In this English lesson,
I wanted to help you learn the English phrase,
to hit your stride.
When you hit your stride, it means you're very comfortable
and efficient doing something.
Here's a good example.
Eventually, Jen and I will bring flowers to market,
not yet though, because winter has just ended
and spring is just beginning.
We don't have flowers yet,
but eventually we'll go and the first week
or two at market will be a little bit rough,
but eventually though, we will hit our stride.
This means that eventually at market,
we will feel comfortable, we'll remember how to sell flowers
at the market.
We'll remember how everything goes in our van
and how we set up, eventually we will hit our stride
and everything will go smoothly.
The second phrase I wanted to teach you today
is to take something in stride.
Now, when you take something in stride,
it means something happens to you
and it doesn't really affect you much at all.
Here's a good example.
Sometimes in my classroom, a student will ask a question
without putting their hand up
or a student will speak when I'm speaking
and I just take that in stride.
I don't get mad.
I don't get angry.
Sometimes I'll just calmly remind the student
to please be a little bit more polite,
but I don't react in an extreme way,
I just take it in stride.
Once in my classroom, a student threw something at the board
and instead of yelling and getting angry,
I just took it in stride and I just turned and said,
with no emotion I just said,
please don't throw things in class.
I'm not a very mean or strict teacher,
but usually when I ask for things, students do listen,
so I'm thankful for that.
Anyways, to review, to hit your stride
means you're doing something
and you've become comfortable doing it again.
At the beginning of the school year
after a few days of teaching, I usually hit my stride
and I like doing it again
and to take something in stride
means to not react emotionally, to not get angry
or anything like that, but to just kind of not react at all
when something happens,
but hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video.
This comment is from Iris.
Hello teacher Bob, thank you for the amazing lesson
every time.
I have a question.
What does it mean, this week has been a zoo?
Is it kind of this week has been busy?
Thank you in advance.
And my response, it means it has been crazy and busy.
So that was from my last lesson.
In my last lesson, I mentioned that my week had been a zoo.
So when you say that something has been a zoo,
it means it's been crazy.
If I said to Jen, hey, my class today was a zoo.
It means that the students were loud and jumping around
and crazy and things didn't go as planned.
It would just mean that it wasn't calm and peaceful
in the way it normally is,
but hey, let's look at a few things here.
Over here, you could see that I'm at a park
and maybe you could see the soccer goals,
soon kids will be playing soccer again.
We're really close, it's going to start in a few weeks.
You can see here too, that there is a sign.
It says, dog on leash, stoop and scoop,
pick up after your pet
and then there's a little thing here that says,
if your dog poops, you should pick it up.
It's always a kind thing to do.
When you share a public space with someone,
it's always kind to clean up after your animals
because no one wants to accidentally step in dog poop.
That's something that usually annoys me quite a bit.
I hate it when I'm at a park
and someone hasn't cleaned up after their dog,
just kind of annoying.
Anyways, the other thing I wanted to show you,
I'm not sure if you can see,
but that house over there has solar panels on top of it
and the sun is just starting to come out more and more
in Canada.
We are seeing houses with solar panels on them.
I know you can see out where I live
that there are a lot of wind turbines,
but we are also starting to see a lot more solar panels
which is kind of cool
because eventually we can use less coal and natural gas
and nuclear power to create electricity.
Anyways, thanks for watching this little English lesson
and I'll see you in a couple days
with another one, bye.