We had lots of adventures on that trip. We climbed the rigging of a 3 masted sailing ship, we stayed in a crazy hotel. I learned to love Sendai, which meant that the tsunami left me crying at my desk and clicking through pictures of the devastation online for hours.
But I'm not going to talk about that. What I want to talk about this morning before I dive headfirst into the stack of late essays waiting for me (I had to wait for them to turn them in, so they can wait for me to grade them, by gum!) is the driving part of that road trip. On that road trip as we sped over the expressways of Japan, trying to beat the GPS estimate of how long it would take us to get to where we going, and as we added hours to our trip so my brother could stop and check out boats and marinas he might like someday, my brother introduced me to a radio program called This American Life.
We listened to it for hours. Each program is about an hour long, and explores a theme. Sometimes one story on the theme will take the whole hour, usually it's 3-5. The stories are always interesting, sometimes hilarious, sometimes disturbing, sometimes they make me cry. But they always make me think. Often the program will present something that makes the listener uncomfortable, and I used to wait for the end of the program, when I assumed that they would neatly tie up all the loose ends and give me a resolution neatly wrapped to make me feel good. But they don't. They give you the information, then they leave you alone to chew on it.
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| This American Life host Ira Glass. One of my new favorite human beings. http://blogs.kansascity.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/03/14/aescreens_tal1.jpg |
After listening to about ten episodes with my brother, I was intrigued. I came home from Japan, dove into my second year of teaching, and got too busy to think about it. Then one morning I had a whole stack of grades to enter. Entering grades is more boring than grading the papers. It is monotonous and boring, but uses your hands and your eyes constantly, so it's hard to watch or do anything else at the same time. That's when I remembered This American Life. I quickly found the previous week's episode, available for free on itunes, and a love affair was born. I now have over one hundred episodes on my computer, I'm a subscriber, and I'm a faithful fan. I've gotten at least two other people into it as well. All of the previous episodes can be streamed online for free from their website (It's worth linking to TWICE.), the most recent episode can always be downloaded for free, and old episodes can be downloaded for a buck a piece.
Through This American Life I have discovered other radio programs like Planet Money and Radio Lab, that are also well worth the time they take to listen to. They produces of This American Life also made a few season of a TV show of the same name and same style. It is also fantastic. If you go on a road trip with me, there is a 99% chance that This American Life will be involved. So the next time you are looking forward to an hour commute, or a three hour road trip, or just want enjoy cleaning the bathroom, give This American Life a try.
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| http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tvsquad.com/media/2007/02/thisamerlife.jpg |
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