Hello to everyone one there reading this blog,
I am visually impaired since birth and before the usual comments arise: No, glasses don’t help completely, contact lenses also don’t and are so uncomfortable to me that I don’t want them and the remaining impediment is still significant. I also live in a foreign country (the UK) since September, for studying software engineering in cooperation with the college in Germany where I studied the first 2 years. As you might have guessed, I am German. (You have read my rather aggressive introduction, concerning my disability. I have to excuse for this, but most people don’t take it seriously and confuse muddling and scraping through with having no difficulties. I had almost no support at school and college in Germany and thus often had to justify for my difficulties.)
Computers always were different and always alluring. In the era of the DOS-prompts and EGA graphics, screens were easily readable and the lack of peripheral vision was not an issue at all. This was one of the reasons, why I got into computers, programming and creative processes using them as a hobby and later as a possible carreer. The fact that NaNoWriMo only requires a computer, creativity and time was one of the reasons why I felt interested in it since quite a while already: I felt like competing with others on equal ground, unimpaired.
Novel Patient