When starting my sixth-grade year, I was nervous about many things. But nothing compared to the problem that I got to the age where my voice started changing. At first, the voice getting deep excited me. But then I learned before getting deeper, it can crack (变嘶哑).
The first time it happened I was so embarrassed. Surprisingly, my friends didn't make fun of me. In fact, they didn't even mention it. But in my self-conscious sixth-grade mind I was certain they made fun of me behind my back. They weren't having the same problem.
After my first voice crack experience, I was determined to make sure it wouldn't happen again. At least not in public. So, except for strategic times I said, "cool" and "yeah", I didn't talk. My logic was, "If I don't use my voice, it cannot crack." However, I couldn't go without talking forever. I needed a new solution.
I began clearing my throat before speaking, which actually seemed to help. Limiting how much I spoke and clearing my voice made me much less stressful. This was great but there was a larger problem. I was much more scared about having a voice crack during class. My class had many new kids I'd never spoken with. I didn't want their first impressions of me to be based on a voice crack.
Unfortunately, one day my concern came true. It was about two months after the beginning of the term. On the day it happened everything was the same as always until I got into the classroom. I noticed that we had a substitute teacher (代课老师) and immediately started thinking about how he would take attendance. My permanent teacher never had to, since he already knew each student, I panicked. So many thoughts rushed through my mind that I couldn't think straight. I calmed myself down by telling myself that I only had to say one word "Here". "Easy enough, right?" I thought so until my name was called. I did my routine—cleared my throat, took a breath, and said, "Here." The only problem was that while saying this, I had the worst voice crack in the history of voice cracks.
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The whole class turned to look at me.
……
"You know, the voice problem you met in class is normal," a classmate came to me and said.
