Good Book, Birthday, etc.

This is the kind of book that I can choose over food. Great books satisfies my mind as well as my stomach. It's a memoir written by a young neurosurgeon who were approaching the peak of his career when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. I found this book after I decided to read about doctors and gain a better understanding and vocabulary of the field for my interpreter job. For the same reason, I am watching <Grey's Anatomy> from season 1 for a third time and adding useful medical terms to my glossary. (I'm still amazed by how good the first two seasons are!)

This week, I had one bad day at the job. There were two difficult calls back to back. One was about finances of a Korean lady with a complicated business situation. I had to disqualify myself for the first time since I started in July. I couldn't understand what she was saying in KOREAN! I got all the individual words "가짜 회사" "사기" "지분" "대출" "계좌" "서류" "소유주" but I couldn't figure out how they were connected in a logical way that would be translated into English. In other words, 50% of her talk sounded like gibberish. I noticed her Korean was a little different. When I apologized for being unable to interpret for her and offered to transfer the call to another interpreter, she acknowledged she's not actually Korean and could speak Mandarin. Regardless of the fluency of her Korean, I panicked and was very confused because the rest 50% of what she said was definitely Korean and I felt I somehow should be able to construct a coherent context out of it. I guess, it's hard, at least for me, to interpret something that I only understand halfway. The other call was also about finances, specifically a credit card, and again I misunderstood what the Korean person said. It was a minor mistake and I corrected it soon enough that the customer didn't get upset or impatient but having those two difficult calls affected my confidence. I think I should read up on financial articles. I also often find myself unsure of the terminology in life insurance so I will read up on it too.

My birthday was okay. I had a good time with Max, but, in truth, it was pretty much marred by my anger and disappointment toward some friends. As I'm writing this, I still get mad at what they did and didn't. But I am going to let this go. Chances are they don't even know they disappointed me and/or they don't care about me as much as I do them. Either way, I no longer think of them as my closest friends in NY.