Chalking it up to experience...
Jun. 29th, 2013 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpI think one of the saddest things in the world is a good idea that's left unimplemented. I'm not talking world peace, here, or the end to poverty. I'm talking about interpretation for bilateral meetings.
The first night of the campaign saw the first of a series of daily "coordination" meetings, and I was tagged to work it. During that meeting, a member of the French team started introducing people and turned to face the people he was introducing as he said their names. As said individual has a certain natural tendency to mumble, I was basically left with no choice but to either go through the painstaking process of having this individual turn and repeat all of the names or simply summarizing the respective job titles of those being introduced.
The next time I worked a coordination meeting was the day after the arrival of a charter carrying more campaigners, so it occurred to me to ask the major participants of the meeting whether they would be introducing any new faces. It was a good move on my part, as several folks were introduced.
Here and there since then, I've given thought about visiting each major participant just prior to the meeting to see if there was any information they could provide to help things go smoother during the meeting itsef (and, naturally, make my performance look more polished).
I should have listened to myself, as during this morning's meeting, the U.S. Program Manager delivered what one might call a short eulogy about a member of the Russian team, and while I managed the flowery words without much difficulty, I felt acutely embarrassed that there was no way I could reconstruct the name of the deceased from the pronunced name, and so the whole thing came off rather badly, in my opinion.
Gotta go get ready for dinner. I've been tagged to interpret for tomorrow's trip to the Gagarin Museum.
Be still, my throbbing heart!
The first night of the campaign saw the first of a series of daily "coordination" meetings, and I was tagged to work it. During that meeting, a member of the French team started introducing people and turned to face the people he was introducing as he said their names. As said individual has a certain natural tendency to mumble, I was basically left with no choice but to either go through the painstaking process of having this individual turn and repeat all of the names or simply summarizing the respective job titles of those being introduced.
The next time I worked a coordination meeting was the day after the arrival of a charter carrying more campaigners, so it occurred to me to ask the major participants of the meeting whether they would be introducing any new faces. It was a good move on my part, as several folks were introduced.
Here and there since then, I've given thought about visiting each major participant just prior to the meeting to see if there was any information they could provide to help things go smoother during the meeting itsef (and, naturally, make my performance look more polished).
I should have listened to myself, as during this morning's meeting, the U.S. Program Manager delivered what one might call a short eulogy about a member of the Russian team, and while I managed the flowery words without much difficulty, I felt acutely embarrassed that there was no way I could reconstruct the name of the deceased from the pronunced name, and so the whole thing came off rather badly, in my opinion.
Gotta go get ready for dinner. I've been tagged to interpret for tomorrow's trip to the Gagarin Museum.
Be still, my throbbing heart!
