Author: Literacy Waitākere

After my swim this morning, I went into the sauna. It was empty, so I got my usual spot without any bother. I like to sit on the top bench in the corner with my back to the wall and another wall at my shoulder. The picture below shows my favourite position.

Most people usually sit upright, but some people like to lie down flat on the bench if there aren’t many people in the sauna. I don’t mind that. It doesn’t stop me from enjoying the heat, so live and let live is what I say.

But today, after a while, a woman came in and she sat down at the other end from me. Well, she didn’t sit. Look at the numbers in the picture below and I’ll tell you what position she took up.

Number 1 is where her feet were flat against the wall. Number 2 is where her legs were from her heels to her knees. Her back was at number 3, and her head and arms were in the space at number 4. How do I know this? Because I opened my eyes and looked. What was she doing? She was doing sit-ups! In the sauna! But as I said, she wasn’t interfering with my enjoyment of the sauna, so good luck to her.

I closed my eyes again, but later I opened them. This time, (see the picture below) she had changed her position. Now she was lying down flat on the bottom bench. Her head was at number 1, her bottom was against the wall at number 2, the backs of her legs were flat against the wall at number 3, and her heels were at number 4. This time, she was just stretching. They say you live and learn, so I might give it a go the next time I’m there.

I like plants. They’re happy to just sit there and do their own thing. These are some that grow in my garden. They get plenty of sunlight.

There’s a house on my street. It has trees at the front, and as you can see, there’s a very small, narrow growing space under the trees.

The house is for sale, and the owners want some colour at the front to make it more attractive, so they planted some flowers in containers. You can see one of the containers below.

However, the trees make the space dark, and the flowers can’t get enough sunlight. That means the plants are stunted, which means they don’t grow very high. But as you can see above, they still grow and refuse to die. Life will find a way.

And to prove that point, here’s another photo I took beside a very busy road. 

When I was crossing the road, I looked down and saw this plant happily growing at the side of the road. It’s a lettuce! Nobody planted it there. The wind blew a seed and it put down roots. And here it is, growing happily. As I said before, life will find a way.

BTW, the title of this post is Reach for the sun because plants need sunlight to grow, but there are two other phrases in English: reach for the moon and reach for the stars. One phrase has a positive meaning and the other one is less positive. Follow the links to find out which is which.

Let me explain what the title of this post means …

After my swim this morning, I had a sauna, and after the sauna, I was sitting at the side of the pool cooling down before I took a shower.

Beside me was a swimming instructor. He was giving a lesson to a man in the pool. I wasn’t looking at them, but I could hear them.

The coach told the learner what he wanted the swimmer to do. He finished his instructions and then he counted him down: 3 – 2 – 1 …

I was expecting him to then say “Go!”, but he didn’t. Instead, I heard “and a …”. That didn’t make sense to me, because I was expecting him to say something else after the “a” … and a what? So I looked up, just in time to see the man in the pool put his head under the water. And that’s when I realised that the swimming instructor had said “3–2–1– under”.

In this country, if there’s an “r” at the end of a word, for example car or far, many people don’t say the “r”, and that’s why I confused “under” and “and a”. They both sound similar.

I’m a teacher of English, and if I misheard that, it helps me understand how hard listening can be for learners. When you’re listening, don’t just listen to the words; try to look at the bigger picture of what’s happening at the time.

In some languages, the number 4 is unlucky because it sounds like the word for death. But in English, 4 is just another number.

If you add three fours (4 + 4 + 4), you get 12. If you’re counting things like eggs, 12 is a dozen. If you divide four hundred and forty-four by four (444 ÷ 4), you get 111. That’s the emergency number in Aotearoa New Zealand if you want Police, Fire or Ambulance.

But there’s a special reason why I’m writing about 444 today. The other morning, I woke up early. When I got out of bed, I looked at the alarm clock. What time was it? It was 4:44.

The next morning, I also woke up early. I sat up, put my foot out of bed onto the floor, opened my eyes, and looked at the alarm clock to see the time. What time was it? The exact same time I got up the day before! What a coincidence!

Some people might say that waking up at that time was triply unlucky, but I don’t think so. For me, the time reminded me that today was a new day and I could make my own luck. 

The title of today’s post is also the title of an old movie from 1961. There’s also an old song from the same period with the same title.

A few days ago, we were discussing in class the difference between long and tall. They told me long was for distances (a long drive) or time (a long wait), and tall for height (a tall building). In the end, we agreed that long was horizontal and tall was vertical.

In the pictures below, the sign for Pakenham St on the left is vertical (pointing up) and the same sign on the right is horizontal (lying flat).

Then I asked the class a question. I thought there was only one possible answer, but my learners proved me wrong. My question was, “What does it mean if someone says to you, ‘It’s been a long day!’?”

My thinking was this: there are always only 24 hours in a day, so a day can’t be long or short, but one learner suggested it meant that there was lots of sunshine and it only got dark when it was late. I had to agree with him.

But for a native English speaker, It’s been a long day is a way of saying that they’ve had a tough day. It’s been work, work, work. You finish one job and start another one immediately. It means you haven’t had an opportunity to rest or take a break, and you’re glad the day is over.

Often people sigh when they say this.

We have had a run of very good summer weather for the last couple of months here in Auckland, warm and sunny with clear blue skies, and not too hot. So when the sun starts to go down on another good day, I find myself grateful, and say to myself, “What a day!”. I’m happy that I made it through another day, and I go to bed hopeful that tomorrow will also be a good day.

If you look at the title of today’s post, you’ll see the first word, but it’s not a question word. And if you move your eye to the end of the title, you won’t see a question mark (?), but an exclamation mark (!). In English, when we start a sentence with What a .  .  ., that means that we have strong feelings about something or someone, for example “What a nice thing to say!”

If I am feeling grateful, and I say to you “What a day!”, there’ll be a smile on my face because I’m expressing a happy or thankful emotion.

But sometimes, someone might say to you “What a day!”, and they won’t be wearing a smiley face; they’ll be wearing a frown. The way they say it will tell you that they’re unhappy and that they’ve had a bad day. The way you say something can change the meaning.

So don’t just pay attention to the words, look at the speaker’s face, listen to the music in their voice, and understand their body language.