Interpreting Primer

I’m currently in the process of helping clean my Mother’s office up, which has been consistently cluttered for years, yet I never saw anything wrong with her setup, being accustomed to working in messy environments before.  The reason for the sudden rush for tidying when we weren’t having any company over was because we were running out of scrap printer paper, not having had the opportunity to take home any work documents in the 2 years we’ve been under quarantine.

A lot of items had to be checked beforehand deciding to shred, recycle or reuse, which was another procrastination factor.  Not to mention the messy business of removing staples, poring over pages for confidential information and cutting away said information in smaller portions for easier shredding use.

In the process, I came across an information pamphlet as a primer to oral interpreting in the classroom.  It may seem obvious to have assistance for handicapped students, but there was a lot of resistance in even having oral interpreters present.

The argument presented was that College and University deaf students were allowed access, but this service was denied for High School students, when their formative years were still taking place.

A trial run was agreed on, only having interpreters present for half of my non-essential classes.  At the end of the first semester, the teachers in the classes I had no interpreters present commented on how sullen and uncooperative I was, but in the classes an interpreter was present, the teachers commented on how enthusiastic and funny I was.  I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears repeating.  I’m much more likely to engage when I understand what’s going on.

The artwork and humour isn't nearly anywhere near Larry Gonick's level, but it does the job.  The Interpreting Services Student Package started out with an introductory page that clearly took inspiration from a popular animated movie at the time:

WELCOME TO HIGH SCHOOL!

AND WELCOME TO OUR INTERPRETING SERVICE!

This is a big step for you.

You are now a high school student!

A.S.L.

Interpreter

You are a high school student using an interpreter.

That means that on top of having to do all the things a hearing high school student has to do.

THERE’S ALSO AN INTERPRETER TO WATCH.

It may be the first time you use an interpreter so here are some guidelines for things for you to know about interpreting and being a high school student.

• The student uses A.S.L, sign language, or communicates orally.
• The student is the person who goes to class, does the homework and writes the exams.
• We have coordinators to do the scheduling of interpreters.
• Some students may prefer to voice or speak for themselves.
• If the student is late..... The interpreter will wait 10 minutes before leaving the class.

STAFF ROOM

Inform the interpreter about other interpreting needs, like study groups, tutoring sessions, meetings with the teacher...

As you can see, there are lots of things to think about when you start high school.  You have new challenges and new responsibilities.

If you feel the need to talk to someone about your courses or about the interpreting services, here are some names and phone numbers that may be useful.

(CONTACTS REDACTED)

The second page of the Student Package had a foreword that consisted of the following:

F O R E W O R D

Dear students,

Welcome to college which you have reached after plenty of hard work and good will.  We sincerely hope that your “transit” there will also be fruitful and rewarding as the months go by.

In order to facilitate your way through college and university, the Service à l’intégration des élèves from the Cègep du Vieux Montréal have adapted a documents from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) which provides you with information pertaining to oral and sign language interpreter’s services, note taking, etc... which will be useful throughout your studies.

This booklet is designed with comic strips which illustrate different ways of getting various services.

Special thanks go to Louise Daoust who worked on this project along with the anglophone team of interpreters.

We hope that you will read it for your own information and enjoy it as well.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The information in this handbook is based and adapted from:

Vancouver Community College: Student’s Package 

NTID: Principles of Interpreting

Texts and Drawings by Louise Daoust

There was also an alternate condensed version of the above for the Montreal Metro Region, which continues as follows:

Also included are two pages of outtakes or alternate pages.  There's a slight modification made to the first that may look very similar to the 6th page Student image above, but has a slight difference.  The second page below isn't included anywhere, which is a shame since I find the third panel to be somewhat cute.

The Gravity of the Situation

Ever since he has looked heavenwards in envy, man has wanted to fly, consequences be damned.

On a random comment board, it was mentioned in passing that of all the mechanism failures that occurred on Star Trek, ranging from Holodeck Malfunctions to Warp Core Explosions, the one standing feature that remained intact during all these disaster scenarios was the gravity controls.  No matter how dire, it was imperative that everybody keep their feet on the ground.  Other Sci-fi shows with a higher budget such as The Expanse managed to expand on that concept, showing just how unfeasible it could be to survive on a gravity-free zone.  The major reason that these far-concept shows had such a stranglehold on the gravity controls is that they were mainly filmed on Earth.  (Sorry for spoiling the illusion guys!)

All this stemming from news that the latest Tom Cruise movie, Vyozov (The Challenge)’s marketing gimmick would be the first film that would be filmed entirely in space.  By a Russian crew, no less.  (Whether it’d be any good is immaterial)

This led to a discussion of realistic portrayal of living in a stimulated environment, and there were very few comics that accurately reflected what it’d be like to live in a world without gravity.  The ones that did, showed just how ubiquitous gravity surrounds us to the extent that we don’t think about it.  This page from chapter 21 of Grease Monkey by Tim Eldred shows what happens when it's not around, and how much of a mess keeping everything floating around would be.

I started thinking about this after reading the entirety of Skyward, written by Joe Henderson, and drawn by Antonio Fabela and Lee Garbett.  At first, Skyward seems to openly embrace this concept with open arms, when one day all of a sudden, gravity just seems to cease working properly.  But then this open-world policy quickly devolves into cliched territory, making for a less satisfactory read than would otherwise be expected.

There are scenes of imaginative worldbuilding such as having millionaires fitted with magnetic boots to recapture life like it was before, and people using slotted buckets to capture water from an incoming storm, but for the most part, it’s filled with flawed leaps of imagination.

One of the failed suspensions of disbelief is the inclusion of a disabled love interest who would prefer to remain in this gravity-free world where where a return to normalcy would mean being tied down.

That in itself isn’t a bad idea.  The problem is, all portrayal of him shows him as being at the same height of everyone, regardless of his missing legs or not.

Standing around like a disembodied leg guy from that episode of Quantum Leap.

Whether this fault lies at the hands of the author or the writer, I couldn’t say, but it’s safe that neither of them are sufficiently handicapped.

Segueing back to Tim "Grease Monkey" Eldred, his other online work, Pitsberg, has a much more nuanced take on amputees closer to The Expanse, where condemned miners of space minerals (there's a lot of exposition involved, but space minerals is what we're working with) have to undergo required extraction of body parts in order to reduce expenses.  And in a gravity-free zone, legs are just one of the many deemed minor unnecessary "inconveniences" to go.  As such, there's a greater variety of legless bodies in a floating environment to deal with.

For the most part, until someone is able to spend sufficient time in a gravity-free zone and have the imaginative insight to document a wider-spread alternate reality, such fantastic concepts would be better suited to the realm of short stories.

For me, the one comic that manages to succeed in this where others fail would be Sherwin Tjia’s Plummet, where a young woman wakes up and finds herself falling mid-air.

It sounds like a Mr. Boffo joke, but it’s one of the best underrated Canadian comics you’ve never read.

Being in perpetual free-fall with numerous random objects appearing out of nowhere means you’re never fully prepared for what may happen next.  One of the falling objects happens to be a section of an apartment building, which has potential for housing valuable supplies like food and clothing.  Of course, navigating inside isn’t as easy as it first seems.

Trying to eat or sleep in these conditions is impossible without proper preparation or a little luck.  And when it does come, it’s recommended to jump at the chance whenever it occurs.  Eventually, she meets other people caught in the same situation as her, some who’ve managed to build something out for themselves, others who’re just as clueless as she is, some are friendly, and some are not.  In the afterword, Sherwin Tjia writes that the format for this ambitious comic was written to be a road story.  Well, a vertical road story, always going forward, never looking back.

The best thing about this comic is while there are various theories bandied about, the circumstances that caused this is never explained.  Any potentially plausible explanation would RUIN the experience.  If you get the chance, I heavily recommend you pick it up.  Doubtless it’d be far more intriguing than whatever the upcoming Tom Cruise movie plot is.