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Hello and welcome to bonus episode number one
five one, 151 of the Culips English Podcast. How's
it going? My name is Andrew. I'll be your host
and your English study buddy for today. And in
this week's story, I'm going to tell you about a
burglar who has been terrorizing my home all week.
Along the way, as you listen to this story,
you'll be able to build your vocabulary and learn
some great expressions, as well as just grow your
overall English fluency and communication skills.
So, without any further ado, let's
jump in and get started. Here we go.
A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I celebrated
the two-year anniversary of us moving into our
home. I couldn't believe it. It seems like
those two years flew by in the blink of an
eye. And if something "flies by in the blink of
an eye," it means that it happens really fast.
Like you blink your eyes, and it happens.
It's finished. So, it feels like those two
years just flew by in the blink of an eye
and we've been in this home for two years.
Long time Culips listeners will know that my wife
and I bought an old home here in Seoul, South
Korea, where we live. And then we took a couple
of years to renovate it and then we moved in. And
for the first year and a half of living in this
home, we really focused on the interior. And our
exterior, our little front yard that we have was
nothing special at all. Really quite unsightly.
To be honest, it's just sort of like a cement
walled-in area. So, the interior was our focus,
and we didn't worry about the exterior at all.
However, once we got the interior finished and
to our liking, then it was time to focus on the
exterior. And that's what we've been doing over
the last several months is decorating our yard.
Maybe decorating isn't the best word to use,
although we did do some decorations. We
installed some lighting, and we bought some
outdoor furniture, some chairs, and a table
so we can have like a little barbecue party
outside. It's quite lovely and it has a nice
atmosphere at night when we turn the lights on,
and we grill some food out there. It's awesome.
But we also did some landscaping, and my wife has
enjoyed gardening for a long time. Pretty much the
whole time I've known her, she's been a gardener,
but she's always focused on house plants and
plants that grow inside. And she's especially
fond of cacti and cactus and these kinds of
tropical house plants as well. So, plants that
don't really grow outside very well here in Korea.
But we needed to do something with our yard. It
was like I said, this kind of ugly concrete space.
Like the floor is just a concrete slab and then
there are these walls that act as like a fence,
but they're all made out of brick and painted
white. So yeah, just not like the most pleasant
space outside. It felt very bleak. So yeah,
we decorated with the furniture and the lights and
then we've been landscaping and gardening over,
well, this spring and now into the summer as well.
And I believe I've mentioned a few times on Culips
about my wife buying some trees. And us
visiting a local nursery and buying some
trees. And a "nursery" is what we call a garden
center, a place that grows and sells plants. So,
we visited the local nursery here and I guess
my wife went a little bit crazy with the trees.
She bought, on last count, I believe, 13 different
trees, which is especially crazy considering the
small size of our yard. Here in Seoul, there
are tons of people living in the city. It's a
mega city and space is at a premium. And so, in
our little yard, our little corner of the world,
we tried to fit in as many trees as possible.
And I think my wife did a good job at doing
this. Of course, not all of these trees are
like full-blown, grown-up trees. We bought them
as small little trees and some are just really,
really tiny, and hopefully in the future, after
several years, will develop into a bigger tree.
But as of right now, they’re only, I don't know,
30 to 50 centimeters tall, pretty small.
But we did splurge and buy some bigger,
more mature trees that were already six, seven,
eight years old probably. And when we bought them,
it was still, I guess, the winter, just coming
out of the winter into the spring. And so,
the trees looked like those old-fashioned
brooms. I don't know if you've ever seen
those old-fashioned brooms that are just made
out of twigs and sticks. And that's what these
trees look like when we brought them to our
yard. Like, we're like, "Are these trees even
alive?" They just look like a bunch of dead
branches because it was still the winter. So,
there were no blooms or leaves or anything. They
were just totally, like, sticks pretty much.
But anyways, we planted them and as the
winter turned into spring, turned into summer,
now it's been amazing to watch their progression.
They've really bloomed and are like these huge,
big trees now and are growing so fast. I guess
our location is just perfect because it gets
a mix of sun and shade and yeah, I don't
know whatever else the trees need to grow,
but they're growing really well.
And I'm so happy about this because one thing that
I really wanted in our home is to try and make
it feel like an escape from the city, which is
hard to do because we're like right in the middle
of the city and there's urban area all around us.
And one thing that's... I mean, I love
my home and I really enjoy living here,
but one thing that is kind of unfortunate about
the home is just that it's placed in the middle
of this huge urban area, right? And so, you can
never really feel like you've escaped the city.
And until recently, whenever I would look
out the big window in the living room,
then I would just look out at this huge apartment
complex that is across the road from us. And if
you've never seen a Korean apartment complex
before, they serve a function. They're like
very high in utility. And what I mean, they're
"high in utility" is that they provide a lot
of benefit and a lot of good for many, many
people. So, they're like really high on the
utility index of the good that they serve in
the world and the function and the purpose.
However, they're quite unsightly in my opinion.
They're not really beautiful architectural feats
or anything like this. They serve a purpose.
They do their job well at housing a lot of
people. However, they are quite unsightly.
I don't really like the look of them.
So, you know, every morning when I'd get up and
I'd have my morning coffee and I'd look out my
window, I would have to just imagine that
I was looking at the mountains or looking
at the ocean or looking at the forest or
something because in reality, I'd just
be looking at this ugly apartment complex.
And so, I always dream of instead of having
to look at this apartment complex, if
we could grow some trees and plants
in our yard and for them to grow tall enough
that they would cover the apartment complex.
So, when I look outside, I could just look and see
the trees and it would kind of be like, I'm hiding
from the rest of the city, that I'm blocked
off from the rest of the city. So, I'm happy
to report that this is pretty much the case now.
These trees have grown so quickly that when I look
outside, wow, I don't have to see the apartment
complex anymore. I can just look at the trees.
The trees haven't completely covered the
complex. I can still see it a little bit,
but it's getting there. And I think in another
year or two, probably that dream will come true.
And I'll be able to have my urban oasis here
in my yard. So, I'm feeling great about that.
One of the cool trees or plants, I
guess it's not a tree, it's a bush
to be specific. One of the cool bushes that
my wife purchased was a blueberry bush. So,
I think this is the only plant… I'm
just going through my head here. Yeah,
I think this is the only plant that we have that
is actually edible. It is the blueberry bush.
So yeah, my wife bought this blueberry bush and
again, it's growing really, really well. And I,
you know, when I first saw it, when she brought
it home, I was like, "We're not going to have any
blueberries from this thing." Like, "What is she
trying to do? It's cute. It's a cute idea, but
it's not actually going to produce fruit. Is it?"
Well, I was totally wrong because this blueberry
bush has actually produced a lot of berries,
many, many berries. And we've been snacking
on blueberries all summer long here so
far. And yeah, it's just one bush. So,
it's not like we can have bowls and bowls
of blueberries. But every day we can eat
some fresh blueberries, which are just delicious.
One of my favorite fruits, super healthy for you.
And although I do eat them fresh from time
to time, it's rather expensive to buy them
at the supermarket. So instead, usually I eat
frozen blueberries. So, I'm really happy about
this that I can eat the fresh blueberries right
from our bush in our yard this summer. How cool!
However, the blueberries have attracted a
lot of attention in our neighborhood with
the local birds. And earlier
in the episode at the start,
I said that we have been terrorized by a burglar
over the last week. And it's totally true.
By the way, a "burglar" is someone who steals
something from you. So, there could be like
a burglar who breaks into a home and steals
something from a home or a burglar who goes into
a store and steals something from a store or a
bank, that kind of person we could call a burglar.
Similar words are "thief," "criminal." OK,
all of these words are similar, a burglar.
And so, we have been terrorized by a
blueberry bush burglar. A lot of Bs there.
By the way, this is another, this is a
very high-level word, but a good one to
know. It is "alliteration," alliteration. And
alliteration is a literary device in English
where we have a lot of the same sounds in a
connected sequence. And usually, we use this
in poetry or maybe titles when you're giving a
title to maybe a TV show or a movie or a book,
then alliteration is really cool. So, I have that
repeated B sound, right? Blueberry bush burglar.
And can you guess who is stealing the blueberries
from our yard? That's right, it's a bird! It's
a bird. The birds in the neighborhood have found
the blueberry bush. So, the burglar is a bird and
it's stealing the blueberries. A lot of Bs there.
Anyways, originally once we planted this blueberry
bush in our yard, I thought that it's not
going to take long for the word to get out
and for the neighborhood birds to locate the
blueberries and start stealing the blueberries.
Because in our previous apartment that we lived
in, there was also a blueberry bush kind of in
the parking area for that apartment building.
And there were some older folks that lived in
the building that maintained a little garden
there. And one of the plants that they had was
a blueberry bush. And the birds would just eat the
blueberries all the time, constantly. And yeah,
I remember one of the grandpas that lived in that
building. He installed some kind of netting over
the bush to try and stop the birds from eating the
blueberries. But it didn't really work very well.
And so, I thought the same thing would happen
in our yard that right away the neighborhood
birds would find it and eat the berries. However,
that wasn't really true. And it went like three,
four weeks without any of the
birds finding the bush at all.
I guess it was just in like a sweet
location where they couldn't spot it.
I have no idea really how birds forage for
food. And "forage" means to collect, right,
to hunt and collect food. And this is what birds
do really well, foraging for different types of
insects and berries and whatever else they eat.
So, I don't know if they use their sense of smell
or only rely on their eyes. I don't know how birds
do it. But for whatever reason, they didn't find
our berry bush for quite a long time. So that was
great. We were able to enjoy the blueberries and
just feast on them, munch on them every morning,
just have a couple of berries as a little treat.
However, over the last week, the birds have
found it in one bird species in particular.
I'm not sure if it's the same bird coming
back again and again, or if he told all of
his friends and they're all coming in a sequence.
But there's this bird here that lives in Korea.
And I looked up its native range. It ranges from
kind of northern Japan and throughout Japan and
also throughout the Korean peninsula. A little
bit of eastern China and into like the northern
part of the Philippines. So, if you live in
East Asia, then maybe you know this bird.
The English name is the "brown-eared bulbul." And
when I was researching this bird on Wikipedia,
I actually learned that this word, "bulbul"
spelled B-U-L-B-U-L, is originally a Persian word.
So, I know we have a lot of Persian native
speakers who listen to the podcast. Shout
out to all the Farsi speakers out there who
are listening to Culips right now. Guys,
you can let me know if this actually is a word
from your language. And that would be really cool
if that was a word of Persian origin or Farsi
origin that made it into the English language.
Anyways, it was a new word to me. Now this
brown-eared bulbul looks rather plain. It's
like this dark gray color, almost a little black.
And it's got these two circles that are dark brown
on the side of its head, which I suppose are its
brown ears. Why we call it the brown-eared bulbul.
And as far as I know, the males and females both
look similar. So, you know with many bird species,
the females will look rather plain, and the
males will be more decorative and have a lot
of fancy colors. However, I believe with
this bird species, both the males and the
females are rather plain and yeah, not too
amazing to look at to be honest with you.
So, this week we've had these brown-eared bulbuls
stealing our blueberries. And I'm not sure if it's
just one bird or several birds because they all
look the same. So, I can't tell. But at first,
when they first found the blueberries, they were
rather timid, and my wife actually captured it
on camera. So, I'm going to show the video
clip in the YouTube video of this episode.
If you're watching on YouTube, you can see
this brown-eared bulbul fly into our yard
and swoop down and steal the blueberry. Now,
at first, like I said, they were rather timid,
so they did it in several steps. They'd fly
into the yard, look around, and see if the
coast was clear. This is a great expression.
"The coast is clear." If the coast is clear,
it means that there's nobody watching.
So, they would come into the yard,
check around, make sure the coast is clear.
Nobody is watching and they could steal a
blueberry without getting in trouble, like getting
caught by a predator or getting caught by us.
So, they would check, make sure everything was
OK, and then slowly hop up to the blueberry bush,
fly into the bush, eat a berry,
and then fly away. That is how
they first started stealing the berries.
But now they're much more sophisticated.
They figured out how to just swoop into
the yard and fly down and grab a berry
in mid-flight without having to land. And
yeah, they've really learned quite quickly
actually how to steal berries very efficiently.
So that's actually kind of cool to see. However,
I'm a little bit angry at these birds for
stealing my delicious blueberries. Like,
I want to eat the blueberries. And yeah, I don't
mind sharing a berry or two, but they're coming
in like all the time and stealing the berries.
So, my wife works from home several days a week,
and she's posted up right beside the door to our
yard, and she keeps it open here in the summer.
And so, she's been pretty good at scaring away
the birds. If they're taking too many berries,
we'll let them take a few, but we want to have
some for ourselves too. That's part of the joy
of having this kind of cool blueberry bush
is that we can enjoy some of the berries.
So, she's been pretty good at scaring the birds
away and me too. I've been spending more time in
the yard recently during the afternoon. You
know, if I have some time here at home, I'll
just sit in the yard. And if I'm out there, then
they're too timid to come in and try and steal the
berries. But if we're both inside and not paying
attention, then that's when the burglary happens.
And we have a new dog in our home as well. We
adopted our pet dog, O’Wall, about two months
ago now. And I've been trying to teach her to
bark when the birds come into the yard. However,
this has been totally unsuccessful. I've been
joking with the dog. I'm like, "Come on. O’Wall,
you're just sleeping all day. You want to be a
part of this family, a member of this family,
then you have to do something. You have to
protect our house from these burglars. So,
when you see the birds out there, you have to
bark or scare the birds away.” But she's totally
oblivious to that fact. And she just sleeps pretty
much all of the time when the birds are active in
the morning and in the afternoon stealing their
berries. So, that has been totally unsuccessful,
my training attempts to turn our cute poodle,
O’Wall, into a security guard, a guard dog,
hasn't really been successful at all.
But yeah, at the end of the day,
I guess it's OK. It's like the price that we
have to pay to the local wildlife. And all in
all. I'm really happy at how my urban oasis is
coming together. This little slice of nature
in my yard here in the middle of Seoul. And
a slice of nature should include some plants,
like all of these beautiful trees that my wife is
maintaining in her garden. But also, some animals,
right? And so, I think, although I've been calling
them burglars and saying that they're terrorizing
our home and our yard. And I've been painting
these brown-eared bulbuls in a very bad light
and saying a lot of bad things about them.
At the end of the day, I think I'm actually
happy that we have some animal friends visiting
our yard because this is what nature should be,
right? It should be plants and animals and insects
and birds. All of these things. So, I'm glad we
have these visitors. And I'm really happy about
how the progress in our yard is turning out.
Well, that brings us to the end of this week's
story. If you made it all the way here to the end,
congratulations. You completed an English
study session. You can be proud of that. And
this is what you need to do to build your
English fluency. You need to spend a lot
of time listening to natural English, just
like the kind you heard me use here today.
If you have any questions or
comments about this episode,
let me know over on our Discord server. It's
free for everyone to join and you can find
the link in the description for this episode.
I'd also like you to leave a comment with this
week's completion code. You can leave either
just the one word for the completion code,
or you can leave an example sentence with
the completion code. And that will signal
to me and all of our other fabulous members of our
Culips community that you completed this episode.
So, for this week, let's go with the code word
"burglar," burglar. And there should be some
fun example sentences with this completion code
burglar. So, leave them in the comments either
on our Discord or YouTube or Instagram. And I
can't wait to see what you come up with. Take
care everyone. And I'll catch you in the
next Culips episode. Until then, goodbye.
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