Hello and welcome to my podcast My Life and Other Funny Stories. My name is Dagmar Tomášková, I am an English tutor and coach and I created this podcast for English students who want to improve their oral comprehension. As always you can find the transcription of this episode and vocabulary list in the notes of the podcast. 

Today, I decided to talk about some English idioms again but maybe in a little bit of a different way. Sometimes, we learn fixed phrases isolated from the context and then we know about them but don’t really use them while talking because we don’t know how, am I right?

So I was thinking I would share with you some general updates from my life while using different idioms so that you might recall them later and know how to use them. What do you think? 

To be completely honest, my life is not exactly riveting at the moment, I am just minding my own business and trying to survive but I hope you might find it interesting at least from the point of view of the idioms. I will always explain them here but I will also make a PDF with the list, examples and everything explained and I will attach it to the transcript so you can download it and have it for later. Again, you will find it in the notes of the episode. So let’s go.

When the year 2023 ended, I really thought I would hit the ground running and make 2024 the best year of my life. To hit the ground running means to start something new energetically and with a lot of enthusiasm. Well, the opposite happened, actually, as my health has been getting worse and I had a few moments when I really wanted to throw in the towel. To throw in the towel means to give up.  But I am not a person who gives up. I am just not. Even when a lot of things went wrong, and it was happening again and again, after a few weeks, I decided to not cry over spilled milk anymore. To cry over spilled milk means to feel sorry or sad about something that has already happened and you can’t change it. You know, sometimes you just have to keep your chin up and continue. To keep your chin up means to stay cheerful in a difficult situation.

I told to myself – okay, I am working on it, I am going to doctors, I am doing my best and I will be fit as a fiddle in the future again. I have to be. There is no other way. To be fit as a fiddle is to be healthy. Until then, I just have to bite the bullet and make the best out of every situation. To bite the bullet is to face a difficult situation with courage.

 Aren’t you already tired of all the idioms? I hope not.

So when I couldn’t change the situation, I simply changed my attitude. Now, when I wake up and I know that I won’t be feeling good the whole day because my stomach and digestion are upset, I don’t cry anymore. I just say to myself – okay, it is what it is, let’s look at the bright side – which is to look at the good things, not at the bad things – I can still do the job I love, I can work while lying down, I can still walk even though not very quickly, I can still do fun things even if it won’t be as good as it could be. 

And with that mindset, I went into the summer. I thought I would have quite a chill time because being an English tutor is a seasonal job. Many of my students want a break for the summer so I have fewer conversations and overall my conversations are getting canceled much more often. But as I knew it would probably be like that, I came up with projects to work on and found myself burning the midnight oil quite often. To burn the midnight oil means that you work late into the night. 

I started working on my new course about English tenses which will be available very soon. I also planned Harry Potter courses for September so I started working on that too. By the way, if you are interested in reading the first or second book of Harry Potter with me and discussing it in group sessions every week, write me a message and I will send you more information. And I have some other things in the pipeline but that is for some other time. When you have something in the pipeline, it means you are working on something or planning something. 

And of course, I have my usual conversations, coaching, and mentoring with my students where I always try to go the extra mile for them. This means that I always try to do something extra or interesting so they are happy. 

But as I was working, I felt quite sad that I was at home all the time. I wanted to visit France again but finally decided to take a small break and visit Berlin. Have you ever been there? 

I am going next week. I don’t really know what I am going to do there, that is quite a mystery to me as well. I might go off the beaten path a little and just wander through the small, hidden streets. Places that are off the beaten path are the non-touristic places where there aren’t many people. I  also decided to play with fire a little bit and booked accommodation in a hostel with more people in the room. You play with fire when you do something risky. I mean, not that it is dangerous or anything, I just hate people who snore so there is quite a big chance that I will not sleep a wink. To not sleep a wink is when you can’t sleep at all the whole night. 

But, you know, maybe I’ll meet some new people. I like to live dangerously, I don’t know what to tell you. 

So even though this year has been a total disaster, I am happy to announce that I can still find the silver lining. A silver lining is something positive you can find in a bad situation. It comes from the saying – every cloud has its silver lining and that means that even though there are some problems, we can still look at the good things. 

And yeah, that is it for today. I probably gave you a huge whiplash with all the idioms, so sorry if that was too much for you. 

Thank you so much for listening to this episode and don’t forget that you can find the transcription, vocabulary list and the PDF with idioms in the notes, it can come in handy. Please give it a five-star rating if you liked it and I will see you next time, bye-bye.