Voice Body Paper - Weekly journals PDF

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Voice Body Paper A. Evolution of my voice and body 1. My experience with the stages that my voice and body have gone through is quite different compared to others in my opinion. Firstly, the development of my body is different. From childhood, I did not quite notice it because I thought that my body was developing normally just like others. Days and years have passed, and then I hit puberty. I always dreamt of looking like a fully grown girl, tall but slowly I started to realize that I’m completely the opposite of what I see myself in my dream. I did not notice any vertical growth of my body and my face shape didn’t enlarge enough; I looked like a minion where I should have looked like a “big” girl. There was a lot of time I looked at myself in the mirror, I felt ashamed because other girls of my age looked so pretty, tall, had a mature looking face. But, I was looking like a girl with no growth, physical development and my face looked very small just like a kid. I could not figure out why, what was wrong with me, why am I not looking like other people…eventually this led me to have a very very low self confidence. I started talk about my worry to my parents. My parents decided to bring me t to the hospital to inquire about why I was not growing enough and not looking like a “big” girl compared to my age. The doctors have measured my height, did some medical tests. Then after hours and hours of waiting, they told my parents that there was nothing wrong with me, perhaps it is genetics because my dad is five foot two inches. He is short therefore, I am short. They gave us two options. First option was to give me an injection everyday that would increase my height and the second option was to let me grow naturally. The doctors, not assure of what impact this injection will bring on my body, strongly suggested to choose the second option. Of

course, my parents fearing about the implication of the injection chose the second option as well. But I was against both my parents and the doctor. I did not care about any implications whatsoever because I just wanted to grow that’s all. At that time, I was forced to listen to my parents so second choice was decided. Now, I realize that I am short because my physical growth is much slower than average people of my age. The fact that I look too young for my age is due to my family genetics which I have no control over. I am happy that I didn’t take any injection, thanks to my parents and the doctor. It was a good decision because it is true, it could’ve had implications on my body which could potentially be harmful to my body, and overall, natural process is safer in my opinion. But till now, one thing that did not change still is my self confidence. I try my level best to increase my self confidence but for some reason, it manages itself to be low and I didn’t quite figure out the reason. Instead, it makes me think that there is nobody that would like or love me. In terms of the stages of my voice, compare to my body, it went through a drastic change. From my childhood, I’ve been trained in singing Indian Classical music. Therefore, I had to train my voice a lot. My voice had a low sound, did not had much melody or flexibility to execute intricate technicalities to sing complex Indian classical music. When I hit puberty, my voice’s sound was different. I felt like I had developed a feminine voice. It was loud and when I sang songs, I and everyone could tell the difference of my voice. My voice produced a melodious mature voice. Now, I am in love with my voice it sounds. I am forever thankful to god for giving me such voice; my power within me. 2. My voice gave me a lot of joy. Due to extensive hours of training of my voice to sing classical songs, I won national award from the prime minister of Bangladesh. Even now,

whenever I am sad, depressed, singing my heart out lightens up my mood and gets rid of my sadness, anxiety a little bit. I feel like I have a connection with singing/voice that makes me feel relaxed. Opposite to my voice, there is no associated with my body such as playing soccer or being physically healthy, active. 3. As I have mentioned above, there was no joy that I have achieved for my body. When I was almost finishing up my high school, I’ve got from my family relatives looking at my body negatively. One day, a person told me to show my hands to them to see whether I grew or not. There was also another person that told me whether I will never be able to grow up physically or not. These comments really affect me psychologically. It brings my self confidence very low and makes me feel as if I am not worthy of love from anybody except from god and my parents. I have got numerous similar comments about me and at a certain moment, it really makes it harder for me to love myself. Lastly, I can happily say that I have got no traumas related with my voice. 4. I consider my voice as a symbol of peace and relief from the anxiety and stress of life because I am often under stress about my future life and grades, how far I can go in life. Sometimes, it really escalates up to a point I can’t sleep at night. It is at this specific time, singing and listening to songs help me to calm down, stables my heart and brain from stress and it does not let me cry. It is an enormous treasure that I have and want to hold my voice for lifetime no matter what. It is my friend when I am alone. The quality of voice is medium sharp, high pitched. This quality lets me sing specific type of songs such as classical (Indian), light pop music but music type such as rock, loud pop music is not suited for my voice.

5. My only judge is my god and parents. I don’t talk or do again their will. I have realized that people will have different opinion about yourself, some will not like you and judge for who you are. That should not stop a person from achieving dream and speak out the truth and be themselves. One cannot have control over people’s freedom of thought and opinion therefore, it is better to focus on ourselves. However, there is a specific scenario or a crime that makes me unable to speak fully. That is raping of women. Since I was born in Bangladesh, a developing country, I constantly heard, seen, even now, especially in North York area, this issue being prevalent and destroying many women’s life. This issue is not only present in Bangladesh, but in Pakistan, India and many other parts of the world. They cannot walk at night, not even late night, without having to worry about their safety. When I see or read it on the news, I become extremely angry and I just can’t wrap around my head that this issue is becoming more dominant in 21st century. It makes me speechless because it’s very obnoxious and I expect the humanity to grow and prosper. Therefore, these type of acts is just very immature in my opinion. B. Influences 1. For me, there is no need to imitate another person’s body as I think it is very unnecessary. I am just working on myself and trying to be happy about my body. I try my best to be resistant through the body shaming comments that I receive from people. In terms of my voice, I don’t imitate any else’s voice and don’t try to sing like them. But, I have some singers and their melodious voices’ that inspire me to sing. I take inspiration from them. And two of my inspirations are Shreya Ghosal and Arijit Singh. These two are poplar Indian singers that have sung countless songs. I don’t imitate them but listening to them is a blessing to my ears.

2. Two people’s voices that I love are Shreya Ghosal and Arijit Singh. They are just blessing to music lovers of the world. Bodies that I envy sometimes envy are of some models and actresses. When I look at them in television or social media, I wish that what If could I could achieve a body and be tall like them. I look at my belly fat and my height versus them; it is a whole new difference. 3. I dislike voices of those people who try to imitate someone else’s voice and suppressing their authentic sound of their voice. They are not being honest to themselves. I dislike bodies of people who try to show off their body figure and make another person feel down due to their body figure. It triggers of self love and confidence. It renders a toxic mentality about us. I would say media is hugely responsible for creating this body image by promoting tall, skinny models and actresses. They’ve made girls like me insecure about ourselves and that nobody should love us. 4. My body and voice have influenced each other in a very meaningful way. Since I am short, my parents told me that even I’m getting older; people might not take me serious because of my height and the way I look. Therefore, I need to be bold when I speak so that I’m taken more seriously. Then, whenever I go, I speak boldly, I be myself and extrovert. Being small had a negative and positive impact on me. The negative being receiving comments and looks from people for my body and their acceptance of me. The positive being extrovert sometimes and bold. It allows me to be myself, makes everyone aware of my existence and allows my voice to be heard.

C. Linguistic history 1. My mother tongue is Bengali and our culture is very similar with Pakistan and India since we are from South Asia. Therefore, surprisingly ninety percent of people of Bangladesh understand Hindi and Urdu because Urdu is really similar to Hindi. Hence, Bengali music, dance are influenced from these countries and even fashion clothes as well, also vice versa for them too. That is why I sing Indian classical music. 2. As mentioned above, my mother tongue is Bengali. Bengali is divided various types of Bengali dialect such as Chatgaya, sylheti. I usually speak the normal Bengali. But, sometimes I speak a Bengali dialect such as Chatgaya. It is not very good but I try. Unlike other types of Bengali dialect, Chatgaya is very different and hard. C. Self Care 1. Self care is very important for our health and mental health as well. For my voice, I drink a glass of hot water once per week. My music teacher and mom told me it is good for voice to keep it warm and impact. It really does work an keep my voice very warm and I feel comfortable whenever I sing Classical musical in particular. For my body, I run in weekend in the early morning to stay active. It makes me feel very very refreshing, it acts as a motivator for me to work through the day and successfully complete my school work. 2. I do not misuse my body and my health because I don’t drink alcohol and consume any harmful substances. I don’t follow any because I love to eat food. I personally don’t want any diet to “control” me as I love to live with freedom. However, I sometimes scream extremely loudly out of extreme anger that later, makes my voice unable to produce sound and I can’t speak. People often refer to as “broken voice”.

3. No, I haven’t set any unrealistic goals pertaining to my body and voice. I know that my voice, body is naturally given to me. I do not have any wish to modify both of them to reach an unrealistic goal. 4. After I finished writing on the topics above, It reminded me of joy and traumas that I went through during my childhood till now. It allowed reflecting on my personal growth and questioning me why did I still fail to boost my self confidence. Writing this paper was an experience for me because the questions were personal that allowed me to fully express myself to the fullest through the art of writing. 5. Picture of my present voice and body

6. Picture of my future voice and body...