If you know a little bit about me and you know my age, then maybe you’ll be able to guess the answer. But my favorite number is 84 because I was born in the year 1984. So, for a kind of simple reason, my favorite number is 84. And often if I have to make a username online, I’ll add the number 84 after it.

Or if I have to choose my name in a video game, then I will add the number 84 after it. I remember when I used to live in Montreal, I played video games with some of my friends there and we used to play Halo on the Xbox, a really fun multiplayer game.

And my Halo username was DJ_Jumpshot84. Kind of a silly name with no special meaning other than I attached the number 84 to the end. So anyways, let’s get started with the episode. As I mentioned, this is the bonus episode series.

And what I do here in our bonus episode series is I just tell you some stories from my everyday life as a Canadian person living abroad in South Korea. And my goal here is to help you improve your English. I want to help you improve your vocabulary. I want to help you improve your communication skills.

I want to help you improve your knowledge of the culture of English-speaking people, all of these things. That’s what we’re here to do today. And that’s why we’re spending some time together right now for an English study session. So, I hope you’ll be able to tick all of those boxes and achieve all of those goals with me.

Maybe by the end of this episode, you won’t say that you achieved all of those goals, but I hope that we can take a step towards achieving all of those goals. So that’s why we’re here today. That’s why we’re spending some time studying English. So welcome aboard. And I have one little announcement before we get started.

The announcement is that we are currently right in the middle of our New Year Sale. Every year at Culips, we have a New Year Sale. And honestly, it’s our only sale of the year. As long as I’ve been affiliated with Culips, we’ve only had one sale a year and it’s always at the start of the new year. So, we’re right in the middle of the New Year Sale right now.

And I think it’s the best time to sign up and become a Culips member because our membership price is very, very affordable right now. Until January the 15th, so just for a few more days here, you can save 25% off a yearly Culips membership. So that is an amazing deal. That means that the price goes from around $105 American per year.

Instead, with the discount applied, you only have to pay $79 American dollars for the whole year of studying with Culips. So, I’d have to break out my calculator to calculate exactly how much that is per a month.

But I guess it works out to a little bit over $5 per month if you think of it that way, which is, in my opinion, quite affordable for the high-quality English study materials and learning materials that you’ll get when you are a Culips member. Just a quick… just a quick rundown of all of the benefits that you get when you’re a member.

You get access to our full study guide library for all of our episodes. And in our study guides, you can find transcripts. Many of them are interactive transcripts. At least all of the new episodes are all interactive transcripts. There are vocabulary definitions and examples to help you learn the key expressions and vocabulary you’ll encounter when listening to Culips.

There are quizzes in the study guide. There are speaking questions, writing questions, a lot of good things in our study guides that are designed by our team of expert English teachers to help you achieve your English learning goals. But that’s not all. On top of that, you’ll also get ad-free audio, so you don’t have to listen to ads like this.

In fact, our ad-free members aren’t listening to this ad right now. So that’s a plus, in my opinion. And what else? There are invitations to our monthly live streams. There’s our member-only channel on the Discord. There’s our member-only series, the Fluency Files.

So, I strongly recommend becoming a Culips member if you’re thinking about it during the sales period here, just so that you can take advantage of that discount. Because everybody likes saving money, no matter who you are. I think everybody likes saving money.

So, if you are thinking about signing up and becoming a Culips member, then go, go, go. Do it quickly because after January 15th, our membership price will return to the regular membership price. So, yeah, to sign up, just visit our website, which you can find just by clicking the link in the description for this episode. Or you can visit Culips.co. Dot C-O.

That’s a special website that we have set up for the sale that will just show you all of the benefits that you get when you’re a member very quickly so that you can see all of the details and decide if you want to sign up and become a member. OK. So go, go, go. Sale’s almost finished. Take advantage.

And with that being said, why don’t we jump into the main content for today’s episode? And really today, I just wanted to tell you about some things that have been on my mind, things that I have been thinking about. And yeah, it’s not really an update about what’s going on in my life.

Maybe next week, I’ll come back with some stories about my everyday life because for whatever reason, those seem to be the most popular episodes, the ones where I just tell you what’s going on in my life.

And it was funny, I was hanging out with some friends earlier this afternoon and they were asking me about Culips, and these friends have listened to like a few episodes, but they don’t listen to Culips regularly because, well, they’re English speakers, so they usually listen to other podcasts.

But some of my friends actually mentioned that they’ve been listening to the bonus episodes recently because they’re like, “Andrew, we can just listen to the bonus episodes, and we hear about your life. We hear about these stories, and we feel like we know what’s going on in your life.”

And yeah, I realized that’s kind of cool that I can communicate with my friends and family this way just by them tuning into the podcast. So, shout out to all of my friends and family listening right now. But they also asked me like, why do other people like listening to your life? And I didn’t have a good answer. I don’t know. I’m not really sure.

So maybe you can leave me a message or make a post on our Discord server and say, what’s interesting about my life? Because to me, it doesn’t seem too interesting, but that’s all right. I’m happy if you enjoy it. That’s perfect. And I’ll keep going to try and make interesting episodes for you, whether I think they’re interesting or not.

But anyways, so for this week, I have not a daily-update story for you, but instead just I want to share with you some things that I have been thinking about, some things that have been on my mind. And also, please don’t forget, I forgot to mention, but please don’t forget just like I did, that there is an interactive transcript and a glossary available for this episode for free.

We just give the glossary and the interactive transcripts away for the bonus episode series for everybody. And maybe you’re wondering why we do that. I guess I should maybe share the philosophy about why we do that. And it’s just because we have listeners learning English with Culips from all around the world.

And every country, every person, has a different economic situation. And some countries have some, you know, issues going on where they can’t really do business with the USA and Culips is based out of the USA. So, for these reasons, it’s difficult for some people to sign up and become a Culips member.

And our core goal here at Culips is really to have high-quality English materials, study materials, educational materials available at the lowest cost possible and to reach as many people as possible. And so, we know there are some people who can’t afford a Culips membership or live in a country where it’s impossible to sign up and become a Culips member.

And so, for that reason, the bonus episodes, of course, we don’t make the full study guide for it, but we do give away the transcript. We do give away the glossary and just try and bring as many people as possible to English fluency. So that’s our philosophy on that. And please take advantage by using the transcript and the glossary to help you with your study with today’s episode.

And of course, you can find that just by clicking the link in the description for this episode. So then let’s jump in. Let’s dive in. Let’s talk about today’s main story, which is just about what I’ve been thinking about what’s been on my mind for the last week or so. So, I don’t want to beat a dead horse.

And to beat a dead horse sounds like a very violent expression, kind of disgusting expression, but it is a common English expression. Have you heard it before? To beat a dead horse? Well, to beat a dead horse just means to talk about the same thing again and again and again so that it becomes boring and uninteresting to listen to. And I’m not sure why we say this.

Why do we say beat a dead horse to have that kind of meaning? I’ll have to research and find the answer later. I’m not sure off the top of my head why that expression has that meaning. But for whatever reason, I don’t know, we say to beat a dead horse means to like talk about something too much so that the entertainment value is sucked out of it.

And the reason I don’t want to beat a dead horse is because I think that I talk often about running on Culips. And I’ve been really stoked because since I started talking more about my running and that hobby that I have and really now it’s changed more from like a hobby into a practice, could I say?

Because I’ve been training really diligently and really, I don’t want to say religiously but really regularly. And so, it’s turned into more of a practice for me rather than a hobby, I think. But anyway, since I’ve started talking more about my running practice, I’ve gotten messages and I’ve seen people post comments saying that like they’ve been inspired to start running as well.

So, it’s kind of cool. I wonder, I think I was talking about this with some friends recently that maybe I should start a Culips running crew. I guess it would have to be based in Seoul.

I don’t know if we could do it anywhere else but if there are any Seoul listeners out there who are into running and who would maybe like to do that and like we could speak English and run at the same time, I don’t know. If that’s interesting to anybody, drop me a line in our Discord community and tell me. Maybe we could have a Culips running crew, but, that could be cool.

Anyways, I don’t want to beat a dead horse because I’ve been talking about running a lot but this is kind of related to running, OK? So, I’m sorry about that because recently when I have been going out running, I’ve been going without any AirPods.

Usually when I run, I have my AirPods, you know, those wireless Bluetooth earbuds and it’s fantastic because they connect to my watch. I have a running watch and it connects to my AirPods and so that means when I go out running, I don’t have to take my phone with me.

I can just load music onto my watch and so I go phoneless when I go outside and what freedom that is. It feels so great to be disconnected and I love it. That’s one of the… the biggest advantages to having a running watch in my opinion is that you don’t have to bring your phone with you.

So, I always leave my phone at home and then I just make sure my watch is strapped on and then I go out, I run. Beautiful. I love it. But recently I haven’t been taking my AirPods with me at all so it’s just me and my running watch.

And the reason that I’ve been doing that is just so I could clear my mind a little bit and to have some thinking time, some reflection time and also to have, I don’t know, just some time where you’re not thinking about anything at all, you know? And sometimes you can achieve that effect with music, of course.

You can really zone out and to be honest, when you’re running, if you can zone out, if you can ignore the world around you, if you can achieve a state where it doesn’t feel like you’re exercising, it doesn’t feel like you’re running, that is the best. That’s awesome because running, even though I do it a lot, it always sucks.

It’s always physical activity. It’s always difficult. So, if you can forget that you’re running, it’s kind of amazing sometimes. You can have these moments where you zone out, you’re not thinking about anything, you’re forgetting that you’re running and then like 30 minutes later you’ll be like, “What?! Woah!” You’re back into it.

Something snaps you out of it and you realize you’re back in your body. And those moments are kind of cool because you’re like, “Wow, I really zoned out there for a while and I got like 20- or 30-minutes’ worth of running in and it didn’t feel difficult at all. I wasn’t even thinking about it.” So that’s kind of cool and that can really happen more easily if you don’t listen to music.

And also you can just sort of clarify your thoughts and it’s a great brainstorming time as well. A lot of the ideas for episodes that you hear on Culips or a lot of the stories that I tell on Culips, I kind of work out in my head when I’m running or at least recently I’ve been doing that. So, there are some effects.

And of course, if you’re a regular Culips listener you’ll know that I’m a huge music guy and I also love running because it’s a time where I can spend with just music. So, there’s a conflict right now in… in my head because I love listening to music, but I also love this solo time.

So, I’ve been going 50/50. I’ve been having sometimes with music, sometimes no music but this is a thought that I was thinking about when I was out for a run recently on a no-music run. So, I’m going to share that with you today and so let’s get into it now.

So I was out for a run, a long run. I think it was maybe a medium-long run, maybe 15 kilometers or so and I decided not to bring my AirPods, and this is the thought that I thought while I was on that run. So, recently I’ve been enjoying watching ice hockey. The ice hockey season spans from about October until about May.

The playoffs start maybe end of April and if your team, your favorite team is lucky enough to make it into the playoffs, then maybe your season can stretch into May and if you win the championship, the ice hockey championship, then maybe that is finished late May or early June, something like that.

So, the ice hockey season spans from roughly October to roughly June and my favorite professional ice-hockey team of course as a good Canadian kid I love ice hockey. It’s my favorite sport. I just love it. It’s very exciting, very thrilling. Nothing makes me happier or more depressed and more often than not more depressed than… than ice hockey.

And so yeah, my favorite team the Vancouver Canucks. I imagine that most listeners of Culips are not ice-hockey fans, so I won’t go into too many details, but this year is amazing. The Vancouver Canucks, my favorite team, historically terrible.

They’ve been a team for many, many years like 50 plus years and they have never won a championship and they’re one of those teams that just like always disappoints you. And there’s a big online community on Reddit about the Vancouver Canucks and I love reading that Reddit.

And I’m a lurker, so that means I read but I don’t really post too often, but everybody can commiserate with each other on the Reddit.

And commiserate just means like we can talk about how our shared situation is so bad because we all share this love of the Vancouver Canucks team, but we have, you know, such shared disappointment, shared I don’t want to say regret, but just like, “Oh come on like can’t you do better? Can’t you win just one year?” You know, that kind of feeling.

I guess disappointment is the best word to use. So, we can commiserate with each other and yeah, it’s… it’s a fun community. So, I’ve been watching hockey, we’re close to the 50% finished mark of the season and it’s a miracle. This season is a miracle. The Vancouver Canucks are fantastic this season. It’s something that nobody expected.

It’s really a surprise but the Canucks are awesome this year. I think as of right now we’re like second in the whole league or something and just before Christmas we were first in the whole league. So, it’s been such a treat, such a joy, such a unexpected surprise, and a pleasant surprise, to see how well the Vancouver Canucks have been playing this year.

And I always try and catch as many games as I can. Often in Canada, we have this really famous sports series that happens every Saturday and it’s on the CBC or I think maybe it actually moved from the CBC. CBC is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, but I think it moved to a different channel Sportsnet, not important to know about.

But anyways, it’s called “Hockey Night in Canada.” Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday night they play two or three games and it’s an institution. It’s something that every Canadian knows about whether you’re a hockey fan or not, you know about Hockey Night in Canada.

And if you go, I would say, if you just walked in on any random Canadian on Saturday night there’s a good chance that they would be playing Hockey Night in Canada in their home. And if you go to any pub or sports bar or restaurant even, on the TVs in the restaurant, in the pub, in the sports bar, they definitely will be playing Hockey Night in Canada.

It’s one of the top-performing TV shows in the whole country. So, every Saturday night there’s Hockey Night in Canada. And for me, if I want to watch Hockey Night in Canada that means it’s hockey morning in Korea. That was difficult for me to translate. Hockey Night in Canada is hockey morning in Korea for me on Sundays.

Because of the time change, a Saturday night game in Canada is a Sunday morning game for me. So, I love this! I love waking up early-ish in the morning on Sunday and having a coffee, maybe eating some breakfast, and watching the hockey game. In fact, I prefer it to a night game. I like watching the games in the morning.

So, it’s awesome, and in fact, the Canucks are playing tomorrow morning. I’m recording this on Saturday so tomorrow morning, Sunday, I’m going to be watching the hockey game. And yeah, because the Canucks are doing so well, I’ve been trying to watch as many games as possible. When your team is winning, you’re more interested in watching the games, right?

It’s, yeah, always more fun, and more exciting to watch a winner than it is to watch a loser. And so, I’m taking advantage of this historic season, of this miraculous season so far, like I said, we’re only about 50% into it, to watch as many games as possible. And so, I’ve been paying close attention to hockey this year, watching many games.

And one thing I’ve noticed about hockey is that it’s very difficult to score a goal, right? The game is rather simple, right? It’s like a bunch of crazy guys, they all have strapped ice skates to their feet and they’re whipping around, zooming around, skating as fast as they can.

They’re passing this little piece of rubber, which we call a puck, to each other, and they’re just trying to put this puck in a net. It’s a very simple goal to this game, simple premise, right? However, that’s very difficult to do. And if you can do that, if you can put this little piece of rubber in a hockey net in a professional setting, then you can make millions of dollars.

If you can master this skill, then you will be a multi-multi-millionaire. It’s that difficult to do. And so, what many teams do these days, what their strategy is – because the goalies are so big these days, they’re all tall guys, like, I don’t know, over six-five?

I think the average goalie in the NHL is over six-five, which is like probably over 200 centimeters for those of you who use metric for measuring height. So, like, really tall, really big guys, and they cover almost the whole net. It’s very difficult to score a goal.

And so, because of this, what the strategy is for hockey players is that they try as a team, they try and block the goalie’s vision as much as possible. We call this “screening.” Screening the goalie. So, you want to get as many players in front of the net, screening the goalie.

And when you do that, then the opposing team, the defenders, also have to come in and try and defend against your offensive attack, right? So usually, you have five players per team. And so, if you do this, you can have, you know, like, I don’t know, six, seven, eight, nine, ten players in front of the net. So, it’s a lot of chaos, right?

You have all these players in front of the net, and the goalie has to try and see where the puck is and where it’s coming from. And so, the idea is that you send a lot of traffic in front of the net. We call this “traffic in front of the net,” players in front of the net. And then, one player will just shoot at the net, and you hope that, well, if you’re really lucky, it will go in right away.

But, like I said, that doesn’t happen very often. Why? The goalies are very good, and even if they can’t see the puck, they’re very big, so they can, you know, sometimes stop it just that way. Also, there’s a lot of traffic in front of the net. So usually, then what happens is you shoot the puck, and you hope for chaos. You hope for chaos.

You hope that the puck will randomly bounce off some player. Or you hope that the puck will hit the goalie and bounce back towards the players. We call this “a rebound.” You hope that the puck will rebound. And in that moment of chaos, in that moment of confusion, of randomness, that’s when you can take advantage and score a goal.

Because the goalie will be out of position, and there will be too many players skating around at the same time. Nobody knows what’s going to happen, nobody can predict where that puck will bounce to. And I should say, often, these shots that are shot towards the goal are like at 100 miles an hour, or 80 miles an hour.

So, they’re extremely fast, extremely quick, extremely hard shots. And so, you have this moment of chaos, and you don’t know what’s going to happen, and then you can capitalize on that, and you can shoot and score a goal. So, while I was out on my run the other day, I was thinking of this hockey strategy. I was like, it’s so easy when you’re just an observer, right?

When you’re just a fan, when you’re just watching. Of course, in reality, I’m sure it’s really, really hard to do that. But when you’re just thinking about it, you’re like, “Yeah, guys, why don’t you do that? Like every play, just create some chaos, shoot at the net, capitalize on the randomness, capitalize on that opportunity when people are out of position, and you can score a goal.”

So that’s what I was thinking about. I was thinking about chaos when I was out on my run the other day. And I want to give you a definition of chaos, because I think it’s a little bit of… well, you know it’s one of those words that sometimes, in different situations, takes on a different meaning. So, I want to be clear about what I mean by chaos in this episode.

And I took this definition from a very good dictionary. I think it was the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary? I can’t recall where I found this definition. But anyways, let me share the definition with you. OK, chaos is a situation or a system that appears to be in a state of turmoil or disarray. OK, turmoil or disarray means like disorganization, right?

And here’s the key part of the definition that I want to share with you: where events or elements are seemingly random and difficult to predict or control. OK, so chaos is a situation where things are random, and you can’t predict, or you can’t control it. And that’s exactly what happens in hockey. And so, I was thinking about this while I was out on my run.

I was thinking about that ice-hockey strategy for scoring goals. And then I was thinking about my life, and if I could relate any experiences from my life to this kind of thing. And something happened to me recently which was like a perfect example of chaos. This unpredictable, random situation actually resulting in a really kind of cool ending for me.

And so, I’m gonna tell you about that now. So, the other day – actually, to be honest with you, this was a couple of months ago, so not the other day, like two months ago, back before the winter, maybe October or November – I was out for a bike ride.

I’ve mentioned about this before on Culips, but there’s this really cool bike share system in Seoul where I live, called “ddareungi.” And it’s just like, yeah, a public bike-share system. Many cities in the world have them. And you pay just a very small fee, I think it’s around a dollar American, or less even, and you can rent a bicycle for an hour, and then just ride it to your destination.

And there are different locations spread all through the city where you can return the bicycle when you’re finished with it. So, it’s a really cool thing. And yeah, I don’t know exactly where I was, but I decided when I was coming home, instead of riding the subway, just to ride the ddareungi.

Probably the weather was good, and I love riding bikes, so any opportunity I can get to go on a bike ride, yeah, let’s do it. So, I was riding ddareungi home. And I’ve also mentioned on Culips before how there are these fantastic bike paths all through Seoul, especially beside rivers and streams.

So, I was on one of these paths, riding towards my home, when suddenly, I couldn’t continue any further on this streamside path that I was riding on because it was under construction. And actually, I run on this area, this path, all the time, so I’m really familiar with this stream and this path.

It wasn’t too far away from my house, but I didn’t know that there would be construction that day. And so, the bike lane, the bike path, was completely shut down, and there was no detour, there was no way around it.

And the lady who was working at the construction scene, that was doing the flagging – and flagging is the activity, you know, often during construction, you’ll see like this safety person that guides you like, “Oh, go this way,” or “Stop!”

And they hold a little mini stop sign, or sometimes kind of stick to point you in which direction to go – she pointed me in the direction off of the bike path. She said, “Oh, this is totally closed, you can’t go any further, you have to go just to the regular road.” And so, I wasn’t too far away from my home, it’s probably only like two or three kilometers away from home.

But it was still kind of like, “Ugh,” because this bike path is awesome. It’s just like this straight path with no hills and no traffic lights, so you can really go quickly on the bike path. But the streets are way more dangerous, you know? There’s tons of cars, there are people walking on the sidewalks, and buses, and streetlights, and crosswalks.

It’s just like a lot more dangerous to ride on the streets in Seoul than it is to ride on these protected bike paths. So, I wasn’t too happy that I had to take this detour and go on the street. But anyways, here’s a little bit of chaos in my life, right?

I had this predictable moment riding on the bike path, and then suddenly, I had to go on a street that I had actually never ridden on, or even walked or explored that area before. So, this was something brand new. And yeah, so I had to carry my bike up some steps. Actually, which is not easy because the ddareungi bikes are very, very heavy.

So, a little exercise just carrying that thing up the steps to get to the street. But once I got to the street, it was like, OK! You know, I know where I need to go and what direction I need to go. But I’m going to have a little fun.

I’m going to take advantage of this opportunity to do some exploring and to check out what’s in this neighborhood, that was like a neighboring… a neighboring neighborhood to the one I live in. So, I did that. I rode around and I went slow. You know, like I said, you have to be a lot more careful with the cars and the traffic.

But it was cool because I could take some back streets and explored this neighborhood that I had never really explored before. And while I was riding, I came across this really cool, really cute-looking little cafe. And I made a mental note. Do you guys ever do this?

When you pass something cool, or maybe, you know, you’re browsing in a bookstore, and you see a book that looks cool? Or, I also do this with my wife. Is like, if I see something that I think would make a good present for her in the future, for like her next birthday or something, I make a little mental note.

And I’m like, “OK, remember that, because when her birthday rolls around, you’re going to be like, ‘Oh, what should I get her?'” And then I have some ideas already, right? So, I made a little mental note. I was like, “This cafe looks cool. I should come back here in the future.”

So anyways, I rode home, and a few weeks later, my wife and I were thinking about, “Hey, we should go out and have a coffee and maybe hang out in a cafe for a little bit.” And I said, “Yeah, you know what? A couple of weeks ago, I came across this little, cozy, cute cafe that looks really cool. Do you want to go check it out?”

And so, she said, “Yeah, OK, let’s do it.” So, we walked down there. It was a beautiful day. We… it was a Sunday. We walked down and got to the cafe, and it was closed. So, we couldn’t visit the cafe that day, but at least I got to show my wife the outside, and she was like, “Oh yeah, this does look really cool.”

Like, I don’t know if you guys have ever seen, maybe on TV or maybe if you’ve visited Japan, even you’ve been there yourself, but Japan is like really famous for having these really narrow, small restaurants and bars. This cafe was exactly like that. Like it… it just had a little bar to sit at. There were no tables or anything, just sitting at a bar.

Could maybe hold… maybe seat like four or five customers maximum. And just a really kind of tiny, cute place with a cool vibe. So yeah, we… we just looked at it in more detail. You know, like stood up at the window and stared in. And actually, while we were staring in the cafe at the window, the owner of the shop was there.

And he came out and he’s like, “Oh, we’re closed, but you can come back later.” So, we’re like, “OK, yeah, we’ll do that.” So again, another couple of weeks passed, and the same kind of situation arised. But this day, I think it was a Saturday. So, I was like, “Hey, let’s go back. Let’s try it again.” And so, we went there.

And yeah, I really loved it. It was a cool little cafe, a kind of a hidden gem. The kind of place that is just really nice to know about. It’s not that popular. And don’t write to me and ask me what the address is or where it is because I want this to remain a hidden gem.

As much as I would like the owner of the cafe to be a successful businessman, I want to keep it like that cool little vibe. And I think he’s doing well. So anyways, while we were having coffee in that cafe, we noticed that the owner of the cafe, who’s like this really kind of cool young guy, younger than me.

Now that I’m almost 40 years old, I can refer to younger people as “young guys.” So, this young guy also roasts coffee beans. So, he’s got a cafe and a roastery. And it just so happened at that time that I had run out of coffee beans at home. So, we decided to try some of his roasted beans. And I was shocked when I checked out and had to pay for the beans.

They were really affordable. In fact, ten dollars cheaper than the price that I usually pay for coffee beans. And so, I was happy about that. And I really crossed my fingers. I was like, “I hope these taste good because if they do, then I’ve found a new source for coffee beans at an affordable price.” So, I was really, really, really hoping that they would be delicious.

And guess what, guys? They’re delicious. So, it’s awesome. I was so happy. And yeah, these are just some of the things that I’ve been thinking about. While I was running, it all connects together, right? It’s like randomness in my life. I had that moment of chaos, that moment of randomness where my regular bike ride was interrupted due to the construction.

And because of that, I discovered the cafe. And because of that, I could have a nice date with my wife and find this new source of coffee beans. And yeah, save some money at the same time.

So, the thought really here that I want to express, the take-home, the moral of the story is, I think whether you’re shooting at the net or even sometimes whether you’re being shot at the net, to use this hockey metaphor, you know. Because sometimes we can create chaos in our life, but sometimes chaos just happens to us.

Sometimes life just throws unexpected situations at us, and really creates randomness for us. We don’t create the randomness, it creates the randomness for us. But I think no matter how the randomness comes into your life, sometimes some chaos, some randomness, some unpredictability can be a good thing.

Because life, much like a hockey game, can knock us around and take us into unpredictable situations. And it’s in these moments of randomness, like taking a detour on my bike ride home and discovering this hidden gem of a coffee shop, that we can find an unexpected treasure. Just like I found that unexpected treasure of the coffee shop, right?

And these detours or these moments of chaos, they aren’t just delays or annoyances, they’re invitations to explore, to experiment, and to experience something new.

So, whether you’re on the ice aiming, trying to score a goal, or whether you’re navigating the unpredictable streets of life, just remember that sometimes it’s the shots that you don’t plan, the paths that you haven’t taken, and the chaos that you didn’t anticipate that can lead you to a new and rewarding discovery.

So, for 2024 here, and I’m gonna do this myself, I want to challenge you and I want to challenge myself just to embrace a little bit of chaos, embrace a little bit of unpredictability now and then. Because who knows, maybe it might just lead you to your new favorite coffee beans, or better yet, to a new perspective or a new outlook on life.

So that’s the thought that I wanted to share with you this week in this bonus episode. And if you have your own story of embracing unpredictability or embracing randomness, embracing some chaos, if you have a story similar to mine about just some unexpected thing happening to you in life that in the end resulted in something good, then I would love to hear about it.

I would love for you to share that story with me and with our Culips community on our Discord server. Our Discord server is free to join, and we do have a member-only channel as well for all of our paid members. But it’s just this awesome, awesome community that we have, where you can practice your English with other Culips listeners.

You can, you know write messages, you can voice chat in the voice chat speaking rooms, you can share video clips, you can talk about tons of different topics. It’s really awesome and a fantastic way not only to practice English but also to make new friends. I think a lot of people are making new friends on our Discord server as well. So that’s really cool.

So, to join the Discord, just click the link that’s in the description for this episode. You can join for free, of course. And I would love to hear about your stories about unpredictability or randomness or chaos that have happened in your life at some point in your past. I think if you think deep enough, you can find a story that matches this situation.

So, I’m tired. I’ve been talking for a long time here, guys. Sorry for the long episode this week, but yeah, I hope you enjoyed it. And congratulations on making it all the way to the end. You did it! You got a fantastic English-practice session in with me today. So, great job. Congratulations on that, and let’s keep this good energy going throughout the week.

A little bit later on in the week, we’ll be back with another regular Culips episode. So, until then, take care, and I’ll talk to you next time, bye!