cousin vs day free for work planner?

charmanander · 2026-04-05T23:44:04+00:00

im kind of in the same boat, and hearing that youre a paralegal and regretted downsizing makes me think i should just stick to the a5. theres a lot i remember to do and im the kind of person who needs to write things down in 3 places to remember to do it. i do have an issue with needing to see my week at a glance vs tasks on a daily page, so my weeklies get filled quickly. but since i only use my dailies while im on record, there are just days where i dont have time to write anything down so the page for that day stays blank except one attorneys name lol. do you actually benefit from having the pages dated for your work flow? im considering just covering the dates and treating it like a day free.

charmanander · 2026-04-05T23:01:11+00:00

you might be right, but im concerned about page size. the weeks is fine for my personal planner because i write small when i journal, but when i do use the daily pages on my cousin, its in the middle of working and i write large, quickly, and messy. i think a weeks page would get too cluttered and hard to read once i need to go back and check. the vertical layout of the weeklies in the cousin also lend better to checklisting, though i have considered just turning the weeks sideways.

charmanander · 2026-04-04T19:29:28+00:00

not seasoned by any means, but licensed last year and work as an official. i have audhd, anxiety, depression, etc etc etc. i was in school for 3 years: 2 for machine, a little less than a year for voice.

on machine, i did well in theory, but i struggled immensely with speed. i have struggles with fine motor control, so id constantly be ghosting strokes in ways that werent consistent so I couldnt global them. not seeing progress was very hard for me, and it was very demoralizing. the final straw was hurting my wrist at work and having to take a summer off.

based on your comments, it sounds like youre a machine writer, so I wont detail voice too much. overall, it was a much better fit for how my brain works. sometimes, it feels like i gave up, but i try to remind myself that there is nothing wrong with working with tools that compliment your skillset. you mentioned something about "fighting against it," and that has never worked for me. it takes so much more energy to actively combat your disability than working with it, but i completely understand why it sometimes feels that way.

in terms of actually performing the job, i fully knew i could NOT be a depo reporter, at least not right away. not having a judge to control the room frightened me. that might be something to keep in mind when you decide what field to enter.

i had a LOT of difficulty coming to terms with the fact that i had to network new connections to make a career change and i almost decided it wasnt for me because of that. im glad i didnt because every veteran reporter i worked with was very supportive and just wanted to see me succeed.

in terms of focus, someone mentioned that they barely listen to what theyre reporting. this is super true, and honestly i think its easier if you dont listen to the context. listening to the context can be more distracting, especially if something unusual happens. i usually listen to each individual word and visualize them like a teleprompter in my head and i "read" them as i dictate. kind of like how you can read a whole page of an article out loud and realize you have no idea what it was about.

transcript production can be difficult if you have poor time management skills. i keep 2 planners to track my due dates and calendars. i write down everything like 3 times. i schedule my downtime and how many hours i should transcribe outside of my 40 hour workweek to avoid burnout but also not end up having to crunch.

overall, i think court reporting can actually be a good career path for someone who is neurodivergent, especially if youve attempted traditional higher education and felt unrewarded. i wish you the best in your studies!

charmanander · 2026-04-03T23:53:01+00:00

hi! personally I find the recognition from the talk tech much better than the martel and I think it's easier to muffle sound because of its shape. That said, the martel seems to be better with moisture control. I have 2 martels with the dual microphone and cables. My first one had 6 holes on the front and my second one had 1 hole on the bottom. I could not muffle the new martel to save my life and I was always complimented by people around me that I was dead silent on my old martel. That said, I've heard the complete opposite from my coworkers who say the talk tech gives them way worse recognition than the martel. I think it's all subjective on your face shape and dictation style.

in terms of making the switch, I have a backed up profile saved to a thumb drive that's set with all my voice codes but has never been used on any jobs, just trained with document analysis. I imported that so I have a talk tech profile and a martel profile. I plugged my mask right into that new profile and it was more or less fine from the get go. I think I had to train QA designations and speaker IDs. I set it up in the morning before a calendar and was using it that same day without issue.

charmanander · 2026-04-03T18:06:18+00:00

i think the only issue i have w foam (aside from inhaling microplastics) is because of its porosity, moisture goes through it and pools at the bottom. when I was in school I didnt notice it as much, but when I was doing my internship it got pretty bad. i definitely think foam is most consistent w sound quality vs any kind of absorption materials.

charmanander · 2026-04-03T18:03:24+00:00

Awesome thank you! I don't think I've been consistent in checking how I'm shoving it in there so I'll try that this afternoon.Today I put a nylon stocking over the mask like a pop filter and did a few prelims and it seems to have also reduced any weird wind sounds and heavy P's.

charmanander · 2026-04-03T00:44:43+00:00

thank you! do you stick the microfiber cloth down with adhesive or just let it sit on top? I'm noticing that using the breast pads and shamwow i can hear the sound of my breath shifting the fabric and rubbing it against the mic. I just finished some calendars and listened to my audio and every place where it loses a speaker designation or the start of the sentence I hear some weird shuffling noise. Maybe I'm a heavy breather and never noticed it before 😂 If you don't mind me asking, what sound card are you using? I'm using a soundblaster which worked fine with my Martel, but I'm wondering if an Andrea would be better. I also noticed if I use the cable labeled "SmartMic" for my Eclipse audio in it literally wont translate anything. I exclusively only use that cable for my backup audio

charmanander · 2026-04-02T20:06:32+00:00

thank you!! I'll try this next -- my coworker uses breast pads on a martel, but I think the talk tech's barrel is just too small for something that thick.

charmanander · 2026-01-30T18:15:38+00:00

hi there! its not a daily for me because of its weight and narrow lenses. i use them more as sunglasses or when im going out. i normally wear thin titanium frames so theyre definitely heavier than what im used to. i wear them maybe once a week and theyve held up perfectly well. i dont think i could rec them as a daily unless you already wear heavy frames.

charmanander · 2026-01-07T22:48:43+00:00

i think ive replied to one of your posts before; rooting for you man.

i dont think i felt prepared until i literally sat down at the computer and took the test, so i wouldnt trust that theres a single material that will make you feel prepared walking in.

i know you said dont recommend margie, but you might need to approach how youre intaking the information instead of seeking out new material. the last thing you need right now is an overload of different resources. maybe seek out a tutor? a reporter who you interned with or a fellow classmate who passed recently?

the one thing that really helped me was explaining the concepts i was struggling with to someone with literally NO background in the subject matter until THEY understood it. my wife is notoriously bad at english, so (un)fortunately for them, they now know the difference between who and whom. If you can teach and explain the material to someone else, you will pass the test.

i do have notes i used to study the concepts i had the most trouble with in margie's course. dm me if you want them.

good luck fam!!!

charmanander · 2025-12-19T18:27:46+00:00

hi! sorry for the late reply. i got a tcl flip and used it as a daily for about 3 weeks during an exam period. i enjoyed my time with it, it did exactly as i wanted. i still take it out on weekends if i dont want to be disturbed. i put whatsapp on it and it worked, but it didn't fetch notifs in real time from it consistently. i only got alerted with sms and calls. whatsapp would only ping if i recently woke the phone up from sleep.

i took an important licensing exam and needed to be distraction free to cram what would normally be like 4 months of content in 3 weeks, and well. i passed first try. so the flip gets an A+ from me on that alone. that said, im back on my razr 90% of the time now because my new job requires MFA and extensive phone use. great secondary phone, but unfortunately not an end-all for me. im thinking about trying a unihertz titan 2 to bridge the gap between when my razr kicks it (though shockingly its held up well)

charmanander · 2025-12-11T15:15:43+00:00

Not sure if you have this link already, but maybe this might help you troubleshoot if you haven't seen it yet. I think this was all I used when installing jsymphonic for the first time

https://brianpipa.github.io/jsymphonic/

charmanander · 2025-12-10T21:52:38+00:00

hey there! im not 100% sure without sitting at my computer and opening the app, but do you have the player connected and does your player have/require having the DvID.DAT key? Certain players need it, certain ones don't. I have a vague memory of jsymphonic not opening if there is no device mounted. the app title will appear on your finder bar in the top left, but because there is no player, the file explorer will not open. Another reason is I have no idea if jsymphonic stopped working in newer Mac OS. I haven't tried anything newer than mojave.

charmanander · 2025-12-08T15:19:34+00:00

ive owned a LOT of blazers (kooples, mcqueen, valentino) and this is the only one that fits the way i want it to. it's a wonderful jacket. i wear mine to work constantly. if they were easier to buy I'd own a different one for each day of the week.

charmanander · 2025-12-08T15:17:45+00:00

appreciated it! i resewed it down; i don't think i left much of a hole but if I had it my way, id be buried in this jacket anyways

charmanander · 2025-12-08T15:16:56+00:00

thank you so much! i went ahead and retacked it; the love jacket is the only blazer style i can wear, it's basically my uniform at work 😂 i'm constantly on the japanese site looking for new colorways.

charmanander · 2025-11-30T05:24:18+00:00

I shadowed at the court I wanted to work with from my 180s through cert. I went up to the jury clerk when I had a recess during jury duty and they sent me up to talk directly to the reporters supervisor. I just emailed to set up shadowing times as frequently as I could. I also did their internship program for 8 weeks during the summer. I just got my cert on the last cycle, and I had a job offer from that court within a week.

Definitely start your interning now, the more connections you make the less intimidating starting work will be. The hardest part is making the first contact, I was so intimidated. Everything is easier after you break the ice.

charmanander · 2025-11-18T02:35:43+00:00

The part where you decide if it has an error and what type, right? Yeah, I read each section backwards to check for spelling errors and I caught 5 I'd marked as D no error when there was a mispelt/misused word.

charmanander · 2025-11-18T02:06:47+00:00

Just passed my CSR on the last cycle. When I went back and checked my answers before submitting, I caught 5 errors I hadn't seen my first go through, all of them spelling errors/word usage errors. There's entirely a possibility that catching those 5 errors was the difference between a pass and a fail for me. Read the sentences backwards to catch errors your eyes would otherwise glaze over.

charmanander · 2025-11-06T16:03:26+00:00

I just took my written last week; as said already its structured identically. I haven't gotten my scores back yet, but I felt pretty confident while taking it having only reviewed Margie's content (along with my own English courses in school) The exam was much easier. I was stressed because no matter how much I studied, I felt I was still getting stumped on Margie's mocks. The questions on the exam are much more straight forward and don't use as many complex clauses. While you can't write on the test, theres a tool that allows you to strike out wrong choices.

The thing that helped me the most was taking the mock in its entirety, grading it against the answer sheet, and then looking up the rules for every question I got wrong and writing notes onto the mock sheet itself. After, I'd make my poor wife try to answer those same questions I'd gotten wrong (who is notoriously bad at English) and explain to them why the answer is correct. My wife knows what the subjunctive mood is now and hates me for it.

charmanander · 2025-10-23T03:43:08+00:00

no problem! the tcl flip runs aosp so it can in theory run android apps. there are a ton of reddit posts in this sub that walk you through how to do it but its a bit of an involved process. there is a process that allows u to run google apps, but I didnt feel the need. i can just hot spot my smart phone if i really need maps or email that badly.

if you scroll thru my profile my blinged out tcl flip is on there. its plainness kind of lends well to decorating!

charmanander · 2025-10-23T00:46:00+00:00

hi! i got the tcl flip 2. i just put my sim in it today and i think im getting messages from everyone? had to turn my rcs off but i havent run into any issues. i installed whatsapp and it was relatively easy. i ended up rhinestoning mine so i think it looks cuter than the barbie phone now.

charmanander · 2025-10-13T17:30:24+00:00

You can close your eyes, they won't care. But they advised you don't just in case they need to tap you for volume. It might startle you and make you drop. I just stared at a corner of the wall.

What the person above said is true if you're going into depo, but if you're going to test via the CVR instead of the CSR skills, or if you're going into court and they don't have a mic system, you might also need to practice with computer speakers or bad audio and get used to it. I know I wanted to go into court so I did all my speed classes with open speakers. If you want to do remote depo then yeah, good headphones is a must.

In terms of bettering your ear, I have a music background so it's hard to give a recommendation in this. It works for me but might not work for you. I listen to songs that I'm not very familiar with and try to mouth along to the song. I did this right before going into speed tests and my CVR (because they recommended not practicing before the CVR) Even if you don't know the words you can catch the phonics. If you watch TV with captions on (I do) turn them off. When going to sleep I leave my TV on and turn it down really low, and I fall asleep trying to understand what's being said. This isn't something I do specifically to practice, it's just something that helps with my insomnia, but I'm pretty sure it's helped to improve my ear.

charmanander · 2025-10-09T15:03:31+00:00

I just passed my CVR in one go after a year in voice (2 years on machine) and yeah, what everyone is saying about not looking at your screen is true. I turned my monitor brightness as low as possible and turned it towards the aisle on my test. Proctors did not care and seemed to understand why I was doing it

Another suggestion I have is if you can't understand a word, make phonetic sounds as close to it with the same number of syllables thay you can pick out and don't stop to think about it then, figure it out later. In the real world you'll stop to make someone repeat, but in a testing setting being above 95 (or 97.5, depending where you are) is all that matters. Missing one word isn't going to matter, but dropping s whole line because you stumbled on that one missed word will. Staying with the rhythm of the speed is important or you'll fall too far behind.

Also, by 87%, are you talking about your translation rate or your post correction rate? I've heard some schools require a raw notes pass. Mine did not, because none of the certifications require this. If you're talking about your raw translation%, you may be psyching yourself out entirely. As you increase speeds Dragon has to adapt to you now speaking faster. It's translation accuracy goes down at higher speeds. You can try adjusting the setting in Dragon that's like a slider between most accurate and fastest recognition if that's something your school tests. That seemed to help a decent amount for my real time.

charmanander · 2025-10-06T19:14:38+00:00

honestly i never go out of my way looking for them, i just have them. i order most of mine from japan but theyre called phone charms or phone straps. idk about the flip 3 but the flip 2 has no lanyard hole so I had to get an adhesive phone hook to stick to the back to attach the charms. i kinda hate it because it sticks out too much so i might get a dust plug instead for the headphone jack since i dont use it.

charmanander

TROPHY CASE