Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IN THE DARK and A SHOT IN THE DARK

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase in the dark. When you are in the dark, it means you don't know about something. I use this example a lot, but if someone was planning a surprise party for me, they would want to keep me in the dark. They would want to make sure that I don't know about the party. If they were planning like a surprise birthday party, they would all talk amongst themselves, but they would try to keep me in the dark. Sometimes governments do this as well. They do things that they know the citizens won't like, but they try to keep them in the dark. They don't let the press or the newspapers know, and they try to make sure people don't know what's going on. They keep them in the dark. Not a very good thing.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is a shot in the dark. Now, a shot in the dark is simply a guess. If you were to say to me what's 10 times 11 and I didn't know the answer, I might say, it's shot in the dark. It's probably around 110 or something like that. Anyways, a shot in the dark, that's a bad example. A shot in the dark is a guess. If you were to ask me how many English lessons have I made, I would say, and it's just a shot in the dark. At least over a thousand. Maybe close to 2000 if you combine the two channels. But that's just a shot in the dark. That's just a guess because I don't know the actual answer.

So to review, when you are in the dark, it means you don't know about something. It means other people know, but you don't know. And a shot in the dark is simply a guess about something.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Klopcyna. Dear Bob, do your students know you are a successful YouTuber? Do they watch your videos? This question's come up before my response. Most do know, but few watch them. I think when they find out, it's cool and unique. But after a while it's just a normal thing. Yeah, once. Thanks, Klopcyna, for that comment. Once I'm their teacher and I start assigning homework and I start checking their homework and doing all the things that teachers normally do, like telling them to stop running in the hallway. I think they forget that I'm a YouTuber and that I'm doing quite well on YouTube.

So yes, most of them know I think most of them think it's pretty cool. But the other thing I would say is this YouTube isn't as big a deal for them as some of the other social media apps they use. I don't consider YouTube necessarily a pure social media app or platform. I mostly use YouTube to learn new things and obviously to teach things. But for my students, I think it's a little more of the like TikTok, Snapchat, BeReal. All of those kinds of things are more important in their lives. So yeah. Do they know? Yes. Do they care? Maybe a little bit. I don't know. It doesn't really matter to me. I just hope that they learn something from me in the classes that I teach.

So hey. Yep, it continues. Once again, I was not going to talk about the weather, but yeah, it's a little warmer as you can see, I'm able to be outside without a winter hat or gloves, but it's still definitely winter. I haven't had to clean the driveway again. I think what I miss the most is the sun. Like you can kind of see it up there behind the clouds. But I'm looking forward to not necessarily warmer weather. I don't mind if it stays a little bit cold. I think I'm looking forward to just a little more sunshine. I've been taking my vitamin D pill every day because I'm n

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WISHFUL THINKING and TO THINK BIG

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is when you think positively about something, but it probably isn't going to go the way you think it will. Here's a great example. If you don't study and you have an English test in a few months and you just think, ah, I'll just watch YouTube videos and I'll pass that English test, that's probably wishful thinking. You probably aren't doing enough. You're thinking that you're going to pass the test by just watching YouTube videos, but you should really be practicing your speaking and your writing and your reading and all of that stuff as well. So it might be wishful thinking. So hopefully you understand. It means you think a positive thought about something, but you're probably wrong.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to think big. So sometimes at work someone will have an idea for a small change and then someone will say, why don't we think big? Instead of doing the small change, why don't we do something even bigger? So an example would be maybe a teacher says, my classroom isn't big enough so I'm going to remove a couple desks. And someone else might say, hey, why don't we think big? Why don't we instead spend millions of dollars and build you a bigger classroom? That's something that doesn't usually happen, but it could.

Anyways to review. Wishful thinking is when you hope for something positive, but it probably won't happen. You're just being really, really optimistic. And to think big is to dream bigger than you would to solve maybe a small problem.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I wasn't going to talk about the weather today, but it's minus 15 right now, minus 21 with the wind chill. It's about, it's about as cold as it gets. This comment is from. Let's see here. Let me get my glove back on. Paper and gloves are a bit of a challenge. This comment is from Tolik. Thank you for the lesson, Bob. You have really nice boots. I like them. Have a nice day and I said I love my boots. I hope they last forever. But alas, I think that is wishful thinking.

So yeah, I've had these boots for a while. I really, really like them. They are really, really nice boots. But to think that they might last forever I think would be wishful thinking. So a positive thought for something that most likely won't happen. So Tolik thank you for that comment, let me see If I can get this off here.

Yeah, I wasn't going to talk about the weather, so I'll try... I'll try not to do that at all. So, anyways, I had a beautiful family day Monday. Yesterday for me. Two days ago for you. I think that is just the best holiday. My kids and I and Jen, we actually went and we played some badminton at the school. We went out to a little cafe afterwards and had a little treat. Uh, we spent some time as a family. We watched the TV show Jeopardy.

I'm not sure if you know what that show is, but Jeopardy is a trivia show, a quiz show where they ask questions and then the contestants have to try and answer them. By the way, Jeopardy is probably a great way to learn English if you could find a way to watch that show. Uh, so we had supper together. Uh, we watched Jeopardy together. It was a fun evening, and it's fun just to have a day where you decide to spend the day with your family. So I really enjoyed it.

Right now, though, I'm going to go back inside. It's a little too cold this morning for me, and I think I need to go warm up. Than

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO WORK WELL WITH OTHERS and A TEAM PLAYER

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to work well with others. When you are working and you are working with other people, either you work well with others or you don't work well with others. Some people work better by themselves. Some people enjoy working with others and they work well with others. I'll explain what I am in a bit. You might be surprised, but hopefully you are someone who works well with others. If you were applying for a job, they might say to you in the interview, do you work well with others? And hopefully you can say, yes, I work well with others. I enjoy working with other people.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is a team player. If you work again with a lot of other people, hopefully you're a team player. You're someone who is easy to work with. You help other people. You are kind. Hopefully other people help you as well. Hopefully you are a team player. By the way, this doesn't mean you have to be on a sports team. You can be a team player at work. Like at work, I try to be a team player. I try to be helpful. I try to work well with others.

So to review when you work well with others, I'm just laughing because you're going to. I'm going to read a comment in a sec that you might laugh at as well. When you work well with others, it means you are kind and nice and it's easy to work with you. And when you are a team player, it means essentially the same thing.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Tammy. Your English lessons are amazing and you don't need to have a heavy hitter to collaborate with you. And my response Thanks. I don't really work well with others anyways.

So thanks Tammy for that comment. And let me now explain. I work well with others if it's the right people. I hope that makes sense. I hope that doesn't make me sound kind of like a jerk if I'm working with the right people. I think people also enjoy working with me, but my preference is to work by myself. I think that's one of the reasons why I became a teacher. So again, I do actually work well with others, but if I am given a choice, I prefer to work by myself. It's one of the reasons why I think YouTube works for me. I have an idea. I make a lesson, I edit the video, I put it online. I don't have to rely on anyone else.

So I'm home again. It's a Thursday and it's a snow day. So it happened. I'm not sure if Brent had a snow day. I know he mentioned in his Members Only video that he had heard I might have a snow day. So I'm wondering if over there in Maine they had one. We got again quite a bit of ice. So a lot of freezing rain you can see here. Like I'm not sure if it shows up really well on camera, but there is a layer of ice on this tree. I'm gonna try and remember to go a bit slower when I show you stuff like this so you get a good chance to see it.

And what that has done is it's made it... You can hear the snow as well. Like it's. There's a layer of ice on top of the snow. Not sure how well that shows up, but yes, a little bit slick out here. There's some icicles even on this tree here. You can see some tiny. Where's my hand? There's some tiny little icicles and you can see that. My driveway. You can see my footsteps from my walk this morning. But it's. Yeah, it's kind of like ice. Like it's. There's a layer of water underneath but there's this thin layer of ice on top.

So another snow day. Woohoo. I love them. Anyways, I hope you work well with

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