at edmittance

Man: So multi-level marketing…
Woman: That is right.
Man: So what exactly is that?
Woman: Oh just. You can go into the website. There are just thousands. It is like I introduce two people. Two people introduce two people. And so there are tiers to this marketing.
Man: Like Amway?
Woman: Network marketing or multi-level marketing. Yeah.
Man: Tupperware and Amway. Are they examples?
Woman: They are good examples. Yeah. They are in the same category.
Man: How did you get involved in it?
Woman: A very good friend of ours introduced us to it when my husband and I came to the Gold Coast.
Man: M-hm.
Woman: We were approached by this couple who became friends and we were introduced by friends, which is the deceptive element in multi-level marketing because very often they recruit friends and because they are your friends you naturally assume…
Man: That they are ok.
Woman: Yeah… have your interests at heart. Unbeknowns to us our friends although they are good business people they themselves were quite inexperienced in this particular business so they actually without meaning to misled us.
Man: Right. Ok. And what product initially..?
Woman: Well this company is called Omega trend and it is a sort of a replica of Amway.
Man: Right.
Woman: And so they started with cleaning products and…
Man: They broke away from Amway?
Woman: Yeah. They actually are a breakaway from Amway though they didn’t like people to know that because of Amway’s rep.
Man: Amway has a bad rep?
Woman: Incredibly bad rep so that Amway had to change its name that many times to disguise its…
Man: Past.
Woman: Yeah past or…
Man: I thought Amway like…I have that heard it is expensive but the products are quite good.
Woman: Actually that is what most people say and I think there is something to be said for quality. I think it is quite good quality but the fact is there is a high profit margin so I think it is inherently unethical and they pump up the price and they have to because the different tiers of people have to make their profit along the way, to me, for me, I think it is unethical.
Man: And you felt you got burned? You felt like deceived. You weren’t happy with your experience?
Woman: I felt, yeah….

at haversack

Londoner: Great Dover Street. SE1. You know Great Dover Street? Near the Bricklayer’s Arms.
Ninety-four year old year old Cockney Man: EC1?
Londoner: SE1. SE1.
Ninety-four year old Cockney Man: SE1. Lovely.
Australian: Is that cockney?
Londoner: No. No. No. It is halfway between London Bridge and the Elephant and Castle. Borough.
Ninety-four year old Cockney Man: May I ask your age, sir?
Londoner: Forty-four.
Ninety-four year old Cockney man: Forty-four. Hello, son.
(the sound of hands shaking)

I went to France.

I looked for a job.

I couldn’t find a job.

I went to another city.

I looked for a job again.

I found a job.

I found a job in a restaurant.

I washed dishes.

My salary was very low.

My work was hard.

I studied French.

It was really difficult.

I learned to speak a little.

at Chicagoeye

Mark: Hello there, Mr Bestluck.
Peter: Hello. Get into the car.
Mark: Nice to see you.
Peter:Welcome. Pop in quick.
Mark: Thanks a lot.
Peter:Great.
Mark: Great. Ok. Here we are.
Peter:I will just close the door. Ho Ho.
Mark: Ok.
Peter:And by the way don’t call me Mr Bestluck. You can call me “Peter”.
Mark: Ok. Thanks a lot.
Peter:Or howabout “Pete”.
Mark: Pete. Ok. You can call me “Mark” and I can call you “Pete”.
Peter:Ok That sounds fantastic. That is a deal. Chauffeur, just carry on. You know where you are going to take us.
Mark: Ok. Is it very far to the golf course?
Peter:Yeah. It is along the coastline. You will be able to see the sea and you will probably see a few of dolphins as well jumping out of the water. It is an absolutely beautiful road.
Mark: Dolphins are beautiful animals.
Peter:It goes through the tropical jungle as well. You will see monkeys.
Mark: Wow!
Peter:You might even see a rhinocerous.
Mark: Wow!
Peter:Yes, a rhinocerous!
Mark: Wow! Monkeys, dolphins a rhinocerous or two.
Peter:Yeah, that’s right. Or maybe a dozen.
Mark: Mosquito City is…
Peter:You have got to be very careful with rhinos but I will tell you about that another time.
Mark: Ok.

at Tambako

Mark: So John..
John: Yeah.
Mark: You are working on a dissertation for a PhD. That is for an American university?
John: Yeah, that is right. It is a university in San Francisco, California
Mark: And what is the area?
John: I am studying..It is philosophy but with an emphasis on Buddhist studies, you know, and Buddhist philosophy.
Mark: In any particular country?
John: Well, yeah, I am mainly interested in Thailand even though I live in Japan, you know. I like Thailand’s version of Buddhism better.
Mark: Is that theravada?
John: Yeah. That is right.
Mark: Ok. So are you studying any particular temple or any particular aspect of Buddhism?
John: Yeah. I am doing research on a couple of temples there in Thailand. One is called Suen Mok, which is pretty famous. It is got a very good program for ten day meditation retreats and they are geared for teaching foreigners meditation; meditation techniques.
Mark: What is the other temple?
John: The other one is north of Bangkok about three hours bus ride and it is called Tam Krabok.
Mark: Uh-huh.
John: And it is… Well it does different things but one thing it does is it helps addicts recover, you know. It has probably cured about one hundred thousand addicts; mostly heroin or opium addicts, you know, and so I am really interested in how meditation can replace an addiction. You know what I mean?
Mark: Wow! So they are like teaching people to meditate and overcome the problems that caused them to become addicted to drugs?
John: Right. Exactly.
Mark: Wow! Isn’t that a wonderful thing. A hundred thousand.
John: Yeah.
Mark: Wow! That is really amazing. You have been to the temple?
John: Yeah and interviewed several of the head monks and some of the other people there and it is just a really really, to me, an effective way of applying Buddhism, you know?
Mark: Right.
John: To eliminate our addictions and work toward something more significant
Mark: Right excellent. That is really…That is great. Like. To use something like that to…That is really good.
John: A real practical form of Buddhism. As I understand it to try to help people live better lives and things like that and this seems to be a real, you know, obvious way to do it.
Mark: Drug addiction is a big problem in a lot of different countries.
John: Yeah.
Mark: And if they are finding something they can do about, it that is really great.
John: Yeah I agree totally there. And it was a big problem in Thailand. You know until 1959 opium was legal in Thailand.
Mark: Really?
John: And suddenly they made it illegal and all these people who would take it as a normal part of their life suddenly were illegal addicts.
Mark: Wow!
John: And so this place has really done something that I think is really important.
suddenly they made it illegal
Mark: What is the name of the temple again?
John: Tam Krabok. It means cave of the “prabok”.  It is kind of like “telling it like it is” or something like that. Originally it was just a group of monks and they lived in caves
Mark: Wow!
John: And then they started making a big temple out of it.
Mark: The caves of truth.
John: Yeah. That would be a good way to translate it. (laughs)

Use this post to learn English and German at the same time.

What is that?

It is a photograph.

Who is that?

That is my father.

How old is he?

He is sixty-five.

Where does he live?

He lives in Berlin.

Who is this?

This is my mother.

How old is she?

She is sixty-one.

Do you have a brother?

Yes, I do.

Where is he?

He is in France.

How old is he?

He is thirty-eight.

What does he do?

He is an engineer, an artist, a novelist.

Who is this?

This is my sister.

Where is she?

She is in America.

What does she do?

She is a nurse.

Is she married to an American?

No , she is not.

She is not married.

She is single.

Are you married?

No, I am not.

I am divorced.

Are you divorced?

Yes, I am.

You too?

Yes, me too.

at Your Guide

Mark: So you were born in Brooklyn and you like did you go to high school there?
Steve: Correct.
Mark: And then you went to university?
Steve: University actually was in the Bronx.
Mark: Right. That was during the Vietnam war?
Steve: Yes. Ahm. Yeah.
Mark: And you worked at a high school during the Vietnam war?
Steve: Junior high school.
Mark: To avoid the draft. (laughs)
Steve: Correct.
Mark: You did not want to go to Vietnam and fight in the war?
Steve: Correct. That is for sure.
Mark: Yeah.
Steve: So I taught in a ghetto school in Brooklyn. That was in Brooklyn.
Mark: Right. What did you actually study like in your degree at university?
Steve: Literature English and American literature, I guess.
Mark: Which writers did you like?
Steve: Joyce, Beckett, Salinger, Melville.
Mark: That is right. You loved…. What is that story you like by Salinger?
Steve: The Catcher and the Rye.
Mark: The Catcher and the Rye.
Steve: Well it is a novel.
Mark: There is a saying. What is the name of the main character?
Steve: Holden Caulfield.
Mark: Holden Caulfield. And there is something that he always says that you used to say for a long time.
Steve: Is that right?
Mark: Yeah there is some sentence that…
Steve: You know I think you are thinking of “Bartleby the Scrivener“. “I’d prefer not to”.
Mark: That came later but earlier on it was Holden Caufield. I remember you saying to me once when we had lunch at Kerala, that earlier in life you used to say this thing that Holden Caulfield used to say or maybe it was something that Salinger used to say and later you changed it to Bartleby.
Steve: Is that right? It very well could have been.
Mark: So you taught at the school in the ghetto. Where was that?
Steve: A neighbourhood called Brownsville.
Mark: Brownsville. Which borough is that in?
Steve: In Brooklyn. The black ghetto in Brooklyn.
Mark: And then later, like, were you from a Jewish area or an Italian area?
Steve: At first a Jewish area and then… Actually when I was…You will find this interesting. You tapped into something here. When I was about six years old my parents moved. When my sister was born, when I was six years old or seven years, we moved from renting an apartment to buying a house a few blocks away.
Mark: Right.
Steve: But the house a few blocks away was no longer in the Jewish neighborhood. It was in an Irish Italian neighborhood. I was the only Jewish kid.
Mark: Right. Mixed it up a little bit.
Steve: ah from time to time I got picked on but I would not stress that.
Mark: When they say like a Jewish neighborhood or an Irish neighbourhood, how long is a neighbourhood. Like two blocks, three blocks?
Steve: No no. Could be much bigger.
Mark: Could be like big ones and small ones, I suppose.
Steve: Yeah.
Mark: Some times you see like in Sydney you might see a couple of streets with some Chinese stuff. You can call it a Chinese neighbourhood…
Steve: There is a Chinatown in New York City now.
Mark: Yeah a big one.
Steve: It was one of my favourite places always. Even before I thought of studying anything about Japan and China I was always fascinated with … Asia… Japan and China.
Mark: When you go travelling in little towns in Australia, the two cultures that got there first are the Chinese and the Italians.
Steve: Is that right?
Mark: There is nothing from the outside. The first that gets there; it will be either pizza or a Chinese restaurant.
Steve: Yeah America too. Every place has a Chinese restaurant.
Mark: Although Chinese food is pretty different from… chop suey is pretty different from the stuff you get in China or Taiwan.
Steve: Yeah but like in California and New York you can get just as good…authentic…
Mark: I had good Chinese food in San Francisco.
Steve: I was once driving across country recently and late at night … I ended up in…I was in Oklahoma somewhere and the highway sign says the next stop is Shawnee. I am thinking I know Shawnee. I know the name but I was tired. I got off there and found a motel. And there was a Chinese restaurant buffet style and the thing was they had a hundred different dishes to choose from.
Mark: M-hm
Steve: So there were these really really really fat Americans were going up big pile after big pile and they are fat and that is why they are fat and they were taking from a hundred different things … you know … picking this and picking this and I am sitting there… I took a modest thing myself. I did not want to stuff myself..you know
Mark: Mm.
Steve: And then I remembered Shawnee is the hometown of a notorious gangster called “Pretty Boy Floyd”. The song they sing about him ..
Mark: Pretty Boy Floyd?
Steve: Pretty Boy Floyd from Shawnee and of course it was..his being a bad guy was totally unjustified. It was the authorities fault. You know. They spoke rudely to his wife one Saturday afternoon.
Mark: They done him wrong.
Steve: They did indeed. They done him wrong. Whatever the specifics of it was and he had to lay that policeman down. That is how the song goes I think.
Mark: Shawnee is a town?
Steve: Shawnee is a town in Oklahoma.
Mark: Right. ok
Steve: Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Mark: It is an Indian tribe too, isn’t it?
Steve: Yeah. Yes.
Mark: Yeah.

at Mark White

Brad: Mark what the hell are you doing up this time of the morning?
Mark: Hello, Brad.
Brad: Oh it is fantastic to see you.
Mark: You too.
Brad: It is usually about eleven o’clock, isn’t it?
Mark: Yes yes but like it is my second day on the job.
Brad: Understood. understood.
Mark: I am playing golf with Peter Bestluck today.
Brad: No! You are pulling my leg.
Mark: Yep.
Brad: You are pulling my leg.
Mark: Yep, the richest man in Mosquito City.
Brad: Oh, that is wonderful.
Mark: His stretch limo is going to pick me up in five minutes.
Brad: I saw that. That is for you?!
Mark: It is there already?
Brad: It is there waiting for you.
Mark: I (had) better go.
Brad: You (had) better go.
Mark: See ya.
Brad: Have a great day. Bye.
Mark: Thanks, mate. See ya. (See you later)

at clstal

Mark: I am just sitting here at a cafe in the Pahar Ganj area of New Delhi with Michael. Michael, you are not feeling very good?
Michael: No, I am certainly not.
Mark: What is the problem?
Michael: Well. I got diagnosed with amoebic dysentry about eight nine weeks ago when I was up in the mountains and I got treated for it then by a very good doctor with antibiotics but I fear that it has not yet gone away as I have had recurring problems.
Mark: You vomited this morning?
Michael: That is right. I got some new pills, that somebody at this very cafe recommended, that I take.
Mark: Ayurvedic?
Michael: No, no. Not those ones. These were some other pills. I forget what they were called. This man said that his sister was a nurse and these were the pills to take and I found them at a chemist, took a couple and I was violently sick this morning not long after taking one of these pills on the street, which was quite interesting.
Mark: Mm. That is terrible. How are you feeling now? Are you feeling a little better?
Michael: Not really I am feeling very weak I have to take some of these… you know… what do you call… them re-hydration salts.
Mark: And you are going to eat some banana and papaya as well?
Michael:Well I have got a papaya juice coming and yeah perhaps I will have some banana. I have heard that that is good for you.
Mark:I hope you feel better soon.
Michael: Thank you very much.
Mark: This man wants to clean your shoes.
Michael:Yes, I…

Use this post to learn English and Serbian at the same time.

Hello

How are you?

I am good.

And you?

Very good

Thank you

Do you speak Serbian?

I speak a little Serbian.

Do you speak English?

No, I don’t.

I don’t speak English.

I want to learn English.

Thank you very much.

See you later.