There are many things going on in my life that I could write about, school is quickly approaching the end of winter quarter, and that is terrifying. My meetings with my advisor alternate weekly between "very encouraging" and "banging my head against a wall" (We're actually going to 2 meetings a week, so perhaps it will even out). And of course, I'm still engaged! and dealing with the early stages of wedding planning.

But instead of a detailed assessment of my life, I'm going to take this opportunity to plug some of the podcasts I'm currently very high on.

In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day approaching, I'm listening to The Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. The music is really awesome, particularly if you enjoy folk/Irish (obviously)/drinking/bluegrass music. I'm using the previous 45 episodes that I've missed to get in the mood for St. Patrick's Day (read: ready for heavy drinking), which Chicago seems to have decided needs to be 3 weekends long. *shrugs*

The psych nerd in me is actively enjoying The Psych Files. It takes an in depth look at various aspects of psychology and examines them with a critical and educational eye. This probably won't interest anyone else as much as it does me. But the most recent episode looked at the "Little Albert" study, and the myths associated with it. (For those not in the know, in the 20s, John Watson conditioned a baby to be afraid of a white rat by clanging a pipe behind his head, and it generalized to a few other fuzzy things). As popular as this study is in intro psych books, it really is very unconvincing data. Ultimately, though, there is no reason to fear that the adult Albert was deathly afraid of fuzzy things.

Receiving a trial invitation to my iTunes podcast collection are Beer School, WhiskyCast, and Wine Library TV to further my boozy education. Thusfar, I'm enjoying them in that order. Beer School is a nice, casual, but deep look at various different beers (Hooray, Beer!). WhiskyCast focuses mostly on Scotch, but it's not that accessible, based on the one episode I listened to. I'm probably not going to keep watching Wine Library TV because the host is really, really annoying, and since the show is watching him taste and talk about wine, it makes it hard to watch.

Also, I highly recommend my old faithfuls: Filmspotting and Coverville. Filmspotting is a very enjoyable movie discussion podcast. Coverville plays, as the name suggests, covers of popular, or not so popular songs by a variety of artists.

Anyway, yeah, check out podcasts for things you're interested in, because there are other people interested in those things who have the guts to talk about it and share it with the world, so give them your support. And if nothing else, it's hours of free entertainment!