Janice is making banners again -- both on Cow Hampshire and for me. I love banners! Thanks Janice!!!

Coincidentally (unless she is psychic), Janice has also hit upon two topics of conversation I had this past weekend with occasional commenter and dear friend, FishnHikenh. The first being my recently-discovered, inexplicable ability to better comprehend the things I read when the text is written on a deep, orangish-yellow background (see the second braille banner); the other being the social model of disability.

A number of years ago, when being evaluated for ADHD, I was submitted to a barrage of tests presumably administered because everyone was being diagnosed with it and the medical profession was getting a bit concerned (and/or seeing the opportunity to reap the financial benefits of being thorough). When presenting me with his findings, the neuropsychologist reported that I was seemingly well-balanced (imagine that!) and apparently did indeed have ADHD. Beyond that, I scored quite high for tactile-kinesthetic learning and pretty darn high in the area of auditory processing. "As for visual processing," he continued but then paused, "is there any possibility that you had an early childhood head injury?" I was at a loss for words, so he proceeded to tell me that I scored below average in this area and that, given the high scores in the other areas, this was indicative of my having a learning disability. He could do additional testing to try to identify the exact nature of the problem, he continued, but given that it didn't seem to be significantly impacting my life he wasn't sure it was worth pursuing. I wasn't convinced that pursuing it would be all that enlightening or life altering either -- oh, and did I mention this guy had a personality that could curdle milk? -- so I readily agreed.

Now, every once and a while, I accidentally stumble across something enlightening. Like the other day, when I ran out of paper while printing out some notes: I found some colored sheets in my closet and went with those as I was too lazy to run to the store. The notes that I printed on the deep, organish-yellow paper somehow made more sense than the ones on the white paper or any of the other colored sheets. Go figure.... FishnHikenh suggested I might have Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome. Maybe I do. Who knows? But the letters don't "transform themselves" or "jump around" as the book he showed me suggested. They simply go into my brain better when written on the yellow background. It's like a funnel I guess, rather than a filter. *shrugs* Hey, maybe if I create a new, yellow skin for GOS, I'll do a better job of catching mistakes!

Anyway.... The other conversation we had relevant to the banners Janice has since made was about the social model of disability. This is a concept I have not been fully wrapping my head around. I know it's the opposite of the medical model of disability -- the model most of us are working under, for better or for worse (in many cases, worse). But something was still not clicking. At least it wasn't until I saw Janice's banners.

Blindness (and other disabilities) are viewed as problems to be solved according to the medical model. In the social model they are not: The problem is not the disability but rather the barriers that prevent the person with the disability from doing whatever it is he/she feels like doing. I prefer the social model.

So.... Janice, what if we keep the look and feel of the banners with braille (which I really, really like!) and take out the word "blindness"? In its place... I dunno... will "access issues" fit?

Holy bleeping bleep! (I probably shouldn't swear on Grain of Salt now that I'm no longer blogging anonymously, right?) You simply must check out Loquendo's interactive TTS demo. It sounds so real it's creepy. You can even add feelings/emotions into the mix! I SO want this in the form of a speech synthesizer. I wonder if they're working on that? PLEASE, somebody, be working on that....

Having heard that quality of TTS, it's tough to go back to:

• AT&T Natural Voices and Nuance's RealSpeak: Great until you speed them up to be productive at which point, too much like a strung-out junkie
• Eloquence: Peppy, but too robotic
• Fonix DecTalk: Too Eddie Murphy doing Buckwheat on Saturday Night Live (Otay!)
• Cepstral: Too Hannibal Lecter -- at least when used with the Festival wrapper (Alright, I admit it, that appeals to me. Unfortunately, the responsiveness with the wrapper is sufficiently poor as to make Eddie preferable.)

Save us Loquendo!

No, not that kind of coming out. (Am I the only one hearing Jerry Seinfeld's voice?) By "coming out" I mean that I have decided to stop blogging anonymously.

I've been thinking about this for a little while now, ever since my boss decided to start blogging. His questions -- or rather my paranoia -- led us to the topic of balance: The balance between maintaining a personal blog that is true to oneself while at the same time avoiding trouble professionally. After all, people have gotten into some hot water for blogging. People have lost their jobs for blogging. I, for one, love my job. Besides, over the years, I've grown rather fond of being able to pay for silly things like food and shelter. Anonymous blogging seemed to be the answer.

My boss thought otherwise.

I countered that there was an excellent chance I might say something which would not go over well with management, our board, or a potential funding source. (It is amazing how touchy folks can get when you suggest that they very well may be one of the horsemen of the apocalypse....)

He responded that the management team (of which he is a member) and board realize that the staff have lives outside of work and cannot be expected to represent the agency 24/7, as long as we don't do anything that reflects badly upon it.

(Note to self: Take down those nude photos) Kidding, sir, just kidding!

I do indeed work for a cool agency.

What really got me thinking about "coming out," however, was Saturday's Blog-Con. Nothing reminds you that you've gone on a bit of a hiatus like attending a bloggers' shindig.... It's not that I haven't had anything to say -- far from it! It's simply that much of what I've had to say lately has been about my involvement in an awesome, but work-related, project. And, as I alluded to last week, if I mention what that project is, my cover will likely be blown.

Is the project top-secret? No. The complete opposite, actually.

Then is it getting lots of attention? Alas, it is not.

Then how can it blow your cover? Trust me.

Don't trust me? Fair enough. I've decided, therefore, to make this an exercise for you, gentle reader. The project in question is called Orca. If you're a regular visitor to Grain of Salt, then you know my first name -- or my nickname, really. (If you're new here, look in the comments as Janice usually calls me by my name.) Set your timer and pick your search engine. Using those two pieces of information, and ONLY those two pieces of information, time how long it takes you to obtain my:

1. full name
2. career
3. place of employment
4. work blog
5. work email address
6. home email address

On your mark, get set, go!

I'm guessing under two minutes. It's a side effect of being in a rather small, specialized field....

Thus the question I found myself confronted with this weekend was do I continue to compartmentalize my life into artificial boxes (i.e. blogs), keeping my work life separate from my personal life, remaining silent about something which I find so meaningful, so important, so compelling? The answer was a resounding "no!" That isn't the nature of blogging, nor is it my nature. Hiatus is over.

Looks like I have an About page to update and a disclaimer to write.... Janice, can we talk about some more banners?

Seeing as how I wouldn't want Janice's breath to be bated indefinitely....

One of the many things I enjoy about being ADHD is the ability to hyperfocus. I suppose this ability might seem counterintuitive given that the primary characteristic of being ADHD is seemingly a complete and utter INABILITY to sustain focus. But if conditions are just right, you can attain a rather zen-like state. At least I can. And conditions, lately, have been just right.

Not being a doctor -- not that I trust them -- I cannot say for certain why I (and apparently others with ADHD) can hyperfocus, but here's my theory: Supposedly, one possible cause of ADHD is a (chemically) under-stimulated brain. That is presumably why drugs such as Ritalin work: They bring the brain up to a "normal" level of stimulation.

When I find something so interesting, so compelling -- and in my case, sufficiently challenging -- that I simply must learn about it and/or figure it out, I suspect that my enthusiasm and motivation is somehow causing my brain to reach that "normal" level naturally. Toss in some Ritalin for good measure and I'm golden: happy, energetic, entertained, curious, and (if I do say so myself) creative and clever -- at least with respect to the task I'm hyperfocused on.

Admittedly there are some downsides: Janice is turning blue due to a prolonged case of bated breath, my connection with the outside world has diminished considerably, and Ze Frank has become my sole source of news. (I was screwed during "Happy Week.")

I am not a woman of balance.

I don't want to be a woman of balance.

I won't bore you with the details of the project I'm working on -- in a large part because the details would indeed bore most people who read my blog since the project is work-related. And then there's the whole business of trying to maintain my secret identity because if I haven't already said something here that might peeve my agency's management team and/or board, it is inevitable that I eventually will! Suffice it to say, this project is really cool if you happen to be me.

I'm still around though, and I plan to be at the Blog-Con (oh my gawd, it's already October!) -- that is if TJ hasn't banned me due to my falling off of the planet.

Breathe, Janice, breathe.