Wes Jackson

The nation, state, community and the university all share a common trait; a trait of diversity. I would call myself diverse too. Diverse? How? I’m a white male, that doesn’t seem very diverse. What makes me different is that I have a speech impediment, a stutter. How many people do you see with a situation like this? My brain draws a blank, and I would make an educated guess that yours does too. The words will come out fine most of the time, but sometimes they won’t. Like the sauce at Taco Bell, you can call it “mild.” As the sauce varies its spiciness by batch, my speech varies its fluency by “batch.” These batches can be sentences, paragraphs, whole conversations, or even different times of the day.

This is why I love writing, expressing my thoughts on paper. I’m confident to speak aloud, to be social, and be very verbal, but by writing, whether it is a quick assignment or a major essay, the words will not pause, my thoughts can come out almost perfect. My communication can be like a football game, with the stutter being a menacing "defense" that prevents myself from "scoring" a fluent conversation. Sometimes my "offense" of verbal communication can be stopped by the "defense" in a three and out; however, by writing, my "offense" drives down the field, just like the superstars do on Saturdays and Sundays. I would love to break the obstacle of this impediment, but as it remains now, writing is like a therapy. I can build confidence through my writing, and let it overflow into speaking communication.