Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Ask Us Anything | How to Marry, Meal Prep, and Make It Through College

Transcript

Normally Podcast: Ask Us Anything | How to Marry, Meal Prep, and Make It Through College · Normally

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, we are back on normally the show with
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: normalist take school with the News gets weird this week
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: a special vacation week edition where you guys get to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: ask us whatever you want.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: I am Mary Catherine Ham.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: And I'm Carol Markowitz. I'm so excited for this.
• 0:16
  Speaker 4: I love hearing what our listeners kind of think of us.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, good, bad, and ugly.
• 0:25
  Speaker 4: We were saying this before we started rolling. But there
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: are a lot of cooking questions. I feel like people
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: think that we are capable in the kitchen.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: That's nice of them.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is nice of them.
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: I look, I love to cook actually, but yeah, I
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: love to cook, and I love that that comes across
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: to be real.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: So yeah, let's get into.
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: It all right, Mary Catherine, what's the meal most requested
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: in your homes and what do you enjoy making for
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: with your family for dinner?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I would have to say, and I know
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: this does not put me solidly in the MAHA coalition,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: is it? Oftentimes? Because I have four children, I am
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: not so much a cook as an improver of frozen food.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Like that's really my I'm like, oh, here's some frozen broccoli.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: But I put like a little bit of spicy, spicy.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: But there is a running list of things that I
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: make that every single person in the house eats and enjoys,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: because that's really bad.
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: I was trying to think of something like that, and
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: I don't know that I have one, you know, Yeah.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: There's only a couple for us. And one is this
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: like like Middle Eastern chicken shorma that is ticking thighs
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: in the oven, very simple, really complicated spice combination, which is, yeah,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: it's wild that everyone eats it. Every single kid in
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: the family. Dad likes it. I like it. So that's
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: one founded on Instagram. Thanks instagramzingu. And then we had
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: one the other day that was egg roll in a bowl,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: which is just sauteed cabbage, spices and ground beef sauteed
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: and like, you know, he dressed it up a little bit.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Sure like everyone was eating it and I was like,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: am I hallucinating? You're eating peppers, cabbages and beef.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Okay, amazing.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, in my family, I would have to parse something
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: out for someone and it's super annoying.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: I think the thing.
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: I came up with is I make a roast, just
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: a Korean style roast with like Asian spices, and people
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: in the family all eat it to varying degrees. My
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: nine year old is super complicated. We say that he
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: either is like a ninety dollars dinner dish or like
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: a ninety cent it's either chicken nuggets or lobster for him,
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: there's really no in between. What regular people eat is
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: not eventure just to him at all, So he a
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: lot of the times will have the.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: Chicken nuggets or a corn dog. As we the four
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: of us have dinner without him, we.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Have one of those as well, where she's like either
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: very you know, she eats what we put in front
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: of her because it's basically required in our house for
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: the most part to try, you have to give it
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: a try. But she's definitely prefers like very bland kid
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: foods until you put a very expensive steak in front
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: of her and he's like absolutely same here.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the nine year old is also all kinds of
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: wago everything for sure, oysters, but not like grilled.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: Chicken because that's crazy, you know.
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Okay, when will you share your pimento cheese recipe?
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I know a lot of people think I'm
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: gatekeeping on this.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, gatekeeping.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: I don't mean to gate keep, but it is my
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: father's family's recipe, so I should technically ask him before
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: I put it out to everyone, like a friend, you
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: are gatekeeping, I know, Well, I have to ask him first,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: that's all about. Yeah. I think he would be like, yeah,
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: that's fine. I just would run it by him and
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: I haven't done that. But it is a five generations
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: old South Georgia. And here's the thing. It's not complicated
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: at all is that people get a little too fancy
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: with the pimento cheese and they think they have to
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: do a lot of things to it. You don't have
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: to do a lot of things to it. The main
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: thing that we do is that we grate the cheese
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: in two different sizes, so it changes the texture.
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: Texture, right, Yeah, that is my only st You send
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: me that recipe right after this, I will.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: And I will clear it with my dad and then
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: when I tell you guys, you're going to be like,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: that's just very easy. Yep. But it's a crowd pleaser,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: yeah for sure.
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: Another food question, Biscuitville versus Bojangles.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, here's the thing, Biscuitville. If you're not familiar with
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: it Carol, which I'm not. It is another regional chain
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: that serves biscuits. I had one. It's like three and
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: a half blocks from my house growing up, and I
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: swear that establishment was never open. Now this is possibly
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: because it was only open for breakfast, and like all
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: the like people who are set up want to go
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: eat there, Like construction workers would go have Biscuitville and
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: then be off. But I found that in my teenager experience,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: which is mostly what I experienced around Biscuitvill's, Uh, they
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: weren't open when I needed them to be open.
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: Whereas Bojangles, Yeah, you need a reliable that's like, you know,
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: most of the game with fast food.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: It has to be reliable.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: You can't like really really really good grits, very good biscuits,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: solid food. Just I was never able to land on
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: a biscuit bill that was there when I needed it.
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's really the most important part. Look switching
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: from food to politics and dating, at what point in
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: getting to know someone should politics or general philosophy be
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: brought up. I know that it wouldn't work to be
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: with someone that doesn't have matching values, but don't want
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: to come on too strong right away.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: I'm just gonna say it. You should come on strong
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: right away.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: I probably built it. Yeah, yeah, just.
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: Don't waste your time. It's really it's not about them.
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: It's not about what they think of you. It's about
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: what you think of them. And I think you just
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: get it out really early and see what happens. You know,
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: I was a conservative in Brooklyn and that was an
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: unpopular thing to be, so I would find a way
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: to bring it up very early in conversations with new friends,
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: with anybody, just because I didn't want to trick anybody
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: into spending time with me.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: And if you don't like that, that's your problem.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's that's probably smart. I'm trying to think.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: I grew up in a very liberal town and everyone
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: knew I was the weirdo, so it just it was
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: kind of out there. Yeah, there were so few conservatives
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: that it was like, oh, well, she's the one who
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: does the weird thing, she's the aberration, right, but and
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: so everybody kind of knew it going in. However, in
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: new situations, I do think it's harder now for people.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: So I'm very sympathetic to the idea that you're kind
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: of dancing around it because I get being delicate. I've
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: tried to maintain many a friendship with many liberals, mostly
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: successfully over the years, and it does require a dance.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: But those are friendships, right. So in a dating to
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: marriage scenario, I think you want to be pretty careful
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: about what is worth the trade off and what is not. Yeah,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: and you also don't want to get into deep and
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: then find out some values are not a lot that
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: will go badly for you. You don't have to be
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: a jerk face about it, but you can make clear
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: who you are, right.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: I fully agree.
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: I actually am a friend's daughter is a very traditional girl.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: She's in her early twenties and she's looking for, you know,
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: someone to marry.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: And I said to her, I think you should put.
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: You know, like looking to be a tad wife in
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: your bio so that there's no there's no mistake, there's
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: no like, you know, confusion about who you want to
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: be and what you want and if you're not in
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: the political world, terms like that, you know might not
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: mean anything to you, but it just it signals what
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: you're looking for.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: I think I was in college and shortly after I
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: was always very clear about my faith and that that
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: was important to me. And honestly, it was a very
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: good jerk filter for sure, because there are like people
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: do the calculation and they're like, hmmm, this is not
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: what I'm looking for, and if it's not what he's
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: looking for, yeah, goo along, yeah, move along. So I do.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: I do think that can be helpful for filtering for
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: who you want.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back on normally.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, this says high ladies love the podcast. My son
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: just deployed on the USS Jerald for he is twenty
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: seven years old an F eighteen pilot. Wooh, thank you
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: for his service and awesome this is his first deployment.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I live in super liberal loud In County, Virginia. I
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: am super sensitive about politics right now and don't want
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: to have any political discussions with any lives. What can
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: I say other than I don't discuss politics because I
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: can't handle anyone else's opinions right now that are not
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: pro military, preferably a two to three sentence hack for this. Thanks, yeah,
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: let me repeat, thanks to your family and him for
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: his service.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: I can understand this being sensitive because you have a
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: person who's in the line of duty at this moment
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: and willing to put his life on the line for others.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: And so if you're encountering somebody who thinks that that's NBD,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: or worse, thinks it's bad, that would very quickly lead
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: to bad interactions that and lost friendships. I think I
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: would advise. I mean one of the things that I
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: do because I live in a very liberal area too,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: and I'm happy to have liberal friends, but all of
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: them are level right, because sometimes you want to be
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: shared with other folks. I think you got to have
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: like your solid group of galfriends, either online or in person,
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: who do share those values, who you can have those
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: conversations with, so that you can skip it elsewhere. But Carol,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: a nice.
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: Way to yeah, you know, I don't know about a
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: nice way to say it, but I'll just echo what
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: we said to the dating thing is that you don't
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: want anti military you know, people in your life, in
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: your life while your son is serving, that's you know, crazy.
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: I look, I have topics that I think are touchy.
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: If you want to bring down America, I'm just I
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: can't be friends with you. Like there are some lines
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: like if we have differences on tax policy, fine, but
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: if you're like America shouldn't exist.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, we just we can't be friends. So I
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: see that.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: In the same place, I don't think you need to
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: worry about what to say to them.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: I think you don't need those people.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: And if they are anti military, they're all ltimately just
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: not for you. Again, I'm big on cross ideological friendships,
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: but there are lines, and there are some lines that
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: I just don't think we should be willing to cross.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Also, you could sort of speak the language of if
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: you if you wanted to head something off at the
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: pass and you're just like, you know, it may be
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: somebody who's just like medium live but isn't being careful
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: about the way they're going to talk about this, and
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: you can can you use therapy speak on them and
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: it just be like, you know, I'm really i have
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of anxiety about my son's and I'm.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Like turning that around.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would just like to, you know, chat about
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: barbecue or football like that's that would be uh, that
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: would be my take. And if someone's just bent on
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: discussing possibles, I actually don't love that kind of relationship.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: If you're really really dedicated to discussing politics with me
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: in a casual setting where we're doing other things. That's
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: actually not a good relationship for me.
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right, that's exactly it.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: And that goes for conservatives too.
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: I were like, you know, I mean, you know, yeah,
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: both ways for sure. But yeah, I don't think you
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: need to put up with people who are wishing ill
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: to your child.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Really, I think that's pretty clear.
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, will you be going on tour at some point,
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: please come to Dallas. I'll just say that if we
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: are going on tour at some point, we will be
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: starting with a Dallas Cowboys game.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'll dare. I'm good with Dallas. I would love
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: to come to Dallas. But yeah, have you been to Dallas? Yes,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: but only only a few times for too short a
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: period of time, so I don't get to see a
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: ton of it.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: I really like it.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I love Dallas seeing a Cowboys game as it is
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: an American spectacle.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: That's right, it's America's team. You could say it.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know all that.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: MKA is shaking her head in disgust.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Let's not go too far, but you know it is
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: you know big, and yeah, you know it as it is. Yeah, Also,
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: we have no plans, but also I do love doing
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: things live and they are so fun audiences, So yeah,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I would certainly considerate.
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: And we'll wear the Florida and Bojangle shirts in real
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: life that we to have in the baby pictures. All right, MK,
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: we all know you attended the University of Georgia. What
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: college university was your second choice?
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: And why?
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: So fun story? I did not apply anywhere else?
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: What are you serious? Wow? So she's like, IM either
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: going here or I'm not going to college.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: No, actually, it was just that my senior writers extended
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: to applying to college. And I liked the University of Georgia.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: It had a decent journalism school. It had a decent
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: football team. It had a lot of people, which was
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: something I was looking for because I I felt that
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: at a small liberal arts school, I was maybe not
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: going to find my pool that I clicked with. So
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: I wanted big. I was comfortable with that, and part
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: of it was economic, which was I knew I was
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: probably going to end up at a state school. In
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: my family. I kept my grades up so because knowing
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: that my younger brothers were probably not going to get scholarships,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: and I was like trying to keep the overhead low
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: for the whole fame.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: So that's so older sibling, a very older sister.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: So I was always keeping those grades up. And I
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: had the goods to get into UGA, and I didn't
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: have a lot of money to be applying a bunch
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: of places that I wasn't going to end up being
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: able to go. So there was part of me that,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: for pride's sake, wanted to be like I got into Georgetown,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: I got into Duke or whatever, right right, it was
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: sixty to seventy five bucks of my location.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was telling this to somebody recently.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: I'm like, you know how you kids apply to like
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: fifty schools. I applied to four and that was extensive.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: It was like a lot of money to do that.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: And so yeah, I wasn't looking to spend all that
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: cash on applying to schools.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: That's crazy.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Same And so yeah, did I lose out on some
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: of those bragging rights, Yes I did. And I made
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: the best decision, one of the best decisions of my life,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: which was good to go to UGA. They gave me
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: some scholarships, which was great. I graduated with no debt.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Did not realize that that basically made me a twenty
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: two year old millionaire compared to my peers, right, and
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: I had a fantastic time, so there really wasn't a
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: second choice. I did get homesick at one point in
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: my first semester at school because everybody was like, aren't
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: you scared to go somewhere where you don't have any friends.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: I was like, nah, because I don't think about you
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: before they had.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: There, yep.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: And then I got there and I was like.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, I don't have any friends.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: So I did apply for transfer to UNC at one
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: point I did not take it, and I'm very glad
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: that I didn't.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Wo.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: I imagine if you went to UNC. I just can't
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: picture it.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: Can I. So it was Georgia all the way.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that first semester at school is very, very tough
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: on folks, and I didn't find my people until second semester.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I played lacrosse with them. Second semester I landed on
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: that club team and found all my people and loved
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: my life there. But man, that first semester was tough.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. I had a kind of a.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: Flip side of that, where my best friend and my
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: high school boyfriend both came to college with me. Basically,
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: my best friend went to another school in Boston and
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: my high school boyfriend went to school with me. That
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: also wasn't great because I didn't meet a lot of
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: people and I didn't try at all. And then the
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: next year, when both the boyfriend and the best friend
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: decided not to come back to Boston, I was all
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: by myself in my sophomore year, where everybody already had.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: Solidified to friends. It was tough. It's the hard way
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: to do it.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: But I you know, I feel like I didn't have
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: any advice on how this is supposed to go and
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: when you're supposed to be friends, and I don't know,
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: I say, I always say immigrant parents, They.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: Really did not know what they were sending me into.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: We just throw you into the dim good luck, right, Yeah, No,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: I found the one. The one thing that I did
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: benefit from is that because I had no friends first
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: semester and I was trying to keep my grades up,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: I had a very early morning job. I delivered papers.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: So I would get up at three thirty or four
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: every morning, seven days a week and deliver papers, and
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: as a result, my grades did stay up. And the
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: other thing I did was work out and so I
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: came home lot different than my peers.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: No, that was another way that that first semester was
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: definitely tough, that freshman fifteen.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I went the other direction because I just went
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: to the gym for like several hours a day, smart,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: which is its own kind of issue. But yeah, that
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: worked out for me.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: Somebody else asks while at UGA, did you take classes
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: with Fink?
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: I did, and what's your best think story?
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: So Fink is a Conrad Fink was his name, and
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: he was a professor at the University of Georgia of
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: newspaper journalism, and he was at one point the head
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: guy at UPI, which was the main competitor to the AP.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: So the Associated Press is like the go to wire now,
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: but for a long time UPI was the I think
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: it's United Press International was the competitor to AP so
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: they were almost of equal, you know, size and scope
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: back in the day. So he ran one of those
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: and he was a I believe a Vietnam be crustial
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: marine guy turned newspaper editor. I would say, like kind.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: Of I love people like that. By the way, those are.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: White people, fantastic like had no would take no guff
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: off of anyone had no hair on his head and
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: eyebrows out to like four inches from his face.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Guy.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: I think he passed away several years ago. We stayed
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: in touch. He passed away several years ago, and I
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: had emailed him in between a little bit here and there.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know how he would have done in the
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: current era of college students because he was a street talker.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and he was a He was certainly a.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Left of center guy, but he was such a nineteen
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: eighty five to nineteen ninety five left of center guy
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: that his way of dealing in the world would not
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: have been welcomed by many gen Z and gen Z
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: in particular sounds like that, right, But I loved him.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: He actually recommended me for a job that I didn't
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: get one time, but it was very kind of him
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: to think of me. He by the way, this is
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: a very sliding doors moment. He recommended me for the Augusta,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Georgia newspaper's op ed page as an assistant editor. But
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: I was like twenty four years old. Yeah, I probably
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: wasn't really qualified for this, but the op ed page
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: was the editorial page was conservative, and there were so
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: few of those and there were so few of me
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: in the news business that.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: He was, Oh, You're not the natural fit, right.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: He was like, Hey, this is Conrad. Do you think
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: you want to try this out? And so I went
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: and interviewed and it went pretty well, but I think
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I was just too for what they were looking for.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Didn't get that job, ended up coming to DC. So
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: the rest is history. But I always appreciated him thinking
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: of me and knowing this could be a fit, and
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: that he wasn't condescending or a jerk about my politics.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: He just knew that I thought differently.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: Love it all right, We're gonna wrap it up with
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: one last question about college related stuff, and I'm going
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: to punt this to you because I really don't know
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: what this means. Does Florida State belong.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: In the SEC?
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: What's funny is when I read it, I was like,
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: are they challenging whether Florida State is in the SEC?
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: And then I googled it.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, I actually.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Nice, be nice. It was my Florida whatever it is.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: This is one of those things I have to be
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: nice because two of my really good friends went to
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Florida State, including Shannon Bram is anult so I have
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: to be kind about it. One I will. I'll give
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: a disappointing answer, which is that the ever changing tides
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: of who belongs to what conference is a sports story
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: that does not interest me in the least. I get
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: overwhelmed by it because I'm trying to keep track of
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Big Ten, which is now Big seventeen, and everybody's alliant.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: I'm just gonna nod, like I know what I'm taught,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: like like, oh yeah, I don't.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Here's here's where or to State lost me. And this
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: is an this is an action that was taken against
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: the University of Georgia Bulldogs is that they basically checked
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: out of the postseason game when they had a perfect
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: season and they didn't get awarded a birth to the playoffs.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: I know you're nodding, still.
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, nodding and like drifting off. They basically this
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: is college football, right.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: They basically were like, you know what, I'm not even
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: going to tell this story because I don't know I'm
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: getting the details right and it's boring you anyway. But
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: they basically said, like, eh, not interested in this postseason
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: game because we're too good for this. Wow, And a
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: lot of people didn't play and blah blah blah. Anyway
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: you lost me there like it's a it's a moment
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: where you just have to rally.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, I I you know, I'm going to just
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: say I agree they should have rallied.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: That season was twenty twenty three, was the undefeated season.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: By the way.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us on normally.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: And you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: Get in touch with us at Normallythepod at gmail dot com.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally