pogoism

Eurovision was last night. Germany took it seriously and won. In fairness, it was a good song. Especially her cute accent…

And the UK‘s dreadful entry came last. *sigh*

But! By FAR the best bit of the show (for me anyway) was that awesome flash mob across Europe! Seriously, fantastic. Even though it was pre-recorded.

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

– Winston Churchill

Flickr / Katchooo

I love radio. It’s so understated. It’s been around since 1922 and according to the latest Rajar figures, it’s popularity is at one of the highest points it’s ever been at. Yet people never really talk about it. You nearly always hear people going on about who has been kicked off Over the Rainbow, or what happened last night on Eastenders, but never anything about the radio.

There’s something much more personal about the radio, something I don’t seem to get from watching television. I wake up in the mornings to the Today Show and it’s almost like they’re talking to me. Just me. It’s much less about appearances, obviously, and so conversations and interviews sound so much more frank, more direct, more honest. I’m sure that’s not the case, yet it seems so comforting.

Paradoxically, my radio listening has increased much more because of the internet, and more specifically, podcasts. Podcasts allow me to listen to radio shows that previously geography would have prevented me from doing. Cases in point, some of the wonderful content produced by National Public Radio in the US, such as RadioLab, and Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me.

Finally, the power of radio to elicit emotion and response from me is much greater than that of television or film. When I can’t sleep at night, I’ll often put in my earphone and listen to an hour of some of the finest radio broadcasting I’ve ever come across: This American Life. A typical episode of This American Life consists of a mixture of essay, field recordings, memoirs or short fiction based around a single theme. The quality of this show is second to none, from the moment I put my earphones in and hit play I’m enthralled for an hour and yearn for a new episodes to appear in my iTunes every Monday.

Long live the radio.

Hello blog! I haven’t written a proper update in a while, so I thought I’d come back and see if anyone is still reading this. So, what’s been happening I hear you cry. Well, truth be told, not a lot. Which is mainly why I’ve not been blogging. The last few weeks have been coming up to the end of this year, which meant that I had a heckuva lot of work to do. Firstly, I had to finish off my thesis. Luckily, the bulk of it was the actual research, which I’ve been in doing in the lab since September so writing it all up wasn’t too much of a pain. The trickiest part was trying to write it all in science lingo, which I’ve never had to do. It was easy enough once I was in the mindset of it though. After submitting that a few weeks ago, I’ve been mainly concentrating on exams. I’ve got 2 exams at the end of the month, and then at the beginning of June I’ve got my viva for my thesis. I’m hoping that should be straightforward enough – a 10 minute presentation on my results followed by a 5 minute grilling by a panel.

Anyway, enough of that. Some exciting stuff has happened in the last few months. I got accepted onto a PhD at Queen’s so, provided I get a 2.1, I’m in Belfast for another 3 years. I’m really excited as it’s in the same group as I did my research project in, and I loved every minute of it. I’ve also been accepted to do a placement in Korea this summer. I’m going in less than 2 months, and it hasn’t really sunk in yet. I’ve no idea what to expect. I know very little about Korea, very little about the customs and what’s expected of me, and I certainly can’t speak any Korean. From what I’ve read, English isn’t particularly widely spoken there. Could be a steep learning curve! I did learn how to write my name though (릴리 조엘) and I’m getting to grips with learning the alphabet. When I’m out there I’ll be living in Daejeon and working for the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology.

So, yeh… Korea should give me some interesting stuff to blog about – something there’s been a distinct lack of in the past few months. Sorry about that…

…is trending on Twitter. Which makes me hopeful.

Vote Lib Dem :)