Chocolate

Hi Cris,

I am really sorry to hear about the fires outside of Buenos Aires. It must be terrible for everyone. I hope that the situation improves soon.

You are right. If you have food ‘to go’ it means ‘take away food’. What kinds of take-away food are popular in Argentina? I hope this is not a stupid question, but do you have restaurants from other South American countries in Argentina? For example, in the UK we have French, Spanish restaurants etc. The treat that we have for breakfast in my family is chocolate. We have carried on the tradition with Josh. This doesn’t mean a big chocolate feast every day, it means we have one or two chunks with our coffee in the morning. We all need a sweet treat at some time of the day, I reckon! Talking of treats, thank you for the compliments Cris, about me looking young in the photo. At least you can't see all my grey hair in the shot :-)

Well done for doing the corrections from last time. I just need to comment on the following:
• There were a lot of trees, lettuce and tomato plantations (plantations should be plural, as it describes both the lettuce and tomatoes)
• The expression is ‘thank god’, not *thanks god*

Today, I would like us to experiment with a different type of correction. I would like you to try and reword the following passage from you blog. What you have written is very clear, but I would like you to try and play around with saying things in different ways. Why? Because there is some repetition of vocabulary and structure and I think that reworking it can produce a superior version.

We have to wait until Wednesday because it is expected to rain and change the wind direction. The smoke contains high levels of carbon monoxide which causes sore throat and eyes. It’s very unpleasant to breatheit. We have to close all the windows and doors and stay indoors. However we still breathe smoke inside the house because it’s difficult to prevent it from filtering. For a claustrophobic and allergic person as I am, this situation is terrible.

1. You are right to use a passive construction in the first sentence, but you need to think about the word order.
2. Sentence 2 is OK, There is nothing grammatically wrong with what you have written, but I personally would say ‘sore eyes and a sore throat’ or change the verb to ‘…carbon monoxide makes your eyes and throat hurt’
3. Sentence 3 – you don’t need ‘it’ after breathe here.
4. Sentence 4 – repetition of doors / indoors
5. Sentence 5 – repetition of breathe. Can you try making ‘smoke’ the subject of the sentence here? The phrasal verb is ‘to filter in’ (nice choice of verb, by the way)
6. Sentence 6 – can you reword ‘as I am’.

There is no reason to be in any way disheartened about this, Cris. I know I seem to have picked fault with every sentence, but I really want to challenge you with your writing. Reworking and rewriting what we produce is a natural part of the writing process. Tell me how you feel about doing this exercise. If you don’t like it, we don’t have to do it again.

I’m really tired tonight. We are having a planning week at work in preparation for starting a new batch of classes next week. Sam and Rob are busy preparing materials for new courses and Tom is working on our intranet. I’ve spent a good part of the day watching clips from a film, Run Fatboy Run, and trying to plan a course round it. We thought we would try something new with the staff, so the idea of ‘English through movies’ was born. I know that this has been done before it other institutions, but its new and exciting for us! Anyway, the film starts with a guy who jilts his pregnant girlfriend at the altar, then it pans forward 5 years later to find him working as a security guard in a lingerie shop. The rest of the film is about how he takes up running in order to prove to his ex-girlfriend (who he still loves and wants back) that he has got the stamina to run a marathon. I’ve only watched the first 10 minutes, but I was in fits of laughter. So, I’m looking forward to the rest of my week at work. How about you, Cris? Have you got anything special planned for the week?

By the way, Ana Paula asked me about cinemas here in Thailand. Cinemas here are great – we get all the big movies and prices are reasonable. But what we don’t have are any small arthouse cinemas, which play foreign films. I studied French and university and lived in France for about 2 years. I was a member of a cinema club and would go and watch movies 2-3 times a week. I really miss it. I know you can get films from the internet or on DVD, but I enjoy the physical experience of going to a cinema. Do you know what I mean?

I have to tell you about my weekend, before I finish. Steve and I have had a lovely weekend – we went for a drink to our local bar on Friday, only to find a great band playing. We love live music and the place was heaving! There were 4 people in the group: a guy on keyboards, a saxophonist, a singer and a guy on bass guitar. They played lot of jazz numbers and some of their own material. It was a great night. On Sunday we took the kids out for some Chinese food then in the evening we went back to the bar as there was another band playing. This time the place was virtually empty, but the band was still good and we got to play pool (which we haven’t done for AGES). We were both very rusty, but I still gave Steve a run for his money! He still won though…

OK. Time to stop and hit the sack. Night night and speak to you all soon.

Thank you Adek, Beatriz, Arghavan, Mohammadullah, Ana Paula, Noora, Silvana, Chaos, Praveen Raj, Jermaine, Junmo , Paco, Vladimir, Silwal Kishore and Maione for your comments on 17th April. Well done to those of you who did the grammar exercise and keep blogging. I do read all of your comments.

Best Wishes,
Anne
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (that’s me sleeping now)


Disheartened (adj) – to feel upset, to feel down
To pick fault (vb) – to complain about
To jilt (vb, informal) - to leave
Heaving (adj, informal) – very busy
Rusty (adj, informal) – here, means out of practice
To give someone a run for their money – to make them work hard
To hit the sack (vb, informal) - to go to bed

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