Transcription:
“(00:01) This is the story of why I started doing audio posts.
(00:06) I was experimenting with my journal layout a few days ago, um, and I didn’t like any of the layouts that LiveJournal was– was offering. There were some better offerings in the paid, ah, category, so I thought that I might get a paid account. It didn’t cost that much, and I use my journal a lot, and I really like having a journal, so I thought, “Why not. I’ll just shell out a little bit of money and have a paid account, and then I can get these great layouts.” So I did, and that was the main reason I got the paid account, and when I signed up they told me I also had an audio post option. And, I didn’t give this a lot of thought, um, for two reasons. The first is that I don’t really like my voice that much, and the second is that it seemed weird to me to just sit down and tell my thoughts to, basically, the phone… um, I’ve done this in the past, I don’t really like it, I always clam up when I start talking because it seems so weird to be talking to nobody. Um so I didn’t really think about it; I thought, “I’m not going to do this.”
(01:14) But a funny thing happened, oh, a couple of days ago, to make me change my mind… so I TA on Wednesday mornings — I have a two-hour section that I teach — and since it was the mid-term, I gave my students a… feedback form. I like to do this anonymously: I just give them the handout and let them fill it out and tell me whatever they’re feeling about the section, um, to give me feedback. It’s so hard to tell what they’re thinking when I look out on this sea of twenty or so blank faces; especially at eight a.m., people just don’t seem engaged at all. So I wanted to get their feedback, see what they had to say, any suggestions that they had for future classes. And most of them were pretty run-of-the-mill, um, people just checked the little boxes that I provided, and said a few comments, like “This was not helpful,” or… “Oh I really like this, I’m learning a lot in section.”
(02:09) One person wrote: “You have the coolest voice. Ever thought of radio?” … and I just got the biggest laugh out of it; I’d never thought about radio, I don’t listen to the radio that much and I really don’t like talk radio. But, it… startled me that someone is sitting in my section listening to my voice and thinking, “This is a really cool voice.” So I had a good laugh about it, I was sitting in the reading room at the time and I couldn’t laugh out loud, so I just laughed silently. I was completely amused, it made my day.
(02:43) Um, and then I went and ran into Christen, and I told her this, and she didn’t seem that surprised and she said, “You do have a good voice. I think it would be good on radio, it’s very soothing.” And I was really taken aback. I hadn’t expected that. I mean I don’t think I really expected her to say, “Oh that’s really funny, your voice would never work,” but I didn’t expect her to just accept this and say, “Oh, that would, that would be good.”
(03:06) So then I started thinking about this a little more, and thinking about the audio post option that had just become available to me a few days ago (or actually I guess it was one day ago then), um, and I thought, “You know, why don’t I just try this out? And maybe it’ll be good.”
(03:24) So here I am, doing it, and it’s difficult to try to come up with something to say and not “um” all the time. But I think this will be good for me. Uh, it’s a good life skill, to just be able to talk on the fly, and especially for someone like me, whose conversation style is really digressive and really babble-y, this will be great. Um, it’s– it’ll be good for teaching, because I find myself babbling a lot when I’m conducting section.
(03:53) So, I’ll look on this as a fun challenge, and you can leave your comments and tell me what you think!”
[This post was imported on 4/10/14 from my old blog at satsumabug.livejournal.com.]
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
That was really cool! The post sounded very natural, yet you didn’t digress from your main story.
The (very accurate!) transcription is also nice. I hope you do more audo posts!
Thank you! 😀 Your comments make me beam. This natural-yet-not-rambling quality is something I’m aiming for, and hoping that audio posts will help me improve. I’ve already noticed that my normal speech is a lot smoother, with fewer “ums” and “likes.” I guess part of those fumbles was just laziness, so hopefully doing more audio posts will keep this improvement going.
The transcription took a long time. ;b Transcription always does; I learned this when I did an oral history in my last semester at Berkeley. It’s three hours of transcribing to each hour of interviewing, or something equally (or even more) insane. I think all together the recording and transcribing of this post took me an hour, far longer than the usual three-to-one rate because it was my first time transcribing from this format.
Anyway, thank you, and I will definitely do more of these. 🙂
Our thoughts
Devin says “We want live broadcasts! And we should be able to call in and play games. And win prizes!!”
Our friend Grace was here too. She said you do have a radio voice.
And I say that I could hear you as those women on the classical radio station. Haha. I didn’t comment before since I didn’t have a chance before now to listen. It’s weird because it’s like hey that’s Lisa! But at the same time it’s like hmm i guess she’s got a nice voice. But it’s Lisa! Haha. I guess all I can say is, at least you don’t mumble. :]
hugs,
Shra
Re: Our thoughts
Heh. I can podcast, actually, but no prizes are scheduled yet. 🙂 Maybe I should do that sometime, though, if enough people actually respond to my audio posts. I can do the audio version of journal memes. 🙂
It’s funny to think people do like to listen to my voice after all. I always just think it sounds like yours and Mommy’s, but I like mine least. ;b Oh well, maybe I can only hear the way it echoes around inside my head, and not the way everyone else hears it!
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