Accents

I've developed this tendency where I sort of absorb accents.

It started a few months ago in class. A couple of goofs were goofing around, talking in really bad cheesy accents and just generally propagating stereotypes. They were doing southern drawls. I turned to my friend and said, "Those are the most awful twangs I have ever heard."

Only, I said it with a twang. A genuine twang.

I was born in Texas. I lived there until I was six, which was when we moved to California. I'm told that when we moved, I had a really thick twang (at six years old) which cracked the movers up. So I have a legitimate reason if I slip back into a twang every now and then. I guess those corny clowns just set if off, even though that's never happened before. I was stuck with that twang until the end of class - nearly an hour and a half. It cracked my friend up so much. I could hardly say anything normal. Thankfully, it went away after school.

One of my favorite characters (Vala) on my favorite TV show (Stargate: SG1) has an accent, and I've always wondered what it is. I thought at first it was some kind of English accent, but when I looked it up, I read that the actress is from Australia. So I did a little research, like any good nerd, and watched a few videos on learning accents. I listened to far too many videos by a girl from Sidney and picked up her accent.

Which brings me to the point of this post. I'm stuck with an Australian accent.

Not that I mind too terribly much. I kind of like Australian accents; they're cute and they sound sort of like English accents, which are supposed to be cute, classy, and charming. At least, people always say they love English accents. But people were giving me weird looks, especially my coworkers, who don't know what's going on, which isn't surprising, since sometimes I come in speaking Californian, sometimes Texan, and now sometimes Australian.

I wonder how long I will be stuck like this. Maybe forever. I'll head merrily off to college next year, and people will say "I love your accent! Where are you from?" and I'll say "California, but I was born in Texas," and they'll say, "Oh, I didn't know people in California spoke like that," and then I'll say, "They don't. And neither do people in Texas." And so they will be confused. Confused, but charmed, because my accent is charming.