First day at work...

Well, unpaid work!   

I finally started work on the oral history project today.  The first task was to work out how to use the transcription software, including how to load the files and how to make the pedal work!   No one at the library has used this software before, so it was a question of trial and error. Mission accomplished about 60 minutes later! 

I started listening to a recording of an interview with an elderly woman who used to go to an elementary school for Mexican children which is the subject of this project.  It was quite tricky to transcribe - a question of coordination of foot, hands and ears!  A lot of the time my ears got the better of me and I listened and forgot to type!  It was fascinating.  There was a lot she had forgotten about the first school she went to but not the name of the teacher who hit her with a ruler for talking in class (she hadn't been, it was the boy behind her, which adds to the sense of injustice).   

It reminded me of the teacher who banged my head against the blackboard because I had forgotten my needlework, again.  These incidents stay in the memory.  And I should know, because something similar came back to bite me once.  A boy had stayed behind in my class to help and apparently he picked up too many books at once and dropped them.  Years later, a teacher himself, he told his head and fellow teachers that I had called him clumsy and he had never forgotten it!!  The revelation came just before I was about to go into his classroom to observe him in his probationary year! 

Anyway, I successfully transcribed the first interview and will now be able to work at a faster rate when I go again on Wednesday. 

Got back home and it was 80 degrees (27C) in the house, so I've turned the air conditioning on for a while.  Now it feels like a fridge, so I'll turn it off again!