‘What’s Up? Podcast’ No. 1 – Transcript
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Duration: 8:05
Hey, what’s up??
I’ll tell you what’s up … our new podcast is what’s up and it’s called the English Teacher John ‘What’s Up? Podcast’. Download it from our RSS feed.
In this new podcast, I’ll speak a little more quickly and talk about a topic of interest. Well, I hope that it’s interesting for some of you at least. As I said, I’ll speak at a natural pace and use everyday English and I’ll also use some casual English, including some idioms and slang. There won’t be any grammar explanations but I’ll include a TRANSCRIPT – the exact text of the podcast. You can find the transcript on the MY ENGLISH BLOG. Oh wait a minute, I forgot to mention … it will be a lot shorter in length than our English Teacher John Show!!
Don’t forget … the transcript of this podcast is on the MY ENGLISH BLOG at englishteacherjohn.com
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Hey … WHAT’S UP??? Today is Wednesday, February 1st and welcome to our very first ‘What’s Up?’ podcast. My name is John Koons and I’m your host. I’m also known as ‘English Teacher John’, and I am broadcasting or podcasting live from Matsumoto, Japan. Hey, what’s up??? Well, here’s what’s up on my end …
I’m wasting too much time on the internet today. I woke up a little after 7 this morning and I thought I’d get right to work. Actually, my university classes ended earlier this week so I don’t have as many classroom lessons. But, I still have some other work to do AND I WANTED TO START EARLY on it. Sounds like a good idea, huh?
Well I took my time with my coffee, bowl of granola and reading book. You know, I love to read, and for me there’s just no better time to read than first thing in the morning, when it’s rainy and cold outside – which is exactly how the weather was this morning .. and still is right now at 3:30 pm.
So, after a little reading that should have been only an hour or less, but actually was a lot longer than that, I stood up, felt energized and walked into the kitchen. My computer’s in the kitchen. I was ready to start my day of computer work.
So what projects did I have planned for today? Well, I actually have a lot of composition reading and grading work to do, but that wasn’t part of my plan for today. I wanted to get some computer work done. I have a video editing project that I’ve been working on and it’s time to finish it up. Also, I’ve been promoting our ‘NetPals English’ online voice chatting project and there were reply emails to write and webpages to update. Also, I wanted to create my very first ‘What’s Up?’ podcast. I don’t know if it’s a good idea, or educational, or worth anything at all but maybe I just feel like rambling sometimes. If you’re able to read along and pick up some casual language, maybe it will be a good thing.
So, to make a long story short, I did in fact get on the computer and I actually promised myself that I’d do a little computer housekeeping and then get right to work. Well, the ‘housekeeping’ actually took a long time. I usually check email, have a look at the blogs on our website, and I like to check the web stats too. Well, before I knew it, about three hours had passed and I was still playing around with iTunes!! I have a confession to make to all of you. It’s THE FIRST time that I downloaded and installed the iTunes software. I just wasn’t interested before. But, if you’re a podcaster, then it seems to be important to know something about the iTunes music store and the podcasting section of iTunes. It does look pretty cool and it’s interesting to see what people are listening to and watching.
Besides playing in iTunes I also was playing around a little with a sample Japanese learning CD that I had. It’s called ‘Rosetta Stone’ and it seems like a pretty good system for learning languages. It works on all four skills of language learning – listening, reading, writing, and yes, even speaking. I don’t know if I’m going to buy it. I think it’s a little expensive. Do any of you have any experience with this ‘Rosetta Stone’ software?
There were other unnecessary things that I found to do online and I just now realized how much time I wasted! Do any of you have this same problem? I feel that I really need to be a better time planner … and less of a time WASTER!!! Wow, it’s so easy to waste time online … do you know what I mean?
‘Manage your time’ is a common expression in English and you can hear it all the time. But I remember that someone said something more accurate: MANAGE YOURSELF. Yes, I think that’s exactly it. You have to consider your actions for any given time period, NOT something abstract like ‘time’ or ‘managing time.’ You’re not ‘managing time’ – could it be possible to do that anyway? – you’re always managing YOURSELF; the things you choose to do or not do at any given moment.
I have to make better choices about my activities, especially when I turn on the computer and get online. There are so many things that I want to do, people I want to connect with, experiences that I want to have, things I want to learn. They’re all possible, and they’ll come a lot easier if I MANAGE MYSELF. If I manage myself better, I think that time will take care of itself.
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I hope you enjoyed this little listening file and I hope it helps you with your English. Don’t forget that the transcript is on our website blog. I’m also thinking about having a slang and idiom website area. My plan is to create links for all of the slang and idioms that appear in the transcripts of this ‘What’s Up?’ podcast. If you clicked on any of the linked expressions, you’d go to the slang and idiom page which would explain the language. Well, that’s my idea and let’s see if I could better organize my time and get it done.
Okay. I’m outta here!!
