MAKING COURT REPORTING FRIENDS

A friendly convo with a stranger can go a long way. I recently remembered this truth a few weekends ago. My boyfriend and I went to our local Borders Bookstore to study for the night. (Woo hoo! This is how we spend our weeknights, by the way. We're either watching a movie or studying all night - sometimes both. The last movie we saw was "Iron Man 2" at the midnight showing! Spontaneous fun, but we both had to pay for the lack of sleep in the coming 2-3 days! :P It was a great movie, though!) I was writing intensely on my steno machine at the Seattle's Best Cafe when a woman walked up to me. At first I thought that the onlooker (as most onlookers do!) would ask me 1) what are you doing and 2) how does that thing work? But she didn't. Instead she asked me, "Are you a student or are you a working reporter?" Oh! This woman knew what I was doing! I put aside my ear buds and asked that we talk at her little table, away from my studying man. I found out that she too was a court reporting student, and she was currently going to Bryan College in Los Angeles. She had come to Borders that night to study for her Medical Terminology exam. (I gave her the recommendation of using digital flashcards at FreezingBlue.com. Here you can create your flashcards online, print them if you want, and transfer the digital flashcards onto your smart phone. I use this application on my i-Touch to study up on the RPR WKT - Registered Professional Reporter Written Knowledge Test). We talked for about 20 minutes. We gave each other our court reporting backgrounds, asked and answered lots of questions (that included tips, encouraging words, and venting moments), and walked away with each others' email addresses. And now I have a new court reporting friend. HI, SARA, IF YOU ARE READING THIS! :) Another example of making a court reporting friend is the kind Julienne. We went to Tri-Community in Covina, but I never saw her because I sat at the front of our Medical Terminology Class while she sat at the back; also, we weren't in the same speed class. She saw me at the neighboring Barnes & Noble during a break in our class schedules, and she came up to me... and started the friendly convo! :) I'm so glad she did. Just as with the friendly convo with Sara, Julienne and I did the rundown of giving our backgrounds, tips, mini pep talks and mini venting sessions, and walked away with each others' email addresses... and meet up about once a month to see how the other is doing in life as well as in our speed-building process. JULIENNE, IF YOU ARE READING THIS, THANKS FOR BEING A TRUE FRIEND - NOT JUST STENO-WISE, BUT IN LIFE AS WELL. :) So yeah... striking up friendly convos with seeming strangers, especially for us court reporting students who benefit GREATLY if we have a true camaraderie with other court reporting students, is a win-win situation all around! Thanks again, Sara and Julienne, for being the first to come up to me! You've inspired me to take the first move at the next opportunity to discover a new court reporting friend... somewhere, out there! :) P.S. Going back to "Iron Man 2" - yes, good movie, watch it... and as it relates to this post, there's a theme of friendship in the movie. To be a good friend, always have your friend's best interest at heart, even if it means disagreements might erupt. Don't be afraid of conflict, but stand true to your love for your friend. <3