Audio blog 8

www.radiodiaraies.org/jeff-in-boston-halfrican

This story was about a boy named Jeff who is 16 going on 17 living in Boston. His mother is white, and his father is black. He has two brothers, and one sister. Many times people ask him how to speak spanish and hes just like what, I'm not mexican, I'm "Halfrican." Thats what attracted me to this, the tital Halfrican. When I saw it I laughed because I instantly understood what that meant, and I wanted to see what the story was going to be about. I liked it because he almost reminded me of myself by his I guess morals or ethics. I think that because he talks about how being different (racially) is enough for him. He doesn't need to go out and get the latest shoes, the hottest clothes, or whatever, he just is comfortable with who he is. And another thing that reminded me of myself through Jeff was how he thinks about what his purpose is...like I'm sure lots of people think about what their futures will bring, and what their purpose in life is but lately I don't really think people(at least the ones I'm around) think about. I'm always thinking about my future, and trying to do things that will help me be successful, and my definition of success is doing something that I love and being happy. I guess this guy was just very comfortable in his shoes, the same way I am.

Audio Blog 7

www.radiodiaries.org/frankie-in-mentone-alabama-welcome-home-dad

I chose a story from the teen diaries section to try and find one I would connect with more. The boy in my story described his childhood as he lived in Alabama and his family wasn't very rich or anything, he would wear raggedy old jeans and shirts and so would his father, and some times they wouldn't even change their clothes. But, that was just their country life style. One day they picked up and moved for what he thought was no reason but it was actually because his father and some guy got into a life or death type of fight and his father ended up pulling out a blade and cutting that guy. So basically they were on the run for fifteen years I think it was, and the kid din't even know it. So you could imagine how surprised and confused he was when he came home from school one day and his home was surrounded by police. His father was tried and could've gotten 10-20 years sentence, and did serve time but they found out he was fighting inself defense and he was released. The enlightening thing about the story was that everyone in this boys family viewed the fathers jail time as sort of a blessing. Although jail isn't a fun happy place, his father was able to get the education he never receieved & family was so happy to see him back at home.

Audio Blog 8

http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2011/oct/31/sleepless-south-sudan/

This story is about a man who tlaks about how through science he has sort of learned the meaning of life. When he was younger, he lost a woman he loved after she traveled to Africa through the peace-corprs and came back with pancreatic cancer that had spread and eventually killed her off. Since he had nothing wrong with him, he had gotten to this mind state of whats the point of living if you are just going to die? I chose this story in particular because the description has something about how he woke up (in Africa) one night and his net had holes in it. That could be a bad thing because then mosquitoes could get you and mosquitoes have disease and all that so I figured, I want to know what happens to this guy. But what it turned out to be was at that moment when he woke up with that holey- net he wanted to keep that mind set sort of, of well I'm going to die anways so I might as well go back to sleep, but then he had that urge to stay a live. And he couldn't resist it, and he knew he couldnt just go back to sleep. It was a becautiful story because its like he just realized what makes him human, that urge to live and how thats helped him move on in his life. He is now married to a woman named Grace and together they have two little girls. Its a great story because I'm sure he realizes without that experience, he wouldn't have this new family because he'd still be stuck in that mind set.

Audio Blog 7

http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2012/jan/23/wake-up-dream/
In today's short, a man confronts a bully, and frees himself from a recurring nightmare that's terrorized him for more than 20 years.

This guy has a nighitmare thats been haunting him for twenty years now he says- and every single time he has it it always unfolds the same exact way. Violent, and hes also very scared of course (someone is trying to break into his house and screaming at him). Anyways, he was talking about how he started reading into Lucid dreaming- where you can 'control' your dream- and how he would try to attempt that in his nightmare. In the beginning it was wierd because when they were explaining how Lucid dreaming works its almost as if you'd get real life mixed up with your dreams and become a total psychopath because you're always asking yourself is this real life or is this all a dream whether it is real life or a dream! So I thought that was wierd and that someone could drive theirself nuts over that. So this guy basically spent his time thinking about his nigihtmare and at what point he'd like to gain conciousness within his dream and eventually did so and overcame his nightmare while he was at it. To me, I don't believe in Lucid dreaming. I feel like its just not possible, because your asleep and your not supposed to have a sense of c ontrol in your dreams. I feel like its un-natural to do that, and I don't like things that aren't the way that they're meant to be like say if someone who was born with black hair bleached it blonde- thats not the greatest example because anyone has control over that but its just an example of tampering with the natural state of something. So all in all I dont believe this whole Lucid dreaming thing but sure I believe he overcame his nightmare and that what he described was his actual dream, I just dont think he actually controlled it.

Audio Lab 6

http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2008/oct/21/chris-and-lisa/
He met her on a park bench in Chicago, handed her a stack of CD's, and sent her off on an extremely specific mission. Did it work?

So in the beginning of this thing I guess the guy who works at radio lab was reading something that The interview subject wrote, and I was getting kind of annoyed because I thought that this guy who worked at radiolab was hooking up with the interview subjects girl. Its really wierd, this interview, it seems way too informal or impersonal or something. Its barely even about that actually love story they keep talking about Radio lab and all of this other non related stuff. They just called chris on the phone, talked to him and then start talking about whether Radiolab can get girls to like you. Now they're calling Lisa, and I guess sort of the whole point of this is to sort of help promote Radio Lab. I only chose this because I thought it would be a love story, but it isn't...I'm disappointed.

Audio Story post 5

http://www.radiolab.org/popup_player/# The Shy Baboon
In this podcast, a biopsychologist attempts to find an elusive bit of shared space across species lines.In this podcast, a biopsychologist attempts to find an elusive bit of shared space across species lines.

I decided to listen to radiolab this time, I thought a shorter story would be something that you could connect with faster, like what we are aiming to transform our audio interviews into. What happened in this story is that this scientist goe sout and becomes close to a 'clan' of wild baboons as you can see from the description. I for some reason was very surprised when the scientist started speaking and it was a woman, I'm not really sure why I assumed it would be a man, but now that I think of it it is probably better that a female approached the baboon's versus a male approaching them. When I was listening to this interview I was afraid that it would get boring (she had a boring voice) and I assumed she was going to go into (what would seem unnessecary to me) loads of detail about their face, hair, claws, teeth, etcetera but she didnt. Instead she focused more on recounting their expperience together, her and the baboons. First it was like they were enemies of course, I'm sure you could guess baboons wouldnt want some wierd lady walking around on theiir territory but she was dedicated enough to come back each day to get closer and closer until it became normal for them to be around eachother, and she even unconsiously started to mimic their actions. The most beautiful part in this story was at the end it was pouring rain and the lady was looking for somewhere to go so she duccked into some tent that was pitch black dark and after a hwile she noticed that all of the baboons were in there. It was really surprising to me, she said they didn't make any noise or anything. I wouldve expected to have a screeching baboon if I was in her shoes, but its just a good story about how humans can cross the invisibile barrier that exist between humans and wild animals.

Audio Story 4

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/253/the-middle-of-nowhere

This time I chose to find a story by looking through the radio archives on this american life, I selected the year 2003 and chose this one audio story called The Middle of Nowhere. I was assuming that the story was going to be about some wierd type of murder mystery or something that happened in some state like Iowa where almost nothing is there, but i was vey wrong. They talked about an Island called Nauru, where lots of illegal things go on. Many people have not heard about Nauru I guess, including myself until i listened to this audio story. Nauru was native to a bunch of indigineous islanders who survived solely off of the natural resources that the small island offered them but eventually a chemist came down and saw that there was limestone, the richest limestone ever. They go on to talk about how the island has been used for illegal money laundering and how the island has lost everything that mad eit so special to the indigineous peoples. It's a sad thing to think about how countries that are big and powerful such as America or Germany and lots of other can come in and take over something and basically wipe out a population. And I think theres probably many other cases where this has happened that I don't even know about, and it makes you think about these big time officials and wonder if they have heart, and are just doing theyre job or if theyre just so wrapped up in their job and their powerfulness that they just do whatever they want to do just because they can. I'm sure anyone could ask the questions how can we change the way that these big countries just come in and run over small populations like Nauru's, but the fact that its so complicated because this is whats been going on for years makes it hard to answer that. Sometimes I think about whether I would want to double major, becaus eI want to persue an education in Environmetnal Studies to contribute towards environmental awareness and preservation, but I feel like that isn't enough to be able to persuade people that are Prime Ministers and Presidents of Military Generals or even CEO's of big companies to change the way that they do things.

The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar Audio Post 3

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/play_full.php?play=352


My listening experience was a little confusing, at some times I got confused which family was talking. Anyways, This was a really strange story. I have heard of the movie Changeling that Rachel was talking about and seen a bit of the beginning of the movie and can see how the movie and the story about Bobby Dunbar is related. Anyways, the part of this audio recording that struck me the most has to be the DNA testing section. When I heard that the DNA results from "Bobby Dunbar" did not match with his brothers, it was kind of like a shocking thing. In the beginning I just assumed that Julia Anderson was totally nuts when she accused the Dunbars of kidnapping her child and everything and that perhaps she was just insanely jealous because her child was missing and you can only fathom what it must feel like for a mother to know that mher child is missing.... It was also very strange that even though the Dunbars claimed the kid that got returned to them was theirs they didn't even recognize him. I can't say I know for sure, but I'm like 98% sure that I WOULD NOT forget what my child looks like, especially since it was only an eight month long period of the child being missing. Perhaps The Dunbar mother was feeling the same thing about how her child was missing, she had missed him so much and that she just had to have this kid even if there was something a little off. Another thing that struck me is that the actual child that was being fought over didn't seem to have an opinion about who his true family was. I feel like if I was him, I would know that I didn't belong to which family or whatever, but the fact that the families had to take this to court was wierd, and also that the Dunbars wouldn't let him be interviewed is also a litttle fishy. I think I can understand not wanting to let your child, (if it really was their kid) to be interviewed after what was most likely a very traumatic event at such a young age maybe they were just being protective, but you never know. This is something wierd, but I do in the end agree that it was Julia's child.

Audio Story Post 2.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/396/1-party-school
396: #1 Party School

ACT ONE: I'M NOT AS THINK AS YOU DRUNK I AM.
According to Princeton University study they have indicated that Penn State has the highest drinking, its a little bit above the national average for college students. They drink all the time, if its cold if its hot whatever, they have tail gate parties starting form 8am, until 3am, they feel as if its part of their culture to drink together. Basically theres these kinda airhead sounding female college students that they are interviewing, saying really stupid things like 'I have a Tiara on my head thats on fire that says "Where is the bar at?" It was her 21st birthday party, and she was having a gigantic tailgate party with a bunch of alcohol and food that her parents brang. They go onto to explain this frat party, how they have black garbage bags taped over the windows, and guy said he was trying to get some girl drunk to take advantage of her, and they're already so drunk that they just laughed. The way the reporters described the girls was that they were next to nothing, with a "Fracket" (jacket made for Frats) that girls where because its so freezing and they don't care about those jackets because they get thrown up on and stuff like that. The reporter asked them if they always had dressed like that in High School and they responded "No, we just got slutty in college." On fridays and saturdays 75% of the students binge drink according to the Administrators at Penn State. The girls make a toast at the end to "Living single and seeing double." The girl has in her fridge: Water, lemonade, tequila, malibu, vodka, maragarita mix, and cheese.

I personally, am glad I chose not to go to a school like this for college, or rather apply to a school like this. I'm sure there are people at penn state who excel in their studies, but its seems like even though theres like 44000 people at that school, a giant chunk of those people are the crazy drunk all the time college students. Personally a college like that sounds pretty wild, and the way that I've been raised would have to do with my negative opinion of all the crazy drinking going on. I'm sure at all colleges that the students drink whether theyre over 21 or not, but there comes a point where you're like, "Is this something I want to be a part of?" And I'm sure lots of people my age would be like "hell yeah!!! lets have fun in college blablabla" but for me personally, thats something that I'd rather not partake in. Basically for me, the point of going to college is for me to establish myself as a young woman, to set my own ground rules of what I want my life to be like afte rI have some real world experiences without my parents around, and to excel in my studies so I can have a foundation to build my future upon for whatever my future may bring including kids, family, a career, and whatever else comes with that.

Audio Story post 1.

420: Neighborhood Watch; ACT ONE: Wary Home Companions from 11.19.2010 56:36
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/420/neighborhood-watch?act=1

I'm listening to a story about a woman named Emily who has a son, at 39 years old, and she is asking around to find someone to take care of her son after she dies. A reporter is narrating the story of how Emily goes from the Police Department, to the Mayor's office, to the Human Health Department, posting flyers, and many other resources until she felt sure that someone would absolutely respond. But a couple months went by and basically no one offered help, until one day a foreign man from I think it was Cambodia, answers her calls. This man's name was Pru and Scott and him were having a great time playing air hockey. Pru was the first one to respond, but Scott's Autism interrupted that experience. He randomly decided he wanted to go home and that was the last time Emily heard from the man Pru. Anywho, the story starts to look up as Scott seems to be doing better on his own. He lives directly across the street from his mother Emily, so its easy for her to check in on him, and he has grown to reach out to their neighbors without the help of his mother. With his neighbors he offered to do friendly things like rake their yards, or with one that he befriended he would just be able to confide in that person about his life, how autism has effected it.

When I think about what Emily was doing, and put myself in the shoes of someone who saw the ad for help of Scott I think I would probably just be another one of the non-responders. It's sad to say it, but in my perspective and I'm sur emany other peoples too, it's a big responsibility to take care of a child, let alone a grown man with Autism, not to mention he's a stranger. I'm sure I would be more frightened than willing to open my home to him. Then also, I wondered why she was so sure that she needed someone to be with Scott for the rest of the time beacuse he was doing fine living on his own, and was able to take the initiative when he needed help with something or just wanted someone to talk to. Maybe its just a mother thing, and she was afraid of the many possibilities of what would happen with Scott after she passed away.

Book Proposal #1

2007 The Road McCarthy, Cormac

I asked a friend if he knew any books that I should read and he suggested the Road. Then I went on Rachel's DP to look at the list of suggested readings and it was there! I was really excited and I called him up and was like, "hey that book you were talking about is on my teachers DP!!" So I'm excited to read it, when I read the description it reminded me of that movie with Will Smith called I am Legend and that book Farenheight 451. I know the description wasn't really similar to Farenheit 451, but the whole futuristic setting is what made the connection for me. Anyways, I don't really read books whose main characters are men or boys, so it would be a new perspective definately, and I would love to read it.