Mark: Hi everyone, welcome to EnglishLingQ. I'm joined by Jill Soles. I'm Mark Kaufmann and we're ready for yet another thrilling installment. You got a bit of a cough Jill? Anything I should be concerned about?
Jill: No, I hope not. I don't know I might be passing along the plague. Everybody's been sick; it's been a terrible winter. Mark: It has. You know I've had sort of a little bit of, yeah, not a bad cough, but stuff in my throat for like a month. Jill: Longer. I think it's been almost a couple months that you've had that. Mark: I know and it's never that bad, but it's always there. Jill: Lingering.
Mark: Lingering bug.
Jill: Lingering bug, yeah. But no, I feel like I have a tiny bit of a tingle. I've felt that the last couple of days and I've been really, really, tired. But, other than that, I feel fine; I think I'm fighting it. I don't think it's going to develop into anything really bad knock on wood. But, you know Chris' sister has had a bad case of bronchitis and the flu. Mark: Right.
Jill: She's literally been in bed for nine days. Today's her first day back at work. She said she still feels dizzy, lightheaded and weak and this is somebody who never ever gets sick. This is the most sick she's ever been in her life. Mark: Really?
Jill: There's something quite I think strong going around this winter. Mark: Well the flu can be quite serious. I mean I guess it's not common now but, obviously, back in the day people would die from the flu. Jill: Oh, yeah.
Mark: I mean, obviously, the Spanish Flu, famous flu epidemic in I don't know when 1917. Jill: Early 1900s sometime, yeah.
Mark: So I think it can be, obviously, quite serious and it does seem to affect different people differently. I know my wife was quite sick too, yeah, like flat on her back for four or five days and another four or five days to be fully back to normal; whereas I had the flu, but it was more of a 24-hour thing. It's just a bit variable. Jill: It depends I guess on your immune system at the time. I don't know what other factors, but. Mark: As you were saying, being pregnant your immune system is stronger and I think that is true like that is a fact.
Jill: It is a fact, yeah. And I have been around…Chris had a bad flu for a few days a couple months ago where he was very ill. Like I said, I've been around his sister who is ill and I haven't caught anything, so I think a lot of that probably is to do with my amped-up immune system. But, yeah, thank goodness, I'm lucky. Mark: Yeah, no kidding. Other than that we are hot in this office here right now with the sun beating through the glass at us. We're not used to it. Jill: I'm actually kind of sweaty, I think I'm going to take off my sweater; it's really hot in here. Mark: Well in this office it's either really warm or really cold there's no sort of in between. Jill: With the windows all around, yeah.
Mark: Yeah.
Jill: It's not that warm outside actually, but it's beautiful and sunny. The sun comes in the windows and heats everything up, so it's very nice. Mark: Absolutely.
I just wanted to mention before we go on that for those of you LingQ members who create content, import content, we will be uploading a new feature today, which allows you to easily crop your images to the right dimensions, which I know has been a problem for many of you up until now, because we had a requirement that the images had to be 120 pixels by 120 pixels and that was difficult for many of you and most people who don't know what program to use and how to do it and all those things. We now have a built-in image cropper that will allow you to import any image and easily crop that portion of that image that you want to use. If any of you need encouragement to create content, hopefully, that might help make it more appealing for you and we look forward to seeing your content and your new images.
With that out of the way I think, Jill, you were talking earlier about your nephew that you had over?
Jill: Oh yeah, yeah. We were just sort of talking; you and I were chatting about our weekend.
Mark: Yeah, right.
Jill: It happened to be beautiful here this weekend from about I guess noonish Saturday until, well even still now, on Monday. It's been just beautiful sunshine and so I had my little eight-month old niece for a few hours on Saturday. I looked after her while my brother and sister-in-law took my nephew to a Curious George live performance.
Mark: Okay.
Jill: I kept her and went for a long walk on the beach with her and that was great. Then they came, picked her up and left my three-year old nephew with Chris and I for the night and that was great. We just hung out, had dinner and read books and watched Curious George DVDs.
Mark: Oh yeah, nice!
Jill: He's really into Curious George right now. Mark: Yeah, that's good. Jill: And then got up the next morning and he loves pancakes, so we went out for pancakes. It was beautiful, so we walked to the park and went to Granville Island, which is near where we live. It's a big market that has food, fresh vegetables and fruit and meats and breads and all different places you can eat, plus sort of unique clothing stores. Then they have a kid's park called The Kid's Market where they have different rides you can go on and a ballroom and a slide and all that kind of stuff. So then we went there after the park and, yeah, it was really fun.
Mark: That sounds like a pretty good deal for your nephew.
Jill: Yeah.
Mark: Yeah, I mean it's fun when they're that age. Jill: I like that age actually, because they just so much joy out of every little thing, it's so cute. Mark: For sure. How was the eight-month old?
Jill: She was great. Nate my nephew was always really easygoing and he still is a really easy kid.
Mark: Yeah.
Jill: She's always been more…just a little bit grouchy. Mark: Right.
Jill: She likes the people she knows. She's very standoffish if she doesn't know you. She won't smile for you she'll just look at you and if try to hold her she'll cry. Mark: Yeah, yeah.
Jill: So I was worried about that, because she's fine when I go out there and I see her, she smiles and everything's great, but I've never actually had her by myself where they've left. My brother assured me that they'd only be gone a couple of hours, so even if she cried the whole time, you know, it's no big deal. Mark: Two hours of baby crying the whole time… Jill: …feels like an eternity. Mark: …feels like a very long time.
Jill: Yes. But, no, she was fine. They left, she didn't cry, she even let Chris hold her without crying. Mark: Really.
Jill: Normally, she takes one look at him and starts to cry. Then, yeah, we went outside for about 2 ½ hours and she enjoyed that and slept a little bit and it was great.
Mark: Eight-months old, like that's pretty good. I always say – at least from the dad's perspective – the first six months is pretty tough. Jill: Right.
Mark: There's not that much… Jill: …interaction? Mark: There's not much. I mean the first six months the baby and the mother develop that bond or I mean spend a lot of time together, right?
Jill: Yeah, right.
Mark: I mean, yeah, you still spend a lot of time with the baby as the father, but after six months they're a little more independent; not really, but they are… Jill: Well they usually start sitting up around six months and then they're really smiling and cooing and starting to make baby noises a lot more. You know, then they can start holding little cookies and they're just more human-like. Mark: You can interact with them.
Jill: Yeah.
Mark: Right, that's right. Jill: Exactly, so it gets more fun. I love kids, but that infant, that baby stage, has never been my favorite. I know my mom and my sister-in-law they love babies. They just would hold a baby for hours and they assure me that I'll feel the same way when it's my own child and I'm sure I will. Mark: Right, I'm sure that's the case. Jill: Yeah, but… Mark: Yeah and I would agree, women love little babies. I have no desire to hold other people's little tiny baby. Jill: No.
Mark: Really, it's…I mean I don't mind. I mean they're cute and whatever, but just a little bit. Jill: For two minutes.
Mark: You know, okay, do you want it back now?
Jill: Yeah, exactly.
Mark: Whereas, you know, women… Jill: Once they're toddlers though it's fun. Mark: I was going to say, like my mom or other women, they get a little baby and oh great, you know?
Jill: And they'll hold it for an hour. Yeah, yeah, I know. No, it's not my favorite either. I do prefer once…I kind of say the same, the six-month mark.
Mark: Right.
Jill: When they start meeting all these sort of different milestones.
Mark: Yeah.
Jill: You can really see a personality… Mark: …and they recognize people and interact and notice things. Jill: They respond to your voice.
Mark: Yeah.
Jill: Yeah, it's just a little bit more fun to me then. Mark: I'm sure though it will be different when it's your own baby. Jill: I'm sure, yeah. Then yeah, we just took Nate home the next day and I baked cookies with him because he's the biggest cookie monster I've ever met. He has such a sweet tooth and he gets that from his mom; she loves cookies, so we baked cookies. My sister-in-law is a nurse with her specialty in obstetrics.
Mark: Right.
Jill: Chris wasn't interested and I really wasn't very interested either in doing a bunch of classes at the hospital with a bunch of strangers for weeks on end or hours on end, so she spent about 2 ½ hours with us just going over in detail labor and delivery and all the stages and what you can expect and techniques that Chris can use to help relive my back pain and different things. You know, she has her big textbook with pictures in it she was showing us and she'd printed stuff out for us and went over the different pain medications and the side-effects and just everything. It was really, really, helpful and I've been so scared, so worried, about having to go through it and it was actually quite reassuring to now have some idea of what I'm in for; I actually know how it progresses. I didn't really know all these different stages, so now I definitely feel better. Mark: Yeah, yeah, I mean for sure, I'm sure you must and that's a great way to do it because Kindrey and I did do that class. I can't remember, it was a while ago of course, but I don't know how many classes we had to go to. I think we stopped going because really after the first couple you get the picture.
Jill: Yeah.
Mark: It's just kind of, okay… Jill: Well Chris just kept saying… Mark: They've got to drag it out into a course. Jill: Yeah.
Mark: So for your sister-in-law to come in, yeah, perfect. That's all you need. Jill: Perfect.
Mark: It's a two-hour, that's it, you've got it. Jill: And like Chris said you're not sitting there for, basically, three-quarters of the time listening to other people ask stupid questions. Mark: Yes.
Jill: That's what he said anyway. Yeah, it's much more to-the-point. You're there, you're focused and you just ask what you need to ask. Mark: Yeah and she's a nurse, she knows what's involved. Jill: And she's had two kids herself, so. Mark: Yeah and it's very helpful to hear that for sure. Jill: Yeah, yeah.
Mark: You learn a lot, like we learned a lot from the nurses when were there and when Kindrey was having the babies. The nurses are a great source for common sense advice.
Jill: Oh yeah, they're very helpful. Mark: Yeah, which you don't really get all the time from the classes; although, they're typically taught by a nurse too, but they've got to make a course out of it you know? They've got to drag it out over… Jill: …a period of time. Mark: Like six or eight weeks or whatever it is.
Jill: There was one that was seven hours. One Saturday or Sunday you could go for seven hours. I'm thinking I'm never going to focus on this for seven hours, are you kidding me? Mark: Like there's no need… Jill: And the reason it's going to be that long is because you have to listen to everything that everybody else has to say. Mark: For sue.
Jill: Which maybe is valuable too; I'm sure other people would ask things that you might forget to ask, ask questions that you might forget to ask. Mark: But I guess the difference is that in your concentrated two hours you learned a lot. The additional that you would pick up over the remaining five hours would probably not be worth it.
Jill: Probably be minimal.
Mark: It would be minimal, so it's just a matter of where do you want to spend your time. Jill: And it was free.
Mark: And it was free, so there you go. Yeah, yeah, no, that's great. Jill: Yeah and what did you do?
Mark: Oh, you know, you don't want to know. Jill: It was that good?
Mark: Actually, Saturday was good. Saturday was good, we just did stuff I guess. It was a nice day and we were in the yard. Soccer, the kids had soccer. Kyle had hockey practice. But Sunday I had to drive Kyle to his hockey game in Whistler, which is an hour and a half from here, which just makes for a long day. Like I don't know why kids his age have to go play hockey an hour and a half away when there's six teams within 20 minutes, why are we going somewhere. Anyway, no sense griping about it that's just how it is. I guess they feel bad for Whistler because there are no other teams near them.
Jill: There must be a team in Squamish.
Mark: Yeah, there's a team in Squamish. Jill: There would basically only be those two teams who would always be playing each other, right?
Mark: That's right and so we have to play Squamish too, which is -- depending on where you live -- 45 minutes to an hour from people here. Whistler is an hour and a half or more, depending on where you live.
Jill: Two hours, yeah.
Mark: So it's, yeah, my perspective is, you know, it's too bad that those teams don't have people to play against, but it's not our problem. There are all kinds of teams near us, why do I have to spend half my Sunday driving up there for the pleasure of the Whistler people? I mean they don't have to live there. Jill: They can come here. If they choose to live there then I guess maybe they can… Mark: Well that's right and if you really want to find other people to play against then you drive down here every weekend. That's your choice. Jill: Yeah, it's tough. The thing about Whistler too is that the highway to get to Whistler, the Sea-to-Sky Highway we call it, is a beautiful drive, but it's a treacherous highway that has a lot of fatalities every year. Mark: Absolutely.
Jill: And it's closed a lot in the winter because there are accidents or rockslides or the snow conditions; there's too much snow on the road, you have to actually have chains to drive on it or whatever. There are people who go up there and then end up stuck there overnight and you can't get back. It's not a very convenient place to get to. Mark: Absolutely not. Yeah, I know, as I think you said earlier before we started the podcast that highway was closed on Thursday. I don't think it was snow-related, but… Jill: No, it was an accident, a big accident. Mark: But, at any rate, if something happens, it's closed, you're stuck and that definitely happens and now not only have you spent half your day, but now you're stuck there and stay in a hotel. Yeah, anyway, the kid's sports sometimes gets a little silly I think. There's no need, they're just as happy playing teams nearby and the competition is not an issue at this age. Jill: No, no, it really shouldn't be anyway. Mark: No, but anyway, that was that, but the weather was sure nice.
Jill: At least it was a nice day for a drive.
Mark: Perfect. The road conditions were great.
Jill: Crystal clear.
Mark: Crystal clear. I mean it is a beautiful drive.
Jill: It is.
Mark: Half the drive is right along the shoreline up this inlet.
Jill: Mountains all around.
Mark: From there, all around, the snow-capped mountains. I mean there's a lot of snow around now and then you take off inland and continue through the mountains until you get there. I mean it is a beautiful drive.
It looked like it must have been a beautiful day for skiing up there, not a cloud in the sky and, you know, relatively warm, at least warmer than it has been, so it must have been great.
Jill: Too bad you weren't skiing instead of driving. Mark: Oh I know, I know. Don't tell me about it. Jill: Next week.
Mark: Anyway, with that we'll end it and we will talk to everybody again next week. Jill: Bye-bye.
