Is paying for transcription services admitting defeat?

I decided to pay someone to transcribe some of my audio. I was kind of hemming and hawing over this as I am pretty poor, but I talked to Paul Niwa (journalist in the department I work for) today and he highly suggested it. He said transcribing the audio yourself makes you lose all the energy/fervor towards your material. I searched on Craigslist for quite some time... at first all I was finding was people charging $1/audio minute. That would be upwards of $600. No dice. I found some chick doing a full audio HOUR for 12 bucks. That's more like it. I have emailed her... I will probably only have her do my sibling interviews and the group interview. I will edit out all the random crap at the beginning/end of the interviews this weekend and burn everything on a dual-layer disc to send to her (Lisa). This will add to my budget, but I think it will definitely be worth it. I am quickly realizing that I have hardly any time at all to work on my project, and this will cut out a huge chunk of prep work. Good. Just importing all the interview into my Pro Tools at home took about two hours... things take much more time than you think they will. Oy.


LATER: Super productive for a Friday night. I secured this Craigslist gal Lisa to do a little under eight hours of transcription for $165 (the sibling interviews and the group interview). Not too shabby! I can afford that. Sorta. Not really. I also got through all the tapes that I found with my Dad's voice on them. I'm kinda sad... I can't find the tapes I was positive I had with my sister talking to me on them. I have no idea where they could be... I am pretty OCD and my room is spotless. Not many places they could go. I also am trimming the interviews (taking off the mic level checks and random crap at beginning/end) and putting the tracks together (i.e. one file per sibling). I think this will make it easier for the transcriptionist and eventually for myself. I believe they will now all fit on a dual-layer DVD (making an additional backup and overnighting one Lisa's way on Monday... to get the text back by February 10th or so). I was feeling super behind and kind of had a breakdown last night, but I feel a lot further along tonight (even though I still have epic amounts of work to go).