I wrote my personal essay for college about my stutter, and now that I’ve been accepted, I figured you guys may want to read it too.

I wrote my personal essay for college about my stutter, and now that I’ve been accepted, I figured you guys may want to read it too. Have you ever thought about articulating the word "debacle", or considered the way your mouth and tongue must work in tandem to fluently enunciate the sounds? Most people have not, because most people do not have a stutter. I do. I have to scrutinize every word, plan out every conversation, and circumnavigate the linguistic shoals. That is why, while standing in the hotel lobby and going over the speech that I was to present in front of the Model U.N, I was frozen by the awareness that this could be my debacle. Three months earlier, I had received a school email announcing tryouts for Model U.N. Like countless other opportunities that I had passed up, I was going to brush this one off because I thought that I was incapable of public speaking. However, I was tired of staying on the sidelines and hearing my friends' stories about their amazing times at club events, so I decided to sign up. The first challenge would be making the team, but presenting in front of my history teacher and friends was well within my comfort zone, and I sailed through the tryouts. My team was designated to represent Russia, and I threw myself into research. It helped to distract me from worrying about the public presentation, but in the back of my mind, I knew that it was creeping closer by the day. For months, I stood in front of the mirror, practicing my speech over and over again, helplessly trying to overcome my stutter. However, I simply could not get through it. I regretted squandering years of speech therapy, years in which I had been allowing myself to flounder, not saying what I wanted. For inspiration, I read articles about famous people who had conquered their stutters, like Samuel L. Jackson and Joe Biden. They each used different techniques to gain fluency. Jackson substituted difficult words with expletives, in contrast to Biden, who subdued his stutter through reading aloud the poems of Yeats and Emerson. Their stories filled me with determination, and like them, I needed to find my own personal solution. When I was younger, I attended an intensive speech therapy program. For three weeks I spent every day immersed in training to learn how to control my stutter. In the end, I was able to triumphantly present a speech to a room full of strangers. However, that night I realized that this was going to have to be a lifelong commitment, and I became distraught. I could not see how I could keep this up for my whole life, and slowly slipped back into my old habits. This was finally going to be my opportunity to turn things around, but when we met at the airport to embark for Model U.N, I was filled with dread. The hotel was buzzing with students from around the country, eagerly awaiting the commencement of the event. Observing their confident demeanors taunted me, a reminder that I had not yet mastered my stutter. When the start of committee sessions was announced, I felt like a criminal being summoned to hear his verdict. Reluctantly, I entered the room and took my seat. The chairman opened the floor to speakers, and as if levitated by an external force, my hand raised the team placard. Trembling, I shuffled forward to the stand. I turned and saw what seemed like a sea of attentive faces. A powerful realization emerged from that moment. I knew that the people were interested in what I had to say, not in how I said it. And with this thought, I took out my papers, looked at the first word, and began my speech. I was not going to be judged; I was going to be heard.