1) My computer – under the best circumstances I have my USB-modem or Internet access in the booth. If not, it’s OK. I still have a lot of word lists on my computer.

2) My little black note book – I have an address book that I use as notebook. I keep my entries according to topic (agriculture, economy, European Works Council etc.) and each topic is in alphabetical order.

3) Pen (or rather lots of pens, pencils and markers but that’s just because I like it) and paper – most of the time the organisers provide pen and paper, but just in case…

4) A book to read when I do not interpret – If you work in a booth you work in teams of two or three, this means that there are periods when you don’t interpret. When you don’t interpret you have to be attentive of course and help your colleagues, but still there are periods when it’s good to have a book. It’s good if it’s not to captivating though, it has happened that I missed “my cue”, because I was too absorbed in my book. My colleagues quickly reminded me of course, but it’s nevertheless very embarrassing.

5) Coffee – tons (or rather liters of coffee, I’m a real addict….

As you can see, I usually carry round lots of weight. I do like the snails, I carry my home on the back. You may have noticed that I do not bring dictionaries. I used to, before the lap top era. Now I only do it occasionally, in meetings with very specialized terminology.

The only difference in my packing if I do a community interpreting is that I cannot read my book in the meeting and I do not bring coffee. Otherwise, the I carry around the same stuff.

This post is part of a list, 30 days of interpreting. You can view the whole list here.