This is where I worked as a Camp Counsellor from June 5th to August 14th! I miss it very much! Hope I could go back this year but UNFORTUNATELY I CANT! EU FUI MONITOR DE ACAMPAMENTO AQUI!!!
This is ME when I was at "TIME SQUARE"! I was by myself that day but it was an excellent afternoon walk! I always enjoyed walking around "CENTRAL PARK" and looking around People and how they were in a hurry! Unforgettable day!
“You know how after a certain period of time, you feel comfortable with someone? That didn’t happen with her…I still feel like I’m trying topick her up.”
1. Definition
"get a stranger to go on a date with you"
2. Use
Most husbands don’t need to pick up their own wives. That’s usually something you try to do with a stranger you’ve never met before. When a guy tries to pick up a girl at a party, he goes up to her and starts talking to her, and tries to be as charming as possible. If he succeeds, he might get her phone number or convince her to go on a date with him.
Simon Baker, who stars in the The Mentalist, says he still feels like he’s trying to pick his wife up. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t know each other. It just means he still feels nervous around her sometimes, and wants to impress her.
There are different ways you can try to pick someone up. Some think it’s best to just be yourself and try to get to know the other person. Others like to use pick up lines, or cheesy compliments. Has anyone ever tried to pick you up? What do you think is the best way topick someone up?
1. Examples
“Melissa got picked up at a wedding last weekend.”
“Tom picked his girlfriend up at a friend’s party.”
185g best dark chocolate ( melhor chocolate preto)
85g plain flour (farinha de trigo)
40g cocoa powder (chocolate em pó)
3 large Eggs (3 ovos grandes)
275g sugar (açucar)
Difficulty and servings
Cuts into 16 squares or 32 triangles
Preparation and cooking times
Ready in 1 hour, inc cooling (worth every minute)
Cut the butter into smallish cubes and tip into a medium bowl. Break the dark chocolate into small pieces and drop into the bowl. Fill a small saucepan about a quarter full with hot water, then sit the bowl on top so it rests on the rim of the pan, not touching the water. Put over a low heat until the butter and chocolate have melted, stirring occasionally to mix them. Now remove the bowl from the pan. Alternatively, cover the bowl loosely with cling film and put in the microwave for 2 minutes on High. Leave the melted mixture to cool to room temperature.
While you wait for the chocolate to cool, position a shelf in the middle of your oven and turn the oven on to fan 160C/conventional180C/gas 4 (most ovens take 10-15 minutes to heat up). Using a shallow 20cm square tin, cut out a square of non-stick baking parchment to line the base. Now tip the flour and cocoa powder into a sieve held over a medium bowl, and tap and shake the sieve so they run through together and you get rid of any lumps.
With a large sharp knife, chop the white and milk chocolate into chunks on a board. The slabs of chocolate will be quite hard, so the safest way to do this is to hold the knife over the chocolate and press the tip down on the board, then bring the rest of the blade down across the chocolate. Keep on doing this, moving the knife across the chocolate to chop it into pieces, then turn the board round 90 degrees and again work across the chocolate so you end up with rough squares.
Break the eggs into a large bowl and tip in the sugar. With an electric mixer on maximum speed, whisk the eggs and sugar until they look thick and creamy, like a milk shake. This can take 3-8 minutes, depending on how powerful your mixer is, so don't lose heart. You'll know it's ready when the mixture becomes really pale and about double its original volume. Another check is to turn off the mixer, lift out the beaters and wiggle them from side to side. If the mixture that runs off the beaters leaves a trail on the surface of the mixture in the bowl for a second or two, you're there.
Pour the cooled chocolate mixture over the eggy mousse, then gently fold together with a rubber spatula. Plunge the spatula in at one side, take it underneath and bring it up the opposite side and in again at the middle. Continue going under and over in a figure of eight, moving the bowl round after each folding so you can get at it from all sides, until the two mixtures are one and the colour is a mottled dark brown. The idea is to marry them without knocking out the air, so be as gentle and slow as you like - you don't want to undo all the work you did in step 4.
Hold the sieve over the bowl of eggy chocolate mixture and resift the cocoa and flour mixture, shaking the sieve from side to side, to cover the top evenly. Gently fold in this powder using the same figure of eight action as before. The mixture will look dry and dusty at first, and a bit unpromising, but if you keep going very gently and patiently, it will end up looking gungy and fudgy. Stop just before you feel you should, as you don't want to overdo this mixing. Finally, stir in the white and milk chocolate chunks until they're dotted throughout. Now your mixing is done and the oven can take over.
Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, scraping every bit out of the bowl with the spatula. Gently ease the mixture into the corners of the tin and paddle the spatula from side to side across the top to level it. Put in the oven and set your timer for 25 minutes. When the buzzer goes, open the oven, pull the shelf out a bit and gently shake the tin. If the brownie wobbles in the middle, it's not quite done, so slide it back in and bake for another 5 minutes until the top has a shiny, papery crust and the sides are just beginning to come away from the tin. Take out of the oven.
Leave the whole thing in the tin until completely cold, then, if you're using the brownie tin, lift up the protruding rim slightly and slide the uncut brownie out on its base. If you're using a normal tin, lift out the brownie with the foil. Cut into quarters, then cut each quarter into four squares and finally into triangles. These brownies are so addictive you'll want to make a second batch before the first is finished, but if you want to make some to hide away for a special occasion, it's useful to know that they'll keep in an airtight container for a good two weeks and in the freezer for up to a month.
“My New Year’s resolution is to get rid of some stuff because I bring it in and I can’t get rid of it.”
- Actress Hilary Swank on what she hopes to change about herself in the New Year.
Definition - give or throw away, sell, lose.
Use -
Learn how the slang is used.: Sometimes celebrities don’t seem like normal people. So it’s interesting to learn that despite being rich and famous, they still have problems just like the rest of us. Hilary Swank’s problem is getting rid of stuff. She doesn’t like to throw anything away. She has such a hard time getting rid of things that she’s made it her New Year’s resolution to be better about throwing stuff out.
When you get rid of something, you throw it away or do something else with it to get it out of your life. Often we get rid of possessions, like old clothes that don’t fit anymore or papers we’ve been holding onto for no reason. But you can also get rid of an illness, like a cold, by resting and taking good care of yourself. Or you can get rid of a stain on your clothes by washing them. In fact, you can get rid of almost anything you don’t want to keep…unless you’re like Hilary Swank.
Do you have any trouble getting rid of things?
Do you have anything now that you would like to get rid of soon?
Examples -
I don’t like to get rid of anything, because I’m always afraid I’ll wish I had it later.”
“After Jane broke up with Steve, he got rid of all the letters and gifts she’d given him.”
“I’m getting rid of my old tapes. Take any you’d like.”
1. Quote - Listen to the quote and guess what the slang means.
“I think the film is romantic because it’s honest about love and doesn’t sugarcoat it.”
- Actor Ryan Gosling talking about his new film, Blue Valentine. (Us Weekly)
1. Definition - Study the definition.
make something seem more pleasant than it really is
"Almost anything tastes good dipped in chocolate, right? That’s the idea behind the expression sugarcoat it. When you sugarcoat something, you make something seem more appealing than it really is. You can even try to make bad news seem good by covering it with a sweet candy layer of deception. It’s like when you were little, and your dad told you that your dog went to live on a farm, but it really went…well, we don’t need to go into that right now.
Ryan Gosling is in a new movie called Blue Valentine that depicts the beginning and the end of a relationship. Most people agree that the movie is pretty depressing, because it shows how two people can start out being completely in love and end up basically hating each other. But Gosling thinks that Blue Valentine is romantic, because it doesn’t tell any lies about love. It doesn’t try to sugarcoat it by pretending that sometimes, love hurts.
Although the expression sugarcoat it may sound pretty sweet, it’s actually somewhat negative. That’s because when you sugarcoat something, you’re less than honest about it. It’s usually better to tell the truth, no matter how bitter it may be.
Do you usually try to sugarcoat bad news? Do you prefer people to be honest with you if they have something bad to tell you, or would you rather they sugarcoat it?"
1. Examples - Hear some example sentences.
“Martin never sugarcoats anything. He’s a realist.”
“My dad always tries to sugarcoat bad news and put a positive spin on it.”
“If you’re going to break up with Taylor, don’t sugarcoat it. Just be honest.”
A lot of my students ask me how to speak English fluently. It's kind of a "buzz word" in non native speaking countries. I've probably been asked it over 1000 times in my life. I used to just say stuff like "practice more, don't be shy, learn new words and use them" but then I realized I was just being lazy and not really helping anyone with my advice. I noticed some students could speak well while others almost made no improvement. I finally decided to think carefully about what made the difference.
1. Fluent English speakers study every day. They are super consistent. The students who study hard right before the test and then do nothing for the rest of the time never seem to speak well.
2. Another thing I noticed is that students who learned how to speak fluently challenged themselves and didn't just follow the boring textbook. They didn't make excuses about how boring the class was, and instead found some system that worked for them.
There are a bunch of more things these "successful" students did and I spent the afternoon writing about it. I wrote 7 articles that if you follow, you'll be able to speak like a native speaker soon. Trust me.
Cuts into 16 squares or 32 triangles
Ready in 1 hour, inc cooling (worth every minute)
