Don't worry, David from Arkansas. It's not fruity at all.

So I've been back from speech camp for about 4 days now, and I feel like I just stepped out of a speeding car. I'd spent the 12 days I was there on a fairly breakneck schedule, hardly having time to do anything besides speak clearly, eat, and go to the bathroom for the whole time. Laundry? Nope. I just bought some new shit instead. Downtime? Not much. There was TV and the internet in my room, but you know, I never realized just how many CBS television shows I watched until I got to that hotel. Seriously, I've never seen worse reception on a single TV station in my life. Every CBS show I tuned into looked like it was being broadcast from the bottom of a well. Survivor, Dave, Amazing Race, the list goes on and on.

But anyway, speech camp was a roaring success, and I'm proud to say that I've been speaking a lot more fluently and clearly ever since I returned. I went to see a friend last night, and she was blown away by the way I spoke to her. Unlike any other speech therapy I've had, the practice sessions for this brand is remarkably easier and simpler to implement into everyday life. There's no convincing yourself mentally that you can speak clearer or any of that type of New Age bullshit at all. The practice is purely physical, and therefore, it becomes something that you can feel and hear. It's tangible and real, not some lame-ass meditation hippie horseshit that comes with a free candle at the end of the six-week seminar.

What is it? Well, it's basically re-training the muscles in your speech mechanisms to function properly. That's it. It was explained to us that the key problem with stutterers the world over is that the articulatory muscles they use to speak with aren't functioning properly. The tongue is being held incorrectly at the top of a word, or a full breath isn't being taken at the right time. This therapy addresses each of these problems, and combines a fix for each of them into a few simple practice methods. As I mentioned, this therapy is basically the training of muscles, and how else would you train any other muscle in your body? That's right - you'd move it repeatedly and mechanically in the proper way to get it to be as strong and functional as you want it to be. Practicing the speech therapy methods I was taught over the past few weeks is no different than a workout for my speaking voice.

Not to be fruity about it or anything, but I definitely feel like a new door has been opened for me. I'm speaking on the phone with little problem. I can talk to strangers and only have them look at me weird for a few seconds, rather than the usual minute or three. Best part about it is that I can only see more and more improvement for myself as time progresses. I've only been back for four days, and already I feel like a completely different person with an entirely new lease on life. Fuck yeah.