This is gonna take a while...
May. 17th, 2006 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gothams3rdrobinI'm again attempting to watch a baseball game, in the hopes I'll come to understand it. This time it's the White Sox/Twins game from sunday night.
I'm starting to understand some of it, so I'm hopeful that I'm not wasting my time here. But I'm seriously not enjoying the presentation Channel Five put together - it's your usual scenario; two guys sat at an anchor desk (not Dan and Casey, alas, but we can't have everything...) discussing the game and the players, but I really don't enjoy listening to them. Last week wasn't so bad - I recognised the American guy from the one time I taped Radio One DJ Colin Murray doing exactly the same presentation (even down to the studio and camera direction) for Five's NFL coverage, and he's cool, but the British guy's a twit. He knows what he's talking about, granted, but he also tries to be funny and it doesn't work. This time his co-host's another American who used to be his regular co-host at one point, and now hosts MLB.com, and the number of times he pulls 'this guy's an idiot' faces or makes veiled disparaging comments....I hate when they pull away from the game for these guys.
I'm also getting distracted by a certain ginger child who is refusing to go to sleep. He refused to eat his tea this evening, picking at his carrots and then telling me he wasn't hungry, and now of course he wants something to eat. Even though I told him that if he left his tea he wasn't getting another scrap tonight. So we've been arguing for the last half an hour and I've put him to bed without his story, but he's not going down without a fight. *sigh*
On an unrelated note, I've been contemplating going back to speech therapy. I often feel a little guilty that I can't take incoming calls at work, though calling other insurers is not a problem. I think that's mostly because there's something of a script to checking people's No Claims Bonus entitlement, and they have to provide good customer service to me. I certainly wouldn't want to try to discuss my queries with someone who stammers, so why should I make anyone else?
It's very much linked to my emotions and confidence levels, though that doesn't mean that I'm completely fluent when I'm calm. If I have to explain something to a manager, no matter how comfortable I might be with that person, my tounge can get completely tangled in knots for a good thirty seconds or more before I can reign myself in, take a deep breath and start again. And even then, it can be a struggle to force a sentence out. I've been getting that increasingly often with my parents too, and you'd think they would be the two people I'm most fluent around.
The problem is that I didn't enjoy the year I spent in therapy, when I was sixteen. When my mother first approached our family doctor about my speech, he dismissed it - as he often does with things he considers insignificant - and told her I'd grow out of it. I brought it up again with a different doctor when I was fifteen, who got me on the list for a consultation with a therapist, but by this time I was considered an 'adult' where this was concerned. As a result the majority of the therapy is emotional, working on your self-confidence and stuff. It was too much like being in therapy for me - I was only sixteen and that really didn't sit well. Plus she made me attend regular evening group-meetings, which were dull and embarrassing. It was hard enough talking about my issues one-on-one, but with a group of guys at least ten years my senior? No thanks....
But still, I'm increasingly wondering if I should give it another shot. Trouble is, I would have to approach the same woman I saw when I was a kid. *sigh*
I'm starting to understand some of it, so I'm hopeful that I'm not wasting my time here. But I'm seriously not enjoying the presentation Channel Five put together - it's your usual scenario; two guys sat at an anchor desk (not Dan and Casey, alas, but we can't have everything...) discussing the game and the players, but I really don't enjoy listening to them. Last week wasn't so bad - I recognised the American guy from the one time I taped Radio One DJ Colin Murray doing exactly the same presentation (even down to the studio and camera direction) for Five's NFL coverage, and he's cool, but the British guy's a twit. He knows what he's talking about, granted, but he also tries to be funny and it doesn't work. This time his co-host's another American who used to be his regular co-host at one point, and now hosts MLB.com, and the number of times he pulls 'this guy's an idiot' faces or makes veiled disparaging comments....I hate when they pull away from the game for these guys.
I'm also getting distracted by a certain ginger child who is refusing to go to sleep. He refused to eat his tea this evening, picking at his carrots and then telling me he wasn't hungry, and now of course he wants something to eat. Even though I told him that if he left his tea he wasn't getting another scrap tonight. So we've been arguing for the last half an hour and I've put him to bed without his story, but he's not going down without a fight. *sigh*
On an unrelated note, I've been contemplating going back to speech therapy. I often feel a little guilty that I can't take incoming calls at work, though calling other insurers is not a problem. I think that's mostly because there's something of a script to checking people's No Claims Bonus entitlement, and they have to provide good customer service to me. I certainly wouldn't want to try to discuss my queries with someone who stammers, so why should I make anyone else?
It's very much linked to my emotions and confidence levels, though that doesn't mean that I'm completely fluent when I'm calm. If I have to explain something to a manager, no matter how comfortable I might be with that person, my tounge can get completely tangled in knots for a good thirty seconds or more before I can reign myself in, take a deep breath and start again. And even then, it can be a struggle to force a sentence out. I've been getting that increasingly often with my parents too, and you'd think they would be the two people I'm most fluent around.
The problem is that I didn't enjoy the year I spent in therapy, when I was sixteen. When my mother first approached our family doctor about my speech, he dismissed it - as he often does with things he considers insignificant - and told her I'd grow out of it. I brought it up again with a different doctor when I was fifteen, who got me on the list for a consultation with a therapist, but by this time I was considered an 'adult' where this was concerned. As a result the majority of the therapy is emotional, working on your self-confidence and stuff. It was too much like being in therapy for me - I was only sixteen and that really didn't sit well. Plus she made me attend regular evening group-meetings, which were dull and embarrassing. It was hard enough talking about my issues one-on-one, but with a group of guys at least ten years my senior? No thanks....
But still, I'm increasingly wondering if I should give it another shot. Trouble is, I would have to approach the same woman I saw when I was a kid. *sigh*
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 12:52 pm (UTC)On a more serious note, I wouldn't want to hang out in a group with unfamiliar people in what little spare time I could create for myself either. It does sound like you've put some serious consideration into wanting to improve your speech though. Is there any way you could get in to see an actual speech therapist? Someone who can help you with your speech patterns without all the emotional therapy crap thrown in on top?
no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 01:05 pm (UTC)I don't think there is any alternative at this stage. Since it's directly linked to my emotional state, rather than purely physical, the working theory is that resolving my issues regarding my speech will go at least some way to correcting the problem.
There is an extent to which it's true, but I couldn't accept that as a teenager. I hate talking about myself, especially when it results in me crying.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 01:40 pm (UTC)I'll shut up now.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 01:46 pm (UTC)My friends know it's something I can't help, and they have the decency to not try and finish my sentences for me and stuff like that. They're really patient with me, but I hate when I get tounge-tied around people I care about.
*hugs you*
no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 02:11 pm (UTC)You're a working single mum, you're already on my list of everyday heroes. What's one more brave thing on top of that?
no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 02:33 pm (UTC)It's possible she'd refer me to someone else within whatever team she still has in place at the Hospital, as that's where she sees her NHS patients. And maybe it'll feel different this time.
I'm procrastinating, I know I am. I'm terrible for that.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 02:37 pm (UTC)When you're ready, you'll do it.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-17 03:47 pm (UTC)I get stuck on words, hard consonants in particular. Which is unfortunate, as one of our main products is ColorCards. Or, to me, "CCCCCCFUCK!" Luckily it doesn't happen all the time, so it's not a real problem. As long as it doesn't happen too publicly!
no subject
Date: 2006-05-18 12:47 pm (UTC)I've encountered two people with speech problems at my office; one very brave, if pretty thick, bloke who has quite a bad stammer but manages to work on a phone team (hence the brave, as I couldn't do that) and another who was generally fluent but had a habit of getting a bit tounge-tied when on the phone.
Me...it's hard to explain. Sometimes my tounge 'gets stuck' or my throat closes up, other times my brain's forcing the words out faster than I can say them. It ends up like a machine gun, or a badly tuned engine. It's unpleasant for me to listen to, so I can only imagine how awful it is for anyone talking to me.