It can be the biggest waste of time ever (which is how most people use it) OR, it can be used in a way to completely change your life for the better.

This is all obvious and probably sounds like its not new at all.  It seems like it was an article written in 1996, not 2013…

Just stay with me here; please.  I think you’ll see what I mean.

If you’ve read my blogs (You really should) or listened to our hundreds of podcasts (The best are here in the VIP)

then you already know I don’t have a lot of respect for formal education.  I think it’s pretty much a waste of time and money (except for the social and partying parts of it)

I just didn’t really know WHY I thought this so strongly.  I had an idea why, but it really wasn’t SUPER clear until tonight.  That’s why I’m writing this blog now.  It’s fresh in my mind and I actually want to share it with you guys.  It still amazes me that I can connect with people all over the world with an idea, and do it instantly from my bedroom in Shanghai.  Imagine doing this only 20 years ago?

…Anyway, here is my point.  I was thinking about how fast information is changing, and how being good at searching for information really makes a lot of school a complete waste of time.  With information changing so fast all the time, school often becomes a joke because they are teaching stuff that isn’t useful TODAY.  How could it be?  Even our cultural values and beliefs change because society is always so different now.  Old people have very useful advice on what things to appreciate in life, and some huge and important general wisdom they’ve learned from years of life experience.  But they often, not always, but often have really pathetic advice for what is currently possible in today’s world.  They just don’t get how easy it is to learn new stuff and how we can change our lives quickly with that new info.

It used to be such a great skill to be a lawyer.  ”WOOOO, he/she has a law degree”  It was such a big deal in the past, and people had such respect for this kind of thing.  Now, it’s really not a big deal at all; at least it shouldn’t be.

Sorry if you are a lawyer, and I’d love to read your comments if you are, but laws are not secrets.  20 years ago, or even less, if you didn’t know how some legal thing worked, then how would you find the information?  You’d have to contact a lawyer and ask them.  You’d have to pay a bunch of money as well, even just to ask them a question.

I mean, would you find some info on laws in a book you found in a library?  I highly doubt it.  It was the same with accounting, the same with medicine, the same with even cooking foreign foods.  If you didn’t know how to cook an Indian curry 20 years ago, you had no chance in learning.  Now you’d be a fool if you couldn’t find that info in 2 minutes.

In today’s world, if you know how to search the internet well, you can really find out anything.  This concept is not new, but what is new (at least to me) is what this all means……

It means that most of what we learned in school, from our parents, and from our culture is garbage.  (Well, it’s not all garbage, but a lot of it is very very wrong)

How we learn now is different.  The speed we learn is different; it’s much faster.   Each person can become so much more knowledgeable than people in the past; like 50 times more knowledgeable.  It should make us run our lives in a completely different way.  We really don’t need so much formal education.

If you want to know about marketing, you can find about it online.  If you want to know about accounting, you can find it online.  Even though many of the articles are basic, you can at least find a good book on Amazon and order it if you want something more advanced.  We should be able to do many more jobs than before, and we should be able to learn a lot about them quickly.  We should be able to do so many more things than people in previous generations did.  We can just find the information we don’t know about in a couple seconds.

I think we’re only beginning to realize how powerful the internet can be.  This is just the beginning.  The earlier you TRULY understand this concept and apply it to your life, the better your life will be.

Most people still are not taking advantage of the opportunities that lie on the internet.  Do you agree with me?  Why or why not?

How could you use it to improve your life?

Love to read your comments!

See you in the VIP room

Here is the basic idea:  The fuel (gas) costs for airplanes is HUGE.  Doing anything to save fuel costs is a very important business idea for any airline company.  The problem is that this can be a very sensitive issue.  We all know that it costs more money (a lot more) to fly with very expensive luggage.  But what about if you are fat yourself?  It’s not very easy for the airlines to say, “sorry sir, you are too fat. We need to charge you extra money to pay for the extra fuel required to fly your fat ass all over the world”.

I even remember a debate from years ago about charging super fat people double price.  This idea was not because of the fuel price, but because some people were so fat that they literally needed to sit on 2 seats.  We all know that airplane seats aren’t very big in economy class, and it’s easy to imagine that its absolutely impossible to put 3 super super fat people side by side in 3 seats.  (If you don’t believe that there are many people who are really that fat, then, well, I guess you’ve never been to the USA!)

Anyway, this topic is about any extra weight on a plane costing the airlines money.  Due to “political correctness” and an overly sensitive world (especially in the West) it’s impossible to charge passengers based on their body weight.

One Indian airline company recently had an interesting idea.  They announced that they are going to hire mostly petite (small) female staff.  A lot of airlines do this anyway, but they are making it a policy (rule) and their reason is that it will save them money on fuel costs.  I think it’s obvious that most airlines want to hire attractive young female flight attendants for other reasons, like for all the male passengers who love staring at them (even though men don’t easily admit this).  It’s good for almost any business to have attractive females deal with the customers.  But it’s not easy to just say “we are only going to hire attractive women”.

Anyway, the Indian airline gets to have the “best of both worlds”.  The way they are selling this idea to the public is they are saying that they want small females because it saves them “gas money”.  Apparently, just hiring mostly small women will save the company $500 000 USD per year in fuel costs.  That is a lot of money, AND it’s better for the environment.

I know what a lot of “western people” think about this topic, and I’m interested in your international opinion.  Please share your comments as usual in the comments section below.

1.  Do you think it’s ok for airline companies to start charging heavy people more money to fly?  Why or why not?

2.  Do you think people in the west are “overly sensitive” about these things?

3.  Do you think it’s ok to hire only small females for this job?  Is it fair?  Why or why not?

There are really no right or wrong answers, all of this stuff is just personal opinion to get you guys talking and practising English.  I can’t wait to hear your ideas.

We’ve got the live chat set up now and some more cool movies in here:  Live chat and more cool movies

Here was the original article from CNN.

Can’t wait to read your thoughts!

This is big business:  HUGE business.  There are several large multi-national corporations that are trying to change and control the food we eat.   They hire scientists to play around with the natural genes in plants and some animals.  They want to make fruit and vegetables that are bigger, more colourful, more difficult for insects to eat, better at growing in hot/cold weather…

That sounds great if that’s the whole story.  Unfortunately, it’s not even close!

The reason I started looking into this topic was because I was doing some research on the types of foods that will make me healthiest.  I want to change my diet to eat only the stuff that will make me look and feel the best, live the longest, and give me the most energy.

When I was researching this stuff, I saw a lot of information about how “big business” is controlling our food.  I sort of knew they were doing it, but I recently found out that it’s MUCH worse that I thought before.

There are many problems with GM food.  One of them is that the companies don’t test them for long enough before allowing the people to eat them.  They don’t really know if these foods are healthy or not for us in the long term.  They just “hope for the best” and only care about whether or not they are making money.  It’s much easier to grow and sell GM foods, and big business is ONLY about making money.

To be honest, I don’t really care if some companies are playing “mind games” with us and trying to get us to buy an iPhone instead of a Samsung; it’s just a phone.  What makes me sick, however, is the idea that they do this with everything, even the food we eat and the water we drink.

Another problem with GM food is that it’s horrible for local farmers.  These companies own the legal rights to their seeds and they force farmers to grow and sell these foods.  The farmers have no choice, because if they are growing a big field of rice or corn, they won’t have control if one little patented GM seed blows in the wind and onto their field.  If this happens (which ALWAYS happens) the big company can take the little farmer to court and say that the farmer is cheating by stealing their seeds.  This is even true if the farmer only has 0.01% GM food by accident.  It’s sick!

Many people are starting to “wake up” to the problem with GM foods, but these companies are so strong and tricky.  Just a couple weeks ago there was a big court battle about this topic.  Of course, the rich companies won…..  What happened was this:  One state in the USA wanted to force people who grew GM products to put a GM label (a sticker) on the food.  This was to let the people know what they were buying.  That seems totally reasonable right?  People should absolutely know if the food they are buying has been played around with by scientists or not.  But the court said that the GM companies DO NOT have to put labels on the food.  This is crazy, and this means that we don’t know if the food is GM food or not when we are shopping.

I watched a couple AWESOME documentaries about this topic.  They explain about the whole modern farming industry and what is going on by these insane companies.  They show what happens when mice eat these GM foods (It’s really scary and I hope this won’t happen to us later.  Many mice get sick or get cancers from the GM food).  They show how difficult life is for the farmers from all over the world.  They interview one Canadian farmer who took the company to the biggest court in Canada.  The company, Monsanto, tried to scare this farmer and this company does it to farmers all over the world.  I’ve shown my friends and family these documentaries and they all thought they were awesome.  I put BOTH full length documentaries here in the special VIP community for you guys to watch and discuss.

I’d love to know what you think or know about the topic of GM food.  What is the news saying about this in your country?  Do you believe it?  What do you think we can do to fight for healthy food?  Do your farmers have to grow this stuff?  Be careful.  I hope these large companies lose and they don’t control the world’s food.  ”Google this” and do some research on GM food in your country and please share with us.

First of all, here is the correct pronunciation of the word “conspiracy”.  It’s pronounced like this:  ”conspeerasee”.

A “conspiracy theory” is basically a theory that is a complete contradiction to whatever the government and the media want the “stupid people” to believe.  There are many conspiracy theories, some are true, some are not true, but many are interesting to at least think about.  It’s always better to hear both sides of an argument and think for yourself.  It’s terrible to “take anyone’s word” for something.  If you “take someone’s word” for something, it just means you believe them without questioning them.

One example of a conspiracy theory is the many people wondering if astronauts from the USA “REALLY” landed on the moon in the 1960′s OR if they just “faked it”.  Some people believe it was definitely true, some people are suspicious and believe it was fake.  That type of thing gives you an idea of what a conspiracy theory means.

Any time you hear “911″ or “9 eleven” you are either hearing about the emergency police and fire phone number in the US and in Canada, OR you are hearing about what happened on September 11th, 2001.  That was a day that changed history.  I personally HATE the way the US reacted to this tragedy when the airplanes flew into the buildings in New York city.  I think they over reacted and made the world LESS safe, not more safe.  What do you think?

There are many conspiracy theories about what exactly happened on that day.  Many people believe it was a huge “cover up” by the government, which means that the government wanted to hide the truth and the real facts from the people.  No one really knows exactly what happened on that day or why it happened, but it’s important that people ask questions.  I’m not sure if the government is lying or not, but I do know that there are a lot of “unanswered questions”.

One of the unusual things that happened was the fact that the government claimed that they couldn’t find the black boxes in the airplanes.  In case you didn’t know, there is a “black box” in every major airplane.  This is basically a super protected box that has the audio or “sound recordings” of what happened during a flight.  These are important to investigate any plane crash to see EXACTLY what happened.  They make these “black boxes” almost “indestructible”, which means that they can not be destroyed.  They ALWAYS find the black boxes after a plane crash, but this time, they said they couldn’t find either of them.  That is TOO WEIRD to believe.  It certainly seems possible that there was something that happened on those flights that the government doesn’t want the public to know about.  Are they hiding them?  Why?  What exactly happened?

Also, there are stories of another building called “building 7″ that fell down with no plane hitting it.  Why did it fall down?  There are no good answers from this.  The government calls all this stuff “top secret”.  Also, on August 6th 2001, the government was warned that there would be attacks from airplanes, but they did nothing with this information to protect anyone.

It’s possible the government totally messed up and are super embarrassed so they want to hide the truth.  Some people believe that they even allowed these attacks to happen to have an ‘excuse’ to go to war with Iraq.  That was a TERRIBLE idea to go to another war, but with no 911 attacks, the government couldn’t get the public to agree with war.  If they used these attacks for an excuse to go to war and simply pretended that these attacks were done by “the bad guys” to convince the public, this is called a “false flag operation”.  That is when the government does something terrible to it’s own people while pretending it was an enemy who did it.  The reason to do a horrible ‘false flag operation’ is so that they can make more people believe that a war or some other retaliation is a good or sensible idea.

The truth is that I don’t really know what happened on that day; obviously.  But, I do know that there are some serious unanswered questions and it bothers me that the US government is hiding this info.  I’d love to know what happened.

I watched a very interesting documentary about this.  I think you’ll really like it and also learn some good information from it.

I got a free copy of it and I will include it for free in our awesome private community.  You can watch it there and discuss it with us in the private group.  It’s fun to watch, interesting, and great for learning English.  Looking forward to discussing it with you guys here.

Love to hear your comments.  What have you heard about this in your own country?  What do you think happened?  Do you have any questions about the vocab that I was explaining in the blog?  Is there any other English words you’d like to know that I didn’t explain?

Please feel free to write whatever you want.  I love reading what you guys have to say.  Please let me know any blog topic suggestions you might have…

Again, watch and discuss the 45 minute conspiracy documentary with us here.

Mainstream news would be stuff like the news on TV, or major newspapers like the New York Times.  If it’s a big company making news, it’s “mainstream news”.  They have the advantage of having more money than independent bloggers or people making news on Youtube.  They can use all that money to send their staff to find out the real story.  They might (not always) be more attractive (if they are on TV) or talented at writing (If they write for a major newspaper).   Sounds like they should be a lot better right?  Well…

The problem with mainstream news is that it’s almost impossible to tell exactly how fake it is and how much BS they are feeding us.  Why would a major news organization want to make fake news if they can just tell the truth?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this question lately for some reason.  (I’m weird, I know.  You can say it.  Lol

Companies pay millions of dollars for advertising to the mainstream news companies.  So, even though the news organizations can theoretically write or say whatever they want, it’s the companies who are actually in control because they are paying the money.  They are not in direct control of the content, but they will take their advertising dollars to another place if they aren’t happy with the content of the news.

I read somewhere that climate change was hardly talked about at all last year by anyone in the mainstream media.  This is a perfect example of the power companies have with the advertising dollars.  Do you think that big oil companies will want to advertise on a news channel or newspaper that talks about how terrible oil is?  No way!  Do you think that Walmart will want to spend millions of USD on advertising to news channels that talk about how Walmart loves paying terrible wages to their workers and how they also try not to give them health insurance?  Obviously not.

So all private news stations and newspapers are corrupted by the people who pay them money.  It’s a huge problem and it leads to a very brainwashed society.

When I was growing up, I remember learning that government owned news networks are terrible because they always lie to make their own country look good and other countries look bad.  That is totally true, BUT, as I’ve grown up, I’ve also learned that news from private news companies is also a huge joke.  It’s almost impossible to get reliable news because there is so much bias in mainstream media.

Independent news shows on Youtube and people are blogging about the news are a lot better in the sense that they can say or write whatever they want because they don’t deal with advertisers directly, but the problem with them is that they don’t have the money to get the real information themselves.  If a blogger wants to write about a news story, they can’t send someone to the actual place the event is happening, they can only follow the mainstream news and then make their best guess from that.  It’s sick!

Hopefully this will change with “new media”, but it’s going to take some time.  BTW, “new media” is basically a term that describes the ways of getting information on the internet.  ”Youtube, Twitter, Blogging, etc”.  It’s in contrast to “traditional media” which is print newspapers, online newspapers, and TV news.

The news is different in every country, and it shapes our cultures and our understanding of the world.  I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions on how you think the news is covered in your country, how you think it’s covered internationally, and what you think a possible solution is.  Do you even think it’s a big problem like I do?  Very curious to hear your thoughts on that below.

Add and I are also SUPER excited this week since the launch of our brand new private English community.  I’ve got a very strong feeling this is going to kick ass more than anything we’ve ever done, BY FAR.  Thanks to everyone who is in there already, and thanks especially for sharing your stories and helping to make it kick total ass.  Hope to see more of you in there… (It will be awesome; just sayin…)    :)

Looking forward to your comments as always guys!

Have a great day!

Here’s what happened…..

There was a really important basketball game yesterday between the Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers.  After the game, the media always interviews the players on TV.  One of the players was upset and said some “bad words”.  He wasn’t saying them directly to anyone, but he was definitely swearing when he was upset.  The player apologized later for saying the bad words.  The word that really got him into trouble was the word “homo”, which is a very negative term to describe a gay man.

He doesn’t hate gay people, just the word came out when he was angry, and he did say sorry after.

Then…..

The NBA fined him $75 000 USD.  To be honest, $75 000 is nothing for him, because the guy makes 12 million dollars a year, but still, he did have to pay this money.

The question is, “Should the player still have to pay money for saying a bad word and then apologizing?”

I personally think “NO”.  Not if it only happens once or twice.  Sometimes people say things they don’t mean when they are angry.  Then they apologize.  I don’t see the big deal if it’s not happening all the time.

Some people think it’s really terrible, and this player should pay this money for saying these words.  They think it’s very bad if some kids are watching TV at that time.  To be honest, I think I understand that point of view, but I just don’t really think it’s SO TERRIBLE if a kid hears a bad word.  They will hear these words anyway in life, and as a parent, you can just say “Those are bad words so you shouldn’t say them”.

I think the world is getting too “politically correct”.  People are too worried about saying the right thing all the time.  I think this worry makes for boring and fake people on TV.  No one can give an opinion any more without worrying about the consequences.  People are so scared to say something “bad” on TV that they “play it safe” and don’t share their real personalities, opinions, jokes, etc.  It’s like we’re forcing famous people to be like perfect little fake robots.

I hate it!  I think it’s foolish and it’s not helping society.  But I do realize that it is not a fact, but rather my opinion on the situation.  I’d love to hear your opinions below.

And I also want to point out something new and exciting.  Within the past 5 minutes, Add and I just opened up our new private English learning community.  We really hope you take a look and see if it’s right for you.  As of right now, Add and I are the only members, BUT this will grow fast and we will stop accepting members at some point.  It’s not for everyone.  If you think you might be interested, now is the time to try it out.  Looking forward to seeing you in the kick ass private community

We’ll talk to you on there.  Lot’s of awesome stuff to come on there.  Join up and see what it’s all about if it sounds interesting to you.  (I’m only about 99.9% sure you’ll love it)

This video was an American news video. It was talking about a story that apparently happened in China. I say “apparently” because, as you guys know, I live here and I didn’t hear about it. Anyway, I do believe it happened.

Apparently some woman in China was working in some kind of “divorce office”. I suppose she was one person in charge of allowing people to get divorced (I’m not sure which city) but it doesn’t really matter for this story. Anyway, when a husband and wife walk into the office to get a divorce, this woman is supposed to do the paperwork to make it official.

Well, I guess this Chinese woman didn’t like to see so many divorces, so she would pretend that the printer wasn’t working or she would make up some story that would make the couple “think twice” about getting the divorce. Her purpose of making the excuse was to try to save marriages and only give them to couples who are super serious about getting a divorce, and not just in a silly argument. Because of what this lady was doing, the couple would have to go home while still married because the divorce couldn’t happen that day, and if they still wanted a divorce later, they would have to go back to the office and get one.

According to this woman, many couples never returned. I guess they didn’t REALLY want one. I think many young couples don’t treat marriage seriously like they did in the past, and they get divorced for a silly reason like a dumb argument.

Divorces are getting more common all over the world. Some people think this is a horrible and sad thing for obvious reasons. Some people actually think its a good thing because they believe that people shouldn’t be married if they don’t want to be. They believe that if a couple says they want a divorce, just let them, what’s the big deal? It’s their choice right? They also believe that the reason there are more divorces now than in the past is because people in the past who were in terrible marriages (maybe where the husband was hitting his wife or in a marriage where one of them were cheating) would just stay married, even though the marriage was TERRIBLE. It’s definitely much easier to get a divorce now, and more people are getting them.

For me, I’m personally a little bit more traditional. I do believe that more divorces are a bad thing for society in general. I don’t think marriage should be treated lightly or like a total joke. It’s more than just a piece of paper in my mind. I do believe that couples who are truly in a horrible marriage should be able to get divorced, but I don’t think it should be so easy that all you have to do is get in a little argument and say “I want a divorce”.

If it’s so easy to get divorces, why even have marriage? If it’s JUST a piece of paper, then what is the point of that paper? I think we need to be somewhere in middle.

Anyway, the Americans in the video were saying it was WRONG of the Chinese woman to be doing this. They thought that the government should totally stay out of this business of divorce. I think the Americans who made this video were wrong. They were too simple minded and they treated marriage like it had too little meaning in my opinion.

The American woman in the video has especially ridiculous views on this (in my opinion again). I don’t like her thinking at all. I would love to hear what you guys think on this topic! I know some people can watch Youtube and some can’t because of the country you are in, but anyway, for those who can watch it, here it is.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section!   I am fine if you disagree with me on this.  It’s just opinions.  I’d love to hear where you are from, why you think what you do, and how old you are and what you do.  (Or anything you’d like to share with us)

By the way, the new SUPER VIP monthly membership is coming VERY SOON!!  It’s going to be amazing so get ready…

Also, remember to watch my daily free English learning videos here.

In Canada, you can play golf at a VERY nice golf course for under $200 per time.  Sometimes it’s much less than $100.  And I’m talking about really beautiful golf courses, not just average ones.

So why then, would any reasonable person pay $100 000 per year for a membership?  It made no sense to me before.  Now it makes perfect sense.

These guys aren’t paying for how nice the golf course is.  That is only part of it.  It’s a small part actually.  What they are really paying for is the community.  Think about the other people who go to those courses.  Most of them are also successful business people.  They pay for status and ability to meet these people.  They talk and do business together.  They make friends and get their children in this rich group of successful people.  In some ways, the whole thing makes me sick.  I wish the world were a more fair place.  But the reality is that it’s not.  It does make sense for these people to stay together, meet each other, and network together.

It’s MUCH more likely that you will meet someone worth doing business with on one of these super expensive golf courses than if you were to try to meet these types of people at other places where “regular” people can go.

I was thinking about this because I was thinking about a social networking website for English learning.  These aren’t the exact same thing, but you’ll see what I mean in a minute…

People who speak English as a second language and are actually serious about improving their English, their business, their lives, etc, don’t have anywhere to go to meet each other online.  There are a lot of garbage websites that allow anyone on there.  If you want to speak with someone to “practice your English”, you can absolutely find a partner on a million free sites.

But the problem with this is HUGE.  These sites that allow anyone to join, attract people who aren’t really serious about learning English or really serious about anything at all.  Why?  Because most people in the world are not serious about anything they are doing.

If you want to meet a partner to speak English with, share ideas, share stories, share culture, you will want to meet someone who is at or above your level.  You want someone who can challenge you and you can learn from.  It’s not easy to find these people, but they exist.

Imagine for a second that you wrote on your Facebook page, “I am looking for someone to learn from, talk about business and life, and really challenge each other to improve our English skills”.  I can’t imagine you will find anyone.  Maybe, if you are lucky, someone will say “Yes” to your offer, but they probably won’t be the type of person you are hoping for.

As you probably know, Add and I have been making a new free video EVERY DAY at www.LearnEnglish232.com  

We are hoping to get people to get in the habit of going there every day for the new lessons.  We want to grow that site to 50 000 visitors per day.

But many of the people who find this site or that site aren’t super serious about learning English.  We also want to find the SUPER SERIOUS people and provide an opportunity for amazing English, business, and life learning that does not exist anywhere else on the internet.  That’s our goal.

The people who are not serious will not pay a small monthly fee to join the membership part.  And that’s great.  Our plan is to build a membership site for serious learners.  Everyone will have a great profile with an awesome photo, bio, linkedIn page, Skype number, where they are from…  A lot of stuff.  Then these people will be able to search through the other serious members and we can all have a really high level and private conversation.  Also, the members will be able to contact each other and set up high level language exchanges and other things.  It will be a real community.  I’ll be on there providing reading material, movie talk, technology stuff, and a bunch of interesting and high level topics for group discussion.  We’ll all push ourselves to get better and better in not only English, but in life too.

I want to have a lot of great free English learning content for everyone to enjoy, and a high level SUPER VIP program that is connected to this one and also adds a lot more.  We’re still talking about how we want the site to be.  And since some of you guys who are reading this right now will be interested in joining it, it would be great to hear your ideas now.  We are building it for you and other high level people like you.

What do you think of this idea?  What would you like to see in that program?

Help us design it with your ideas and then it will be much better that way!

And by the way, don’t worry, it won’t be expensive like an elite golf course!  It doesn’t need to be.  The only reason I used that example was to try to make a point.

Love to hear your thoughts guys.  By the way, does anyone here already have the great habit of going to www.LearnEnglish232.com everyday yet?  What do you think?  Have you shared it with your friends, students, or teachers?  What do they think?  We’re still in the beginning stages of developing this, and we’re sure this will be the best yet!

It will be connected in some way with China232.com VIP membership, so don’t worry about that.  We’ll take care of you guys and make it kick ass!  There will be tons of amazing free stuff for everyone and an insanely awesome high level private English learning VIP club.

Sounds like a win/win to me!  What are your thoughts on this whole topic?  Even the part about rich people paying so much for golf.  Does it make sense to you too?

Your comments are always appreciated.  You guys have been great lately with that.  Keep it up.  I read EVERY one!!

I got out my Ipad yesterday and snapped 3 photos of the cat from the last blog here (Thai Cat Part 1)

I attached the photos in this blog (below)

This cat is really cute and sneaky.  I felt sorry for the cat because the way she was acting.  She had those cute little sad eyes.  I wanted to help so I found her some food and water.  I let her sleep on the bed.  I liked it actually.  Cats look cute when they sleep.  (I realize it doesn’t sound very manly to say that, but I don’t care, this cat is CUTE!)

The next day I was noticing that my little cat has been playing this trick on all the people at the hotel.  There was a Russian couple staying in the room beside me.  They went to the store and bought cat food for the same cat.  Then the cat moved to the next room for more stuff.  Hilarious.  Everyone loves this cat.  She tries to look all poor and innocent, but she gets whatever she wants.

The funny thing is that I still love this cat, perhaps more now than ever.  She’s just a tricky little cat.

Have you ever heard the slang phrase “cat nap”?  That just means a “short little nap”.  In one of these pictures, you can see a REAL cat nap.  She’s sleeping on my bed.  I’m not sure if these pictures are the best, but if you saw the way this cat looks and behaves in real life, I think your kind human heart would come out and you would experience the same thing as me.  It’s not only me either.  It’s all the hotel guests!

(I’m charging my phone so I can’t take a picture now, but I will if you guys want.  Just let me know in the comments)

On the island I’m staying on, there are a TON of stray dogs and stray cats.

“Stray” animals, are animals without an owner.  They just live on their own out in the wild.  No one takes care of them.  We usually use the word “stray” with mainly dogs and cats.   I think the reason we do this is because those are 2 very common animals that make for good house pets.

Another little piece of slang you might like is this:

In spoken English, if you want to ask someone if they like dogs more or cats more, you could ask:  ”Are you a dog person or a cat person?”  That means, “Do you like dogs or cats?”

You could answer with “I’m a dog person” or “I’m not really a pet person”.  Something like that.

Anyway, now onto the story…

There is a super cute stray cat who always stays outside of my room.  She always waits by the door and wants to come in the room.  I felt a bit guilty when looking at the cute eyes so I let the cat in the room.  Now she always sleeps on the bed.  I’ve never been a “cat person” before, but her green eyes seduced me.

It’s so easy to get emotionally attached to pets.  Add and I had a pet rabbit when we were about 10 and 8 years old.  Our parents never wanted any other pets for some reason.  I think it’s mostly because my mom knew she’d have to take care of it and she’s the type of person who would not love dog hair all over the couch.

For the first time in my life, I’m starting to think seriously about getting a pet.

Do you guys have pets?  Are you a dog person or a cat person?

Do you recommend I get one?  What kind?

We have a famous saying in English.  ”A dog is a man’s best friend”.  I think I can understand why.  Dog’s are always happy and kind.  They never get angry the way girlfriends do either!  (Just kidding ladies)

Love to hear your thoughts as always.