How to Maintain Your Culture When Moving to Another Country? Vocabulary and Expressions bump affiliateHow to Maintain Your Culture When Moving to Another Country? Maintaining your culture when moving to another country can be difficult, in particular if you’ve been trying to immerse yourself into the new culture in order to deal with culture shock and adjustment to your new community. But it’s important to know that just because you’re adapting to a new culture doesn’t mean you need to let go of the old. Balancing both worlds is important in maintaining your identity and connection to who you are. Being born and raised in a place not only helps you form an identify with that community but it also becomes an integrated part of who you are and when a new culture bumps against what is familiar, it can feel strange and sometimes disconcerting — otherwise known as culture shock. Culture shock can be more pronounced if you didn’t try to prepare yourself for this big move. However, while these feelings are usually associated with moving to another country and culture, culture shock can also be experienced by people who move to another state or city, or for me, personally, moving from a rural community where everyone knew me to a large city where I was anonymous. The older I get, the more I long to return to a smaller place — a place more similar to the one where I was born. This sense of wanting to “go home“ is fairly common. So what do you do when living in a new culture to help you maintain ties to your old one? The following are the top 5 Tips for maintaining your old culture when immersed in a new one. Keep up communications with people from back home. When you first move away, keeping in touch with friends and family is easy — you’re still in the honeymoon stage of your transition — a time when you still feel close to your old home. But once your new life in the new culture starts to feel familiar and comfortable, it’s easy to lose touch with the people you used to know. But keeping in touch with old friends will help you stay connected to your old home and culture, often enabling you to feel connected to both worlds. Join local clubs and associations with ties to your old culture. Most cities and even small towns will have associations or clubs you can join that are affiliated with your culture and community. Most often these organizations come in the form of social clubs — places where parties are held, social gatherings and special events. Regardless, joining a club that focuses on your old culture will not only help you maintain that tie, but will also provide an opportunity to meet new people who, like you, have moved far from their old home. Maintain cultural traditions. All of us have traditions that we adhere to — events, celebrations and ways of doing things that we grew up with. For children in particular, maintaining these traditions can help them transition easier to a new culture, knowing that some structure has not changed. At the same time as it’s important to maintain the old, don’t forget to embrace the new as well. Often, special occasions, holidays and specific events provide the perfect venue to introduce some of your culture-specific uniqueness to new friends while still embracing the new. If you’re unfamiliar with your cultural traditions, start researching and learning about festivals, events and religious beliefs. Share your culture with new friends and work colleagues. Teaching others about your culture is a great way to share what you miss and love about your home while allowing friends and colleagues to get to know you a little better. There are lots of ways to do this and can be as simple as bringing homemade treats to your office to share or suggesting friends get together at a restaurant that specializes in your culture’s cuisine. Or volunteer to talk about your country and culture at a local club or school. Invite friends to your home for a traditional dinner or celebration. When people ask you questions about your home country, take the time to share what you love and miss about it. Volunteer for a non-profit organization or community group. Depending on your cultural connection, there may be an opportunity for you to volunteer with organizations or groups that work with people from your cultural community. Some may focus on recent immigrants or work with partner organizations in your home country — either way, giving back to your community will create a very strong tie to your cultural roots.

James Bond Film Series Vocabulary and Expressions codename stunt gadget tuxedo antagonist longevity bombastic villainess remorseless falter unwavering casino vodka martinis malleability instalment pre-credit swankyJames Bond Film Series The James Bond movie series turned 50 this year. For almost half the time that feature films have been in existence, there have been feature films about a secret agent codenamed 007. It is a unique achievement. The pertinent question, though, is not why Bond has lasted so long, but why other film series have not. Cinema-goers are routinely faced with a fourth “Ice Age“ cartoon or a third instalment of “ Alvin and the Chipmunks“. It would not be wildly inaccurate to suggest that Hollywood is obsessed with creating strings of sequels. So it is curious to note that while there are TV soap operas and superhero comics which have kept going for decades, so far nothing on the big screen has come close to matching 007 for longevity and popularity. What is Bond’s winning formula? According to a new documentary, Everything or Nothing: the Untold Story of 007, one key factor is the balance between continuity and change, between staying reliably the same and seeming fresh and new. Certain elements of every Bond movie are unwavering, so we feel an affectionate familiarity with them; others are new each time, so we don’t feel as if we are watching the same film over and over again. We can all list the features that stay the same: There is the pre-credit stunt sequence and the bombastic ballad, the briefing with M and the visit to a casino, or a swanky party, or both. There are gadgets and car chases and seductive women, one of whom may well be a villainess. And, crucially, there is James Bond himself. We know how he introduces himself, how he likes his vodka martinis and how good he looks in a tuxedo. We know he will be the same remorseless killer at the end of the film as he is at the start. The director of a new Bond film is licensed to get on with the story knowing that we have already bonded with Bond. It is a rare advantage. How many other characters are so iconic that they can survive a change of actors without any drop in popularity? But while the 007 formula may seem as rigid as one of Sean Connery’s toupees, the space within it that is left open for variation and evolution is just as important. Each film can have a new villain, a different love interest and any number of exotic locations. What’s more, it can be set in different time periods, in that Bond always operates in the period when the film is made, whether that is the 1960s, the 21st century or at any point in between. This allows the films to adapt to the cinematic trend of the moment, be it Blaxploitation (Live and Let Die, 1973)or Kung Fu (The Man With The Golden Gun, 1974). Look for that cocktail of stability and malleability in other movie series and you will not find it. Batman and Spider-Man, for instance, are restricted to their stomping grounds of Gotham and New York, where they encounter the same small roster of colorful antagonists. No wonder audiences wouldn’t put up with them for 50 years without a break. Zorro, The Three Musketeers, and The Pirates of the Caribbean are all tied to specific places and periods. Indiana Jones may not to be bound to a specific milieu, but he is synonymous with a specific actor. Even Britain’s campy “Carry On“ series faltered when it lost its key cast members. Bond’s closest competitor in recent years, the Bourne movie series, ticks many of the same boxes as 007. Matt Damon has been replaced semi-successfully with Jeremy Renner, and Bourne can go anywhere in the world so we need not tire of the same old backdrops. But whether the hero is played by Mr. Damon or Mr. Renner, he is always tangling with one particular American government agency, so it is hard to see the series continuing for another four decades. Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, there are movie series which are so loose and indistinct that almost nothing connects the various instalments, leaving little for an audience to grow attached to. The Die Hard films have little in common with each other except the presence of Bruce Willis (and a token connection between the baddies of parts one and three). Mission: Impossible has the same problem. Four episodes in, we still have only a fuzzy impression of who Tom Cruise’s character is or which organization he works for. Ask yourself this: would anyone get excited if a Mission: Impossible finished with the caption Ethan Hunt Will Return? It is unlikely. But when a Bond film finishes with the equivalent promise, it still leaves a tingle of anticipation, even after 50 years.

Insurance Vocabulary and Expressions devastating on a regular basis pool it togetherInsurance Bad things happen. And when they do, recovering can take time and money. Thankfully, we have help. This is Insurance in Plain English. Let’s say you’re on a boat when a wave comes out of nowhere and knocks you into shark-infested waters. Events like this are difficult to predict, so the best thing you can do is have a way to recover quickly. Now falling off of a boat is just an example. In real life, events like your home burning down can be devastating. Recovering from these events requires a lot of money. Money that most people don’t have. Thankfully, we have a way to recover from these big expenses. It’s called insurance. Let’s say your car gets caught in a storm. Suddenly you don’t have a car or the money to fix it. Without insurance, you might have to borrow a bike to get to work. But with insurance, you’ll have a way to get your car fixed or replaced. It sounds too good to be true, right? Well, insurance comes with costs. To be protected, you buy it from an insurance company. When bad things happen, the company will help you recover by paying some of the expenses. Here’s how it works. To get insurance, you talk with an insurance company about the things that are important to you. These are usually things like your health, your car, your home and your family. You’ll set up a plan or policy with the company that outlines how the insurance will help when something bad happens. For instance, a policy might outline when and how much the insurance company will pay when your car is wrecked, your home is flooded, or you can’t work for a period of time. There are even policies that outline how your family will be protected if something happens to you. Insurance policies are very specific. It’s important to understand exactly what a policy covers. To have this kind of protection, you’ll pay the insurance company over time. Even if you’re healthy and your property is safe, you’ll still pay on a regular basis. These payments are how insurance companies can afford to cover people like you. Here’s what I mean. You are one of thousands who are paying the insurance company on a regular basis. The company takes this money and pools it together. When bad things happen to policy holders, the company has enough money to help them recover as outlined in the policy. Of course, this means you may pay for insurance your whole life and never use it. Before you question the value, remember that insurance covers the big expenses caused by things that are out of your control. Without insurance, these things can come along and take away your hard-earned money. Insurance is an important part of being responsible with your money and property. Talk with a company you trust about what’s important to you. Take the time to ask questions, read the fine print and compare policies. Insurance won’t keep you from falling in, but it will help you recover more easily when bad things happen.

Middle-Class Economics Vocabulary and Expressions resilience paid leave close loopholes middle-class economics apprenticeship tax codeMiddle-Class Economics Hi, everybody. This week, in my State of the Union Address, I talked about what we can do to make sure middle-class economics helps more Americans get ahead in the new economy. See, after some tough years, and thanks to some tough decisions we made, our economy is creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999. Our deficits are shrinking. Our energy production is booming. Our troops are coming home. Thanks to the hard work and resilience of Americans like you, we’ve risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth. Now we have to choose what we want that future to look like. Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well? Or will we commit ourselves to an economy that generates rising incomes and rising chances for everyone who makes the effort? I believe the choice is clear. Today, thanks to a growing economy, the recovery is touching more and more lives. Wages are finally starting to rise again. Let’s keep that going — let’s do more to restore the link between hard work and growing opportunity for every American. That’s what middle-class economics is — the idea that this country does best when everyone gets their fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. Middle-class economics means helping workers feel more secure in a world of constant change — making it easier to afford childcare, college, paid leave, health care, a home, and retirement. Middle-class economics means doing more to help Americans upgrade their skills through opportunities like apprenticeships and two years of free community college, so we can keep earning higher wages down the road. Middle-class economics means building the most competitive economy in the world, by building the best infrastructure, opening new markets so we can sell our products around the world, and investing in research — so that businesses keep creating good jobs right here. And we can afford to do these things by closing loopholes in our tax code that stack the decks for special interests and the superrich, and against responsible companies and the middle class. This is where we have to go if we’re going to succeed in the new economy. I know that there are Republicans in Congress who disagree with my approach, and I look forward to hearing their ideas for how we can pay for what the middle class needs to grow. But what we can’t do is simply pretend that things like childcare or college aren’t important, or pretend there’s nothing we can do to help middle class families get ahead. Because we’ve got work to do. As a country, we have made it through some hard times. But we’ve laid a new foundation. We’ve got a new future to write. And I’m eager to get to work. Thanks, and have a great weekend.