It frustrates me that the only potential mentorship contacts I have are friends of friends of friends of friends who I have never met or even heard of. This makes me a little nervous about whether they would make good mentors, assuming they are willing and able to. I currently feel like I am/will be treading water on my project until I find a mentorship. Every day and week that goes by I get more nervous about not having a mentor yet. I hope I find one soon so I can stop thinking about it and get on with my project.

2. Research Question: What has been the most important article you have read so far and why?
        The most important article I have read so far is entitled "Interpreting China, Interpreting Chinese" by Robin Setton. Chinese is one of the languages I am plan to someday interpret in, and I learned some fascinating things about Chinese interpretation from this article. I chose it as most important because it deals with a specific area of my topic that I know will be of great importance to me in my career.
        The interpretation field in China has grown a ton in recent times because of China's "spectacular re-engagement with the world" as the article puts it. Also, the writer described how interpreter training in China is undergoing some changes to adapt to the great demand. However, in China, interpreter training and straight English proficiency are sometimes used interchangeably or confused with each other. The article also talked about cultural differences between English and Chinese and how, if an interpreter is not aware of the language culturally, they have the potential to make some offensive mistakes without meaning to. The information in this article gave me a greater understanding of the atmosphere I will be dealing with as I progress into the interpretation world. Another fact I learned: Only two percent of Chinese language interpreters are not native speakers!