Hitting the Radio Waves

I still find this deliciously ironic: earlier this winter, I made a radio appearance. And talking about my experience listening with a cochlear implant, no less. The show aired several weeks ago via Stanford's KZSU station, but it's now available online:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season-4/355-episode-410-listening.html

Aside from my main segment, scroll down to the bottom to catch the "bonus" piece - something I helped make with a good friend, and former roommate, of mine when she made an audio essay for a class last year. It's my favorite of those two if I do say so myself, particularly because of how special it was to work on the piece with her.

Listening to the show air was a remarkable experience (aside from the fact that I was on the radio to begin with!). A friend of mine works as a producer for the Stanford Storytelling Project, which airs these "State of the Human" radio shows each week, and on the night this particular show went live she invited me to the campus DJ station to sit amidst all the machinery and big speakers and listen to it on the air. Of course, she also graciously offered me a transcript, both for my piece and everyone else's. Following along wasn't hard at all with those printed words to read from, and I found myself getting into the music, sound effects, and vocal inflections. A very different style of storytelling than I'm used to, but still very engaging. I got to put on headphones, which I've never worn for longer than a few seconds because they used to feel uncomfortable and used to make my hearing aids squeal. I was surprised to find that they worked very well, sometimes too well, with my CI's T-mic microphone. The sound was direct, crisp, and booming, something I could get used to. (Worked less well on the hearing aid side, because the aid kept squealing per usual. So nothing has changed.)

Overall, the night not only introduced me to something new and challenged my sense of the possible - it was fun! And I've always perceived radio as this very foreign, very alien thing... Never mind that I turn on radio music all the time in the car now. I even have my favorite stations to listen to. :)