Parlez-vous Aspergia?

Back when I was a cubicle skivvy aboard the good ship Bezosia, I suddenly started being approached by some of my quieter shuffling colleagues.

"Could I," they wanted to know, "spot a case of Aspergia?"

At that time I couldn't even spell it, hadn't even heard of it.

As it turned out, aspergia seemed to be a mental ... um, not 'affliction' ... a mental 'state' that included the ability to focus for long periods on whatever one was doing.

After I'd been asked for the 4th or 5th time if I thought someone was 'aspergic', I found someone I could ask in complete confidence what was going on.

Turned out that some of the characteristics of aspergia are akin to genius, and my fellow galley slaves were keen to work out if they too fell into this category.

They couldn't really turn to one of their fellow geniuses - that summer of '98, Amazon was crammed to the gills with egg-heads - so they'd looked round for someone clearly NOT a case of the Big A (plus I was a foreigner, PLUS I was more than twice their age) and hoped that I would settle their dilemma.

Looking back, I find it rather touching, that these wonderful talented types - many of whom went on to become solid sources of tech help and geeky advice - were drifting around pondering their level of genius. The innocence of youth! The hopes and ambitions.

I'm reminded of those days by stumbling across this helpful site on aspergia. Good times.