[Story Time Jingle] So back in the elusive year of 2004, when Kanye, Tyra Banks, and Joanne Kathleen Rowling were vying for position as voices of our generation, I exploited a loophole in my high school’s graduation requirements for personal lasting gain. They required every human child (and every non-human child pretending to be a human child, let’s be real, we’ve all seen Men In Black) to complete a required Speech class, in which you had to write, research, and perform several written pieces of different styles throughout a semester. To me, a shy, anxiety-ridden introvert who had already failed multiple presentations in her academic career due to panic attack, this sounded like Hell on Earth. However, enter the loophole. You had the option to take classes in summer school. Three weeks, eight hours a day…this was also Hell on Earth, but…abbreviated. I weighed the options with my teenage brain and the answer seemed clear: Shorter = better. To summer school we went. This class went on to have a lasting impact on my life. I learned that when you are presenting, hardly anyone is actually listening to you because they are living in their own little worlds. This brought me great comfort. I learned that telling a story verbally versus written does require slightly different skill sets, which is why I still feel like you’re losing a certain something in audiobooks, but that’s another spiel for another episode blurb. I learned that humor can absolutely be used to get you out of a momentary jam (a lesson reaffirmed by the Simpsons episode “Bart Gets Famous”, go watch it, get learnt.) I went on to take another required public speaking class in college and ace it, even at one point having the professor try to convince me to change my major to a public relations/marketing one. Honestly…probably a good idea in hindsight. Past me took an L not doing that. Anyway. [Ending Story Time Jingle] You might be asking yourself “This is all well and good Burgs, but what does this have to do with a podcast episode you recorded almost 20 years later?” And I would respond with “Almost nothing except during one of my friend’s speeches, she taught people how to heel-toe march properly as a way to not spill a very full beverage while walking and it’s a thing I do to this very day and was a thing I did to get my coffee over to my computer to write this. Shout out to Claire; my area rug remains mostly pristine and coffee-free. So in closing, you learn unexpected things in unexpected spaces, much like in Part One of our 2024 Music Wrap-Up. Enjoy. :)