Can you guys hear that? It is a beautiful night! I have just walked down the beach in Ocean Grove. Just looking around still it's just, just after sunset so it's twilight at the moment and I have just watched the sun go down. I was walking into the sun, taking some photos I thought it's, It's high time that I come down and take some photos, get a camera out, blow the dust off the camera. Has it been a little while since I've done that. And yeah, it's just fabulous, just beautiful.
So, I've walked a few kilometres up the beach here taking some photos of seagulls and mucking around with reflections. And it's been good fun. I thought it would be a good excuse to get the microphone out and do another Walking with Peter episode. So, hopefully, the audio is not too bad because I can hear those waves in the background and I thought that'd be beautiful to have that in the background of the episode, but I'm not sure if it'll be overbearing or not in the audio or if there'll be any wind, although it's pretty calm right now.
I'm walking back down and I can see the clouds up in the sky. They're pink. In this sort of rising up out of this dark blue haze above the sand dunes down here in Ocean Grove. And the sunlight still hitting them, even though the sun's gone down, and the rest of the sky is pink as well and blue. It's beautiful.
Anyway, so what have I been up to? Today we went to...We went in to have another ultrasound, so Kel is at twenty eight weeks, almost twenty nine weeks. Pregnancy that is and so... We're probably two months and a bit away from having the baby which is going to be earth shattering, I think, we'll see how it goes. I don't know. It still hasn't really hit me to be honest, you know? Like... I don't know if many of you guys have gone through pregnancy whether, obviously, you're a woman who's been pregnant and had the baby or you're a man who's had a wife or girlfriend or partner go through pregnancy and then you've had a baby, but for men at least the experience is pretty...what would be the best way of explaining it? It's very distant. So, I mean, I can see the physical changes happening to Kel and I can see that she's, you know, battling to deal with the physical changes, the emotional changes, but it's not happening to me physically or emotionally and so it's kind of at arm's length, right? Like I'm not experiencing it as close as she experiences it and a lot of my friends keep asking me so has it hit you yet? Have you suddenly realize that the baby is coming? And for a man at least where the baby is not inside of me, right? You know growing and putting a lot of pressure on my body and getting uncomfortable, getting unbearable where you're sort of, you know, as a woman I can imagine you're anticipating the end, you're like...In the third trimester you probably get to that point where you just get this thing out of me, right? It's huge. I can't handle it anymore, I can't walk properly, I can't exercise, I can't do anything that I want to do, but for men it's very distant. I don't know. It still hasn't really hit me and so I think it's going to...t's going to hit me like a ton of bricks, like a sack of potatoes the day the baby is born, which is going to be sometime in June.
So, we'll see what happens. I don't know, but let me know, any guys out there who've gone through the same experience. What was the experience like for you guys? Did you anticipate it really heavily the whole time? Did you freak out? Were you nervous? Were you really excited? Cause for me it's a bit of just.... It's going to happen and I think I'll be excited once it's happened or I'll be nervous once it's happened or I'll be afraid or scared or frustrated or angry once it's happened, but for now I'm still just plodding along like normal because it hasn't really had a big effect on my day to day life, right? I'm still doing podcast stuff, still growing the business, so we will see, there's a cute little dog that's come in front of me.
Hello, can I give you a pat. Cute little poodle of some kind, obviously a little puppy. There's a guy fishing out here, he's looking at the tip of his rod and he's cast out into the sea like one of these guys who likes fishing at low tide on the beach, with one of those massive fishing rods that you can really cast out a long way. It's funny because he's kind of just an elderly man standing there with his hands behind his back holding his hands and just looking at the tip of his rod. Waiting for the rod to move to show that there's a fish on the line, right? Hopefully you catch something, but yeah, what else do I want to talk about ? Some big, big things, I'm trying to push myself more, guys, I'm trying to do more, I'm trying to put a lot more content into the podcast and into the classroom. I have to sort of you know come up with a plan and stick to it, although, as you guys probably know I'm pretty....how would you explain that? I like being creative and I like sort of chopping and changing so, I don't normally, I'm not a very pragmatic or systematic kind of person when it comes to creating content, you know? Like I don't, I don't create a plan for the next year and plan out every single episode for the next 12 months ahead of time and then stick to it. I kind of wake up every morning, sit down in the office and I'm like alright! What am I going to do today? What am I going to add to the classroom today? What am I going to record for the podcast today? But I'm getting better, I'm getting better and at least I'm doing the expression episodes again every single week. So, that thing is staying consistent and I hope you guys are enjoying those because I've been making a lot of dialogues for the bonus content in the classroom to go with those episodes where I create a conversation between two native speakers in English whether you're ordering coffee, one of the first ones was a guy gets bitten by a snake, has to go to the hospital I explain his injuries to the doctor, and I try and throw a bit of slaying in there, you know, formal, informal language, expressions and it seems like you guys have been really loving those so, I'm glad to have changed it up because I was doing, before that, I was doing some exercises for things like the expression exercise, pronunciation exercises, the breakdowns, explaining the vocab, but I'm trying to sort of, you know, change it up a bit here and there because I don't want it to get stagnant. I don't want you guys to get bored and sick of the same content. And I'm thinking about doing that for this expression episode this week where I might move away from giving you a massive vocab list. At the end of each of the expression episodes in the classroom and instead maybe break down the expressions that I've used in the episode and get some some really good collocations, but give you a shorter list, more in-depth focusing on those, maybe with some more example sentences and stuff. But, as always, guys I'm open to feedback from you because I love hearing from you guys. What you like in the classroom or on the podcast? What you don't like? What you're having trouble with? And how I can change my content or maybe create completely new content in order to help you, guys.
So, what else newswires? So, I decided to start a new business recently with some friends where because I have this system set up where I can create, you know, I've got this podcast and a classroom website that I've put together and I have, for anyone who is you know computer or IT inclined, I've organized all of the website settings so it's done in system called WordPress with different plugins. To manage things like memberships for people that sign up the podcast, the different content on there, and so I'd realized, I was talking to some of my friends who were also content creators, but for Canadian English and American English and as well my wife who I'm trying to encourage to do an Aussie English version, but in Portuguese, right? So that I can listen to that to improve my Portuguese because there's nothing out there for advanced Portuguese learners.
So, I worked out oh, I could just take my website, the framework that I put together and get Praveen my IT guy to copy that onto new websites and build that out for other content creators who want to make, say an Aussie English version of or for Canada where they talk about Canadian expressions, Canadian slang, Canadian culture, Canadian history, Canadian affairs, right? For people who are moving to Canada. And then we can organise, you know, anyone who signs up to the podcast it gets split through my business and the person creating the content. So, this is another way for me to sort of expand and try and help more people around the world. Outside of just Australia and Australian English as well as content creators who aren't necessarily computer or website inclined and don't have the background to set that website up from scratch, which has been a process of four years for me. So, that's going to be interesting because I will announce soon the three new podcasts that we've set up that are going to be released, probably in the next week or so from now, but I'm not sure, it depends when this episode goes up, they might already be out there, but there will be an American version of Aussie English, a Canadian version of Aussie English and a Brazilian Portuguese version of Aussie English, where obviously it's not going to have anything to do with Aussie English, but it's done in the same structure of those expression episodes that I do. So, keep an eye out for that, I will let you know when it comes out because I think if any of you guys are in America or Canada, it will be incredibly helpful for you. And yeah you'll, even if you're not there you might want to learn a bit about their culture, you can hear their accent. You'll be able to get transcripts and downloads for those things too if you want to work on it, but I'll keep you posted.
Aside from that I recently got contacted by a guy who wants me to do some workshops in a rural part of Victoria, helping teach some African immigrants from places like Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, these African countries where they have immigrants that have moved to rural areas and he wants me to give some workshops on teaching them how to have conversations with Australians, you know, small talk, a bit about our sense of humour, our expressions, our slang. And so, I'm going to hopefully be doing that in the next few months as well. Before Kel gives birth so that that's really interesting. At first, my first reaction was like oh, Jesus! Hell, no! I don't want to stand in front of a group of people and have to run a workshop for two hours, but then you know I spoke to my dad and my mom and Kel and they were all like yeah do it! Do it! Do it!
It's going to be a good way of helping people. It's obviously going to be a good way of expanding my skill set, you know, having to learn how to run a workshop, how to help these people, I'll obviously get to talk to them, you know, one on one, face to face and see what their issues are, their problems are and how I can help them try and overcome these problems because, you know, in light of, in light of the recent terrorist attack, which has had me thinking a lot about what I'm doing and why it's so important, the whole point of that guy that white supremacist terrorists plan was to sow division between the communities, right? Between Muslims and New Zealanders, between Muslims and non Muslims between the political left and the political right and I think, for me Aussie English is all about trying to help people who, like those those Muslims moving in as immigrants to a country, the whole point of English is to allow people to better integrate, to learn about the culture, to learn about the language, to learn about the history and to communicate with the people here in Australia more readily, more easily, more naturally and so, you know I've kind of, it's kind of reinforced just how passionate I am about this and trying to help you, guys. Find your feet here in Australia, get to know Australians, be able to communicate with Australians and feel like you're part of the Australian culture, the Australian country, right? Because, you know, I've only been in Australia for probably four generations, I think. I'm sure there are a lot of immigrants who are going to be in Australia into the future just as many generations and so you know I always say to people who move over here and get citizenship as soon as they get citizenship I'm like man, you're as Australian as I am. I just grew up here as a kid, right? So, anyway, that's what's going on, that's what I'm thinking. It's still really sad about what happened, you know, I was reading about the stories of some of these people that were gunned down by the psychopath and it's just truly horrifying, but the cure to it you know is developing connections between these communities if we keep sort of alienating the Muslim community or the Persian community or the African community, then they're not going to, they're not going to integrate into Australian culture. It's not going to help. So, yeah.
Incredibly sad event that I hope, I hope we learn from and I hope it brings us closer together. There was one last thing that I was wanting to talk about, but have to think think think, hate when this happens. Oh okay. I just applied for. A Melbourne University scholarship thing for entrepreneurs so, mum, my mother works at Deakin University down here near Geelong and she was talking about how Deakin University offers these sort of scholarships, I don't even know what the right word for it would be, but it's where entrepreneurs, in quotes, I don't know, I guess I'm an entrepreneur, I should just suck it up and accept it. Entrepreneurs can apply to get money from these universities who will then support them and give them mentors and contacts and I assume, you know, just support developing their their business and so I've applied for one today where I've told Melbourne University whatever this program was MAP, I've forgotten what it's standard for but, what it stood for, It's just me showing you that even even native speakers make mistakes, what it's standard for, what it stood for, Pete! What it stood for! So, yeah I've applied for that and fingers crossed. I get accepted and it was another one of those things where Mum was telling me about this plan the deacon does sort of like that for people who went to Deakin University I think, and she said Oh I looked it up in Melbourne University has one too and because I'm alumni from Melbourne University I can apply to go into this program. So, I've done that and again I was sort of like a bit tentative, a bit hesitant because, you know, you have to go through all these interviews if you get selected and then I have to obviously meet mentors and get advice from people and take a more humble position, right? You know you've got to get feedback from people giving you criticism or yeah, criticising your business, giving you feedback and trying to help you improve, but now that I'm out of university I still sort of feel that hunger of wanting to learn and wanting to improve myself and one of the biggest problems that I'm sure many of you, guys, will know about if you work from home via a business or you have a job where you don't really interact with many people, is that it becomes pretty lonely and it's very hard. to push yourself when you're on your own, right? Because, well, you're on your own and you don't have surrounding people around you to sort of give you feedback and help you go forward and, well, I guess that's the main thing, right?
So, that's what I found difficult working from home is getting that motivation, it all has to come from me because I don't have people around me at least in direct contact. You know, there are a few people that I talk to via Facebook or Skype who are in a similar situation to me, but it is a bit of an isolatory kind of existence, right? You're kind of on your own. So, it'll be interesting, hopefully they select me and even if I don't go through the full way it will be good to go through the process of having to present my business, you know, Aussie English and the goals, the plan, the trajectory where I want to go with it everything like that.
Yeah, I guess that's about it. So, again, whoa, walking down the beach I've just turned around and I can see behind me is where the sun set, right? So, I turn around and the the tide is so low that you've got like sand that's incredibly flat maybe about 100 metres of sand and it's all pink because there's water on the sand reflect in the sky. And then as I turn around to the way that I'm walking, it goes dark blue so. There's people with dogs everywhere on the beach. In fact, I think I can see my mother in the distance because Mum comes down here with her dog quite often and this probably... Far out, there would be 10 dogs that I can see within eyesight on the beach running around. So, Ocean Grove, guys, if you've never come down here, come and check it out it's a beautiful place. Beache is wonderful, nice for walking, nice for chilling out.
Anyway, I probably ranted enough. Thanks for joining me, guys! Hopefully I can do more of these sorts of episodes in the future. It's kind of nice to just, you know, talk and tell you guys what I'm up to, what I'm going through. So, yeah, anyway thanks for joining me. I hope you're kicking arse. I hope everything in your life is going well and I will chat to you soon, see you later!