Let’s talk about … Wasting Time at Work!
In a recent survey of employees in the US they asked them how much time they waste at work that’s, how much time they spend not doing what they are supposed to be doing, relaxing or killing the time.
Well, the responses were very interesting. They found that 37% of the time that people spent at work was wasted according to their own reports. One of the things the people do, of course, is look at email and answer personal emails. They also spent a lot of time looking at different websites.
There was another study that found that one out of every four that is 25% of American workers look at a blog every day. As you probably know a blog is some sort of website where people post; put on their website their own personal comments or articles.
This however is not just a problem in the US in an article that I was reading they said that in a survey in 9 different countries they found that about 1/3 of the time during the working hours people said that they were not really working.
Let’s talk about … California!
California is famous in the US and in many parts of the world as being the home of Hollywood.
Hollywood is where movies are made there in Los Angeles, but Hollywood is an actual neighborhood in Los Angeles; it’s a part of the city of L.A. There isn’t a separate city called Hollywood, it’s just part of the largest city of L.A. However when people talk about Hollywood they are talking about the movie industry and television business.
California is also famous for its beaches. The most famous beach is probably Venice Beach, Venice like the city in Italy.
The third thing California is famous for other people who don’t live in California is that they think California people are a little strange, a little weird, and a little different.
California is made up of people from other states, not people who were born there and lived there their whole life; there are many migrants from other parts of the US, people who migrated, and there are many immigrants from all over the world. California has the reputation of being a little strange, being involved in different type of things like interesting and exotic religions, physical activities and so on.
There’s an old expression that says that California is the land of fruits and nuts, but fruits and nuts as a reference to some strange, weird people because there if you say that a person is a fruit or a nut you are saying that he are a little strange. That’s the reputation that California has.
Let’s talk about … Proverbs!
Proverb is a famous saying that people use usually in order to express a certain opinion a suggestion or advice that you give someone and every language has its own proverbs that people use. They are sayings that are old and everyone knows what they mean.
Let’s see the meaning of the well known proverb "To kill two birds with one stone". The idea is that we have a stone in order to kill a bird so to kill two birds with one stone means that you are trying to do more than one thing at the same time. Suppose that I need to get gasoline for my car and I also need to buy milk. Well, there’s a gas station, a place that sells gasoline, close to my house and it has what we would call a mini-mart; a little store where they sell very basic kind of food, milk and often alcohol, beer and so forth. Well I decided to kill two birds with one stone and I’m going to go to the gas station and fill up my gasoline tank and I’m going to go to the mini-mart and buy some milk so by doing one thing, going to the gas station, I’m able to accomplish two goals that I have.
Another expression is "The early bird gets the worm". Worms are usually small maybe one or two inches usually brown or black and they crawl on the ground and they are things that birds eat. Birds eat worms and it means that the person, who gets up early or arrives to a place early, will get the best selection of whatever is available. So if there’s a store that’s selling, for example, I-Pods very cheap and you want to get an I-Pod you better go to the store early in the day because the early bird gets the worm, meaning the person who goes early, will get the best selection or the best items that are available.
There are lots of others well known proverbs like: "Better late than never", "Necessity is the mother of invention", "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" and so forth.
Let’s talk about … Interjections!
Interjections are words like "geez", "aha" and they express some sort of strong emotion.
We can say Geez!, Man!, Whoa!, if I am really surprised with something.
If we make a mistake or if we do something wrong but not serious we say: Oops!
When we are reacting to something we don’t like, something that’s bad, ugly or negative we say: Ugh!
When we want to scare someone we say: Boo! We say that word boo and we are supposed to scare someone.
Aha! is what you say when you find a solution to solve a problem that you were working on it. Aha! I have the solution. We can also use that word when we are talking to someone and we think they are not telling the truth and so when we ask them questions and they finally tell us the truth we may say: Aha! Now I understand.
The word duh! is used when we want to say that something is obvious.
Oh-oh! You say oh-oh!; When something goes wrong, when someone makes a mistake. It’s a sign that something bad has happened.
Ouch! You say ouch when you hurt yourself; you may cut yourself or hit your hand against the table accidentally and you hurt.
Whew! You make that sound when you are relieved; when something bad was going to happen but it doesn’t happen so you say whew as a relief.
Brr! You say it when you are cold.
D’oh! It’s said when you feel stupid, for example, you can say: I forgot to turn it on. D’oh!
It’s something you say when you do something stupid or something wrong and what you did was not very smart or intelligent.
Let’s talk about … Minnesota!
Minnesota is located in a very north part of the US right in the middle that is called upper mid west and it’s on the border of Canada, the Canadian province of Manitoba.
Minnesota is known for a couple of things in the US, probably one of the most famous things is that people have a very distinctive accent. There’s a movie called Fargo and it’s actually about people in Minnesota. Fargo is a city in North Dakota next to Minnesota.
The people of Minnesota have a very distinctive accent it’s usually with a lot of long "oooos". People say: Minnesooota yah, you betcha! You betcha! is an expression that you hear and people associate or relate to Minnesota. You betcha! Means you bet you, that sometimes means yes. For example if someone says: It’s raining out! You say: You betcha!
So that’s one thing that Minnesota is famous for but it’s famous for other things. The singer Bob Dylan was born and raised in Minnesota.
Minnesota is in the North so it’s very cold and it has a lot of snow and people associate Minnesota with cold weather sports such as hockey. Many of the members of Olympic hockey team come from Minnesota.
Let’s talk about … Spring Break!
Spring break is the same as spring vacation and in public and private schools, elementary schools, high schools and universities usually take at least one and sometimes two weeks of vacation. Usually one week for most schools and this a very popular time for families and for students to travel somewhere.
There has developed in the US the tradition of spring break especially for high school and college students and they usually go to somewhere warm like a beach and quite honestly they do a lot of party; they do a lot of drinking, dancing and things that go with that and it’s been something of a problem in some places because the high school students and college students will get sometimes very rowdy making a lot of noise yelling , screaming and many of the places where these students go for spring break sometimes have problems with the police.
Typically the spring break is related to Easter and passes over seasons and some of the popular places where students like to go are Florida, Orlando, Miami, and Daytona Beach or Palm Beach where they like to rest sitting on the sun getting a tan. There are other places they like to go, as for example, California going to San Diego and sometimes even to Los Angeles. They also like to go to some resorts in Mexico like Cancun, Acapulco. Mexico is very popular for students because in Mexico you only have to be 18 years old to drink alcohol legally instead of being 21like in the US so if the student likes to drink and they usually do, Mexico is the best to have fun.
Let’s talk about … The Movie Rating System!
In US there is an association called MPAA that is supposed to tell people who want to go see the movie, what kind of movie and what age this movie is appropriated for.
The rating system uses letters to classify movies and it begins with G for general and a G rated movie is a movie that anyone can go see; it’s ok for children, for adults, no problems any age can go see these movies so cartoons, for example, are usually G rated.
The next rating is PG and PG stands for Parental Guidance. Here the parents should be careful about taking especially young children to this movie.
The next is PG 13 and it’s a movie that anyone under thirteen should see because it may cause a problem so parents should think very carefully about weather taking their children to see it. There are maybe sexual content in the movie, there are maybe very violent or some vulgar or dirty language, those are sort of things that would give a movie a PG 13.
The next rating is an R and R is for restricted. This means that anyone under the age 18 needs to have a parent or an adult to go with them because R rated movie is the most violent, the most mature scenes and ideas and language.
The next rating which is Unseen 17, no one under eighteen can go see these movies even if their parents are with them and says it’s ok and these are movies that there are strong sexual or violent scenes; they are not pornographic movies that are rated as X rated movies, but people are nude and you have to be 18 to go and see those movies. In US if you are 18 you are considered an adult and you can drive, you can vote but you can’t drink alcohol.
Let’s talk about … The State of Illinois!
Illinois, the Land of Lincoln, is famous for several things. The most important thing that Illinois is known for is the city of Chicago which is one of the largest cities in the USA. It is located in the very north part of the state and it’s actually located by a big lake called Lake Michigan. There are five lakes that are called the Great lakes between Canada and USA.
Chicago is called the windy city because of the breeze coming from Lake Michigan and is also famous for its food particularly for the barbecued ribs, the beef ribs and the pork ribs are really delicious.
In a recent survey of employees in the US they asked them how much time they waste at work that’s, how much time they spend not doing what they are supposed to be doing, relaxing or killing the time.
Well, the responses were very interesting. They found that 37% of the time that people spent at work was wasted according to their own reports. One of the things the people do, of course, is look at email and answer personal emails. They also spent a lot of time looking at different websites.
There was another study that found that one out of every four that is 25% of American workers look at a blog every day. As you probably know a blog is some sort of website where people post; put on their website their own personal comments or articles.
This however is not just a problem in the US in an article that I was reading they said that in a survey in 9 different countries they found that about 1/3 of the time during the working hours people said that they were not really working.
Let’s talk about … California!
California is famous in the US and in many parts of the world as being the home of Hollywood.
Hollywood is where movies are made there in Los Angeles, but Hollywood is an actual neighborhood in Los Angeles; it’s a part of the city of L.A. There isn’t a separate city called Hollywood, it’s just part of the largest city of L.A. However when people talk about Hollywood they are talking about the movie industry and television business.
California is also famous for its beaches. The most famous beach is probably Venice Beach, Venice like the city in Italy.
The third thing California is famous for other people who don’t live in California is that they think California people are a little strange, a little weird, and a little different.
California is made up of people from other states, not people who were born there and lived there their whole life; there are many migrants from other parts of the US, people who migrated, and there are many immigrants from all over the world. California has the reputation of being a little strange, being involved in different type of things like interesting and exotic religions, physical activities and so on.
There’s an old expression that says that California is the land of fruits and nuts, but fruits and nuts as a reference to some strange, weird people because there if you say that a person is a fruit or a nut you are saying that he are a little strange. That’s the reputation that California has.
Let’s talk about … Proverbs!
Proverb is a famous saying that people use usually in order to express a certain opinion a suggestion or advice that you give someone and every language has its own proverbs that people use. They are sayings that are old and everyone knows what they mean.
Let’s see the meaning of the well known proverb "To kill two birds with one stone". The idea is that we have a stone in order to kill a bird so to kill two birds with one stone means that you are trying to do more than one thing at the same time. Suppose that I need to get gasoline for my car and I also need to buy milk. Well, there’s a gas station, a place that sells gasoline, close to my house and it has what we would call a mini-mart; a little store where they sell very basic kind of food, milk and often alcohol, beer and so forth. Well I decided to kill two birds with one stone and I’m going to go to the gas station and fill up my gasoline tank and I’m going to go to the mini-mart and buy some milk so by doing one thing, going to the gas station, I’m able to accomplish two goals that I have.
Another expression is "The early bird gets the worm". Worms are usually small maybe one or two inches usually brown or black and they crawl on the ground and they are things that birds eat. Birds eat worms and it means that the person, who gets up early or arrives to a place early, will get the best selection of whatever is available. So if there’s a store that’s selling, for example, I-Pods very cheap and you want to get an I-Pod you better go to the store early in the day because the early bird gets the worm, meaning the person who goes early, will get the best selection or the best items that are available.
There are lots of others well known proverbs like: "Better late than never", "Necessity is the mother of invention", "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" and so forth.
Let’s talk about … Interjections!
Interjections are words like "geez", "aha" and they express some sort of strong emotion.
We can say Geez!, Man!, Whoa!, if I am really surprised with something.
If we make a mistake or if we do something wrong but not serious we say: Oops!
When we are reacting to something we don’t like, something that’s bad, ugly or negative we say: Ugh!
When we want to scare someone we say: Boo! We say that word boo and we are supposed to scare someone.
Aha! is what you say when you find a solution to solve a problem that you were working on it. Aha! I have the solution. We can also use that word when we are talking to someone and we think they are not telling the truth and so when we ask them questions and they finally tell us the truth we may say: Aha! Now I understand.
The word duh! is used when we want to say that something is obvious.
Oh-oh! You say oh-oh!; When something goes wrong, when someone makes a mistake. It’s a sign that something bad has happened.
Ouch! You say ouch when you hurt yourself; you may cut yourself or hit your hand against the table accidentally and you hurt.
Whew! You make that sound when you are relieved; when something bad was going to happen but it doesn’t happen so you say whew as a relief.
Brr! You say it when you are cold.
D’oh! It’s said when you feel stupid, for example, you can say: I forgot to turn it on. D’oh!
It’s something you say when you do something stupid or something wrong and what you did was not very smart or intelligent.
Let’s talk about … Minnesota!
Minnesota is located in a very north part of the US right in the middle that is called upper mid west and it’s on the border of Canada, the Canadian province of Manitoba.
Minnesota is known for a couple of things in the US, probably one of the most famous things is that people have a very distinctive accent. There’s a movie called Fargo and it’s actually about people in Minnesota. Fargo is a city in North Dakota next to Minnesota.
The people of Minnesota have a very distinctive accent it’s usually with a lot of long "oooos". People say: Minnesooota yah, you betcha! You betcha! is an expression that you hear and people associate or relate to Minnesota. You betcha! Means you bet you, that sometimes means yes. For example if someone says: It’s raining out! You say: You betcha!
So that’s one thing that Minnesota is famous for but it’s famous for other things. The singer Bob Dylan was born and raised in Minnesota.
Minnesota is in the North so it’s very cold and it has a lot of snow and people associate Minnesota with cold weather sports such as hockey. Many of the members of Olympic hockey team come from Minnesota.
Let’s talk about … Spring Break!
Spring break is the same as spring vacation and in public and private schools, elementary schools, high schools and universities usually take at least one and sometimes two weeks of vacation. Usually one week for most schools and this a very popular time for families and for students to travel somewhere.
There has developed in the US the tradition of spring break especially for high school and college students and they usually go to somewhere warm like a beach and quite honestly they do a lot of party; they do a lot of drinking, dancing and things that go with that and it’s been something of a problem in some places because the high school students and college students will get sometimes very rowdy making a lot of noise yelling , screaming and many of the places where these students go for spring break sometimes have problems with the police.
Typically the spring break is related to Easter and passes over seasons and some of the popular places where students like to go are Florida, Orlando, Miami, and Daytona Beach or Palm Beach where they like to rest sitting on the sun getting a tan. There are other places they like to go, as for example, California going to San Diego and sometimes even to Los Angeles. They also like to go to some resorts in Mexico like Cancun, Acapulco. Mexico is very popular for students because in Mexico you only have to be 18 years old to drink alcohol legally instead of being 21like in the US so if the student likes to drink and they usually do, Mexico is the best to have fun.
Let’s talk about … The Movie Rating System!
In US there is an association called MPAA that is supposed to tell people who want to go see the movie, what kind of movie and what age this movie is appropriated for.
The rating system uses letters to classify movies and it begins with G for general and a G rated movie is a movie that anyone can go see; it’s ok for children, for adults, no problems any age can go see these movies so cartoons, for example, are usually G rated.
The next rating is PG and PG stands for Parental Guidance. Here the parents should be careful about taking especially young children to this movie.
The next is PG 13 and it’s a movie that anyone under thirteen should see because it may cause a problem so parents should think very carefully about weather taking their children to see it. There are maybe sexual content in the movie, there are maybe very violent or some vulgar or dirty language, those are sort of things that would give a movie a PG 13.
The next rating is an R and R is for restricted. This means that anyone under the age 18 needs to have a parent or an adult to go with them because R rated movie is the most violent, the most mature scenes and ideas and language.
The next rating which is Unseen 17, no one under eighteen can go see these movies even if their parents are with them and says it’s ok and these are movies that there are strong sexual or violent scenes; they are not pornographic movies that are rated as X rated movies, but people are nude and you have to be 18 to go and see those movies. In US if you are 18 you are considered an adult and you can drive, you can vote but you can’t drink alcohol.
Let’s talk about … The State of Illinois!
Illinois, the Land of Lincoln, is famous for several things. The most important thing that Illinois is known for is the city of Chicago which is one of the largest cities in the USA. It is located in the very north part of the state and it’s actually located by a big lake called Lake Michigan. There are five lakes that are called the Great lakes between Canada and USA.
Chicago is called the windy city because of the breeze coming from Lake Michigan and is also famous for its food particularly for the barbecued ribs, the beef ribs and the pork ribs are really delicious.
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