Episode 103 – Unstoppable Advocate and Voice Actress Who Happens To Be Blind with Tanja Milojevic

As you know, this podcast is entitled “Unstoppable Mindset” with the tag line “where Inclusion, Diversity and the unexpected meet”. This episodes represents for me one of the most unexpected sessions I have done. I first heard from Tanja Milojevic through LinkedIn. I did not know at the time she was a person who happened to be blind due to the same circumstances that befell me. I discovered this and so much more about Tanja when we finally met to discuss her coming on Unstoppable Mindset.
 
Tanja was born in Serbia as a premature birth. She was given too much Oxygen that effected her eyes and lead to her being blind. She permanently relocated with her family to the U.S. at the age of five. You get to hear her whole story including how she learned to function successfully in high school, college and beyond.
 
Our discussions in this episode include much about her life and successes. We also get to talk about one of my favorite subjects, audio drama.
 
Tanja’s insights will help you learn not only much about blindness, but about life in general. I hope you enjoy Tanja’s stories, observations, and thoughts.
 
 
About the Guest:
 
Tanja Milojevic Biography
 
I was born in Serbia as a premature baby. I had retinal detachment as a result of the incubators and was diagnosed with retinopathy of prematurity at the age of one. I then had several surgeries on both eyes to restore some vision which were partially successful. These surgeries took place in the United States.
 
I permanently came to live in the U.S. at the age of five when I was diagnosed with open and close angle glaucoma in both eyes. My medical visa helped me make a permanent home with my family near Boston where I began my mainstream public education.
 
Advocacy is important to me. I attended public school all my life and that required learning my rights and advocating on my own behalf along with my family. I wanted to learn braille at a young age even though I was able to limp along by struggling with print on my video magnifier. I was aware at that time that my vision would deteriorate over time and I’d lose all of it later in life; thus learning braille and mobility were early self-imposed goals in preparing myself for the gradual transition. I pushed the school system to take a dual learning approach and provide me print/braille materials. My supportive family helped me advocate from a young age and I got involved in my IEP meetings as a teen, which proved invaluable.
 
I advocated in high school and college to improve the experiences for other students who were blind or visually impaired coming into those institutions. My former TVI tells me these students’ lives were much easier after I left because of I urged the school to buy braille translation software, the JAWS screen reader, scanning software, and an embosser. My use of JAWS from eighth grade onward gave me the technology skills I needed later in life and I believe future students should have that early opportunity as well.
 
I received my guide dog Wendell just before entering college. He was from the Seeing Eye and was a golden lab. Wendell and I were best friends and everyone I met fell in love with him, he was so human-like. My puppy was always a magnet for people and I had no trouble making friends and getting places safely, night or day, rain or shine.
 
Wendell accompanied me while I attended Simmons College, where I thrived and enjoyed the supportive community, clubs and events. My communications professor pushed me to pursue working at the college radio station where I improved my audio production and on-air skills. He saw audio potential in me–the perfectionist who always strived for improvement. The creativity was flowing and I began to make my own radio dramas. My podcast Lightning Bolt Theater of the Mind was born at that time and thrives today. My love of radio drama stemmed from an accidental discovery of the radio drama Pet Cemetery on tape back in high school.
 
Making the lives of people who are blind and visually impaired easier and better are objectives that continue to be part of my life. My internship at the Constituent Services Office under Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick was challenging and taught me a lot about issues families were facing across the state. I provided feedback on audio description quality during my WGBH Media Access Group internship and learned about ACB’s Audio Description Project at that time. My Easter Seals internship provided me the opportunity to take part in the Thrive program, where I mentored a teenager with visual impairment and provided her with transition resources, confidence, and guidance.
 
I shadowed advocates at the Disabled Persons Protection Commission when I interned there and compassionately assisted vulnerable clients. Individuals with disabilities oftentimes face financial control and abuse in many cases and DPPC helps them take the steps they need to stay safe and resume their lives in a better situation. These experiences stuck with me as I advocated to take radio communications in college and learned the skills to become a professional voiceover talent. I graduated from Simmons College in 2012 with a double minor in Radio Communications/Special Education Moderate Disabilities and a BA in English Writing.
 
I moved on to UMASS Boston where I had the opportunity to work with the Carroll Center for the Blind and Perkins School for the Blind, to teach adults with visual impairments how to be more independent. I taught these students how to cook, clean, access technology, organize, launder clothes, read braille, learn about needed resources, and take part in leisure activities. The best part was seeing their confidence grow and the self-doubt lessen. I made their lives easier and better by increasing their self-image, confidence, advocacy skills, and independence. However, while attending graduate school, I had some accessibility challenges, but I pursued my Master’s degree anyway. I struggled through the process by working with professors to complete my courses with high grades and finally graduated with a Master’s in Vision Rehabilitation Therapy from UMASS Boston’s Vision Studies Program.
 
My work at the Perkins Library has been outlined by Ted Reinstein on The Chronicle documentary TV program. It follows my braille production work at Perkins and my voiceover endeavors. I had seven years of experience providing braille and large print to a wide variety of organizations and individuals. Perkins offered many opportunities which I utilize to network: I try new devices when demonstrated, input ideas to MIT students for new technologies, and tested websites/software for various Perkins Solutions clients. My voice over freelance work allowed me to meet many friends and producers which organically lead me to the path of audio description narration work. I now work with X Tracks, International Digital Center and audio Eyes to name a few. Giving back to the blindness community by bringing more quality audio description to the ear is personally rewarding and I’m honored to be able to help advocate further in this field of access.
 
Further enriching my life experience, my current guide dog, a yellow lab named Nabu, and I were partnered in February, 2017. It didn’t take long for our bond to form, and now she and I travel together everywhere. She’s a beautiful and loving dog and it’s no trouble meeting people with her participating in my adventures. We work closely every day and she rarely leaves my side.
 
That brings me to the present. In June of 2022, my partner and I founded GetBraille.com, a braille production company where we produce literary braille, large print, and audio materials to all who need them. This on-demand service will make it easier for schools, organizations, restaurants, and individuals to request quality braille at affordable prices. We always provide quotes and project consults at no cost. Our future goals include developing multi-sensory educational materials and assistive technologies for those with print disabilities that we wish had been available to us. Offering work to others who are blind and visually impaired is important to us as we grow; we look forward to the bright future a
 
How to connect with Tanja:
Email me at tanja@getbraille.com
Visit our Get Braille website at: https://getbraille.com/
Visit my voiceover website at https://www.tanjamvoice.com/
Find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/tanja.milojevic.37
Check out my linked in profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanja-milojevic-94104726/
 
 
About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.
 
Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.
 
https://michaelhingson.com
https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/
https://twitter.com/mhingson
https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/
 
accessiBe Links
https://accessibe.com/
https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe
https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/
 
 
 
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Transcription Notes

Michael Hingson  00:00
Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I’m Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that’s a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we’re happy to meet you and to have you here with us.
 
 
Michael Hingson  01:20
Welcome once again, we’re glad you’re with us. And you have in case you’re wondering, reached unstoppable mindset, the podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meat. I’m Mike Hinkson, your host and today we’re interviewing Tanja Milojevic. And Tanja has a varied background. She is involved with a company called Get Braille. She’s a voice actress. And she’s going to tell us about the rest. I looked at her bio, and it’s a nice long bio. So there’s a lot of data there. So rather than putting all of that here in the podcast, Tanja gets to talk about it. How about that? Anyway, Tanja, welcome to unstoppable mindset. How are you?
 
Tanja Milojevic  02:01
I’m doing well, Michael, thank you so much. And it’s Tanja. But Tanja a lot of people think that I think it’s
 
Michael Hingson  02:09
well once again, like I should have asked because like with with  Milojevic. I, I just listened to what Josh said. And it said, Tanja, so Tanja.
 
Tanja Milojevic  02:20
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I’m really excited. And of course, with your story being so inspiring, too. I, you know, I look forward to helping the community itself and in many different ways, including providing Braille access, and easier Braille access, more affordable, quality, all that fun stuff, and of course, contributing to the world of voiceover and AI voice cloning.
 
Michael Hingson  02:46
Well, let’s start with kind of your history. Tell us about growing up and where you were born and all of that stuff.
 
Tanja Milojevic  02:54
So I was born in Serbia, I came here to the US at the age of five and a half, because I needed some various surgeries. Honestly, when I was born, I was a preemie premature baby and I had run off the prematurity. So we needed to perform surgery right away, to see if we could reattach the retinas. They had been detached due to the oxygen, the incubator. So my mother was able to gather enough money, fundraise and bring me here to the US at the age of one, we had the surgery that was very successful. And then we came back to the US periodically to get eyedrops medication and check in. By the age of five, these checkups were so frequent that we decided to settle in the US, it made a lot more sense to do that a lot more cost effective. So that’s what we did. And I went to public school here, I have the fortune of getting all of my schooling here in the US, and then many other opportunities as life went along its journey. So I was a dual learner in school, I did large print Braille. And then of course, when screen reading technology was more easily obtainable. A lot of audio, JAWS, voiceover all that fun stuff. And I’d say my vision,
 
Michael Hingson  04:14
able to do much but give your age away. But when were you born what year
 
Tanja Milojevic  04:18
1989.
 
Michael Hingson  04:19
So by that time, by that time, ROP was pretty well known. So there was no choice but to put you in an incubator with pure oxygen or what?
 
Tanja Milojevic  04:34
Well, I mean, you’re looking at not a third world country, but but definitely a country that was economically struggling with the war going on and such. And the care really wasn’t equal access to everyone and it’s sort of like, what you could get into, you know, what opportunities were available to you. And at the time, they had all these premature babies in incubators, that was just the way it was done. They didn’t have enough They have to really monitor and I sort of question whether or not much of the staff really cared all that much about it. It’s not like you could go to court and sue them and really get anywhere because they would lock you out of the courtroom. So with limited opportunities, you kind of took what you could get.
 
Michael Hingson  05:18
Yeah. Well, having been born in 1950, when ROP or at that time, rLf was not nearly as well known or certainly not accepted. Although it had been offered as a reasonable issue dealing with premature babies. It still wasn’t totally accepted by the medical profession. And I’ve heard that there were people born around that time who like 30 and 40 years later sued and won. And I always felt, why would I want to do that? If the doctor didn’t really know, or wasn’t that well known? What are we gonna do by filing lawsuits other than destroying lives, which doesn’t make any sense because my life was not destroyed, it just went a different way.
 
Tanja Milojevic  06:03
Right? I mean, that’s a great way to look at it. And I see it as a blessing in disguise, because it was a great opportunity to bring my family over one at a time close family and get them jobs here. Well, not that I got them jobs, but they were able to have the opportunity to better themselves, their situations, and so on and have family here, which is a much more attractive alternative than being in a country that’s economically struggling, war torn, etc. At the time, we got out of that conflict, just just in time, because it gotten worse from there, obviously. So having the opportunities to have public education here. All of the various services that were offered here, at the time was just unheard of. The School for the Blind that existed in Serbia was very 1800s, maybe 1950s style, institutional, like dark rooms dirty, just not a place you want to be. So yeah, it’s a great, great opportunity for us. So I That’s how I see it, instead of worrying about lawsuits and trying to get revenge or whatever.
 
Michael Hingson  07:14
Which makes perfect sense. Which makes perfect sense. Do you Do you have siblings?
 
Tanja Milojevic  07:19
I do I have an older sister. We’re 17 years apart. So kind of the running joke is she’s my mom. Sometimes, you know, state, we go to the certain know your mother can help you with this. Like, this is my older sister. But don’t say that to her. She’ll be offended.
 
Michael Hingson  07:36
Your big sister.
 
Tanja Milojevic  07:38
My big sister.
 
Michael Hingson  07:39
Yeah. Yeah, that works better. Yeah. So you say you did get some eyesight back from the operations? And yeah, how did that work for you in school?
 
Tanja Milojevic  07:52
I it was, in a way, it sort of got me into trouble. Not that I wasn’t grateful for having the vision, it was just that my teachers were like, well, she can read large print, you know, and if we magnify them enough, and give her the video magnifier, or they call it a CCTV of CCTV, as it’s called the video magnifier, but they gave me access to one of those like, well, she doesn’t need Braille. Because first of all, we have to pay a whole ton more, we got to pay another person to come in here and work on Braille. And whenever she can give, just get by with large print. And it was a struggle, because after 45 minutes of trying to see the larger text, it hurt my you know, I get a headache, my eyes would start tearing, I might neck, shoulders all that you’d get uncomfortable sitting in in such a weird position for that long. So we had to fight with the school to get them the public school to get them to agree to get me Braille services, so that I learned braille and print and had both in my toolbox, if you will. But also, I would argue that the language barrier was just as much of a hindrance as maybe the lack of understanding of, hey, this is a dual learner. Because when I first started first grade, they put me in a school that was like more special ed versus some teaching someone who’s blind, it was more like they had kids with various disabilities. And so the teaching style wasn’t a good fit for me. I did learn English and like grade one Braille, which is for anyone that’s listening that may not know, is uncontracted Braille. It’s long form, you write everything out a letter at a time versus using contractions and the lead condensed bro, which saves a lot more space. So I knew that but it wasn’t a great fit because I wasn’t being challenged enough. And one of my teachers found that out first grade, and they pushed for me to get moved to a different public school, where it was more of a general ed system. So So I had a year where I was kind of like, stuck in first grade for two years. In a way that was good because I had a chance to learn more of the language and Braille at the same time. And then I was more prepared to move on with the curriculum. But in a way, it also sort of held me back and was a little bit awkward for me, because I was like, Wow, I’m older than these kids here in my class. So a couple of different challenges. But the way that I like to look at it is that the more skills you can gain from tough spots, you’re put in, the better problem solving skills you might have or advocacy for yourself later in life, especially if you see that. It’s just simply a matter of miscommunication. And as long as you explain things to to folks around you correctly, in a way that resonates with them, it’s got to resonate with them, it can’t just make sense. They’ve got to sort of personally understand what it is that you mean, and see the struggle, I guess, if you will, then you’re better off doing it that way, then
 
Michael Hingson  11:01
what do you what do you mean? What do you mean by that? Can you kind of explain I I’m not sure I follow totally.
 
Tanja Milojevic  11:07
So a general education teacher is busy, they don’t have the time to stay after school every day with you and work on extra things. If you can prove to them that giving you an assignment ahead of time, or giving you the notes on the board, or maybe even expressing to them what’s confusing about you and setting a time that works for them, you’re going out of your way to show that you’re dedicated to their class, they personally need to show that their students are succeeding, or they’re going to have to explain why it is that that they’ve got so many struggling students. They’re responsible for many kids all at once, and you’re just adding more stress. So the more solutions you can provide to them, the easier their life is, and their job is. And the faster they can get out the door because we all have lives and families and yeah. So proving to the school through anecdotal evidence that this is hiring someone else is just going to present their teachers with less obstacles is the way to go. At least for me, from my experience, well, showing effort showing evidence, and it worked. Yeah, yeah, eventually.
 
Michael Hingson  12:23
Well, how did the teachers react as you started to explain, I would assume that that helped.
 
Tanja Milojevic  12:29
It did help. I did run into some other snags where the teacher of the visually impaired I was working with at the time, had a lot of her own issues in her own life, day to day. So you for math and science, and so on, I was writing my showing my work writing a lot of the answers in Braille, leaving some space, so double spacing everything so that she could interline it with print, which means writing the print above the Braille line. So then the teacher could go ahead and read it, it was an extremely antiquated way to do it at the time, that was the option. Now, of course, we’ve got all kinds of technology and Google shirt, you know, Google Sheets, and whatever, all this other more efficient ways to do it. But the point is that it took her a couple of weeks to get these assignments back to my general education, math teacher, for example. And that slowed me down. Because I’d fall behind, I’d be maybe a chapter behind everybody else, I’d still have to pay attention in class, but they were well ahead of where I was. So you know, I was I was having a hard time keeping up. This was like for fifth grade. But it was just another exercise in workarounds and figuring out how else we can do this, I’d show my work and print on the CCTV instead of the Braille, I would find ways to print out material that I wrote off of my something called a Braille note or a Braille light at the time, which is just like a small computer, essentially, that has a Braille display, you can feel one line of brela at once. It’s electronic, it stores files, you can change the file format, and I print out my stuff. So I came up with a couple of faster ways to do it.
 
Michael Hingson  14:19
And what it’s what it’s actually called as a refreshable Braille display because as new lines display, or new lines are called for the dots pop up representing those lines. So the display constantly refreshes for those who don’t understand that. So it’s a way of now producing Braille in a much more portable way. That one disadvantages is Tanya’s describing it. You only get one line at a time because it’s a very expensive process. The displays are not inexpensive to do so. Over time, hopefully we will find that someone will develop a really good full page braille display but that’s a waste is off.
 
Tanja Milojevic  15:01
Yeah, it’s still pricey technology. I really there get away from sins?
 
Michael Hingson  15:08
Yeah, we need to do something different than we do.
 
Tanja Milojevic  15:12
Definitely the pins get dirty Rogen, etc stuck, and it’s very expensive to replace them. Yeah, that’s part of the hindrance there.
 
Michael Hingson  15:21
But it is still a lot more portable than carrying a number of volumes of Braille books. I remember when I was in school, when I was in school I we ordered a catalog case from Sears the catalog case literally was a case where you would put catalogs and carry them around, if you were selling things, you could take catalogs to people, you could put a bunch of catalogs in this case, in my situation, we used to, to so that when I went school, I can carry some Braille books. And I got three or four volumes of Braille. So that carry Braille for a few subjects. But, of course, very bulky, very complicated, not easy to do, and certainly not refreshable.
 
Tanja Milojevic  16:06
Not at all, I did that for math, science history, especially a lot of the charts. The way that they did it was they’d have thermoform charts, and all the rest of the text was done in Braille. And so you had like not only the volume of the chapter, rail text, if you will, but you also have a separate volume you’re carrying, that has all the reference figures associated with that chapter. So you’re carrying two volumes, as opposed to where you could just have 213234 Sometimes,
 
Michael Hingson  16:38
and for those objects. And for those who don’t know what thermoform is thermoform is a process where you create an original of something, whether it be drawings, or even documents on paper, and then you buy a machine called a thermoform machine, you put a blank piece of plastic in the machine, lying on top of the Braille sheet, the original Braille sheet, you activate it, and a vacuum pulls down the two sheets together the Braille with plastic on top of it, while it heats them. And the plastic then takes on the shape of the Braille document below it. So it’s a way of relatively quickly producing a number of copies of a braille book or, as Tonya said, that, in her case, the diagrams and so on, of course, it’s still not inexpensive. And thermoform isn’t like using your fingers to read Braille pages, the plastic feels different in it, it’s a little more awkward to use. But still, it was a fast way to get Braille comparatively speaking.
 
Tanja Milojevic  17:43
That’s definitely true. The main issue with thermal warm is your fingers eventually go numb, because it’s a glossy type paper. And if your hands are sweating, it can inhibit your ability to run your fingers across the page. So that makes your hands go numb faster. So sometimes putting some sort of powder on your hands can help. But well, the drawback to that is it dries your skin out. So there’s always positives, and not so much to that process. But it is a more inexpensive way to produce tactile graphics.
 
Michael Hingson  18:21
See you sighted people think that you have problems in dark rooms trying to read stuff. You’re not the only ones who have reading problems. We all have our challenges, don’t we?
 
Tanja Milojevic  18:32
Oh, for sure. All sorts of creative challenges that we constantly iterate on to improve.
 
Michael Hingson  18:39
And we do iterate and we do improve, which is of course the real point of the whole process. So you went off and you went through school, when Where were you living in Boston or where?
 
Tanja Milojevic  18:53
So we were living in initially when came to the US. We lived in South Boston for a bit. Then we moved to Chelsea, we were there for about 10 years than ever. And then now I live in Peabody, but relatively same area
 
Michael Hingson  19:05
of the country spent. I spent three years in Winthrop. Oh, East Boston. So nice. Yeah, that’s a nice area. Yeah. It’s fun to be there. Well, then you you went on from school to college?
 
Tanja Milojevic  19:21
Yeah. I went to Sundance for my undergrad. And I studied communication, special ed and writing literature specifically. So that was a great experience. Their disabilities office was extremely helpful. I initially before applying to various colleges. I did a couple of interviews with their disability center. Couple of phone calls, I wanted to get an idea for myself of what their process was, and how willing they were to talk to me about it. So the fact that Simmons was not only transparent about their process, but also willing to answer any questions And when I’m not even a prospective student, yeah, told me a lot. So yeah, I did have a good experience.
 
Michael Hingson  20:06
So what did they do or say that caused you to like their office in their process, compared to other places that you observed?
 
Tanja Milojevic  20:16
Well, I mean, for one, it wasn’t some email that was automated, or, like, a, I don’t know, now, now, I guess you could joke and say, they’re gonna send you to a half an hour recording that you have to watch. It wasn’t anything like that, where they were just trying to automate everything. I spoke with the, one of the directors of the Disability Center there at the time. And I asked all kinds of questions like how far in advance, would you need these books, if, if that process falls through, if the professor changes the books or a new professor comes into the class, because these things happen all the time, you know, depending on what happens in life. They told me, Well, that’s, that’s okay. If the book changes, we can work with you, the publisher, or you can try to purchase the book, Online used. And then we can just scan a chapter at a time, if the crunch time is on. And you’ve already started the semester, get it to you within a week, as long as we have a syllabus, and we know what the timeline looks like for these chapters. And then we bring in the professor and make sure they understand there’s a Letter of Accommodation, the professor has to sign that and understand what they’re reading. And then if they cause trouble later, you can point to the letter and say, I’m not making this stuff up. There’s evidence to support that I need this accommodation for this reason you signed off on it, can we work together on this, and it cuts that cumbersome, miscommunication down quite a bit when you do it that way. So the fact that there are several processes in place made me feel a lot better. I’m a kind of person that likes to have plan A through like E or F, just in case, as, as we know, with tech issues nowadays, we gotta have multiple options. One of the things, the confidence, there was really what drew me to, you know, they knew what they were doing, they were confidently able to answer my questions. They understood why I was asking them, they weren’t getting annoyed that I had 50 questions. And that’s really what sold me on it, if
 
Michael Hingson  22:25
you will. One of the things that I experienced when I was at UC Irvine, was our office basically said, we’re here to help you and be the muscle and power if you get a lack of cooperation from professors and so on. But if you need material transcribed, or whatever this is, of course, long before offices became more organized, but you’ll probably need to be the person to find the appropriate transcribers. Well, I worked with the California Department of Rehabilitation, we found transcribers and we found people to do that work, because the office didn’t do it. But what the office basically said was, you need to learn to do this stuff anyway. Because we’re not here and other offices and facilities aren’t here, when you go out on the job,
 
Tanja Milojevic  23:21
right? That’s a huge consideration is whether or not you’re able to easily find people that can transcribe, especially if it’s like a math class. So I’ll tell you, in college, I avoided languages math, hardcore, because after high school, I had lost, you know, like, you don’t just have that library available to just order from the Ames library, which is a common library that school systems use to borrow various textbooks for students. Once you hit college, you’re kind of on your own in terms of finding out how you’re going to accommodate these tougher classes. I math wasn’t my favorite subject. So I tried to avoid that in high school, I took Spanish in German for languages. And because I had done that, there was a possibility for me to take multicultural electives in that place in place of that. And I took a test to opt out of like, the generally because my, my major didn’t require math. So I opted out of that by taking a math test. And then I took an intro to computer science class. And I worked a lot with partners on certain tasks that were non visual network, or excuse me that were, it was usually visual, yes. Because there was just no other like you get into the class, you don’t have a lot of time to figure out how you’re going to make it happen. Transcription takes a while, as you know, so unless you have this well in advance, it’s going to be a scramble, and you’ll likely get the book later. into the semester. And then it’s also a question of who’s going to pay for it. It’s quite a bit of money. Does the maths commission pay for it in this case? Does the school pay for it? And I didn’t want the headache to cheat off to be frank about it. So I avoided it.
 
Michael Hingson  25:15
Well understand how did you find partners to help with different projects like that?
 
Tanja Milojevic  25:21
A lot of the time, that professor would just assign somebody in the class. But a couple of the classes I got on with a few of the students sitting near me, maybe all of us were pretty well introverted. So we didn’t have a whole lot of people we talked to, and also Simmons is a school that has adult students, it’s got, you’ve got, you know, people in the master’s program taking maybe some other electives that are also available to undergrads. So that nice mix of culture really gives you more of a mature group to work with. So partnering with students wasn’t too hard at all.
 
Michael Hingson  26:04
The operative part of that, though, is that you did the work to find a partner. And I know there are some times Yeah, well, what I’m getting at is like, there are colleges, where offices for disabled students says, oh, we’ll find you those people. But then you have to work by whatever their rules are. And you learn how to do that yourself.
 
Tanja Milojevic  26:22
They did have that available. For example, if you needed a note taker, which in my case, I didn’t. But if a student wanted a note taker, they could request that some some student say that sign up for work, study job, fill that position, that student would go to your class with you take the notes, send them to you, whatever it is that that they got to do. Sometimes there would be a reader that you could get access to same kind of deal, work study position, the student would work with you for maybe two to three hours a week, and then get paid for it. But the problem with that was you sort of had to coordinate your schedule with their schedule, if your class wasn’t in a spot that in a space in their schedule that was open, they could work with you that day. So it was more of a hassle than it was worth. And I didn’t need a reader at the time I scanned a lot of my stuff in and would work with a professor or ask if I wasn’t clear on something. So yeah, that to
 
Michael Hingson  27:27
you, you did a lot of it. That is you did the work to to make it happen. In other words, you learned the skills that would help you later on once you got out of college.
 
Tanja Milojevic  27:36
I am grateful for that. Because when you get into the world of work, it’s nothing but figuring out how you’re going to make something happen and make your boss happy. So it’s a good skill set to have.
 
Michael Hingson  27:47
So what did you do for Siemens?
 
Tanja Milojevic  27:50
So I went to UMass Boston, which was a program was mostly remote. We went in a couple of times for intro classes and law labs and things like that. So I initially started in the TDI program, which is future of the visually impaired. Then I switched to VR T vision rehab therapy, which is the differences that TBI works with students up to age 22. And sometimes they can work with adult learners to if they’re working for permission or a blindness center. If you’re a VRT, you’re working mostly with adult students, teaching them daily, basically, daily living skills, where else skills a little bit, recreational, etc. So I switched to that program midway through. And so I was at UMass Boston for five years, and then got my Master’s there. And that was, like I said, mostly remote. There are a couple of things that I liked about that. And a couple of drawbacks, for example, you didn’t really get that same class feel when it was all remote as I’m sure everyone can attest with COVID than being on Zoom and does zoom PowerPoint by zoom right? PowerPoint deck, but by the boys. Yeah, I had a lot of experience in person asking the professor questions right there. And then with remote, you really couldn’t do that as much. And I ran into some more accessibility standards, like test taking, getting the software not to timeout on me or jump my focus around the page. So I worked around those and we made everything work. But the main the main thing was now with labs coming in, getting a partner to work with was a little bit tougher at that point. Because that relationship that you build when you’re in person in school wasn’t a thing. You’re posting online, you’re replying to people’s comments, and posts, but it’s not really the same thing. It’s, you’re just kind of doing a lot of work on your own. So you feel isolated. And then when you’re there in person in a lab, you’re like well now I have to work with these people. Get enough information from them. And there will be no you. So it’s a lot more communication that has to happen. And the only thing that I’ll say that I wish was a little bit longer is some of these labs, we had a little bit more time to do them. Other than that, you know, did run into some accessibility issues, their disability center was a lot more slower and had a lot more red tape around it, their processes were a little unclear and ever changing. So I did have a struggle with that in a few cases. But hey, long story short, I graduated, so I’m happy
 
Michael Hingson  30:36
when you were growing up before you got into college, and so on, did you have a career goal in mind? What did you want to do when you grew up?
 
Tanja Milojevic  30:46
Ha, that’s a that’s a great question. I think a lot of the time, I wasn’t really sure I was kind of bouncing from various things. I’ve always enjoyed acting ever since I was a kid, you know, I really admired good actors or who I considered good actors, performances. And like the genuine attea that they brought, maybe not all films are meant to be genuine. Like, you can think of anime or cartoon they’re over the top. But when something is very believable that you get in touch with a character, you feel like they’re real. That’s the kind of thing I wanted to emulate, and also just living vicariously through them. So when I discovered that voice, acting was a thing. In high school, I was like, Oh, this is exactly what I want to do. I’d always been interested in it since I was kid like, enjoyed making home movies recording, I used to have a tape recorder when I was a kid, bring it around everywhere and annoy the crap out of everybody in my family. Ask them questions, record little stories, it was just creative, fun. But I always thought if I could have this creative vision or creativity be part of my job, I’d be very happy, never enjoyed the idea or prospect of being a drone. Not that everyone working in an office is a drone. But I just found the idea of sitting behind a desk doing the same thing over and over and over again. Absolutely. You know, no freedom to make any decision about anything was was completely suffocating to me the idea of that, I always wanted something where I could move around, work with different people enjoy it, really challenge myself and work in a team to make something awesome. Like art. That’s not really a career, per se, it’s a hobby that turned into a side gig, that now with working with resemble AI, it’s a embedded more so into my day to day job, where I’m recording different voices for them, and so on. It started as like one of those, this would be cool if I could do this. And then this is fun. I’m going to do this as much as I can and kind of more and more experienced networking. And then otherwise. Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. I was just gonna say otherwise, I really wanted to give back to the community because I had always been a consumer of audio description and Braille services and these, like the mask mission and my various Braille teachers and mobility instructors, who made lessons a lot of fun in high school, they didn’t just make it boring. Gold went across the same street every single week, there was like, No, we’re gonna go to the store. And we’re gonna learn how to solicit persistence and whatever we’re going to forget about these cardinal directions for which I got sick of. But the point is, I enjoyed so much, I couldn’t be the person I am today without the services that I’ve taken advantage of my whole life. So just the idea of giving back, and helping other people making their day a little bit brighter, and helping them understand that we’re all gonna have bad days, that’s never gonna go away. The grief, if you’ve lost your sight is never gonna go away. Grief never does. But you know that it’s going to be better. If you’re feeling bad one day, you know, it can’t be like that forever. Something will surprise you. And if you put it out there enough, things are gonna are gonna improve universe always seems to put out with what you expect eventually. Not in the way you expect. But it will happen some somewhere somehow. And those two things I feel like now I’m finally at the point where I’ve gotten both of them to be a reality.
 
Michael Hingson  34:33
So the big question of the podcast is, you made all those recordings when you were growing up? Did you keep them?
 
Tanja Milojevic  34:42
Some of them? I have some of the tapes. It’s some of them are so terrible and overdramatic, but it’s amusing. It’s like just you can tell I was just having fun. And then the recordings through the years as I got better with voice acting kind of took part in different shows. I did save all of those just because you you would be surprised. Maybe not. Maybe you wouldn’t be surprised. But a lot of producers will lose things. They’ll put something on the backburner, like a project. And then three years later, oh my god, I’m trying to work on this project. I have a lot more time now life got a little less busy. I don’t have the recordings anymore. My computer harddrive died. Do you have have not? You know, that happens a lot. And then data, it’s easy to just keep a bunch of it. A bunch of data.
 
Michael Hingson  35:30
As I recall, if I remember the story, right? The movie Lawrence of Arabia, starring Peter O’Toole Academy Award winner, but somewhere along the line, the master was lost. And somehow it was recovered. But even an Academy Award film, things things happen.
 
Tanja Milojevic  35:53
Exactly. They do. So that’s why I’m backup hard drives. I’ve like two or three of them. back everything up. I usually drama, so I collect those.
 
Michael Hingson  36:03
Yeah. What’s your favorite?
 
Tanja Milojevic  36:07
Oh, that’s top like, I don’t know, I don’t even know.
 
Michael Hingson  36:10
Tell me some of the audio dramas you like?
 
Tanja Milojevic  36:14
So is there a genre you’re thinking? Do you are you thinking modern or not? So that’s a really hard question to answer. I decided to go based on categories. But there is a version of lock and key that was done on location and main locking key. Of course, anyone listening will? Well, if you’re a Netflix person, you’ll know that it’s an original series on Netflix. But there are books that were written by I believe it’s Stephen King’s son, and Stephen King. And I’m a huge Stephen King fan. So they wrote this, I think it’s a series might be three partners, quote, honestly don’t quote me on that. But there are books, it was written as a radio drama and adapted by someone called Fred Fred Greenhalgh from Maine and they recorded on location that a couple of days they did this, it’s a six part audio drama, it’s available on Audible. It is so good.
 
Michael Hingson  37:09
The audible copy. And it is, I didn’t even know what it was going to be like, when I got it. But it is it is so well done.
 
Tanja Milojevic  37:21
It’s way better than the Netflix series.
 
Michael Hingson  37:25
I collect old radio shows, I collect old radio shows as a hobby, and I’ve been doing that for a long time. And you you see all sorts anything from good to bad. But that is a lot of that has spoiled me for some of the acting that I’ve seen in more modern dramas, because the same level of emotion, isn’t there people, a lot of people today don’t know really, how to act and produce an audio drama that conveys I think what the author originally intended in the book or the way it was done with a radio. We just sometimes we don’t see the same quality, but I remember locking key and it does.
 
Tanja Milojevic  38:09
That is true, that it’s not always the same quality. I think that we’re trying, we’re really have a couple of different avenues where we’re trying to fix that, like there is something called the audio verse awards. They happen every year. There are different, obviously, iterations of this out there. But the audio verse awards really strives not to make it a popularity contest. Yeah, the crowd voting system, people go in, they listened to various things, you got awards for sound design, and acting and writing and music production. Everybody gets recognized, which is important. You can’t just recognize the writer or the actor, because that’s, that’s just a tiny piece of the pie. So it’s a good place, I’ll say if you don’t know where to start, when it comes to listening to good audio drama, or at least vetted audio drama. It gives you a lot of choices. And you can find these things and then you’ve got people ranking, the quality of things on blog posts and all kinds of places they’re
 
Michael Hingson  39:15
well Gunsmoke, the Gunsmoke, the Western, they call it sometimes the first adult Western in radio that was on from well, all of the 1950s constantly won awards for sound patterns, sound effects, and if you listen to it and compare it even to other old radio programs, there is so much more sound put into it. It’s they did an incredible job of really setting the scene and creating the atmosphere with with the sound patterns with the sound effects. So it wasn’t just the acting, which was so good.
 
Tanja Milojevic  39:55
I know. I mean, they got some talented foley artists there. Yeah, and yeah, and I mean, another one with sound obviously that if we’re thinking of classic, maybe not as classic as Gunsmoke. But the Star Wars, NPR. I was
 
Michael Hingson  40:13
thinking of of that. Yeah. The Star Wars program is pretty well done in the acting is good. Hamill did a did a great job.
 
Tanja Milojevic  40:23
That isn’t absolute. I mean, there are other Star Wars, radio dramas in that world that I can think of, but none of them compare to that. NPR version. There’s
 
Michael Hingson  40:36
there’s another program that NPR did. That was on for three years called Alien Worlds, which was well done.
 
Tanja Milojevic  40:42
Oh, you think I heard that one? Yeah. Well, if you I mean, the BBC does some great stuff to do. Oh, they
 
40:49
do a lot of good stuff.
 
Tanja Milojevic  40:49
Yeah. Yes. I think my biggest frustration is that there isn’t one central directory where you can find all of this stuff and keep up to date with it. You have to go on this website, and this website and Miss directory. And there’s no central data, like your collection system, where it’s like, oh, I want to learn about the history of audio drama, and I want to know what’s available now. And in the past, like archive.org, Doc, excuse me, archive.org is extremely helpful, because you can just search keywords and find a bunch of stuff that was curated, downloaded, cleaned, like nightfall. Amazing, amazing series from 1979 to like, 1981 or 1982. I think they only had 104 episodes, but they’re really Canadian horror series. Now, really, really good stuff anthology. So a lot of it was ahead of its time.
 
Michael Hingson  41:53
Yeah, as we’ve seen so many times, well, Gene Roddenberry was way ahead of his time as well. Needless to say, yeah, so you’ve done a fair amount of voice acting, I gather. A bit have we have we heard
 
Tanja Milojevic  42:10
you might have. I mean, like, for example, some of the longer run stuff going on, it’s edict zero. Some, some may be familiar with that. It’s a science fiction cyberpunk series. So I’m just like Fraser meets X Files, it’s really good. mind bending stuff. You know, our world is a simulation, kind of a lot of fun. That’s been running, I don’t know now nine years, what maybe more, it’s crazy. There’s what’s the frequency, which is kind of a cool, fantasy, horror, contemporary show. That is one season, I think we’re gonna be working on season two. So far, there is I do want to mention the 11th hour project is a great place. If you’re new to audio drama, you want to dip your feet in, maybe you want to try your hand at producing or writing or something, you’ve never done it before. It’s an extremely inclusive space. It’s 11th hour audio.com. And if you visit that, you’ll notice there are obviously shows that have been created. But what it is, is it’s a challenge in the month of October to create audio dramas from start to finish and collaborate with people you’ve never collaborated with before. In this project, this team effort, and it’s a race to the deadline. It comes out on world audio drama day, which is the 31st of October, in recognition of world the world’s originally 1938. And it’s a lot of fun. I’ve been involved a couple of years there. It’s a wonderful community. They’re extremely welcoming. The moderators are great. And they’re always available to answer any questions, so I totally recommend checking it out. And then other stuff that’s horizon, the white vault, there’s a group out there called fool and scholar productions. And while we’re on the topic of sound design, Travis van Graf, who is the one of the integral members or founders of that group, won several awards through the audio verse awards. Specifically I can think of for sound design on vast horizon and the white vault and some of his other shows, like Tales from the tower. So these are all vast horizon is a horror slash sci fi show that’s about this agronomist who wakes up on a spaceship, the rest of the crew is just gone. They’re not dead. There’s no bodies, no signs of struggle or anything like that. They’re gone. But the ship is breaking apart. So she’s got to figure out a way to get to some sort of station and the only entity she can interact with is the artificial intelligence on the ship. So I play the artificial intelligence which for me was a huge like dream come true, I guess, if you will, because I’ve always been fascinated with it. Artificial assistants and all that. And using the screen reader. I mean, I know a lot of my friends who are visually impaired love to imitate screen readers just because it’s funny. So and so I finally got to do it and get like, a dig out of it. That was awesome. And then again, vast horizon vast horizons, okay? Yes, it’s it’s singular, vast horizon horizon, singular, cracked, you got it. And then the white vault is a survival horror show. First Person accounts basically compiled, but not what you would imagine from seeing a lot of these similar kind of tropes, if you will, this is a truly international task. And it takes place all over the world. And they get actually authentic actors from various countries. It’s not like, oh, and I want you to do a British RP accent and whatever, it’s, it’s actually people from there. And there are languages also being represented other languages like Mandarin, and you know, Icelandic and so on. And they, they do it in such a tasteful way where the language starts, then it fades down, and you have the voice actor speaking in English. They got translators, I mean, they really put a lot of thought into this. I highly recommend it. And you can binge all five seasons now. Vast horizon, you can also binge all the seasons. So if you need some listening materially fun road trip stuff. Those are a couple of the project. I mean, there’s others, but you know, there’s Take, take me, take me a while to go through those.
 
Michael Hingson  46:37
And with all the languages, I assume nobody though, has done clean Chinese yet?
 
Tanja Milojevic  46:42
Not yet. But they just Serbian.
 
Michael Hingson  46:45
Oh, yeah, that’s that’s not yet but that’s okay.
 
Tanja Milojevic  46:49
Well, willing, that was actually fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. It’s just really some insight on that. Yeah. If you’re interested in, in learning about how the clang on food scene is, is done. In the next generation, I think there was a recent episode where they had this whole banquet such was like this Yeah. entity to look like an octopus, basically, creepy, alien looking. There’s an episode of gastropod, where they go into, it’s called gastropod, the podcast, and they talk about food in the context of science fiction and fantasy, and how writers work is, has been brought to life, either in books or in movies. And they talk about Star Trek, they actually have the lady who designed the set and the food, like that is literally her job. She designed this food to look perfect on camera. And also so that the actors aren’t like, chewing too much, or whatever. They’re, it’s fascinating. And that’s just a talk on cast. It’s not audio drama.
 
Michael Hingson  47:53
So what’s been the biggest challenge for you in your career so far on the job and all that?
 
Tanja Milojevic  48:00
The biggest challenge, I’d say is the ever changing technology, software, tech stacks, soft phones, CRMs, you name it, like, you know, you learn one thing, or maybe a company starts using a new tool just because it works for them. And it’s a good presents good workflow. But not all the tools are usable with screen reading technology, like Jaws like NVDA voiceover. And there’s this constant need to adapt and learn how to come up with workarounds. And explain to your boss, I understand why you want to use this. But I’m unable to access it because of these inaccessible barriers that I’m running across. How can we work together to make it work. And sometimes it’s, well, let’s collaborate on Google Sheets. And then I’ll post the results up here on this tool that we’re using, for instance, resemble uses something called notion. It’s a fairly early tool and its development. It’s mainly designed for writing and it’s think of Trello. It’s like cards that you move around. And those denote tasks completed or in process, you’re able to put in notes, it is not accessible at all. So a lot of these workarounds is just, you gotta have a lot of communication, make sure that people are on the same page. And so we also use Slack. And then my solution is Google Suite. Because it bridges that gap a little bit. We can always post a Google link in one of those notion cards, and people can access the same info. How do you like say that? It’s the best solution that I’ve run across so far in terms of keeping track of threads and channels, but there’s definitely some things that are a little cumbersome with it. For example, sharing files when you’re on the desktop version, if you’re trying to download files files that folks have sent you. Getting into that, to see the file, sometimes when you tab, basically or so. So imagine that you’re on the name of your colleague, and they’ve shared two files with you, you’re going to hit tab to get into the list of files. Sometimes all it does is say bold italics. So then you have to shift tab into the field, pressure up arrow, once, it’ll start reading a bunch of stuff, you ignore that you tab once you get to the files, each time you open the modal dialog to download each file. And then you hit the Close button. Once it’s downloaded, you’re brought right back into the message field, and your focus is no longer on the file list. So then you have to go back up repeat, tab, pass the first file you’ve downloaded, rinse and repeat the entire process, and it just slows you down. So I find them some way slack is very clunky. But it is the fastest solution when compared to others.
 
Michael Hingson  50:56
It’s really good at being able to have a lot of channels and so on my biggest challenge with Slack is that if you have to monitor a variety of channels, it’s not at all trivial. To go from channel to channel quickly. You just spent a lot of time looking through channels to find nuggets or information. And that’s an awkward thing. It’s it is not it is it is more linear from a voice standpoint, then is is really helpful.
 
Tanja Milojevic  51:28
Yeah, I mean, even reacting like and find it much easier to react to posts on the phone than on the desktop app. Yeah. And switch between workspaces on the phone. My other thing to bring up is notifications. I feel like Slack doesn’t always notify you, right? Even if you’re mentioned, sometimes it’s easy to miss. So like you said, you have to sit there and hunt through all the channels, make sure that someone isn’t trying to get your attention. Sometimes they just want to be like, right? I just want to be like, Can you email or text me or call me? I will get all of those things. Yes, don’t bury somewhere, but it’s so frustrating sometimes. But it’s better than discord in terms of monitoring channels, I’ve noticed discords accessible, but it’s not very usable in a lot of ways.
 
Michael Hingson  52:17
So you use a guide dog, I understand I do what caused you to decide to use a guide dog as opposed to just using a cane.
 
Tanja Milojevic  52:26
I’ve always loved animals. So as a kid, we lived on a farm and we had chickens, turkeys, we had a pig, and so on. So a lot of my job was to collect the eggs and you know, take care of them, whatever, feed them. So I grew up with animals. And then you know, birds as pets and so on. I really wanted to have my own, like dog. And my mom was just like, well, I don’t know, I mean, it’s a lot of work a lot of responsibility. I don’t want the dog in the house. She wasn’t a fan of the hair, the shedding and the responsibilities and the costs. So when I found out in high school that I could get a guide dog, you know, I could apply get one. And then I talked to some other folks who already had dogs, like my friend, teachers had dogs, I got to see them every day. And I got to see them working. And they were just so good and very caring. And there’s nothing like a special bond between a guide dog and their handler, where the dog trusts you implicitly. And they love you unconditionally. So it’s just such a such a it was such an attractive like, Oh, I’m gonna have my own best friend with me in college. And also the fact that you could travel around a lot easier the dog, follow people in front of you get you through a store a lot quicker find doors, elevators, stairs, street crossings. As long as you knew the route, you were good to go. So I loved that whole thing. And I decided to apply because I wanted to have a furry friend I could bring with me to college. College is intimidating when you’re in high school because you’re like, Well how am I gonna make friends? I’d always had trouble sort of connecting with peers my age. I always found it easier to make friends with folks were older than me. Then people my age were kids, you know kids are are fine too. But it was just that whole awkward of like, if you’re the only person with a visual impairment in your school people are just like, yeah, yeah, I’m gonna go do my own thing. So when I got a dog, you know, started college. It was a game changer in terms of helping me not be so so sad and like down just like being far away from my family. And being in this they gave me in freshman year they gave me this room that was like for one person and it was like a cell I kid you not. It was tiny. It was a corner of the building. I’d had a tiny closet and just enough room for you to spin around with your arms out That’s about it. So I was very sad. I was just like, Wow, I feel like I’m in a prison cell. And I can’t, like, see family or anybody, I feel so isolated here. So having the dog was huge for my mental health and not getting depressed, too bad, you know? So I got the dog for a number of reasons. I mean, socialization, huge. People would talk to me want to pet the dog, like they cared about the dog, not me. But it didn’t matter. It’s still, I still did wanted to do and I could get them to help me. In certain situations, like in the cafeteria, if I needed help, or whatever, finding a certain classroom, I could get peers to help because, like, if you help me find this classroom, you can pat him. Okay. So it worked out really well. Yeah, I just loved having the companionship,
 
Michael Hingson  55:53
I got my first guide dog going into high school, and that was even learned to use a cane but I was very knowledgeable about travel of dog has made a lot of a difference in what I do. And a dog’s Well, a dog dogs in general have taught me a lot about teamwork, I love to say that I’ve learned more about trust and teamwork, from working with a guide dogs that I’ve learned from all the business and management experts in the world, because dogs do love unconditionally, but they don’t trust unconditionally. And what you said was true, they trust implicitly, but only if you earn their trust. And they likewise have to earn your trust. And you have to learn to trust them, it’s a two way street. But when both members of the team trust each other, it’s a sight to behold. And it makes all the difference. And, and there’s something to be said for the fact that it’s good to have somebody to keep company with, you know,
 
Tanja Milojevic  56:55
Oh, definitely. I mean, both of my dogs, I feel so fortunate I’ve had wonderful was my first dog. The hardest thing though, for me is like I get so attached to them. And I, if they’re if they’re like sick, or they’re getting older, I just worry about it and worry about it. And if there’s something that I wish, it’s that their lives were longer, yeah, and also, I’ve just had dogs with health issues. My first dog had inflammatory bowel disease, cancer and kidney disease at the end. And it was traumatizing, like we had to unfortunately, you know, put them to sleep and stuff. And after that, it just affected, it still affects me, like I mentioned earlier, grief doesn’t go away at all, it’s just how you deal with it. And you have to understand they you need to accept it, it’s part of your life. And you’re always going to remember them. And you got to you got to give them the respect of remembering them fondly and appreciating them for what they gave you. Right there. They gave their soul their spirit for you, you know,
 
Michael Hingson  57:58
you could dwell on the disease, or you can draw up dwell on the bad things, or you can dwell on the positive things and all the things that we learned together, and one of the things that I’ve learned through now, eight guide dogs is Wow, when when I got my first one in 1964, so it’s been a while. But you know, when when they grow old, or they become ill, and you have to get our dog, it doesn’t mean that you think any less of the dog who can’t be your partner anymore, but you form a new teaming relationship. And your relationship may change if you keep the old the other dog which we generally have done. But still, the relationship is there. And what you really get to do is to get two dogs used to each other so that they interact and that’s a lot of fun. Yeah, and I’ve had I’ve had two dogs ganging up on me. So which dog do you think I am? I want to go to work today. Oh, they’re so easy. They’re sneaky. Oh, that is so sweet. LaTonya this has been a lot of fun. Absolutely. I really appreciate all your time and insights. If people want to learn more about you and voice acting and so on, how would they do that?
 
Tanja Milojevic  59:18
You can check out my website that has samples of my work at WWW dot Tanja T A N J A. M as in Mary voice.com. That’s TanjaMvoice.com. You can email me at Tanja t a n j a 631 at gmail.com. Or you can check out get Braille where we offer Braille large print and audio services at get braille.com G E T B R A I L L E.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, all that fun stuff. Reach out honestly, anytime. I love to help folks get started with VoiceOver just meet new Friends in general, so don’t hesitate.
 
Michael Hingson  1:00:02
So get Braille is a company that produces alternative forms of material other than regular print.
 
Tanja Milojevic  1:00:09
Correct? Yes, we were able to produce Braille, large print, we do menus and various overlays for business cards are in interior, like certificates and diplomas, interior signage, all kinds of whatever material you might need foul, we don’t have a whole lot of overhead, like some of the other Braille production houses might. So our rates are affordable, and our work is its quality. So I’ve had seven years of Braille production experience at Perkins School for the Blind. And now I’m starting my own chapter in that regard. So it’s an exciting journey.
 
Michael Hingson  1:00:50
Sounds like a lot of fun. What how do you produce the Braille What do you use?
 
Tanja Milojevic  1:00:54
So currently, I’m using duxberry, which is more of a literary braille translation, software, math, so on and so forth. And I run that on inter point embossers, which produce Braille on both sides of the page. And so we also use clear plastic overlays so that we can, as I mentioned, business card overlays or diploma certificate. And we’re also looking into getting a better embosser like a tiger Pro, and the tiger suite to start producing more tactile graphics. That is needed. I think that’s a huge need. And looking to upgrade as as we resources allow.
 
Michael Hingson  1:01:40
Cool. Well, Tanja, again, thank you very much for being here. And for you listening out there. I really appreciate you and I appreciate you being here with us again today. Please give us a five star rating. We appreciate the the ratings. Your input is extremely valuable to us if you know anyone who you think would be a good guest and Tanja you as well. If you think of anyone who would be a good guest on unstoppable mindset, please email me at Michaelhi, M I C H A E L at accessibe A C C E S S I B E.com. So I’d love to hear about guests and just your thoughts about today’s episode and the podcast in general. You can also visit our podcast page www dot Michaelhingson h i n g s o n.com/podcast. To see more of the podcasts if you’re not finding them wherever you’re looking right now. But again, thanks for being here and listening with us today. And Tanja once more. Thank you very much for being here and being a guest on stoppable mindset.
 
Tanja Milojevic  1:02:45
Thank you, Michael for having me and for the listeners out there. Thank you for listening. Please, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I’m happy to to help if I can.
 
Michael Hingson  1:03:01
You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you’ll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you’re on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you’re there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.