I’m really into podcasts. I think I’m subscribed to about 43 now. I give podcast recommendations during daily discussions – but I want use podcast alerts to highlight a few episodes. Some podcast alerts will be for people who don’t listen to podcasts (I’m attempting to convert you) and some will be for people deep in the podcast world.
If you’ve never listened to podcasts, there are a couple of classics that are always at the top of the charts. This American Life is one of those. I finally listened to this week’s episode (“#449 – Middle School) , and it was a timely one for what my focus has been lately – friendship. This episode discusses friendship and community in the context of middle school – but some of the quotes apply to kids of all ages.

Middle School is rough y’all. This episode goes through the politics of dances, new and complex relationships, and interviews kids discussing their first look into adult life. These kids are goofy and profound. Turns out transitioning has similar effects no matter what age you are. Even if your 7th grade year wasn’t as stressful as mine, you will still get pretty nostalgic listening to to this episode.

So while the people who are podcast lovers probably don’t need this recommendation, this is for those who have yet to discover the joys of audio entertainment. So are the instructions to get to podcasts on your phone:
Iphone users: go to the podcast app – its purple and you can’t delete it. At the bottom of your screen there is a “top charts” icon. This American Life is consistently on there, and you can scroll around to find other great shows. You can download a specific episode by clicking the cloud, or you can subscribe and the latest shows will automatically be downloaded once they are available.
I’ll be posting random podcast alerts when an episode or show really sticks out to me.
Let me know some of your favorite shows, or tell me if you try podcasts for the first time!
Link to this week’s This American Life: http://audio.thisamericanlife.org/widget/widget.min.js

