Finding My Voice
“Are you from New York?” As a Maryland resident for the entirety of my life, this question never failed to surprise me. On numerous occasions, people asked me this because of my rhotacism, or my difficulty pronouncing the letter “r”. I was sometimes too shy to introduce myself as my name contained the letter. When I had to talk to a new group of people, I sometimes found myself having internal debates. What if they couldn’t understand me or thought I had a weird accent? While intrinsically I was a very sociable and talkative person, my rhotacism often became an underlying concept that prevented me from speaking freely.
As I entered middle school, I found myself wanting to overcome my self-consciousness as I met more people and participated in a greater number of activities. I spent hours after school in front of a mirror practicing different accents and pronunciations of words. I would record this practice to find the accent that made my rhotacism seem less noticeable. Regardless of the hours I spent practicing various accents, my rhotacism stayed the same and my insecurities worsened.
However, in middle school, I took my first foreign language class. Though initially nervous about learning a new language, both the successful oral presentations to my class and discussions with my classmates helped increase my confidence and mastery of my speaking skills. No longer second-guessing my actions, I was able to use my speaking skills in other ways. I joined my school’s debate club and tutored younger students in science and math. Though there were still words I had trouble pronouncing, I found myself speaking freely instead of becoming self-conscious and censoring myself as I had before. As I joined more clubs and my confidence grew, I began receiving recognition from others; my teacher recommended me to become a Peer Mediator and I was voted as the captain of my Indian dance team.
Just as I was becoming more confident, I transitioned from my familiar middle school to my new magnet high school where I didn’t know anyone. Initially afraid of being friendless and out of place, I knew I had to put myself out there as much as I could. I stopped hesitating when introducing myself and used my innate enthusiasm to befriend new people and looked for common experiences to connect with them. I quickly made new friends and even led a variety of clubs such as Science Olympiad and Women’s Advocacy Club.
A few years into high school, I was able to use my social skills differently. The idea started as a five-minute recording of me and my friend fooling around on a Saturday afternoon, stemming from a weird article I found online on vampire blood transfusions. We began recording ourselves as we reflected on the strangeness of the topic, which mainly involved us joking around; I opened our recording with “this is going tibia great discussion”. However, as we replayed the recording, we realized the potential of the idea and this realization combined with our shared love of podcasts, resulted in the creation of our own podcast.
After that day, we began writing scripts, continuing our research, and recording the first episode of our podcast which focused on the history of weird medical practices. The podcast allowed me to communicate with a whole new audience and express myself verbally and creatively. As a scriptwriter, researcher, and host, I bring my enthusiasm, humor, talkativeness, and passion into our podcast.
Just a few years ago, I couldn’t even fathom speaking to people I hadn’t met. Throughout the creation of our podcast, my rhotacism has never been an obstacle or insecurity that prevented me from pursuing my passions. Instead, I look forward to introducing myself to new people and spreading my love for medicine.
The countdown begins: “3,2,1 and we’re recording.”
“Hi, My name is Aarthi and this is the weird side of medicine.”