I'm thinking too hard

I have lost count of how many word endings I have learned over the past three weeks. I'm still feeling a bit shell-shocked from all the information that I've absorbed. In fact, I occasionally get stumped during dictation and stop to figure out what key stroke to use for a particular ending. In my struggle to dig deep into my brain and hunt down the information that I'm looking for, the man dictating sentences through my headphones continues to dictate. HOW RUDE! What ~ he's not going to wait for me to catch up? And then the "Duh" moment hits me: The longer you stop writing, the farther behind you get in your transcribing. Bad girl! Bad.

Our court reporting instructors told us at the beginning of this quarter that it is OK to drop words. And they expect us to do it. You can always go back and figure out what you missed from the context of the conversation. Unfortuantely, I'm kind of a perfectionist and I want to have a clean transcript immediately. So the "just skip it and move on" concept is hard for me to do. There are two skills that I'm dealing with here, and they are in direct conflict with each other.

1. Recalling the knowledge, and,
2. Doing it at great speed.

Maybe it's too early to expect fast recall at this point, but it's what I'm striving for. Besides, it's what make a good court reporter, and that is what I want to be.

So today I will practice my speed building. My mantra is: I will drop words and I will be OK with that.