Another goddamned blog.

On reading aloud.

I have the hardest time reading aloud. I cannot read aloud to save my life. I might start out good, but I end up stumbling over words in a chaotic snowball of stammering and jabbering. I’ll mispronounce words or mistake one word for another. I sound like a third grader trying to read War and Peace to his class. It’s not that I’m dyslexic, to the contrary, I am hyperlexic; I am actually quite gifted in reading and actually started reading at the age of 2. I just can’t read aloud. It might be an anxiety related to a fear of public speaking, but even then, I can’t read aloud when I’m alone. I have a theory about why I can’t read aloud and it has to do with the way that I read: because I read so much and have been doing it for so long, I read really fast and can comprehend most if not all of it. If I try to apply this to reading aloud, however, I am bound to the speed and ability of my vocal chords, hence the excessive tripping and stumbling over words. I have found ways to circumvent this, however. When I’m called upon in class to read, I’ll read in some outlandish voice, accent, or emphasize words or syllables that wouldn’t normally be emphasized. Because I’m focusing on both reading and maintaining the voice, I have to slow my inner reading process. Sure I’ll look like an attention-craving class-clown and the teacher will think that I’m ridiculous, but this is really the only way I can not look like an idiot. It’s better if we’re reading Shakespeare, because I’ll make up a voice for whatever character I’m reading. We’ve been doing King Lear in Literature recently, and I’ve been reading him in the Harry Potter Puppet Pals voice for Dumbledore. If we’re reading something about politics in Government, I’ll try my best George W. or Ronald Reagen. For most other stuff, it’s either Donn Knotts or Christopher Walken. Even if the impression is stupid and nothing like the person I’m emulating, I really don’t care because I sound coherent. Poetry is really the only thing that I find easy to read, because the irregular structures tend to make me stop and read through whatever I’m presented with. Free verse especially. Even then, I imagine I’m wearing a heavy robe and smoking a fancy pipe in a library that is dimly lit by a fireplace. 

So yeah, weird facts about me. If I were to read this post aloud, I’d do it in Homsar’s voice from Homestar Runner, because I probably sound incoherent anyway due to lack of editing.