Also, you made some interesting observations in the self eval about how listening to your story gave you insights into how to continue revising it. I think that’s one of the unexpected benefits of working with audio, given that our ears are sometimes a much better judge of the quality of a piece of writing than our eyes! It’s not a bad idea to record yourself reading a draft of just about any paper as a strategy for identifying ways to improve it, even if the final version is meant to be delivered in print.

As you know, I also listen to a lot of audiobooks, and I too admire how those narrators deliver stories so naturally and effortlessly. I’m sure there are some methods they follow, in addition to simply doing lots of practicing (and lots of retakes), but I haven’t yet run across a discussion of what those methods might be. If I do, I’ll add them to my handouts on doing audio recordings!

You have to wonder why the sign designer thought that image would suggest a drowning person anyway. Who sticks their hands straight up in the air while drowning? Looks more like the person’s about to do some cheerleading!

But I love the joke about a twelve year old with a lip ring, as it gives viewers a friendly introduction to the issue of judging people by their appearance.

The fact that your identical twin sister is so different from you in terms of her gender expression and sexual orientation is really interesting. It’s particularly interesting to see how much you looked alike as kids but not now, due to different ways of “constructing” yourselves, so to speak.

I wish you’d had more photos of yourself in a tux for prom. That would’ve been fun to see when you were talking about it and perhaps again at the end, as an example of your “gentlemanly” self.

The combo live video and photo approach worked out really well. I’m glad you gave it a try!