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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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms HEAVY HITTER and HEAVY HEART

In this English lesson, I'd like to help you learn the English term heavy hitter. When you say someone is a heavy hitter in a certain area, it means they are like the most famous or most powerful person in that area. If I was to have a guest on my YouTube channel, if I could convince Lucy from English with Lucy to come on my channel, she would be a heavy hitter. She would be one of the most successful and a pretty awesome English teacher to have on my channel. I should send her an email and ask her if she wants to do a collaboration again. But she would be a heavy hitter. If I needed to find a guest speaker for my class, someone to come and talk to students, if I got Matt Damon to come in, that would be a heavy hitter. That would be a pretty cool and impressive person to come and speak to my class. So a heavy hitter, a very important person or a very famous person or a combination of the two.

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The other term I wanted to teach you today is heavy heart. When you have a heavy heart, it means you are sad. We often use this phrase after someone passes away. After someone dies, you might say something like I have a heavy heart since my grandmother passed away, I am sad. I am feeling grief. I have a heavy heart.

So to review a heavy hitter is someone important or famous or powerful. And when you have a heavy heart, it means that you're sad. Really sad. Because something in your life isn't... didn't go the way you thought it would.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Joy. The comment is. We also had a snow day a few days ago. Might as well stop all tasks and build a snowman like a kid. And my response? I wish we had the right kind of snow for that. Unfortunately it is too cold for snowman snow. So yeah, you need... Thanks Joy for that comment.

You need a certain kind of snow. Oh you should have a look at this. This morning has been pretty cool. Everything's just a little bit. I don't know how to describe it but it's. It's like we had frost overnight a little bit and it has formed on the trees and branches. So pretty cool. Anyways, yeah, we don't have the right kind of snow to build a snowman. In order to build a snowman the snow has to be not melted but it has to be like 0 degrees or 1 degree or minus 1 somewhere in that range and then the snow will stick to itself. Right now the snow will not stick to itself. The snow is very, very cold.

I'll give you a look at the snow in a moment. I'm just distracted by these trees.

The snow is very, very cold. And so for some reason, when the snow is that cold, the snow will not stick to itself. When you make a snowman, you have to roll the snow. And as you roll the snowball, it gets bigger and bigger. And that's where comes from for something to snowball. If you start rolling a snowball when conditions are right, as you roll it, the snowball sticks to the snow you roll it onto, and then it slowly gets bigger and bigger. It's a pretty unique thing. The next time we have snow that is the right kind of snow for making a snowman. I should make a snowman for you so you can see how it works.

By the way, when you make a snowman, when the weather's right for that, it's also a good day to make a snow fort. Snow forts are fun. I built a lot of snow forts when I was a kid. A snow fort's like a little mini house that you build outside out of snow. It's not an igloo. That's something different again. But, yeah, snow forts. And then we would have snowball fights. I miss those days.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases MIGHT AS WELL and FREEZING RAIN

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase might as well. We use this phrase when we're saying that we should do something. I think a good example is this. If you're driving in your car on the highway and you pull over to get gas, you might as well get something to eat as well. Since you're already getting gas, you should eat at the same time because you don't want to stop later. Let's say that I'm stuck at school waiting for one of my kids to be done, whatever they are involved in. Then I might as well grade some student work since I'm at school anyways. I should grade some student work because I'm waiting for my kids. So when you might as well do something, it means you should do it usually because it's just a good idea to do it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase freezing rain. It's a snow day. I'm recording this on a Thursday because we had freezing rain last night. I talked about this in my lesson about weather a week ago. Freezing rain is when it's raining but it's still below zero. It's kind of a weird phenomenon, but you end up with things like this. I'll show you the ground here. You end up with all these little... You can't quite see them, but there's these little tiny. I can't pick them up. They're frozen. Basically. Yeah. You end up with this. Hopefully it's in focus and hopefully you can see you end up with a lot of ice on the ground. So it's a snow day, I get to stay home.

So to review when you might as well do something, it's something you should just do. Let's say it's 4:00 and Jen and I are sitting down to have a snack and we have to go out later. We might as well just have a big meal and then we don't have to eat later. And then freezing rain is when it rains and it freezes when it hits the ground.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Ginny. Isn't it cold in the early morning? The dogs behind the screen seem very energetic, especially the black one was running like a horse. Yes, Walter tends to do that. And my response, it was cold, but not too bad. The dogs sleep in our garage and were just let out. They're usually quite energetic first thing in the morning. So yeah, the dogs, when they first get up are very, very energetic. Gonna show you a few. Thanks for the comment, Ginny.

A few things that happen when there's freezing rain. You can see this is all frozen. So I do have to go somewhere later today. But the windshields on our vehicles all have a thin layer of ice on them. As well... Walter's not as energetic this morning. The ground, it's a little bit slippery. It's actually not too bad. But we have to be careful because the dogs can slip and fall and that's not good because they can hurt themselves. So we're trying to make sure they don't run around on the driveway and instead run around on the grass.

You can see this car here, too, just has all these little ice pellets. Maybe I could actually pick one up this time. It's frozen to my finger. No, I dropped it. Yeah, all these little ice pellets, they all fell as rain and froze as they were coming down. And then now we have a situation where the car is just covered in a thin layer of ice. It's kind of beautiful, though. And I don't mind having a snow day today. Actually, I never mind having snow days, but it wasn't that important of a day, so it's kind of nice just to be home and relax. Jen made pancakes for the kids because they're home from school. So it's just a nice day, relaxing at home.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English words ONE and the phrase A GOOD ONE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn some interesting ways to use the word one. We can use the word one sometimes in sentences like this. You could say, that was one amazing movie, that was one awesome song. That was one amazing cool concert. So somehow the word one ends up in the sentence, if someone was in a car accident and they didn't get hurt at all, you might say, oh, that was one lucky man. He could have been hurt really badly, but man, he was one lucky guy. So it's kind of a strange use. I don't actually know the details of what's happening there. Obviously we're using the word one to emphasize something, but hopefully you think this is one amazing English lesson.

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The other word I wanted to teach you today or the other phrase is a good one. So this is similar where you can say, oh, that movie, that was a good one. Or that song, that was a good one. I went to a concert last summer and it was a good one. So simply using the word one to refer back to the thing that we were talking about.

So to review, you can use the word one for a little bit of emphasis. You could say that is one gigantic airplane. There's no airplanes in the sky right now. You could say that is one enormous boat. And you can also use the phrase a good one. That car? Oh, that's a good one. What did you buy? I bought a... a Toyota RAV4. Oh, that's a good one. You bought a good car.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Eman. Thank you. The conversation after comments are important for me. It helps me learn more. And my response, I'm happy to help. I'm sure they work well for listening practice. So thanks, Eman for that. Eman, for that comment. Yes. So some people really enjoy this part of the video where I just walk and talk. And I can understand why because I often say to Jen, if there was a French teacher on YouTube who did this, I would certainly watch these videos for this part right here because it's kind of random. I randomly talk about all kinds of stuff.

Right now I'll just mention that I'm out here early in the morning. I don't know why I'm up and outside this early. I don't need to be. But I woke up and I couldn't sleep. So I thought, you know what, I might as well start to get some work done. If you're wondering what the sound is, that's the sound of crunchy, crunchy snow. Since My video that you might have watched on my larger channel yesterday, where it was frozen, the temperature has gone up and everything melted a little bit and now it's gone back down again.

The nice thing, though, about early morning, I really enjoy the views like that is one beautiful view there, isn't it? The sun is probably up, but it's a little bit cloudy, so you can't see. But I just love how beautiful it is first thing in the morning. If you're wondering what time it is, it's not that early. It's like five to seven, I think right now. Five after seven, maybe. So, I mean, not abnormal for me to be out and about at this time.

The other day I was going to show you. Let's walk this way. The other day I was sitting at my computer working and all of a sudden there was a knock at the door. Not sure if you can see the footsteps that go to the fence. Actually, I'll show you the footsteps over here. There's a set of footsteps in the snow because all of a sudden there was a knock at the door and someone said they needed some gas because their snowmobile had run out of gas on the river. So that's a big spin. That is one fast spin. So I actuall

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO EDGE OUT and A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to edge out. When you edge someone out, it means you pass them. Maybe at work you and a colleague are both trying to get a promotion, but there's only one spot. And maybe because you know a bit more, you can edge out your colleague because you're just the better choice. Sometimes when teams are playing towards the end of their season, they edge out someone who's kind of at the same spot as them they win a game and the other team, maybe in a different city, loses a game. And that helps them edge out the other team. It helps them surpass them.

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The other term I wanted to teach you today is a double edged sword. So of course a double edged sword would be a sword that is sharp on both sides. But in English we use this to describe a situation that both benefits the person but also is negative in some way. The classic example is always to say fame is a double edged sword. Being famous is a double edged sword. Sure you have lots of money and you can do whatever you want, but you can't just go to a normal grocery store because people all want your signature. So fame is a double edged sword. It has an advantage. It has a lot of advantages probably, but it also has a disadvantage in that you can't do what normal people do in life.

So to review, to edge out means to surpass. I think that the best example is the sports team. You know, they can edge out the competition and then maybe finish in a better spot. And a double edged sword is any situation where there's both like a positive or many positives and negative and a negative or many negative aspects to it.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Cecilia. Good luck, Bob. And then a nice four leaf clover emoji. Thanks. It went extremely well. So Cecilia is referring to the fact that yesterday I'm going to stop trying to do this. Yesterday or two days ago for you was the first day of second semester for me and it went really well. In fact, it's Thursday morning right now as I record this and I'm realizing that it's very enjoyable to get up, to go for a walk and then to make an English lesson for all of you.

I think I'm at my best in the morning. I think this time of day, right now it's about quarter to nine, I think. I think this time of day is just a better time of day for me. And for a full year I've been teaching in the morning. And then coming home to make YouTube videos and lessons for you in the afternoon. And now I'm realizing that I get to get up and when I'm fresh, when I have lots of energy, that's when I'll be making YouTube lessons. So I think that this is a win win for you guys. I think. I don't know for sure, but I think the English lessons will get better. I think I'll be a little more creative. I have plans to still make sure I do one of these short lessons in town once a week, but I just feel a bit more relaxed.

In fact, I keep looking at the clock this morning and realizing it's way earlier still than I thought it was. For some reason I was getting ready to go to work and I had this kind of feeling like I was late for some reason, which I'm not at all. I think I'm actually going to get to work earlier today than I need to. I probably need to be at work around 10:30 every day. As many of you know, I'm 70%, so I don't work full time. So yeah, I'm gonna get up, work on YouTube. You might see me replying to comments at a different time of day on this channel, but either way I think it should be fo

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English words SCHEMOZZLE and BAMBOOZLE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the word schemozzle. When there is a schemozzle, it means that something is a mess. Let's say you're at work and you need four truckloads of, I don't know, flour in order to make bread that day. Maybe you work at a bread factory and only one truckload showed up. That would be a real schemozzle. Or maybe instead of four truckloads showing up, eight truckloads show up. That's a schemozzle. It's a funny word. I don't even know if I'm quite saying it correctly, but I heard a colleague say it today. They said, wow, there's just a real schemozzle. And I won't give you the specifics, but whenever you use this word, it means something is a mess. It means it's not going the way it's supposed to or it isn't the way it's supposed to be.

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The other word I wanted to teach you today is bamboozle. This means when you trick someone, usually for financial gain. By the way, I just. I like the funny words today. Schemozzle and bamboozle. When you bamboozle someone, it means that you trick them into buying something that isn't worth what you think it is. If Jen was to bamboozle people at market, eventually people would be annoyed with us because she would be tricking them, maybe selling them, you know, 10 flowers in a bouquet and saying there's 30 in there or something like that. She would be bamboozling them.

So to review. Oh, I already put the words away. A schemozzle is a mess. And when you bamboozle someone, you trick them, usually because you want to get money from them somehow.

Oh, it's getting a little cold out here. Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Sajonara. Hi, Bob. By the way, did you fasten the seat belt around the bottle? And my response? I did indeed. I learned my lesson a long time ago when a bottle fell over in my van and the lid came off. Yeah, that was a... That was a mess. I was going to say schemozzle, but that doesn't really describe it. But yes, I did have that. Thanks for the comment, by the way. I did have that once... By the way. I put a water bottle in my van in the last video. And after I put it. Or in my car, and then after I put it in there, I did put the seat belt through the handle and fasten the seat belt, because that's a good Way to prevent it from falling over.

So. So anyways, how's everybody doing? I have to admit I'm a little bit nervous. It's the first day of school or first day of second semester tomorrow. That's probably why I'm talking so quickly. I'm just gonna go over here out of the wind a little bit. It's. It is quite a bit colder than I was expecting out here. Sorry. I was just looking at the ground here because it's a bit of a different color. And this is where my van was parked, so I better check the oil in that van. I don't think it's oil. I don't know. What do you think it is? You see how the. It's a little darker there than it is over here. I think, though, that might just be from yesterday. Things melted a bit and so the vehicles all have, like, salt and sand and stuff on the side from the roads. And maybe that just kind of slipped off.

So can I venture out into the cold again? Yeah, probably. I'll do that. So. Or maybe not a little colder than I was expecting. I was gonna. Expecting. I was gonna show you this as well. We had a windstorm that was not there the other day. That actually came from. I think it came from over there. We have a bit of a junk pile over there. You've probably seen it in a few videos. I do really need to clean that up.

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