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Impermanence - VIP Mini Story

Hi, this is AJ. Welcome to the mini story. Let’s get started.

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So there was a dog named Heva and there was a monkey named Chim-chim and they had a problem. They felt lonely. Of course, they were friends and they enjoyed each other’s company, but they still felt a bit lonely. You see, Chim-chim had lost touch with his family. Chim-chim had started a company with Heva and they became quite successful and famous and rich, but during that process Chim-chim lost touch with this family.

Now, ‘lost touch’ is an idiom. It’s a common phrase. To ‘lose touch with’, we usually use those three together, lose touch with, to lose touch with someone means you lose your communication with them or you lose your relationship with them. It kind of has an idea of something that happens gradually.

You were friends, maybe, then your life changed and then gradually you stopped communicating and now you don’t communicate. Now you’re not close anymore. So Chim-chim lost touch with his family. It means that over time maybe he stopped calling them, they stopped calling him and eventually he lost communication with them.

So who lost touch with his family?

Chim-chim. Chim-chim the monkey lost touch with his family.

Did Heva lose touch with his family?

No, Heva didn’t lose touch with his family. Heva was still in touch with his family.

So to be ‘in touch with’, this is the positive way to say it. To be ‘in touch with’ someone or many people, to be in touch with means to be connected to, to still have communication with them. If you are still in touch with your family it means you still communicate with them fairly regularly. So Heva did not lose touch with his family. Heva was still in touch with his family.

So who lost touch with his family?

Chim-chim. Chim-chim lost touch with his family. Heva did not lose touch, Chim-chim lost touch.

So Heva decided to help Chim-chim. He said “I want to help you get back in touch with old friends and old family.”

So ‘to get back in touch with’, we’re building on the same phrase, to be in touch with, to lose touch, Touch, of course, is this, right? So it’s a metaphor. If you’re in touch with someone it means you’re connected, right? So when we’re talking in a very general way by being connected, it just means communication. It doesn’t mean physically to be touching. It just means that you’re connected in some way socially.

So Chim-chim lost touch with his family, but Chim-chim also lost touch with his old friends. He lost touch with his family and he lost touch with all of his old friends. Heva wanted to help him get back in touch with his old friends and his family. So ‘to get back in touch with’ means to reconnect, to communicate again, to get that connection again.

We say get back in touch with, reconnect to, get back in touch with. The ‘to’ and the ‘with’, the prepositions, are challenging. You just have to learn them as phrases.

So Heva said “I will help you get back in touch with your old friends and family.

Let’s start with your old friends.” So Chim-chim liked the idea. He wanted to get back in touch with his old friends and eventually with his family. So Chim-chim said “Good idea. I want your help. Two heads are better than one.” This is another common idiom. We’re going to have a few in this story today. Two heads are better than one. You’ll hear this a lot. It’s very common. It’s very old. Two heads are better than one. You can probably guess the meaning of this one. ‘Two heads are better than one’ means two people or more than two people are better at solving a problem than just one person, right?

It’s better to do something as a team than alone because you have more people, more ideas, more thinking, more brain power, more bodies, right? So two heads are better than one means two people thinking about a problem or solving a problem is better than one. It’s better than doing it alone.

So who said that phrase?

Chim-chim said that phrase. He said “Two heads are better than one.” So did he want Heva to help? Did he want to work with Heva?

Yes, he wanted Heva to help him with this project. He said “Two heads are better than one.” Meaning, it’s better for us to work together than alone.

And so Heva and Chim-chim concocted a plan together

So what did they do with the plan, what?

They concocted a plan.

To ‘concoct’ means to make or to create and, if you imagine it, it kind of has this image and comes from this idea of like maybe you have some kind of potion, right? You have some kind of liquid and you’re putting different ingredients in to create something. So, for example, you might think of a witch. You know they ride the brooms and they do magic. So you might think the witch is creating a magical drink, right? So she puts in like a frog and she puts in all these different parts and she’s concocting this drink. So it’s this idea of creating something with lots of different ingredients, lots of different parts, to concoct.

It has a little bit of that magical image because we use this word a lot. You see it a lot in story books about witches and magical people concocting things, creating something magical, especially something you drink. So that’s the use that we have a lot from our childhood. We’ve seen it a lot and so when you say two people are concocting a plan, you have a little bit of the idea of kind of two people and their making something a little bit crazy or their making something very imaginative together, hopefully something that will be magical or great. Okay, that’s my long version of the word concoct. Look it up in a dictionary for a short answer and a short definition.

So who concocted a plan?

Heva and Chim-chim concocted a plan.

They concocted a plan for what?

Well, the concocted a plan to help Chim-chim get back in touch with old friends and family.

Did they concoct a plan to make money?

No, they did not concoct a plan to make money. They already had money.

Did they concoct a plan for dating?

No, they did not concoct a plan for dating.

What kind of plan did they concoct, for what purpose?

They concocted a plan to help Chim-chim get back in touch with his old friends and family, reconnect with his old friend and with his family

And so the next day they woke up and Heva said “Let’s get the ball rolling.” So what does that mean, let’s get the ball rolling? Another common idiom, a common phrase used in American English, very common. So a grandmother might say this. I might say this. It’s widely used and quite old. To ‘get the ball rolling’ means to get started. It’s very simple. So ‘let’s get the ball rolling’ means let’s get started. Let’s begin.

That’s all it means.

So who wanted to begin doing their plan?

Heva. Heva wanted to begin.

He said what?

“Let’s get the ball rolling. Let’s get started.”

Who wanted to get the ball rolling?

Heva did. Heva wanted to get the ball rolling.

He wanted to get the ball rolling on what?

On their plan. He wanted to start their plan. He wanted to get the ball rolling on their plan.

And what was their plan? What was the purpose of the plan?

The purpose of the plan was to help Chim-chim get back in touch with old friends and family.

So what did Heva say in the morning?

He said “Let’s get the ball rolling. Let’s get started. Let’s get the ball rolling.” And so they did, they got started. They got the ball rolling. First, they called every family member of Chim-chim’s. They just picked up the phone and one by one they called his parents, his brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles. He called them all one by one and he spent several hours calling all of his old friends and his family members. Not necessarily old family members. He called his family members and his old friends.

Next, they sent a letter. Chim-chim wrote a letter to each of his old friends and to each of his family members and he mailed the letters to them. And, finally, he got onto Facebook and he searched and he found most of his old friends and most of his family members and he friended them on Facebook.

Now, ‘to friend’ someone on Facebook, obviously ‘friend’ if you look in the dictionary you’ll find that it is a noun. It’s a thing, but we’re using it as a verb now. You’ll see this used as a verb. It’s kind of a slang, to friend someone. It means to add them as a friend on Facebook. You can say I friended him yesterday. It means I added him as a friend to my Facebook page yesterday.

Now, you see this a lot in modern English, the use of nouns as verbs. Some people get really upset about this. Oh, my God, that’s a noun it’s not a verb and they go crazy about it. It happens, but look. This is just the way it’s happening. English is changing and it doesn’t matter what the English books say. You need to understand English as it is actually used in real life and so in real life people are starting to use nouns as verbs much more often. It’s becoming more and more and more common.

My recommendation is that you don’t necessarily do this yourself because it’s a little tricky. We only do it with some nouns. If you try it with the wrong noun you’re going to sound very strange. So you don’t need to necessarily use this when you speak, but you do need to understand it when someone else is saying it. So this is an example. ‘To friend someone’ means to make someone a friend and we use this typically online.

Okay, so after doing all of these things, Chim-chim and Heva had great success.

In fact, in a flash, Chim-chim had a great community again.

And that’s our final idiom today in this story, in a flash. ‘In a flash’ means very, very quickly. It comes from the idea of a flash of lightening, right? When lightening strikes there’s a flash of light, very fast. So when you say something happened in a flash it means it happened super quickly.

So, in a flash, what did Chim-chim create again?

A community. In a flash, he created a community. It means super quickly he reconnected with his old friends and his family. So he created a community again in a flash.

Did he create a community slowly and carefully or did he create a community in a flash, very quickly?

Well, of course, he created a community in a flash, very quickly And who created a community in a flash?

Chim-chim did. Chim-chim created a community in a flash, super, super quickly and, of course, he was quite happy about this and Heva was happy to see Chim-chim not lonely anymore.

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And that is the end of our mini story. As usual, listen to this mini story every day for 10 days this month at least. If you can do more than that, that’s fantastic. Don’t stress about it if you can’t, but if you can that’s great. All you have to do is listen, pause and answer the questions when you can or just shout them as the story is going, either way.

Answer with one word or a couple words or a full sentence, it’s up to you. The most important part is you listen, listen, listen.

All right, I will see you again. Have a great day, bye-bye.