Dragon software, a new experience posting by my voice.

I am dyslexic.  While this is not prevented me from going to Baylor University or getting my Masters from the Adler school of professional psychology, it has made school and homework a very time-consuming and laborious undertaking. As time has gone by I have found the effects of this dyslexia receding to the point where only when I'm extremely tired or stressed or emotional do they manifest themselves.

Fortunately for my younger daughter she is not dyslexic but for my son he is highly dyslexic. When we had him formally evaluated the psychologist who perform the evaluation told us that he was a nine point 9/10 in severity of the effect. His struggle in school and with the schoolwork have long reminded me of all the long nights that I spent working long past any of my classmates. So as an attempt to aid the learning process for him we picked up Dragon software, a voice to text recognition program. That is what I'm using to blog right now.

What I hadn't realized that after spending so much time trying to adapt myself to the printed word that I am finding it difficult to merely speak into the computer and formulate a coherent thought and get it into text.  Yet seeing that my words are being translated effortlessly into the computer and spelled correctly, the time-saving is immense.

When I left college and began working in the law enforcement field I had to step back into a lesser technology than what I had been used to. In that I've gone from computers that spell checked, grammar checked and instantly formatted my papers correctly,to being forced to take pen to paper in hand write everything that I observed into a report. I lived for the first 10 years of my career with a Franklin pocket speller and a bottle of white out.  If only I had had this software now, back then, I can even imagine how much I've could've gotten done that was wasted on trying to get everything onto the written page that would not make me ridiculed in the courtroom.

I have to say I am envious of my son and all the time he is going to save learning instead of writing. I know that I developed a lot of my personal discipline for the written word through the hours and hours and hours of attempting to figure out how to put it down on paper in such a way that it made sense to another reader but what could've been my knowledge base if I have been freed from that labor.

I will never know but the neat thing is my son will. To quote the song, "the future's so bright I have to wear shades."

My last class finished

At 1800hrs today I took my last test for my last class and I have completed my Masters in Police Psychology at the Adler School of Professional Psychology.

It has been a long two years but it feels strange now that it is over. This program was in God's plan for me because it came in a very unexpected way and at a time in my career when it was on life-support (or really patrol support, I was not in danger of loosing my job but I was in danger of having a patrol only career).

I can look back at my life and readily identify the different life changing decisions and crossroads, but rarely have I had the privilege of seeing one that was before me. And well... here one is...

Because I never really permitted myself to consider the fact that I was close to finishing my degree, I never thought about what I would do with it once I had achieved it. I will be shown the right path in time if; I pray, watch, consult the Bible and search for the answer.

The one thing I do know is that if you told me two years ago I would now have a masters degree and be in a great, new, position with my department, I would have had you committed for nonlinear thinking. I wonder what two years from now will look like? The ride with Christ is never boring and he certainly keeps you guessing.

Psalm 34
The LORD, a Provider and Deliverer.
A Psalm of David when he feigned madness before Abimelech, who drove him away and he departed.
1 I will bless the LORD at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul will make its boast in the LORD;
The humble will hear it and rejoice.
3 O magnify the LORD with me,
And let us exalt His name together.