841: My Senior Year

09/22/24 • 58 min

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One kid comes to America as an exchange student and commits herself to the senior year experience.

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Prologue: We talk to high school seniors in Salt Lake City who are trying to have the perfect year. (5 minutes)
Act One: Every year, thousands of teenagers come from all over the world to experience American high school. Last year, thirteen students from Palestine came to the US on a program sponsored by the US State Department. We tell the story of a girl named Majd, from Gaza, and her extraordinary year in America. (50 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

One kid comes to America as an exchange student and commits herself to the senior year experience.

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

Prologue: We talk to high school seniors in Salt Lake City who are trying to have the perfect year. (5 minutes)
Act One: Every year, thousands of teenagers come from all over the world to experience American high school. Last year, thirteen students from Palestine came to the US on a program sponsored by the US State Department. We tell the story of a girl named Majd, from Gaza, and her extraordinary year in America. (50 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

People trying and struggling to see what another person sees.

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

Prologue: Guest-host Tobin Low talks to comedian Tig Notaro about a jarring ride to school with her son. (6 minutes)
Act One: Producer Aviva DeKornfeld heads to the Calgary Stampede to watch as men try out a machine designed to simulate menstrual cramps. (15 minutes)
Act Two: A man can’t seem to see anyone in his life for who they really are, plunging his life into chaos. (18 minutes)
Act Three: Senior Editor David Kestenbaum hears about a way to save some money and help save the world. All he needs is a little help. (5 minutes)
Act Four: Marie Phillips reads a short story involving an aloof friend, a goose, and some extreme gardening. (7 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

People caught in limbo, using ingenuity and guile to try to get themselves out.

Prologue: Rachel has two kids. Elias, age seven, is a vegetarian. Theo, age five, is not. But Elias wants Theo, and everyone else in the house, to be vegetarian too. So Rachel and her husband are in the middle of negotiating the desires of two very strong willed kids. (12 minutes)
Act One: Sara Corbett's father-in-law Dick is 81. And he's become obsessed with a limbo most of us hate – the music he hears whenever he's on hold. (14 minutes)
Act Two: Mark Oppenheimer reports on agunah in the Orthodox Jewish community. An agunah is a woman whose husband refuses to give her a divorce – in Hebrew it means "chained wife." If you're an Orthodox Jew, strictly following Jewish law, the only real way to get divorced is if your husband agrees to hand you a piece of paper called a get. Without the get, women who want out of their marriages can stay chained to their husbands for years. In New York, a couple of rabbis were recently accused of using violence to force men to give their wives a get. (17 minutes)
Act Three: Brett Martin documents a previously unnoticed human phenomenon, one that involves airplanes, crying, and Reese Witherspoon. (11 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org