For the videos of Ira Glass and storytelling, I really liked part 3 when he played a clip of one of his first stories, it was interesting. I also really thought his advice was true. People in the creative field do, at first, spend years creating things that they don’t think are good enough but they still have taste. I really liked that part because I can definitely see how it takes some time to get into the swing of things and the way to solve it is to “do a lot of work.”

As for the This American Life I decided to listen to Switched at Birth. I really liked this radio story. I think it’s so much information and really something that baby switching actually happened. It’s really interesting to see nature vs nurture play a role (biology and environment). I know most psychologist think it’s 50/50 mingling of the two, which “makes a person who they are.” I think one of the most interesting part was that Marti got a long with her biological brother Bob more than Sue, who was raised with him. It’s interesting that a mother seemed to know her baby wasn’t hers and still didn’t do anything about it except drop hints. Mary Miller knew from the beginning and didn’t tell anyone for 43 years! I think its astounding to keep something like that and I actually think its kind of, lack of a better word, wrong but I can see why she didn’t do anything about it; its a tough and very personal situation. Glass vision of the story played out really well. Starting with an intro and description. Using interviews to add genuine feelings and then kind of summing things up for the audience to help understand things because it was a little bit confusing to start off with, getting the voices matched up; like this is Marti speaking, this is Sue speaking. There is definitely some powerful storytelling for example when Marti talks about how her father didn’t do anything about it and thus he felt a ton of guilt. I would have liked it if they read their own letters because Glass read a letter. I really liked the beginning where they read letters. Glass gave both sides of the story and even threw in his own opinion in the right moments, which I think the audience could relate to. And it’s interesting to hear both mothers side. I would have liked to hear from the fathers but obviously Glass explained why he couldn’t and thats respectable. There is definitely a lot of mood music and pauses for music. I kind of thought that was unnecessary for this story but thats just a personal opinion. While listening to the interviews I couldn’t help but wonder how much footage Glass probably had! I bet he had a lot. Overall, I think the story was told really well and it kept me tuned in.