IHS: "The Voices, I Can't Make Them Stop!"

Fifteen minutes ago, as I sat engrossed in The Rhetorical Tradition, the little voice in my head started to say, “Grey’s Anatomy’s coming on.” I shook it off and tried to immerse myself in the concept of rhetorical eloquence. It didn’t work. I caved. Now I’m in front of the t.v.

My favorite surgical interns just participated in a hot-dog eating contest and Christina won. When Izzy yelled go, she ate the hot dogs first and then poured water over the buns so they would dissolve. Within seconds she’d cleaned her plate and blew her competition away.

Arguably, Christina did cheat, but there’s something about her strategy that I admire. I’ve been struggling with developing a reading strategy this semester and I’m nervous because I’m only a week into the new semester. Last semester was tough, but at least I developed momentum. My reading strategy was intense, all consuming, and overwhelming, but I got the reading done. This weekend it took me over two days to read one edition of Social Text for my Afrofuturism class. Granted, the topic is new, so I can’t breeze through it, but I’m shocked by how long it has taken me.

I don’t think I have attention-deficit, but the voices do slow me down. When I’m engaged in a particularly fruitful text and I feel a connection to the ideas or themes (sort of like the Social Text reading), my mind wanders. My inner-writer composes thoughts, sentences, and paragraphs (or rants). The voices write, explore, and create new themes. The voices write good stuff. The voices take me away from what I’m reading.

Some of my other classmates have reading strategies that remind me of Christina. They can take a large text and break it down in a way that makes it easy for them to consume. In a way, I’m envious.

Maybe it’ll get better. For now, I’ll continue to live vicariously through five surgical interns in Seattle. 


~I have spoken~