Princeton at Home?!

Hello, everyone~!

Well, as you can see by the frequency of adding posts here, I'm now on the spring vacation. However, I still have a kind of school at home! Can you guess what it is? It's "Podcast". I don't know how many people have heard of this and actually used it, but I think it's simple and useful. It's one of the functions of the software called "iTunes".

The first thing I got through podcast was the news materials. One of the reasons I did so was that I thought it would be helpful for me to improve my listening skill of English by listening to them as much as possible on a daily basis. Another reason was that I hoped the fact that I've been able to get the news from countries other than Japan would help me develop different views of affairs which are taking place today. As far as I can see, it's been pretty successful.

Then, let me move on to the main point for today's topic. Yes, Princeton at Home. No wonder you're doubtful. Well, Princeton university launched the program for podcast, and now evryone who has iTunes and an access to the internet can download the lectures. Though each file of the lecture comes from the public seminars conducted at the university. So strictly speaking, they cannot be called "lectures". But still, it's quite interesting to be able to listen to them. Moreover, fortunately, some of the universities in the US like UC Berkeley have given us the audio files of the lectures, surprisingly for free!

I've recently found a series of public lecture meetings held by Princeton univerisity while I was looking around the education section of podcast on iTunes. The program was divided into 5 parts, and each of them was about an hour and half long. The theme was "Food, Ethics and the Environment". Sounds a bit academic and difficult, huh? Contrary to my first impression, however, it was worth listening and I've learned a lot about food. At first, I intended to listen to only the first part, which featured the author of the book I read last year called "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser. But I decided to listen to all of the parts after I began to feel the presentations get more and more interesting as they went on. Also, through the presentation given by speakers, I came to realize how complicated the food industry in the US has been, and that what we eat is about the same weight as a vote. To my surprise, one of the speakers was from McDonald's! He participated in one of the lecture meetings as a representative of the company. I've learned that the company now has a department for corporate social responsibility. I just can't imagine how tough it could be to attend this kind of meeting!

I think the issues about the food industry discussed in the US also reflects those of which the Japanese one has. Many people including me have started feeling that we have to make a commitment(*1) to educate not only children but also adults about where the foods come from and the choices we have to eat healthy and smartly.

I'm planning to add an additional post here about the lecture just for me to remember. In fact, I still have a lecture left...so I'll work on it as soon as I have time to do so.

Alright, that's all for today!
See you soon~.

(*1)--The word I used here has been modified after Nina suggested changing it. Thanks!