Podcasts

Books are pretty cool.
I've always been a bookworm.
When I was 5, I would have a bunch of books all in my bed, and just sleep on top of them.
Before I could read books like the Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings, I used to take them and flip through them and show off to my sister that I had read them ;) Then she asked if there was a character named Aslan in Narnia - and I thought she was trying to trick me, so I said no. Haha.
My room currently has over 500 books in it. (Yes, this is a lot for one room - I have one large bookcase, a small bookcase, two bookshelves in my closet, and two stacks of books in my room). This does not include books I have moved into the attic/ given to my mum for her classroom. And I can add one more to that number, having just purchased the Tale of Genji (a beautiful copy too, even the cashier thought so).
Anyways, while I wish I had all the time in the world to read more books, I don't. So what I've been using as a quick fiction fix is podcasts. I've listened to a few for a while now, but I haven't had anybody to share my enthusiasm. (I could join the various forums associated with them, but ehh, I'm not a big forum person.)
So the first podcast is Escape Pod (http://escapepod.org/). This was pretty much my first delve into the online short story world, I think anyways. Escape Pod is a science fiction weekly short story podcast. It used to also deliver fantasy, but branched off. Anyways, I've listened to every single episode, but I first tuned in around episode 70 I think? This past week they just released episode 208, so they've been at it for several years now. But I really enjoy listening to the escape pod stories. This past week's episode was really entertaining for me. I'm trying to think of how I found it, but my mind draws a blank.
Spinning off of Escape Pod are Podcastle and Psuedopod, both under the same company (?) Escape Artists. I now also subscribe to both of those feeds for fantasy and horror stories, respectively. Also great short story podcasts.
Beyong Escape Artsists podcasts, I tune into Drabblecast (http://web.mac.com/normsherman/Site/Podcast/Podcast.html). It's super quirkly and wayy out there. But really, if you're weird, quite enjoyable. Besides the main feature story, episodes usually include a "drabble" (100 word story) or a piece of drabble news (with "interviews"). One of the great features I really enjoy in the Drabblecast is the background music. The host, Norm Sherman, knows when it's right to add in some music. Just like music adds to movies, this music certainly adds to the podcast. Norm Sherman also adds in some of his own quirkly music too sometimes - another treat.
So these four podcasts pretty much make up for any lack of fiction in my week.
I also subscribe to a literary magazine, Cicada, which comes out every two monthes.

Sadly, during the school year I'm not able to get much reading done. Whenever I set out to read I usually end up falling asleep by the end of the second page because I'm so tired from lack of sleep (read: 5 hours every school night). And lately, I've been avoiding English novels like the plague. But my Japanese isn't good enough for novels. And well, I could be reading in French, but with such bad memories related to French, I can't bare it.
I'm going to suck up my fear of English for the next while though as I read the Tale of Genji (: A long journey is ahead of me...
I wish I could find a list of classic Asian literature, but it's not so easy to find. I'd really like to read something from South-east Asia if I could find something. But let's face it, when I'm searching Wikipedia to find Asian literature, I'm a bit at a loss. I'm also not sure how much literature from South-east Asian countries has actually been translated. While there are quite a few people translating popular langauges like Chinese and Japanese, I'm not meeting anybody who can converse in Laotian or even Thai. Perhaps that'll just be another reason for me to learn those languages ;) But for now I have to get past Chinese and Japanese before I'll let myself tackle another language (but Korean keeps creeping in... even just today I was looking at a website in Korean.) After I hit the major three, I'll be free to go wherever else I wish, linguistically speaking.
While the section on wikipedia is relatively poor in the Literature in Thailand section, I just checked to find there's not even a Literature in Malaysia section... now I have absolutely no clue where to go.
Ah well, I still have a whole Tale of Genji to get through before I need to work about finding a new book to read. And probably that'll be next summer. It won't stop me from picking up a few other books though I'm sure.