Today’s unofficial biweekly reality tv audio update is a sort of retro affair (if you can call a show from 2001 retro, which I really shouldn’t)
on the sports stuff
One of my goals for 2021 has been to start watching sports, mostly because I felt like why not? It’s basically like reality tv, but more diffusely told, so I should be the right audience for this.
So now here I am, with the Euros are coming to an end today, and I can safely say that deciding to watch a sport was a terrible choice. When the (soccer, in case you’re not sure) tournament started, I figured that I have no patriotic investment in any of these teams, so I should be fine. I would just get a few weeks of something fun to keep track of. You know, 90 chill minutes of soothing commentary about grown-ups kicking a ball around the field.
And yet, every single damn game, I am not soothed! I am stressed! Every single time someone goes for a corner or races up the field, my heart starts racing. And when things go to overtime, I feel exhausted. But as a mature adult who knows where to draw the line, I walk out of the room whenever a game goes to penalty kicks.
And in less than an hour, Italy and England are going to play each other for the finals, a final that I’ve been very excited for the possibility of thanks to a combination of commentary and entertaining games that has me sold on both team’s narratives through the tournament. They’re both just very fun to watch, and hopefully that makes for a very fun final. But the problem is, I also don’t want either team to lose
I don’t have a point to all this, just that I decided to become a sports person against my better judgment. And now here I am, barely even a sports person and full of stress, even though I will be perfectly happy with either team winning. Good thing there’s no other major international sporting event coming up for me to become an armchair expert on for a few weeks before moving back to complete and total blissful ignorance. Oh wait.
Stuff I’ve Been Working On
on youtube as a hobby (versus a job), and my 5 year booktube anniversary - I made it to my five year anniversary on booktube, a thing that has been a hobby but also overlaps a lot with my current job. So I talked about the role the community has played in helping me find this fun little creative place as I shifted my career goals towards the end of grad school, and how it fits in with my life now.
The Beautiful, Brutal Tentacles of Hydra - I hosted another episode of Journey to the Microcosmos, this time for an episode about hydras and their amazing, terrifying arms. We went into a little bit of history of hydra experiments, which meant I had to bust out my French skills because of course.