Thought I’d share this story that my former manager asked me to write for the program.

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WRP Success Story
There are many paths to the top of mountain but the view is always the same. - Chinese proverb
by Nathan W. Kester
4.5.06

Hi, my name is Nathan W. Kester and I’m going to write how Workforce Recruitment Program, WRP for short, has helped me find a job. Some of you may have heard or used the program but for those of you who never heard of it before, WRP is a program coordinated by the Office of Disability Employment Policy and the U.S. Department of Defense to enable college students to find summer internships not only within the government agencies but also in the private sectors. It aims to set up a path to obtain a permanent position following an internship and to develop career networking too.

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Learned something new. 10 questions you don’t need to worry about answering.

10 illegal job interview questions

For the next five days, I’m going to write a tip that I think will help a deaf person to succeed.

My first tip is “get your own interpreter.”

I’ve had a fair share of working with different interpreters. Some were great, some good, and some bad. Some were certified, some weren’t. One thing to keep in mind when you’re working with an interpreter, anything you said is going to be used against you. What I mean by that is hearing people will believe whatever the interpreter has translated for you. And some of the translation may not exactly what you said but that’s what hearing people will hear and think that’s what you said. So, that’s why it’s important to work with interpreters that can really understand you and your ASL style.

There was one time during an interview. I had an interpreter whose receptive skill wasn’t good and she had a hard time understanding me and I had to change my ASL style to more of a PSE (Pidgin Signed English) and that resulted in a lot of clarification work and interruptions. So, the interview didn’t go exactly smooth and the interviewer probably saw that I was a difficult person to work with and that must mean I’m not an easy person to work with. Suffice to say, I didn’t get the job. From that moment, I learned my lesson. I will never let an agency or someone pick an interpreter for me. I’m going to pick an interpreter that I know I will work with well.

That’s exactly what I did when I got an interview with Google. I asked one male interpreter to see if he could interpret but he was busy so he gave me a reference to a lady interpreter. She turned out to be one of the best interpreters I’ve ever worked with. She had a B.A. degree in English and a MA in professional editing and writing, so I knew she wouldn’t have a problem translating ASL into a high level English. Also, she was straightforward; she asked right away if I had any materials, anything that will help her translate and during the interview, she asked for clarification instead of just making up words and made sure it’s not me, it’s just that it needed to be interpreted accurately. Not mean to sound sexist but she was a good-looking lady and all of my interviewers were males. She put us at ease and we were having a good interview, just talking, asking questions, and sharing my experiences.

Results? I got the job.

And recently when I was in Mountain View a couple of weeks ago for an interview, I did the same thing again, I personally picked an interpreter and she was good too. The interviews went pretty well, I’m still waiting to hear something from them.

One thing you should be thinking about when you want to get your interpreter is the attitude. It’s probably the most important trait for any interpreter to have and ourselves too. There are some interpreters who think they know it all about ASL, some just come for money like it’s just a day’s job without really want to help a deaf person to succeed, and some won’t admit mistakes, putting the blame on us. You don’t want to work with those kind of interpreters.

Personally, I think all interpreters should be certified, attend deaf workshops, carry memberships with different deaf organizations and stay in tune with the deaf world.

So if you have an interview coming up, you might want to think about getting your own interpreter.

Blogs ‘essential’ to a good career

2. Blogging can get you a job.

Dervala Hanley writes a quirky literary blog that got her a job is at Stone Yamashita Partners, a consulting firm that ”tries to bring humanity to business.” Hanley says the firm was attracted to her ability to put her business experience into personal terms on the blog.

I can vouch for that. That’s how I got a job with Google, through blogs or blogosphere, thanks to www.kertong.com. :-)

More than a year ago, when blogs were taking off, I decided to incorporate a blog onto my website so that I can learn more about web development and I’ve always wanted to write but never was on the yearbook or some mags. So I thought it would be a good addition to my website and I remember I was agonizing over which blog engine I should use. Well, actually, I remember I signed up in blogger.com, before it was bought by Google. Was using it for a while, then stopped. It was good for users who’s not into web development or doesn’t have a web server so I looked elsewhere. I started using Movable Type and while it has a very good content management, the installation was a bit complicated and that it’s static, not dynamic (although now they can be updated dynamically.) Then Wordpress came along. I liked it because it’s dynamic, open-source and plug-ins were easy to use, but it was a little raw since it was new, then it got better and better. Now it’s one of the most popular blog tools and since it’s completely open source, I can look at the PHP and see how they do it, with the loops and functions.

Anyway, back to the topic, so I started a blog and decided to look for people who’s like me and saw Kertong’s website listed in the korean-american directory. Sent him an email, he replied back, we became friends, and eventually informed me that there was a job opening at Google. I went for it, applied, and got the job. Heh, I still owe him a keg of beer. ;-)

So, having a blog do pay dividends. And I wouldn’t really recommend you to use Xanga, myspace or those similar websites for that.

That’s the date I will start working at Google. It’s a good thing that my boss and I have a positive relationship. I was a little worried at how she would react but she was really supportive and gave me some advice. I originally wanted to end my employment with USDA early this Friday ‘cuz one of our co-workers is also leaving, so it would be killing two birds with one stone if we shared the farewell party together. However, my boss insisted that I serve the standard two weeks notice but I told her I wanted to take some time to visit my parents as I haven’t seen them all summer and it doesn’t help much that I’m the only child too. Then she told me how I can use my absence leave and extend my employment for an extra pay period (one more paycheck, :-) ). so I will be taking a whole week off before I start work at Google.

Time for me to find a fare from DCA to SPI.

Woot! They called me and told me I got the offer. I can’t reveal details but want to let everyone know that I got the job!

Bye bye Windows

One month and seven days since I turned 24 years old, I’ve arrived at a point where I feel I’m in middle of nowhere. It’s hard to describe how I feel but the best I can explain is that I feel like a fifty years old man who’s having a middle-age crisis. So, likewise, I’m having a mid-twenties crisis. It’s not like I need a Viagra to help boost my life or spend my retirement money on some miatas. It’s more like arriving at a dead end and which way should I go? I’ve graduated from college last May and have settled into a government job with steady paychecks. I didn’t go to a graduate school like most of my friends do. My friend told me that I should consider myself lucky ‘cuz I have a job while those who don’t—don’t have anywhere else to go but a graduate school. Yet my other friend said they want to go to graduate school cuz they want to advance in their major or that their undergraduate majors require them to go further in their fields. Like even being an elementary teacher requires you to have masters degree in deaf education, child development, or the likes. Or they just want to add Phd. degree to their names. I suppose I didn’t go to graduate school cuz I was tired of pulling all-nighters to cram on homework or projects and that I want to see some $$$ and spend it while I’m in my twenties.

Now, my job isn’t exactly the greatest job in the world and it’s catching up on me—was it worth the decision? Well, I’m an optimist and I didn’t write this post to whine about my standpoint in this life. I’m gonna do something about it. As you can see the subject above, I’m gonna self-educate myself. After all those years I’ve attended schools and colleges, I’m going to take learning into my own hands. What am I gonna teach myself, you wonder? Somewhere in my blog archives, I’ve said that I’m a descendant of Korean lineage. And I’ve been meaning to learn Korean or Hangul language since I found my real family 3 years ago. You might wonder.. why now? why not 3 years ago when I discovered my family? Well, my excuse was that I couldn’t find anyone who can teach me. Lame excuse, huh? That was my excuse and rather being stuck at the dead end, I’m gonna teach myself to learn Hangul.

It’s interesting. For the last 3 years, I have been expecting my family to learn English so we could communicate in English and my brother has been learning tediously. Now I realize…why should I expect them to learn English? Who says everyone must learn English? Even English isn’t the most used language in the world; that’s Mandarian, which is spoken more than 1 billion Chinese people. I have a brain, I have a degree in IT, so what am I doing here, waiting for my family to learn English? It’s never too late to learn a new language—I’ll be like an infant–absorbing every new word and form sentences in Hangul. That’s my goal and I’ve made the first step toward that goal. I’ve ordered an introductory textbook from Amazon.com. You can find this below:

My possible regret about this is that I could have done this 3 years ago and by now, I probably would have been fluent enough to write a letter and happily keeping in touch with my family–with my biological mother laughing at my little errors in writing like an infant falling down while trying to walk. And I’d have a several pen pals from Korea, learning all about the culture and reading news in Korean effortlessly. Neverthelessly, I’m gonna start now and I’ll be posting my progress here and maybe along the way, I’ll bump into someone who can help guide me.

*signing off*