A SIMPLE SHOW

Jingle Hello, my dear contemporary! Welcome to “A simple show”. I am Ioana and you are listening to Radio Moldova Youth - this is what some people might hear if they switch on their radios, on a specific frequency, or online, every Saturday and Sunday, at 12:00. My radio journey started in September, right in the middle of International Finance and WEPP. I have too much free time, I said to myself looking in the mirror. Then that person in the mirror started to laugh. She likes sarcastic jokes. Anyways, I accepted the job. I told myself that I should take everything I can from the time I am home. Even if there is no time sometimes :)

Today, it’s time to fly around letter S. As you might know, this is the new format of the show: each day, we take a new letter from the alphabet and talk about different topics starting with this letter.

You might be asking me what will happen when the letters of the alphabet end? Well, let’s hope that by then the studies will go back on-site and

I’ll have to rebecome an ordinary Rigan student.

So, what could we talk about when it comes to

S? What’s the first word which starts with S that comes to your mind, dear Student? Sun, solstice,

Simple Show, sex, soul, sniper, SSER... Well, I haven’t arrived at this letter yet, but if you have any other ideas, feel free to tell me. I am at letter M now, so hurry up :). I decided to stop at this new format of the show, because I am a fan of general knowledge games and this is the best way to find out new things while working. I stop at topics from different domains, starting with geography, history, literature, nature and ending with fun facts or bizarre (sometimes unuseful, I agree) information about things like the whales’ heart weight or Elon Musk’s pig.

I chose to call you, my dear listener, “my contemporary”, because I think this is one of the most beautiful words in any languages. “Contemporary” comes from the Latin “con tempos”, and it means “person with time”. And what can be better than having time? So, my dear contemporary, by definition, if you are reading these words, you are the luckiest, happiest and most endowed being: you have time. Your time. Use it wisely! This is a small part of the “speech” I prepared for my first appearance (well, it’s not really an appearance, when you talk about radio, but you can still watch what is happening in our studio online). I wrote it, word-by-word, some days before the show. I read and reread it. I almost knew it by heart. And here comes September 19, 12 o’clock. The host before me leaves the studio. Here I am alone with all these buttons that scream Press me! Press me!. I didn’t give in to the temptation and

with Ioana Vatamanu-Mărgineanu

luckily pressed ONly the ON button. My hands were shaking and my lips dried out. My “talk like a turtle” principle turned into a “shot like a Kalashnikov”. I was afraid I would mumble when pronouncing my name, but this somehow didn’t happen (actually it’s quite convenient to have a long name, especially when you announced you will tell the weather forecast, but the site is still loading). I said what I had to say and then pressed PLAY on the first-ever song from my show: “This is the life” by Amy MacDonald. You cannot realize how happy the DJ beginners are when they have 3:46 minutes to normalize their heart beat rate. By the way, talking about music, yes, on each edition of the show I choose music whose name or artist’s name start with that specific letter. That’s why Amy MacDonald had her place in the first (A) show. What song/band/singer starting with S would you recommend for the next show? My radio experience teaches me to weight every word I am saying, because I have some anonymous ears listening to me; to smile even if, during the music breaks, I read some impossible-to-understand econometrics slides; to improvise some ad-hoc speeches when there are some technical problems or to be careful enough to really switch off the microphone when I think the microphone is switched off, otherwise some personal secrets might become national :).

My dear contemporary, it’s already page 7. Right after my show comes “What’s instead of Christmas” hosted by Benjamin, so keep the INSIDER frequencies on. I am so grateful I got to talk to you today and now I’ll say something we don’t usually say on radio: I hope to see you soon! Until then,

Greetings from Moldova! Jingle