📕 Part 1: Life stages

Do you enjoy your current stage of life?

I absolutely love it. People always say that life gets better with age, but I didn't believe that until I turned 31. I found myself surrounded by friends, and family, and opportunities. Another advantage is that young people don't have just due to a lack of time and experience. I think I look back at my thirties the same way people do after they climb a mountain, tired but proud of everything they accomplished.

Which stage of life do you think is the most important?

Well, if we speak about my life in particular, I would say now in my mid adulthood when all the determining factors for how the rest of life will come together. Like finding a partner and raising a family and buying a home and getting stable employment. And then sustaining all of that. But if we talk more generally, not about me, I think maybe childhood or adolescence will determine the course of someone's life the most profoundly. There's like an old Jesuit saying, give me the boy and I will give you the man. Something like that. And I think that's true.

In which stage of your life were you the happiest?

Erm, right now. This stage. I wish it could last forever, but it's impossible to live in a state of such freedom and wealth in perpetuity. Well, you could, but it wouldn't be very meaningful anyway. So I'm at the happiest stage now, but I think the best in terms of how meaningful things are is yet to come. I think maybe in later life.

Were you happy when you were a child?

Uh, not really, unfortunately. I've mentioned before, like I was always getting in trouble at school and misbehaving in class and in public. I think that's probably partly due to my parents having like this major focus on work. It's not because they were bad parents and they didn't love my siblings and I. They just wanted us to have a good life later on down the line. And the trade off for that was a lack of parental attention when I was younger, so I acted out. That's one of those things about parenting, though. There are always sacrifices to be made and you can't really judge how they will go at the time. Of course, that doesn't mean I get off scot-free. I should have been more responsible and mature. But I hope I'm compensating for that now and learning from the experience.

What's your plan for your next stage of life?

Well, sort of in short, becoming a husband and father, having a solid career prospects back home and getting on the property ladder. And that's all in the works now. Beyond that, I suppose having a good pension, although I'm not sure how essential that will be. We'll see. -

Rory, thank you so much for your answers. You know, that could be a challenging subject to discuss. Life stages.

Life stages is difficult.

It is difficult. We used to have this topic age.

I think you were going to say AIDS. Could you imagine if the examiner sat down with you, like, let's talk about AIDS. They'd be like...

Let's talk about drugs.

Let's talk about drugs, man.

Dear listener, can you imagine like IELTS in 2030. Let's talk about drugs.

Where? In Colorado, baby.

Yeah, they're going to run out of all the topics.

So they're going to talk about drugs.

Taboo topics. Yeah. OK, so first of all, life stages. So we start off with childhood.

Maybe even before that, you have like... No, maternal is about mothers. What are you before you're a child? You're in infancy.

Infancy, oh, yes.

You are infant and infancy. Child and childhood. Adolescent in adolescence, adult in adulthood. And you have adulthood like normal and young adulthood. And then you're an old person in your twilight years because we don't really talk about aging, because it's connected to death. But we're going to we're going to talk about death and the taboo episode, hopefully.

Oh, God, can you imagine in IELTS exam. Hello. Let's talk about death.

We're going to talk about death. We have to talk. We have to have this conversation.

Oh, yeah. This podcast is supposed to bring a smile on to your face.

So you can imagine people that you hate dying.

Right. So we can say that I am in my mid adulthood, meaning like in my mid thirties. And we say like 30s or 20s.

Or 40s.

Or 40s. I'm in my mid 40s, in my mid. Mid - middle. Right. Or I'm in my mid adulthood. Adulthood like I'm an adult.

Or you could just say I'm halfway through adulthood.

I'm half way through adulthood.

Although I hope I'm not halfway through adulthood. I'm only thirty one.

Yeah. But like when are you halfway through adulthood?

I don't know, it depends when you're planning to die. Sorry.

This is such a topic.

You cannot talk about life without talking about death I'm afraid. OK?

Life and death. War and peace. Crime and punishment.

However you can't talk about life without talking about...

How life gets better with age.

So you could talk about opportunities.

Advantages. And we can look back on our thirties or we can look back on our life. We look back on our twenties.

Nobody should look back on their twenties.

Oh, tell me about it.

Vanya is only twenty three, but he will soon understand. You're basically a child. V: 24.

Yeah, baby. Baby boy. Yeah.

You're so young. V: Who has kids.

And cute.

I know. You have more children than I do. That's a bit worrying.

Yes, our Vanya has more children than both of us.

For now.

For now.

There's plenty of time for us to have accid... Children, children.

Children, yes. OK, OK, OK. Focus, Rory. So we can talk about things we have accomplished. Or we didn't accomplish. So to accomplish is to...

Complete something. Presumably be proud of it.

Or not proud of it.

No. Usually people talk about accomplishments as things they're proud of.

Hmm. OK, accomplishments. Yeah. And we can talk about the course of my life, the course like an IELTS course.

Over the course of my life. It's like the path of your life. A ship has of course, a path.

So over the course of my life, now that I'm twenty five, I'll look back on it. Oh, well. Rory, you did use some word.

Perpetuity just means... If something happens in perpetuity, it just happens forever.

Forever. Yeah. Oh, so you said like it's impossible to live in a state of such freedom and wealth in perpetuity.

Yes, well, it's not... Well, I said it's impossible. It is actually possible. But you probably wouldn't be a very happy person if you were constantly like this.

Free and wealthy, right?

Yes.

Oh, too much. It's over the top.

Well, yeah, because if you have constant... If you don't have things to tie you down an anchor like to the world, to reality, then it's not good for you. People like to talk about freedom as if it's a positive thing. But there are responsibilities are much better for you.

True. We can say that now I'm at the happiest stage of my life. So to be at the happiest stage.

Probably important to point out happiest day of my life so far. I'm not expecting to be miserable.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you can say I was really happy when I was a kid. Yeah. When I was five years old. Right. And then we say like I was 10 years old. Years old. And as a child, Rory was always getting in trouble.

Yeah.

Yeah. If you listened to our school episode, you would find out that Rory was a rebel. He was a mess and a mixed bag.

I wasn't a mess. I was messing up, although my hair. I used to have long hair. Maria.

Yeah, you told me. I can't believe that. No, I can't imagine you with long hair. How long was it? Long?

Pretty long.

Different color?

Shoulder length.

Oh, can you imagine Rory with long hair? We do need a photo.

No, we don't.

Call your mom. Call your mom and post this photo on social media.

I think I told my mother to destroy all the evidence of that part of my life.

Rory, you did say that I get off scot free. Scot? Like Scotland?

No. Well, to get off scot free just means that you get away with something and that means that you don't have any responsibility for it. It's just, it's OK for you. You can do what you like. It doesn't matter. But even when you're a teenager, you don't get off scot free because you're becoming an adult. So you should be more responsible and mature than if you were a child. I wasn't because I was a stupid teenager. But now I am not a stupid teenager. I'm a stupid adult.

No.

There is progress.

You are pretty smart, and funny, and charismatic.

I'm waiting for the word responsible to come up.

Responsible.

There we go.

Yes. So when the examiner asks you about your plans for the next stages of your life, you can say, I'm thinking of having solid career prospects. That's a nice colocation.

And we should explain what it means. So to have a solid career prospects just means that it will be possible for you to do... Sorry, it will be possible for you to have a job that will last for a long time.

Yeah. Stable, a stable job. And also we can get on the property ladder.

Yes. And that is another common collocation. To get on the property ladder is to own property. And it's a ladder because there are different levels of property owning. You start off by owning a flat, you progress to a house and a bigger house. That's the idea.

And then a yacht, private jet, some cottages.

I think I'm gonna settle for one small cottage.

One small cottage?

One small cottage.

Okay. In Scotland?

Next to the sea. I have my eye on it, although I'm really disappointed. The place that I wanted to buy, it's next to a river in a small fishing village. It's now under offer, which means that it's going to be bought before I can get back to Scotland and buy it, which is a pain, but OK.

Oh, well, I'm sure that you'll have your perfect house. Maybe this one is not the one.

There are other ones as well, so...

And everything you are doing now are in the works. I mean, like a solid career prospects, getting on the property ladder are in the works.

So if something is in the works, it just means that it's underway. It started. You're making efforts to complete them. So if we talk about getting on the property ladder, that's in the works, because I have an account where I have all my money for buying a house, for example. And if we talk about solid career prospects. This is also in the works because I'm undergoing the interview process to become a primary school teacher. Um, those are two examples. And I wanted to say something more profound, but I've completely forgotten it, so those are my two examples.

No, again, like, it doesn't have to be anything profound.

It should be. I'm a very profound guy.

You are. Yeah.

I'm a quality guy.

You are quality, Rory.

Quality guy.

You are quality. Rory is quality.

Only my dates could understand that.

Oh, this silly. So, you know, like, next time when somebody asks you, oh, how are you? You say quality. Or how are you doing. I'm living the best part of my life right now.

Living my best life.

I'm living my best life now. And how are you? Yes. This would be your response, dear listener. How are you? I'm living my best life.

However, when I was younger, I didn't live my best life because my parents had to make a trade off. And a trade off is when you choose to do one thing instead of doing another thing. And then there are positive consequences and the trade off is the negative consequence.

So they were slaving away. They were working very hard and they were giving you like little attention. That was a trade off.

Yes. So I acted out, which is another way of saying I misbehaved.

Oh, you acted out. You were rebel.

I was a pain. To say someone is a rebel is just another way of saying they're a giant pain in the behind.

In the mind?

In the behind.

In the behind. Oh, don't say that.

I do because we shouldn't swear on this podcast.

In the behind. Fine.

Fine.

Thank you very much for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this episode about life stages and we'll see you in the next one. We've just filled your vocabulary buckets...

With some quality grammar and vocabulary.

For high score.

Along the way.

Band nine score. You're mixing the words.

Bye!

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