Today I Appreciate Hearing My Own Words Spoken Back to Me

Inevitably, there is something you wish you never said.

"Neato burrito," for example. Never a phrase I should have uttered. But I've used it. Ow.

Also, why did I think that "chillax" was ever an OK verb? To relax and to chill must remain two separate entities as smushing them together simply feels redundant and stupid.

The same goes for "tight." I find most tight-fitting things rather uncomfortable, which is as far away from "cool" or "great" as possible.

But! Just for the record, despite my Northern Californian roots, I have never seriously used the adjective "hella" (as in, "This blog I'm reading is HELLA tight. You dig? Time to get all hyphy on some literature!") If I have used "hella," it was solely for the purpose of irony.

Anyway, I'm taking a class right now (English 180: "The Art of the Interview," for those of you curious enough to explore it in the future) about - well - interviewing. Currently, I'm transcribing an interview I recently had with a classmate and everyone who has ever transcribed anything knows that it must be the dullest, most tedious, most painfully mind-numbing work one can engage one's self in. Fortunately, I'm a fast typist; an intensive summer of Mavis Beacon typing program (please, someone, tell me you remember Mavis Beacon) led me to believe that anyone who types at less than 100 words per minute is a total typing slacker. So, fortunately, transcribing for me is much less tedious than it would be for a slower typist, but it's still boring work as it's a lot of starting and stopping the recorder (in my case, my new, beautiful, clear-sounding digital recorder. What an improvement from microcassettes!) to make sure everything's been transcribed correctly.

Typically I avoid transcribing anything until the very last minute. It's not the sound of my voice I mind so much (working in radio one summer really beat that out of me), but rather the sound of my laughter, my assurances that something (almost anything) is OK, my apologies for... something (almost anything, it seems) that irk me. I'm annoyed at myself (why do I laugh so much?) or confused (what was I apologizing for?) and I become self-conscious of the way I interact with other people.

However, with this interview, I hear myself sound comfortable. I still laugh too much and I still probably respond with too many supportive "uh-huhs" and "awwws!", but I'm not embarassed by it anymore. In fact, I think I sound natural and cool and (dare I say it?) collected. I felt prepared for this interview and I can hear it in the way that I speak, in my responses, and in my follow-up questions. I felt good when I walked away from the interview, but hearing it back resurges some confidence in my ability, rather than depresses me or makes me feel incompetent or self-conscious. It helped that I was talking with someone with whom I felt fairly comfortable as well and we had a good conversation (which always puts one in a better mood), but... it was comforting to hear myself comfortable. My awkwardness and social consciousness always inhibits me to a certain extent, but it was certainly a relief to know that I can be OK in a conversation. Really.

There is something soothing about knowing how one sounds to others having the opportunity to listen back and see what a particular interaction was like, think about the statements more carefully, and reflect upon the conversation. It's an odd practice, really. In "real life," we don't have moments to just reflect and record what other people say and think, but doing so has taught me something further about what makes simple conversation one of life's greatest joys: curiosity, engagement, and comfort.