ELISA ENGLISH's Blog 英語園地

 Break a leg is usually said to people who peform in plays before they go on the stage. It is to wish them good luck, tell them to get on the stage and do a great job in the play.

For example:

For me to pick up the pen to write is hard, as I lack the motivation, which is hard to come by. It is also hard to find time to write juggling between work and family, especially with two little kids. I have recently set up a Facebook page for my blog, hoping to find motivation and inspiration within. I mentioned in my Facebook page that maybe I could start with posting a phrase each day. It was a thought but maybe it could serve as an incentive for me to write again. Here is the phrase for the day.

Casting pearls before swine - 對牛彈琴

What is the meaning of “at play”?

Other than the meaning of engaged in playful activity, it can also mean:

My rambling for the day – about government mentality and bureaucracy

Can we tell who is telling more lies?  Obama or Romney?  Who knows?  However, fundamentally, you know what each party's focus is and that is what you vote for.  Also, I know it is not going to get better under Obama.  With Romney, the chance is 50/50.  So would I bet on that?  Yes. 

(1) It is twenty years since I have seen her – Is this grammatically accurate? What does it mean?

I don’t think that it is grammatically accurate.  For academic writing and in testing, you should consider the above sentence grammatically incorrect.  However, Cambrige online dictionary states that we can use the past simple, present perfect or past perfect after since with the expression it + be + time + since:

Compound Words: One Single Word? Two Words? Hyphenated?

To hyphenate, or not to hyphenate: that is the question.

People were suspecting that the Colorado shooter, an extremely talented guy, James Holmes might have some sort of mental disorders to explain the precalculated mass murder. Speculation that he has Aspergers or Autism flies everywhere. I don't know if James Holmes truly has any mental illness or developmental disability. Even if he has, it doesn’t mean someone else with similar illness or disability would be a threat to the society. However, I do believe that our education system is inadequate in preparing kids with disabilities in fitting in the real world and to interact with others.

I can’t praise my school too much. I really love the education that our school provides. In addition to within class and between class ability grouping, we also have a special education program especially established for the exceptionally gifted kids (those with IQ over 145) to address their social and emotional needs in regards to appropriate interactions with the world around them, to build empathy and to eliminate isolation. They often have field trips in the community to connect them to the real world. While the country puts on so much emphasis on trying to bring up kids who lag behind academically, we should also pay more attention to those extremely talented but socially incapable.

Translation by Elisa English

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Translation by Elisa English

A Month into Summer Break

It is almost a month into our summer break with two months of summer break left.  As always, I will spend less time on writing or logging into my blog and spend more time with my kids.  This year, we are doing something a little bit different for our kids.  Instead of enrolling them in the summer care for the entire summer, my husband and I have been taking a week off from work to drive our kids to the summer camp location, so they can take advantage of the summer camps.  Our kids have attended the one-week-long Lego Robotics program and have just finished the one-week-long Camp Invention.  The Lego Robotics program was only about 3 hours a day, so we spent the afternoon playing sand in the beach, riding bikes in the park and venturing to the library.  My kids really enjoyed attending Camp Invention and had asked to attend it next year again.  As full-time working parents, we do not have the luxury to take too much time off in the summer to drive our kids to the camps as it will cut into our ability to take family vacation.  Our kids are now back to the regular summer care.  We will be taking a family vacation in August.  In late August, our kids will attend a Science camp.  I hope that they will enjoy the Science Camp as they did with Camp Invention.  Next year, I am planning to look up information around Music camp.  It might help boost my daughter's interest in playing violin.