theworstblueberry

I've had a restrictive eating disorder for the past few years and I think it's safe to say that I'm recovered. However, I also stopped exercising during recovery because I tore my LCL a while ago and overexercising was part of the disorder. Now I'm borderline underweight since I lost all my muscle and am just starting to get back into not sitting around all day. Here's what I'm doing to start! Do some basic calisthenics as soon as I wake up, then play Dance Central for 15-30 mins every morning. It's a great way to get myself out of bed and I don't even have to change or go outside, which are barriers that enable my laziness in bad weather. When I need to take a break from working at home, I go through one or two dance routines from performances I've done in the past. Even if I don't do them properly it gets me off my ass and moving. My city has a lot of nice running routes so I try to run at least once a week. Currently stuck at 2k, but I can see my endurance improving slowly. There's a hill right by my apartment so I can sprint home up it too. I don't have a car and the metro sucks so I walk nearly everywhere I need to go. I turn daily movements into exercises. Need to stand on my toes to reach something on top of the fridge? I do a few calf raises before getting the item down. I do all my vacuuming/laundry folding/ironing to music so I can turn those movements into intentional dance moves that exercise my core, (a la Hip Hop Abs lmao) Help people out whenever they're moving. I'm still sore from helping to lift furniture last week but I like it. I've never had issues with eating too much junk food or anything and I haven't had soda in years. I let myself eat whatever tastes good but I never eat until I'm full. In addition, I buy a couple of different vegetables from the store every week so I HAVE to figure out what to cook with them before they go bad. Keeps my meals balanced! I eat meat once a week and when I do it is usually fried chicken, so that's like my junk treat of the week. As for mental health, I make time to talk to someone not in grad school every day. Usually it's my parents or boyfriend on the phone, but it's helpful and prevents me from getting too anxious and perfectionistic about my work. I find it easy to make time for my hobbies because dancing is taken care of (see above), cooking helps me eat healthy, and reading fiction gives my mind a break from my work. I watch a couple of reality TV shows too and that's the perfect time to do relaxing things like face masks, painting my nails, and other beauty maintenance stuff.

Hi! I'm in SLP too and although I'm a native speaker of English, I have lived in different countries and my parents are non-native speakers of English so my accent is not 100% General American. In my experience it hasn't been an issue at all. One of my professors says as long as you are able to produce the different sounds of English on command (ie, in therapy situations), it doesn't really matter whether you use them in your regular everyday speech. However, since you say you have issues with /r/, I would stay away from articulation and accent mod for now, since /r/ is one of the most common sounds that needs correcting. For disorders involving cognition, such as aphasia, your accent does not matter. This is something you might want to discuss with your advisor too since clinic placements and such vary by school.

Hello! I listened to your recording and while your accent is distinguishable, I can understand you easily. I personally do not think it will be a problem in your academic career, especially if you are already able to express yourself well through writing. If after moving here you still feel that your accent may be hindering your professional or social interactions and you truly want to acquire an American accent, you may want to look into accent modification. I'm doing my MA in Speech-Language Pathology and every semester, we conduct accent modification therapy sessions with international graduate students. These students have been referred to the speech clinic after failing the oral portion of an English language exam and receive accent mod therapy for free. However, the clinic does also offer this service to other graduate students for a reduced fee. If your university does something like this, that could be an option for you. And if you want to acquire an American accent without paying, there are lots of free resources and activities available online! The key is to learn the basics of English phonology and intonation patterns. It will take a bit of work, but after that, it's all about practice.