¶ Welcome and Culips Learning Resources
Hello and welcome to QLUPs. You're listening to Simplified Speech, the CULEP series for intermediate English learners, which features clear, natural, and easy to understand English conversations between native speakers. My name's Andrew. It's great to be back here with you again for another English lesson, everyone. I hope you're doing well. And in just a second, I'll be joined by my co-host Cassie. And we're gonna just catch up and chat about what's new in our lives.
Cassie's got a few exciting updates on her end to share, and I have a few exciting updates on my end to share, and we're gonna let you listen in and enjoy the conversation just like you are hanging out in the room right along beside us. We'll get to that conversation in just a minute, but before we do, let me tell you about the helpful study guide, interactive transcript, and other learning resources that are available for this episode.
So for each and every QLOPs episode that we make, our team here at QLOOPS produces an amazing study guide to help you get the most out of the time that you spend with QLIP. In the study guide, you'll find detailed vocabulary explanations and usage examples that will help to build your English vocabulary so that you can improve your listening and speaking skills.
There's also a comprehension quiz, and there are some discussion questions that you can use for writing practice or for speaking practice. And speaking of speaking practice, we also have speaking classes for each one of our episodes. So the idea is that you listen first to the episode. You spend some time with it, you think about it, and then you join one of our small group speaking classes, and you'll be able to talk about it with other CLUBs members and with.
maybe me or our other great teachers, Alina and Indiana as well. We have three speaking classes each and every week, but if you would like to join them, you do have to be a CLIPs member. So you can sign up and become a Clips member on our website, Qlips.com, for an affordable price. You'll get the study guide, you'll get the speaking classes.
¶ Kassy's Robotics Program Involvement
So many other benefits and bonuses as well, like ad-free audio and our member only series, The Fluency Files. Really, guys, the list goes on and on. So check out our website, cubeups.com. Sign up and become a member today and improve your English with QLUPs. And of course, a huge thanks to all the members out there for your support. We really, really do appreciate it.
And I guess one final little announcement here before we get started is that we are adding even more speaking classes each and every week so that you guys can get even more speaking practice in because Yeah, we've just been loving it here at QLIPS. The classes are so fun. We have an awesome member community who participate each and every week. And the new classes that we are going to be adding.
They're gonna be something a little bit different. So we're gonna be having some fun like game classes. We'll probably have some grammar classes as well, something new and exciting. And yeah, I'll announce the full details once we get everything organized. But that's what's on the horizon here at CULIP. So I'm really excited about that and I hope you will be as well.
Okay, well, without any further ado, why don't we get started with this episode in earnest? So let's welcome in Cassie and we'll get things going. Hope you enjoy it. Here we go. Joining me now to catch up is my co-host Cassie. Cassie, how's it going?
I am doing excellent. How about you, Andrew?
I'm doing great, Cassie, and yeah, it's nice to be chatting with you again. It's been a little while. And when we haven't talked for a little while, Cassie, we always like to catch up. And that's what we're going to be doing in this simplified speech episode is just sharing some new news and updates from our lives with each other and letting listeners from around the world join in and listen as well. So
Yeah, I hope you guys enjoy it out there in Cublips land. And Cassie, why don't you do the honors? Uh I'll ask you the question, what's new with you? What's going on?
Well, I've been super busy these days. This time of the year is just Crunch mode at school. Crunch mode is when there's just lots of things due. There's lots of events happening. It it's just it's chaos. Um, but I'm hanging in there, I'm surviving, and um
Uh
found a new passion in the last few weeks that I have only scratched the surface of. I I haven't learned too much about it yet. But I'm really looking forward to getting more involved in in the next school year. And that is robotics.
Robotics, no way. That's awesome.
Yeah. So uh our school has a robotics program that they built from the ground up, which means the program didn't exist until just a few years ago. And it's now really big. And uh the robotics program, it's a program where kids are given kits where they have to build their robots According to a list of of rules and schematics. And then they meet at a competition and each year there's a new game. And in this game, there's certain rules that you follow and certain ways that you can score points.
¶ Hosting Family in Korea
And so they have to program and build their robots to try to get maximum points during each match. And it's so cool.
Man, that is really cool. I wish that kind of thing existed when I was a student.
Yeah, me too. I I probably wouldn't have joined the
Ha ha. Yeah, maybe me neither. Like when I was in high school, we had an automotive program, we had like uh a metal working program, wood working program, all of these things that I would have loved to have taken in retrospect, but yeah, I was more like into literature and music and I didn't take those cool hands-on classes. Kinda regret that now, to be honest, but that's awesome that students at your school have that opportunity. Cassie, I'm curious if you could build any kind of robot.
What kind of robot would you like to build? Not like considering your skill as a robotics engineer, because you're just starting, but like your dream robot, what kind of robot would you like to build?
I had unlimited resources and the brain power to be able to build it. I would build a robot that could clean my house for me. Like in what was that TV show? The Jetsons? Did did they clean?
The Jets.
Yeah.
Okay. Well, you know, we might not be that far off. It seems like there's been a lot of advancements with robots just within the last year or two. I think a lot of the big tech companies are building robots like Tesla's building a robot, I know. Maybe that's even a different company. One of those Elon Musk companies.
Yeah, China is making big gains in the robotics field as well.
Yeah, did you see the, I think it was the Chinese New Year, the Lunar New Year celebration?
Oh yeah!
I I saw a clip, it went viral, right? There was like this T V show and they had these robots come on and and dance or do some cool moves.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I feel like I can't complain too much because when you think of our modern day
¶ Andrew's Fantasy Investing with AI
washing machines compared to, you know, what they had to do in the past, which is hand wash. Um, we already have very advanced technology, but I could still use more.
Yeah. Well, yeah, that's a good point. When you think about it Like a washing machine or something like this, right? They're just specialized robots for one task and they just don't look like humans, but yeah, it's kind of a robot. Yeah. I don't know. I'm I'm a little bit worried. I I guess I'm pessimistic about robots, but there's this company from the USA. I think they're called Boston Dynamics. Have you heard of them before? Man.
They make these wild robots and they make ones that are humanoid, but also they make animal like robots, like these dogs, and then they get Yeah, really scary because they can run fast. And like I'm like, oh my gosh, these are gonna be the next generation of soldiers. It it freaks me out. It's like too sci-fi for me.
Yeah, I have seen videos of them. They're scary.
Yeah, that's scary. But robots are cool and I think that's a great hobby. So good for you. How how are you doing it? Like, did you buy a a beginner kit or
So no, I'm not making the robots. I am I helped volunteer in the scoring as uh like a referee for the students uh at our school. And I'm gonna get even more involved in in the the scoring and refing side of uh the robotics program.
Okay. Cool. That's really fun.
Yes. Is there anything else new on my end? Um I'm gonna have family members come visit soon. Uh I don't know if I mentioned it on any of the latest episodes, but Ever since I moved to my new home, I have had more family members come to visit me than ever before, Andrew. In the past year I have had two groups of family members come already. So my mom came and then my aunt, my uncle and my cousins came from the eastern US.
And then this trip, my aunt and my uncle and my sister are coming. And my family in Sweden might also come next winter. It's just like back to back to back family trips, which is super cool.
Yeah, do you like hosting? Like is that something that you enjoy or do you find it a little bit stressful to I don't know, house and feed and tour guide people?
Yeah, it's it's definitely stressful and I do like it. I am not much of a host. Like I don't really invite friends over to my house on a daily basis. Not that I don't want to. I'm just I have a young baby. I'm a little bit of a Uh like I'm a little messy.
Okay.
So I'm uh not an like an everyday host but having family members come visit and show them, you know, where I live and what my favorite foods are. uh here in Korea. It's it's really fun and it's great that I can show them a place that's so different from from where they live.
Now, do you think they're all coming to see you because you moved to a like a nicer, bigger place? Or do you think that it's because maybe your son's finally kind of at the age where it's appropriate to visit? Like they're probably really curious about the baby, right? They wanna see him and meet him. And when you have like an infant, maybe it's not a good time to visit. But how old's your son now? Like almost two probably, maybe?
He's nineteen months. He's growing so fast.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a little bit of both. I think having him here is a big draw. He's super cute at this age. And um I think it's also just a good time in well, my mom is gonna come regardless because of her grandson. I think the rest of my family members are coming now just because it works out with their their current lives.
So for example, my aunt and uncle that are coming, this is a little sad, but they have had a dog um who was really old and he couldn't be left alone um or with with strangers for for several years because he needed special care and he just passed away recently. But he lived a really great long life, so it's okay. But um my aunt and uncle are finally um able to travel more, which they haven't been able to, um, because of their their beloved puppy.
Um, and then yeah, other family members, their their kids are getting older, so it's easier to travel. And yeah, it's all just like culminating in this year and next year, which is great.
¶ Community Discussion and Farewell
Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, very good. Well enjoy the family visits.
Thanks. I'll let you know how it goes.
Sure.
Andrew, how about on your end? What's new?
Well, I don't have too many new updates that I can share with you, Cassie, because our Cublibs listeners have probably already heard me talk about a lot of new things, but there's one thing that just came to mind that
When you were talking about robots, it actually reminded me, and I haven't shared this with our QLIPS listeners yet. So this is perfect, but I don't know about the circles that you run in, Cassie, your circles of friends, but you know, I'm forty-one years old, soon to be forty-two, unfortunately, and uh Guys in their 40s, do you know what we're into, Cassio, or at least a lot of my friends are into? And it like occupies a lot of our conversation these days. Can you guess?
Yeah, but also money and energy. Oh yeah.
Yeah.
When I meet with my friends, most of the talk is about the markets, is about investing, is about stocks, is about real estate, blah blah blah. And I'm not really a finance guy. I'm not really an investing guy. I yeah, probably to my detriment, like it's probably not great for my finances, but I don't really invest. Now, thankfully, my wife does. She does some investing, so it's not like we're completely out of the picture, but
Yeah, I don't really. And so my friends are like, Andrew, come on, come on. You gotta get an investing account. You gotta start trading. You gotta start doing this and that and buying this and buying that. And they're s kind of freaking me out, but I'm worried because it's a really complicated world out there. Finances are are difficult and complicated and I'm worried that if I started buying stocks that I would lose my shirt rather quickly and
Lose your shirt means to lose all of your money. Like I would go bankrupt quickly. So I don't want to do that, obviously. Now I remember when I was back way back in the day, maybe in like grade six or seven of elementary school, or maybe it was a little bit later, like early middle school, somewhere around then. It's a little bit foggy. But I used to use the website Yahoo, which was like the precursor to Google, right? Yahoo search engine.
And they had this awesome feature when I was in when I was that age, which was like fantasy stock market. So you could go in and everything was Like not real. It was all fake, but you could you'd start off with a certain amount of money, like I don't know, a thousand dollars or something, and you could buy real stocks and it followed the real market, but everything was fake and fantasy.
And I remember loving that when I was a kid. I'd be wheeling and dealing, buying stocks and selling stocks and making fantasy money. It was so fun. And so I was reminded of that, and I thought, why don't I see if that service is still around and I could practice.
Oh, it totally is.
Yeah, but I couldn't find the Yahoo one. The Yahoo one doesn't exist anymore. And there were some other services, but I you had to pay for them. They they were it was called paper trading and The ones that I could find were like, yeah, they didn't look so great, and I didn't want to pay money to practice this. So
These days we live in this crazy world where AI can make basic kind of websites for you. And so I went to AI and I said, this is what I want to do. I want to make a fake trading platform that's linked to real. stock market data and I want to start with just a hundred dollars and then uh I can try and because I thought if I if I start investing I'm gonna start really small. I'm gonna start with just a hundred dollars a month and so
That's what I did. I built this fake trading platform, fantasy trading platform. I started last month with a hundred dollars and I just checked today. Actually, it's been about a month since I've been wheeling and dealing and and trading. And now I'm at$140. So I had a 40% increase over my one month of trading, I thought.
Wow that's really hot.
Pretty good. Pretty good.
So, Andrew, I recommend safely investing in index funds. They follow the market and it they're a lot less risky. So you don't get forty percent gains, but you also don't get like forty percent losses either.
Yeah. I think it was a little bit of beginner's luck, to be honest. I'm sure if it was real money, yeah, I probably would have gone the opposite way. I'd be down forty percent.
Yeah. Yeah, I used to be super into investing too. Actually one of the my one of my favorite episodes we didn't we did in the past, Andrew, was uh the one years ago when they had we were talking about stonks. and stocks uh going shooting to the moon. Um that was when um uh GameStop was being shorted and then all of the local community were buying GameStop. stock so that they could screw over the the big businesses that were shorting them. That was such a cool time.
Yeah, that was a really interesting time and I I don't know if that saga is actually finished. I think it's kind of going on still. I mean I don't follow it super closely, but Yeah, I think Cassie, that's the safe thing, right? Index funds or ETFs. where maybe you're not putting all of your eggs in one basket. You're spreading your eggs into multiple baskets so that if one fails, then you're not gonna be out to lunch. So
Yeah, anyways, it's been fun. I I don't know if I'm gonna actually go for it. The other things that I need to consider as well is like on my fake. trading platform, this fantasy platform. I don't have to pay service fees or trading fees or taxes or anything like that.
But in reality, we have to pay all of these little fees to make trades and so that would make it less profitable. But yeah, I'm gonna keep it up at least for a few more months just to learn how to do things and it's been a fun game to play, at least.
Mm. Yeah, it's cool that you uh used AI in a unique and engaging way as well.
Yeah. These days with AI, I swear, if you can think of the idea You can pretty much build it as long as it's not too complicated. But some little thing like this, you know, doing like my own you know, it's not like a service that I'm opening for millions of people. It's just for me. It only exists on my computer. For this kind of situation, you can build it. I've been experimenting with building all different kinds of like personal tools. Just for me, I made
another tool for cataloging all of my records so I can see. You know, I've got hundreds of records, so if I want to find a record to listen to, sometimes I don't know where it is. They're not very well organized, but I can just see on my phone where it is and yeah, all these different tools. It's really fun to make.
Wow, that's so cool. Yeah, going going back to your investing too, you could also use AI to pick maybe some of your favorite index funds or ETFs and see how they've been performing over the last few years and then use that to calculate you know, how much you should invest each month so that you can reach a certain goal by a certain year and then, you know, AI can do all the math for you and you could just run different uh scenarios to find your ideal fit.
Oh yeah. I I did do some kind of math like that using AI to go back and see how much money I could have made if I had been doing this since I got married. And if if I had been investing the way that I invested this month during like the the few years that I've been married here, like the five years or so that I've been married. Oh, I could have yeah, my wife and I could have been in a much better financial situation. So yeah, that retrospective math can be heartbreaking sometimes.
Yes.
All right, good. Well, Cassie, I think we should wrap things up here. But it was fun to to hang out and to catch up. Mm-hmm. Guys, we would also love to catch up with you. We have our Discord community, which is the place where Cubel's listeners from around the world gather to hang out with each other and to practice our English and be active with our English, with writing it.
and speaking it, it's an amazing place just to hang out and spend some time. Much better than Instagram or those other social media platforms, which are just brain rot. Here on Discord you can actually Use your English in a fun and productive way. So come on over and join us. It's free to do so. The link is in the description for this episode.
And we want to hear what's new with you. Cassie and I shared our updates, but we're waiting to hear what your updates are. So come on over and let us know. All right, everyone, until next time, please take care and we'll talk to you soon. Goodbye.
See ya.