Speaker 1: So how did I become a medical interpreter? Wow, that is a very interesting story actually. Hi everyone, welcome to Interpreting Simplified. Bienvenidos a mi canal. My name is Jeanette for those of you that don't know me. Today I'm gonna share something very personal with you guys and hopefully it will encourage you and inspire you. So how did I become a medical interpreter? Wow, that is a very interesting story actually. So I've been working in the corporate field since I was about 14, believe it or not. I started as a receptionist for the summer at an architecture firm and I worked my way up as a teenager and I'm gonna make a very long story short, I ended up being their office manager. Into my early 20s. And so because of that opportunity and that experience, I had always been able to find work in the corporate world. And so most of the jobs that I had were either really just handed to me. People, it's been a blessing all around. People would always ask me, oh, are you looking for work? You know, something my friend about you or I heard so and so was hiring and I think you would be really good. So a lot of the jobs that I had were through word of mouth or when I did apply because of my extensive experience, I would get the job. I'm sharing this because I worked in that world because that's what was handed to me. It wasn't a passion. It wasn't something that I really loved. It was just something that I was good at and it paid the bills. And so I did that up until 2007. So at the beginning of 2010, I got promoted at the company that I was with at the time and they promoted me to project manager. The salary was pretty impressive. I got to travel. It was, I thought I had arrived and I thought, okay, this is what I've been working so hard for. And about maybe seven months later, I got let go. I was devastated. First of all, I had never been unemployed like that before. And second of all, I was really hurt because I had dedicated so much to this company and I thought that this was something that I was gonna be doing for a long time. And next thing you know, people were like, well, you should apply for unemployment. And that killed me because I had never applied for unemployment. And so I was devastated. And again, long story short, it changed me. I look back now and I realize like, this was all part of God's plan. I had time, the gift of time. I had so much time. And then I had the opportunity to stop and think about what I wanted to do. What, pursue a career or a passion that I chose, not something that had chosen me. So I remembered that when I was younger, I was interested in interpreting. And I had asked somebody who was an interpreter, who in the early nineties, I'm not gonna give you too much or else I'll tell you my age. But I asked him how he became an interpreter. And I kid you not, he took a bunch of books and pamphlets and notes and said, here, you need to study this and then you can become an interpreter. And that didn't make sense to me. So needless to say, I was discouraged. I got the feeling that he wasn't really trying to help me. So I left it alone. So I gave up on that dream and continued my corporate journey. So back to the time then that I was unemployed, I remembered that that had once interested me. So I decided to go online and find out a little bit more. And all I knew about were court interpreters. So I went to the website for the LA County Courthouse and they had a posting for an interpreter. They also had the job description, which indicated that you need to be certified. So that's where it started to get a little, I'm telling you guys, it was hard. I've said this before, I say this all the time. It was harder than getting into the CIA headquarters, which is why I'm doing this, because it shouldn't be this hard for people who wanna pursue something. So I had to follow all the clues. And little by little, I arrived at the place where I found out that Cal State LA had an extended studies program, which was for legal interpreting. And I looked into it and you had to get screened. So it was either a pass or a fail. And if you passed, you could join the course, but if you failed, you couldn't join, because you were supposed to already be at a certain level of proficiency on both languages to take the course. And I passed. I was really surprised because I thought maybe my Spanish wouldn't be good enough, but I had been working on it and I had been reading more Spanish books and I had been being intentional about speaking proper Spanish. So I guess it paid off because I passed the screening, I got into the program. So as I'm taking the legal interpreting course, I really liked it. I loved what interpreting was and what it entailed and how it was gonna be helping people. Mind you, we were being trained on everything, like technique, the different types of interpreting, preparing us for the setting that we were gonna be interpreting in. And so sometimes in class, I would cry because they would tell us that we were gonna be interpreting for really hard cases and that we had to prepare ourselves emotionally. I could have easily been interpreting for somebody who was being charged of a DUI as for somebody who had murdered somebody or a victim of rape. So that was a little scary, but all I was focused on is that I was gonna be helping. So I pushed through and I was doing well according to my instructors. So my instructors, I wasn't even finished with the course. They were like, you're ready, you should take the state test because for legal interpreting, you get certified only within the state. It's not a national certification. So if you get certified in California, you're only a certified legal interpreter in California. So I said, no, I wanna make sure I finish the course so that I'm really prepared and so that I'm gonna pass this test because I want to become a certified interpreter. Thank you.