American accent wanted

Ever since I heard my aunt speak American English, I’ve wanted to get rid of my Austrian accent. When I started skyping with my American friends, I always begged them to tell me in case I pronounced something the wrong way. This really helped me improve my accent, but one could still tell that I was not an American. I never really gave up on this wish to sound American (not even when people told me this was not possible).

The happier I was when I heard in my English class that a guy from Poland managed to acquire an American accent without ever having been in the States.  You can read more about him here: http://www.antimoon.com/learners/tomasz_szynalski.htm. In the beginning, I couldn’t quite believe that Americans actually believed he was an American because of his accent. So I asked a very good friend of mine (who’s from NJ) to listen to him and tell me what he thinks. When he told me that he thought the guy was an American, I was completely amazed. This guy accomplished what I’ve always wanted to achieve.

This really motivated me and I started digging deeper. What is it that makes him sound American? I never had problems emphasizing words correctly, but still I did not speak like Americans. To figure out what exactly I was doing wrong, I started watching Rachel Smith (http://www.rachelsenglish.com/) and Amy Walker on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc2Y7xxkp5s&feature=youtu.be). Watching their exact lip and tongue movements made me see differences that I had never realized before.
Whenever I had some time and motivation, I watched their videos while looking in a mirror and repeating sounds and words. I even tried Amy’s warm up video. There she shows you how to loosen up your jaw and relax the muscles in order to pronounce sounds that are not common in your mother tongue. One of the exercises is to make a very loud and high-pitched noise in order to warm up your vocal cords. I tried this once but, unfortunately, I live in a dorm where everyone can here everything. My roommate was wondering where the noise was coming from and so she paid me a visit. That’s when I had to stop and we both broke out in laughter. I also tried repeating tongue twisters over and over again.
Since I’ve been so busy with college, I haven’t had time to really get into it though. However, I’m eager to finally achieve my goal of having an American accent and therefore I’ll work on this really hard once the Christmas break starts. I already have worked out some kind of a practice plan:
I’ll print out texts and stories, and read them aloud. Then I’ll print out scripts from my favorite actors (But first I google where they are from – I don’t want to have an Australian or Canadian accent or so. Also, I prefer actors from the East coast rather than the South or the West). I’ll listen to these exacts parts in the TV shows and try to say the sentences the way they are saying them. And of course I’ll watch Amy’s and Rachel’s Youtube videos over and over again.

Well, that's he plan at least..
Whish me luck, I’ll keep you updated on my progress.