Radio Chthulucene 87.9 FM

I finished recording my project over the long weekend. I ended up using a few different songs for background music, to split up the sections and highlight different moods. I chose instrumental songs by Jewish musicians (and one Catholic instrumental song), since I figured that lyrics playing while I read the text would be distracting. I’m planning to put a sign or piece of paper next to my radio that gives credit to all the musicians, since that feels simpler than reading off the name of every song at the end of the recording. That would have been tedious and made the recording longer than ten minutes, which I was trying to avoid (it ended up being nine minutes and 59 seconds, of course). Looking back, I feel like I could have done more with the audio aspects of the project, but I only just learned how to do anything at all with audio software for this class. The sound quality was never going to be perfect. But I did learn from the experience of turning my writing into audio — I got more comfortable hearing my voice, and I had to get over my self-consciousness about speaking loudly and clearly enough for my laptop’s microphone to record it. 

I wrote more for this project since my workshop — almost too much, since it was a little difficult to fit it all into the recording when I included the introduction and short breaks between sections. I got even more angry-feminist with it than I did in the first draft, but I’m kind of happy about that. I had things to say, and it felt good to say them. I’m also glad I included more about my mom in the final draft. Initially, I wasn’t planning to, since she’s not really part of my relationship with Hebrew, but I think I like the ending better now that it’s about her. I know this project won’t have a huge audience, and I’m glad because I wouldn’t want to deal with a ton of judgment about it. Still, I hope anyone who does listen to it is able to take something from it — or they can just think I’m a corny college student who’s too obsessed with gender; I can’t control how other people see my work.

My attitude toward this project and my attitude toward college as a whole are similar, as it ends: I’m grateful for all I’ve learned and all I’ve done even if I know I could have done a lot of it better. I can’t pretend I’m uncomplicatedly proud of myself, or more excited than frightened about what comes next. I have a lot of older acquaintances who I met through hobbies outside of college these past few years, and when I tell them I don’t know what I’m doing in life, they just laugh and say I’ll figure it out.