【Geek Time】-“极客”时间，和“科技宅”Brad一起聊神秘有趣的“黑科技”“高科技”“硬科技”。欢迎关注公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】，可以查看更多精彩内容，查看英语全文稿哦~ Welcome back to Geek Time Advanced. Hello, Lulu. How are you doing? Hi, Brad. I'm doing OK. I'm rather to have a more in-depth conversation with you about utopia and dystopia. Alright. Where do you want to start? Brad, you're a geek, and you watch or read a lot of Sci-Fi, right? Mhm. Why do you think so many Sci-Fi works tend to create these utopian/dystopian world? I think when you think about science and technology, these people are creating science or using science and creating technology as a way to create a better world, which lends itself into creating a utopia, right? We want to make our lives easier. So when you think of science, Sci-Fi and the future, that's where we want to be, we want to be going to this utopian world. However, a lot of the times technology has some bad effects which actually brings us into a dystopian world. I mean, you see all of these Sci-Fi works. They have their own …obviously their own view or their own perspective. Some are definitely darker than others. You have the more sort of like darker, for example, like Terminator that sort of view where humans are going to be just wiped out. Definitely like, yeah, when you look at Sci-Fi the… you have those worlds where people are on the brink of annihilation, you want like …the creator, the writer of these stories is trying to warn us about the possibility of all these bad things. Occasionally, you have someone with a more optimistic view. There's Tomorrowland which is a… it's a more recent film, but they have an older like TV series about it, but like Tomorrowland is kind of like this future utopia where we don't really have politicians so much as the leaders are scientists. So there are kind of more optimistic views of the future as well. They’re are just few and far between. I mean, you come from more of a STEM background. Do you believe that if scientists were to rule the world rather than politicians, you think that will make it a better world or the other way around? I think it would be a little bit better. I don't necessarily think that it will be a utopian society. I just think that if the people who are in charge of science, education were scientists, there's going to be a lot better society overall. I don't really think that politicians necessarily should be in charge of everything. I think that there needs to be people who understand the science in charge of that. But there are many mad scientists as well. There's the whole mad scientist idea, but like not all scientists are mad scientists; and so you're not going to have one person controlling everything. You'd want a coalition of scientists in that way. They can prevent there are rogue scientists here and there. And even with politicians being in control of everything, there are still going to be mad scientists. That's true. But I guess then that's why you have the ethics committee. Scientists are not just talking about can we do it. It's also talking about should we do it. Of course, we should. I don't think you should be in power because that sounds scary. By the way, all of these like Terminator or last time you mentioned Logan's Run, those are relatively old or classic works of dystopian world. What are some the recent Sci-Fi dystopian stories that you have read or watched? I think some of them were… recent ones can almost be worse, like you've got Hunger Games which is kind of like it's in the future and that you have all these districts and the kids…they choose kids from every district to go and… In a Battle Royale situation. Yeah, exactly you had the Battle Royale movie probably was like 20 years ago or so. Now you have a Hunger Games which is a similar but it’s its own story. Then The Handmaid's Tale, of course, which I think is probably one of the most scariest things. I can see this actually happening in the world in the future. You have these many women in the world who can't have .

关注【璐璐的英文小酒馆】+【luluxjg2】获取全文稿 Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Geek Time. 欢迎回来【 Geek时间】. Hi, Brad. Hey, Lulu. Brad, I can I propose a topic today? Sure. So when I watch Sci-Fi films and TV series or Sci-Fi related books, it's quite often that you see these books or works, they're trying to portray a world that is almost like heaven on earth. Everything's perfect, everything is regulated, everything runs smoothly, nothing ever goes wrong. Yeah. So that's like the idea of utopia. Utopia. Let's talk about that, shall we? OK. I guess we can kind of start with what exactly is utopia, just like you mentioned, right? It's a perfect society. But when you look at Sci-Fi, there's few different ideas behind it. There's like ecological utopia is where everyone kind of lives in a perfect balance with nature. There's more economic utopias where the economy is running without any… it's running self-sustainably. But when you look at the word, utopia, it's kind of an interesting thing. In Greek, it means no place. So it kind of like there is this idea that it's perfect, but it can never exist. First of all, let's slow down a little bit here. OK. So utopia, in Chinese we translated usually into 乌托邦. 很有意思, 就是中文里面乌托邦, 前面的乌是子虚乌有的乌, so it's like Brad said no place, but it's actually a play on word because it can actually also mean good place? Yeah. And then originally, ages and ages ago, there was a book called Utopia, so that sort of started that idea of this perfect world. And like Brad was saying, 乌托邦有很多种, 比如说 ecological eutopia, 主要是跟生态系统的整个的非常的和谐的一个状态, 或者是economic utopia where economy is self-sustainable. A few years back, you remember there was a quite popular animated film called Zootopia. OK. Yeah. I've watched most of it. I haven't seen the ending though. Yeah, but the idea was also that all these animals no matter if they’re meat eaters or plant eaters, they live…they're supposedly living in harmony. It's like animal heaven on earth animal version. Yeah. But what about the scientific or technological utopias in Sci-Fi films? Okay. Yeah, like when we look at Sci-Fi utopias, usually something to do with science and medicine or technology that helps bring about this utopian place. So you mean, like science and technology are super advanced, and people like never get old, never get sick and never die that's sort of thing. Yeah, it could be that technology has become super advanced and we don't have to worry about things. Occasionally, it might just be less advanced but that we've learned to use that technology to kind of sustain life in a sustainable way. Like a… you can look at Star Trek, Star Treks Federation is kind of based on this utopian society where we no longer use money. We can create everything that we need and people that want to can devote their life to the exploration of space. We go out and try to create this federation with all the other planets out there. Yeah. But having said that, having talked about the idea of utopia which is having on earth perfect world, I've also noticed that in these works, almost all of them, they're not like comedies, they're not like stories about these perfect world, it's almost, always about these supposed utopias turned into hell on earth. It's turning into a dystopia. 这个在中文里叫反乌托邦或者叫敌托邦, dystopia. So what is the idea of a dystopia? Basically, when you look at Sci-Fi, every utopia is a dystopia. Because when you're getting into this idea that there is a utopia, you watch how it slowly devolves over the course of the film, either by the means of the technology or by the means of someone else who is subverting the technology to do terrible things. When we look at it and a classic version of a dystopian society, there is a good example which is Logan's Run, one of the first science fiction movies I watched as a kid. The whole society is built as this utopian society. The movie itself is set after the world that's been fairly destroyed by a nuclear war. Everyone lives in th

"欢迎来到英文小酒馆的迷你双语板块【Buzzword Mix】-新词特饮，短短几分钟，让不同段位的你掌握最新最地道的英文谈资！ 关注公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】，获取更多有趣节目内容和文稿哦~" In today's Buzzword Mix, our buzzword is Tech-life Balance. Tech means technology. Now I'm sure over the years you've heard of the expression work-life balance, 这些年我们一直都在说work-life balance, 工作和生活的平衡, which basically is about how to maintain a balance between our work and personal life. But nowadays, as we're getting more and more reliant on modern technology as we’re hooked on our smart devices and the internet, we now have to worry about a new type of balance, which is tech-life balance. 不过随着我们所有人越来越依赖于现代的这些科技, 特别是智能设备和网络, 现在我们要关心的就不光是work-life balance, 还有今天的buzzword, tech-life balance, 科技与生活的平衡。 The expression tech-life balance has been circulating for the past few years or so, because with the increasing popularity of social media, for many, the internet and other forms of electronic communication are not just tools, but a personal space that we somehow ‘inhabit’; and it’s practically impossible to imagine life without them. 这也是因为随着现在智能设备以及社交媒体的越来越发达, 他们已经远远的超过了一个简单的科技工具, 而成为了我们每天生活甚至我们的身份和个人空间的一部分。 Tech-life balance is an expression that's now been adopted to describe the daily challenge facing all digital natives and most digital immigrants. 这里说到了两个概念, 我们原来也提到过 digital native, people who have never known a world without mobiles and the internet. 在中国来讲基本就是95后出生的人, 他们被叫做 “数字原住民”. Because ever since they were little, they already lived in the world with internet. And if you were born before that, then you are digital immigrants. 在这之前出生的人被叫做 “数字移民”, because they can still remember the old days without the internet and all these modern technology. And the struggle to maintain tech-life balance is on how to use technology to our advantage, but not to the detriment of real life. 而所谓的科技生活的平衡, 也就是怎么样能让现在的这些网络科技为我们所用, 但是又不过度的侵蚀和影响我们的线下生活。 If you think about it, technology or tech can cover practically all of the bases that it was once necessary to leave the house for, many of us no longer have to be in the office to continue working. Especially during the past few years when work from home became the norm. We can send emails, take phone calls, hold meetings, write and submit reports all from wherever we happen to be during the course of a day, making our work hours potentially limitless; and perhaps even more significantly, tech is supreme in our personal lives too. We can play games, stream movies and TV, catch up on the latest gossip, discuss debate, socialize, do the weekly shop, plan a holiday…the list is endless, and all this whenever, wherever, and without ever having to come into contact with another real touchable person face to face. In fact, for me, personally, my life is, I would say about 90% online. 现在不管是工作还是个人生活中, 我们都可以通过现在的这些technology, 完全不用接触到活人就可以做很多的事。 And it's because of this, it is even more challenging to maintain tech-life balance, because the boundary between technology and your actual life is often blurred; But of course being overly reliant on all these technology and let them run your life has its problems. That's why there are a few things you can do and try to maintain some level of tech-life balance. No.1, stop double screening. Double screening这个概念相信很多小伙伴都非常熟悉. Have you ever caught yourself using a computer and a smartphone at the same time？ For example, when you're watching a movie on your computer, you are still on your phone playing a game at the same time. This looks like multitasking, but in the long run it can be bad for your attention and productivity. This can also over stimulate your brain and you may suffer from information overload.

《小酒馆·大世界》-世界各处的文化和精彩，在小酒馆触手可得哦~ 欢迎关注公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】，可以查看更多精彩内容，查看英语全文稿哦~ In the previous episode, we talked to William about his life in Sweden, and we're gonna continue with that topic today. Do they have laws about household chores? Like who does the dishes and all that? I would say it's quite equal I think. I think in a young family, both parents… they’re home at different times, like one might be working one might be home, so they both know how to cook, they both know how to clean, because they have to share the responsibility. But that doesn't seem to be any problem. I’ve never known of any problem with it. I’ve got a young daughter and when her boyfriend they are living together and they share, and it seems to work. And they can't usually rely on their parents like young couple they can't really rely on their parents for to take care of their baby, right? That's correct. I mean, most of the young couples they are both working and probably their parents are also working, so the grandparents of the kids are working. So they rely a lot more on the service of day cares which is called dagvård in Swedish, and kindergarten and they go to kindergarten quite early, very early because both young couples need to work. This is an expensive place to live. Yeah, how expensive we talking about constantly here, northern European countries are very, very expensive, exactly how expensive. I would say very, very expensive. You lived in Geneva. One of the more expensive places in the world. Is it more expensive than Geneva? I would say people in Sweden they live for the most part from paycheck to paycheck. I would say most Swedes especially young to middle aged Swedes don't have a lot of money in savings. They live well, but they don't normally have a lot of money. It's an expensive place to live. But is it also because they have very good social welfares? So there's always multiple safety nets so that they don't have to have a lot of savings. There are excellent social welfare. The education system is free, Medicare, medical aids for Swedish citizens, Swedish residents is free. It's a very small amount, you have to pay upfront and then that same treatment continues for until they fix you. In that respect it’s quite cheap; but the day to day life, the cost of living…is very high. …is quite expensive. Yeah, one of the things I noticed when I first went to Sweden is I noticed a lot of young people had exceptionally gorgeous apartments. I really couldn't figure this out. I thought maybe everybody's got rich parents. But then I found a new word and I think it's the origin of the word rent, as in paying the rent, because the word “ränta” in Swedish means interest, like the interest on the loan. And they only when they buy an apartment or a house, they are only paying off the interest. They're not paying off the principal. Oh, not the principal. Not a capital. No, no. But does that mean they still…well, from my perspective, then they still don't own it, though, because if they always have that principal that they have yet to pay, if they're only paying interest. That's right. And the ideas you move up the property ladder, you buy a piece of property, you pay the interest on your loan, the property appreciates, and when you sell it, you sell it for a profit, and then you move the profit into the next place and so on. I see. Seems to work. I was actually gonna ask you about homeownership, so I guess that makes it easy for people to buy and own… to get their… Homeownership is really easy, buying property in Scandinavia is very, very simple, it’s very straightforward, it is. The other thing that I'm really curious to know is that so far we have been grouping Scandinavian countries together, but I'm sure for Swedish people, in general, they don't feel like they're the same as their neighbors like Norwegians or Danish. No. It's like within the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, within Norway, Finland, and Iceland to a lesser extent. There

《小酒馆·大世界》-世界各处的文化和精彩，在小酒馆触手可得哦~ 欢迎关注公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】，可以查看更多精彩内容，查看英语全文稿哦~

Okay. I'm just gonna be quite difficult and say what if I were your students and I write an answer that you really personally do not agree with, what happens then? You just mark, you based on the rubric, students have… there's a rubric like and… did you hit those points on the rubric? Yes, you did, you get the points. My opinion doesn't matter. I don't share my opinion with my students. Kelly Roell what is a rubric? I see. Rubric is something I guess a lot of our audience if they don't teach, they probably don't really use that word very often. Rubric is kind of just like a marking like grading standard. Yes. It's just a grading chart, so it just what are the things that teachers grading you on. And like, what does an outstanding look like？What does a good look like？What does fair and neat work…it's just highlighting, it's like what you did is like, did you hit these things? Did you do these things？ I see, actually very interesting that you mentioned how you grade. Is it a point-based system or is it ABC or is it? How do you grade your students in like exams or essay？ Like the grades I give them is a number. But the grade in the system is letter. Letter. I see, I see, are you a tough grader？ No, not really, although my students may disagree. Because in my class, they I mean, homework is graded as complete or incomplete, regardless of whether the answers are correct or not. Because I want to see that do you understand it？Are you putting an effort？Are you trying? You are, okay, you get full points in that. Projects and quizzes are graded more strictly. I see, apart from these subjects, the major subjects like you said, like Chinese, English, Math, maybe Science, History, what are the sort of more, let's say extracurricular things or perhaps more the artsy, sporty things, do you have that offered？I'm sure you do, but what kind of things do you offer to your students at the school？ At this school I work at, there is music programs, art programs, technology programs, a very robust science program. So we have different programs available for students who have different interests, who plan on going into different areas when they finish school. So it's not all just academic. You learn Math, History, English, Chinese. So there's a lot of other things and all students every student at the school has to take arts, all students have to take some kind of performing art. All students have to take… Like drama? Yeah. Other performing art could be drama, this could be singing, this could be band, it's required for all students here. Do you have like design classes because I think that's very popular right in a lot of private schools？ Yeah, we do have design classes. There's an in-depth design program that students can take part in. They can do arts, sculpting, graphic design. I think we also have clothing design. Fashion design? I think we do, I'm not entirely sure because I don't work in that department. Okay, sounds fantastic. But what about the students? I'm getting a bit gossipy here. We know a lot of these international, especially good international schools in Beijing or Shanghai, they're quite costly, in terms of tuition. So these students they are all from relatively well off families, I would imagine, what's their family backgrounds, based on your observation? In general, a lot of these parents tend to be business people. They run businesses, IT, things like that. Some of them got money through real estate, a lot of people they lived in China over the past 23 years. There are few kids that are children of professors from various schools, but in general, everyone here is upper middle class and higher, because the tuition is high. Money is definitely a thing, but it's also the education level. It's also how you are educated, like how you perceive the world. Because a lot of these what you were talking about, obviously they're preparing for these kids not really to take the college entrance examination in China; they

"欢迎来到英文小酒馆的迷你双语板块【Buzzword Mix】-新词特饮，短短几分钟，让不同段位的你掌握最新最地道的英文谈资！ 关注公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】，获取更多有趣节目内容和文稿哦~" In today's Buzzword Mix, our buzzword is Mass Layoffs. If you're currently working, especially if you're working in tech industry, this early winter does not bring a lot of confidence. With tech giants like Twitter and Meta, firing employees on an unprecedented scale. 最近不管是马斯克还是小扎, 他们的这种大规模的裁员行为, 都让相关行业的小伙伴心惊肉跳. Everyone's asking who's the next? And you keep seeing this expression, mass layoffs popping up in the news. So in today's buzzword, let's talk about mass layoffs, 大规模裁员. To understand mass layoffs, first of all, we need to understand layoff. A layoff is the temporary or permanent termination of employment by an employer for reasons unrelated to the employee's performance. 一般layoff翻译成裁员或者下岗. You can say someone is laid off or you can use it as a noun and say a layoff. 根据具体情况, 它既可能是temporary, 暂时的; 也可能是permanent, 永久性的. 尽管在新闻里这回对于 Twitter和Meta裁员的新闻报道会用各种各样的词, 比如说firing, 比如说cuts, layoffs, but there's actually a distinct difference between firing someone and laying off someone. Usually an employee may be fired on the grounds of unsatisfactory performance or breach of duty. 一般我们说firing是说被炒了, 通常都是员工自己的问题, 比如说绩效达不到或者违反了公司的某些规定. But when employees are laid off, that usually is not because they did anything wrong, but the companies aim to cut costs due to decline in demand for their products or services or during an economic downturn. 而layoff的情况通常不是个体员工自己的问题, 而是公司运营不善, 经费不足, 或者遇到了经济大环境的影响, 必须得精简人员削减成本. That's why laid off employees are often entitled to a severance package. 因为不是员工自己的错, 导致layoff, 所以基本上按照相关法律, 他们都有权获得severance package遣散费, 也就是裁员赔偿, 平时我们说的n加几n乘几的那个. And they also qualify for unemployment insurance. From the company's point of view, layoffs are generally called downsizing or even smart sizing. 很多公司会用downsizing甚至smart sizing这样的词来形容规模性裁员. The reason is often because of an economic downturn or corporate restructuring, such as bankruptcy or buyout. 而它的原因除了经济大环境不景气, 还可能是各种 corporate restructuring 企业重组, 比如说破产重组或者是被收购.

【luluxjg2】 > 走进一代文豪笔下的精彩世界 > 体验莎翁剧作里的悲欢离合，嬉笑怒骂 > 深入解读时代背景，主题隐喻，搞懂文化梗 > 学习深远影响英语表达的“莎派”语言 > 听主播精彩飙戏，演绎经典片段 Drunk and standing up maybe in the rain. Now that sort of explains why a lot of the plotlines seem a bit overly dramatic. 我读莎士比亚的时候, 觉得他有的时候里面的语言超级夸张, 超级戏剧化. That's the only way you could keep their attention. Imagine Shakespeare's writing for group of normally men who have been drinking all day. If they didn't like the play, they will be more than happy to start throwing food and start fights. And back then remember that all men would carry a sword or dagger. Wow, 所以大家去想象莎士比亚那个剧最开始在莎士比亚还活着的时候上演的, 这种场景绝对不是我们今天这种很有文化的感觉, 而是当时很多老百姓站在底下, 然后也都喝醉了, 大部分都是男的, 他们如果看不到那种打斗或者很精彩的这种很dramatic的剧情就会往上丢东西. 我们现在只是说 boo就是嘘人家下台, 他们那时候直接就东西砸上去. I would say probably the closest equivalent is imagine being an actor and you’re performing in front of a group of gangsters who are very angry and very drunk. I see. so that probably would give you a better idea of how Shakespeare's plays were originally performed. Yes. Now back to our course, our album. How do we introduce his play in this course? 那可能很多小伙伴就想问, 刚才说的这么精彩, 让我也开始对莎士比亚的剧有点兴趣了. 在我们的莎士比亚扫盲班里，到底是怎么样分析这些剧的呢? Because we're assuming that you're not drunk or violent as you listen to our course, we're a little bit more gentle in introducing Shakespeare's plays than it used to be in the past. But we don't assume you know anything about it. That's right. We're gonna really break it down to you. First, starting with each play’s background. 首先我们是选了10部莎士比亚最有名或者是最有特点的剧, 不同时期的都有, 像大家都耳熟能详的, 比如说是Romeo and Juliet《罗密欧与朱丽叶》, the Merchant of Venice《威尼斯商人》, 还有像Macbeth《麦克白》 都在里面. 首先我们会介绍background, 它的背景. Yeah, that's right. So we'll describe the background, and describe a little bit of the history as well. So for example, with Romeo and Juliet, we discuss what it would have been like for Elizabethan women or women during Shakespeare's time; And for the Merchant of Venice, we talk a little bit about the history of Venice, and also relationships with Jewish people. And then usually 安澜 will walk us through the plot line. 接着就是安澜带着我们走整个的故事线, 每次都很为难安澜, 因为这个剧都比较长, 安澜会用比较简单的语言给我们总结一下, 把这里面的情节, 我也会在旁边帮大家梳理所有这些人物和剧情. Yes, I will break down the plot. I'll try to keep it as simple as possible. I'll be focusing on the main plotlines, and making it as easy as possible for you to understand what the story is. 经常听我们节目的小伙伴都知道我们是英语占绝大部分. 不过在解释莎士比亚这个剧情的时候, 因为有很多的名字, 所以我也会适时的在中间补一些中文, 这样保证大家不迷路. 这个课程里面每一部剧我们都是分为上下集的, 上集讲完了这个故事和背景, 下集我们就会讲theme.

关注luluxjg2获取文稿啦~ Hi everyone, and welcome back to酒馆. Good news, we have another new course! Yeah! By the way, hi, 安澜. Hello. 我们的新专辑【莎士比亚扫盲班】, the Bluffer's Guide to Shakespeare上线了, 璐璐和安澜陪你走进莎士比亚十部最有名的戏剧, 解读文豪笔下的喜怒哀乐, 嬉笑怒骂, 让沙翁的戏剧不再遥远. I think the last time we did this was to introduce our course the Bluffer's Guide to Literature. 上一次和安澜录发刊词还是在录上一个专辑【英文名著扫盲班】. Yes, that's right. And as we were doing that course, we realized we didn't actually put any Shakespeare into that particular course. So I thought we should do one on Shakespeare. The Bluffer's Guide to Shakespeare. I think everyone has heard of Shakespeare even if they have never really read anything that he wrote. 就算你没有读过任何莎士比亚的东西, 但至少也知道莎士比亚这个人. Exactly. Famous all around. Pretty much. Do you guys actually have to read Shakespeare in school? Of course, pretty much in every English-speaking country, you have to study Shakespeare. When I was younger, I had to read, I think it was about two of his plays? and then when I went to college, before going to university, I also read another one of his plays as well. So a lot of the kids, even if they don't want to, they have to read Shakespeare. They have to read it, they have to do exams on Shakespeare. Yeah, I would say a lot of kids don't really like it. It is quite old-fashioned. But for me I personally loved it. I love Shakespeare. Well, put it this way, his works are the second most published in the English speaking world. 是英语世界里出版次数第二多的. What's the first? The Bible. Of course. I know the 3rd one is Agatha Christie. 第三名是阿加莎·克里斯蒂. That’s right. He wrote many plays and also poems. Yeah, he's famous for writing 37 plays and 154 sonnets. Sonnet就是14行诗，是一种特别的诗体. Yeah, it's a particular form of poetry. Because of his plays and also his poetry, he was regarded as a literary genius from the very moment he died. 中文里也把它叫做“文豪”, 这也是为什么很多时候我们听到说“莎翁”，这个就是对他的一个尊称. And he also was famously inventing a lot of words. That's right. It’s difficult to really calculate how many words he invented, but it's around 1,700. And some of the words you wouldn't imagine was invented by him, was actually invented by him, like ‘advertising’ was invented by Shakespeare. Yeah, luggage, gossip, and ... I'm a little bit confused about this myself, but apparently Shakespeare invented the word elbow. 就是一个肘部, 手肘, elbow. Gossip, 八卦这个词是莎士比亚创造的, 我能信. Yeah. This were obviously things that if you check online, you would find about him, the fact sheets. Who is Shakespeare? Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in a small town called Stratford-upon-Avon. That's why he was known as the Bard of Avon. That's right. Now Shakespeare's family was, I won't say wealthy, but they were kind of relatively well off, they had money. But when he was a child, his family actually lost a lot of that money, so he was unable to go to university even though that he went to the local school and learnt Latin. The two facts that I know about Shakespeare's personal life is, first of all, he married early and his wife's name is Anne Hathaway, 就是安妮·海瑟薇, 现在女演员的名字. Her parents probably got it from Shakespeare's wife. Pretty much. So he married Anne Hathaway when he was only 18. And Anne Hathaway was actually quite a bit older than him. 这也是姐弟恋的先锋. And also the other fact is one of his kids was actually named Hamlet or Hamnet, something like that. That's right. His only son was called Hamlet or Hamnet, both forms of the name were used back then. It was when he died that Shakespeare wrote his famous play Hamlet. So that's a bit of a sad story, background story. Now of course, everyone knows Shakespeare is a famous playwright, 他是一个非常伟大的剧作家, but he was actually acting himself. Well, yeah. There are quite a few plays where scholars think Shakespeare was playing maybe the lead or one of the supporting roles. His money came from writing plays,

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】加入社群，查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to America Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话美国】. Actually, this is a special edition. Hi James. Hi, lulu, hi everyone, special edition. Why is it special? Yes, because instead of talking about American society, American life, today we are gonna talk about you. Me? Why would people want to hear about me? People, our audience they know you, they are interested in your life as well. Actually James just had a major, I would say, a major change in his life. Before he was teaching in university. And then recently you joined an international school in Beijing. Indeed I did, I have changed my jobs. I've gone from teaching college students to teaching middle schoolers at an international school. Okay. So first of all, congratulations on the new job. Thank you. But what is it like? Today I thought we would just invite James to share with us a little bit of… about his life in international school in Beijing which I'm assume… the thing is our audience, I think there are lots of parents as well, and then maybe there are also international school students. Can be. So this would be an interesting topic, a bit more personal touch to it. First of all, when did you make the move, like it was a month, 2 months ago? I started applying for the job earlier this year. I managed to land the job in May. And I began working for the school in August, so I've been teaching here for 2 months now. Ok, and you're fully settled there, right? Yeah, I've… Fully settled in. I moved out here and have been teaching and my life is… here now and I'm really comfortable where I am. Okay. First of all, you're in the outskirts of Beijing? I wouldn’t say it's the outskirts. It's right next to the outskirts. I see. It's a nice sort of natural surrounding. It's much better than us here, just the hustle and bustle. You've got mountains, you've got green, lots of greenery. Yeah, that's pretty common for a lot of international schools. They tend to get built more in the suburban areas of cities as there's more land available. Where my campus is, we got… were surrounded by mountains, parks, not… sadly does come with a few disadvantages. There aren't restaurants or supermarkets that are super close by. I see. Well, you can't have the cake and eat it too usually, it's the convenience or the quiet… right, it’s the quiet suburban life. I like the quiet. But let's talk about the school, let's talk about your work environment. So the people that you work with, are they mostly Chinese or mostly non-Chinese like the other teachers? It's actually 50:50, so my colleagues are a mix. And all of them, they come from all over the world, like I have a supervisor from Venezuela. I have colleagues that are from Pakistan, America, Australia, France, Mexico. And everyone is well educated. My Chinese colleagues have Masters Degrees from top universities. Everyone tends to be have education certificates or trained in education.

"欢迎来到英文小酒馆的迷你双语板块【Buzzword Mix】-新词特饮，短短几分钟，让不同段位的你掌握最新最地道的英文谈资！ 关注公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】，获取更多有趣节目内容和文稿哦~" In today's Buzzword Mix, we're gonna talk about something more light-hearted. So the buzzword of the day is Plogging. P-l-o-g-g-i-n-g, haven't heard of it? it's understandable because this new word really has only been around for 5 or 6 years, and also it wasn't originally an English word. This word comes from Swedish. 这个词本来是瑞典语, 即使是在瑞典语里, 它也是一个拼接成的新词。 It's a combination of the Swedish verb “plocka upp”, which means “pick up”, 是瑞典语的捡起来, and “jogga ”, to jog, 和 “慢跑” 这两个词组成的新词, 瑞典语里是 “plogga”. But when it spreads around the world, especially getting into the English language, people just call it plogging. So what is plogging？ The idea is very simple. It's a combination of jogging and picking up litter. Litter means trash, rubbish. 中文把它翻译成 “拾荒慢跑”. It sounds a bit strange, doesn't it？ I know a lot of people in China also have the habit of jogging on a regular basis. Plogging simply takes advantage of jogging and other outdoor sports to pick up the litter that spoils our cities and natural spaces. 其实这个概念很好理解, 我知道很多小伙伴应该也有定期户外慢跑的习惯, 所以plogging就是在你慢跑的时候看到垃圾就随手捡来放在一个垃圾袋里, 然后集中处理, 相当于一边健身一边保护环境。 The idea of this sustainable initiative is simplicity itself. The participants or the ploggers take to the streets with rubbish bags to pick up the litter they come across while exercising. 而这些手拿垃圾袋一边慢跑运动, 一边捡垃圾保护环境的小可爱们就被叫做ploggers. The founder of this activity was Erik Ahlström, a Swedish guy who on leaving his hometown in 2016 to settle in Stockholm started to clean up the rubbish in the areas where he practiced his sport.

"英文小酒馆致力于打造沉浸式英语学习社群，无论是微信社群、有声节目、线上活动和课程，我们都全心全意为爱好英语的你带去一份专属于英语的快乐。公号: 【璐璐的英文小酒馆】 查音频节目文稿，了解广阔的世界。跟随我们的脚步，体会英语的温度。" Hi everyone, and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope Advanced. In our previous episode we confused you a lot with the idea of the British government and how our government is formed. Mhm. Thanks a lot for tuning into this episode where we’re probably going to try and confuse you even more. Hi, Lulu. Hi, Anlan. I'm sure I get thoroughly confused. So I have a question first. Yes. We were talking about the two houses. Now let's talk about the Prime Minister. Uh, yes. I always wondered, see, when you hear president or chairman, you know they're the top guy. Yeah. But Prime Minister, it’s prime ministers like top minister, which means he essentially is still a minister. Yeah. Or she. Yes, she or he. Sorry being unintentionally sexist, but he or she is still a Prime Minister. That's right. Is that where the word comes from? The idea is the Prime Minister is a First Among Equals, so the Prime Minister acts as the leader of the government in the name of the King. Uh, it’s the representative. Somewhat like a representative, but essentially the Prime Minister is acting within the blessing of the King or Queen. I see, and how long have you been having Prime Ministers? Since the 18th century. Originally, we had a Prime Minister because they were, I should say, representing the King, because we had a King, King George I, who was German and couldn't speak English. So the first Prime Minister was like a glorified translator? Uh, pretty much, Wow. George I and Robert Walpole, his name was Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister, they had to speak in Latin, so because King George I couldn't learn English. He was a bit older at this time. They had a prime minister. I see. I see. Now the Prime Minister lives, as you all know, at No.10 Downing Street which is close to the government departments in White Hall and the Houses of Parliament. And what about those parliamentary debates that we constantly see on TV, sometimes get really heated and people were shouting, they're basically booing the Prime Minister. Oh, yeah. That is very traditional. Oh. What you're probably seeing is what we call Prime Minister's Question Time. Okay. Now Prime Minister's Question Time is when any MP can ask the Prime Minister a question and the Prime Minister has to defend their stance, or sometimes attack the stance of the Opposition, or the leader of the Opposition in particular. It looks brutal. It looks really… they look really aggressive, the people who are asking questions, the Opposition. Yeah.