Home of DRIVE-THROUGH ESL

Yanto's last class

2012-01-23T12:15:00.000-08:00

Tuesday 24 January at 12pm PST will be Yanto's last class after 4.5 years.
You're all invited to say goodbye and ask your last questions.
Thank you very much Yanto for all your answers through the years.

New Class: Monday 2am PST

2012-01-23T00:15:00.000-08:00

New class every Monday at 2am PST

Teacher: Jeff Hema Class Runner: oo Broono - CHI
This class: VOICE - Idioms, sayings, vocabulary This class is an opportunity for you to get familiar with common English idioms and sayings.

Cats Scratch, Dogs Bite

2011-12-29T10:47:00.000-08:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class December 29, 2011

I had been out of work for nearly six years but I wasn’t too concerned because I still had plenty of money stashed away from the money that I embezzled from my former employer. That’s right, I stole money from that cheap bastard because he robbed me of what was most dear to me!

I don't want to recall that memory anymore, it's painful and my biggest secret in my heart.
We say that money doesn’t buy happiness, but it's wrong. During those 6 years I spents my time under the sun. But nothing lasts forever... One day I came home from a fishing expedition and my girlfriend told me that 3 men were looking for me. One was old, the other 2 were young and looked bad.

Being far from the madding crowd, away from the hustle and tussle, din and bustle of city life, the most cherished thing for me was peace. I wanted to get my composure back at any cost. But What is this? Is my past running after me once again?
I was very upset and started to prepare for escape and wondered if I should take my girlfriend with me. I thought the world was ending so I wanted to do something I never did before.

I looked at my girlfriend and thought about how faithful she had been to me. She had my back when I was arrested for stealing from my boss. Because of her testimony, I was released. I got away with the crime! I decided to take her with me on my new adventure.

We went a small and peaceful village. Nobody knew us and we had a new life there. During those days, were happy and forgot all of our guilt. But unexpected things happened...

One day, in the morning, a giant white light appeared in the bedroom. It woke us up. We wondered what it was.
From behind the lights and smoke 3 figures appeared to us. One was my former boss. He was dressed like Elvis Presley in Las Vegas. Behind him he had two oiled up bodyguards. "I finally found you!" he said with a snarl.

"Expect the unexpected" as they say. But I was in a dire dilemma, or I was rather decisively indecisive. What should I do? Should I run away? Where would I go? I made up my mind. I was determined to face my destiny.
The time is now! I should make the boss remember what he had robbed me of. When I wanted to say something, I felt something bite me so I clammed up.

I picked up a bottle and hurled it at his two bodyguards. They fell and that gave me courage to speak. "Listen Elvis-boss, you ain't nuthin but a houndog!" I yelled at him.

The Elvis-boss bit me again and again. "Now it's time that you give me what you took from me."
“Bite me again and you will die, my blood is poison.” After that, I would be able to take back my secret object.
But the Elvis boss kept biting.

"I'll suck your blood until the last drop, just like you sucked the money out of my company.” I was losing my senses (and my blood) when I saw the boss become pale and choke.

"Wake up hun! It's getting late!" I got startled and jumped out of my bed! Wow! What a traumatic nightmare that was! So real! I found my right hand was bleeding profusely. My kitty was constantly scratching it because she was stuck under my arm.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
oo Broono (CR)
CEM Clary
Dighrangchu Resident
Draceina Pinion
Giovanni Tweak
imivy Resident

Story Class. Thursday 29 December. 6am PST. One time only

2011-12-28T02:48:00.000-08:00

Alianaluz is back for a visit and will teach a Story Writing class tomorrow. Too bad it's one time only.
See you at the school.

Teacher: Alianaluz Rivera
Class Runner: oo Broono - CHI

This class: TEXT. Story Writing. During this class students will write a short story. Join us. Come have fun and get your creative juices flowing!

The first class is free. If it's the first time contact the Class Runner 30 minutes before class. Cost: 750L (1.9 euro; 2.9 US$; 300YEN)
More classes: http://www.drive-through-esl.info/

School Party Pictures

2011-12-20T05:33:00.000-08:00

CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO ENLARGE

This is the club where we had the party. It's on hiromi Collas' land and she also did all the decorations outside...

CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO ENLARGE

... and inside

CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO ENLARGE

There were many people who had not been at the school in a long time. It was so good to see them.

I had a lot of fun. In this picture I'm the one with the glow sticks.

CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO ENLARGE

For the first hour orion (kristof.titanium) was the Dj, then magros, Adhams and hiromi took turns at the dj booth.

See you all at the next party. maybe this time you won't have to wait 3 years!

Happy Holidays

School Party Friday Dec 16 at 6am PST

2011-12-14T07:58:00.000-08:00

hiromi Collas and Taiyo Klees, are organizing a school party for Friday 16 December at 6am PST.
Everyone is invited: students, teachers, Help Team members, Class Runners and group members.
We don't have many parties so you'd better not miss this!
It will last one hour, so don't be late.
The party will be at Hiromi's place: http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Gate/241/220/2002

Christmas Party

2011-12-08T06:26:00.000-08:00

You are all invited to the Christmas Party December 16 at 6am PST.

Hiromi Collas will be the guest. Thank you!

To teleport to the party click here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Gate/238/221/2002

Japanese Time Class Calendar

2011-12-01T07:38:00.001-08:00

New Class: Dictation. Mondays at 7am PST

2011-11-25T10:08:00.000-08:00

The teacher reads a text, then dictates it (says small group of words twice) and students write it.
Then the teacher reads it again so students can make corrections. Finally, the students receive the text so that they can check how they did it.

Teacher: Skyrahdalilaelda Sapphire
Class Runner: Giovanni Tweak - ITA
This class: VOICE - Dictation Comprehension, Spelling.

New Class: Thursday 9am PST

2011-11-20T10:07:00.000-08:00

The Practical English Program starts Thursday November 24 at 9am PST.

Lesson 1 at the Café: introducing yourself, meeting people, ordering beverages

Lesson 2 at the Airport: Travel, custom, security controls

Lesson 3 at the Hotel Reception: booking a room, hotel check in and out.

Lesson 4 at the Bank: opening and closing a bank account, depositing, withdrawing and exchanging currency.

Lesson 5 at Hospital: arriving at the Hospital or Emergency Room.

Lesson 6 at the Garage/Salon: going to car repair and getting a haircut or a hair dye.

Lesson 7 at Home: everyday object and actions.

Teacher: Inge Qunhua

Class Runner: Giovanni Tweak - ITA

Practical English Program - VOICE Class 1 at the Café: Vocabulary and phrases related to meeting people, ordering drinks, introducing yourself and small talk.

* The Practical English Program is for students whose English is very basic or who have studied English years ago.

* It is designed to give students language skills to deal with everyday situations in SL and rl.

New Classes

2011-10-31T05:37:00.000-07:00

2 new classes start this week, both Thursday:

The class at 6am PDT is a reading, comprehension, writing class. We'll read simple texts, explain the words and expressions and write sentences using the words and expression from the texts.
THIS CLASS IS RECOMMENDED FOR BEGINNER STUDENTS.

The class at 12pm is like the class Wednesday 6am. Reading, comprehension, discussion. It's a better time for European students.
THIS CLASS IS FOR INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED STUDENTS

Song Lyrics class on Saturday

2011-10-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

This week only
Song Lyrics class Saturday 12pm PDT

Teacher: Adhams Darkstone
Class Runner: Giovanni Tweak - ITA

This class: VOICE - English through songs. Comprehension, discussion.
Today's class: "Someone like you" by Adele

During this class we'll listen to a song, read, explain and comment the lyrics.
Comments and submissions are welcome.
Test voice before class. Microphone strongly recommended. The first class is free. If it's the first time contact the Class Runner 30 minutes before class.

The Mermaid's Song

2011-09-12T02:10:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class 25th August 2011

The water looked as clear as crystal and was washing gently up against the rocks. The sand felt warm and soft as it stuck to my feet while I walked slowly across the beach.   What a beautiful day it was and yet, I wasn't happy, even if I was on holiday.

I felt lonely because there was no internet connection at the hotel and I couldn't get online, where most of my friends were.   When I was watching, I saw a beautiful girl. She was swimming. It was a surprise to me because it's too early here.   Silent waves and breeze make me settle down. Then I'll ask to her say hello.   I become to feel pleasant.
I walk slowly, looking at her swimming, she is beautiful, I stop in front of her and smile, she smiles back and comes out of the water. Wow! She was walking to me.   My heart beat faster. What can I say? She is so beautiful. When I was thinking, she said "do you what a drink with me?"

I want to ask her many questions. Anyway, I invite her to seaside tiki bar. As we walked to the bar and the conversation went smoothly, the weather began to change, the wind got stronger, some dark clouds hid the sun and suddenly a storm had started.   We ran under the tiki bar roof, but the rain was coming through. There was lightning and thunder. The girl looked at me and said " I'm so scared, would you please hold me in your arms?". " What's your name?" I asked her. She answered "Sara but I'm a mermaid".   I didn't believe it. She lost her necklace. When I wanted to take it back to her, I saw the necklace reflect upon her face. She was becoming a monster and I was afraid.

I was surprised because she was very beautiful.   So I looked at her and she is beautiful, I shake my head and look back at the necklace and there is the monster. I was very confused now. I got up and before I could get away, she grabbed my arm and said "Come with me, we will be safer in the ocean".

"Why not?" I told her and we went underwater. When I was enjoying it, the bubble is broken and the water is all around. I can't breathe anymore but that's not so bad to me because then she really became a monster and she wanted to eat me.

At that moment a whale went after her and the whale wanted to her also but she didn't know that. I helped her and she avoided it.   That time , suddenly , many mermaids gathered here and suddenly I was safe again.
That time , suddenly , many more mermaids gathered here. Mermaids were singing strange songs. We were swimming and singing together and of course I watched pretty Nemo.   So yes I'll go to Disney Land tomorrow!

Why a story class?
The best way to improve your English skills is to practise as much as possible and by using different methods. In our Story Writing Class we practise our written English skills as a group and form a short story through taking turns in sentence writing. After the class the story is compiled by the teacher where grammar and spelling corrections are made. Our last class created this story that you can read here to practise your reading & comprehension skills. :)

Savanna

By The Moon

2011-09-12T02:08:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class 11th August 2011

I was walking along a narrow road slowly, taking in the scenery around me breathing slowly in and out. I needed to catch my breath because I has just seen something that was really out of the ordinary.

It was a really dark night, without a moon, only clouds in the sky. I looked along the forest and could see something moving behind the trees but I couldn't define what it was. Maybe a big bear? When I wanted to run, the bear caught me. My mother told me that bears only eat you when you are moving a lot. So I thought that maybe I should have slowed down a bit but it was too late. I had a big bite mark on my right leg.

I started to run as fast as I could away from the bear and I got lost in the forest, bleeding. Soon it was dark and I started to hear very scary noises. Then I saw a big bridge and after the bridge, one big castle. I ran and knocked the on door asking for help. Then that's when it became a really bad day for me. I saw that the bear was coming.

As I was standing in front of the castle door, I started to notice that the humidity of the air also took a toll on my body and I stood frozen.    Then I heard noises from inside the castle and a feeling of relief overcame me. A baron of great stature opened the door and said "Good evening" slowly and in a deep scary voice. It reminded me of the hunch backed characters I had seen in movies before opening the door inviting me in. "Welcome to Castle of Doom. I hope it's the place you were looking for" he said. I ran inside to escape the bear.   The baron slammed the door in the bear's muzzle and turned towards me.

I took a deeper breath, I look at his eyes scared, he looked at my leg and said "It is your lucky night! Let's take care of this leg".   The host gave me a drink of wine and told me when I drink that I will forget the pain. It took too long.   I didn't know what happened and before I knew it I was sleeping.

When I woke up, I had a strong urge to leave the castle. I couldn't help but notice that even though this man must've had sincere intentions, he was a narcissist to the extreme. I have a fine eye for those sorts of people and it never turned out well in the past.   In my opinion this wouldn't end well if I stayed in this dark and eerie castle but before I could look for a way out, the baron entered my room.   He had changed into a shiny fluttering robe.   It was so shiny I was blinded.

"My dear guest, are you ready to visit the castle? I haven't had a visitor in ages" he said and lead me out of the room into a narrow and dark passage.   As I walked, still limping down the dark passage, I felt my body shiver.   I heard strange sounds, I did not know where, it was very long, but I could see a huge door at the end. He stopped. I was afraid again. When he opened the door I just turned back and walked to that room again. I said "I'll never leave that room by myself".   As I walked back up the narrow passage, trying to get away from the baron, he started to chuckle.   "Do you really think you can just leave this place?"   I turned around looking surprised.   "What exactly do you mean by that?" I replied.   "Well you were so kind to me, allowing me to stay here. You mended my wounds and sheltered me from the night."

"I've remembered I have to be in a place by noon and I really have to go now. Could you be so nice as to call me a taxi?" I said.   His eyes looked at my eyes, I felt the chill go down at my spine. He opened the door and I could see a lab. "No, he said. I can't call you a taxi. I need your help. Will you help me in an experiment?"   I didn't know what he wanted but in my mind I just hoped that I could leave this forest alive.   "I will help you! " Then he said "please close your eyes but this will be a bit cold on your neck".   He put a needle in my neck and as much as I resisted, I slowly plummeted to the ground. "Go to sleep", he said to me.   And then I died.

WHY A STORY CLASS?

The best way to improve your English skills is to practise as much as possible and by using different methods. In our Story Writing Class we practise our written English skills as a group and form a short story through taking turns in sentence writing. After the class the story is compiled by the teacher where grammar and spelling corrections are made. Our last class created this story that you can read here to practise your reading & comprehension skills. Enjoy! :)

Savanna

Night Call

2011-08-13T07:39:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class 11th August 2011

The best way to improve our English skills is to practise as much as possible and under different situations. In our Story Writing Class we all practise our written English skills as a group and form a short story through taking turns in sentence writing. The story is all original work by our class members with only spelling and grammar changed to help students see their work presented in the way it was intended. They always feel great because they have something to show for their efforts and they have also created their own text that they can read here on our blog to practise their reading & comprehension skills. :)

Sometimes our stories make sense and sometimes not but always the class comes up with something new and interesting. You can read today's composition below.

Savanna

Night Call

There was a legend that people used to talk about many years ago. Of course we never believed it was true but sometimes when it's really quiet some people are left alone with the shadows of the night moving and creeping about them and they start to think "I wonder if it's really true?"

I was home alone that night. I was so tired I could not sleep. I couldn't help but listen to the sounds of the night. Then I heard someone knocking at the door. I took my baseball bat and I went downstairs.

Foot by foot, I got to the door and looked up through the windows that were near. I could only see a few cobwebs floating in the breeze. The air was very cold and blowing through the cracks in the window. I decided to keep my baseball bat close as I just knew that something was not right. I really thought I had heard something but I guess not.

I was scared but curious. I looked through the peephole of the door but I couldn't see anyone so I opened the door and went outside. I felt the snow on my foot and heard the sound of a dog. I heard the dog barking and growling, the sound was getting closer to me and I was beginning to get even more scared. I had images of a crazy wear wolf coming to get me and take me away. Silly thoughts in my head.

So I begun to swing my bat in the dark. I swung so hard that I lost my balance and fell in the snow, face down.

I felt a hand grabbing my collar and picking me up. I heard a voice from behind asking me "What are you swinging at?" I didn't recognise the voice but I felt cold to my spine. I turned around very slowly and I was still able to hear the growling dog now so close to me. I jumped back in surprise and tripped over the car that was in the dark and landed in the gutter of the road.

"Who are you?" I cried out. "Don't kill me!" I heard the voice laughing. "Are you afraid of me?" I was let down after I tuned and I saw a little person, no taller than a 10 year old kid.

I recognised a leprechaun dressed in green and with a little hat. He came up to me and he laughed very hard out loud. So, did I really see the legend face to face or did I fall asleep after all?

The White Stop

2011-07-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class 28th July 2011

In our Story Writing Class we all practise our written English skills as a group and form a story through taking turns in sentence writing. Sometimes it makes sense and sometimes not but always the class comes up with something new and interesting. Our class was given homework to read the story and compare the finished story with their original typed sentences from class. This was to show the little changes in grammar and context and help all to understand better construction. They are usually only very small changes but it helps to see where we can all improve. This is all their work showcased as it was intended. Another fun offering! :) I did use UK spelling here for corrections but it makes no difference if one uses U.K. or U.S. types.

Savanna

The White Stop

"It's been raining cats and dogs all day today" said the old lady to another man standing next to her. The man looked at her with eyes wide open and said "What do you mean?" The lady laughed, her dark eyes sparkled as tiny rain drops ran down her face. "Oh dear, I'm sorry. That just means it's been raining very hard. There's lot of silly sayings in my language. "Well I'm glad bus stop still mean the bus stops here" said the man.

"I'm waiting for the bus to hell. Do you want to come with me, old lady? We'll meet demons and monsters and we'll have to fight them. I can see the lights approaching. What do you say?"

The old woman with a wide smile on her face took her bag and showed a present. "Merry Christmas!" she added "I don´t think demons are able to fight at Christmas."

A child began to weep suddenly. The poor little child had been waiting all year for Christmas to arrive. She had even been hoping to be on Santa's good list. The bus stopped and the old lady, the man and the crying child got on. On the bus the lady gave a present to the child and she stopped crying.

Suddenly, a Santa broke into a bus, he looked so calm. He had a nice gift for the child. There was a lovable puppy when the box was opened.

The Crowd of people on the bus noticed the family enjoying themselves on holiday. The family was all sitting in a circle around a camp fire, warming their hands. The bus driver rang the bell and yelled, "put out the campfires, it's time to start riding again or hell will be cold when we get there".

The old woman took her bag again and showed him a nice photo. It was paradise. The photograph was of scenery that had not been seen. The photo was part of a plane ticket in a brochure. The family would arrive at the airport at the end of the bus ride.

The family was so excited as they hadn't been on out of the country before. They had always wanted to go away but the place didn't look just like another country, it was more like another planet. It was very hot, humid and there were strange sounds and smells in the air.

A man after thinking, suggested a nice chill out trip in the large ocean. He added "I think this is one of the most marvellous trips you can experience in the world". All said that they wanted to go. The little child happily chased many coloured butterflies. The family floated on the ocean waves with no worries at all.

Sleepymoma Resident (T)

Giovanni Tweak (CR)

ricco Ellils

Simontarp Actor

Puma Clarity

From Rags to Riches

2011-07-22T05:35:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class 21st July 2011

In our Story Writing Class we all practise our written English skills as a group and form a story through taking turns in sentence writing. Sometimes it makes sense and sometimes not but always the class comes up with something new and interesting. Today we talked about the fact that there are two different versions of spelling in the English language, the U.K. and the U.S. versions. This class uses the U.K. version. You can read today's composition below. All work is by our students and only spelling and grammar has been changed to help them to see their work showcased as it was intended. I'm so proud of my class. :)

Savanna

Standing outside in the dark and chilly night air were two friends. Two people who had a lot of things in common. They loved going places together and shopping for their favourite hobby but standing in long lines was not something they enjoyed. They were stuck in line waiting for their credit card transaction to be over as they can't buy without money. Then, they decided to buy only with cash.

They decided it's time to start to work because they used to spend their parents money. When they bought something new they went home and found out it was something used. So they were then in a bad mood.

When they arrived at home, they saw the food had run out too and they started to feel hungry. The smart friend said "What we can do now? We don't have money to buy food because we spent all our money on unnecessary things. They decided then to find work but the problem was that they did not know what they were able to do. They had a big problem because they didn't have an ID Card.

The smart friend said" Hey, I can use my brain and you are a strong guy. You can use your might. " The strong friend accepted and he replied "but the total money we will divide fifty fifty between us. They were so hungry that they decided to play music in the subway right now. "What are you doing?" some people said after they listened to that. One person went inside.

The smart friend said "let's do this. I can play a guitar, a drum and a harmonica at the same time and you can dance because you can use your might to jump, spin and perform exercises during the songs." So, it is what they made, the stronger danced and the "brain" sang, when suddenly they saw a surprise in front of them.

When they played, a policeman came. The police officer said "Do you have licence to play and dance in the subway? You must to pay a Tax to do this!"

A man stopped in front of them, he was wearing a formal suit and seemed very interested in the scene which took place under his eyes. They can't control their feelings so they want to eat anything that they see. The formal suit man said, "What's the trouble officer, can I help them? I like the songs and they are talented guys!

This man, who was an impresario, found them very funny and hired them. They made a fortune and became famous.

PARTICIPANTS:

Savanna Rose (Sleepymoma Resident) (T)
magros Zapatero (CR)

oo Broono

Fanny Carbenell

Cubicle Zombie

2011-07-19T08:50:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class 14th July 2011

Today we had another fun gathering of the school's creative minds. I was privileged to lead a group of fine students though a creative story writing class. This is sentence writing with a twist, where we all practise our written English skills as a group and form a story through taking turns in sentence writing. Sometimes it makes sense and sometimes not but always the class comes up with something new and interesting. Being my first day teaching with the school, I was surprised at how well we did as a group. We focused on our spelling, punctuation and grammar. I really hope that everyone who was part of the class will be back again to play the sentence game again with me. You were ALL terrific!

Savanna

Here is what we came up with:

Oh no! That awful alarm clock just had to go off again. Every night I set it to wake me up ready to go to work but I always hope that the night will never end. I just want to dream about beautiful places and exciting events. I looked out my window and to see.

"Hmmmm", another beautiful day. I turned around and went to the shower. I took a comfortable outfit then went to the garden. In the garden I found a surprise. In the place where there was a big magnolia tree, there was also a big hole. So deep, that I couldn't see the bottom.

In the hole I went, deeper I went and further. Then monsters, vampires and Frankensteins attacked with lasers, grenades and power pistols. So I took my sword and BOOM, everyone died. Then I went home to play runescape and my friend said "Dude what happened to your face?". As I let my fingers go over my cheeks I noticed there was something moving under my skin.

I couldn't believe that my skin became blue. My body became so big after that. It swelled up. I thought maybe I'm in a dream. So I bit myself to see. I felt pain, oh no, I felt so scared. What happened to me? What should i do?

Then I saw a light in the sky. My head hurt very badly then I fell down. I didn't know what was happening. I felt the warmth of something running down my face. I didn't dare to even look at what may lie below me where I had fallen. Then I felt my body floating and I opened my eyes. I looked around and saw the little green people. I tried to speak but my voice was gone. I could hear what they were talking about, I closed my eyes again. "Oh my, what is it?" A terrible dream? I should be working, what time is it? I will lose my lunch time.

"Hey, relax, cool down", I heard a voice saying. "You are a fatty pinky thing, but I'm not freaking out like you are. I'm little, I'm green, so what?" "I need to pee and I'd like some tea. Could we go to your place?" The thing then said, "NO! I'm not a tea drinking man dude. I like vodka and bread with sausage".

One time when I went to Pakistan, I found a small "zhiguliuck" and rode it for fifty. It was so nice that I listened to the music of Korki Bandzick. His album was called Horta Taii lira. That album was OK, I shook my head, my arms and moved my eyes. I had read Harry Potter's second book where Harry and his ginger friend got fired from school because Harry almost hit a tree and died.

As my corpse lay on the bed, a wind struck through the room and pages began to flip. Through the windows a white pulsating light filled the filthy bedroom. Slowly but steadily the windows opened and a beam of light lifted the corpse from the bed. It was headed outside.

I'm alive. So I when I tried to find that girl, I started to ask "why?". She shot me again and again. I couldn't understand why she would want to shoot me over and over. She shot me point blank in the leg and it was bleeding profusely. I needed a bandage. So I called out loudly for help. I can't die. I must live. I've still not finished my work from yesterday. If I didn't finish it today, my boss will go crazy.

I went back home, I logged into the virtual office and I started to work. After 20 minutes someone was at my door. It was Wally, a colleague of mine. He had brought an ambulance and the police with him. He had seen my face on the web cam and he said I was looking like a zombie. As I reached for my cheek we both heard a loud popping sound and larvae started to pour out of my flesh. Wally let out a scream and vomited on my shoes, out of sheer revolt. I didn't know what could I do. But only one thing I know. I can't die! So I shouted as big as I could. "Help me! Help me!" I was afraid that if anyone saw me they would leave me. It's so hard to say that now.

Please somebody wake me up and tell me that's a dream. I will not be late for work anymore, I will go home see my parents every weekend. I will! Please wake me up. They put me in a freezer for a few days. Then they took me out and brought me to a body care centre. They injected me with several kind of jellies and after a couple of weeks I was fine. I felt my body falling and then thump. Ouch! That hurt. As I came to, my eyes were blinded by bright lights and I was wearing a patients gown. My breath was stuck in my throat as I suddenly realised it wasn't all a dream.

THE END
Savanna Rose (Sleepymoma Resident) (T)
Giovanni Tweak (CR)
Xu Beverly
Grenled Resident
Dona Kalil
mptyyy Resident

Basic Grammar Series: Homework July 21, 2011

2011-07-16T00:52:00.000-07:00

The lesson of Monday, July 18, 2am PDT is canceled.

Next lesson will be Thursday, July 21, 1am PDT.
Homework: ELF BP 32 simple present /present continuous homework.
Please add your name to the name of the notecard.

Story Class is back: Thursday 6am PDT

2011-07-12T02:19:00.001-07:00

New teacher!
Welcome to the school Savanna Rose (sleepymoma Resident).
Savanna will teach Story Class on Thursdays at 6am PDT.
I hope to see you all there.

Song Lyrics Class

2011-07-10T05:33:00.000-07:00

This week's song is: "I will survive" performed by Cake.

Song Lyrics

A Catchy Tune

2011-07-10T05:32:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class

June 26, 2011

One morning last summer, I was riding my bike along a country road. I had to look down lots because the road was a dirt one, very bumpy and uneven and I wanted to make sure I avoided any sharp rocks that could puncture my tires.

Because I was looking down, I didn't see a car stopped there. And something bad happened.

The bicycle wheel got punctured and I could not continue. I had to carry my bicycle by hand.

The sun was beginning to rise now and the cool morning quickly turned hot. The road became steep and I panted and sweated as I struggled to carry my bike up the hill.

I felt thirsty. I looked for a river.

I was so tired that I thought I couldn't move my feet.

Suddenly it started to rain. I lay down on the grass and I let he rain fall into my mouth.

Even the few droplets of rain that fell into my mouth were refreshing. I felt invigorated and even though I had enough strength to go on now, I didn't want to.

I wanted to enjoy the feel of the warm rain on my face and the aroma of the wet grass.

I slept on the ground for a few minutes. I felt good.

When I woke up, I saw that I was in a bed. I didn't know what had happened.

When I woke up I felt better and I continued my walk. I wanted to reach the top of the hill to look at the view. It was the tallest hill in the area and the view must have been wonderful.

I didn't care about the stories I had heard the night before about the spirit of the top of the hill.

Besides, it was daytime and even if there were such a spirit, I was sure it wouldn't come out during the day. So I propped my useless bicycle against a tree trunk and started trotting up the hill.

Before long, I reached the top and I gasped at the breath-taking view that lay before me. There were tree tops sprawled out below me as far as the eye could see. And butterflies and large blue birds were fluttering from tree to tree.

I had a piece of bread. I gave some bread to the birds. I tried to find a good place to put my food.

The birds were grateful for the bread and started to sing a song for me. I went home happy and I kept singing that song in my mind. The next day at work my colleagues heard the song and started singing it too.

By lunchtime, the entire office was abuzz with the sound of people humming the tune. I decided to eat lunch in the small plaza across the street from my office building. On the way down, in the elevator, everyone was humming that song. When I left the building, the streets were filled with the sound of people humming like birds.

So, I wanted to dance. I just enjoyed dancing. I didn't care who was watching me. I didn't need the music because everybody was singing the song.

Soon people started to dance with each other, not alone. The traffic was stopped and the police arrived. They asked who had started this.

Everyone looked at the cops in amazement. They seemed not to hear the beautiful singing.

"Can't you hear the music, sir?" asked a little girl who was spinning round and round as she hummed. "No. Now move along everyone," responded the officer. He looked a little nervous.

Instead of moving, the girl beckoned to the policeman to bend down. He bent to hear her and she whistled the tune in the officer's ear.

Suddenly one bird came to the policeman. It was the bird that I had met yesterday. The bird started to sing a beautiful song.
This time I felt that the cop heard something.

All the people in the street were watching the cops. They were ready on their horses, with their guns. Then more birds arrived and started to fly around the policemen, so close to them that they could not see or move. So I jumped on the cop and took his gun away. So did the other people with the other cops. We locked them in their own cars and kept dancing all night.
THE END

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
Giovanni Tweak (CR)
lovely Perian
oo Broono

And We Won't Have the Recipe of the Franchina Lemonde

2011-06-23T01:51:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class June 19, 2011

It was snowing again for the fourth day in a row, and it was the middle of July in Arizona! Then I took my coat and tanning lotion with me.

So I went to the nudist beach but it was full of people. As there was no place for me, I came back home and I drew all the shades and began to listen to classical music in the dark.

After a while I got all sweaty and tired, and I started to prepare some lemonade. The doorbell rang, and there was a cop at the door. He didn't seem bothered by the fact I was naked and sweaty.

I answered [or "told] him that I had no permit and that I didn't care about that. I decided to go explore the abandoned factory at the other side of the street and I entered through a small window, and then I was in a large room with tags on the walls.
I told him I wanted to go to China. So I decided to prepare some food for the trip.

You see, at first I hadn't realized that the cop had followed me to the abandoned factory. But when I crawled into that tiny window, I saw him standing in front of me with a pitcher of my lemonade! I panicked and blurted out the first thing that came to mind: China.

It was a way to run away from that cop. I don't it like when cops follow me. In fact, I am not friendly with the police because they are also not friendly with me.

...even if his lemonade were good, to go to the opposite side of the world from him would be fine with me.

One thing I hadn't noticed about that cop was his dog. His dog was even wiser than the cop.

Cops used to follow me all the time. I was used to it. I liked to tease them, like preparing lemonade naked or always carrying a stick. I threw the stick and the dog ran after it.

And the cop was taken for a ride.

I went to the presidential palace in Beijing where the French president Nicolas Sarkozy was there visiting his friend the Chinese president Hu Jintao and I threw two bottles of lemonade at their faces.

Of course I had just done that for publicity and to get a photograph but this time I think I was going to get into trouble. Then I saw an old woman walking towards me and she said, “Pick it up.” I tried to ignore her but she continued to stand in front of me and repeat her demand. “It will cause pollution, so you need to put it in the trash,” she said.

So I picked up the empty lemonade pitcher and tossed it into the trash bin. I then turned to leave but my path was blocked by that annoying cop. He was flanked by Sarkozi and Hu Jintao. All three of the scoundrels had an angry look on their faces.

I was afraid of what would happen to me. They asked me to sit in front of them. I obeyed. Then they started to ask me questions about my lemonade. They tasted it and though it was the most delicious drink they had ever tasted. They wanted the recipe.

Both Hu Jintao and Sarkozi thought it was a French recipe. They wanted to make a multi-billion dollar deal, but they had not thought about all the Chinese lemonade workers who would lose their jobs.

I felt very good so I thought I could buy anything I wanted now. So I decided to go shopping. I saw a big painted gourd in a shop window, so I asked how much it costs. Then when I went to pay for it, I heard someone saying “Wake up John, wake up John!” And then I opened my eyes and suddenly realized that I had been dreaming.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
Alterglobalization Residenr
CEM Clary (CR)
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono
443509 Etchegaray

English Grammar for Beginners Series

2011-06-11T02:50:00.000-07:00

The English Grammar for Beginners Series start Monday Jun 13 at 2am PDT.
Two classes/week Mondays 2am PDT, and Thursdays 1am PDT
It will last 15/20 classes.
The teacher will be Sol Nagy and the classes will be VOICE.

Here is the description of the first 2 lessons:

Monday June 13 2001, 2am PDT
The English Alphabet; Alphabet practice; Numbers; Interesting numbers; am/is/are The questions What ...? Who ...?; Fill in all the lines

Thursday June 16 2001, 1am PDT
English Greetings, Introductions; People, Places, Nationalities where?; Who is this?/Who are they?; What to say.

It rained visitors!

2011-06-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

Wednesday June 8 The 4pm PDT class was published in second position in the "Featured Events" section of the Destination Guide in SL™.

Magros and I were swamped, flooded, overtaken by 63 visitors in 3 hours, at least these were those recorded by the radar.

Too bad none of us had the time to take a picture

Meglio Comprare Oggetti Virtuali e Copiabili all'infinito che un Libro Raro

2011-06-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class May 29, 2011

Several years ago, I placed an ad in a newspaper offering to buy a rare book. No one ever answered the ad, and after a while I forgot all about it.

After five months, I got a letter from someone who told me that he had a lot of amazing rare books.
He wrote: "we need to have a meet talking about the deal."

I was happy that someone was interested but he hadn't written his or her phone number or e-mail address and there was no return address. So I thought it was a joke.

The signature was also very strange. I showed it to a friend who told me: "It looks like an SL™ name.”

The book in question was: The Memories of Taras Schevchenko" (who is not related to the player, for those of you who are wondering).

He was a Ukrainian poet and I thought SL would be the best place to look for someone interested in a rare book.

I thought, "Why would someone send me such a detailed offer to buy a book, ask me to meet, but not provide a way for me to contact him or her?" I tossed the note into the fireplace. As it began to burn, puffs of smoke began to rise from the burning letter. The smoke took the form of a tiny man. It looked like a holograph!

The tiny man said: "I will give three wishes to the one who is interested in my book."

I logged into SL™ and posted a "rare book event" in search. I waited but no one arrived. The next day I wanted to post another event but it was not permitted, so I went to a club and started to dance.

Out of curiosity I went to the search menu and typed in the name that I remembered from the note. And bingo! It turned out that Procopius Nevandela was just a Second Life registered user. I couldn't miss this chance: I wrote him a note as he went offline.

"Well," I thought, "I might as well continue to enjoy myself in this club." Just then, an avatar with the name "Nevandela Resident" appeared before me. It said, "Wanna dance?" I couldn't tell what gender it was but I thought, "What the heck, this is SL, after all." I clicked on Nevandela's profile and noticed that it was born today!.

Procop friended me and asked me if I knew how to make money in SL. I told him I didn't know but that if he would buy a rare book from me his three wishes would come true. He asked me how to buy Linden dollars and told me he would be right back. In the meantime we kept dancing.

In the meantime another avatar sent me an IM. “Whatcha looking for huni?” But I decided to ignore her just when I saw money being transferred into my profile. It was 7900 SL dollars. I wondered what could push him to pay me in such a hurry.

Procop said, "OK, that's for the book. Now can I ask for my three wishes?"

I asked him where I should mail the book but he didn't answer and asked about the 3 wishes again. I got up and went to the fireplace but the tiny man wasn’t there anymore. I told Procop so but he had gone offline. A minute later my bell rang and I went to answer the door.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Procopius. You must be Aliana." said this slender and rather young guy who was standing in front of me.

He was creepy and scared me a little, but after all I couldn't care less about that book. After all, I have money now, thanks to this guy-Plenty, plenty of money.
I'll go shopping now!

The End

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
Giovanni Tweak (CR)
EagleEye Scorfield
nanarose Resident
Qualitybg Bailey

Down the Rabbit Hole…AGAIN!

2011-05-29T04:07:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class May 22, 2011

Have you ever gone somewhere for the first time or spoken to someone for the first time but thought to yourself: "I've been here before" or "I've seen this person before”? Well, yesterday, I had that odd feeling of deja vu.

But I didn't know why I had that feeling. I thought maybe I was working too hard.

Suddenly, I decided to go to my therapist. I went to the waiting room to wait for my turn to enter. I sat on the chair while I was thinking about what I was going to say.

I had been with this therapist for a long time. He was ok, but I had made no progress at all with my problems. I was still very afraid of talking to people. The therapist was the only person I was talking with. I communicated with everybody else by text.

The receptionist poked her head into the waiting room and motioned for me to come into the therapist's office. I entered the office, and gasped because my therapist looked exactly like a stranger who I had bumped into yesterday when I had that deja-vu-feeling.

I didn't know what was happening so I thought that maybe I needed to get some sleep now.

The therapist looked at me and asked: "Have I seen you before?" " Yeah, I think maybe we've seen one another before. I have a feeling we met last month!"

But I couldn't really be sure we met before. I thought I had a feeling of deja vu. “Are you also having a feeling of deja vu now?" The therapist then started to ask about my problem.
After asking some questions about me, he said that I could be suffering from a social anxiety disorder, also known as social phobia, and that could be the reason why I wasn't able to speak with other people.
But there was a reason to suspect it could be something else... That Deja Vu feeling was really strange.

Out of the blue, I just got the feeling that I was having one at the moment, so I asked him if he had made the same comment to me before.

Then I felt like I was underwater. I could see the shrink's lips moving, but I could not hear the words. One moment I thought I knew him, the next I thought I had never seen him before. It was just like a light going on and off.

Then I had a vision. I saw my dead grandmother telling me: "Forget this shrink, he can't help you. Get out of there and go to the FUNFUN Club down the road."

"Yes grandma!" I said out loud as I jumped up, grabbed my bag, and ran out the door. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the therapist standing with a puzzled look on his face. I checked my Blackberry for directions to the FUNFUN club as I hurried out of the building.

I flagged down a cab, got in, and said, “Please take me to the FUNFUN club, and step on it!”

I didn't know what should do, so I just went to sleep. But when I woke up, it was like an unending circle. Everything that had happened before I went to sleep began to happen again. So I thought that maybe I was in a time machine that was taking me back again and again.

Suddenly, my Blackberry rang. I picked up the phone, and I was shocked. I heard: "Hey, I am the therapist you met this morning, have you forgotten to pay me my money?"

I started to think about my grandparents. Slowly, I started to realize that my grandpa had been a terrible person. He had left my grandma alone with their children many years ago.
My grandpa was dead now...but I recognized something in the face of the therapist -this therapist who was now asking for money- something...

I started to yell at the phone!

"Meet me at FUNFUN club you unfaithful bastard," I said to him. Then I was sure he was the one who caused all my problems: My own shrink was my grandfather!

I didn't feel like I was ready to deal with it right now. I went to the FUNFUN Club. It was just 3pm but the club was full of people. It was dark, the music was very, very loud, and everybody was dancing. I had a couple of drinks and I started dancing wildly.
A girl started to dance close to me. She asked me if it was my first time there. I answered her, and we started talking, screaming in each other’s ear to rise above the music.

Still dancing, I approached the bar and downed 5 more shots. I went back to the dance floor and began dancing frantically with this random girl. Suddenly, someone pushed the girl aside. It was my grandpa and he held his big, grubby hand out and shouted, "Give me my money!"

I was afraid. I didn't want to give him my money but I was afraid that maybe I had no choice.

I started to fight with him. But when I hit him with a beer bottle he disappeared. Everything was right now, I continued to enjoy the situation because I was totally drunk. Suddenly, it was karaoke time!
There was a high definition huge screen, and the lyrics to one song was being written on the screen, in a big blue font. I thought that a guy was on the other side of the screen writing the song for us.

“That's the worse song ever written!” I said. On top of that, I called the consumer complaints number to protest.

I only got the same random girl on my side. Everybody was yelling at us with some cheerful words to us to sing the same nonsensical song.

I heard someone yelling, " Grandma knows what is best." So I looked clearly at the song writer and BANG, it was my grandma!

I was drunk enough that I started to sing the song with the girl who danced with me (she wasn't random anymore). We had a lot of fun and later, after the club closed we went to my place together.

I woke up in the morning very hung-over. But I realized I had talked to her a lot at the club and all through the night. So I married her while she was still asleep, so she could not say "no."

THE END

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
fyhao Feden
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono
soso Darkwatch (CR)
sypy1 Resident

And They Lived Happily Ever After

2011-05-16T03:19:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class May 15, 2011

One fine summer morning, I decided to go for a walk in the park. I took a book with me, intending to sit a while and read, when I got there.

I saw a girl approach me and she sat next to me. I saw that she also had a book.

She had long brown hair and she looked beautiful when she smiled. She saw me looking at her and she said: "Hi how are you? May I help you?"

I hardly spoke, I just thought to myself that I should say something. Then I gathered myself and said, "Um do you mind me sitting here?"

She replied, "Sure.” I was sitting there with my heart beating fast. I admired her for a long time. Then she began to make conversation with me.

We talked for some time, then I noticed the day was half gone. I invited her to dinner and she said "Yes."

As I stood up and motioned for her to follow me, I said, "There's a nice restaurant on the other side of the park. Let's go there." She nodded her approval and we walked across the park, crossed the street, and went into the restaurant.

I thought that maybe I should ask her what she disliked, so I asked her, "What don't you like to eat?" And she answered "beef."

A few minutes later she went to the restroom. But she had left her iPhone on the table.

The devil in me was laughing evilly, "Finally, an iPhone!"

I was curious about her, so I opened her iPhone. I was shocked when I read so many threatening words inside.

Someone had been sending her very nasty messages. I saw her coming from the restroom and I quickly put her phone back where she had left it.

But she must have seen me because she said, "What were you doing with my phone?" Quickly thinking up a lie, I responded: "You must have had it on vibrate because it started to move and I grabbed it, because I thought it was going to fall off the table."

She said, "Thank you." And I asked her for her number.

She said, "I'm sorry, I don't like to give my contact information to strangers."

I shouted at her, "But you eat with a stranger? How rude!" She apologized and said that she didn't have money at that moment but that the next time she planned to go with a stranger, she would pay.

So I said angrily, "Yeah next time is another story. Now give me that iphone!"

"Hey, I already apologized to you. I didn't mean to offend you." “But you're still insisting on taking my iPhone without my permission," she said.

I told her "Ok let’s start over, I am sorry I lost my cool.” She said "I am sorry too, shall we start over?" We made plans to get together again the next day to start over and I walked her back to the park.

The End

PARTICIPANTS:
Ai12in Resident
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
fyhao Feden
oo Broono
Shaddow Haven
soso Darkwatch (CR)

New Classes: Tuesday and Thursday 2am PDT

2011-05-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

Tuesday: VOICE, Business English
Thursday: VOICE, Listening - Comprehension - Discussion

Pearl Jam

2011-05-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing May 8, 2011

I was walking along the beach when I spotted a beautiful cream and pink-colored shell partially buried in the sand. I stooped down and picked it up.

I thought I could bring it home and give it to the person I really love...

I thought I would give it as a gift and send it to my friend. It would be lots of fun for my friend, if he got them.
When I opened the shell, I saw a big pearl and I was very happy.

I took the big pearl to my beloved sister. When she saw it, she screamed, and I don't know why she was so excited.

I asked my sister why she screamed and she responded by pointing to the pearl. I looked carefully at the pearl and noticed that it was glowing and that it was emitting a soft melodic sound.

I thought that probably it was not a normal pearl, but a kind of magic one. I thought maybe I could ask the pearl to make some of my wishes come true.

I thought that probably it was not a normal pearl, but a kind of magic one. I thought maybe I could ask the pearl to make some of my wishes come true.
I took the pearl to the store to see if it was a real one. The owner said, "This is a really expensive pearl."

I thought that maybe I could sell it and make lots of money but when I went to sell it, I heard a voice coming from the pearl. It said, "Please don't do that."

I turned back and saw an old policeman. He talked to me and said, "Please give the pearl to me and follow me. I have a secret to tell you."

I backed away from the cop. "No way am I giving you my pearl," I thought! I rubbed the glowing pearl and whispered, "Take me away from here to a safe place." And "pop!" like magic, I was transported to a meadow in a park filled with flowers.

I was a little bit shocked by this and I wasn’t absolutely sure that my pearl was a magic one. So I decided to ask the pearl to fulfill my favorite wish. The pearl said: “Please make your necklace and then I can be with you.”

So I decided to make a necklace with the pearl. But this pearl was so beautiful that when other people looked at it, I was afraid. Maybe someone would want to steal my pearl.

The pearl said to me, "Please touch me." I touched the pearl and I was teleported to a place that I was familiar with. It was the ESL school in Second Life!

I looked around and saw that I was in the group story writing class. "Welcome back," said everybody. I looked down at the pearl in my hand. It hand turned into a "cartoon” pearl and my hand had turned into an avatar hand! “How could this be? How could I have been transported from real life to Second Life?"

I thought that I was probably in a lucid dream. I tried to wake up but it didn't work and I still was sitting in an SL classroom with the cartoon pearl in my hand.

I touched the pearl. Suddenly it started to speak. Aliana appeared from the sparkling pearl.
When I saw Alianaluz I asked, "How can I go to RL?" and Aliana told me: "Just kill yourself." I couldn’t believe that.

The more I thought about my predicament, the less worried I became. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad living in Second Life. I could fly in here without a plane!

So i decided to stay in SL and lived there for 3 years. I had my SL baby, my SL wife, my SL job and my SL friends. One day I found out that SL is not real at all and I killed myself jumping from a skybox, like in the "Vanilla Sky" movie.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
bertique Resident
fyhao Feden
oo Broono
soso Darkwatch (CR)
yuri Adamczyk

The True Origin of The Green Lantern

2011-05-01T13:36:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class May 1, 2011

1. Yesterday I went to the park. It was a hot, sunny day so I wore a pair of shorts and dark sunglasses. I saw two cats playing together. I ran around them and felt like a kid. Suddenly, my father shouted at me. He said "Look! There is something!"
When I turned my head to look, it was too late; something had bitten me. Then I felt pain and I fell asleep.

2. When I woke up I was in a giant jar filled with a green fluid. I turned and I saw my father in a similar jar next to mine. He looked like he was sleeping. Even though I was immersed in this fluid I could breathe easily. It actually had a refreshing minty taste.

3. I tried to wake my dad by tapping on the glass with my knuckles. But he didn't budge, so I tapped a little harder.
So i tried to think about how to get out of the jar. I sat down and thought about a video game with a similar situation to this. Nuclear pollution caused a mutation in dogs had to catch people and experiment on them. I was afraid that that could really happen in Japan.

4. Unfortunately, this was not a video game and I had no weapons. I could not get out of the jar and I could not find any weapon inside it. So I decided to drink all the green minty fluid.

5. Surprisingly, I had no problem swallowing all that liquid. Suddenly, my stomach began to grumble and expand, and before I knew it, I let out a huge belch. That caused the glass to shatter. I was free!

6. I failed when I tried to use the same way to save my dad. But at that moment, someone appeared before my eyes.
She was a beautiful girl and I saw her take a big wrench…

7. I asked her what her name was. She said "Aloha". I said "aloha" too. She said: "Aloha is my name". Then she hit me in the head with the wrench.

8. When I awoke I had a big headache, the jar where my father was held was broken and I needed to pee really, really bad.
So I peed in the jar. The feeling of relief that I got was short-lived because out of nowhere the girl returned and clobbered me on the head with the wrench again. I heard her yell "Random" just before I blacked out.

9. When I woke up, I wanted to apologize to her. So I created a song with her name. It started, "Aloha Aloha, it's her name."
Aloha was touched by the song. She started crying!

10. Maybe she would let me go because she thought my song was great, but I still wanted to ask her about my father.
But Aloha couldn't stop crying. She said it was the sweetest song she ever heard and wanted me to sing it over and over. Finally, just before falling asleep she told me to walk down a long dark corridor If I wanted to find my father.

11. I was so glad that she had fallen asleep because my throat was very sore from singing so long.
As I walked to the open door that led to the corridor, I grabbed a curved shard of glass that still had some of that green gook in it, and I gulped it down, hoping that it would soothe my throat. Then I stepped into the dark corridor.

12. I ran down the corridor, I saw a light in front of me! And I also saw a shadow in the light. It was my dad!
I went to him and gave him a big hug. And then we were back at home together without noticing the girl.

The End

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
Giovanni Tweak
Noobz Resident:
oo Broono
soso Darkwatch (CR)

Business English? Thursday 1am and Sunday 4am PDT

2011-04-20T03:01:00.000-07:00

There are 2 Business English classes this week.

Thursday 1am PDT (voice). This is a permanent class, every Thursday 1am PDT.
It will take place in an office and in other locations (airport, hotel, restaurant, etc.).
This Thursday the class will be: Invitations, Offering, Terms of Payment, Job Responsabilities, Requesting, Asking for Help.

Sunday 4am PDT (voice) This class is part of a four-class series.
This Sunday: Business English. 3/4
Scripted conversation, vocabulary.
Today's class: Presentations

Meandering Plant

2011-04-19T23:59:00.000-07:00

EFL Group Story Writing Class April 17, 2011

The bus jerked to a stop a good six inches from the curb so I had to jump from the second step of the bus onto the sidewalk in order to avoid stepping into the muddy puddle of water that had accumulated in the gutter. I looked down at the Craig’s List print-out that I held in my hand, and then looked up at the tall building that stood in front of me.

In this building there was the ACME office. I read their job ad. I called them and they told me to come in for an interview. They told me it was a very good job, well-paid, no experience necessary.

So I went to the boss’ office to ask why this job was so good because I couldn’t believe it. When i arrived at the office a fat man said, “Hi, welcome, please have a seat and tell me what you would like to drink.”

And then the boss talked to me and said "...because we really need you to do this work." "That's why we're offering such a high salary for the job," he added. Then I said, "But what exactly do I have to do?"

He said: "Your job will be to spy on our competitors to find out what they are selling before they launch it. "But this is illegal" I said.

I was not sure I could do it.so I called my mother and I was ask what should I do.

When the fat guy talked to me about the salary, I accepted it without saying anything.

I really wanted that salary because it would help me build the house I want, and give me the money I need to go shopping with my girlfriend.

But I still wanted to get my mother's opinion, so I called her and told her about the job. She told me that I had to decide for myself what I should do. "You're not a little boy anymore. You must make your own decisions now," she said.

I was too scared to break the law. I went to the police and told them everything.

What I expected to happen didn’t happen. The police told me that I needed evidence and that if what I said wasn’t true, he would take me to jail.

I was so surprised. I asked the policeman what I was guilty of. I was really confused.

I got scared because I didn't know what would happen in the future. I only wanted to work, just like other workers and earn a lower salary.

So I looked at the policeman and said, "Never mind. I was mistaken." Then I stood up and walked out of the police station as quickly as I could.

I went back to the office and I told the fat man I accepted the job. If I had to end up in jail at least it would have been for actually breaking the law.

So when I received my first paycheck, I decided to go shopping with my girlfriend. I planted some vegetable seeds in my kitchen garden that I was renting. Spring is a good season for sowing seeds.

Spring was here and the sun was starting to shine like a gem in the sky.

But unfortunately a robber came into my garden yesterday. He took all my chickens and pigs, and now I am going to police office to get help.

I was telling my girlfriend all of this, about my little garden, while we shopped. "What did the police say when you reported the robbery?" she asked. I told her that they told me to plant another garden. So I did! I planted another beautiful garden of flowers.

It was summer by then, so everything was growing back even faster, because the pigs were gone and they didn’t eat the plants anymore. But when the rent came due I had no money to pay it.
My girlfriend asked, "Why didn't you grab that thief?" And I answered, "Because the first time that I went to the police station they thought I was a liar."

I decided not to tell them anything and escape from jail because i didn’t want to be in jail during the summer.

Some people felt sorry for me but I'm not unhappy. Now I continue to work on my garden and I hope I earn a lot of money that way.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera
ejje Xaris
Giovanni Tweak
ladynazi89 Resident
oo Broono
yuri Adamczyk

Song lyrics class. Now on Sunday 6am PDT

2011-04-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

The title says it all.
This Sunday's song is: "American Idiot" by Green Day

Piggyback

2011-04-10T09:17:00.001-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class April 10, 2011
What a beautiful day! The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and a warm breeze was blowing, so I decided to go to the park.

I started to walk slowly to the park. When I arrived there, I saw a man who was playing with his cute, big dog.

I prefer cats to dogs so I wondered why this man didn't have cats instead of dogs. "Am I selfish?" I asked myself.

The dog was running away from the man. The man started to run after the dog, yelling for him to come back, but he slipped on a banana peel and fell in the mud. He was all dirty and all the people in the park started to laugh.

I thought that I should help him but I wasn’t sure. Then I heard a cat sound.
I looked down and there in the mud, sitting next to the man, was a tiny kitten. The kitten climbed into the man's lap and started purring. From somewhere in the distance, I heard the man's dog growling.

I was convinced that all human beings should have cats instead of dogs. So I walked up to the man to say so.
When I got close to the man I saw he had the kitten in his hands and that he was whispering to it. It sounded like he could talk to the cat. Then the cat went to take a towel and brought it to the man so he could clean himself.

And he said: “Maybe the cat can play with the dog.” When the cat tried to play with the dog…
… ran out of the park and into the street, and was hit by a car. The poor thing died instantly.
I started to cry and to ask people for help. I was feeling so bad.

But suddenly the kitten changed its shape into a goddess. She went close to the poor dog and whispered something.

Everybody was there, looking at the scene. The driver of the car was crying as well. The cat arrived, trotting slowly with the tail up. I could swear it looked like he was smirking.

And something happened: the dog was alive again! I was so happy.
The cat, which had already turned its back on the scene and walked away, suddenly stopped in its tracks. It turned around and let out a loud "MEOWWWWWWWWWWWW," startling the dog. The dog bolted into the traffic again and this time, it was struck by a huge truck.

It was a really terrible accident. The poor dog’s blood was everywhere and people were starting to scream.
I cried and cried and I swore that I would never again have any pets. And I walked home depressed.

When I got home I found the kitten waiting for me at the door. I opened it and let the kitten in. She sat on the best armchair of the living room and started to speak: "Can I make a phone call? It's local. I want to call the dog owner."

I said, "Sure you can." Then I heard the cat say, "Hi is this Soso's home?"
I wondered how the cat knew the dog owner's name but I said nothing. I was so depressed and caught up in my own thoughts that I hadn't heard the beginning of the cat's conversation with the dog owner.

When I began to pay attention, I heard the cat say, "and then hold the blood-soaked towel over the mud until at least three drops of the dog's blood falls into the mud. Wait three minutes and your dog will come up out of the mud, completely well and alive again.

I started to wait and suddenly I saw a little puppy inside my bathroom.
And I remembered that in my refrigerator I had a package of pig meat. So I dropped three blood of pig into the mud and a very cute pig was born soon!

The End

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
oo Broono
Oweny Helendale
samasama Resident

Double Take

2011-04-05T00:58:00.001-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class April 3, 2011

The young man sat quietly in the window seat, in the last row of seats on the train. He watched the other passengers enter the train and take their seats.

When he saw a beautiful girl coming towards him, he thought the girl was going to sit next to him, but he was wrong. She was just passing him on her w ay to the restroom.

Suddenly, he realized he was very hungry. He ordered something and started to wait for the girl while he was eating.

The young man quickly forgot about the girl and began to check his email.
Just as a photo attachment to the email that he was reading opened, the waiter arrived with the bowl of soup that he had ordered. The train lurched and his soup spilled all over his laptop.

His laptop died. But just before that happened, he got a glimpse of the photo. It was a picture of him, taken a mere hour ago. He gasped.

When he went to pay for the soup, he couldn’t find his money. He thought that someone stole it but since the train had started to move, he thought he could find the thief.

And he thought about that photo that he saw on his laptop before it died. It was him and he was so curious to know who had taken that photo. Maybe someone on the train was watching him.

He raised his eyes and he saw the beautiful girl in the aisle. She sat beside him and asked him if he had seen her twin sister. She had gone to the restroom a long time ago and she had not returned yet.

He looked at her in disbelief. She was wearing the same outfit as the girl who he saw a few minutes ago. "What grown woman would be caught dead in the same clothes as another woman?" he thought. "Exactly," responded the beautiful lady. He gasped because she seemed to have read his mind!

He just stood up to go around the woman who stood in the aisle but then he heard a boy say, “I have a million dollars that I’m taking to my mother.” That made him happy because he was sure that the thief also heard what the boy said.

He sat down in a corner and kept an eye on the boy. He thought the thief wouldn't miss such a chance. He thought maybe the twin girl had taken his photo, and wondered why she needed to take it.

When the girl started to walk towards the boy, I thought maybe I was right—that the girl was a thief. But she walked right past him, so I followed her and watched her go into a room. It was a private room, so I couldn’t enter. So I got down on the floor and peeked under the door into the room.

What was I doing? I had no more money and instead of following the thief I was peeping on a girl," he thought. A guard followed him and threw him off the train. How could he tell this story to his mother?

He felt low and dejected. He lowered his head and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. He felt a bulge in his pocket. It was his wallet! He pulled it out and opened it. All of his money was there. He hadn't been robbed after all.

The girls came back. They were identical, and dressed the same. One of the two told me: "Here she is. I found her. She had diarrhea and had been in the restroom all this time. And the other one said: "But now I feel a lot better, and I'm ready to party." We went to the disco car of the train and we had a lot of fun dancing.
The End

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
Giovanni Tweak
ilhem31000 Resident
oo Broono

In Search of Double O

2011-03-31T15:56:00.000-07:00

March 27, 2011
At first I thought he didn't wake up in time, and then I thought he had connection problems but when he didn't answer to SMS I started to worry and I decided to go to Fuxin to find out.

I took a connecting flight from Tokyo and I landed in Shenyang. I rented a car. Traffic was horrible. It took me 4 hours to drive 135 km to Fuxing. Finally, I arrived at the Huifeng hotel. I took a short walk to the International Garden and I started to ask people if they knew OO Broono.

And it was difficult to find OO Broono because he was using his Chinese name, so I decided to...
...go to the pub which OO always loves to visit. I thought maybe somebody would tell me where he was. I took a seat first, ordered a whisky, and waited for someone who knows OO.

I took a sip of whiskey. It tasted rather odd, but I took another sip anyway. I looked up and there was a man standing in front of me, staring at me. I said, "OO?" He responded, "No, I'm not OO but I can take you to him."

A girl tripped on the carpet and fell against me. She grabbed my neck and whispered in my ear: "Don't go. It's dangerous. He is one of the Fuxin Rebels. They will rob you and maybe kill you.” I didn't know what the Fuxin Rebels were, I didn't want to show the girl I was afraid and I wanted to find OO. So I went with the man.

When I went with this man I saw a very poor place. I saw people telling a very old man not to use a walking stick, and I thought that was bad because that old man will fall down with every step he takes. I also asked how this group got money from the U.S.A.

I really started to worry about OO. Maybe someone hurt him. This possibility made forced me to think to call the police.

I took out my cell phone but I had no reception so I put it back in my pocket. I looked around for someplace to call but all I saw were dilapidated buildings with locked doors and closed shutters. I was still feeling the effects of the two sips of whiskey, so I rushed up to the guys who had taken the old man's cane, and I said, "Shoo, shooo, leave him alone!"

They looked at me as if I were crazy, but they left. I took the old man's arm, picked his cane up from the ground, and gave it to him." He looked at me and said in perfect English: "You do realize that those fellows didn't understand a word you said, don't you?" Before I could answer, he continued, "OO's house is only five minutes away, we'd better hurry if you want to catch him before he leaves for school."

The old man was walking slowly. He told me that the group was receiving money from Obama to protect OO. The Fuxin Rebels wanted to scam OO and get his cell phone, but the CIA, that spies all the chat in the world had found out about it and decided to protect OO. Obama hoped to show that he wasn't against China.

But I was still confused as to why that group wanted to kill people. It didn't seem like a good group, so I decided to try to find OO myself to ask him. I knocked on the door and a girl from the group appeared and gave me a slip of paper.

The girl was Chinese. I took the paper that she gave me and started to read it, but it was in Chinese, so I didn’t understand anything. At the bottom of the paper i saw a note. It was an address and phone number.
turned to ask the old man about the note, but he was no longer standing near me. I didn't know where he went. I was desperate, so I started shouting out "OO, OO where are you? Are you here? OO, OO!"

The girl gave me a cellphone. I dialed the number on the paper (thank God the numbers were in English). While I was waiting for an answer I noticed the phone was an HTC, just like OO's.

I heard someone say, Nihao." I felt good because I knew simple Chinese, so I answered "Nihao, I am Giovanni" and then I heard...

I heard OO' s voice. It sounded so tired. I said, “For God’s sake OO, where are you? I’ve been looking for you for hours! Now please give me the address to where you are.

Turn around and open the door behind you," OO responded. I turned and opened the door.
There were men with guns and computers in the room. oo was tied to a chair, all beaten up. They tied me too and were starting to torture me. The window exploded, and Ejje swung in with a gun in both hands.

I asked OO what happened, and OO said he was trying to find evidence about who in the Paypal Company deceived him. OO told Paypal about the deception but they didn’t believe him so he was happy that Ejje came to rescue him.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono

2011-03-31T15:53:00.001-07:00

Time change

2011-03-16T03:40:00.000-07:00

Time has changed in North America: from PST to PDT.
If you see than a class is one hour later than usual in Second Life time it means that for students outside North America the class is at the same time.
If the class is at the usual Second Life time it's now one hour earlier for you.

March 27 time will change in Europe and the classes will go back to the usual time. One hour earlier for students outside Europe.

The Fourth Dimension

2011-03-16T03:33:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class March 13, 2011

It was a rainy, cold Saturday evening and I was in a bad mood. So what did I do? I went to the movies alone-bad idea!

I left my home and started to walk through to a DVD shop. When I arrived there, I asked the shop owner if he could recommend a film for me to watch.

He said that there was a new movie out, in 4-D. He gave me the disc and glasses. I asked him what was the fourth D, and he answered: "Find out for yourself.”

When I got home, I turned on the T.V. and began to watch it. I wondered why I saw lots fog around me. I felt like I wasn't just sitting there watching the movie. Maybe my chair moved. I got the feeling that I was in the movie. I saw a girl who looked like a sheep.

Seeing this weird fog and sheep-girl only put me in an even worse mood. So I grabbed the remote and tried to turn off the movie. But instead of going black, the screen began to glow and the fog thickened, turned blue, and began spewing out of the screen. The sheep-girl stepped out of the T.V. screen right into my room and headed straight for me.

I was shocked. I couldn’t decide what to do next. I stopped for a while and stared at the girl, carefully. She had a golden key in her mouth and it was shining.

I took the key out of her mouth, I put it into my right ear and turned. Nothing happened. I tried the left ear and I heard a click. The girl, the smoke disappeared. I went to sleep and the next day I went to the store to return the DVD.

When I got to the place where the DVD store was, I couldn't find the store again. And I didn't know why I felt unusual. I couldn't move any part of my body in the usual way and I saw other people and buildings become very big. And when I looked at my arms and my body, I was astonished because I had become a puppet.

I tried to yell for help but I couldn't open my mouth. Just as I was about to panic, the sheep-girl reappeared. This time she had a silver key in her mouth.

Then I said to myself, “Don’t be silly. This is just a stupid dream. But I couldn’t keep myself from taking the key and trying it in my ear again.

This time, before turning the key I grabbed the foot of the sheep-girl. Then I turned the key. My head exploded; it was like I could see everything from outside my head. But I could not see me.

I just tried to find myself, since I couldn't find a movie that I loved. But far away I saw a child playing with a toy, when I got near him. I saw that the boy was me! It’s my childhood that I was watching. Maybe I was doing something wrong at that moment.

I continued to watch the images of what I now understood to be my past. Then I began to remember what happened on the day that I was playing with that toy. It had been the worst day of my life, but I had block out that day from my memory until this very moment!

I stopped for a while and thought. When I was a little kid I killed a frog. Could it be a kind of hallucination or maybe it was a kind of punishment for me.

Maybe it could, maybe it couldn't. But that was in the past, I could not do anything about it. I heard the presence of the sheep-girl, even if I couldn't see her. She put a key in my hand. It felt like a plastic key.

And then I was sleeping again. When I woke up, I saw I was in the water. I just thought: “Why?” And I saw myself again. This time I was in the water and at that time I was young.

Maybe lots of bad things happened to me in the past. I was scared many times but when I wanted to give up on life I saw the sheep-girl again and this time she said "When life is hard for you, it will make you stronger, you just need to trust in yourself.”

"Oh brother!" I thought, and went to rub my eyes. I still had on the 4-D glasses! I yanked them off of my face, and the fog, the sheep-girl, and all the weird thoughts disappeared immediately. That's when I realized that all this time, I had been watching a B-movie in 4-D.

The End

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
oo Broono
Giovanni Tweak

Ordinary Day

2011-03-08T05:13:00.000-08:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class March 6, 2011

It started out as any other ordinary day in the city. The sound of the sanitation truck and the honking of car horns woke me up.

I crawled out of bed and slipped on an old pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I yawned and proceeded downstairs to make a quick breakfast before leaving for work.

I was so sleepy even though I had gone to sleep very early. I had felt there would be something strange that day. I left home and started to walk to the bus station.

I was listening to music with my iPod-like device. I guess the volume was loud and I was walking following the beat of the music because I noticed there were people following me. They were walking and dancing at the same time, like in an 80's music video.

Maybe I was on T.V., I thought, because I saw some cameras in front of me. So I tried to do my best and I was dancing with the other people.

Then it dawned on me that the cameras merely traffic cameras, and not from some television show. So, I stopped dancing, turned down the volume of my music, and kept walking towards the bus station. But the crowd of people bopping their heads to my music and following me kept growing.

I looked around and found that I was surrounded by people in every direction. As the crowd grew, I quickened my pace to escape the overwhelming sea of people. Before I knew it, I was at work, but still the people surrounded me.

It was like a crazy dream. I’ve always wanted to be a pop star. It was my dream. I stopped for a while and thought maybe I drank too much beer last night.

The boss walked to my desk, his face purple with rage: "Didn't you get the no-dancing memo?" he screamed at me. "You are fired. Take your personal effects and most of all take these people out of here.

I was afraid and didn't know what to do. I tried to understand what was happening.

In exasperation, I cupped my face in my hands and then threw them up in the air. "I surrender!" I thought to myself. It was then that I noticed that the people who were following me did the same. They cupped their faces in their hands and then threw them up, while still dancing all the while.

I was curious, so I tried various other motions. I hopped on one foot and stuck out my tongue. I giggled as everyone around me did the same. I felt like a puppet master. I began Michael Jackson's "Thriller" dance, and smiled emphatically as everyone joined in this city-wide dance.

It was crazy. Everybody was starting to dance with me. I couldn’t block myself and wanted to check the people who were outside. I looked out of the window. All the people in the street were dancing with us.

I was starting to enjoy all this dancing when my phone rang. "I am the chief of police. There is a fungus that takes control of the mind of the people and turns them into dancing zombies. When the music stops they attack humans. Keep dancing and go to the arena. The police will wait there for them."

After a few hours, I was really tired. I really wanted to stop but I couldn't, so I just tried to phone the police to see what would happen.

Just as I was about to dial 911, I saw the arena just up ahead. With all of my remaining strength, I moved frantically towards the arena, with the dancing hordes right at my heels.

I was so tired, but I knew I had to keep going. I was running out of dance ideas! At this point, I had to resort to the Chicken Dance. It was all so absurd that I couldn't help but laugh as these killer zombies wiggled their bodies and flapped their arms like a chicken.

It was like there were chickens everywhere! Suddenly, I heard a ring. My mobile phone was ringing. It was my mom asking me to bring home a chicken for dinner. I couldn’t find the words to say, and I just laughed.

The arena was surrounded by police in extermination gear. I thought they would have killed everybody, including me. Maybe they thought I was a zombie too. I froze, and all the zombies froze too. It was eerie. The police started to get close and relaxed. I never liked the cops anyway.

When a cop got close I moved quickly and I bit his head. All the other zombies did the same. So the police became zombies and started to dance with us.

The End

Alianaluz Rivere (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
Am Luponox
oo Broono
Giovanni Tweak

Hungry Like an Italian

2011-02-27T13:12:00.000-08:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class February 27, 2011

Last summer I took a long trip on a train. I was traveling from Poland to Italy. I thought I would meet my colleague. I never saw him before, but when I called him I heard a girl's voice on the phone. I was afraid to hear her voice, but her soft and nice voice put me at ease.

I didn't know what kind of work we were supposed to do in Italy, but I was very excited to visit Italy because I wanted to taste the food.

My friend invited me to a luxurious restaurant for dinner that night. I felt so excited and started to think about the delicious taste of Italian foods.

The train hadn't even made it to France. Yet I was already torturing myself with thoughts of the delicious food that awaited me in Italy. My stomach started to growl so loud that the elderly woman who was sitting next to me lifted her eyebrow and said,

"I think you need to have a little snack, dearie." And with that, she opened the crumpled brown bag that was on her lap, took out a shiny apple, and handed it to me.

I wanted to wait for my food but I couldn’t say “no” to her, so I took the apple and pretended to eat it.
When I finally arrived, the train was so late. I saw a girl waiting for me.

She said we didn't have enough time for dinner, so she gave me some Chinese crackers. They had a flavor that I had never tasted before. I thought maybe I'm still so hungry.

He said i could have food poisoning, because the ‘freshness’ date on the crackers had expired. I regretted that I had eaten them but there was nothing that I could do. My friend took me to his home and said his girlfriend was a famous cook in Italy. She made some soup for me.

So I ate her soup; it was delicious, but I was so sick I couldn’t finish it. After that, my friend suggested that I sleep in his house.

I accepted and went to lie down on the litter of pillows and blankets on the floor that my friend had prepared for me. I fell fast asleep and did not wake up for four days.

I heard some loud voices around to me. I tried to open my eyes. I saw that girl waiting for me. I was hungry again and I decided to go out. I couldn't understand the language and no one could understand English.
I smelled something very good and I followed it to a place that had a RESTAURANT sign. I hoped they could help me in there.

I went into the restaurant and saw the master chef. I told him that I am very interested in Italian foods. He told me that I could be a cook at his restaurant. He said he pays well too.

The master chef gave me cook's uniform and showed me the kitchen. It smells so good in that place but I wasn’t there to eat, but to work!

At least that's what I kept telling myself as I sipped some of the soup that the other chef had prepared for the patrons, and nibbled on the freshly baked rolls that sat atop a counter. Before I realized what I was doing, I had eaten all of the food in the kitchen!

After I had eaten, I went back to my girlfriend’s house. Dinner was waiting for me there. When I sipped the soup that my girlfriend had made, I couldn’t feel anything.

When the chef found me he was so mad! They had a restaurant full of people and no food to serve. Then he relaxed, smiled, called all the other kitchen staff and said: “Change the menu, We'll have pork roast tonight.” I had eaten too much to run away or to scream when they picked me up, took my clothes off and started to oil me up.
The end
PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono
Rosie27 Resident

Practical English program now at 4am PST

2011-02-27T02:22:00.000-08:00

Time change: The Practical English program has moved from 2am to 4am PST, on Sunday.

It can be done on different days, at different times.
Contact a Help Team member or a Class Runner.

Martian Memories

2011-02-20T09:37:00.001-08:00

ESL Story Writing Class February 20, 2011
I went to mars today. So, I decided to take my country's flag and human knowledge. This was the first time that humans went there.

I got off my space ship and looked around first. It was a dark place and also very cold. I started to walk slowly.

I was looking for Jenny, this was her name. I met her in SL. She had written "I keep SL™ and RL separate" in her profile.

I stopped to ask one of the few Martians who was sitting on a rock by the entrance of a cave, if he (or she or it) had seen Jenny.

I had on a special breathing apparatus, of course, since there's no oxygen on Mars. Surprisingly, the Martian understood me, even though I hadn't yet asked him the question out loud. He was able to read my mind!

The Martian told me about Jenny. She is a scientist and she lives nearby. I decided to visit her house.
She was investigating human behavior and using SL to study it. I went to her house and met with her. She remembered me and said, "Oh, I know you. You are that guy who asked me if AI wanted a free class at the ESL school in SL."

But I didn't remember her. Obviously she was using alts. I thought I had found my soul-mate, this is why I had traveled to Mars. And now I find out she is a cheater who uses alts. I want to go back to Earth!

I stopped to ask one of the few Martians who was sitting on a rock by the entrance of a cave, if he (or she or it) had seen Jenny. I had on a special breathing apparatus, of course, since there's no oxygen on Mars.

She looked at me and said, "I never cheated on you, sweetie. I use alts for my research." I hadn't said a word so I was shocked. She winked at me and said, "I can read minds, dearie. The Martians taught me how to do that."

She knew that technology was very hard for me. So she said, "We need more people to chat with you." In my mind, I was thinking that I will be jealous of anyone who talks to her, and I didn't want to tell anyone else but her.

The secret of how she can read minds was a lake on Mars. She took me to a magical lake. She said, "You people always claim there is water on Mars, and look, it's true. There really is water on Mars. Now try to drink some of it. You'll see what I mean."

I took my space suit off and I drank some water. I couldn't breathe but I didn't care. She told me that the possessive side in my feelings was wrong, and that we should all love one another. She invited me to stay on Mars for a while to see how it worked. I could always teach English to Martians.

So, I opened up a "Drive-Through ESL school" in one of the smaller craters on Mars. It soon became very popular, so I had to hire some Martian Help Team members. One Martian on the HT was a bit over-enthusiastic.

He would read the minds of any Martian who came within 2 meters of the Infohub--even if the Martian was only passing by and had no intention of coming to the school.

I thought it's time to tell humans how Mars was because I still hadn't revealed this secret. I didn't want to go to Earth so I asked her how I could get to Earth. She said, "Use the black hole" and she gave me a small machine to wear.

I dove into the black hole and I fell into a deep sleep. When I woke up and opened my eyes, I was in my Infohub in SL! OMG, I couldn't get to Earth! That stupid Martian sent me to damned Second Life! I was just a pixel avatar at the ESL English School.

After a few days, I realized it was not so bad. I didn't have to eat or wash, I looked very good and I was living like a rock star, going to parties all the time.

After a few months of partying in SL I started to miss Jenny. After all, all the girls in SL seemed the same to me. When I looked closely at their faces, they all seemed to be carbon copies of one another with slight variations.

I started to pine away for Jenny. At first, parts of my body became invisible. Later, I started looking flat and turning grey. I desperately wanted to go back to Mars.

I found that small machine again and I turned it on. This time, I really went to Earth. But I couldn't find anyone on Earth. "What happened?" I asked myself. And I looked at the machine again. It had a screen like that of a watch. Something was written on it. It was "Earth year 5,000."

I got into the machine and found Jenny next to me. She gave me a big hug and said, "Hey sweetie, look what happened? We were in SL, then we met on Mars, and now guess where we will go?

There's nobody on Earth or on Mars. They all went to SL. We created a Mars planet there. I’ll take you there now.

It's been 20 years and some of the passion of the first months is gone. But we have a good life. We spend summers on Earth, winters on Mars and weekends in SL. I hope no one turns this off.
The End

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono

A Fishy Story

2011-02-13T09:24:00.000-08:00

                                      ESL Group Story Writing Class February 13, 2011

One beautiful spring morning when I was all alone at home and had nothing to do, I decided to take a dip in the small pond that was in a shallow patch of woods behind my house. It was a bit brisk out, but I thought, "What the heck, a little cold air and a little cold water out doors will do me good after having spent so much time indoors during the long winter.”
The weather was really so cold and wet during the winter but now the sun was shining in the blue sky like a gem. I felt a light wind on my face. There was an awesome fragrance in the air, and it was coming from the spring flowers.
I tried to catch a fish when I went into the water. I felt so good that I forgot all my wants and needs. I was enjoying myself there. Suddenly, I saw a big, red jewel deep in the water. I thought, "Maybe I could go get it and give it to my girlfriend."

That jewel will make my girlfriend so happy. I can imagine when she wears the jewel she will look so pretty with it on. I started looking into her heart. Hopefully, her heart will be as beautiful as that gem stone.
So I took a big breath and dived down. I kept swimming deeper and deeper but the jewel seemed to get farther away. Suddenly I realized I had no oxygen left. I was still far away from the jewel and too deep down to go back to the surface. I panicked, I thought I would drown and I passed out.

I came to in what seemed like only seconds later. At first, everything was blurry; then little by little my vision cleared and I saw a lovely red-headed girl leaning over me with a concerned look on her face.
I thought that the girl that I saw might be a mermaid. I couldn't forget her beautiful, innocent face. I returned to my home to get some rest but the girl's sweet face was always on my mind.
I didn't know what to do because I promised my girlfriend that I would never look at another girl or love another girl again. Then I thought, "Promises are like children. It's fun making them but it's no fun keeping them." So I broke my promise.
I kept seeing that girl and thinking that she was so kind to me. She took care of me so well when I fainted. I saw a butterfly metamorphosing on a tree, OMG; she's kinder than my girlfriend. She behaved better than my girlfriend. "She has a beautiful heart like that butterfly," I thought. Now I'm doubtful of what I should do.
Luckily she broke the impasse and kissed me. AAAARGH! It was like kissing a fish! I felt gratitude towards her, she was also very hot. I wanted her with all my heart, soul and blood, but... It was just like kissing a cold, slimy, salty fish.
All of a sudden a weird thought that I couldn't shake entered my mind. It was something like this: "If I could only retrieve that gem from the bottom of the pond, and put it in this beautiful siren's mouth while we kiss, I won't be so repulsed by her fish breath." So after she left, I waited until midnight, then I took a flashlight and went back out to the pond behind my house.
I took an oxygen tank with me this time, just in case...
I thought maybe this time I could do better. So I just dived into the water and tried to find that red jewel but I still couldn't find it. I thought maybe it wasn't a good idea to do it at night but when I went out the next day, I saw the girl again.
I went back to the pond. The red-hair girl was there. She had the red gem between her lips. We kissed and it was the sweetest kiss I ever had. I fell hopelessly in love with her. I woke up the next day with the gem on my nightstand. I put it in my mouth and it was just a stone. I threw it away, I went back to the pond, I dived in the deep water and I never came back out again.
glu glu…

PARTICIPANTS:
Ai12in Resident
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono

Lag Meter

2011-02-07T15:21:00.001-08:00

When you lag in SL open the Lag Meter.
It will tell you if lag is caused by your computer (Client), by your connection (Network) or by SL (Server).

How do you open the Lag meter?
Click HERE

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_2_Moves#Lag_Meter_and_Statistics_Bar

It’s Greek to me

2011-02-06T11:16:00.000-08:00

                                  ESL Group Story Writing Class February 6, 2011

My favorite color is blue. I always wear blue, I always use blue decorations in my apartment, and I always eat blueberries. My car is also blue.

I love blue sky. One day I decided to buy a house which has a big terrace with a view of the blue sky.
I didn't know what I really wanted to do, so I just randomly called a number.

It was a Greek number. The lady on the phone told me the sky is often blue in Greece, like the sea, that blue is their national color and that most houses have blue frames, doors and shutters.

So I decided to go. I arrived at the new modern airport and I rented a car.It was a convertible. I jumped into the car, turned the radio on, and sped away.
The car was blue and I stopped at a gas station which had big, blue balloons in front of it. It was a nice day and the sun was shining in the blue sky. I realized I was hungry and went into a fast-food shop.

I didn't really know why I love the color blue, but I saw a girl and she had blue eyes, and I think I fell in love with her.

She closed the store and prepared a wonderful meal. Then she sat on my knees and asked me for the keys to the car. She took the keys from my pocket and she stopped at the door as if to say: "Are you coming?"

Without saying a word, I stood up and followed her. I was mesmerized by her blue eyes and by her voice. If sound could have a color, then her voice would be blue.

I was fascinated by her blue eyes and voice. Also, she was a perfect cook. She turned to face me, with a blue look, and asked, "Do you want to try my blue 'turta'? It's my special dessert."

I said, " Yes, why not?" And I ate it. My eyes felt very heavy, and very soon I was sleeping.
When I wake up she's beside me on the bed. She tells me: “Now it's time for a ride.” She sits in the driver’s seat of the convertible. When she enters the state road the tires say “hello” to her.

I rubbed my ears because I couldn't believe that tires were talking! But as I rubbed, a blue mist started coming out of my ears!

She was driving like a mad woman. I started to shout and beg her to stop the car, but she didn't hear me. Finally, the blue mist was everywhere, surrounding the car, and we crashed into a wall.

I was afraid. I asked myself again, why I really love the color blue. Maybe the color blue can't give me good luck.

“I am the best thing that ever happened to you,” she said. “If you think blue is bad luck, it means you don't really love me.” I was thinking... “Do I really love her?”

Then I said, "Wait! How do you know that I was thinking blue may not be a lucky color for me? Can you read my mind?" "No, I can't read your mind. The blue mist that came out of your ears whispered your thoughts to me." "So," she continued, "Answer your own thought. Do you really love me?" I covered my ears! "

I said, “Of course I love you. Maybe we should marry and live in a blue mist, having naughty kids with blue eyes. What do you think of this?"

OMG she said she has a husband, so she can't marry me. And now I feel like I've lost my heart.
I called her husband. I told him I'd let him drive the convertible too, and that we could take fast rides all together.

He's a really amazing guy. I unde rstand why A. (the girl) married him. We are really happy together and we're thinking of moving to Toronto to see if they will marry the three of us.
And they lived happily ever after.

The End

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono

Practical English Program. Sunday 2am PST

2011-02-04T09:38:00.000-08:00

Starts Sunday, February 6, classes at 11h in Europe , 6pm in China and 7pm in Japan.

Teacher: Inge Qunhua
7 classes. Limit 6 students. Enrollment open. E-mail giovanni_tweak@yahoo.com

The beginner course is for students whose English is very basic or who have studied English years ago.
It is designed to give students language skills to deal with everyday situations in SL and rl.

A1 level "Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and things he/she has. Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help."

1 Sun 6 Feb Café
2 Sun 27 Feb Airport
3 Sun 6 Mar Hotel Reception
4 Sun 13 Mar Bank
5 Sun 20 Mar Hospital
6 Sun 27 Mar Garage/Salon
7 Sun 3 Aprr Home

Lesson 1 at the Café: introducing yourself, meeting people, ordering beverages
Lesson 2 at the Airport: Travel, custom, security controls
Lesson 3 at the Hotel Reception: booking a room, hotel check in and out.
Lesson 4 at the Bank: opening and closing a bank account, depositing, withdrawing and exchanging currency.
Lesson 5 at Hospital: arriving at the Hospital or Emergency Room.
Lesson 6 at the Garage/Salon: going to car repair and getting a haircut or a hair dye.
Lesson 7 at Home: everyday object and actions.

Inside Jokes

2011-01-30T12:34:00.000-08:00

          ESL Group Story Writing Class January 30, 2011

I was looking for a job; I was really desperate. An ad on the internet said: “Tour the world and make people happy.” I called and set up an interview. They told me the job was in the produce department of a new, big supermarket in China.

On the airplane from Chicago, my city, to Fuxin, a man with a black suit, black sunglasses, and a black hat sat beside me and told me he was from the C.I.A. and he had a deal for me.

I was curious about the "deal." But the thing is that there was no deal. The man in the black suit had a gun with him!

I was concerned about the deal. Then I was fearful.I didn't know why the C.I.A. would need my help, because in China, there is no such secret agency.

And I was very afraid about the gun, because people were forbidden to use guns here. But a gun was pointed at me.

I didn't have a chance and couldn’t do anything, I thought. I asked him what he meant, and he said, “Help me search for a discount shopping group that is buying things in China.

I had a terrible fear of flying but now, also I had a cold gun pointed at my back. The old lady who was sitting near me saw the man and his gun, and she started to shout: "Help, help, there's a hijacker here!"

At that moment, I remembered the movie that I had seen a few years ago, and I thought I must help the lady even if it resulted in my death.

Before I could do anything, the man with the gun, stood up and flashed a badge, saying "I am an air marshal, please calm down. We are engaging in a drill to make sure this airplane is safe."

The man in black sitting beside me smiled enigmatically until we got off the plane. But then he disappeared right after.

I started my job, and it was great. I was making a lot of money and eating a lot of vegetables. One night when I was going home, I took a shortcut through the woods. The man in black was waiting there.

And the strangest thing was that right next to him were two of my ex-girlfriends! And they seemed to have a devilish look in their eyes.

He gazed at the two women and suddenly, they started dancing a sexy dance. This confused him. He grabbed a drink and joined the dance.

But in my mind, I didn't know what was happening. I thought "Maybe this is just a joke, but why? What can I do?" Then I thought that it would be better if I just waited a while longer.

So I did it. That man finally opened his mouth and told me about some strange thing that was happening, like why Chinese buyers pool their money as a form of discount shopping. He said this trend is growing faster than it is in the USA.

I was really astonished. I thought I lost my mind and started to shouted things like: “OMG, what the hell is going on here? Who are you? Tell me now what you want from me!”

Suddenly the man in black stopped dancing and replied, “Hey dude, listen carefully. I am the manager of the supermarket that you work in. We caught you on camera eating vegetables while you were selling at the same time.

“We are testing our workers who work in the produce department, because farmers use pesticides on their products. Now please tell me how you feel?”

I closed my eyes for a moment and after I opened them I saw three big juicy strawberries in front of me. OMG, I had eaten a lot of strawberries that day. That’s why I felt that way! They were using me as an experiment!

"I'm still waiting for an answer," said my manager. "How do you feel now that you've eaten pesticide-tainted fruits and vegetables?" I looked at him and said, "Screw you! How dare you experiment on me?"

He gave me that enigmatic smile and said, "We didn't force you to eat the vegetables. As a matter of fact, you were stealing when you ate them.

Instead of working, you were eating the produce that you were supposed to have been selling. So answer my question or I will have you arrested for theft."

Now I could lose my job that I liked so much. But my manager started to laugh. He said I was being videotaped, and that my face was very funny and that they would use the video for advertisement. I will be famous!

But no such luck. I woke up suddenly. It was all a dream. I was still on the airplane on my way to China.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono
Oweny Helendale
pedrovisky Resident
torisa Resident

Pumas in Kansas

2011-01-24T01:32:00.000-08:00

                                      ESL Group Story Writing Class January 23 2011

Last summer, my car broke down during a cross-country trip from New York to California. I’m not sure exactly where I was when it broke down because my GPS and cell phone stopped working when my car stopped moving.

I do know that I was somewhere in the state of Kansas because I passed the Missouri/Kansas state-border-crossing sign about an hour before the breakdown.

I was starting to search for a gas station. I got out of my broken car and started to walk quickly. While I was walking I saw a sign. “Gas about 3 Miles” was written on the sign.

When I finally arrived at the gas station, I was really very tired and thirsty. An old man saw me and asked, “Hey stranger, how can I help you?”

I said, “I need help! My car is broken.” But in my mind I thought "I hope he can help me and I hope he doesn’t do bad things to me."

He just told me that he had tools and can repair my car, so I needed to get into his car, he said. I warned him not to do any bad things to me because I have a GPS and " if I disappear, the police will find me," I said.

He turned to me with a puzzled look on his face and said, "Why would you think that I'll do bad things to you?" Then he winked and added, "I think you watch too many horror films, stranger."

So I reluctantly got into his car and pointed in the direction where we needed to go to get my car. As we neared my car, I noticed that something dark was moving inside of it.

A kind of wild animal was looking through the window of my car and it was a wild puma. But it was just a baby puma, it wasn’t an adult. Maybe it was looking for its mother.

The man said, “Hey dude, don’t worry, I have a gun. I can shoot it.” But I shouted, “OMG, are you crazy? It’s just a baby!” But the man didn’t stop and said, “We can be so rich dude. We can sell it to the zoo.”

I told him, “First, you need to help me repair my car. Then you can catch the baby puma.” So he repaired my car and I got into it and drove away as fast as I could. As I drove away, I watched him just standing there, watching me.

I noticed that the puma was standing beside him and the man was stroking the puma's head. Just before my car turned a bend, I saw the man kneel down next to the puma. He appeared to be whispering something into its ear. Then I lost sight of them.

I drove on for another hour or so, not seeing anything or anyone along the way. Finally, I came to a small, dusty town in the middle of nowhere. I was still very thirsty, so I decided to park my car at the edge of town and walk the few blocks to what looked like a coffee shop.

As I entered the coffee shop, a tiny bell above the door rang, and everyone in the coffee shop turned and stared at me.

I said, "Hi all. Can I have a cup of black coffee, please?" The guy who was standing behind the counter answered, “Yes. But first I need to ask you something.

Do you know this man?” He was holding a picture in his hands when he was asking, and the guy in the picture was that old, short man who disappeared suddenly with the baby puma.
And the word written under the photograph was “WANTED.”

I didn't know what to say because I was afraid. And I tried to say that I didn't know him, but It was very difficult, because I loved animals and also, I didn't want to lie. So I tried in another way tell him that I knew the person.

I said, "I don't know him, but I've seen him. He was at a gas station a few miles from here. There was a baby puma with him." Everyone in the coffee shop stopped talking and stopped eating and looked at me again.
So I leaned over and whispered in the man's ear "First he wanted to shoot the puma, and then he wanted to sell it to a zoo."

The man jumped out from behind the counter, grabbed me by my neck, and shouted "There is no gas station within 500 miles of this town! You're lying! Where is he? Where is he?"

But I said, “No, there is a station over there. Come with me, I’m gonna show it to you.”
The guy said, “OK, Oh man you are awesome. We’ve been looking for this man for the past 2 years. He’s a big animal smuggler. Please take us to that gas station you mentioned.”

We went there, and the station was there! And I heard a crying puma roaring, but nobody was there. I looked at the door where the sound of puma came from. The door was locked. We broke it down all together and saw lots of wild animals inside cages. And the little puma was there too.

At first I thought that maybe we should call 911 but then I thought that by the time the police arrived, it would be too late. So we decided to save the animals first and worry about catching the man later.
The mother of the little puma was in the cage and they found each other. In the end, everybody was happy and all the animals were freed.
The End

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
oo Broono

Falon’s Precious Nightmare

2011-01-16T13:57:00.000-08:00

                    ESL Group Story Writing Class January 16, 2011

Falon was a very brave girl. Every Thursday night she would take a slow, long, stroll through the graveyard that has stood for over 200 years at the edge of the small village where she lived.

She was never afraid of anything. One day she decided to go into the jungle near the village where she lives.
She didn't think of herself as brave, she just wasn't afraid of the dead. She knew they are all around us. She could feel them in the jungle too.

She thought, "Maybe I can find something interesting in here." So she looked around for a special object, and she found a ring.

She found a ring and it was interesting. She suddenly said, “Ohhh my precious!" It was a favorite object for her.

She wore that ring and something happened. She felt something burning in her body. Suddenly, her body turned red.

Even though her body felt as if it were on fire, she was calm (because she wasn't afraid of anything, after all). She looked at her red hands and at her red arms. "Interesting," she thought. Then she saw a lake in the middle of the jungle.

She slowly walked over to the lake and looked down at her reflection that shone clearly on the flat surface of the water. Her entire body was glowing red.

While she was watching her reflection in the lake, she noticed something moving on her back. It was a long, red tail moving like a wild snake.

She started to learn how to control the tail. She wanted to keep it hidden from view most of the time, but she also wanted to use it as a whip when necessary. In the jungle she became good at catching small animals. One day she was hunted by a terrible jungle lion…

One day she saw a boy go into the jungle and she tried to get to know him, but he saw a terrifying thing. So when he saw her, he ran away, very fast. That boy noticed the worse thing on earth. He ran so fast but he could not run away from Falon's arms.

She tried to say something to the boy but she couldn't. She opened her eyes and discovered that she was dreaming. She said, "Aw, it was a nightmare."

When she got up to go to the bathroom, she noticed that she still had on that ring. She looked in the mirror and said, "Awwwwwwwwwwwww my precious."

Then she went downstairs and looked at the boy gagged, lying on top of the dining table, ready to be eaten.
She tried to pinch herself. "OMG, the ring is so real! I'm still wearing it," she thought. She tried to take the ring off her finger but she couldn't.

The boy watched her with frightened eyes. She stared back at him while she continued to struggle to remove the ring. All of a sudden, she remembered that this was a dream. It had to be a dream because she wasn't afraid of anything when she was awake, and now, she was in a panic over a silly ring.

The moment she came to that realization, she calmed down and untied the boy. "You're free to go now," she told him. At first, he seemed to be too afraid to move, but when he saw her reach for a butcher knife that was lying on the table, he got up and ran out of the house. Falon giggled, took the knife, and hacked off her red hand...ring and all.

She threw the hand to the dogs to eat and went home. On the way home she found on her path a jungle lion, which was smelling her blood. She whipped her tail twice and shortened the lion's moustache. It ran away whimpering. The blood had stopped. She arrived home and checked her wall.

She saw that her hand was back. She wasn't very happy because she was still lovesick over the boy. But she couldn't find him. Now, she thought that maybe this wasn't a dream.

That ring on her hand was so annoying, but still, it was a part of her body. She tried to accept that ring. She began to receive the ring and to move on.
The End

PARTICIPANTS:
Ai12in Resident
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono
Wibbin Bernitz

2011-01-10T14:26:00.000-08:00

New Year’s ~~Eve~~ Melissa

                                             ESL Group Story Writing Class January 9, 2011

You won't believe what happened to me on New Year's Eve! At 10 o'clock in the morning, I started celebrating by myself a bit early. I cracked open a bottle of champagne that someone had given me for Christmas, and took a swig right out of the bottle.

I started to drink champagne. It was a bit cold and snowing outside. My little kitten Angel and I were alone in the house. I started to watch the street from my window, while I was drinking. Suddenly, a car stopped in front of my house.

I didn't know what was happening but I think maybe someone went the wrong way down the street, so I didn't really want to know who was in that car.

A woman got out of the car. She was Melissa, a new colleague at work. She was very pretty, but no one talked to her at the office because she said she liked to RP and to experiment with witchcraft.

She started to walk towards my door. She appeared to be looking directly at me through the window. Suddenly, I felt self-conscious about drinking so early in the morning, so I quickly took another gulp from the bottle and then shoved it beneath the table next to my chair. The doorbell rang.

I stood up to go to the door. I could hardly stand. She was smiling at me with her angelic face. I thought, "What luck! I'll not be alone this Christmas." She came into the house and gave me a package. "Take this, it's for you," she said. When she gave me the package her green eyes were sparkling like a puma.

I was very happy and I opened it. I found an HTC phone inside. I didn't know if this was a gift because there was no note inside. Was I missing some information?

So I just smiled at her and said, "Do you want to celebrate with me?" But I saw that she just walked away. I didn't know what was happening, really. When I went to the bedroom, I heard the HTC phone ringing.

I could not see who was calling and I didn't know how to answer the call, so I let it ring and went to bed to sleep through this lonely last day of the year.

Immediately, I fell into a deep sleep, but that didn't last long. I was jolted out of my sleep by a loud banging noise.

I got up and went into the living room to see what it was. I looked at the phone on the table. The glass casing was smashed and tiny shards of glass were all over the table and floor. Then I heard a sound coming from underneath the table, where I had left the champagne bottle.

I looked closely and saw that there was a little troll standing beneath the table, with a hammer in one hand and my champagne bottle in the other!

I was scared and my kitten Angel was hiding behind the curtain. I tried to understand what was going on: Who was this Melissa and why did she give me that damn telephone. Just then, the phone started to ring again. I decided to answer. I pushed the button. A woman said, “Hi.” She was Melissa.

I heard a sound, "I need help, help, help!" I didn't know how to answer because I didn't know what to do. Maybe I was scared. So I answered, "Can I help you?" I waited a long time and finally heard "Yes you can."

After that, I didn't understand what the person said because I didn't know what language she was using. Maybe she was from another planet. I could only say, Maybe the best thing for you to do is to call 911." I didn't know if I should end the phone call or not.

The phone began to cry: The actual phone, not the voice. It started to move, floating in the air. A blinking yellow sign appeared on the screen. It said: “Follow Me.” I followed it outside and there was the car with the engine running.

I said, Hell no!" and I backed away from the floating phone. The phone moved closer to me and said "Don't be afraid, please help me!" Then the yellow sign started to glow and a yellow tear fell from the phone onto my hand.
As soon as the tear touched my hand, I felt calm and I was no longer afraid. I followed the phone. It hovered over the table where the little troll (who was now completely drunk) was.

A strange voice whispered into my ear: “Please help Melissa. She is so lonely, everybody is afraid of her. Now wake up this is just a dream!” When i woke up, my doorbell was ringing, and it was real. I opened the door and saw Melissa. She was smiling and carrying a package in her hand.

She smiled at me with her awesome emerald green eyes and said, “I wanna be with you next year. Please accept my present.” I opened the box and it was an HTC phone.

This time I was very clever. I closed the door and hoped nothing more would happen. But you can’t control things if a girl is crying at your door because your neighbors might call 911. So I decided to open the door again and I let her in.

I knew what would happen so I asked her if she gave me the phone as a present. And she answered, “No, this phone isn’t for you. Your friend told me that you could repair it for her, so I’m here for your help. I was feeling good so I repaired it and asked her to join me for New Year’s Eve.
The End

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono

Lost and Found

2011-01-10T14:02:00.000-08:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class December 19, 2010

It was a dark and stormy night. I was walking down a road because my car had broken down, my phone battery had died and there was no one else traveling on that road. I saw a light in the trees of the forest on the side of the road. I went in towards the light.

I was standing there waiting for someone to do me a favor. Suddenly there was someone next to me offering to do me a favor. Without hesitating, I asked him for the favor. That person said, "How much you want to pay me?"

I was surprised because my wallet didn't have much money in it. I was so surprised because I didn't have much money to offer him. I decided to solve the problem myself, and I kept walking in the forest. Suddenly, I noticed a strange light behind the trees.

A big strange disk looked dazzling. It looked like a space ship. I thought that I should run but I couldn't move. Maybe I never saw this strange thing happening.

The big space ship sucked me up into it and I saw some animals. My face turned red because I was afraid and I urinated on myself.

I thought "This can't be happening!" I closed my eyes for a few seconds. When I opened them, I was back in the forest, standing alone There was no space ship and no strange light. But my pants were cold and wet.

Now I couldn't remember which way I had come from and where I wanted to go. I couldn't see the road anymore. I just stood there, looking and listening hard.

I prayed hard, "God help me; send someone kind." When I was finished praying, I saw a little house in the middle of the forest. It was strange and I was afraid. All kinds of thoughts came into my head. I reminded myself not to panic. One more meter and I would be close to the house. My heart was beating so hard.

Then I felt something under my skin. I looked at it carefully. There was a small thing under my skin on my ankle. It looked like a small chip. I tried to calm myself down. I knocked on the door of the house.

I head someone answer: "Who are you?" And I said, "I'm OO, I lost my way. Please help me." And I waited a long time, but no one answered again. I didn't have a choice. I opened the door and went through and I saw a gun aimed at my hand.

Then I heard a voice say, "I didn't give you permission to come into my house. You'd better leave now or I'll shoot you." "O.K., O.K.," I said. "Please don't shoot me! I just need to know the way out of this forest." I still couldn't see the person who was talking. It was dark inside the house but a sliver of moonlight shone on the gun barrel.

I backed up and the moonlight fell on my leg. I could clearly see the chip beneath the skin of my ankle. The person in the house could also see it.

"I would have thought you'd wear it on your shoulder." said the man, "You must be a new model." He told me I was too weak to walk my way out of there, that I would die if I tried. He made me stay there with him.

He let me in and interrogated me with many question. "Oh my God, don't you know I'm suffering a lot now?" I was screaming in my heart. After that, he asked me, "Are you okay?" I said, "I need to use the restroom."

I was feeling so powerful and alive when I returned to the room. The man said, "I have one more thing to tell you. Now go to your house and trust your sixth sense. You will find your way easily. You will never get old or sick but you will die if you mention this to anyone."

I didn't believe my ears. He let me go. This time I thought, "I really need to leave. When I went outside, I saw some lights and a helicopter. I was very happy and I tried to get the helicopter to see me.

When the man in the helicopter found me, he told me that they picked up a UFO on their radar, so they came to find me. Now I thought that I was very safe.

After all those emotions I fell asleep. When I woke up I was in a spaceship. I started to scream. The man entered but now he was different. "And you're coming with us." I had nothing to do until Wednesday, so I began to explore the spaceship and look for snacks.

End

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono
paula Olrich

EGG-xactly

2011-01-10T14:00:00.000-08:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class December 12, 2010

I always wanted to have a pet for myself --especially a cocktail parrot-- because I think they are smart animals, for a bird. One day when I was walking down the street, I saw a white cocktail parrot in the pet shop window.

But when I saw the price, I thought, "Wow, it's so expensive!" So I thought that maybe I could buy two eggs and watch them be born.

As I was walking away with the two eggs I heard a noise. I turned back and I saw the cocktail parrot thumping against the glass, like he wanted to call me back. So I went back to the store. The owner of the store opened the door. “Welcome back" He said.

I walked up to the parrot's cage and before I could do or say anything, the parrot said, "And where did you think you were going with my babies?" I wasn't shocked to hear the parrot talk, because I knew parrots could talk, but I was surprised at what the parrot had said. I answered, "I just wanted to take them home with me to watch them hatch." The bird started to cry so I went to the owner.

So I asked the seller how much the bird was. He said, "Hey man, if you want to buy it, I can give him to you for free. But are you sure you want him?

Yes I want him," I said, but in my mind I thought "OO don't buy him, you will become poor!" But I couldn't control my mouth, so I really needed to work hard...

As I was walking home with the bird, in a cage covered by a black cloth --which was sold to me by the pet store owner, and not at a discount price-- I asked myself why I had such a negative thought in my mind, After all, I was just taking the "mother" of the eggs home with me to my family of six brothers.

But I couldn't figure out why I kept thinking that it was a bad idea to take these eggs to my home. I pushed the worrisome thoughts out of my head and continued on my way home.

One day, I woke up early and sat at the kitchen table to have my breakfast. My mom served me a crepe and I ate it. It was delicious. I asked my mom how she made such a delicious crepe and she said that she made it with the eggs that I gave her last night. I was shocked but it was too late.

I had already eaten the eggs. I ran to the parrot's cage and looked at him. He was so sad. He stared at my face sadly and said some numbers: "418, 12, 20, 40.

That thing left me feeling so sad. I never thought that such a bad thing could happen. But I thought, the bird is alive, maybe I can do something for the bird
.
So I went to play the lottery. I wanted to play the numbers he had left me but when I went to the lotto concession stand they told me there was no 418. The highest number was 20. So I played the numbers 12 and 20 and I left the lotto place.

As I was walking back to my house, a bus stopped directly in front of me. The number on the bus was "418" so on an impulse, I got on the bus. I was daydreaming, so I didn't pay attention to where the bus was going but suddenly, the bus jerked to a stop and that snapped me out of my daydream.

I looked up and saw that the bus had stopped in front of the pet store. The number over the pet store door was 418! There were two large parrot eggs in the window with a sign above them that said, ""Two for one special: 12 dollars for the pair."

I wondered if the eggs in the window had already been fertilized. I wondered of there were fetuses inside. I didn't know one way or the other, so I was scared to take them home, because I didn't want my bird to be sad again.

I went back home with the eggs and I told the parrot: "I have two other eggs. To level with you, I'm not even sure if their zygote state has stated or not. I know they're not yours, but why don't you give it a try?”

My parrot looked at my face sadly but he was looking better than yesterday. I sat down on the sofa and started to wait for the lottery on the TV. I was pretty sure I would be the winner that week.

The TV announcer started to say the winning numbers: 12, 20, 40. OMG, yes, I was the winner. I was rich now. I had won 200.000 euros from the lottery.

The next day, I took my money out of the bank and I ran to the travel agency to book a bug world tour. I took my parrot and eggs and got onto the ship. We were so happy together and I noticed one more thing: my room number was 418.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono

Season greetings and Class Calendar changes

2010-12-24T03:13:00.000-08:00

Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
It's holiday season for many people in many places of the world, including Teachers, Class Runners and Help Team members.
The school is open for classes, but there are many changes in the calendar.
Check frequently, join the group in SL to receive class notices in SL or as an e-mail if you are offline.
Notices available also in Skype and SMS.

Candle in the Wing

2010-12-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class December 5, 2010

I could never understand why people who are given three wishes in books or in the movies never use their first wish to wish that they have an unlimited number of wishes. That puzzled me before I found a magic wish-candle.

I wasn't really sure this was a genuine magic-wish candle. A very old man had given it to me on the street, but he didn't look like he was giving me something important. He just looked at me and said: "Take this candle. It's magic. Magic wishes, you know?"

Sometimes I hated wishing because my wishes never came true. So I didn't care about the candle, but one day the power was cut off and I used this candle.

I had always wanted to be able to fly, with a big excellent pair of wings on my back. One day when I was eating my dinner at my old table, I lit the candle and dreamed that a miracle would allow me to be able to fly one day. After my dinner, I went to my bed and slept, and I woke up with a terrible back pain.

I thought a pair of wings had appeared on my back but actually, this back pain was from a long time ago. I thought I awoke with a miracle, but it actually was not a miracle at all. I kept staring at the candle that I put in my cupboard, when I awoke with curious thoughts in my head. And then I realized that I had to visit the person who gave me the candle, to ask him some questions.

So I took the candle from my cupboard, wrapped it in some brown paper, and set off to find the stranger who had given it to me. I searched high and low but could not find him. It was getting dark, so I decided to return home. Since the electricity had been turned off because I hadn't paid the bill in three months, I had to light the candle again, so that I could see where I was walking in my house.

"What are you doing, stupid?" I heard a voice yelling at me. You are burning the magic-wish candle. You should not light it up. You should stick it into your nose, breathe in deeply, jump on one leg and repeat your wish three times.

I thought that would be difficult, so I didn't want to try it. So I just continued to use it as a light but then I heard someone yelling at me again.

Then I did what he said to me I stuck it into my nose, jumped up and down on one leg, and asked for my flying wish again. Suddenly I felt a strange tingling on my back and I ran to the mirror with the candle still in my nose. I took off my shirt rushing, and looked at my back. Two wonderful silver-colored wings were starting to grow on my back.

Yes, I saw my wings growing little by little. Finally I could fly, the dream came true. Flying in the sky was my dream from childhood. Wow, was looking at a dwarf. I went down to check on it, to prove to myself that it was real. "Awesome, I'm in a dreamland!" I saw a fairy tale. How could this be? I pinched myself to see if I was dreaming or not.

"Ouch!" That pinch hurt! Suddenly the pain from the pinch traveled from my arm (where I had pinched myself) to my back where my wings had grown. I felt the tingling sensation again, and then in a flash, my wings disappeared! I grabbed the candle, rammed it into my nose, and did everything else that the voice had told me to do. I waited, but this time, nothing happened!

I was crushed. Wings had been my dream since, like, forever. Maybe the candle was good for only one wish? I went back to look for the man.

I thought I could find that man. But it looked like that wasn't going to happen, so I went back home. And also that strange thing happened again: I heard someone yelling again.

I was always checking for my wings. Maybe they would appear again. But they were gone. I felt disappointed and then somebody was yelling: "This is not a magic candle, stupid. The magic is in your mind."

"Don't let your heart control your head! Wake up, face reality! Suddenly that sound made me conscious and I went directly to make a cup of coffee to clear my heart and head.

One week later, I felt my back itch. I couldn't reach that point for scratching so I went to a big mirror so that could see my back. I am sure I saw a pink scar right there where I had my wings attached in my dream. Two days later I checked again, and it looks like they're growing back!

The End
----------------------------

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono
paula Olrich

Thanksgiving Turkey

2010-12-05T00:15:00.000-08:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class November 28, 2010

Thursday was Thanksgiving in the USA. When I first came to the US, I thought "What a bizarre holiday!" because almost every household in the country eats turkey on Thanksgiving.

I remember my first Thanksgiving very well. It was very cold, it was snowing. I didn't have any friends yet and I was alone.

Now I have a lot of friends, and I planned a party in my home. So I was happy to wait for my friends to arrive.

I bought a frozen turkey to cook for my friends. My friends told me something.
When i was preparing the turkey for cooking, I heard a strange noise. Something was rolling on the floor. It was a diamond ring. It had fallen from the turkey.

As soon as my hand touched it, I felt a weird, tingling sensation that spread from my fingers, up through my arm, and into my eye…my left eye, to be exact.
I felt my head spin and I had to lean against the wall. When I opened my eyes again I could see through things. I had X-ray vision.

When my friends arrived at my party, I knew I shouldn't use my eye but I was curious to see what was happening. But a strange thing happened. All of my friends were wearing clothing that blocks x-rays. This made me think about airport events.

Anyway, it was my scary dream that I had on a lonely Thanksgiving day. Now, at my party with my friends, some friends said, "Something is shining in the turkey's stomach!"

We cut open the shining turkey and took out the ring. Whenever i put it on my finger, everything was so clear. I was starting to see everything: cables behind the walls, bugs inside the carpets. And I could even see the eaten turkey inside my friend's stomach.

I rubbed my left eye. Was this a nightmare, as I had originally thought, or was this all real?

I took the ring off but nothing changed in my vision. Maybe I was stuck with X-ray vision forever!

I became curious about why those two guests were wearing clothes I could not see through. Maybe they were terrorists?

So I decided to find out. I tracked them down and told them that maybe we could go swimming together.

My friend said: "Swimming? It’s too cold to swim now. Do you have any idea where we should go to swim?” “ How about swimming in the turkey's stomach? We will be able to find the answer to why it's so strange here."

I gently asked, “Why don’t you eat more turkey? It’s so delicious.” The tall one whispered, 'Why don’t you forget your stupid turkey and swimming suggestion and give me the ring that you hid in your pocket?” And then I felt a hard thing against my back. It was a gun.

I said, "OK, you're right. The ring is in my pocket. Let me get it for you." Then I pretended to reach in my pocket for the ring, but instead I stared at the gaping hole in the turkey where the stuffing had been scooped out, and I dove head-first into that hole.

I was a coward, hiding inside a turkey like that. For my good fortune [or *Fortunately for me], my friends were very courageous. They jumped the two terrorists, took away their gun and took their clothes off.

Turkey legs were also found under the shield. But they were stopped in time. When all was finished, I tried to come out of the turkey. I had eaten so much though that I had to ask for help.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris CR)
Giovanni Tweak
Goemon Edman
oo Broono

Time change.

2010-11-27T02:08:00.000-08:00

EagleEye is away. He will be back by Dec 23.
Until Dec 23 this class is moved from 1pm to 12pm PST. One hour earlier, same day.
I'll teach this class (conduct the reading).
I will fill in for the class on Saturday at 6am PST as well.

Supermarket Rage

2010-11-27T01:57:00.000-08:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class November 21, 2010

When I was a child, my mom told me to count to ten before I respond to someone or something that upsets me. I am usually successful at holding my temper this way, but sometimes it just doesn't work.

Yesterday I was in line at the supermarket, waiting to pay. And this little old lady with a cart full of groceries walks ahead of me just like I don't exist. I look at her but she just does like I don't exist.

So I count to ten but it doesn't work and I give her a very bad word. And she does the same thing to me. In no time, there is trouble in the supermarket.

Then I thought maybe I could pay at another counter, but I saw the other line was long, so I wanted to talk to her to let her know that I was first.

I just advised her not to be too selfish, that being selfish is not a good attitude. But then that woman got angry with me and threw a tantrum.

The "tantrum" was carried out on my head, and my head was bleeding. I was so annoyed that I wanted to kick her. But I had gone through therapy for anger management, so I had to control myself. I started to count again: 1, 2, 3...

But the woman didn’t stop. She started slapping me. I shouted to her, "Hey what are you doing? What’s going on here?”     The lady stopped suddenly, looked at my face and whispered "I know you!"

I glared at her. I certainly didn't know that old rude crow. " I doubt it," I responded smugly.

"Maybe you forgot" - she said - "or maybe it was your father. Someone like you robbed me of my pension money 30 years ago and since then I am poor." I answered: "I have never seen you before and I hope I'll never see anyone as nasty as you anymore. And I don't believe you. If you are so sure go to the police." Then I remembered that there are CC cameras at the supermarket and I went to the police to sue that old bag.

Anyway, the policeman can't understand me because I'm an Italian man. I started to count again.

So in this case, maybe it's better if I don't say anything. But when I was talking to the old lady, I saw that someone wanted to steal my money.

"I shouted at her, "Look, this is all your fault. You should take responsibility for the things you do! If you weren't such an old crow, I would smack you.”

I couldn't control myself anymore. I gave up counting and started to throw everything. There were apples, oranges, wallets, and keys in the air. I was shouting "1, 2, 3" when I was throwing stuff.

Everybody in the supermarket froze. They were afraid of me. But suddenly I remembered that face!     Yes, I had seen her in the clinic where I had therapy. She was working at there. Omg, they were testing me!

My mouth dropped open and my arms flopped to my side. The red mist of anger that always accompanies my fits of rage began to subside. I looked down at my hands and was shocked to see a dented can of soup in one Hand and a broken broom handle with the tag half torn off in the other.

The old lady was looking at me with that "gotcha" look on her face. What a bastard! She passed in front of me at the checkout line. She made it possible for someone to steal my wallet. I decided to put her in a bag and dump her in the trash. I did it very calmly and efficiently. I finally had learned to control my rage.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris
Giovanni Tweak (CR)
oo Broono
paula Olrich
Silvia Easterwood

Igor’s Gory Adventure

2010-11-15T10:40:00.000-08:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class November 14, 2010

Hey, did you hear about Igor's latest adventure? Even if you have, I'm sure you haven't heard the juicy details.

You know Igor, right? Not the smartest person around. So, a week ago he hears two girls talking on the bus about a club where wild things happen and he decides to go. He doesn't know the exact address, only the bus stop. He gets out of the bus and starts to walk around, but there’s no club in sight and no one to ask.

He thinks that maybe he should just wait. While he is waiting, he sees a very beautiful girl. And he asks her, "Do you know where there's a club around here?" And she says, "Yes, but if you want to know, please give me a gift."

And she gives him a kiss. She says, "If you get back on the bus and go to the next station, you will see a sign about the club." And Igor does what she tells him to do. When Igor gets off the bus, he sees a sign. It’s a vampire man with bloody teeth. And the club's name is "Bloody Night."

Igor stands for a moment looking at the club, wondering if he should enter. Just as he is about to touch the doorknob, he feels an icy cold hand on his shoulder. He turns around and sees this beautiful girl standing behind him. "Didn't you forget something?" she asks. But before he could respond, she says "You forgot to give me a gift."

"Is it your birthday?" asks Igor. The girl smiles mysteriously and says "Guess how old I am." Igor answers: “25?" "More like 250" answers the girl. "What's your name?" asks Igor. "Matalina" answers the girl.

Igor tries to answer the girl, to tell her why he needs to go to the club. He had a strange dream about the club and his girl. In his dream, his girl was killed by someone. Maybe that was the reason.

But this is not a dream. What a strange name for a strange person! Matalina does not seem to be a name of a person. It seems like the name of a profession.

Igor feels a cold breath on his neck. Matalina whispers in his eat something like, "You are my delicious birthday present. Don't be scared. I will not hurt you. You will not feel any pain.” And then she bits his neck with her blade teeth. And Igor falls down, and immediately, a deep sleep falls over him.

He lay in the street on the ground, outside of that club for hours upon hours. The next thing he knows, he hears lots of footsteps all around him. People are stepping over him, rushing off to work. It’s Monday morning in New York City, after all. No one bothers to ask him if he is OK.

Some people even kick him as they rush by. He hears one guy yell "Hey buddy, go sleep it off in the subway!"

Gradually, as he becomes more alert, he begins to feel pain. His eyes are burning!

The poor guy is convinced he's a vampire. At first he's scared, then, he starts to think that after all vampires are cool so he's cool too. He runs home because he doesn't want to stay out in daylight and when dark falls he wears his coolest clothes and goes out looking for girls to bite.

Now he is a vampire, he thinks. Maybe new blood is good for him. He tries to find a young girl. When he finds one, he invites her to a party and tries to bit her.

A strange force takes over his body, a huge shadow on his soul, a deep pain in his heart to remind him of the bad part of being a vampire, anyway, that’s what he’s thinking.

When Igor returns home, he feels a little strange. Yes, drank some blood at the party but he is still feeling hungry. And he starts to search for something more to eat. Then he notices a delicious smell in his room. It is his cute dog Logan.

He crouches down on the floor near Logan and pounces at the dog, sinking his teeth into the dog's furry neck. The dog looks at him and calmly says "WTF? I know you're not trying to bite me! You'd better back up before I hurt you, dude." Igor gasps. Had his dog really spoken???

Before he can even move a muscle he hears loud banging at his door. A deep voice yells, "This is the police, open this door now or we'll break it down!"

Igor freezes, the dog runs away, the police brake the door and find him sitting on the floor. They take him to the police station and arrest him for assaulting the girl he bit. The vampire thing was a viral marketing campaign for a new tomato juice with a lot of caffeine. They had hired goth girls to do the biting stunt but he was the only one who fell for it so badly.

The judge takes pity of him and doesn't send him to jail, because he thinks real criminals would tear him apart.

The judge sentences him to do community service at a hospital, where he has to clean blood in operating rooms. Sometimes , when he mops blood from the floor Igor thinks of tasting a little, but when he takes it to his lips he feels sick.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris
Gil Denver
Giovanni Tweak (CR)
oo Broono

Day Change

2010-11-14T10:50:00.000-08:00

This week the grammar class on Monday at 4pm PST (Alianaluz) will be on Thursday at the same time (4pm PST)

Chocolate Dreams

2010-11-13T13:52:00.000-08:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class November 7, 2010

Chocolate... Who doesn’t like chocolate? How could I know that chocolate would cause such a disturbance?

A friend told me they had opened a new store. This store was selling only chocolate of many different kinds. They were making it themselves, in a lab in the back. I went there to check it out.

The taste will be nice, I thought. I saw lots of queer chocolates. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a piece of chocolate that was as big as a person.

They were making all kinds of chocolate: nutty, black, milky. I was excited because I am addicted to chocolate… especially to black ones. And I asked my friend to teach me how to make a big black piece of chocolate.

He told me that he couldn't teach me because his chocolate formula was a secret. But he said that he would give me some delicious dark chocolate.

He told me to wait in the front of the store while he went to get it. Then he disappeared behind a curtain at the back of the store.

He returned after a few minutes with a tiny silver box. He handed the box to me and told me to open it. I did. There was a teeny, tiny piece of extra dark chocolate in the box.

"Sheesh," I said, "That's certainly a small piece of chocolate!" "Don't let the small size fool you," he responded with a twinkle in his eye. "That little piece of chocolate packs quite a wallop."

He went back in the store and I kept waiting outside. But he never came back. So I went home and after dinner, when I usually have a craving for something sweet, I ate the tiny dark chocolate. I fell asleep immediately.

And then I was dreaming. I saw a girl and I couldn’t believe my eyes. She was a big piece of chocolate.

It was so strange. I ate just a small piece of chocolate but it tasted like a big box of chocolate. It was like concentrated chocolate. I thought maybe it was not any kind of chocolate that I’d ever eaten before.

The huge chocolate girl said "Ouch! you just bit my toe!" Then she glared at me with her big chocolate eyes.

I wasn't sure I was all right. Maybe I was hallucinating. I decided to ask my friend, so I went back to the store. No one was there, all the lights were out and the door was open. I went inside.

I tried to find that piece of chocolate but found nothing, so I went back. I tried to eat a piece of chocolate and I was in the dream again. This time I asked her.

I ran to the kitchen and wanted to check on the big piece of chocolate that I first saw there. It was there. I decided to eat a piece of it. I asked the chocolate girl to please tell me who she is and where she's from. She answered, "I am in the big chocolate that you first saw in the kitchen.

Then she warned me not to try to bite her again. But I couldn't stop thinking about how delicious her toe tasted and I felt compelled to try to take another bite out of her.

So I pretended to start to walk away from her, out of the kitchen. But then, I turned quickly towards her and wrapped my arms around her leg. Then I took a big bite out of her leg.

Her leg started to bleed chocolate sauce and I licked it. It was as delicious as the piece of chocolate leg. But the chocolate girl was furious. She started to hit me with chocolate fists on my head and shoulder.

It was a little gross. I felt like a vampire, but it wasn't blood, it was chocolate. I was so into the chocolate that I didn't realize the girl had a rope (not of chocolate) and that she tied me up.

She said, "Stupid! What have you done? I was waiting here to become human. You destroyed everything."

So I couldn't move. She told me that she needed help because someone used magic on her and turned her into chocolate. And she said, "Help me please!"

I felt a tinge of guilt but the desire to eat more delicious chocolate was almost overwhelming. I kept looking at her chocolate leg, wanting to take another bite, but also trying to fight the urge to do so.

I asked her: "What do you mean you're waiting to become human?" She told me a long story about the chocolate maker being also a magician and reviving dead people making them into chocolate before they turned fully human, but I didn't believe her, and I didn't really understand the story.

I told her: "Come away with me. I like you so much, I love you, and, with my love, you will become human. And while we wait for you to turn human, you can let me lick you once in a while."

She wasn't very smart. After all she was a chocolate girl, so she said “yes” and we got married.

I told her ; "Come away with me. I like you so much I love you, and with my love you will become human. And while we wait for you to turn human, you can let me lick you once in a while."

She never turned human; she's still made of chocolate. As she gets older, she gets fatter, and I'm very happy about it. We're very happy together.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris
Giovanni Tweak (CR)
oo Broono

Call 911

2010-11-10T13:51:00.000-08:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class November 7, 2010

Have you ever had a strong feeling that you've been in a place that you've never been before? You know what I mean: when you get that feeling of "deja vu."

I had read about it, but I had never experienced it until I met someone in SL. His name was XXX and from the time that he wrote his first words, I had the feeling I had met him before, but I could not remember who or when.

So I tried many times to remember his name while we spoke but I couldn't. So I kept on talking to him until I remembered his name.

I thought maybe his name is very easy like "OO." I thought that maybe this XXX guy was someone I knew years ago named OO. But I wasn't sure.

Anyway, every time I spoke to XXX, he seemed to know what I was going to say, even before I said it.

He kept calling me to chat every time I was online. I deleted him from my friends list, but he seemed to know when I was online anyway. I became very uncomfortable in this situation, so I stopped logging onto SL. One day I received an e-mail from him.

He said: "Why did you delete me when we were good friends? Do you treat all your friends like that? Anyway, it was good knowing you."

After that, I felt ashamed of myself, so I decided to talk to him again. I was working on my English, so I was very busy. That is what I told him. I added him as a friend again.

As soon as I added him, he began to send me instant message after instant message thanking me. He then told me to go straight home after work. He said, "Don't stop by your friend "Ken's house today." I sent you a surprise but you have to sign for it, so go straight home."

I was shocked. I wondered how he knew that I had a friend named Ken and how he knew that I usually drop by Ken's house after work. And I was especially freaked-out to think that he knew where I lived!

I called my friend Ken. He told me to call the police. I called 911. The police told me to follow this guy's directions. They would hide in my home to protect me and catch this person in case he would want to harm me.

After that we figured out he was a mutual friend of ours. So I asked him why he had frightened me. He just "loled" and said "Long time no see," so I wanted to do something to let you know that it was me."

I called Ken again and told him what XXX had said. Ken seemed puzzled and said "Mutual friend? I don't know XXX. If he comes to your house again, call the police again and tell them to resume their stake-out.

One night I was having dinner by myself in my house; I was enjoying Thai food from Thai Palace when I heard the doorbell ring.

I lowered my TV volume because I had figured it was my neighbor complaining once more because I was annoying him while listening to a Champions League football match. When I opened my door, to my surprise I noticed that XXX was there.

He smiled at me once more and asked me: "You won't invite a friend of yours to come in?" I immediately shut the door and called the police.

Apart from the fact that I didn't want to share my Thai food with anyone, I really didn't like pop-ins.

I went to the closet, I took out my baseball bat, and I waited in silence. I heard the backyard door open, I went to the kitchen and when this person came in I hit him hard with the bat. The police arrived.

I got myself prepared. Then I took out a kitchen knife and stabbed him in the chest.

I was afraid. I didn't know what I should do. Maybe I should call my friend.

Here's the reason why I'm in the middle of nowhere, at night, totally surrounded by the fog, with a spade in my hand and I'm digging a hole: My friend Ken suggested that the best idea would be to have the body vanish. "If there is no body, there is no crime, technically, my friend," he claimed like an expert lawyer.

Did I say "body?" I meant "two bodies." After all, the cop did walk in on me stabbing XXX. I had no choice but to use my knife and bat on him too.

As I was filling in the two graves, I heard a noise in the sky, and then a searchlight lit up everything around me. There was a helicopter in the sky, and a voice was speaking from the speakers but I wasn't really listening. I could just face the horror of what I had done. I had killed a cop, my friend Ken (because he knew too much) and XXX. I was facing a life sentence.

I tried to look at the bright side. XXX would not freak me out anymore. I really hate to be disturbed when I'm watching the game. I hope they have pay-TV in prison.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
EagleEye Scorfield
Giovanni Tweak (CR)
oo Broono
RASHAD Ibor

Time change

2010-10-31T08:13:00.000-07:00

Time has changed in Europe; this week many classes will be at a different time. Next week time will change in SL too and everything will be back to normal.

These are classes that will start one hour later this week:

Monday, International News, 12pm PDT (it was 11am PDT
Tuesday, Grammar, 1pm PDT (it was 12pm PDT)
Wednesday, Flat Mates 12pm PDT (it was 11am PDT)
Thursday, Word Games, 2pm PDT (it was 1pm PDT)
Friday, Excursion, 9am PDT, (it was 8am PDT)
Saturday, Vocabulary, 7am PDT (It was 6am PDT)

Sunday: back to regular times until next spring when this mess will happen again.

Pushing Up Daisies

2010-10-29T03:15:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class October 24, 2010

Last Halloween I decided to dress up as a vampire. I was too lazy to come up with a more original costume, so slapping on a set of false vampire teeth and draping a black curtain over my shoulders was an easy thing to do.

When I arrived at my friend Jim’s house where the party was, everybody had on great costumes. I was looking really sloppy. It was still early so I left to go to a costume store to buy something better. When I arrived there, the store looked closed, but the door was open, so I walked in.

When I went into the store, I saw someone lying down, and I saw a lot of blood. It startled me, but soon I got a hold of my emotions and decided to check things out. I approached the person, it was a young man. I poked him, but he didn't respond.

I was scared, my hands were trembling, but I had no time, and started to check costumes. I wanted to get out of that store as soon as possible. And then I saw a costume that impressed me. It was a big, orange, funny, pumpkin costume.

I was still trembling a bit and I felt as if I were in a fog, but the sight of the bright, orange, pumpkin costume made me push my fear aside. I had to step over the body that was lying in a pool of blood to get to the pumpkin costume. I told myself that it wasn't a real person, that it was a prop for Halloween.

As I was going out of the door, a creepy laugh chilled the blood in my veins. A voice said: "Where are you going, thief?" I froze there and I was afraid to turn. I sensed someone moving towards me and I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I wanted to run but suddenly I couldn't run anymore. My legs were not working. But then I thought "The blood is false, so maybe I can use it for my party."

Yes, the blood is fake! I was not scared anymore. I looked at the guy, smiled, and asked him: “Dude! Where can I get some of that blood?” Maybe I can make my pumpkin bloody.

Then the guy looked at me and yelled, "Hey are you a maniac? Can't you see I am dying here? Come on, shut up and call an ambulance. Hurry up." OMG, it was real. The guy was dying and he held my leg tightly. Some of the blood got on my leg. I decided to run away and jump into my big pumpkin costume and go to the party.

And suddenly I realized there was a policeman there. I prayed he would be a guy from the party wearing a policeman costume.

The policeman grabbed my arm as I was running by, and said: "Whoa, slow down, where are you going in such a hurry?" I was out of breath and panting so hard that I couldn't answer. He said, "Let's get you back into that store and find out why you're in such a rush." Then, still holding onto my arm, he escorted me back into the store.

I realized how this would look to the cop, and the trouble I was in. And I still couldn't stop thinking that I was missing Jim's party. He told me Helen would be there and I had waited a long time for a chance to meet her.

So I told the cop: "Hey, look behind you!” He turned and let go for a moment, so I ran away in my bloody pumpkin costume. He ran after me and started to shoot real bullets.

I thought that I'm really going to die this time. But why were all these things happening to me?

I can’t believe I dodged those bullets. I found an ally and ran into it. The cop was still running behind me. He could spot me because the costume was too bright.

While I was running in the street, my mobile phone started to ring. I stopped running because there was nothing else that I could do. I stopped and waited for the policeman to take me to jail., because I had no power in my legs to run anymore.

I decided to answer my phone . Maybe it was my mom, but i didn’t recognize the number. I wondered and answered: “Hi." And I waited. Then a man’s voice on the phone said, “Like I was saying, Hey you maniac! I am dying can’t you see?” OMG, it was Jimmy! Jimmy was playing a bad Halloween prank on me.

But, of course, I didn't realize that it was Jimmy on the phone, pretending to be the dead guy. So, I was so shocked by what he said, that I had a heart attack. I dropped dead right there and then, and now I'm in my grave pushing up daisies.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera
ejje Xaris
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono
Seikatsu Koba

Class switch (this week only)

2010-10-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

This week Nimlot's class will be Tuesday at 8am PDT (instead of Thursday) and Seikatsu's class will be Thursday at 6am PDT (instead of Tuesday)

Green Bear, Green Bear

2010-10-21T08:14:00.000-07:00

                                  ESL Group Story Writing Class October 17, 2010


I still remember it clearly: that day, because it was the opening of the deer hunting season. Me, my friend Michael, and my brother-in-law James went to my cottage in the woods and spent the night there. Finally the day that we'd been waiting for, for a long time, had arrived.

I thought it would be a good idea to have a barbecue. So I thought we should go hunting. "Are you crazy?” said Michael. “We can't have a barbecue here, in the forest. It's too risky; we could cause a big fire."

"Besides, I hate killing animals, I am a vegetarian and in favor of animal protection."
“Forget this idea. What do you think Rilli? Do you agree with me?” “Yes I agree,” responded James. I’m a vegetarian too.

I looked at my brother-in-law in disbelief. "You're a vegetarian?” I asked. "Then why did you agree to go hunting with us?"

“I like to walk in the woods, but I am scared to go alone. I heard that there are fairies and monsters kin the woods. I would like to see them, but I'd feel safer going with someone with guns, just in case...

While I was still trying to understand my brother-in-law's worries, James called us next to him. A big brown bear was peacefully walking in our front yard, next his pick-up truck. After all, there would be something that might have spoiled our day in the woods: and it looked like a monster.

I was afraid that something would happen. So I thought that maybe we needed to take a gun.
I was sure there would be an accident. When he saw the bear, my brother-in-law became frantic, immediately. He took my rifle and fired at the poor bear.

The bullet from the rifle hit the bear in its heart, and the bear started to turn green. And we watched as the bear slowly fell to the ground.

My brother-in-law, the vegetarian, went to look for help from the forest faeries. But I thought it's not bad to eat bear meat. I was sure that the meat of the bear would be a gourmet meal.

Since I thought It's OK to eat bear meat, I told James to go back into the cabin and bring out some sharp knives. But then I gasped because when I looked down at the bear, I noticed that its fur had turned a pale green.

All of a sudden, my brother-in-law returned with a dozen faeries flying behind him, sprinkling some strange green-glowing dust all over everything. The dust made me sneeze.

"Run" he was yelling. "This is not a bear turned green. It's a green monster from space that is a shape-shifter too and looks like a bear." "Shoot it again, kill it!"

So I trained my rifle on the bear to shoot it, but I was sneezing too much and I could not aim. The monster/bear took my rifle and said: "Who's shooting who now?"

I recall that the fairies weren't friendly and magic creatures either, they were flying angrily and that green dust they were scattering all around was like a pulverizing substance that made everything disappear.

I wanted to gain some time to let my brother-in-law get to us and hit the bear from behind to stun him. I turned to my friend and said: "I had a spray to keep bears away, buddy, why didn't we use that?"

Ok we can use that spray, but I thought we should also call the police.

Unfortunately, Michael and my brother-in-la w didn't have time to react. The bear had only one think on its mind: food; and it swallowed them as easily as I would swallow a spoon-full of ice cream. I was terrified. Will the bear eat me too ?

Then the bear looked at me and just said, “You can go. But you'd better go right now, not later, or else...” And then I ran as fast as my legs could carry me and I was afraid to look back.

And drenched in sweat, I woke up and opened my eyes and realized it was a nightmare.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
CEM Clary
EagleEye Scorfield
Giovanni Tweak (CR)
Jeff Hema
MOSKAU Edenbaum
oo Broono
rilli Coba

And the Prize Goes To…

2010-10-10T12:05:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class October 10, 2010

Last month, I visited a friend who lives near the ocean. It was the first time in my life that I had ever seen the ocean.

It was a majestic view. The day was stormy, the water was dark gray. The waves were tall and strong. I decided to take a walk on the beach. All of a sudden I saw a giant wave coming my way. I was scared but also fascinated and I could not run away.

I went to my friend's house, and we our other friends, “Do you like swimming? "I like swimming," one said. And we went swimming.

This was my future plan, but first I needed to think about how to run away. I was in love with the sea, and the more I saw those blue waves, the more I thought "I am happy here."

I was in love with the sea, and the more I saw those blue waves, the more I thought "I am happy here." We swam a lot, my friends and I and we walked on the hot sand.

I was having such a great time that I stopped thinking about running away. I thought about running away before, when I first saw the beach and my friends, because I was frightened of such a new and different thing and I didn't think I would be able to swim. But I was able to swim!

To move in the water and float was a beautiful sensation. I looked down and I saw a lot of fish and sea flowers. One big fish came up to me and said: "Follow me."

It was flipper. I grabbed my surfboard and started following it. I liked surfing and big waves but the waves were too much for me, that day.

When I went the fish place, to the fish's place, I saw a lot of hungry baby fish. I thought, "Now I'm food for fish!"

The dolphin was so slippery in my hands. I embraced it and slid on the surface of the waves.
I started to feel light-headed. I was confused. One moment I was walking on the beach, the next, I was on my surf board, and the next, l was under the sea looking at a talking dolphin and a bunch of hungry fish. I knew I shouldn't have eaten seaweed salad last night, right before I went to bed.

I told myself I had to remain calm and coolheaded. Of course there would be a rational explanation and a way out. What would Obama do? He would make a speech! But as I tried to talk to the fish my mouth filled up with water.

After that, I went to my hotel room. I liked to sleep a lot because walking on the beach was so exhausting.

Now I wondered why the fish wanted to eat me. Maybe I had an answer: Everyone knew Obama wanted to get a lot of money from the oil companies for what they did in the oceans but Obama did nothing.

In the hotel, I was waiting for a big bed, a soft blanket, and a favorite book. Then I knew that I would no longer eat fish because I saw their world that day.

So I curled up and went to sleep with those thoughts still floating around in my mind. When I awoke the next day, I had a horrible headache. My mouth was dry and salty and my eyes were full of sand.

After I cleared my vision by rubbing my eyes and wiping the sleep out of them, I saw a plate of half-eaten seaweed salad on the table next to my bed, and my favorite book, "The Audacity of Hope," by Barack Obama, was lying open, near my hand.

The phone rang. The voice said: "There is a call from Oslo for you sir." I had no idea who could it be. A voice with a heavy accent told me that I had won the Nobel Peace Prize. I asked: "Who, me? I am no Dalai Lama, Mandela, Obama or Liu Xiaobo.”

The voice told me: "I know sir, we are very surprised too. We had not heard of you until last night when we received millions of Tweets from the fish in the sea. They all voted for you." I was very happy because the winner gets about 1.5M$. It's just what I need to buy a house on the beach and hang out with my fish friends.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
Giovanni Tweak (CR)
junai Carolina
MOSKAU Edenbaum
oo Broono
Vamigo Avindar

SL Gripe Session

2010-10-07T01:03:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class October 3, 2010

Frustrated Avatar: Second Life was horrendous today! So many people had a difficult time teleporting. Not a few of us cursed the blasted program. It’s so bad, sometimes, that we talk about SL as if it were a person, not a thing.

Exasperated Avatar: I could not agree more. Sometimes I don't know if I should call the avatar who stands in front of me "he" or "it." Have you ever experienced the same, Broono?

Confused Avatar: Yes. When the person is a cloud, it confuses me. I don't know what to do when that happens.

Annoyed Avatar: Because of SL, I was blocked in a place where there were a lot of people. Some were strange, and especially one in particular who was singing with a horrible voice. We were all captive victims of that person.

Irritateed Avatar: I can relate to that, CEM. Because of the problems with SL today, when I tried to teleport to the school, I wound up stuck in a wall! And to make matters worse, there was an annoying person making weird noises on the mic [microphone]. Lucky for me, OO TPed [teleported] me out of there.

Empathetic Avatar: That was a very unfortunate for you, CEM. If I were the singer, you would never want to leave that room!

Vexted Avatar: Sometimes it's also difficult to tell whether the problems we're having are caused by heavy traffic or by our old computer. That's why today I brought my PC from my work back home.

Fed-Up Avatar: I want to be able to get on Second Life without all these problems so I can explore other places in SL.

Ambivalent Avatar: SL is a good way to explore some interesting places, but only when it works. Today was a bad day and I thought I was being banned permanently from SL. But by chance, some friends teleported me to them.

Displeased Avatar: I don´t like when I am using SL and suddenly I start walking to infinity. Sometimes it is funny but most of the times this is kinda [kind of] frustrating.

Aggravated Avatar: Speaking of walking to inifinity, what's up with SL causing our avatars to drop down through the ground into what seems like an abyss when we cross SIMS [simulators]? Sometimes, I just want to scream when that happens!

PolLyanna Avatar: I don't know if I'm being optimistic. Comparing my one-week experience on SL to my RL, I find my SL life to be pretty awesome.

Optimistic Avatar: I think SL can be great for some people, and you can go to some colleges on SL. Don’t you agree?

Sarcastic Avatar: Yes my SL life is awesome. Just a moment, I was already asked that question but I don't remember if it was awesome is in a positive or negative way.

Hungry Avatar: Sometimes I am in front of a table full of delicious dishes and I’m ready to eat them. That is a negative aspect of SL, for me, so far (because I can´t enjoy eating food on my PC. Maybe with new versions of SL I will be able to "taste" some good Spanish food by using SL.).

AnotherHungry Avatar: You will have to create the new version of SL Simdo. I am also waiting to taste those delicious foods you find in SL.

Hopeful Avatar: Maybe Oweny will do it. She is a genius.

PARTICIPANTS
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
CEM Clary (CR)
oo Broono
Simdo Aura
Toey Deluxe

Black Hole Cinema

2010-09-27T00:59:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class September 26, 2010

Black Hole Cinema

What a disappointing movie! I thought I was going to be frightened out of my wits but instead, I fell asleep! Oddly enough, that's what happened to everyone who went to see the movie at Black Hole Cinema.

When I woke up I saw some of the other people still half asleep, others were still sleeping and some of them were even snoring. When we tried to exit the theater we found out the doors were stuck and that we could not get out. I went back to my seat to pick up my half full tub of popcorn.

I saw a doctor, and I asked a man how I could exit the theater, but he didn't know.

OK, while I was just thinking about why I couldn’t get out of there, a girl came up to me, hugged me and said: “Darling, we can have some fun.” I didn’t know what to say because I didn’t know this girl.

I was just about to kiss her after having given her a hot look when the speaker from the theater turned on and a voice said: “Attention, attention!" I was puzzled and mad at the fate that didn't allow me to kiss that chick.

The voice then continued: “You are being kept inside for a test. Nobody can escape. We'll give you further details soon."

Suddenly, a group of zombies entered the theater, slowly marching down the aisle! Now we knew what was happening! The doors were being held shut from the outside by zombies! The announcer's voice had sounded a bit strange, come to think of it.

Even though I realized we were probably being abducted by zombies, I couldn't stop thinking about that hot girl and the almost-kiss. I looked around for her. I was in a panic because I couldn't find her. Then I saw her in a corner on the far side of the room.

She was petrified, pale as a ghost. I could have kissed her and she wouldn't have even noticed. I slapped her hard on the face, just like I saw in the movies, to snap her out of it. It didn't bring color to her cheeks. She turned to me baring her teeth and said: "You are hopeless, I tried to save you but now I'm going to let you get eaten.”

And I saw another hot blond girl in the right corner. She was transforming and looked like a wolf. I was scared and I panicked.

I thought she needed a “love kiss” so I did it. I kissed her and she said, “Who are you?” Then I didn’t know what to say and she said she didn’t care about it and that we could be friends but “now you need to help me find my boyfriend.” Then my heart was crushed.

I wrestled and hustled two zombies out of my way because I wanted to get a fire axe that was behind a protective glass. "That might have been useful!" I thought for a moment. After hitting the door twice with the axe, it didn't show any sign of being broke up, then a big hand appeared and rested on my shoulder. It belonged to a giant guy who asked me: “May I?" indicating the door.

The large man took the axe from me and smashed the door down with one blow. (I felt pretty embarrassed.) However, this probably had not been the best idea. Hundreds of zombies had been waiting outside, trying to get in. Now the theater was engulfed in zombies! This just shows that big, strong people are sometimes not very bright.

Lucky for me, I'm quite athletic and agile from working so many years in the circus. I spied a low-hanging chandelier. I quickly removed my belt, flung it up, and hooked it onto the chandelier. I grabbed the hot girl by her waist, and like Indiana Jones, I swung us both up onto the empty upper balcony out of the reach of the zombie hordes.

Up there, with much light, I noticed it wasn't either of the two girls I had spoken to before. She looked at me with teary eyes and said, "You saved me. Are you an angel?" I told her that I just wanted to save her life. She wrapped her arms around me and said, "Promise me you will never leave me." I felt a chill go down my spine.

And I thought that the nearest hospital is 150 miles away. I tried to stand up and somehow get us to my white ferrari. I drove the car, and I didn't think about my spine. I thought about the hot girl next me. We went to the Riviera, and we were in love........

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera
EagleEye Scorfield
Giovanni Tweak
Johny Jerrold
Lizzo Dreamscape
oo Broono

The Enemy

2010-09-24T01:26:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class September 19 2010

I was preparing to go to sleep early because the next day I'd have to play the final of the city football cup. The phone rang. It was a sexy female voice. "I'm Christine" - she said - "I saw your profile on a dating site and I liked it. Let's go out tonight."

It was a very nice offer, but I was afraid to lose my chance to be one of the main players on my team.

The coach depended on me and I considered my decision to play this game as a challenge to prove my skills. "OK," I thought, "Just one night with this female won't matter so I decided to stay out all night with her. But maybe something had happened to her because when I arrived at that place, no one was there.

I was thinking that I may have made a mistake about the place when the cell phone rang. "Muahaha" -the sweet lady said- "I am Christine, your enemy. I am the coach’s daughter of the enemy team." "And now you are lost because I changed the schedules for the game tomorrow. It will start even earlier, muahaha," Christine said. I was mad.

Even though I was angry, I answered Christine in a calm voice. I didn't want to let on that I wanted to explode, to that wicked woman! "OK, thank you Christine. You're doing me a favor because I'm about to sign a contract with your team," I told her. That, of course, was a lie, but I wanted to throw her off guard.

"I don't really think so," - she answered- "If it were true, I would know about it. Anyway, you’d better hang up and start walking home." And she hung up.

I looked around. No one was around. My taxi had left, so I started to walk home. A car sped by, a paparazzi took a picture of me and drove away.

It was a risk to leave my house tonight and to go to meet Christine. I blamed myself for deciding to meet her at this critical time. I thought that it may drive me to lose my concentration during tomorrow's game.

I decided to forget it for tonight and went to bed to be ready for the game tomorrow.

When I was at home, the phone rang again. And I thought, "Who cares about that?" So I ignored the phone and went to sleep.

I was walking on a large boat. I had to make a choice: revenge or forgiveness. As I was walking, a woman took out a knife and pressed it against my neck. I screamed. I woke up in my bed feeling tired. I looked at the clock. It was 4:50 A.M , almost an hour to show time. I was a little angry with that girl but I decided to do something to show her that she was not going to beat me.

I got out of bed and jumped into the shower. The cold water and minty aroma of the soap washed all the drowsiness away. I was completely alert and my mind was clear. I felt mentally and physically prepared for the game. After I got dressed, I grabbed my car keys from off the table and opened my front door. To my surprise, a beautiful woman was standing in my doorway, blocking my exit. "I'm Christine," she said in a sultry voice.

“Hello Christine. Let's go inside for a cup of coffee. I will not be late for the game, so you only have 10 minutes to tell me what you want to tell me,” I said. She told me she was really sorry she had been mean to me last night. She wished me a great game and told me we could go out after the game. She was indeed the coach’s daughter but she had followed all my games and was in love with me.

Christine supported me and helped me to improve my level. Now, I have a place on my team, I feel stable in all my actions and reactions. “Thank you Christine,” I thought.

OK now I think I can trust her and I can talk about anything to her, but maybe I'm wrong because I could lose everything in this game. And after the game I got a message that said" Do you know what 'weakness' is?"

"Yes,” I answered Christine by text message. "Well, I have a weakness for a new car." So, I bought a new car for her. It was a small and nice yellow car. She started to use her car to go everywhere; even if she needed to go just 2 blocks from home. I was a little scared the first time I heard her calling her car by her own name: “Christine.”

But I shoved that fear to the back of my mind because I was so in love with her and she seemed very happy with her little yellow car. And she showered me with attention and love, which helped me play well, during football season.

Then I woke up. It was just a dream. I was late as well and I went to the stadium without even having a cup of coffee. There I saw Christine for the first time. She was even more beautiful than in my dreams. I could not take my eyes or my mind off her for the entire match. I played horribly, we lost. The last time I saw Christine she was overjoyed for her father's team’s victory. She was kissing the scorer and laughing at me.

PARTICIPANTS:

Alianaluz Rivera (T)

ashraf Aulder (CR)

Giovanni Tweak

oo Broono

Simdo Aura

Interview with an Alien

2010-09-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class. September 12, 2010

There was broken glass all over the floor. There were feathers gently floating down from somewhere.

There was also a lot of blood and body parts all around. Special Agent Dale had no doubts. It had all started with a pillow fight. Other things he could not understand. Whose bodies were they? They were not human (phew). They looked like something he had never seen before.

I had just now reached the place. I thought it must have happened suddenly because 30 minutes ago, everything was all right. I had to meet the owner of the company that I wanted to work in.

I was very scared and didn't know why this case was here. I thought maybe whoever caused this came from a UFO or maybe they wanted to capture Earth.

My other illogical thought coming into my mind right after that was: "I've been pranked!"

By the way, that wouldn't be such a weird theory, being that I was applying for a job at Hilarious Pranks LTD: the biggest company manufacturing pranks and jokes of all kinds.

I opened the door next to me on a room with a stylish secretary sitting behind a desk wearing a pair of fuzzy eyes goggles.

Suddenly I realized that my face in the mirror looked like an alien: big eyes, Oh my God, green skin, and a big head! It must be a nightmare,"

I have to wake up!" I thought. The secretary looked at me calmly and said ''Its ok, don’t be scared. This is the future, not a nightmare."

"Snap out of it agent Dale," I heard someone close by say. It was only then that I realized that I had been daydreaming.

But snap out of what? Which was the dream, which reality, or was this a practical joke? The mirror was not reflecting my image anymore, but the secretary was still in front of me. I told her I had an appointment for a job interview.

I was confused about what was going on around me. I had many different thoughts about this incident. "I don't know which lead to follow" I told myself.

Ok, I decided to go to sleep again because I wanted to figure out what happened today. I thought, "If this case is happening in real life, I will call the police. If it's just a dream, then I'll know that I am the police." As I was thinking this, the secretary became a monster and said, "Give me your head."

I gasped and opened wide my eyes; to my surprise, I was still in the waiting room on a comfortable chair. The secretary raised her head and told me: "Miss Connelly from the HR will see you now." I felt chills going down my spine and I thanked God once again because that was probably just a dream.

As I walked in Miss Connelly's office she shook my hand firmly and she reassured me right away about the "accident scene" from before. "Fear not, agent Dale, the first room you went in was just a prank to scare off people who want to apply here. Now, let's get down to business, shall we?"

“We use high technology here. For example, you had an experience with The Magic Mirror. It shows our thoughts, dreams, and what we want to be," he said. I laughed loudly, Do I want to be an alien?" I said. It showed us what we wanted to see, Mr. Dale. We're hiring you for a special job," she said.

"And the job would be?", I asked. She said: "We have checked your resume and references. You have been a failure at everything you've done before. Our company is too successful and too many people, competitors and government agencies are getting suspicious." "We want you to help us get worse."

It's a tough job market, I was ready to take any job, even something I didn't like. But I could not dream or imagine that I could find a position where I was appreciated for what I am.

PARTICIPANTS:

Alianaluz Rivera (T)

ashraf Aulder

EagleEye Scorfield

Giovanni Tweak(CR)

oo Broono

Zehra Zapedzki

Learning in second life

2010-09-18T00:16:00.000-07:00

I’m one of the second life residents, I have been living there since sep2009. I have a funny story about how I came to SL for first time. My story started with a phone call and an email, yes that’s the true , I’m not a native English speaker. I live in an Arab country and my first language is Arabic. I had studied English for 12 years as a separate subject in the school, and had used it for 5 years during my study in the university. I have practiced my English with people who were not native English.

In the country where I live, there are people from different non- speaking English countries , all of us try to let others understand what we want by using English language. The English we use is not like the English which is used by native English speaking people use and the accent also is different. I’m not talking about all the people in my place, but I’m talking about the people I’m dealing with. In the country where I live, native English speaking people do their best to let others understand their accents.

One day, I wanted to talk to a native English speaking man to arrange a work for my company. I Phoned his office and the secretary replied to me with such a hard English accent. In fact, I couldn’t understand 75% of her speech, she was talking very fast.

The man wasn’t in the office at the moment, So I told her about the subject and gave her my phone number to let him call after his arrival. Not long after I finished my call , the man called and talked to me slowly with understandable accent. I told him what I wanted and we agreed that he would send me an email about the subject we were talking about. When I received his email, I found out that the secretary sent him an email about my conversation with her and that she ended her email with a sentence which pushed me to look for a way to improve my English skills. Her notice about our conversation was “ His English is pretty poor.”. I was ashamed and felt very embarrassed about her notice about my English, so I decided to look for a way to improve my conversation skills. I searched in the internet about the teaching English websites. I found a lot of websites, each website had a different way of teaching English. I ran into the language-lab website. There I tested my level , then I followed the instructions to create an account to be able to study English. When I logged in, I found a weird place with nice graphics and Cartoon movies moved in front of me. At this moment, I wasn’t understand what was going on around me and where I was. I saw the name which I had chosen over the head of a character and there were many characters with names over their heads. I found out that there were many messages that were being written and there was a conversation between those names. Then I started to type and send Instant messages and I received instant messages too. I asked the people around me about the place, they told me it’s second life. “Where is language lab?” I asked. No one replied to me. I have spent the first three months hanging out to discover that new world. I also met many friendly people who taught me how to deal with the SL. During all this period of time, I was looking for English schools but I couldn’t reach to any of them.

One day, a friend asked me to go with her to a school where she wanted to take dancing classes. Maybe it was her first visit to the school , because we found out that there were no dancing classes there, but it was an English school. It was ESL-SL the English school. There I met a man , he talked to me in a very nice way . He explained how the school worked and how I could attend the classes. He gave me all the information I needed to be a student in the school. There was a problem to attend classes, the problem was that the school is not a free school and I have to pay to be able to attend the classes. I felt so sad because I couldn’t return back to attend the classes as I wished because I don’t have lindens and it is not easy for me to transfer money from real life. I received many announcements about the classes, but I couldn’t attend because of my Lindens.

One day, I received an Instant message from the school owner , he asked me if I was interested in attending the classes. I answered him “ yes, I want, But I couldn’t collect the lindens.”. Fortunately, he had the solution, he offered me to work for the school as a help team member and attend all classes for free. It was great offer for me, I started to attend the classes, I was very happy , the classes amazed me because of their way of teaching and also because of the different kind of classes. The classes dealt with all English skills Voice classes, text classes, Grammar classes, classes for beginners, classes for not beginners. Early on studying at the school I was attending most of the classes . I was spending long time in the SL travelling from class to class, I enjoyed studying the English language. Class by class and day by day I found out that my English skills were improved. I could understand more conversations and my vocabulary bank grew more and more. On top of that, I always found the native teacher who corrected my English pronunciation, corrected my English text , corrected the grammar. I was going to the school with a lot of questions and returned back with plenty of answers.

After more than a year I spent studying English in the SL, I can say that it is a wonderful mean to learn. Now, I have the self confidence which enables me to start conversation with the others without fear or shyness. When I talk to people who speak English with hard accent, I have the braveness to tell them that I can’t understand their accent without feeling of shame. I also learnt that there are slang, idioms, phrasal verbs which are very important to study to speak English natively. There is another source that helps me to improve my English, it’s the conversations I do with my native English speaking friends. Text conversation and voice chat help me to improve my skills. Thank you second life .

Not only learning English is the benefit I got from SL, but also learned a lot about others. Others means the people from different cultures. I learned how people deal in different situations, what is good to do and what is not accepted to avoid. I learned also when, how and where people celebrate . I also met friendly people who I exchange knowledge with. I tell them about my culture, my life and my traditions and they do the same with me.

In second life I usually meet people from everywhere, we talk and spend time even if we don’t have a common language. There is a wonderful mean used in second life: it is the translator which residents can wear and talk to everyone. This wonderful mean enables me to keep in touch with friends from countries far from my country. Using the translator eases the study of languages, I already started the study of Spanish language in SL and RL too.

I have a lot more to say about learning in the second life , but I have to finish now, RL is calling

Fade to Black

2010-09-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class September 5, 2010

I was sitting at a table in the corner of a cafe when an old man burst into the restaurant. His face was as white as a ghost and he was almost out of breath.

"The end of the world is coming, THE END OF THE WORLD IS COMING" he was shouting. The manager looked annoyed. "Wasn't it supposed to end yesterday?" "This time it's for real" said the old man. A white burst of light and energy exploded in the bar.

Suddenly I noticed that old man had blood on his hands. The manager noticed it too, and he started to look white too.

“I'm afraid I don't know what to do. Should I call 911 or continue to watch what's happening?” I thought to myself.

All the people from the restaurant went out into the street. There were a lot of people in the street and they were all going off somewhere. The city was covered with a black cloud of smoke.

I also left the restaurant and ran into the street. I could hardly see because the black smoke was so thick. All of a sudden, I felt someone (or something) tapping me lightly on the shoulder. I turned around to see who or what it was and I gasped.

It was the old man, laughing. "Come with me Jimbo, help me find the treasure in the bar." "I'm not Jimbo," I answered him, but he wasn't listening and started to pull me back to the bar.

I felt scared. I didn´t know what to do. I tried to leave him but it was impossible. That old man was as strong as a 20 years old man. Then, the old man just stopped. It was as if he were seeing a phantom. But there was no phantom there, just a little girl in front of us.

I thought I should talk to the girl to tell her that I needed help but I was wrong. The girl and the old man were working together and the girl kissed me and said, "Happy birthday."

I don't have a birthday today but it was nice that you were thinking about me. My birthday is next week.

I thought to myself, “I need to get rid of the old man. All the people are screaming "It's the end of the world” and this old man makes me go back to the restaurant to look for gold? He must be mad!”

The little girl and the old man looked at each other in a strange way. It was as if they were reading each other's mind. Then the little girl handed me a glass of liquid that was on the counter. "Drink this. It will make everything clear to you," she said.

It tasted like brandy, it was good. But soon my head started to spin and I couldn't help but follow the old man and the girl back into the bar where I saw...

a lot of cameras and a big sign saying "filming in progress" and I remembered I was doing my best on my first day as an actor in that movie called "Zombies: The Day Before Destruction." “Wow,” I though, “I really did my best today.”

The End

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
Freezy Rewell
Giovanni Tweak (CR)
Jun Ubert
MOSKAU Edenbaum
oo Broono
Simdo Aura

Excursion class: David Lynch's new movie set

2010-09-06T17:01:00.000-07:00

During excursion class we visited the set of David Lynch's new movie and we ended up as extras in the film.

Here we are rehearsing the bar scene, waiting for the star of the movie.

Mr. Lynch was very pleased with this shot and told us it will be included in the final cut.

New Class Sunday 2am PDT

2010-09-02T12:39:00.000-07:00

New class on Saturday at 2am PDT (11am in Italy; 5pm in China, 6pm in Japan)

This class: VOICE. Keep your English up to date.
New words in English language Vocabulary, Idioms, Expressions.

The teacher will be Inge Qunhua. She has some experience in getting students stoned,

follow rabbits down holes (with students behind)

or mess students up in some other way.

But don't worry! This class will be in classroom 3.
Safe an quiet. She'll see you there.

Dusty Dream

2010-08-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

                                    ESL Group Story Writing Class August 29, 2010

Last night I dreamed I was in a desert. In the dream, I was standing on a dusty road that stretched out behind and before me as far as the eye could see. I could taste the dust in my mouth and feel the grainy sand at the edge of my eyes. My clothes and hands and shoes and hair were all covered with a thin layer of the dull reddish powder.

I was thirsty, my mouth was dry. I could not understand how I had ended up there. Then I woke up. I was thirsty, my mouth was dry. And I had a terrible headache. The doorbell rang and it felt like a drill going through my skull. I went to open the door.

I waddled off up the passage to get to the door wondering who could be bothering me so early on a Sunday morning. "May I help you?" I asked before opening the door.

The voice on the other side of the door answered that my antenna on the roof had been broken the night before by the strong wind and that he needed to enter to check for problems with my telly.

I asked again, "Are you sure?" The answer from the other side of door: "Yes!" Let me tell you that no antenna is installed in my house but I watch movies every day using my laptop.

And I went back to my room to go to sleep. I was dreaming again. This time I was in the desert and I saw some people riding camels, so I wanted to join them.

I heard a knock on the door again, went downstairs, opened the door, and to my amazement, the repairman was covered in the same red dust as me. I realized I was having some sort of lucid dream, and wondered what would happen next.

The same voice was talking about the antenna, but I remembered, I didn't have an antenna because when I needed to watch a movie I used my notebook.

"Do you know that you have red dust all over your clothes?" I asked the repairman. "We're in Alaska, in the dead of winter, in the middle of a snowstorm!" I continued.

Then I remembered about "Dune." It's a science fiction novel. I saw the movie. On that planet, giant worms extract the spice, a fine red powder used to travel through time, or something like it. That's what it was! The repairman was probably a space traveler bringing me a request for help from a princess from another planet. That's why he wanted to install the antenna.

I was pretty convinced of my theory, so I felt hopeful that an amazing blonde and lonely princess would communicate with me because she needed my help to solve an interplanetary crisis. The only problem was: how would I communicate my hopes to the repairman? Maybe I've been reading too many science fiction books, but I never give up on my hopes. I glanced at the man proudly and asked:" So?"

He, the repairman, told me that he was a space traveler from a planet that was far from earth, about 127 light years away.

He gave me a box and helped me to install the antenna. Through the box, a television-liked box, I could see some fuzzy images emanating from it. The motion of images showed that a woman was trying to talk to me. She is full of wrinkles and she is seemed old. I took out my SL translator and tried to understand what she was saying.

I saw a peculiar stone that had some text written on it that said: "According to our history, this stone fell to your planet, Earth, and it's a great source of energy.” My T.V. wasn't working anymore. Something was wrong, so I thought that I needed to find that stone.

Suddenly, I recalled a story from my childhood that said, "every person has a special energy source inside." I began trying to figure out how to tap into the special information that I now realized had been locked away inside of me.

Then I decided I would try to connect my PC to the TV and to the special box delivered by the repairman. When I was trying to turn on the PC, the box and the TV, the TV converted into a portal between our reality and alternative reality.

I began to search on Youtube for answers but I got lost in a Youtube loop, watching many videos. I spent all day watching videos until I realized I was hungry and I ordered a pizza. When I opened it, it was covered with a fine red dust. I don't like paprika and I called to complain but a very distant voice told me to eat it and to go to sleep so that I could travel through time and space to the planet. I went to sleep without setting the alarm clock.

The end.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera
EagleEye Scorfield
fyhao Feden
Giovanni Tweak
Lisah Levasseur
magros Zapatero

Garden Discovery

2010-08-29T07:32:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class August 22, 2010

This morning, I decided to work in my garden. I had not cared for my garden in many months so it had become overgrown with weeds. I took out my gardening tools, kneeled down, and began to work.
I had decided to remove all the flowers and plant a vegetable garden instead, so I would have food to eat. When I was pulling up some roots, the dirt collapsed and fell down and a big hole appeared below. Maybe it had been made by an animal. I decided to see how deep it was.
I thought it must be some kind of animal's nest, or so it seemed. Then I tried to look carefully down into the hole when I heard a big animal growling back up at me.
I wondered if I should run or just listen to what was happening. Then I saw some eggs in the hole. I thought it would be a good idea to cook them, so I needed to steal them and take them back home with me.
I tried to get a basket from my sister to put the egg inside and take them back to my home. I was happy because my sister could cook the eggs for us, then we would have a good meal today.
The eggs were partially covered by dirt so I gently pushed the dirt back away from them. Then, very carefully, I lifted the eggs out of the ground and placed them in the basket. I was surprised to find that the eggs were very heavy. They almost felt like rocks! Also, they were a strange color. They were blue with tiny yellow specks, and the specks seemed to be glowing.

As I put the eggs in the basket, I thought I felt something moving inside, but I wasn't sure. I took a better look and I heard a tiny voice. It didn't sound like an animal, it sounded like someone speaking an unknown language. Then I heard a big noise coming from the hole and then a huge animal, like a big prehistoric chicken, came out of the hole.
Now I saw what the glowing thing was and what I heard before. A huge, huge, weird chicken appeared in my sight! She seemed angry about her baby eggs which I had robbed just before she came.
Now I didn't know what to do because I was sure the eggs would be very delicious but I was worried because the chicken was very angry, and I also thought that it might be illegal to eat this kind of chicken. While I was thinking these things, I was looking at one of the eggs and I saw that there was some sort of star inside the egg.
It (the big chicken) seemed to try to communicate with me in an unknown language but I did not understand what it was saying. Mr. Tweak, who is a scientist and works in a lab, shouted at me.
He told me that he should take this chicken back to his lab because it looked like one of the prehistoric chickens shown in his book, and that currently, his group was researching this kind of chicken. It seemed to be a resurrected fossil.
I was so hungry and those eggs were looking real good and that star-thing in the middle of the eggs made me think of yummy star fish (I liked to eat weird things), but my fear of the angry chicken-mother and my sense of right-and-wrong got the best of me so I reluctantly turned the eggs over to Professor Tweak.
"Professor Tweak, I'm hungry" I told him as I gave him the eggs. He answered me: "Have you ever heard the saying: It's better to have an egg today than a chicken tomorrow?" "You can have a BIG chicken today." "…if you can catch it."
Also the Professor said "Why do we have to behave ourselves or why do we have to be patient all the time?" And then he started to heat his pans in the kitchen. There came a sweet smell of gravy, from the kitchen and that's when I saw a big smile on his face.
Now I wanted some! Now I wanted to crack the eggs open. Something strange was happening to the eggs, you could see that, if you paid attention and looked closely at them. One of the eggs was very different, so I looked at it closely to see if I could find something else. It was a strange thing. I saw a very small girl in this special egg.
When I tried to heat the egg, the egg broke suddenly, and then small chickens started coming out. The chickens stared at us and started saying something in an unknown language. I was shocked and afraid of the chickens because they looked angry.

But Professor Tweak smiled, and said:” Let us also have these small chickens as a meal together.”
One of the chickens took out a small device that I knew from SL: a translator.It started to speak in its language and the translator started to say: "You ain't gonna eat me sir. No way. Oh no no no!" “I have been in this egg for centuries, I'm all skin and bones. There's no meat on me." “Let's go to KFC. We can have some crispy, juicy and greasy chicken there." So we all climbed into Prof. Tweak's van and we went to KFC. He paid for all of us.
The end.

Participants:
Alianaluz Rivera
Aquaz Jewell
fyhao Feden
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono

Changes in the School Calendar

2010-08-23T04:21:00.001-07:00

The school calendar is changing fast.
Alianaluz is back at her regular times:
Monday at 4pm PDT: Grammar, Pronunciation. (Voice)
Wednesday at 4pm PDT: Grammar, Pronunciation, Comprehension (Voice)
Sunday at 8am PDT: Story Writing. (Text)

New teacher and new Class: Nimlot will teach a Reading, Comprehension and Pronunciation class every Thursday at 11am PDT. (Voice)

New Class Friday 4pm PDT

2010-07-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

New class on Friday at 4pm PDT. It's a voice class and the teacher is Adhams Darkstone.
The first lesson will be about vocabulary: personality and behaviour.
Check out the calendar on the website http://www.drive-through-esl.info/ for more classes.

Refunds for Excursion class

2010-07-09T15:00:00.000-07:00

Excursion class is the most dangerous English lesson ever taught.
Terrible things can happen to students but you are warned in advance so you can't complain.

If you soil your gown when you milk a cow the school will not pay for laundry expenses.

Students will have to pay their own bill for refreshments...

... or for cheese

You can ask for a refund if Inge, the teacher, is eaten by a refrigerator, but only if she is eaten during the first half of the class and doesn't come back within 5 minutes.

Practical English Program. 7 lessons in VR (Virtual Reality)

2010-06-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

PRACTICAL ENGLISH PROGRAM

Starts Sunday, June 20, classes at 19h in Europe , 2pm Brasil
Teacher: Inge Qunhua
7 classes. Limit 5 students. Enrollment open. E-mail giovanni_tweak@yahoo.com

The beginner course is for students whose English is very basic or who have studied English years ago.
It is designed to give students language skills to deal with everyday situations in SL and rl.

A1 level "Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and things he/she has. Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help."

1 Sun 20 June Café
2 Sun 27 June Airport
3 Sun 4 July Hotel Reception
4 Sun 11 July Bank
5 Sun 18 July Hospital
6 Sun 25 July Garage/Salon
7 Sun 1 August Home

Lesson 1 at the Café: introducing yourself, meeting people, ordering beverages
Lesson 2 at the Airport: Travel, custom, security controls
Lesson 3 at the Hotel Reception: booking a room, hotel check in and out.
Lesson 4 at the Bank: opening and closing a bank account, depositing, withdrawing and exchanging currency.
Lesson 5 at Hospital: arriving at the Hospital or Emergency Room.
Lesson 6 at the Garage/Salon: going to car repair and getting a haircut or a hair dye.
Lesson 7 at Home: everyday object and actions.

Nobody Move!

2010-06-02T00:25:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class May 30 2010

Yesterday I took a trip into Manhattan. The first thing that I saw when I got out of the taxi was a huge, silver-green skyscraper.

Next to it there was my destination, the party on the attic floor of the Alberta Building. I love its interior and the architectural contraposition of two styles: the romantic and gothic. My friends were waiting there for me.

I saw a huge crystal, on the table. I love it. My friend was wearing beautiful clothes.

There was very romantic light music playing. I looked for my friend to have a dance with her. She was sitting a short distance away in a dark corner, at a small table covered with a red tablecloth. I went to her and asked her for a dance.
She accepted and we started to dance. The lights went out. I heard a loud "ooh" and some giggles. A voice shouted: "Freeze." I turned toward the voice and was blinded by flashlights. The voice said "Nobody move! Stay where you are and start emptying your pockets, rich dancing bastards!"

We’re being robbed! I cupped my hands over my eyes to block the flashlights. "Thwat!!" I heard a swooshing sound and felt a sharp pain in my arm. My eyes filled with tears and when my vision cleared I saw a short, portly, red-faced man wearing a New York City Police Department uniform.

The uniform was too tight and the buttons on the uniform were almost popping off. The officer had a baton in one hand and a donut in the other. It was then that I realized that he had hit me with the splintery brown baton!

He was trying to look me in the eyes as he was looking for an answer. He put a hand on my arm and started to press his fingers deep inside my flesh. Eventually I shouted from the pain. "Where did you hide it?" He growled at me.

My friend shot the man and told me to just run! I didn't understand what was happening but I knew I didn't do anything wrong so I just ran and found a good place to rest.

I wasn't so far away, so I said, "Hey officer, where can I pay? Yes, I'm a little drunk, -see you later, OK? I was doubtful about the “officer.” His outfit didn't convince me that he was a real cop.

He was dead anyway, because my date had shot him. And I realized I didn't know her all that well. We had just met at a party and started to go out. We always drank a lot but we didn't do much talking. She was fun, but now I wasn't sure what she was up to. And the robbers, who had started collecting jewels and wallets, were coming our way.

I started to back away from the nearest robber when all of a sudden I heard a loud honking sound. I lost my balance and fell down. I felt hands lifting me up. "Hey mister, watch where you're going," one annoyed voice shouted. "Tourist,” shouted another.

"You gotta look in front of you, not up at the buildings, moron!" shouted yet another voice. It was then that I realized that I had just had some sort of weird premonition. I was still standing in the same spot where the cabbie had left me. I had been staring up at that skyscraper all the time.

I started walking in the opposite direction and I was puzzled about what to do. I was over-thinking and my breath went irregular. I stumbled on the sidewalk but fortunately my hand encountered a mail box so I leaned there, trying to catch my breath. I was scared and my flash-forward was so real that I could remember all the feelings.

My cell phone started ringing and I heard my friend saying through the phone: “Did you arrive there yet?" I told her "No, I'm going somewhere else to rest. I'll see you later."

I went into a bar to have a drink and calm down. My date joined me there. She said, "There will be an auction at the party. They will sell a big diamond. There are many cops around, checking up on guests and searching them. I don't want to be searched by a pig. But you can search me if you want."

We stopped at the liquor store on the way home. I searched her and questioned her all night. In the morning we decided to get married.

The next morning I awoke in Singapore with a huge headache. I think I'd better not drink for the next day or two.

The End

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
CEM Clary
EagleEye Scorfield
egurt Ahn
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono

Bizarre Ending

2010-05-29T12:44:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class May 23 2010

This morning, I woke up just as the sun was rising. I looked out the window and you won't believe what I saw!

The road in front of my window was covered with multicolored flowers. I quickly ran to take my camera out of my closet to take a picture of it when I heard my doorbell ringing.

I didn't expect anyone that morning, and that ring surprised me. I went to open the door and you will not believe who I found in front of me.

It was a young man. "Who are you?" I said to myself in my mind. I thought to myself: "He has so many flowers in his hand! I think he's going to ask me to marry him!"

Instead he hands me a bill and says: "It's $1,500 sir, for a complete front yard makeover." "I didn't call anyone." I answer, while a red convertible parks in front of my house, driven by a beautiful blonde woman.

"Flowers and a blond woman in the morning, it seems it will be great day." I told myself while I was getting rid of the man who needed the money.

"Hi, good morning , nice to meet you." I told the pretty woman. "Hi, Good morning, nice to meet you too," she replied with a lovely voice.

There was something very strange about the way she responded but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. "May I help you?" I asked. "May I help you?" she responded.

The sun was in my eyes so I cupped my hand over them to see better. I peered closely at this woman who immediately cupped her hand over her eyes, exactly as I had done!
She looked flawless but she frightened me because she was mimicking everything that I said or did.

I shut the door as I was sure I was having another bad dream. Lately I've been suffering a lot from dreams so weird that they look real. When I opened the door again, she was gone; there were two cops instead, waiting for me. “I hope next time I'll find something better,” I said to myself, then I shut the door again.

Someone kept knocking on my door, so I opened it for the third time. The two cops where still there. They were real. They went in and pushed me down and began to ask where I had been the night before.

I was afraid. "What is happening?" I asked myself. The cops showed me a photograph and asked me if I had seen the girl in the photo.

In the picture, I recognized the blonde in the red convertible. "She was here just a few minutes ago, but I thought she was a dream" I answered them. "Where did she go?" they asked. "I don't know. I shut the door in her face to make he go away." They didn't believe me so they took me to the police station.

"What is going on? This great day has changed into a nightmare!" I told myself while I was sitting on a small uncomfortable chair in the police station. "What's wrong? Why I am here?" I asked the officer.

"Shut up! You don't ask questions, I'm the one who'll ask questions here!" said the cop in a gruff, menacing voice. Just then, the phone on the desk rang. The cop picked it up, while eyeballing me all the while. He listened unattentively for a moment to the voice on the other end.

Then, suddenly, he became visibly flustered. His hands shook, sweat broke out on his brow, and he stuttered, "Yeee, yees, yes, OK, right away." He hung up the phone gently and without saying a word to me, he walked to the closed door and opened it. The blonde woman was standing in the doorway, smiling.

The cop quickly walked past her out the door into the hall. He closed the door behind him and the blonde stood facing me.

"That's the way the cookie crumbles" I thought for a second. "Here I am again with this awesome yet disturbing blonde which I haven't spoken to yet."

"You didn't want to believe that I'm real, did you? How is that as an evidence of my existence?" she asked me. I was puzzled and I said nothing back to her. "However you do know me. Try to remember the last time we saw one another,” she exhorted me. I could not remember.

Suddenly, walking beside the blonde, I realized that the cops called me “Paul”: that was not my name! Even the flowers outside my window were not there yesterday. Terrified, I asked her who I was.

I'm afraid I'm not able to finish this strange story," she said. And that was it.

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ashraf Aulder (CR)
EagleEye Scorfield
Giovanni Tweak
Lonnrot Reyes
oo Broono

Love on the Wind

2010-05-14T03:45:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class May 9, 2010

Yesterday, it was very windy outside. The weather channel forecasted a rainy, windy day but it only rained for an hour or so in the morning. I didn't want to go outside, so I decided to stay at home and watch T.V. I went to the kitchen, got some ice cream and sat in my comfortable chair. I thought about the day. I asked myself if I could be doing something else. I looked out the window and suddenly, the sky turned black, even though it was daytime. It didn't matter, my heart was light.

"It would be a hard day," I told myself when I was looking out of my window. There were too many dark clouds and the wind was becoming stronger. The trees were moving and the rain became very heavy. But, the dark clouds and heavy rain and strong wind did not make me frightened or sad. And the fast-moving images and loud sounds emanating from the T.V. also did not bother me. My heart was as light as a feather because I was thinking of my new, true love.

On television, I could see a love story about a man and a woman. The man told the woman of his love for her. Suddenly, a big storm hit my house. I didn't understand what was happening. The television became grey. I clicked on it with my remote, nothing. I became afraid. Maybe I should call my friend and tell him to come to my house. Then I heard some sounds coming from my bedroom.

“What's the sound? It is so strange? Who made it Oh, OMG, Is it a ghost? On this dark day, the light bulb wasn't working right. What could I do? I wish my mom and dad were staying with me. I was so scared. I went to my bedroom to see what was going on in there. The wind had blown open my window and the rain was collecting on my bedroom floor. Quickly, I closed the window and started to dry the water from off my bedroom floor. Suddenly, I heard a loud voice coming from outside.

I dropped the towel that I had been using to soak up the water, and I walked slowly towards my bedroom door. I stopped at the open doorway and peeked out. The loud voice that I had just heard was becoming fainter and fainter, so I followed it down the hallway. I heard my front door open and then close.

I went to the door, opened it and looked out into the strange darkness. The wind was blowing so strong that it almost blew me back into the house. Just then, I saw a dark figure hurry across my yard into the barn. I decided to follow the stranger, even though the wind seemed to try to keep me from leaving the house.

I called to him, "Hey you! Who are you? What do you want?" The man turned towards me. It was my true love. He had something hidden behind his back. He asked me, "Right or left?" I chose right. Then he showed me an umbrella! It’s so we can be singing while it's raining.

“But I was curious to know what was in his left hand. "Please show me what you’ve hidden in your left hand, please.” He said, "If you know what it is, it will spoil the fun. But anyway, OK, It is a candle."

"I knew you were alone and I was afraid for you, especially in this dark and thunder-storming night." “So I came to you.”

Why did you come to visit me in such bad weather?" I asked him. “Did you forget?” he replied. “Today is the anniversary of when we met two years ago." He told me that while he was giving me a red rose -I love red roses.

I felt so happy, I forget the cold the wind and the storm. Now I feel the warmth of his feelings. I'm lucky to have a lover like him. We spent the rest of the day talking about the lovely memories we lived over last two years. The rain stopped, the wind changed into nice weather. The hard day changed to a lovely day by his true love.

End

Participants:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ashraf Aulder (CR)
CEM Clary
MichaelJackson Artful
oo Broono

New Skype class and new teacher: Friday 2am PDT

2010-05-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

New Skype class on Fridays at 2am PDT.
The teacher is new too: JIhan Wonder.

In this class students will learn new words, idioms, expressions and grammar. They will also made aware of what are the most common mistakes in English.
Bring your questions!

This class will be in Skype. If you have a Second Life account simply teleport to the infohub before class and contact the Class Runner. If you don't have a Second Life account contact the Class Runner in Skype. The Class Runner for this class will be giovanni_tweak, for the other classes you can find the name of the Class Runner in the calendar on the website.
More info about Skype classes here.

Unknown-Liquid-Drinking is Not Good

2010-05-04T07:29:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class May 2, 2010

Today I think I'll go for a walk in the woods. I wonder what I'll see there. I usually take a walk once or twice a month because I like walking and maybe camping outside for the night. I was briefly checking that my equipment was alright when I suddenly noticed smoke on the horizon rising from the woods.

I know, I know, I should have walked in the opposite direction, but you know me... I started to walk right toward the smoke. As I was getting closer, I started to smell it and it was an odor I had never smelled before.

Sorry, I couldn't understand.

I saw a small bottle on the ground and the bottle had green liquid inside it. I decided to drink it. When I was drinking it, my backside started to vibrate. I became anxious.

I couldn't understand why I drank the green liquid in the bottle, but I was curious to know the source of the smoke and the strange smell. I walked in the direction of the smoke. When I reached there, there was a surprise.

I was close enough now to see the source of the smoke. The smoke was coming from a strange-looking rock. A horrible stench was coming from the rock. I covered my nose with my hand to block the nasty smell. I squinted because the smell was burning my eyes.

I strained to see the rock more clearly. Then I noticed that it was not a rock at all. It was an egg, and it was cracked, and green liquid was oozing from it.

I wondered in disbelief what sort of weird creature would hatch from the egg. A lot of solicitous questions came to my mind. Even though I knew the proverb, "Curiosity killed the cat,” I decided to take a picture of it with my cell phone.

I took it and I started to e-mail the picture to an online photo contest, to all my friends and to my wife. She replied that if I didn't quit the green liquid she would send me to rehab.

I was replying that I was ok when I felt a putrid hot breath blowing at me. I turned and there it was -a horrible monster spitting green flames at me. "Who's drinking my green liquid?" it roared.

Unknown-liquid-drinking is not good.

I became very frightened. My new body became very big... I noticed that my body started to turn green. The monster was beginning to attack me now.

I found out that a group of environmentalists were following the monster. They helped save me from the monster. They told me not to worry about the green skin. They discovered that the bottle of green liquid acts as a poison, like mercury, and it's beginning to be used as a medicine.

I asked myself when I reached a waterfall with too much vapor. There was a sulfur smell It was coming from a sulfur spring. I knew that this water could cure many skin diseases.

I wasn't totally sure whether I should take a bath in those waters; I made a lot of bad decisions throughout the afternoon but I wouldn't let that inconvenience stop me from getting my normal skin complexion back. I chortled thinking about my skin changing its tone to a new, different tone-like light blue before going inside waters. After some hesitation I decided to take that leap of faith.

I decided to dive in it and I soon discovered I wasn't alone. There were strange blue creatures in the water. I soon discovered they were very friendly. We had fun, and I took some pictures. But this time I didn't e-mail them to my wife.
The end

Participants:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
Airam Vaher
ashraf Aulder (CR)
EagleEye Scorfield
Giovanni Tweak
Lucky Caxton
oo Broono

New teacher and new class: Monday 6am PDT

2010-05-02T03:12:00.000-07:00

This week Evvie Stromfield begins teaching at the school.
Her class is on Mondays at 6am PDT, it's a voice class and it's called: Let's Talk!
On each lesson we'll talk about one particular topic and how it relates to our lives.

The structure of each lesson is as follows:

Presentation of topic and the teaching points (vocabulary, grammar, functions) by the teacher
A set of trigger questions in order to start the chat
Other speaking activities, such as role-playing, free speaking, guided speaking, etc
Corrections on vocabulary, grammar, functions and pronunciation
Questions by the students

The student will learn:

Vocabulary related to the topic (selected by the teacher and elicited from the students)
Grammar in use (the grammar items needed to talk about the topic)
Functions, sentence blocks, idioms and expressions related to the topic

The first topic will be: Free Time.
Submissions of new topics for the following classes are welcome.

See you in class.

Naked Truth

2010-05-02T03:05:00.000-07:00

ESL Group story Writing Class April 25, 2010

The other day, I bumped into an old friend at the mall. I was surprised to see him there because he had moved far away several years ago, under mysterious circumstances

"Hi, I'm so glad to meet you after such a long time. Do you remember me?” I told him when he was staring at me.

He didn’t seem to remember. I was disappointed.

I reminded my friend that we had studied together for three years at the university. You disappeared during the fourth year. I asked all our friends about you, but nobody knew what had happened to you. "Where did you go? What happened?" I asked him.

I felt he was nervous, trying to hide something from me. And suddenly a little girl appeared behind him. She looked to be 5 or 6 years old.

The little girl grabbed his leg and rested her head against it. He looked down at her and smiled. "This is my daughter." "Oh," I said, and I bent down and faced her so that we were eye-to-eye. She seemed a bit timid and she stared back at me shyly. She had red hair like my friend, and huge beautiful brown eyes. "And what's your name?" I asked her. "Katie, and I'm 5 years old," she declared in a proud little voice.

When I asked her, I heard her father say, "Hi Alianaluz, would you like to have dinner with us? This girl is my adopted child.

"Sure! Lets go!" I replied. And we turned to cross the street. But suddenly, Katie ran in front of a car that was passing by very fast, and it hit the little girl. We were totally frozen, looking at the horrible scene. No words were spoken. Everything was silent for a couple of seconds. I felt as if each second were an eternity. Katie was lying in the middle of the road, dead.

The driver jumped out of the car and ran up to Katie. He had a small flask in his hand. It had what seemed to be a shimmering liquid inside.
He gently took Katie's lifeless body into his arms, removed the cork from the flask and slowly poured the liquid into the dead child's open mouth.

Immediately, the girl began to cough and shudder. She opened her eyes and sat up in the man's arms. She appeared perfectly well.

It was very difficult time for me. I felt like I was in a nightmare. I couldn't believe that all of this was happening to me. I was so glad to find the little beautiful girl moving again. After seeing the girl in good health, I preferred to go and leave my friend with his family, to recover from the accident. "Here's my phone number, I hope to hear from you," I told him while I was running to my house.

As I was running towards my home, I began to think about our past relationship. Suddenly, I remembered something about our relationship in the past. My friend had wanted to marry me but I was much older than him, so I rejected his proposal.

But did I make the right choice? I rejected him and now I'm married to Peter. I have some problems with him and our relation is not the one I expected, but that’s what I have. I kept on walking until I arrived home.

Home, sweet home. "I'm home Peter!" I said. But no one replied. I went to the bathroom to take a shower and I heard some noise coming from our bedroom.

I had turned on the water and the sound of the splashing water was so loud that I couldn't quite make out the sound from the bedroom. I turned off the water, grabbed my toothbrush and held it out in front of me as if it were a knife. I was prepared to stab any intruder who might have somehow gotten into the house.

Slowly, I crept towards the bedroom. I quickly pushed the door open, ready to pounce. The bedroom was empty. Then I heard noises coming from the living room. I ran into the living room yelling a warning to whoever was making the noise. I ran straight into the middle of the room.

"Surprise!" yelled about twenty of my friends -including my long-lost friend and his daughter Katie. Then everyone gasped and Katie pointed to me and giggling said, "Oh, you're naked!"

Everything seemed to go black. Then I heard an alarm clock ringing faintly, somewhere off in the distance. I couldn’t see and I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. The ringing gradually became louder and louder until it seemed to fill the air. Suddenly, I bolted up out of my bed. I rubbed my eyes and looked around. I was in my bedroom alone. Early morning light was streaming through the window. My apartment was empty. My mouth felt dry and my stomach felt queasy. I thought to myself: “I knew I shouldn’t have eaten those anchovies last night.”

Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ashraf Aulder (CR)
Data Meridoc
oo Broono

Picnic Pick-up

2010-04-18T23:26:00.001-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class April 18 2010

Yesterday I decided to have a picnic in the park, since the weather was so nice. I put a book, a blanket, some paper cups, and a bottle of wine in a large backpack and I took them with me to the park.

I took my bicycle and went out. It was so beautiful to listen to the song of the birds while I was riding.

I looked for a spot on the lawn and I sat down. I began to read a book. A man was walking in front of me. He stopped and said "May I?"

I observed the park. It was nice and quiet. There was a river with beautiful swans and on the other side some children were playing with a ball. When the man asked me if he could sit close to me, I hesitated.

What did this man want? Is there not enough space in this park? I looked closely at the man. He had on a purple sweater that had holes all over it. His pants were a dingy orange color and they had patches all over them.

I looked down at his feet and was surprised to see that they were clad with a very expensive pair of exquisite leather boots. Then, pretending not to understand what he was asking, I said, "May I?" "May you what?"

"May I sit close to you, of course," he said. I was afraid of this hobo, no matter how good his shoes were, but I was afraid he could become dangerous if I said no and I was also worried because he smelled bad.

While I was wondering how to react in the best way for me, my phone rang and I picked it up. It was a friend of mine who was asking me if I were in our favorite park because she is around.

I said, "I need you now, so can you come here to the park? Just as you were calling me, a man sat down next to me.”

The man started to tell me a strange story. He told me that he met a woman who had predicted that he would meet the woman of his dreams today, here in this park. But while he was telling me that, he was looking attentively at my bottle of wine. I just answered, "Oh yes, she must be somewhere in this park. Have a look!” I hoped that my friend would arrive fast.

The man smiled at me and said, "I don't need to look anywhere else. You are the woman of my dreams." "How do you know that?" I asked. "Because you have the magic bottle in your possession," he said, smiling.

Uff. All I was worried about before the picnic was the weather and ants. I hadn't thought about creeps. Next time I'll have to remember to bring something else, like a baseball bat or a gun. I told the guy: "Listen, the bottle is finished. And although it was a very good wine, I wouldn't say it was ‘magic.’” “I am sure I am not the woman of your dreams, and I really would like you to leave. Why don't you take a nap and dream of someone else?"

The man said, "No, I want to stay here." Just at that same moment, my friend arrived. My friend was astonished when he saw the man because he recognized the man. The man was the author of the book that I was reading. The book title is "My Best Favorite."

My friend was a big admirer of that author. She gave him her phone number and told him to call her later in the evening. The man left, happy. My friend and I could now start our picnic and talk about women's stories, blah, blah, blah…

THE END

Participants:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
Giovanni Tweak (CR)
oo Broono
Rali Andretti
Verte Roussel

Week

2010-04-02T01:37:00.000-07:00

Song Lyrics class is back: Sunday at 2pm PDT. This week "The seeker" by The Who.
During this class we'll listen to a song and read the lyrics. The teacher will explain vocabulary, idioms, expressions and point out some grammar points from the song. Students are invited to comment on the meaning of the lyrics.
Submissions are welcome. If you know a song with interesting lyrics send a notecard to Adhams Darkstone or Giovanni Tweak.

Story Class on Sunday 8am PDT is canceled (this week only)

Tap Water

2010-03-31T01:37:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing March 28, 2010

I live in a village. This year there was a drought so I decided to look for headwater. From childhood, I heard stories that there used to be a river where my house now is, but the river disappeared.

So, I decided to go along the shore of the river up stream, to find the headwaters. I heard that there were a lot of monsters along the river coast but I still needed to go there. Then I walked around for years. At last I found something that I didn't expect.

There was a large group of crows. One crow could crush a house with its wings. As I was getting ready to fight the crows, an old lady came up to me and told me lots of things about fighting the monsters I would face.

She gave me a small vial with a blue potion inside. She told me to drink it after the fight with the crows. But I was afraid of the crows so I drank it before starting to fight.

Fighting with the crows was not the aim of my journey. I wanted to discover the reason why the water stopped flowing in front of my house.

But I couldn't begin to investigate this because the crows were blocking my way. I had to deal with those horrid crows first. That's why I impatiently drank the blue potion BEFORE I began to fight the crows.

That was a bad idea. I should have listened to the old lady and waited until after the fight to drink the potion.

I am always very frightened.

I thought that I could drive out the crows with a torch. But I couldn't fire a torch so I fired a candle. It was my father's birthday.

Therefore, I needed 500 candles to do that. Fortunately, that made the crows flee but made the forest burn.

My journey started to look like a failure from the beginning, I had scared the crows but I had set the jungle on fire and it made the people of our village so very angry.

The people of the village began to work to extinguish the fire and save the forest. They made a long line and passed buckets of water. They put out the fire very quickly.

I asked them where they had found the water. They showed me the source of the river and the dam they had built to keep the water handy for use in case of fire.

I discovered the reason why the water had stopped flowing in front my house I told myself that if I had asked the others why, they would have told me.

The reason why the water had stopped flowing in front of my house is because…
I forgot to open the tap!

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
Arash Aljon
ashraf Aulder (CR)
Giovanni Tweak
oo Broono
pon Deezul
Power Difference

Pronunciation Classes

2010-03-22T07:56:00.000-07:00

Looking for classes to improve your pronunciation?
Here is the list.

Monday 11am
Monday 4pm
Tuesday 2am
Wednesday 11am
Wednesday 4pm
Thursday 2am
Friday 8am
Sunday 6am

Sasdaguea Monday

2010-03-22T07:43:00.000-07:00

ESL Group Story Writing Class March 21, 2010

I was born in a cave at the foot of a mountain, not far from a small village near the ocean. The buzzing of unseen insects kept me company during the day and the flutter of bat wings lulled me to sleep at night.

I didn’t leave the cave for the first seven years of my life, but sometimes at night, I felt brave enough to crawl to the cave entrance, sit with my back to the cave, and gaze up at the stars and moon while I listened to the waves crash against the rocks at the nearby seashore.

On those nights I was always dreaming about my future and all the adventures I'd have had once I decided to go to Sasdaguea: the closest town. I knew there were big buildings and powerful machinery in them to make steel. I was fascinated at the thought of a change.

One day, I got up very early. I decided to go to the city to see it for myself. I met a woman in the city, I liked her. But I did not know if I would be able to speak to her.

She was a charming woman with big lips, she was holding a child. The child was crying a lot, and she kept asking for help without paying any attention to her child.

I imagined that there were large animals close to the cave and said: “Oh Great Allah created them all. I wished to always live in this beautiful, natural area.

Going to town was my dream. The town was far from my place and there was no means of transportation from there to my place. The nearest bus station was 20 km from the cave. So I decided to go to the bus station on foot.

The other problem was money, "How could I get the money that I would need to take the bus?", I told myself while I was thinking about a way to make my dream come true.

All of a sudden I realized that I had been daydreaming, looking at the beautiful lady from the city. I was already in the city. I don't recall how I got to the city. I was certain that I hadn't taken a bus, but somehow, I was there, standing in the midst of this beautiful little city by the sea. Actually, it was more like a village than a city.

I turned around while my brain was still blurred by some weird effect. There was a big coffee shop and a bunch of tourist hanging out at the tables outside. Then a man walked up to me very casually and gave me a CD envelope. I stood there, I didn't know what to do.

I opened the envelope. The message written inside read "You're welcome to attend our village's big fantasy party. Here you can achieve all your wishes.”

I was thinking of that weird invitation from this strange man. However I decided to go to this fantasy party to see what it was about, and maybe I could find my lady there.

Since childhood, I've loved nature and hated industrial cities because of pollution which destroys life and the environment.

Now, I'm in the city, my dream came true. But, "How could I live here, how could I find food?" I asked myself when I was standing in the coffee shop looking for something to eat. Today I discovered that life in such a city is completely different from my life in the cave. "I have to find work, without work it is too difficult to live," I told myself. The stranger's invitation was enough to keep me alive for a while, but not for long. The lady, the thought of work and the lonely feelings were the most important things for me now.

I realized that I wasn't thinking clearly. I glanced down at the envelope and the CD with the words of invitation on it. I turned the CD over to see if anything else was written on it. Nothing was there. "When and where would this fantasy party take place?," I thought.

I looked up and noticed a cyber-cafe across the street. "Duh," I thought to myself, "There must be more information on this CD!" I ran across the street, entered the cyber-cafe, went up to a computer, popped the CD in and waited for the prompt.

At that point I was pretty sure that I'd know much more once I accessed that CD. That's when the bouncer tapped on my shoulder with his finger and pointed to a sign hanging on the wall. It said: "Wake up EagleEye because you're late for your job, dummy!" That's when the alarm went off. I opened one eye and I immediately recognized my bed and my bedroom.

It was Monday morning again: a worst nightmare than the previous one.

Participants
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ashraf Aulder (CR)
EagleEye Scorfield
Faresalfares Woodrunner
Nesreen Pedalo
oo Broono

Time Change

2010-03-19T08:01:00.001-07:00

The time has changes from PST (pacific standard time) to PST (pacific daylight saving time)
What does it mean?

For Asian students (including Saudi Arabia): Classes will start one hour before until November 7, when the time will change back to PST).

For European student: Classes will start one hour before until March 28, when the time will change to daylight saving time in Europe as well. It will go back to standard time on October 31 and there will be confusion for a week, until November 7 when SL will change back to standard time too.

For Brazilian student: I'm really confused by Brazilian time. I hope you understand better than I do. Classes should be one hour earlier until your time changes (probably October 17).

For Egyptian students: Classes will start one hour before until April 30, when the time will change to daylight saving time in Egypt as well.

Anyway, don't trust me and check here: http://www.timeanddate.com/time/dst2010.html

Good luck!

Swedish Bacon

2010-03-14T16:15:00.000-07:00

Group Story Writing Exercise March 14 2010

“5:14 leaving for Hastings in 3 minutes, all aboard!” That announcement blasted over the loudspeakers in the waiting room of the old train station jolted me out of my sleep. “5:14?” I said to myself, “That can’t be! I only wanted to take a cat nap. I’m sure I closed my eyes no more than 10 minutes ago… at about 2:10 A.M.

Did I sleep for almost three hours?” I glanced up at the large clock that hung from the wall in the middle of the station. It confirmed the conductor’s announcement. I missed my train!

Maybe it was because the time had changed form winter time to summer time. I am always confused when that happens. But, wait a minute! This is not the same station I fell asleep in. Where am I?

I wonder, is this a dream? I want to pinch myself once, to make sure I'm not dreaming. Suddenly I saw a very strange person with an elephant walk by me.

I think , I'm lost. I'm in a nice place. But I don’t know this place. It's a nice park with a great garden.

I hate when I miss my train. In fact, I missed the train two times. The first time that I missed the train was last week. I was going to my officer in Manhattan, and I fell asleep. And the second time was today.

Missing the train concerns me, of course, but I'm more concerned now because I'm having such weird dreams! -an elephant, a garden, and a totally different train station all in the same place? What's going on? I pinched myself again, but I still can't tell if I'm awake or asleep!

Maybe all I need is a good breakfast. So I went to the cafeteria to get some food. No one was there. I sat at a table and a robot arrived at my table to take my order. I couldn't yet tell if I was awake or not. I ordered eggs and bacon.

It was really good to eat. I forgot what happened today because I enjoy staying here. Perhaps I should take a vacation.

Now, I feel better. I left the café and I met an interesting girl on the way out. She was from Denmark. I asked her for her telephone number. She gave it to me. I got my train and went back home.

Actually what I need to do is change my diet. Eggs and bacon in the morning are not a good idea, they have given me a lot of sleep-problems and nightmares during the night. Maybe what I need is a Danish cook.

When I got home I remembered the phone number of the girl from Denmark. I decided to call her and to my surprise, she greeted me with a beautiful "hello." After we talked at length, I discovered that she is not Danish but Swedish.

I asked her if she could cook and she said that she could. She told me that she was a vegetarian. I wanted to stop eating bacon but I was not about to give up eating meat, so I decided to look elsewhere for a cook.

I found an Italian cook. He was very good. He made great meals for me, with many different ingredients. I was eating good things every day and at the same time I was staying slim. But I kept thinking about the Danish/Swedish/vegetarian girl. She told me to meet her at the station, at 9 o'clock that night.

I got a haircut and a good suit. I went to the station very early. So I went into the waiting room to wait for her.

I was waiting, waiting... I think I fell asleep for maybe a minute. When I woke up, I felt I was back in those moment": the "Ï-missed-the-train times.” I tried to recall everything that happened.

The girl was so sad about me. I missed her. What could I do now? I missed the last train. I went into a bar and asked for coffee. I saw another one. I saw another girl. She was a Chinese girl.

But back to talking about the Swedish girl…Wow, I could not sleep last night thinking about that woman: that soft voice on the phone... I really wished I could be at her side, to be able to look into her beautiful blue eyes....

But...it was only a dream....I woke up and my train arrived. This time I didn’t miss it!

Participants
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
Dionisio Storaro
Giovanni Tweak (CR)
Marcello Vollmar
oo Broono

Whoopie! Scrolling text!

2010-03-10T16:40:00.001-08:00

THE FIRST CLASS IS FREE. CHECK THE SCHOOL CALENDAR FOR THE NEXT CLASS

A Ducky Situation

2010-03-07T12:36:00.001-08:00

Group Story Writing Exercise March 7 2010

It all began on a late, lazy Sunday afternoon in the heart of summer. I was taking a leisurely nap on the hammock on my grandmother's porch, when all of a sudden I heard strange, soft noises coming from somewhere behind my grandmother's rose bush.

I ran to my grandmother right away. I thought that I should calm down first. My grandmother told me that I must calm down and asked me if I didn't notice that the workers were repairing the roof.

Then I decided to walk through the beautiful summer forest and enjoy the sun and listen to the birds and the sound of the waterfall near the house.

In the forest, there were some nice colored birds who were singing. Near the oldest tree in the forest, a black bird looked at me. It was strange.

I spent a nice time in the forest among the flowers, green trees, and lovely colored birds. I enjoyed the birds' singing. The black bird that was looking at me strangely made me wonder about the meaning of its look. All these things couldn't help me forget the voice I heard at my grandmother’s house. "When I return to the house I will look for the voice source." I told myself during my return back.

While I turned away to go back home I heard the bird calling me back. I can't explain how but I was sure it was the strange bird. "Hey you" it said to me, "There is nothing wrong with the roof, right? I think it was your grandma who wanted to send you away. Let's go back and see what she's doing."

Suddenly grandmother called me: "Come in kid.” Go to the room in the back to see what’s happening there.

I glanced back to see if the black bird had followed me. It was nowhere in sight. Then I thought I saw some movement within the rosebush. Instead of heeding my grandmother's directions, I moved closer to the rose bush. I was sure the voice was coming from behind it.

I stood by the bush and listened intently for a few moments. Nothing.
I could hear nothing but the typical sounds of summer: the singing of birds, the buzzing of insects, and in the distance, the crashing of waves against the rocks at the bottom of the waterfall.

Just as I began to turn away from the bush, and walk towards the room in the back, I heard the voice again. "Go see what your grandma's up to." "Hurry before she realizes that you didn't go to the back of the house." said the voice, "She's in the front room."

As I walked closer to where she was, I was becoming more and more shocked. I saw blood on the floor.

I discovered the source of the blood: it was a native guy who was trying to make a bad joke. Suddenly, he told me he was worried about the controversial plan to build a big factory on his ancestors' land. He told me that all the tribal people were debating this controversial plan that his community didn't like.

In fact, the guy had wanted to eat the delicious apple pie that my grandmother had made. He took a knife and wanted to cut a piece of dissert, but like most men, he didn't know how to use kitchen utensils. That's why there was blood on the floor.

I asked him to go back up onto the roof. That’s what I thought when I saw the red color on the floor. But when I went closer I discovered that the strawberry sauce had fallen down onto the floor, making the red color on the floor.

But now I could not find my grandmother. I was worried she was mad at me and didn't want to see me or speak to me again. She always made apple pie with strawberry sauce when she was upset. So I went back into the forest to look for her.

I covered my ears with my hands and yelled "la la la la la" out loud as I ran past the rose bush into the forest. I didn't want to hear any strange voice tell me weird things about my grandmother.

Grandmother shouted: "Kid come this way.” I ran to her quickly. “Oh my God " I saw a little bird get hurt.

My grandmother stood over the bird singing in a soft, low voice. She had something in her hand. I couldn't tell what it was at first because the sun was in my eyes. I squinted, then clearly I saw a heap of shimmering dust in my grandmother's hand. The dust was beautiful and she sprinkled it over the quivering bird as she sang to it.

Ending Number One:
I have always liked birds. So I have a lot of little bird friends. This is my life.
The end.

Ending Number Two:
I love birds, but my grandmother said that God sent birds for us to eat them. My grandmother wanted to make a special dinner for my father’s birthday, so she planned to cook a special duck dish for this special party: "Duck in its own sauce", my father's favorite dish. We had a wonderful time and all the family was together.

PARTCIPANTS:
Airam Vaher
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ashraf Aulder (CR)
CEM Clary
Claudia Galewind
Giovanni Tweak
Jun Ubert
oo Broono

Treasured Endings

2010-03-07T09:52:00.000-08:00

ESL Group Story February 28, 2010

Seven, no eight, no nine years ago I discovered a huge secret. It was a secret that changed my life.

When I was going home after finishing my work, I bumped into my friend Sam. I was surprised to meet him after not seeing him for such a long time. He stared at me for a long time and said "Do you still remember me?" "Do you remember our secret?"

I thought of the map that we discovered during our childhood; there is a treasure hidden somewhere on the map. I told this secret to my wife after getting married.

-a treasure that can solve any economic problem for anybody…

Suddenly I felt as excited as a little child. God knows how boring my life had been ever since I got a new job at the city bank. I felt like one of the characters in the Robert Louis Stevenson book “Treasure island.” The reality was a little more complicated, though. I couldn't just take a week off from my work. However I couldn't let my friend down either.

This treasure could make me happy and rich and I could buy all the things that I wanted. We discovered this treasure in my old house after searching a long time. What would we do with this treasure?

Do you remember?... Back then we sat in the basement repairing an old bike, and then you looked into this place....

-and found a map.

I decided to call in sick at work so that I could go to find the treasure with my friend, and my wife decided to come too. We took our bicycles and started to ride following the directions on the map.

It took us to my old house! We discovered this treasure in my old house after searching a long time. Old house, the basement, and a mysterious door ... They lead to who knows where .... We went in.

When I went through the door it was very dark and the smell was terrible. The light we had with us was not enough to brighten up the tunnel that seemed very long and deep. We could hear noises of rattling chains and others that we could not understand. Could it have been animals?

We were scared but our curiosity drove us forward. We walked on a bit longer and it astounded me that there was such a huge, long space beneath this old house. The horrid smell grew stronger and the sounds of rattling chains and moans grew louder as we crept along. I was the most scared of the two (and a little bit of a coward) so I told my friend to go first.

"Hey, don't speak to me that way. I don't take orders from anyone," he responded. You can go first, not me," he said, and added "-sorry if I seem rude.”

I was wondering if aliens could in any way be involved in this because I remember hearing some vague stories about aliens and treasures. They were the treasure custodians. I got a mixed sense about this experience.

ENDING VERSION ONE:
We were very afraid and we could not continue, so we decided to leave the treasure where it was and to go back outside. When we parted we decided to keep our cowardice a secret, in addition to the secret of the treasure.

ENDING VERSION TWO:
It was a hard day, but we agreed to cooperate and work together in an effective way to reach to the treasure. I did my best to encourage my friend to work with confidence and passion. We spent a long time in that tunnel but no treasure was there. The treasure we got was our mutual cooperation and obedience.

PARTICIPANTS
Airam Vaher
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ashraf Aulder (CR)
EagleEye Scorfield
Ganat3aden Cristole
Giovanni Tweak
kang Elton
Lora Tachikawa
mody Avril
oo Broono
Simon Lamede

Pandora’s Garage

2010-02-21T16:12:00.000-08:00

ESL Group Story February 21, 2010

One day, I decided to clean out my garage. I hadn't parked my car in it for two years. I stored things that I didn't need in it instead.

Not only was it filled with all my junk, but also the people who owned my house before me, left a huge, heavy trunk in the back of the garage. I decided to begin my cleaning by inspecting the contents of the trunk.

I prepared a lot of tools. Despite all my efforts to open the trunk I soon realized it was locked and I didn't have the key. I browsed around all the tools in my garage until I found a jemmy which might have helped me to open that trunk.

I had been working with it for half an hour before I was able to break the locker. I was so impatient to see what was inside it that I didn't notice the scorpion that was walking on it.

All of a sudden I felt a burning itch on my hand and screamed out in pain. I screamed so loud that the neighbor's kid ran in to see what was going on… and at the same time I turned my eyes towards the content in the trunk. I couldn't believe what I saw!

I couldn't say a thing…and the kid just looked at me, looked at the trunk and then at me again.

It was not easy to transfer all the things that were stored in the garage. "I need more than a day to clean this place", I told myself when I saw the cartons inside the trunk. So, I decided to use my pickup truck to load them outside my house. When I was loading the cartons to my car, I came across a small red book.

The kid started running and a car was coming and it crashed into the kid. So many things were happening at the same time. I began to become fearful.

That reminded me of Pandora's box: an ancient Greek myth about a jar that this woman used to carry with her and once she opened it, she unleashed all bad things in the world such as ills, toils etc. I decided to look inside the cartons contained in the trunk and see if I could look inside that mystery.

But first I had to check on the kid that was hit by that car. Was she dead? I went closer... No movement. As I called 911, I thought about the trunk and Pandora's box. Could it be that because I opened it, the kid was hit by the car, a scorpion hurt me and... well, what was next I wondered. What had I done?

It was not a serious accident. The driver was able to get away from the Kid. He barely touched him.

"What is this red book about?" I asked myself when the kid's mother took him into her arms and went home.

I tried to open the red book but it was locked. On its cover, I could see a little sentence: "Sing me my favorite song and you will discover a wonderful world.” What could be that song? Alianaluz passed by there, took the book and disappeared with it!

The kid had hoped to discover this wonderful world spoken of in the red book but the crash changed everything. The red book was gone, and so was hope. There was only disappointment.

Then Aliana arrived and said: "Okay guys, I will keep the red book until the next week and we will continue the story, ok?"

I tried so hard to find a connection between the accidents that happened that day such as the kid who was hit by the car and the scorpion who pinched (stung) me but I've never found any.

Sometimes you just need to take things as they are without looking for supernatural explanations. In the meantime I guess I'd better go to the ER to have my hand healed because it started to swell and I forgot about it.

The end.

Or is it?

Participants:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ashraf Aulder (CR)
burak Valeska
CEM Clary
EagleEye Scorfield
funda Darkfold
Lux Zeurra
oo Broono