On the Radio

Wow, the media blitz rages on. At this point enrollment for the energy class is closed, but the press conference we held last week stirred up a lot of continuing interest on the part of newspapers and radio stations. Over the last few days I got briefly interviewed twice (in tandem with Victor Cornejo or Jorge Lemus) at radio stations, then this morning Jorge and I were asked back to one of the stations for a longer 30-minute chat, this time just to talk about renewable energy in general and opportunities for its use in El Salvador.

It was funny because instead of Paco, the nicotine-voiced older guy who interviewed us last time, today's interviewer was this young woman with a slinky leopard print leotard off one shoulder -- quite a sight at 7:00 a.m. I admit I was expecting her to be a flake based on first visual impression, but she turned out to be a totally level-headed interviewer with good questions who didn't interrupt or go off on weird tangents. It was fine. Listen for yourself. (I love how tech-savvy San Salvador is – they had the interview archived for streaming or download on the station's website within an hour or two of us leaving the station. [To navigate to the show, click on Programas Anteriores on the left, then 92.5 Club in the middle, then Morning Club, then click on the show for 12/02/2010. I think this link will only be live for a week or so.])

Interview at Radio Club 92.5 FM

Day two of the class felt successful. I had been sort of apprehensive about introducing the the group project. I didn't know if the students would be enthusiastic about the project in general or if they would be interested in any of my suggested topics. I expected to have to pull some teeth, but when I distributed the handout the students formed groups spontaneously and started clamoring for the topics. Within a minute or two, six of my seven suggested topics were snatched up by the teams. I was also happy that they had many good comments and questions during the lecture. They were pretty quiet on day one, but in this second session they really had a lot to say. And they're not shy about calling me on stuff. Go students!