| WBU-AP (Over 26 years old) Fine Work "My Golden Tech-Trek Through Life" Australia Stefan Slucki (50/male) |
On August 4th 2007, I will complete 50 years of life in this world. I have used audio-devices since I was four-years-old and began learning Braille forty-four years ago. As Professor Higgins says in "My Fair Lady" I've grownaccustomed to their face. In addition to the radio--the first audio device I remember using, and the phone(be it rotary-dial bakelite or touch-tone plastic) I have written and read Braille, used casette and other recording-players and, more recently, have got used to computer technology and electronic-Braille notetakers in the past decade. I am just entering in upon the worlds of mobile-phones equipped with speech and MP 3-players which can play a variety of cd types! In the Sixties, my Aiwa Tranny, the HMV Townsman. In the Seventies, the casette-player including the APH 4-track, the UK talking-book player, my sister's old jumbo-stereo record- player. Then a gap to the Nineties for the computer and the Braillenote. Phew! What a bewildering list of devices comes to mind. So many devices, quite a few possibilities, so how do I use them? What does an average day look like? I awake, sometimes to the sound of my Braillenote PDA- type device beeping away, having set my alarm using one of its many features. To turn off the alarm I immediately action one of the countless commands I've memorised in order to silence the relentless beeps. Perhaps I've set the alarm on my mobile-phone using the installed speech software which enables me to read its screen? In that case, I simply need to press one button to mute that delightful come- alive, ring-tone. In thinking about how my life is enhanced both by Braille and audio devices, I'm aware that it reveals my tendency towards old-fashionedness: when it comes to radios and Braille writers I like the mechanical kind, best-preferably no portables with pre-sets or Mountbattens anywhere near. Sometimes before I get out of bed, I reach for and turn on my portable radio to get news and weather and the consulting of this information-source is a regular part of each day. After breakfast, on a typical day, I sit with my wife at the table and we do our morning Bible-devotional reading: she reading the printed meditation and I look up the Bible-reading in Braille on the PDA or sometimes in one of the 30 volumes of my Braille Bible. I work at two jobs. Depending on the day, I might be travelling into town to teach Braille to adults at the Royal Society for the Blind in Adelaide. If so, I take my little portable Audio- Read be MP 3-player and listen to some interesting book using the sometimes synthesized sometimes natural voice in which the book is presented. When I get to the office, I turn on my PC computer and activate my screen-reading program(JAWS) to trawl through the usual backlog of emails and also prepare to teach my students. I use the PC computer for the bulk of my administrative work because I find it quicker and it is easier to communicate my work to sighted colleagues. As you can imagine, I'm juggling between the PC, the Perkins Brailler and the Braillenote PDA all day, depending on which student requires what training. In this work, I have begun to learn about transcription, the process of translating print into Braille--quite a steep learning-curve for a mere Braille user and print producer. I do appreciate the option of being able to produce suitable documents for the needs of my students on the Braille-embosser which is linked to my PC computer and the Duxbury Translation Program which does the work so well. If it's a day for my other work, my main calling in life, Braille and the JAWS-enabled computer do not disappear since I serve as a Minister of a church congregation. Administration work is always with me and I have recently rejoiced to receive a copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary which is now installed on my Braillenote and helps me look up both the meanings of words and to select synonyms in my writing. Yes, I do write out my sermons using the Braillenote, these days, thus saving some paper and stand before the congregation reading my sermon using the electronically-refreshed pins on my Braillenote's display: preserving theoretically-perfect eye-contact all the time--I don't need to look down at my text. An exciting recent development for me is the approval for me to receive specifically-designed GPS software which I can access on my Braillenote as well. This software is already enabling many blind people who use it to travel to places where they've never been or else to travel to more familiar places with greater confidence and a heightened awareness of what surrounds them. I look forward to the software's enabling me both to plan travel expeditions from home(virtual mode) and also receive guidance as I walk along the chosen travel route--all in Braille. What do Braille and audio devices mean to me? Firstly, Without them I would not be able to communicate with others and be communicated with by them to anything like the extent I now enjoy that communication. My firm belief is that Braille is the essential foundation upon which to build a life for a blind person, but audio can help oh so much to adorn it. Secondly, my recreation has been greatly enhanced whether by reading favourite genres of books and/or magazines using Braille and listening to favourite music and radio(not to say books, addresses and magazines via audio means). Thirdly, my work would be made significantly more difficult without both Braille and audio. My wife has a love-hate relationship to my JAWS- enabled computer: love because she recognises the freedom it's given me, but hate because of the potential time- monopoly those endless emails threaten to impose. Fourthly, my sense of dignity and value as a person would be undermined should Braille and audio disappear. My ability to communicate and interact would be so harmed as to make life much more blander than it now is! Stefan Slucki |
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