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Anastasia Seliverstova |
We extol the virtues of learning English, explore possibilities and explore things from different angles, we explore lifestyles and we explore avenues of decision-making, we discover ideas and we discover a powerful new way to build confidence, we discover new stories, discover sizable opportunities and inner motivation, we create a pile of expectations and we create an environment of language learning and discussion in English, we create a model that cannot be replicated and we create better chances, we create scoring chances for our Club members and we create a completely different experience, we initiate free discussion and widen the pool of topics discussed, we think out of the box and generate opinions!
We are the English Club BMSTU and we do want to continue to pool our talents.
Join the English Club today!
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Shopping
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Do you often find snooty (=snobbish)sales assistants in expensive shops?
Allergies
- When was the last time your friend or acquaintance said “news flash kiddo”(=used as a familiar form of address) saying they were already allergied up to their eyeballs and swollen like a balloon?
- Do you sneeze if someone tickles your nose with a feather?
Summertime, free time and travelling
- Do you like it when summer heat creates a shimmering haze?
- When was the last time you contemplated a group of children scattering pigeons? How did you feel?
- When was the last time you played cat’s cradle?(= a children's game in which two players alternately stretch alooped string over their fingers in such a way as to produce different designs)
- Have you ever been to Venice? Is it possible to get lost in the cat’s cradle of alleyways that crisscross the maze canals? Clothes decorations
- Do you like it when sequins decorate your clothes? (= a small shiny flat piece of plastic or metal that you can sew onto clothes to decorate them) Do you like buying sequined clothes?
Accents detection
- How do you react when you hear someone’s burr (=heavy accent)?
Puzzles
- When you take two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and gaze at the jagged edges, do you always know how to fit them together? Would you agree that any love couple is like two jagged edges of half-coins?
Friends
- When you are on a walk with your best friend, do you yelp and poke them in the ribs playfully when you are trying to disagree or protest?
- Do you know someone from whose quip (=a clever or witty remark or comment) there’s a nugget of real humour to be minded? How often do you quip?
- When you are at a cinema and your friend whispers something jokingly into your ear, do you swat them away or do you listen?
Morning Trips on the Tube
- How often do you get jostled by someone squeezing themselves into the tiny space next to you on the Tube?
- How often do you sit squashed up on the subway, flicking through pages of a magazine?
Smiley faces
- Do you like it when a smile dimples a person’s face?
Expensive stationery
- Do you use biro ball-point pens? Or do you prefer ink pens?
Destitute people and tatty gardens
Do you know someone who lives in an old house with dirty windows and tatty curtains(=worn out, shabby)? Would you agree that sometimes a tatty garden space looks almost too dismal to tackle?
Memories
- Do you feel twinges when you wince at some memory or just an occasional pang?
- Do you think environmentalists may feel a twinge of fear at the burgeoning romance with motoring?
- Would you agree that resort to euphemisms denotes a twinge in the public-relations nerve?
- When you desperately crave for something do you say to yourself that here is no incentive not to indulge the slightest twinge?
Time management-I should have done it…
- When you are making calculations as to what you should have done by now do you feel a thump of realization quickly followed by a left jab of defensiveness like I didn’t have enough time or I would rather fancied doing something else?
Campering
- Have you ever campered for two weeks or more during your vacation? (= to travel and live in a vehicular camper)
- Is it vital to make sure your camper is in complete working order before you arrive at your campsite?
- When you have been having a holiday somewhere abroad for a fortnight do you begin to feel qualms (=bouts) of home sickness?
Day-dreaming
- Is it difficult for you to zone back after day-dreaming?
Doodling lectures
- Are you capable of doodling incessantly whole lectures away?(= scribble idly)
- When you’re solving a quiz in a magazine do you catch yourself absentmindedly doodling a love-heart around the right answer?
- Do you have children or nieces or nephews?
- Do you like doodling images on one side of a foam shape toy using a pencil?
- Do you know someone who is in into advertising?
- Do they have a printer that allows you to scale up a tiny doodle and print it onto a billboard with no loss in quality?
- Hasn’t this technique always amazed us?
Sense of humour
- Do you know someone who has a quirky sense of humour?
- Does quirky music help one make a creative process fun?
- Do you know people who stay quirky just for the sake of being quirky?
Criticism
- Can constant criticism fluster you?(= to put into a state of agitated confusion)
- When you are preparing a speech does it help practicing saying its content so you aren’t flustered and so you don’t ramble before getting to the real heart of your presentation?
- Do you know people who at crunch time get flustered and frustrated that they act out aggressively?
- Is it possible not to get flustered if the interviewer seems to ignore you?
Scribbling notes and scribbling in books
- When you read books do you scribble all over a page?
- Do you sometimes use a yellow pad to write and scribble your notes and thoughts?
- As a student do/did you scribble furiously in your notebook?
Coffee spillages
- Has it ever happened to you that you were crossing the street when a man bashed right into you and spilled coffee all over you?
Analyzing thoughts
What thoughts can make you get a tingle all the way up your spine?
Have you ever encountered spells or other forms of magic that sent a shiver down your spine?
When was the last time you were riding a bike and fell and the scratches tingled?
Foods and flavours
- Do you like eating coleslaw?(= a salad of finely sliced or chopped raw cabbage, usually moistened with a mayonnaise dressing.)
- Do your all-you-can-eat meals include mashed potatoes, gravy and coleslaw?
- Would you agree that the sauce for pulled pork tends to be both sweet and tangy(=having a tang, having a pungent, fresh, or briny flavour or aroma~sharp), especially if you are serving the pork with creamy coleslaw?
- Did you know they use an amber-ale brine for a tangy echo to a sweet onion marmalade topping?
- When cooking a meal would you opt for roasted garlic, tangy buttermilk, and chicken stock to pack a lot of flavor into low-fat mashed potatoes?
- Would you agree that pickle juice makes tangy salad perfect with burgers?
- Would you agree that tart and tangy berries are a delicious ingredient in many sauces, salads, holiday dishes from savoury(=salty or spicy) to sweet?
Squinting
- When you are looking at a map of your city do you squint at the grid of streets desperate to find your location?
- Do you squint your eyes at bright lights?
- Do you think that it is right that magazine readers no longer have to squint to see the health warning on ads for smokeless tobacco products?
- Have you ever experienced that tiny eyes of some furry animal squinted at you with myopic curiosity?
- When you hear something conspiratorial do your eyes narrow to a squint?
Shredding
- When you don’t like a particular printed ad do you shred (=tear off into narrow strips) the offers before tossing them in the garbage?
- When you cook potatoes do you peel them and then shred it into long strands onto a clean tea towel?
- Do you agree that if you have a strong, large-capacity bagging mower, you can use it to pick up and shred leaves?
- Would you agree that anyone with any shred of intelligence knows which is high and which is low culture?
Manner of speech delivery: drawling
- Do you know people who drawl?(= say or speak in a slow manner, usually prolonging the vowels)
- Have you ever heard Texan or mid-Atlantic drawl?
Prattling and nattering
- When you bare in the country somewhere near a river do you like to listen to the prattle of water rushing over stones?
- Do you think it was right that during World War II no movie star wanted to prattle about her designer dress while the nation was at war?
- Would you agree that in teaching it is useful not to prattle on about valuable teachers but prove it and address the issues that really inhibit learning?
- Do you know people who natter(=chatter,gossip) and natter, and when they are not nattering, they prattle?
Talking to strangers
- Would you agree that in a situation when you have had an awkward conversation with a stranger in the street it’s better to shoot them an awkward smile and stride off purposely into the crowd rather than continue the conversation?
Wacky things to buy and wacky sense of humour
- Have you ever been walking a street when you turned a corner and stumbled across a film set, or a store holder selling some wacky kind(=odd, irrational, crazy) of jewellery?
- Was it in one of those magnificent tourist attraction cities?
- Would you agree that many writers of kids’ books have a pretty wacky sense of humour?
Mishmash of streets in your city
- When you look at the map of your town is it a crazy quilt of districts and precincts?(=a hodgepodge, a disorderly mixture, a mishmash)
Pinching yourself and a crowd pinching you
- When you feel a buzz of excitement do you have to pinch yourself to zap back to reality?
- When was the last time you walked into a coach and the crowd pinched you into a corner?
The luck of the draw in sports
- Do you agree that tennis players can’t choose who they play against-it’s just the luck of the draw?
- Does the same count for sports teams like football and baseball teams or do they have a choice?
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Miscellaneous
- Do you know someone who is in the habit of jabbing away at their BlackBerry?
- Do you like to sit ramrod straight? Do you wear pinstripe suits?
- What other people’s problems would you call a no biggie?
- Have you ever flunked a maths test? What did you do after flunking one? Do you know someone who flunked out of some school? Would you agree that sometimes when you flunk out of some organization you might not get a second chance because there are limitations like age etc?
- Could you name several things that are baffling you at the moment?
- Have you ever come across a temp agency that uses unskilled workers for hire?
- What can one do to prevent falling into a rut?(= a fixed or established mode of procedure or course of life, usually dull or unpromising) What do you do in summer to get your life out of a bit of a rut? Do you know someone who is now stuck in an emotional rut?
- Are polished wenge floors and flat-screen TVs your idea of posh lifestyle?
- Are you a stickler for timekeeping? Are you a stickler for organization or ceremony? Are you a stickler for first-hand verification ofideas, rather than blind following.?
- How often does it happen to you that you are engaged in a conversation and your phone beeps to signal you’ve got a text right on cue?(= as if planned to happen exactly at that moment)What things have happened to you on cue, like for example, when my friends were traveling up a narrow river in East Africa when, right on cue, a hippopotamus thrust its head out of the water?How do you perceive those right on cue moments?
- What sort of people are you teeny bit scared of? What teensy-weensy things can you name?(=extremely small, tiny)Do you like itsy-bitsy items?(very small)What peewee objects for children could you name?(=very small)Could you recall a player, maybe a football player who was sent to the peewee leagues after they had an argument with their coach or the team?
- What do you say when you are meeting someone at the bar, terribly late, storm in and plop yourself down on the barstool next to the person you are meeting?
- When you are thinking about something difficult does a sharp crease etch down the middle of your forehead?
- Do you know someone who has had trouble with the police and got away with a warning and a good-behaviour bond?
- Do your female friends like to wear a jingle-jangle of silver bracelets? Do you get annoyed at the jingle-jangle of keys when someone is producing a batch out of their pocket or bag?
- Could you refer to several occasions from your experience when you wanted your own space and ‘space’ was something of a misnomer? Do you think it is wise for young people to move out of their parents’ place to get their own space?
- Would you agree that big cities might be exciting but they come with a hefty price tag?
- What do you think of people who butt into conversations and change the subject ?
- When you are choosing something are you in the habit of tilting your head while making the decision? Do you know cameras that tilt downward for an overhead shot? What makes you tilting toward a particular option when you are making a choice? Have there ever been moments in your life when it was time for sudden movements or full tilt changes of plan?
- When you are happy are you capable of giving little squeals of excitement even if you are in a public place?
- Could you think of an instance when you had to deadpan?
- Do you know someone who likes ear-wigging?(=eavesdrop)
- When was the last time you had to furtively look around to check no one is listening before revealing some secret to your friend?
- Do you like people who make drolly remarks?(= amusing in an odd way; whimsically humorous; waggish) Do you like meteoinfo reports made in waggish tone?
- What was the latest book you read that was pure fluff, but fun to read?(=no consequence) When you are cleaning around the house to you pay specific attention to fluffing up your sofa pillows?
- What do you do if you see someone drop a chocolate wrapper in the street?
- Have you ever been observing a person rummaging in their bag, balancing it on their lap, tipping it to one side to get a better look when it suddenly toppled over on to the floor, spewing out its contents? Was there ever someone else scrabbling around helping the person pick up their stuff?
- When you are trying to convince somebody and you have a piece of evidence in your hands would you waggle it in evidence? When you are playing football with your friends do you wait till the ball waggles slowly to a stop before resuming your position or do you try to catch it when it’s still in motion? Do you like it when the leaves of a tree waggle in the wind? Did you know that honey bees do a little movement called the waggle dance to alert each other to new food sources?
- Have you ever observed puppies wiggling with delight chewing some old boot? When you are trying to dissolve some medicine in a glass of water is it useful to wiggle and shake it if it takes longer than usual to dissolve?
- Would you agree that if you don’t bobble the ball, there won't be any reason to call the scorer?(= a momentary fumbling or juggling of a batted or thrown baseball.)Do you like a sweater with a line of bobbles up the sleeves?
- When you are opening a door does it take you joggling the key in the lock a couple of times before getting the door open?(= to shake slightly; move to and fro; jiggle)
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Poring over magazine quizzes, poring over video surveillance footage
- Do you like to pore over tests and quizzes in magazines, head bent, eyes narrowed in concentration?
- What do you most usually conclude after poring over some Internet images?
- Have you ever pored over a furniture catalogue?
- If a person is missing do you think it helps when investigators pore over video surveillance footage and talk to neighbours?
- Do you like to pore over TV shows, judging and praising even their littlest details?
Rueful Internet messages and rueful comedies
- Would you agree that some of the messages on the Internet are rueful (=apologetic or remorseful)rather than serious advice?
- Can you chuckle ruefully?
- Do you like rueful, fast-moving comedies?
Getting the hang of it
- What things do take a few tries on your part to get the hang of it?
- Would you, for yourself, agree that it is easy to get the hang of how you obtain the virtual currency-it is spending it which is the bigger problem?
- Would you agree that after you flounder in the surf a while you begin to get the hang of it?
- What things in your life is there still ample time to get the hang of?
Observations of people chatting
- Do you like to observe other people chatting?
- Imagine a group of three friends one of whom is caught in-between their friends’ remarks, his or her head flicking back and forth between one friend and then the other?
- How do you feel about such chats?
Juicy details and juicy burger
- When you are chatting to a friend how do you say “I want all the juicy details” in other words?
- Have you ever found in among the juicy bits in a newspaper issue some interesting statistics like “Whose cloud powers 270,000 more websites than Amazon” or “What foreign firms are making some juicy profits off Chinese consumers”?
- Have you ever , during several weeks of strict dieting, craved for a juicy burger? Has anybody revealed plenty of juicy facts to you lately?
- Can you cook juicy rib-eyes(=a large beefsteak cut from the outer, or eye, side of the ribs)?
- Do you happen to know some group of writers that serves up juicy topics like genetic engineering?
- What opportunities are just too juicy for you at the moment to pass up(=let go by)?
- Have you ever sampled juicy heirloom(=being an old variety that is being cultivated again) Sungold cherry tomatoes?
Wearing Crocs
- Do you know someone who wears clog design Crocs?
Words tumbling out, secrets tumbing out
- When you are nervous, do you start talking quickly, the words tumbling out?
- What do you do not to let the wrong word tumble out of your mouth?
- Is there sometimes a tumble of clothes in your room(=a confused heap or pile)?
- Do you feel sad when leaves tumble from trees?
- What does it take you to take a tumble to(=to come to understand)something difficult and baffling?
- Have you ever watched grapes-picking?
- Do empty or replace the buckets when grapes begin to tumble from the old ones?
- Do you like to read stories where secrets tumble from the closet?
Getting ahead of yourself
- When you are narrating, do you sometimes get ahead of yourself?
Whooshing in different contexts
- Has it ever happened to you that as the memory of something came flooding back, your stomach started whooshing giddily and you needed to take a deep breath to steady your voice?
- Do you have a pair of sports trousers that “whoosh, whoosh” as you walk?
- What would you think of a situation in which you went out to a parking lot and men in suits with earpieces came down into the lobby and then “whoosh”-huddled out of the elevator, jumped into a car and were gone?
- Does it remind you of a scene from the James Bond series?
- Would you agree that foods that go “whoosh” don't leave us with a sense of being well fed?
- Do you often come across the “whoosh” sound between TV news items or quick-cuts replacing dialogues in movies?
- Does your home air-conditioning system emit a constant whoosh and occasional crackles?
- When was the last time you had one of those moments when everything comes together in a bright whoosh of understanding?
Future of computer games: feeling the thwack
- Do you think it is possible that in the future gamers will be able to feel the thwack of a ball or bullets whooshing past their faces when playing a game?
- Have you ever played pickleball?
- Would you agree that in pickleball (=a paddle sport which combines elements of badminton, tennis, and table tennis.), the supremely satisfying thwack is addictive?
- To your mind, does a tennis racquet produce an earsplitting thwack?
- Have you ever heard the climbing axe go thwack, thwack, thwack?
- When you listen to the thwack of hockey sticks, do you suddenly get nostalgic or engulfed in memories of your childhood?
Telling a story: engrossed in your own narration
- When you have been telling a story, do you get engrossed into your own narration to the point that you really need to zone back to the place where you are currently in?
Shushing and shushers
- When you are talking to a friend and see that someone else is listening to your chat do you shush your friend in confusion or do you move on with the chat?
- When someone is filming you without your consent do you try to “shush” the camera in the video?
- As a student have you ever been shushed by a teacher after which a cell phone confiscation followed?
- Do you tolerate “shush”ers?
- What latest movies ,in effect, do shush brain activity?
- Is holding a hand to one’s face a universal shush signal?
Swaddled in secrecy and swaddled in technicalities
- What was the latest news that was swaddled in secrecy?
- When you are listening to a concert do you get swaddled in a chorus of recorded music?
- Is it always so in life that details are swaddled in technicalities?
Crinkling in different contexts
- Do you know someone the corners of whose eyes crinkle(=a smooth wrinkle) as the smile?
- Do you know someone whose nose crinkles up as they laugh?
- How often do you travel?
- Do you remember how things usually pan out for you during the arrival in a foreign place when you are in your room surrounded by unpacked luggage, looking worn out and crinkled?
- Do you like sweet potato crinkle fries(=fries with crinkle-cutting)?
- Have you ever sampled burger King’s SatisFries?
- Does the SatisFry look and taste just like the chain’s regular crinkle fries?
- Do you like to crinkle a crisp bag and then spend further five minutes very slowly consuming its contents?
- Do you like wearing crinkled chiffon or China crape shirts?
- Do you find untucked T-shirts in lightly crinkled linen appealing for summer wear?
Sitting in a cafeteria
- When you sit in a café or cafeteria do you like to flop back against the cushion ,listening to music?
Feeling alive
- Have you ever felt like someone has just plugged you straight into the mains, that is very alive and exhilarated?
- What was the occasion?
Twinkling
- When you are happy do your eyes twinkle with excitement?
- What lullabies do you know?
- Have you ever tried to sooth a child with the famous English lullaby “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” ?
- Do you like to watch stars twinkling in the night sky?
- What do you do if you are craving for some silent moments but are seated in a café where there are audible twinkles of conversations everywhere(=snippets of conversation)?
Peals of thunder and peals of laughter
- When it’s raining do you sometimes feel frightened as the peals of thunder grow louder?
- Are you happy when you hear other people’s peals of giggles in the street?
- How do you feel if peals of laughter break out behind you?
- When you are with your friends do you prefer an occasional hearty peal of laughter and a knee slap?
Tinges: a tinge of disappointment and a tinge of humour
- When do you feel a tinge of disappointment or frustration?
- Do you feel romantic when the sky takes on a late-day tinge?
- Is it easy for organizations with great capacity to make things look totally worked out, with an impersonal tinge?
- Is it all about professionalism?
- On Twitter, do you like tweets tinged with humour?
- Do you like the air of seaside shops, tinged with salt and lavender, and coconut-and not even a whiff of business?
Whoops of delight and whoops of laughter
- What was the last time you responded to some encouragement with a whoop of delight?
- Do you like occasional whoops and cheers from friends?
- When was the last time you were whooping with excitement?
- When was the last time you attended a performance and the audience went into whoops of laughter?
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Persistence and effort devotion expressions
- When was the last time you were plugging away at a ridiculous idea?
- Are there episodes in your life when you have to plug away all day?
- Do things seem to click if you keep plugging away?
- How important is it in your opinion not to dwell on something a whole lot and just keep plugging away and doing your thing?
- Would you agree that balancing two roles in life is oppressing at times, but you have to be plugging away?
- Are you always resolved to keep pegging away until you obtain a satisfactory result?
- If you peg away doggedly, do you get results?
- How often do you peg away at your keyboard or do you peg away with your pencil?
- Do you often pitch in before the deadline?
Encountering a problem
- How often do you pitch into/lam into trouble?
Inherence
- Would you agree that anxiety over some possibility is always laced into online experience?
Attainment and achievement
- Do you know someone who has recently been filing a bit below radar?
Profiling
- What facts can sometimes surface in the wake of some high-profile cases?
Multitude and Plentitude
- Do you sometimes get overwhelmed by this slew of blending-together buzzwords we come across in daily life? Do you think it is easy for sportsmen to come back to sports after they have sustained a slew of serious injuries? If you look down at our roads and pavements would you find there's often a slew of squiggles, dots and arrows, painted in a plethora of hues? Are there gadgets that facilitate your monitoring a slew of data on multiple screens simultaneously? Can you name a slew of performance-related incentives to study a language based on your personal experience? Did your audience pellet you with a slew of questions after your latest presentation? Has there recently been a slew of food scandals in developed countries, including the sale of tainted milk and meat? Does Facebook have a slew of fans?
- Isn’t it fantabulous to have the wonderful luxury of gobs of cash in the bank with which to make acquisitions or to fund new concepts? Do you use gobs of energy watching videos on your iPad? When you're surrounded by heaps of shrimp cocktail, towers of multi-tiered cakes and gobs of chocolate goodness, how can you avoid going overboard? What in your opinion can attract gobs of light-hearted coverage from celebrity bloggers? Isn’t it irritating to have constant, little gobs of gum stuck to your shoes? How can you instill gobs of potential into some project or event?
- Can you give oodles of love? Do you need oodles of skill to get a well-paid job? What occasion to your mind are impregnated oodles of possibilities? Does your heart warm when you watch young couples surrounded by oodles of children? Has your Internet page ever been joined by oodles of friends and colleagues? What incidents can cause oodles of damage? Would you buy an over -expensive furniture item if it has oodles of your favourite design features?
- Have you ever obtained jillions of helpful hints about what to do and what not to do from your tutors? Would you agree there are about jillion ways to find your way in this life? What things can cost bazillion jillion dollars? Can you think of a jillion ways of self-entertainment off the top of your head? What was the last time someone you know well had a jillion of problems?
- Would you like to have scads of money? Would you like to get a gadget that would not pack your information in scads of extraneous functions? Are you in the habit of reading scads of blogs? Do you watch scads of movies during your holidays? Do you like it when stories are told with scads of invention and energy? Do you like to watch films with scads of romantic characters?
- Do you like to eat strawberries with lashings of cream? When you celebrate holidays are they punctuated by sandwiches, cakes and lashings of tea? Do you always have lashings of jolly suspicions in anticipation of being given a present-say at such an event as your birthday party? Would you like to acquire lashings of technique that would facilitate your getting a unique and interesting job? Have you ever indulged in lashings of salsa?
- For what things would you gleefully hand over wads of cash? Can you chew wads of gum? What bleeding edge tech is causing PC gaming enthusiasts to gleefully hand over wads of cash? Would you get envious of a friend who has just got praise, kudos and wads of lucre after a well-done job?
- Would you agree that an everyday beauty routine is adding to the gazillions of beads washing into our waterways? What things are you wasting a gazillion hours a year at-things like waiting for buses and elevators etc.
Definitely Arriving
- Do you always seek to play every angle?(=to demonstrate your best and crudest talents)
- Is it indeed so that a second-rate talent can survive only by playing all the angles?(=using any available means)
Making choice
- What prevents you from veering between sentimentality and depression?
- When watching television do you often toggle between news programs and music?
- In modern gadgets is it easy to toggle between the traditional Windows interface and the mobile interface by just tapping the home button?
Referring to parts
- Do you sometimes feel like a shard of yours has gone missing?(a shard is a snail’s “home”)
- How would you feel if a fraction of your lifetime, your memories , a shard of what you knew were taken away from you?
- Do our memories sometimes begin to shard off ?
- Would you agree that even a small shred of a talented person’s presentation can speak eloquently for their skill and creativity?
Planting crops and growing plants
- Would you agree that genetically modified potatoes don’t have the heart and soul of a potato? What do you think gives the GM potatoes improved properties? Do you think that adding a gene could prevent bushels of potatoes from coming to blight? Do you think that eating a GM is in fact eating its bruise- resistant factor? What most litigious societies in the world can you name –the ones that supposedly would demonstrate litigious behavior should they be fed a GM? Would you sample those non-blightable, non-bruisable and non-rottable GM potatoes with a dash of cream or wouldn’t you go anywhere near it? Could a GM potato be an ordinary potato married with a wild one? Is consuming natural-smatural an answer to all human GM worries? Can we say that tinkering with genetically modified food can lead to a genetic fluke or do you cringe inwardly as you think of putting a spoonful of GM product into your mouth?
- How do you cultivate a good crop from your window box?
Neglect and oblivion
- Do you sometimes have the feeling like your life is in limbo?(=neglected)
- Has it ever happened in your life that you had to be keeping your job applications or university application forms in limbo for months?
Parenting and dishing out parent care
- What should be done if parents do not want to parent?
- Do you think styles of parenting have changed over the years?
- What can a child do to piece up the story of his mother and father?
Experiencing a creativity block
- Do you have some friends who are writers?
- What do they do when they have a writer’s block?
- How do they recover the desire to write?
- Would you agree that in writing there is a big element of problem –solving as well as there is a cinematic element to it as well?
- Do you think books have a great sense of location?
- Is it possible to keep an aloof profile on your characters?
Random
- What can cause nuisance to nearby neighbours?
- When you have a splitting headache what do you do to make the pain remit?
- When you are listening to a radio programme or show do you sometimes realize that the presenter’s words are not what they are on the surface, that the presenter’s take on the event under consideration looks at it from another angle?
- Have you got integrity to start a website? Would it be an intrepid, a bold dash at it
- Would you agree that it is no use wasting the milk of human kindness on strangers because they can leave you high and dry?
- Could you name a person or an event, a massive fan of whom you are?
- What are you kicking against at the moment?
- What can a person do when the sense of person grooming slides a little bit?
- When you are listening to a conversation and want to chip in, would you say “I want to jump in here, I’m sorry?” or would you remain respectfully silent?
- What was the last occasion you could eat yourself with embarrassment?
- Do you sometime shave the feeling that you and some important person are speaking with a single voice?
- What basic but viable packages could you name among public services?
- Have we got rain spreading in according to the forecast?
- What was the last time you were welcoming victory in any way, shape and form?
- What can cause people’s hackles to rise?
- Could you name several things, to whose detriment you may think something?
- Could you name seheral things you could find acceptance of provided they are imbued with a bit acceptance?
- What should be done if parents do not want to parent? Do you think styles of parenting have changed over the years? What can a child do to piece up the story of his mother and father?
- Whose unflinching quest for truth and raising the bar continuously very high could you name as an example of a person’s possible devotion to righteousness?
- What you agree that in life we need gaps for things to happen? When can we say that an opportunity is fantastically venuated?
- Do you like it when the sun flips around?
- Do you sometimes feel like you need a new second lease of life?
- What is –in your opinion-the most impending technology? Would you agree that a slew of useful technologies facilitates fulfillment of our daily plans? Is it as vital to bandy technology as it is with words?
- Would you agree that we need to vigilant?
- How often do you deliberate on how quick you can find some item on the Internet?
- What opinion do you hold for people who use brandishing gestures while communicating their message?
- Does it sometimes happen to you that you think to yourself after you’ve just met the person “I love him/her so much I want to hug him/her to me”? Do you like to hug fluffy toys to yourself?
- Have you ever been an agony aunt? What do agony aunts do? Do you think you have the capacity to make people laugh?
- How do you feel about pub-guilty people? Does someone you know occasionally make a pub-crawl?
- Has it often happened to you in life that you had to come through the mill yourself?
- How often in life do you smile to your reflection in the mirror and say “You lucky thing!”
- What things have been recently coming in and out of fashion?
- What do you like to splurge on-video/clothes or quality foods?
- What was the last time you someone who was dressed like a stuffed turkey?
- When you come home from some foreign country do you gobble up the news eagerly?
{/slide}
{slide="Club session 5"}
Enthusiasm and overdoing it
- Why is the audience usually enthusiastic during splashy presentations become far more giddy during live demos of Mac apps that follow?
- Does a good presentation necessarily need to convey a giddy spirit?
- The prospect of buying what things makes you giddy?
Whooping and giggling
- Is it a positive sign when football fans whoop in support of their team?
- Can you whoop and cheer with good news?
- Can your mood switch to positive when you see a whooping gang of small children running past, chasing a rolling hoop?
- Would you agree that children know how to make their voices heard, whether they’re chattering, whooping, giggling, whining or just plain screaming and do you sometimes get jealous of such behavior?
- Do you think that those employees — who clapped, chanted and whooped as their first official workday got underway — are making wages the company could describe only as “competitive”?
Sit or stand stock-still: reasons for the behaviour
- Can an ultra interesting narration make you stand stock-still?
- Do you think Savannah experts can sit stock-still behind binoculars for hours at a time, watching for returning animals?
- Does stand occasions in your life when you were so perplexed that you were standing stock- still as if you had taken root?
- For how long can you possibly stand stock-still in the sunshine?
a) Crumpled amenities, crumpled phone numbers b) Crumpled fliers, crumpled papers
a)
- Do you think that websites today can crumple under heavy loads?
- What should a reporter do if his press card is crumpled?
- Do you think it is possible to identify a person using crumpled telephone numbers scratched on bits of paper and pocket trash?
- When you are looking at a person crying , crumpling tissues in their hands do you feel sorry for them?
b)
- What feeling do you get when you see crumpled juice boxes littering the streets in your city?
- Do you sometimes clutch crumpled fliers as you enter some shop of whose existence you learnt from the flier?
- Could a phone call from your employing company saying you got the job you wanted cause your knees to buckle so that you crumple in a heap of disbelief and joy?
- Have any of your friend’s graphs and diagrams, smudgy from excessive erasing, looked like bits of crumpled trash and if yes-what do they do?
Murky details and murky clues: acceptance or disregard
- When the details of some idea or deed are murky do you move on trying to decipher the whole lot of info behind it or do you prefer to leave murky systems and questions as they are?
- What modern research techniques have recently only yielded murky clues?
- Would you agree that trouble prefers the messiness, the murky layers that make up our lives?
- Would you side with the statement that consciousness may be an innately murky enterprise, and the issue of intelligent aliens remains completely speculative?
- Is Bitcoin still in a murky legal zone in much of the world?
- What would you do if the target area of your research were too murky and you needed clear guidelines as to what’s acceptable and not?
- How should we go about murky standards in many areas of modern life?
- Would you agree that comparisons are murky if in one and the same group there are students who already have degrees and those who don’t?
- Would you agree that the territory of happiness is murky?
a) Rumbling on learning method and controversy rumbling in b) Rumble of landing aircraft: living near airports
a)
- Could you possibly compare the learning method of some of your friends to a generator that rumbles on even when the darkness fell?
- Are there occasions in your life when controversy rumbles on into another day and yet another day, and yet another day and what do you do to break the vicious circle?
- Would you agree that in life we have spells of luck and misfortune in the same patterns as sound waves cancel each other out, -and in place of a deafening rumble, there is silence?
b)
- Do you think it is possible to get entirely accustomed to the rumble of landing aircraft for the people who live near airports?
- Are there new gamepads that take the concept of rumble to a whole new level?
Flagging up problems
- What things have recently been flagged up in terms of both convenient and inconvenient discussion?
- What problems have recently been flagged up in mass media?
Things that throw you out of kilter and things that go off-kilter
- What things in life do constantly throw you out of kilter?
- Do you straighten the picture on the wall if it is out of kilter?
- Do you often experience occasions when your computer is out of kilter and won’t log you on?
- If your tie is sort of off-kilter how do you rectify the situation?
Walk-up experience and walk-up apartment houses
- Do you think there are companies, agencies and enterprises that help say automakers prototype a walk-up experience to push things in the right direction?
- Do you often use a walk-up teller's window at a bank?
- Do you like the quality of service provided at McDonald’s walk-up windows where you order the food from?
- Do you think the number of available walk-up passes to the Olympic stadium in Sochi 2014 is limited?
- Do you live in a walk-up apartment house or do you have an elevator in your block of flats?
Flurries of flurries
a)
- Do University officials have to respond to flurries of posts on Twitter?
- Do you currently have to make flurry of decisions?
- Has there recently been a flurry of activity in your life?
- Why do we sometimes have to fend off a flurry of scoring chances and opt for more tranquility?
- Does leaving your e-mail address with advertising companies and production companies can sometimes lead to an additional flurry of annoying emails?
- Has there been a flurry of news about data centers in recent times on your campus?
- When you move house does the weekend usually come and go in a flurry of moving and unpacking?
b)
- Do officials in your country issue a flurry of tickets for jaywalking?
- Would you agree that thoughtless use of crosswalks is perhaps less safe than careful jaywalking and leads to a flurry of accidents?
- Can a person in your country possibly lose their driver's license for a flurry of jaywalking and violating bike laws?
Magic- porridge things
- What things in your life have been like magic porridge-i.e. the more you do something, the more you fond to do?
Blurbs
- When you buy some product at a shop or at a store do you trust the ingredients in it according to the blurb on the back or do you assess the product using your taste buds and ratio?
- Do you think that if a blurb on a website describes something as supreme it is indeed of supreme quality?
- Are sometimes a few words in a blurb all it takes to spark your interest for a specific product?
- If a book doesn’t give much information in the blurb are you never really interested in reading it?
- Do you think everyone can write a decent blurb to a decent book?
- Why do writers who whose expertly construct new novels coyly guard their biggest secrets, leaving them unmentioned in blurbs?
Fast-forwarding and flashing forward
- When you navigate an internet-page, each a film or read a book what are your techniques of fast-forwarding through the boring bits?
- If you flash-forward several years will hypothetical flights to the Moon still be tickling entrepreneurial fancy?
- In a flash-forward, what do you think you’ll be doing in a couple of years?
- If you flash-forward 10 years can you see a plenty of cautionary lessons in your life experience?
Things on hand and being on hand: availability and accessibility
- Are your friends always on hand to help you sort out your difficulties?
- Are there always scientists on hand to help educate volunteers or is it a matter of money?
- Are there a dozen cameras on hand on every busy stretch of road to capture overspeeding in your country?
- Are there galleries in your country in which visitors are invited to draw on the walls and can always get an eager employee on hand for consultation?
- Would you want -with cooler weather setting in- to have lots of Hot Chocolate Mix on hand for a quick chocolate fix?
Chucking things and chucking in the sponge
- Are some of your friends in the habit of chucking things all over the floor in their room?
- What would you do if you chucked your iPad on the Tube?
- Do you think it is a good rule of thumb when getting rid of old things to chuck anything you haven’t looked at in the past year, with the exception of several items?
- When do you think it is time to chuck in the sponge for actors retiring from acting?
Things you haven’t done for yonks and things you did yonks ago
- Are there loyal friends you haven’t seen for yonks?
- Are there things in life that you haven’t done for yonks?
- What things are there in your wardrobe that you bought yonks ago but that are still precious and dear to you?
{/slide}
{slide="Club session 6"}
Toting things around
- What do you think of people who have a tendency to tote tunes on their travels?
- What professions make people tote along a rucksack full of equipment?
- Do you think anyone traveling for more than a day with an electronic gadget has to tote along its clunky charger as well?
- Do you know someone who occasionally totes a Louis Vuitton or some other brand?
Clunky design and clunky names
- What wristwatch has ever been criticized for its clunky design and difficult-to-use features?
- Would we be surprised to find out how many supposedly superlative devices are actually quite clunky in operation?
- Can you name several clunky outer space movies made since 1980?
- What websites would you characterize as clunky and old?
- Do you know some programmes that can strip away the clunky tool bar and widgets in the familiar frame of the main app?
- Do you think it is wise that while consumers may be giving up on laptops in favor of tablets and smartphones IT managers still like clunky old PCs for company employees?
- What changes happened about five years ago when the first generation of mobile devices was rudimentary, clunky in design and paired with basic software?
- Do you think it is right when children want to get rid of a long, clunky name like Jessie Petrow-Cohenas fast as they can?
Clucking your tongue
- What do you think of people who cluck their tongues repeatedly?
- Do you think clucking your tongue is polite?
Fluttering hearts and stomachs
- Do you still get the sort of fluttering in your stomach when it is your birthday and you get your presents?
- What things make your heart flutter in your chest?
- When you are nervous what do you do to prevent getting that nervous fluttering in the belly?
- What feeling do you get when you see lonely little banners fluttering on damp lampposts?
- What standards would you refer to as fluttering in modern day life?
Blaring music and blaring sirens
- What do you do when you are busy solving some problem and you can hear stereo blaring from your neighbours’ apartment?
- What do you hold for people who crank up the volume really loudly when they are listening to some music?
- Might discerning a specific idea among the flurry of similar ones be the equivalent of us trying to hear the difference between different people’s voices if there is music blaring in the background?
- Do sirens sometimes blare at night?
- What feeling do you get when you think of your favourite song and it blares the very same moment on the radio?
- Is blaring out music at nighttime unacceptable and against the law in your country?
Movie skeins and putting a skein on your face
- Would you agree that some movie skeins find ways to enlarge and improve while others devolve into sour chaos?
- Do you like it when at some international championships faces of fans are criss-crossed with coloured skeins, or patterned in curves and circles until they are barely visible?
- Do you think that those skeins are an element of support or pure silliness?
- Do you like it when several stories in a book twist their skeins together admirably?
- Are lies sometimes immaterial to the skein and texture of a story?
Snarling traffic
- Do you like to watch films in which bullets snarl past the main heroes?
- Do old building collapses in the city centre fill The collapse filled the area with smoke, and snarl metropolitan transit and traffic in the area or are they well-thought through and carried out as urgent and necessary?
- In summer do you often come from the beach home, your hair snarling wet from the water or do you prefer to dry-towel your hair?
- Are commuters in your country accustomed to gridlock or do they find traffic increasingly even more snarled than usual?
- What can snarl traffic on some of your country’s most heavily traveled roads?
- What measures can help cut back on travel time and forestall bottlenecks and snarls?
- What traffic situations are capable of making city buses stop in traffic lanes, snarling traffic even more and placing bicyclists in danger?
High-fiving your sofa
- Do you know someone who dabs away tears during some TV show or high-fives the sofa when the TV presenter announces she’s lost twenty pounds?
Flip-flopping on your decision
- Do you like to wear flip-flops?
- How often do you flip-flop on a previously made decision?(flip-flop=a decision to reverse an earlier decision)
- How often do you parse double flip-flops or cruise past the irrelevance of a previously made decision?
- Would you agree that every time Apple flip-flops on a previous decision, it turns out to be a highly successful move?
- Why do you think some stores where there is already a wall of spring footgear and summer flip-flops on display, generally place orders six months in advance and cannot restock on short notice?
- Would you agree that entrepreneurship is almost never about working in flip-flops in an incubator; it is tough work that requires extraordinary effort?
- Do you think a lot of countries nowadays flip-flop between policies, which makes it very difficult for investors to know what they're getting themselves into?
- What do you think can happen to you one day if you keep flip-flopping on your policies?
Scampering to catch a bus and Achilles’ frustration scampering across the second gap as the tortoise is establishing a third
- How often do you see people with smallish dogs scampering at their heels ?
- What impression do you get from those?
- How often do you make a sloppy-looking rush, like your quick scamper as you run to catch the bus while wearing a heavy, lop-sided backpack?
- Would you agree that most people scamper every day while trying to cope with jam-packed schedules?
- Do you remember that old episode when to Achilles’ frustration, while he was scampering across the second gap, the tortoise was establishing a third?
- Is it always like this in life?
- Do you like to push through the doors of your office and scamper along the walkway on a warm day after work?
- Have you ever experienced a situation when you were a spectator at a stadium and the rain arrived, sending players and spectators scampering for cover?
Presenting a skit
- When one of your friends has birthday do you prepare a funny skit , dance or song to share?
- Have you ever entered a group student competition where you needed to present a skit that acted out the information in a student brochure?
- Do you like watching TV shows where participants break into two teams and perform skits based on suggestions from the audience?
{/slide}
{slide="Club session 7"}
Whirl of activity and giving it a whirl
- How often do you have spells in your life when there is a whirl of activity?
- Do you know some famous person whose childhood was a whirl of people and landscapes?
- Would you agree that without regular and repeated moments, 365 days can just become awhirl, our busy lives offering no moments to pause and reflect?
- Did you ever say “I’ll give it a whirl” when you were offered hang-gliding or some other extreme sport? (to give it a whirl=to try)
- Did you as a child opt to give camp life another whirland have some children’s campus experience?
- When there is a friend’s birthday is there always a whirl of preparations?
- Do you think that those who start reading at age three withdraw into a whirl of academic achievement much earlier than those who start reading at five or seven?
- Would you agree that in case of many modern applications you need just to suspend your skepticism, download the free application for your OS and Android and give it a whirl? Are there cases when such apps are not up to snuff and you’d be possibly wishing to delete them from your phone or PC?
- If you were offered scholarship money for mathematics, football, whatever would you give it a whirl?
- What do you think the people who decide to give the professional kitchen life or scientific life a whirlare after?
- Do you occasionally put ice and fat-free milk or yogurt in a blender, add in fruit and give it a whirl?
- If you learned about a K-pop dance class would you decide to give it a whirl? ( K-pop is a musical genre originating in South Korea that is characterized by a wide variety of audiovisual elements)
- Do you give a whirl only to very risk-free propositions?
Whirligig style and a whirligig of fashion
- Do you know some famous entrepreneur whose strategy, in short, is a playful whirligig combining simplicity, beauty and a surprisingly anticorporate message?
- Would you agree that it's remarkable how modern singers maintain the focus and breath control to sing while working the stage like a whirligig?
- Would you agree that it has always been quite a whirligig of fashion and we should have our own style without reliance on it?
Tailspinning and pulling out of tailspins whatever they might be
- Would you agree that when people around you break promises it sends you into a tailspin?
- Do you think it is bad timing to start work life just as the economy worldwide goes into another tailspin or is it fine and you will manage anyway?
- Can you name several countries whose currency has been in a tailspin of late?
- What can possibly throw an industry into a tailspin?
- Do international sports events afford teams time to pull out of their tailspins?
Telling fibs
- Would you agree that fibbing is not acceptable, even if you don't call it lying?(a fib is an undetailed lie)
- Are there times in life when a quick fib would only minimize what one really did? Did you ever have to support somebody’s fibbing?
- Would you agree that when you are listening to a news report it’s sometimes difficult to cut through the fluff and fibs and what is of real value is the facts – just the facts?
- Are there rules or regulations in your country that outline the fact that an individual who fibbed on his income would have to pay back the extra subsidies when filing a tax return for the year in fibbing?
- Should we discern intentional fibbing from unintentional fibbing or is it still one and the same thing?
- Are there always people in life who are trying to come along and take sb else’s spot with ridiculous fibs and story's?
- Would you agree that despite having a lot of respect for pilots, to say you are completely relaxed when flying would be a big fib?
- Would you agree that there is plenty of latitude for fibbing under the assumption no one will find out? Would you agree that job interviews can be wrapped in fibs?
- Have there been times in your life when you fibbed to your friends or when your friends fibbed to you?
Crutch words and emotional crutches
- How often do you use crutch words like actually, basically, honestly etc.?
- What do you think could be used as a psychological crutch?
- Have you ever been using the brownie or cookies as an emotional crutch?
- Are there times you find courage to skip those?
- Would you agree that payday lenders are financially knee-capping their customers without providing crutch?( to knee-cap is to cripple a person by shooting in the knee)
Rewinding a thought
- Are there times in your life when you were thinking to yourself “Actually, hang on a minute, rewind that thought. I’ve already heard of it or seen it somewhere”?
{/slide}
{slide="Club session 8"}
Whizzing through airports, on ski resorts, around orbits
- Would you agree that people whose jobs require constant whizzing through airports often overestimate the extent of globalization? What knowledge can you possibly derive from whizzing through airports?
- Have you ever been to a ski resort? Are there times when in the absence of tourists, some hardened ski instructors in red jackets are whizzing down at high speed?
- What modern companies and in what countries have satellites whizzing around in orbit right now, taking high-resolution pictures for a wide range of purposes?
- When you are in an unknown city in a foreign country travelling by bus do signs offer you moments of insight into the places you are whizzing by? When you are at the cinema and you can hear the bullets whizzing past the main hero do you get nervous or do you always manage to keep cool telling yourself that there is the speaker on the controller handling close-by sounds, like bullets whizzing past you, that it’s simply equipment and not real-life experience?
- Do you know someone who would be able to complete a Rubik's Cube while whizzing round in a centrifuge?
Swooshing
- Are there files on your PC which you would have landed in the trashcan with an audible swoosh?
- What function will you locate if you navigate the mouse on the top of the browser just looking for the square with the arrow swooshing to the right next to the address bar?
- Would you agree that sometimes a swoosh noise - made by firing off an email whose sole content is sad- is not accompanied by even the faintest expression of regret? How would you account for that? Have there been times when just when you were sending your email, swoosh, you got someone else’s email?
- When you are driving your car along a two-lane road do you beware of trucks swooshing by ?
- Do you know any sportsmen who were paid millions to ride with the swooshand air commercials showing them doing supernatural things on their bikes?
- Have you ever swooshed up the Hudson river towards the Manhattan we know today?
- What modern brand cars could effortlessly swoosh by at more than 10 mph on a lumpy stretch of trail?
- In what modern brand cars do you get doors that close with an automatic swoosh and tons of leg room?
- If you swoosh some brown and black around the eye would it look like a black eye?
- Would you agree that in case of economics sometimes there is no guarantee that a downward swoosh will occur?
Swoshing bubbles
- Do you like it when there is fizzy mineral water in your glass and the bubbles swosh around in the glass? Would you agree that bubbly swoshy liquids are always fun-no matter be it lemonade or shampoo?
Dreaming Zip-lines
- If you are thinking of a good summer holiday do you think of bungee jumping, roller coasters, zip lines(=a zip-line is also known as a flying fox, foefie slide, zip wire, aerial runway, aerial ropeslide, death slide or tyrolean crossing and consists of a pulley suspended on a cable mounted on an incline)?
- If you think of a sporty winter holiday do your plans call for several hotels, a snow tube run, zip lines and a mountain coaster?
Adding zip, zipping around and zipping through channels, zip-zapping through commercials and zipping up a gloomy day
- Would you agree that where economic crisis ends there is a full repository of fine ideas to add zip to recovery?
- Were you in Sochi during the Olympic Games?
- Did you see athletes zipping by too quickly for a meaningful communication?
- Did you see sportsmen zipping around the mountain on their snowboards?
- Did you spot drones hovering and zipping around the Sochi Olympic slopes?
- Does some radios’ design make it easy to zip through channels to find the right background music for your important moments?
- Would you agree that in a world where television viewers routinely zip through or zap commercials, advertisers crave big-event television — live events that viewers watch in real time?
- What things can zip up a gloomy day?
Whisking visitors, Internet whisking us to free loaves of bread, whisking someone to sun-drenched future and prosperity
- Have you ever traveled by a tubular train? Does it work beautifully, whisking visitors one block and then taking them back another?
- Would you agree that as search becomes faster and smarter, it’s as if the Internet becomes a high-speed moving sidewalk whisking everyone to free loaves of bread?
- Have you heard of headhunters plucking youngsters from underprivileged conditions and whisking them off to a sun-drenched future as an uplifting vision? Is it possible to whisk someone to prosperity and success?
{/slide}
{slide="Club session 9"}
Flicking through in-flight magazines and flicking on a TV, flicking your hair and flicking yourself with a smartphone, flicking at news and latest horror flicks
- When you are a team and you are brainstorming some project seated at a table do you flick a piece of paper across the table to exchange ideas or delve into a diagram?
- Do you thoroughly enjoy quiet moments when you flick on a TV and see the beginning of an old movie, say Lost Horizon?
- Do you think it is possible with one flick of a finger to alter - or perhaps set - the course of a country’s radio history?
- When you pay for your dinner at a restaurant do you sign the bill with the flick of the pen ?
- Should pilots really have the ability to turn off an essential identification device, like a transponder, at the flick of a switch?
- When you are on board a plane do you flick through the in-flight magazine, browsing through a random article?
- Can you describe a selfie as something that is a result of a person with a smartphone flicking themselves and looking at it?
- When the weather is sunny and it is hot do you push your sunglasses back on your head and flick your hair about?
- Have you ever flicked at some horrid news in a newspaper column? Do those events continue to generate headlines?
- Did you know that a low-budget horror flick "Oculus," a new film from "Paranormal Activity" producer Jason Blum has collected $12 million?
Flinging junk mail into the recycling bin and flinging money around willy-nilly, flinging deals at shoppers and flinging plenty of surprise
- Is your mail sorting ritual consistent in putting bills in one pile and personal letters in another, then giving junk mail a fling into the recycling bin?
- Can some of your friends afford a weekend fling in New York, staying in a hotel, eating out, and shopping without worrying about how much money they spend?
- Would you agree that it is highly advisable for any company not to flinging money around willy-nilly?( in a disorganized or unplanned manner)
- Are stores in your country flinging deals at shoppers to encourage more digital purchasing?
- Has life flung plenty of surprises at you in the last few years?
Safety trumping up appearance, identity trumping facts, skills trumping degrees and trump cards delivery
- Would you agree that safety might trump appearance when you're buying a car?
- Do your desires trump your friend's when it comes to making weekend plans?
- Would you agree that when it comes to climate change, identity trumps facts?
- Would you agree that the question whether the value of a voluntary “open-source” model will trump the regulated or commercial variants is quite topical today?
- Would you agree that in case of job interviews winning one more trump trick for your contract is all that matters to achieve a “nicely done”?
- Do you think Apple trumps Google with a grand demonstrating features that speaks to consumers directly?
- Do you think family dinners trump reading to kids in terms of preparing them for school?
- Do you think getting the skills and getting to work quickly should trump degrees?
- Would you agree that generous salaries are not a trump card that ends debate in case of demanding jobs?
- Do you think that in case of the most important databases the size isn’t their trump card but informational or data density — or lack of it — is?
- Do you think renown might trump any troubles for a person ranging from imperfect language skills to lack of sponsorship?
- Can unusual and creative ways to perform a task be sometimes trumped by public opinion?
- Are there cases when the ins and outs of a new technology are difficult to understand, and plenty of critics dismiss it as misguided and trumped up (to trump up means to fabricate)?
Shuffling: shuffling between Office and other programmes and an internal management shuffle
- Would you agree that in case of school children a move toward lottery admissions would shuffle children from one corner of the city to another but would not help more schools improve?
- Would you agree that you need be prepared for formatting quirks–usually minor ones involving fonts–if you shuffle documents between Office and some other programme?
- Do you think that every good sizable company needs an internal management shuffle every now and then?
- Is it a proper thing to do for a manager to shuffle the team in an effort to boost performance?
{/slide}
{slide="Club session 10"}
Technology Combos
- Would you agree that in case of an identity implement which uses a combo ID and loan card, some might be concerned that the cards look like advertisements?
- Would you agree that a TV/audio combo would set a new standard for home entertainment?
- Have you recently learnt anything about Amazon’s announcement that it would be acquiring ComiXology, a combo app and store for comic books on digital devices?
- Would you need a case/keyboard combo for the Nexus 7system?
- Where do you think the ceramic cargo containers and plaster container ship combo might find application?
- Have you heard about the Wellograph, a combo smartwatch and fitness tracker, which impresses with its elegant design, simple and easy to read interface, and sapphire crystal display?
- Would you agree that for a combo device the main focus is fitness and a bit of functionality feels like enough?
- Would you agree that all of the new products are novelties, and none are likely to reinvent Intel as a company the way the original iPod and iTunes combo reinvented?
- Can you think of a robotic construction which is a combo set that has three hybrids with oversize sole rails for stability?
- Can you think of a system that has digital outputs for connection to Meridian’s digital speakers, and balanced analog outputs for pairing with a traditional amp/speaker combo?
- Can you say for yourself that you are far from brilliant when it comes to memorizing and executing long button combos, for one thing?
- With such a small backing combo, are microphones really essential here?
- Do you think it would be convenient for customers who want to use a combo to have a new preinstall package to streamline the process and make sure it goes smoothly?
- Can you believe it-arriving next year is the Model X, an SUV-minivan combo that will seat seven adults and probably sell in the $40,000 range?
- In terms of terminal connections do you think it is sage to go back and replace some of the cord sets on existing chargers or add combo chargers to existing stations?
- Do you think in case of a scientific mega project there should be an umbrella system in place that leverages the text-to-speech output, the Knowledge Graph, and the technology stack to provide its voice recognition and predictive search combo?
- Do you think that if you are indeed locked into your choices in the process of a system development some research regarding your class combo is an excellent idea before selecting your preferences and options?
- Do you think one day there could be a combo robotic-operated system to provide access to affordable treatment for non-emergencies while cushioning the financial blow of a catastrophic illness or accident?
- Could you provide an example of a gadget which could be described as a combo of an electronic viewfinder and screen on the back that swivels out for capturing shots at difficult angles?
- Do you use a keyboard with their iPad, such as the Origami combo, when you are in a cafe, office or an airport lounge?
- Would you agree that screen-filling super combos, bizarre environments and lusciously extravagant animation are all fine attributes of modern technology?
- Could you think of a result for the titanium dioxide-dye combo bathed in an electrically conductive liquid containing mobile ions called an electrolyte?
Food Combos
- Do you think melted cheese on tuna could be a winning combo?
- Would you agree that there is currently no need to stick with restaurant combos; you can build your own or sub a bean patty for meat on any sandwich?
- Have you recently watched a show offering a meal with the combo of chocolate waffles and strawberries?
- Would you agree that restaurants have caught on to the idea that a snack is often viewed as a healthier alternative to wolfing down an entire fast-food combo meal?
- Do you think it is right that those who want to dine and dash can grab ready-made pizza by the slice: $1.95 for cheese and $2.45 for a combo?
- Would you like to sample several variations of conventional cuisine including a protein-packed combo of peanut butter and grain?
- Would you agree that not only do you have a perfect vegetarian meal that rivals any beef patty, the grain and bean combo creates a complete protein?
- Would you agree that you can't beat the Cherry Cricket's unique burger combos and endless toppings list try hard as you might?
- When you last were at the seaside did they serve combo platters overflowing with fried, grilled, or broiled shrimp, scallops, oysters, and fresh fish fillets?
- Did you know that the combo of milk, buttermilk, lemon juice, and a little white vinegar elevate humble shredded cabbage to something truly spectacular?
- Did you know one of the latest studies says Subway restaurants’ Fresh Fit for Kids meal combos are exceptions to the typical salty, fatty choices?
- Did you know that though the buttermilk biscuits have a delicate crumb they do yeoman’s work as a base for half a dozen hearty sandwich combos?
- Do you think the subtly spiced spinach or the chicken could make a great combo?
- It’s a “delicious” combo of sauce, cheese and toppings spread over “12 bites of lightly breaded, 100 percent whole breast white meat chicken.”
- Would you go off quality foods immediately if a restaurant chain like KFC(Kentucky Fried Chicken) promoted its food quality or would you be eating a hamburger combo meal at Burger King(BK) right away? Any other options?
Medicine Combos
- Wouldn’t it be wonderful if as a bonus some miraculous drug combo could prevent a spike in your blood sugar?
- Should we hope that the protein and antibiotic combo becomes an effective treatment for scary drug-resistant superbugs in future?
Miscellaneous Combos
- If you had a chance to visit a show and a museum simultaneously would you choose the combo ticket for the best value, which includes the show and museum admission?
- Would you agree that classic colour spectrum is better as an intro to zesty color combos than to red, yellow and blue, but whichever you choose it would be certain to mesmerize all ages-or probably not?
- Would you use this quick-fix combo as the centerpiece for your holiday barbecue?
- When you play computer games are attacks are strung together with three attack buttons – fast, medium and heavy, with some initial combos laid out in the pause menu of each character?
{/slide}
{slide="Club session 11"}
Hatching ideas and products
- Would you agree that as the world's largest technology company, Apple is trying to hatch more environmental solutions than problems?
- Who are the best ideas in your family hatched with?
- Is it common that in the wake of an avalanche, a grand adventure that was hatched several years before gets scrapped?
- Are you positive about a new automotive segment being hatched at the New York International Auto Show—the small SUV, a proper replacement for the boring old Sedan?
- Do you thin k it was a great strain for Google developers to be responsible for most of Google’s new products when Gmail was hatched?
- What was the latest successful idea you hatched? How did you come to think about it?
Eye-openers
- Would you agree that a gentle comedy could be an eye opener for anyone who takes the everyday natural world for granted?
- When was the last time you felt like something was definitely an eye opener for sure because you kind of had that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?
- Would you agree that a good argument can beat caffeine as an eye opener?
- Would you agree that a good eye opener should be an eye-opener in both senses: a model of the sort of series in which words and images carry equal weight?
- Would a techno-experience be an eye opener for you if you gained a new perspective on your dependence on technology and on yourself?
Having kittens(feeling enraged or surprised-up to you)
- Does someone give you plenty of reasons to have kittens?
- What does it take you to have kittens? What could possibly make you have kittens?
Rattling off
- Can you rattle off all the things you want to become?
- If you were to choose a team for your new project would you rattle off the names of all his work friends to your supervisor?
- Do you know someone who could sit down at the piano and rattle off a tune in a nanosecond?
- Can rattling off napkin numbers for items like development, headcount, information technology, and marketing help see during a business meeting if a person is serious enough to consider costs of all the aforementioned items?
- Can you rattle off your phone number if you asked?
- Can you rattle off the names of your favourite football players?
- Do you think it is right for big corporations to throw weight behind rattling off a list of gender diversity projects and awards?
- Do you think many good quotes and interesting angles come out of giving scientists some time just to rattle off whatever is on their mind?
Overdrafts
- Would you agree that if we cut emissions or plant trees then these factors could wipe out a huge chunk of the deemed ecological overdraft and put us back in planetary credit?
- Do you think introduction of new services to an on-line product could result in multiple overdraft fees for unsuspecting customers?
- Would you agree that using budgeting software is a lot of work, but without it companies can end up with expensive overdraft fees?
- Do you know someone who is forever up to their overdraft limit,late on their credit cards and running out of money before the end of the month?
- Do you think people allow overdrafts for the purpose of defeating the whole idea of controlling spending?
- What should a person do if they are constantly in the red and have to extend their overdraft?
- Would you agree that in terms of scoring criteria there remains a lack of transparency about how banks score eligibility for overdraft approval?
Nudging
- Would you agree that sometimes you just need a little nudge or slight push to get your day going: It might be a coffee, or your favorite song, or your mom stripping the covers and standing over your bed?
- Would you agree that if big online retailers play hardball with publishers, nudging their consumers away from buying their books and delaying shipping them, it is unfair play?
- When you are pressured into watching a film you did not plan to watch are you thankful for the nudge?
- When it comes to video gaming what might be be the final necessary nudge toward enjoying the games for their intrinsic pleasure?
- Do you think if you want to take sb’s calls at a certain time you can gently nudge people into your corral even if they are important people?(to corral sb is to capture them-fig.)
- Do you think the new Twitter design , that is, with all its eggs in the same minimalist baskets, and none of Facebook’s busy, multilayered distractions, is user-friendly if you have a look at say the 1,500 x 500 pixel banner up top that lets you add scenery where before your profile picture looked like a postage stamp clapped on top of a smallish picture box, and only nudges the top menu — where it tallies tweets, who you’re following, your followers and more — down roughly an inch?
- Would you agree that in case of introduction of new products to the market even after rigorous experimentation and data analysis, the best-intentioned nudges can fall flat or backfire?
- Do you think hackathons(also known as a hack day, hackfest orcodefest is an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development collaborate intensively on software projects) can nudge programmers’ culture toward greater openness to change?
{/slide}
{slide="Club session 12"}
Enabling decisions and reducing drawbacks: Smart Technologies and smart solutions
Enhancing distance learning initiatives, TV watching experience, exposure of student community to science, enhancing collective intelligence
Squeezing one’s way in and avoiding unsustainable projects. Defending projects robustly
Implementing abstract ideas, implementing changes, implementing schemes spanning information storages across divisions, implementing business transformation etc.
{/slide}
{slide="Участники клуба 2013г."}
№ | Фамилия, имя | Группа, каф. |
1 | Фазылова Эльвира | ИУ5-52 |
2 | Кондратьева Ирина | МТ8 |
3 | Швец Павел | РК9-71 |
4 | Лазарев Никита | РК9 |
5 | Кучерявенко Ирина | РК9 |
6 | Кашников Александр | СМ1 |
7 | Некрасов Егор | РЛ1 |
8 | Лукина Ирина | РЛ1 |
9 | Манухова Люба | АК3 |
10 | Тырыкина Марина | ИУ6 |
11 | Малышев Кирилл | ИУ |
12 | Алексеев Михаил | ИУ4 |
13 | Кокорина Мария | РК5 |
14 | Текеев Рустам | РК9 |
15 | Компаниец Игорь Владимирович | РК5 |
16 | Гуськова Нина Всеволодовна | РК |
17 | Яндимиркин Михаил | РК6 |
18 | Гарист Владислав | РК6 |
19 | Сергеев Степан | Э4 |
20 | Русскин Олег | Э1 |
21 | Селивёрстова Анастасия Сергеевна | Л3 |
22 | Цао Жунвэй | МТ8 |
23 | Ло Синь | МТ8 |
24 | Сафин Рустем | Э3 |
25 | Солодкий Денис | Э5 |
26 | Чень Цзинь | МТ8 |
27 | Фаст Вадим | МТ3 |
28 | Черкашин Максим | БМТ2 |
29 | Бенко Максим | Э5 |
30 | Дараган Иван | Э5 |
{/slide}
Celebrating the 14th of February, 2014
- Nina Vsevolodovna Nina Vsevolodovna
- The Valentines The Valentines
- The English Club members The English Club members
- The English Club members The English Club members
- Irene and Lubov Irene and Lubov
http://www.fn.bmstu.ru/postgraduates-fl-en/item/280-english_club_speak_discussion_l3_fl#sigProId18e80359b4