Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 216 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I hope your English learning is going great.
I hope that you have seen progress in your learning and that this podcast has been helpful for your listening comprehension.
And in today's episode...
I want to talk about some of my recent troubles.
I haven't had the best month.
We did move recently and that was great.
So that's a positive.
But there have been some troubles, some negative things that have happened.
And I thought that it would be good to talk about them.
So even though this isn't a positive topic, I'm sure it will still be interesting for you.
And of course, it will be good practice for your listening.
As always, it doesn't matter if the topic is positive or negative.
You're practicing your listening comprehension.
So that's what we'll talk about today.
And remember that you can get my training if you need it.
If you feel like your listening or your pronunciation isn't at the level that you'd like it to be, then I'm sure you can benefit from my training, my seminars, in which I help you with those things.
So you can check those out.
And you can check out my advanced podcast episodes in which I speak fast, by clicking on the link down below, and I also encourage you to try out my US conversations podcast, in which I talk to different native speakers from around the country.
We compare our different cities and states and talk about language learning and all kinds of different topics.
It's a lot of fun.
It's really educational and it's great practice for your listening.
So that link is also down below.
And if you haven't done so already, I'd really appreciate it if you could give this podcast a five star rating and write a review.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time!
Okay, let me talk about some of my recent troubles.
So a couple of these are car related.
And just like everyone else, I hate having car issues.
It's not fun.
So recently, I drove my car up from where it was to our new house.
And It was good because I made it up here okay, but the next morning the car wouldn't start.
So this is always troubling when you put the key into the ignition, you turn it and nothing happens.
This is a terrible feeling.
It's very frustrating.
But that's what happened.
And of course, I had to call for assistance.
And thankfully, I had gotten this service a couple months back called AAA.
If you live in the US, this is a really good service.
It's not traditional insurance.
I have my own insurance, but this is something that's separate, and they are really good at assisting you when you need help.
Your car won't start, you got a flat tire, you ran out of gas, you need to tow your car, meaning...
You need to take it somewhere and you can't drive it.
So a big truck needs to tow it or take it somewhere.
This service is really good for those things.
So I was able to try out this service for the first time and it worked really well.
There was someone at my house within 40 minutes, probably.
And they were ready to diagnose the problem with the car.
And the guy was really friendly and he was able to test it out to see if If it was a problem with the battery or the alternator or the starter I'm not good with all the technical terms, but any of these three things could have been the culprit, meaning it could have been the one that was causing the negative problems.
And thankfully it was just the battery.
The battery was dead and unfortunately I had to replace it.
So I'm glad it wasn't a more serious issue.
But obviously, I didn't enjoy having to replace the battery.
But thankfully they were able to give me a new battery right there with a three-year warranty guarantee, meaning if something happens to it within three years, they'll replace it for free.
And it was really quick.
So this wasn't a super negative thing.
It was just inconvenient for a short time, but it was good to be able to try out this service.
And of course, now my car has a new battery in it.
So that was good.
And so I'm also thankful that I got the car up here to the new house before this happened.
So I
It was easier to deal with it here in the garage.
That's where it wouldn't start.
That's better than if I had broken down on the side of the road or something.
That would have been worse.
So this first incident wasn't that bad.
The next one was bad.
So right after I got the new battery, I drove to the gym.
That's where I was going to go when my car wouldn't start.
And unfortunately, I injured myself.
I injured my shoulder while benching, as we say, meaning you're using the bench press, you're lifting, you're pushing this bar over your body while you're lying horizontal.
This trains your chest and shoulders and triceps.
So I injured myself.
Unfortunately, I felt pain in my shoulder and I didn't take it too seriously at first and I just continued with the workout.
But by the end I knew that it was somewhat serious and I am pretty sure that it is a problem with my rotator cuff.
Don't worry if you don't know this phrase.
It's a technical phrase, but I'm pretty sure that I tore this part of my shoulder.
And I thought that it would just be a quick recovery, that I would just have to rest and take it easy for a little bit, and then I would be okay.
But I realized after a couple weeks that yes, it wasn't as bad as when I first got the injury, but I realized that it wasn't just a simple recovery.
I was going to have to learn more about this injury and do what was needed to actually rehab my shoulder there, meaning rehabilitate it, help it recover from its injury.
So unfortunately, this is a long recovery and it's something that is very delicate, like you can be doing well, but then you do something that sets you back, as we say, Like it makes the problem a little bit worse again.
So now you have to add more time to the recovery.
But I've tried to learn a lot about this injury and I do not want surgery.
People get surgery for this type of condition, this type of injury.
But from what I've seen, it's not always a very good result if the person isn't able to rehabilitate it correctly after surgery and recovery.
From what I've seen, a lot of people just heal from this injury.
Naturally, if they go through the rehab on their own and do the things they're supposed to do and keep this up for a long time, they can usually reach the same level of healing and strength as someone who has surgery.
So I'm going to do everything in my power to heal on my own.
And it's not really terrible in the sense that I'm not just in terrible pain 24-7.
Thankfully, it's not like that However, it hurts to move my arm forward and up.
I have very limited movement.
I can make that movement, but it's going to hurt.
And this is really frustrating because it's so hard to go throughout your daily routine and do your daily tasks without without being able to use one arm efficiently.
I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about.
Maybe you've had an injury like this or you have issues with one of your body parts that restricts your movement.
It's not fun, and it causes pain.
Like I said, thankfully, it's not just constant 24-7, but if I make that movement, I feel the pain.
And it's uncomfortable, let's say.
And it's hard to do even the work that I do.
I don't have a physical job, but even just to do the different things I need to do with my computer and microphone and things like that, it's hard.
And so I've been dealing with that.
And it's very discouraging, to be honest.
I'm not going to lie to you and say that I'm just super smiley and really positive.
I need to be more positive, of course, and I'm trying to be positive.
But of course, when you have a situation like this, you can get discouraged.
I'm human, so I'm not perfect in my mindset.
And of course, I find myself discouraged at times throughout the day, but I'm really committed to trying to recover on my own, so I'm gonna do what I can and And this takes patience, a lot of patience.
And it's unfortunate because I can't do my workouts anymore at the gym.
I can do some lower body workouts and eventually I can start to maybe do some back exercises maybe.
But it will be a while before I can do any type of intense workout, let's say.
So I'm not happy about that.
And I have to do all these rehab exercises, and it's not necessarily super fun to do that either.
But I have faith that God will help me heal.
At the end of the day, I just have to do what I can and just have faith, leave the rest to God and just do what I can.
I guess that's really what I need to do.
So, of course, this was a negative thing that happened recently and I'm dealing with it currently.
The next negative thing, the next trouble that I had was another car issue.
So my other car, because we have two cars, like many people, many families in the US.
My other car got a flat tire and it was irreparable.
It couldn't be repaired.
This happened just like a week after my other car issue.
And my tires on that car were almost new, to be honest.
I think that this situation would have felt different if my tires were old and Not very good, because then I would be able to just convince myself that oh, this is a positive thing, because I needed new tires anyway.
So I got new tires and everything's good.
But this is not the case because my tires were really good, almost new tires.
In very good condition.
And so, honestly, there was no need at all for new tires.
Except for the fact that I got a flat tire.
I ran over some really big, sharp tires.
It was a really bad flat tire.
The air came out of the tire really quickly.
And fortunately, I was able to use the service that I mentioned before.
And someone was able to help me with that.
And this is after I injured my shoulder already.
So I was already in pain and couldn't really do much.
But thankfully.
I got help with that and I had to get two new tires.
Thankfully, I didn't need to replace all four.
I just needed to replace the bad tire and the other tire that is on that same axle.
So I got new tires and tires are expensive, unfortunately.
They are hundreds and hundreds of dollars to replace if you want good tires, of course.
And so this was an unforeseen expense.
I did not expect this.
And there was no benefit because my tires were already in great condition.
So this was unfortunate. but I think this was a good lesson for me.
Number one.
This type of event is helping me get better at dealing with these little misfortunes.
I'll call them like these negative events that happen to you.
So I have always struggled with dealing with these issues inconvenient, negative things but I feel like I'm getting better now.
And I feel like I responded better to this situation than I used to respond to this type of thing.
And my wife even commented on that.
She said, oh, you handled this better than you used to.
So I'm happy about that.
It's giving me some training to deal with the negative things in life without overreacting.
And after that my wife and I talked about the fact that we're very thankful that it was just an issue with the tire and it wasn't an accident.
We didn't get into a terrible car accident.
And thankfully, we've never been in an accident before.
So we're extremely grateful for that.
So I shouldn't be so negative about these little minor car problems when in reality it could have been much worse.
But thankfully, it wasn't.
And everyone was safe.
There was no accident.
So this was another lesson in gratitude and being thankful that it was just a minor issue.
Right.
So that was another negative thing.
And one more.
This one is not necessarily my thing, but it still affects me.
My dad's house got broken into.
It got burglarized, as we say.
And This is the house that I lived in up until recently.
So a couple weeks after we moved out of that house, this occurred.
Someone smashed open the back door and ransacked the house, meaning they went through everything.
They opened all the drawers looking for all the valuables that they could possibly find.
And my dad sent a video of the results, the damage, all of this.
And I couldn't believe it.
It was really troubling to see this, especially knowing that we were in that house just a couple weeks earlier.
And I feel terrible for my dad.
I feel terrible for just this whole situation.
And of course, there's a police investigation right now.
I was one of the last people at the house, and so it's not a nice situation.
The one good thing is that there were no valuables in that house, and so I kind of laugh when I think of that terrible thief who committed that crime and went through all of that trouble and left with nothing.
I'm not exaggerating here.
There was like nothing valuable that he could have found.
And so he probably left extremely mad or disappointed, at least because he did not get rewarded for his crime.
And I'm hoping and praying that they find the guy who did this.
And it's just troubling to know that that kind of thing can happen to you.
And it's just an uneasy feeling to know that your house can be broken into and some horrible person can come in and harm you or whatever.
It was really a terrible thing and it affects us in a way because we go back to that house, even though we're not living there anymore.
We expect to go and be at that house and it just doesn't feel good knowing you're at a house that was targeted by a thief, a criminal, and they already broke through your door and came in once.
It just doesn't feel good to be in that situation knowing that.
Um, but um, hoping and praying that everything will uh just be normal from here on out.
No more uh burglaries.
Uh, and I hope that whoever is in that house, staying there, living there or visiting there will be safe from that type of event.
Um, but, It's really a bad, terrible thing, I'll even say.
I know some of you have probably dealt with this, where someone broke into your home and it's just a bad thing.
So that was the last negative thing I wanted to talk about.
So in summary...
I went through some negative situations, but I view this period as a good learning experience, and I'm not just saying that.
I know some people, they say that, but they really feel differently.
I
I honestly want to learn from going through a negative period.
Of course, none of these things were just completely catastrophic and just completely ruined my life.
No, but we went through some negative stuff and I want to learn to be grateful for the positive things I have in my life, because when I view my whole life, we're very blessed and these negative things that are minor relatively speaking, just remind me that life is good.
And so I want to have that attitude.
And, like I mentioned earlier, I am happy to see that I've improved somewhat in terms of how I respond to certain negative things.
Especially minor inconveniences like with the cars.
Let's be honest.
Those aren't major things.
You know, these are cars.
They're not people.
So these are minor inconveniences.
But in the past.
I did not respond well when things of that nature happened.
So I feel like I'm getting better now.
I'm very happy to see that improvement.
And so there's positive that has come out of that. some of these negative things.
But of course, I'm hoping and praying that I have a more positive period this next month.
But I hope that you enjoyed listening to this episode and that it was good practice for your comprehension.
And remember to check out my listening training and pronunciation training and my advanced episodes.
You can see all that if you click on the link down below and give my US Conversations podcast a try.
I'm sure you'll like it.
I'm sure it will be good practice for your listening.
That link is also down below.
And as always, please give this podcast a five-star rating and write a review if you can.
Thank you all so much for listening, and I'll talk to you in the next episode of Listening Time.
