As graduate students we have the privilege of completing our own ‘wet-work’ for our research projects. There are a lot of adjectives, both positive and negative, that can describe that experience. Despite being mostly awesome, completing your research can sometimes be repetitive and monotonous. Between large experiments, biological, and technical replicates; we can often find ourselves completing a task repeatedly over long periods of time.

This semester I found myself in the midst of the largest experiment of my research career. I had the privilege of examining the roots of 1400 soybean lines.... four times. To stave off  “losing-my-mind” and complete the more repetitive parts of my research, I do what many of us do; put in my headphones and turn on my favorite podcasts or music stations.

For me this includes, RDJ2, Jurassic Five, and Chris Stapleton radio stations on Pandora. My favorite podcasts include The McElroy Comedy Podcasts (‘My Brother My Brother and Me’, ‘Sawbones’, ‘The Adventure Zone’), a sports talk podcast from my alma mater (‘CycloneFanatic’), and interesting stories from ‘The Moth’. More recently, the McHale Laboratory manager convinced me to try Audible at which point I quickly listened my way through ‘Ready Player One’. Sometimes, around 4:30 in the afternoon, Mr. James Buffet’s description of ‘Margaritaville’ may find its way onto the laboratory radio.

With the large experiment I completed this semester, I found myself working through my favorites audio resources quickly, and therefor asked about what other people listen to so I could tap into additional hours of audio entertainment. This leads me to the content of today’s blog. What are the TPS fellows listening to? Maybe you and I can find the next source of entertainment to listen to while completing our research.

Ashley Yates has been listening to “From the Heart: ‘Conversations with Yoga Girl’, NPRs ‘Invisbilia’ and ‘This American Life’. In addition she really has enjoyed ‘The Dave Ramsey Show’ about managing your finances.

Alex Turo suggested listening to The Economist, mentioning that it is a great source for unbiased news. When he is looking for laughs, he also enjoys the McElroy products especially highlighting how much fun ‘The Adventure Zone’ is.