When I got there, we went into the studio and our hostess took our picture. You can see from the picture that I am already tense (my shoulders are practically touching my ears) to say nothing of the fact that the microphone is covering half of my face. Dr. Ruth Gates spoke first about her incredible research into "Designer Reefs," or coral reef ecosystems that seem to be highly adaptable in response to climate change. Then, Dr. Brian Glazer spoke about his work in the deep sea and the loss of their incredibly expensive ROV (remotely operated vehicle). During the whole time they were speaking, I was continually rehearsing my responses to the questions I was prepared to answer. Of course, as soon as it was time for my interview--our hostess began with a question that was NOT on my list of prepared questions! While it was a perfectly acceptable question--"tell us about your research," it was not what I was expecting! Thus, sending me into a spiral of jerky, inarticulate, confused answers for the next ten minutes! The worst moment was when she asked me to explain the genetics I was doing. I froze. All possible explanations ran through my mind: do I talk about Mendelian inheritance? What do people know about? How do I explain genetics in 30 seconds or less? Ahhh! I settled on sex chromosomes. I thought most people are familiar with X and Y sex chromosomes and so I could try to explain it in that context. However, instead of a fully coherent explanation of sex chromosomes, I just said...."SEX".... And then nothing.... Radio silence.... Until I was able to recover and begin making words come out of my mouth. But during the rest of the show, I was hyper aware that I had just said the word SEX and just the word SEX very awkwardly, followed by what felt like an eternity of silence. Needless to say, this was not my proudest radio moment. I'm not sure I even really remember what followed. I could listen to the podcast, but I have one of those terrible afflictions where listening to the sound of my own voice makes me nauseated, so I think I'll skip it. You are welcome to listen, if you are so inclined. The podcast can be found here, although as of today (5-27-14) it does not seem to be up yet. I am told it will be available soon, though.
More posts to come. I am in hyper-procrastination mode...
