You Should See Her Drive

Using court-reporting software that helps her type faster, Kathleen Tamashiro, a 30-year-old court reporter from Torrance, recently banged out an average of 173 words per minute to set the new electronic word-processing world record at L.A.’s Bryan Court Reporting College.

Q. What’s hard about typing that fast?

A. Normal people don’t even talk at 200 words per minute, nonstop.

Q. What did you do before becoming champ?

A. I used to work for Delta Airlines. I did a lot of computer work, which I was pretty fast at, but I didn’t really enjoy the customer service part.

Q. And now you’re a world-record holder.

A. My friends are really excited. I’m, like, the most famous person they know.

Q. Are you worried that someone will break the record?

A. I would like to at least see it in print once before it’s broken.

Q. What does a world-record holder win?

A. I got a plaque. And when Microsoft heard about it, they sent me a copy of Windows 97.

Q. So how is your driving record?

A. Pretty good. But the key to this contest was not to make errors.