New Home and Old Talent

First, let me say that I love my new home. There are things that are less than perfect, and there are things that are downright annoying, but overall I am very happy with it. The neighborhood is great! Quiet, with lots of trees. I'll take pictures one of these days. There are many good things about this place, and probably the best is the short commute. One of my schools is five minutes away.

And the ward is fantastic!

That's not why I wanted to blog. I really wanted to brag about my finely tuned hearing.

I went for an EEG today, and the electroencephalographer (who does the EEG) was very nice. She was chatting with me while attaching the electrodes. Laynie was with me, because she couldn't pass up the chance to take a picture of me with wires coming out of my hair. I'll post it once it's downloaded.

As I was listening to this woman, I was trying to place her accent. Slower cadence... slightly more precise final stops... devoiced final consonants... I enjoy identifying the tiny differences in people's speech. I'm nerdy, so what?

I said, "You know, your accent reminds me of Laynie's mom. She's from Austria."

Her response: "Wow! I'm from West Virginia, but when I was a young clinician, I tried hard to suppress my accent. My mentor was an Austrian man, and I guess I picked up his accent."

If only this talent were marketable...