Talking About the Future

I don't want us to forget our long, perhaps boring discussion this past week about ways to talk about the future: prediction, spontaneous decision, intention, certainty and plans. We practiced matching three different grammar forms to these five different ideas. Simple Future: WILL + Verb. BE going to: BE going to + VERB. And Present Progressive: BE +VERBing. Simple future is used to make predictions and express spontaneous decisions. 'Be going to' is used also for predictions (less formal), to express intention and to express certainty. And present progressive is used to talk about future plans. (We didn't discuss the ideas of intentions versus plans in detail, but we said the main difference to consider for now is plans are on your calendar and intentions are just in your mind. You are probably making preparation for your plans or have made some prior commitment. Intentions usually don't require the same level of preparation or expression, perhaps. It may be hard to differentiate because the words can be used to describe one another.)

So in a movie I was watching, Barton Fink, he writes an introduction of a story that begins (paraphrased),

A hotel in downtown. We can hear the noise of the workers. It is too early for us to hear traffic; later, perhaps, we will.

I thought this was a great example for us to consider why the simple future was used. There is a great word in the sentence, besides the verb, that serves as a clue. What word do you think helps us decide how the future is being talked about by the writer/speaker? So, is this prediction, spontaneous decision, intention, certainty, plans?

Food Truck Festival This Weekend

I'm surprised I have not spoken more frequently about food in this blog. I think this is my first mention of food some how. So, I will be in Santa Clarita (Magic Mountain area) this weekend to go eat with my cousin at every single food truck that will be there!

Lately in Los Angeles, gourmet food trucks have become very popular. Each new truck that serves popular, trendy food even has a Twitter account where they announce their upcoming locations so that their followers can know the location and chase them down to grab a bite to eat.

I have read a lot about all the different food trucks: the Korean taco truck that mixes meats and fruits and interesting flavors. The fry truck that has so many different toppings for a plate of french fries that it is actually a meal. The grilled cheese truck that makes a classic American sandwich--that most all of us grew up on here in the States--a million different ways. The cupcake truck. Barbeque truck. Dumpling truck. Shaved Ice truck. I think there's a gelato (Italian icecream) truck. And so many more. Discover all their individual Twitter announcements and find out what kind of food trucks there are at this convenient website: http://findlafoodtrucks.com/.

But if you think you can make it up to Santa Clarita this weekend, visit this website: http://www.santaclaritafoodfest.com/#/ABOUT_THE_EVENT. And hopefully I'll see you there!

Hello, My Name Is...

Spring semester started today. It was probably the most friendly and enthusiastic first day I've had to date! You Level 2 students are so upbeat and eager to learn this semester! I hope you enjoyed the activities we did getting to know one another. After class I thought about a movie clip from a great film, The Princess Bride, where one of the characters has a famous line throughout the movie: "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." If you haven't seen the film, I recommend you rent it from your local video store or Netflix or your local library (for free!). For now, let's make one last introduction. I give you Inigo Montoya (click on that name to link to YouTube to watch the clip). (Warning: there is a somewhat violent sword fight and some cursing (bad words) said towards the end.)

Are you SURE of what you heard?

After we briefly covered the pronunciation of the word "sure", I heard a song on the radio where the singer said the word "surely" in a way that I described in class was a dialect of English. My typical pronunciation of "sure" sounds like "shir", while one student's pronunciation fit a different dialect that sounds more like "shoe-r". Well, listen to the below song to hear the singer pronounce"surely" like "shoe-rly". Then watch this other movie clip that makes a joke where "surely" is confused with the woman's name "Shirley" when a man says, "Surely, you can't be serious?" and the listener responds, "I am serious. And please don't call me Shirley." As if the man orignally asked, "Shirley, you can't be serious?" It's a classic slapstick comedy film, Airplane, which is actually a parody of a 60's film Airport. Check them both out.

Going Green....Really, Really Green

So Eugenia discovered what exactly some employed people are looking for when they go dumpster diving in the city: food. Environmentally or green-minded people organize and go in search of freshly discarded food from restaurants that they feel is perfectly edible and terribly wasteful to have been thrown out. So what do they do? They get it for themselves and eat it. I have seen one report where a dumpster diver said he had not bought groceries in the past year or so, because he was getting plenty of nutritional, fresh produce for himself by dumpster diving. This is one means of changing our ways to help reduce waste in our cities and thus protect the environment. I'm not advocating nor discouraging it. I'm simply passing along the information to you all.

So there does happen to be a group that you can join that organizes meetups, should you share their environmental concern. Check out the group here: www.meetup.com/freegan/. If we had more time in the semester, maybe I would organize a fieldtrip for us! (If that's not quite your interest, I do recommend you do browse the site http://www.meetup.com/ anyway to see if there are some other kind of groups you may like to join and thus get to practice your English when you get together with native speakers who share your common interests.)

Check out this clip from a comedy show that parodies or pokes fun at the idea of going dumpster diving.

We did discuss other ways to reduce our carbon footprint, or our long-term effects on the environment. Here is an interesting article (<-- Click there) about a writer who tried reducing hers by making some changes. Also note that she defines the word "freegan", which is what the meet-up group mentioned above calls themselves. She makes some very interesting comments as to why she DID NOT go dumpster diving. Visit the site and download the audio interview and listen while you also read the transcript at the same time. I love this news website for this reason that you can do both with so many articles.

Watch the trailer for the documentary we mentioned in class, No Impact Man, about a man and his wife and child who made extreme changes to leave no carbon footprint for five months of their lives in New York City.