Are you tired all the time? If so, you might like to read this article (link to Time.com) and see what the reason could be. Of course, it might be that you’re not sleeping well, but there might be other reasons, too. Perhaps you’re a perfectionist or you eat too much junk food. Some of the reasons might well surprise you.
Watch this funny Fed Ex Commercial (link to: youtube.com) to hear a group of people mentioning several superstitions. Do you know them all? Do you use them, too?
to cross one’s fingers
to knock on wood
to throw salt over one’s shoulder
Superstition = Aberglaube
superstitious = abergläubisch
If you’re not sure you understand the difference between the simple past (I did) and the present perfect (I have done), you might like to read or listen to the Voice of America’s useful report. A lot of language learners get these verb tenses mixed up, so you’re not alone.
Ping pong is another name for table tennis. You know, the game where two (or four) people hit a small, lightweight ball back and forth across a table divided by a net – using small, round bats.
But what has this game got to do with email messages, you’re asking? Well, email ping pong, according to the Urbandictionary.com, is when email correspondence between two people gets out of control – when the mails are sent back and forth.
Of course, one way to avoid them is to send fewer messages yourself. The more messages you send, the more you get. Sounds logical, doesn’t it?
In “The 4-Hour Work Week, author Tim Ferris suggests a simple strategy you can use when scheduling meetings. His idea is to use an “if … then” statement. Instead of merely writing, “Can you meet at 4:00 pm?”, he suggests asking, “Can you meet at 4:00 pm? If not, please advise three other times that work for you.”
You might like to give it a try next time. Good luck! 🙂
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” Plato
If you’re interested in the French business culture, you might like to read this article here (link to: businessculture.org). You might also like to read this article entitled “Working with the French“, which I can highly recommend.
