turn the radio on

I haven't read the news since around April/May... I'm not sure why, but I just fell out of the habit. I used to check the Guardian app every morning. I think part of the reason why I don't read the news is because I'm frustrated that every news source is biased and I just want unfiltered facts. These days I get most of my information through social media. I still read the New Yorker, but for fiction and long-form reporting, so I don't really know what's going on these days.

But near the end of last term, my friend Wes who studies Engineering made a radio for an assignment. He showed it to me and I got super excited because I never actively listen to the radio, and hearing the football commentator's yelling surface through the static felt so cool. I haven't been listening to much music lately while I work because I find it distracting, so this barely intelligible white noise feels like a good alternative. Wes let me keep the radio and I listened to it a lot last term. Now that we're back from the holidays he let me have it again and I have it on at all times unless I'm watching a video. It means that the times when I'm just doing stuff for my routine, like getting dressed, I'm passively listening to all this information. I also try to position it so that it's staticky so I can't hear it completely clearly and won't be too distracted.

It's worked so far, and I've actually managed to learn some new things! For instance, Theresa May apologised for saying she would deport Caribbean immigrants from the Windrush generation, and I've been listening to testimonials about alcoholism, energy drink addiction, and male victims of domestic violence. It's fascinating. And I love that I can actually what's inside the radio. I feel really cool with it. And it kind of reminds me of the guy who fixes radios in All the Light we Cannot See. I personally have no idea how you could just take a machine apart and learn how it works by putting it back together. Like, I can see all the wires, but the science just eludes me. It looks like magic to me.

It only does one channel. I think it's BBC Radio 5.