Shadowing Practice: how to romanticize your ordinary life - Learn English Speaking with Video
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218 sentences
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I do think that at the end, I just want to pursue my happiness.
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But I guess I define a boring life as just something that's simple, mundane, quiet, and nothing that drives my emotions up the hill.
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I just want to constantly create things.
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That's all I want to do.
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I genuinely think I just want to do that for the rest of my life.
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I want to create relationships.
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I want to create myself.
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I want to build myself.
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I just want to, you know, do the very mundane things.
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no i made it i can't complain is my hair okay when you start the video i'm gonna start the video
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okay hi everyone welcome back to my channel oof
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that was bad you know we're just gonna go with it we're gonna go with it
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so you guys might be what are we talking about today even though the title is just right
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there i'm gonna restate it anyway this is how we start the intro right today
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we're gonna be talking about why i choose to live the
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quote -unquote boring life the reason why i quote the boring life is
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because i don't really think a boring life is boring you know
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but i feel like this might come off boring to some
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people first of all let's just define what i mean by the boring life i mean mundane things things
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that me as a child wouldn't really care about
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but as i grew older it's just something
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that i learned to appreciate just like something that makes you happy
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and it doesn't have to be anything grand i kind of associate the boring life with stability i don't know
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if this happens to other people but personally for me
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that is attacked with it
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and you might be why do you want stability the result of a chaotic childhood personally from my experience
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when i talk to other people who have experienced like you know a chaotic childhood
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they crave stability anyway what do you mean by chaotic childhood it just means like
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when you grew up you didn't really have
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that sort of emotional stability they might not always be emotionally there for you
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and their emotions can change really fast as a child
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you might just don't know what to do at least to
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at least my attachment style to kind of just be like one foot in
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and one foot out the door which is why I'm also a fearful boy.
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It's always been one of my goals to change into a secure attachment.
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I've always craved like the simple life for a very long period of my time.
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As a teen I've always been like I just want to follow this path.
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I want to make everyone happy.
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I don't want to upset anyone because that'll just cause a lot of chaos.
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My emotions will run wild and I can't handle that.
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I don't like taking risks.
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I don't want to do disappointment and even
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if I do take risks it's with the support of others on this path that I'm taking.
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Like oh people want me to take this risk i'll take
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it it's never for myself it's only been like this year where i'm like okay
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i'm gonna take some risk for myself i think life has become a lot easier now
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that i'm pursuing my own definition of happiness and my own definition of happiness is just living a very simple life
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could me wanting to live a simple life be due to trauma maybe
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but my joy i do realize that comes from the little things.
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I get to go into an empty coffee shop that's kind of quiet
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and I get to get a seat and say not directly in front of the cashier because that is awkward.
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Being able to have good company with good friends.
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We can have a good lunch and we can just talk about things
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and then we can maybe plan a hangout again and we can take cute pictures of each other.
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Doing grocery shopping where the grocery store is not super super busy.
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I attach my boring life with stability
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and also quiet i like the quiet life i think it's also
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because i get over overstimulated a lot
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which is why i don't get up to parties
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because a lot of people just makes me anxious
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and it's also me not really being able to fit in usually i feel too fit in it helps
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when you know more people right and i just don't
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because i'm always just in my room
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i've been in my room for the past four days by the way yeah yeah probably not good anyways
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and i don't need a big friend group at least for myself i just need
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that one person really i just need that one person who has my back
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and who's just i believe in you i support you i just need
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that one person and i can be so stable i can be
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so content with just
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that one really really good friend who's like oh
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i'll travel with you i'll do stuff with you i understand
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you maybe this was why people start dating
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i get a lot of comments where you guys are like oh yeah you're
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so inspirational i look up to you one thing
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that i think I'm gonna constantly say is the fact that
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and this is a mistake I've made too is to not idolize anyone
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I had this phase in high school I was really into k -pop
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and I was like idolizing like these idols
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and I think it was just like unhealthy obsession where I
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just like put people on the pads of stolen them
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when people like you know they do human things I get disappointed
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but at the end it's just everyone's human I am human
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I want you guys to view me as a human first
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it's not like I'm like oh my god don't look up to me
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because I feel like
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when people look up to people they almost just view them as someone
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that's not human like they're not allowed to make mistakes xyz
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and i want to say that i've made mistakes i made a lot of mistakes um
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when i was a child i grew up in a pretty traditional um household
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which is what i think
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that leads to a lot of my chaotic you know emotions i think i lived in this bubble everything
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that was told to me is right especially as a child
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because whatever an adult tells you or whatever your caregiver tells you
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Because of that environment, it kind of shapes who you are within that time frame as a kid.
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And you just like, you believe everything that you're being told.
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I was really not exposed to much besides like that little bubble.
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I was in, I remember as a kid, I remember I was in like third grade.
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This was like a mistake that I felt pretty bad in.
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I wasn't really familiar with like adoptive parents because like the only people that I've seen, their kid looks exactly like their parents.
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That's what I was exposed to.
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So as a kid, I remember there was one girl, she was one of the popular girls.
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I was never popular throughout middle school, elementary school, high school.
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I remember we were just like doing like rock climbing
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and for some reason I just really wanted to become this girl's friend.
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And for some reason I decided to ask her like, oh, why don't you and your dad look alike?
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And it was a really insensitive thing to ask.
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But genuinely I meant no harm even though it doesn't matter what my intentions were.
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It's the impact that matters.
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Her dad didn't look alike and I just genuinely wanted to know.
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She just told me on the teacher and I don't remember what happened afterwards
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but uh i do remember that the rest of third grades didn't go
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so well because and yeah maybe i deserved to get told on um
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but i just really didn't know i didn't have my first instagram until like
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when i was like 14 or 15 this is considered pretty late for people my age
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because most people have it like elementary school and everything and
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so i wasn't really exposed to much i remember i had this one conversation
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when i was like 14ish i think we're probably younger i didn't get pronouns
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because i always thought that oh
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if you're a woman you use she her pronouns people get to choose your pronouns i didn't understand
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that concept i'm like why do we need to do that
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and it was very problematic and it's also
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because like as a kid i didn't understand it
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because i was not exposed to it i think
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that a lot of my arrogance comes from not being educated not being exposed to things
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which i think is so important that we should constantly be exposed to more things
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and i think that
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because i was exposed to these things later on it led to a lot of disagreements within
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that little bubble of mine
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that i was in sometimes have different perspectives compared to your relatives
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and especially hard especially in like an Asian household families are most important
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but it's especially difficult when they don't see your point of view
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and it's hard so I definitely do think that
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that is definitely one of the components
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that lead to like a more chaotic childhood for me
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it's a very hard thing to navigate
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you never really had experience on like a healthy conflict a healthy disagreement
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I'm really scared of conflicts I'm scared of disagreements so when
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that happens I tend to just leave
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because I just feel like it wouldn't get better which is something that I still need to fix.
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So even if I do want more things, it needs to be within my morals.
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I think that people shouldn't shame others for having smaller goals or to having simple goals,
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you know, because I feel like it's like really much the simple things that brings me a lot of joy.
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I feel like life is just a very mundane thing.
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Finding joy in that and sometimes it just makes me really happy.
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When people say like, what's your dream in life?
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I don't know what to say.
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I do think that at the end, I just want to pursue my happiness.
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I've always been like, I want to be happy.
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I want to be happy when i say
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that my actions don't match up with my words because at
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that moment what i was pursuing at
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that time i wasn't pursuing them it made me happy
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it made other people happy am i in a very uncertain position right now
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because i'm pursuing my happiness in some way yeah
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i am i am anxious i am uncertain with everything around me at this moment
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but i'm still feel very true to myself i feel like i'm being truthful to myself now
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because i'm coming to the conclusion that i I come first.
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I live once.
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If I disappoint other people, I disappoint other people.
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Because this is my life and I'm going to do what makes me happy.
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I am responsible for the consequences.
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I feel like I am being honest with myself and I am being truthful to my younger self.
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When you're younger, you just have so much goals.
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And now it's like, I don't know what I want.
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There's so much to life that I don't know what I want.
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I just want to create.
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I just want to constantly create things.
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Like, that's all I want to do.
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I genuinely think I just want to do that for the rest of my life.
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I want to create things.
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I want to paint.
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I want to film.
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I want to perhaps even make clothes.
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I want to create my own jewelry.
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I think I'll be good at that.
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I think I'll be good at that if I made my own jewelry.
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I want to build my own bouquet.
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I want to design my own room, make my own room.
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I want to make my own clothes.
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I want to create relationships.
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I want to create myself.
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I want to build myself.
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I just want to, you know, do the very mundane things.
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Maybe sit outside and paint.
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Take sewing classes.
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So maybe when I keep saying this, it might not be the boring life anymore this might not be the boring life to some
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but i guess i define a boring life as just something that's simple mundane quiet
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and nothing that drives my emotions up the hill just something
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that just can keep my emotions intact and i think
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that this is something
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that might change in the future who knows it's it's a blend of right now between pursuing my own happiness
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and also healing from a lot of my trauma
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this is my healing diaries episode one why I want to
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live the boring life the result of a chaotic childhood
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and I know
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that some of you guys may be like oh
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this is a new series how is this different from journal entries
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but from now on I want to differentiate more clearly between the healing diaries
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and the journal entries I think
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that for my journal entries
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I want to focus more on advice giving a lot of
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my journal entries has just been focused on I don't know like topics
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i'm giving advice on like of course like everything at the end connects to myself
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but i think with my healing diaries it's going to be more on some more sensitive topics
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that i'm still healing from
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and that's not to say like my topics on journal entries are not something
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i'm healing from i think
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it's depending on how i talk about it i think the
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driving differentiation between the two is also myself the line is a little bit blurred
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but i think what i'm gonna be the one making
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that distinction maybe there'll be a stronger differentiation as time goes on but So as of right now,
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this is the differentiation that I want to make.
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But yeah, I feel like a lot of topics I touched on today, it's a lot of things I don't usually talk about.
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And I would also hope you guys would respect me on not making assumptions on certain things I talked about.
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Yeah, because these are more sensitive topics to me, and I hope you guys would be respectful of that as well
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and I hope you guys enjoyed this first episode of the healing diaries
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and I will see you guys all next week I hope
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you guys are having a lovely week lovely morning lovely afternoon or night yeah I'll see you guys soon you
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “how to romanticize your ordinary life”. This video has 218 sentences and 2522 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:01. The speaker talks fast, about 229 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| bore verb | /boɹ/ | To inspire boredom in somebody. |
| pursue verb | /pɚˈsu/ | To follow urgently, originally with intent to capture or harm; to chase. |
| heal verb | /ˈhiːl/ | To make better from a disease, wound, etc.; to revive or cure. |
| expose verb | /ɪkˈspoʊz/ | To reveal; to uncover; to make visible; to bring to light. |
| happiness noun | /ˈhæpinɪs/ | The emotion of being happy; joy; elation. |
| emotion noun | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data. |
| chaotic adjective | /keɪˈɑtɪk/ | Filled with chaos. |
| topic noun | /ˈtɑpɪk/ | A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest. |
| stability noun | /stəˈbɪlɪti/ | The condition of being stable or in equilibrium, and thus resistant to change. |
| genuinely adverb | /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/ | In a genuine manner; truthfully, truly. |
| diary noun | /ˈdaɪ.ə.ɹi/ | A daily log of experiences, especially those of the writer. |
| define verb | /dɪˈfaɪn/ | To determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly. |
| bubble noun | /ˈbʌbəl/ | A spherically contained volume of air or other gas in a liquid, commonly a soapy liquid. |
| disagreement noun | /dɪsəˈɡɹiːmənt/ | An argument or debate. |
| household adjective | /ˈhaʊshoʊld/ | Belonging to the same house and family. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| look up to verb | To show respect or admiration for (someone); to see (someone) as a role model. |
| come off verb | To become detached. |
| get over verb | To overcome. |
| get up to verb | To do something, especially something that is forbidden or improper. |
| grow up verb | To mature and become an adult. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- That's all I want to do.
- I don't like taking risks.
- That's what I was exposed to.
- When people say like, what's your dream in life?
- I don't know what to say.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have experienced · It's always been · I've always craved |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is attacked · was told · being told |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who have · door which is · person who has |
| Possibility with “might / may” might/may + verb — something that is possible but not certain | might be · might come · might not always be |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 91 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, didn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: cloth /klɒθ/, unhealthy /ʌnˈhɛl.θi/, truthful /ˈtɹuːθ.f(ə)l/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, anxious /ˈæŋkʃəs/, conclusion /kənˈkluːʒən/, associate /əˈsoʊʃi.ət/, intentions /ɪnˈtɛnʃənz/
- Long words — get the stress right: stability /stəˈbɪlɪti/, genuinely /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/, disagreement /dɪsəˈɡɹiːmənt/, elementary /ˌɛləˈmɛntəɹi/, disappointed /ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪnɪd/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like bore, pursue, heal.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.