📙 Part 2: Describe a time you were very busy

This episode's vocabulary

Hectic (adj.) - full of activity, or very busy and fast.

Rush/run someone off their feet (idiom) - to cause someone to be very busy.

Preliminary (adj.) - coming before a more important action or event, especially introducing or preparing for it.

To shoulder (verb) - to accept responsibility for something.

Burden (noun) - something difficult or unpleasant that you have to deal with or worry about.

On the side (idiom) - in addition to your main job.

To be an island (idiom) - to be by yourself.

Prolonged (adj.) - continuing for a long time.

To power through sth. (phrasal verb) - to continue in a strong and determined way until the end of something, even when this is difficult.

Schedule (noun) - a list of planned activities or things to be done showing the times or dates when they are intended to happen or be done.

Overwhelming (adj.) - difficult to fight against.

To be up to your eyeballs in sth. (idiom) - to be very busy with something.

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Questions and Answers

M: Hello, sunshine and our premium dear listener! Today on our podcast speaking part 2 "Describe a time you were very busy". You were busy bee, as busy as a bee. Rory is gonna say when it happened, where he was, what he did and he's going to explain why he was busy. Rory is a busy bee. So pretty much every day he's super busy. If you want to have some time with Rory, you have to book Rory in advance like one month in advance, so Rory has some free time for you. So this is how busy Rory is and always has been. Rory, now this is your time to shine. Your favourite topic about how busy you are and Rory maybe is going to be talking about his whole life.

R: Or just a certain period of time in my life. Shall we get started?

M: Could you start speaking now, please?

R: I can remember a time when I was getting ready to go to university again to study primary school teaching, and that was quite a hectic time and I was actually quite run off my feet. I had to take a preliminary course in maths with the University of Aberdeen. Since I was in Moscow, this was all online and pretty much for self-study, so I needed to invest a lot of time in that. And this all happened alongside my work for the podcast and my main job as a teacher and director of studies. Thankfully, I had a great set of colleagues to help with this. And they shouldered some of the burden, but it was still quite a lot. And in addition to all of these other things, I also decided it would be a great idea to do some freelance work and make a little bit of extra cash on the side. And that was almost more than I could handle. But I still managed. Again, I couldn't have done this alone. Like in this respect, I am very much not an island. And I balanced it all with a very healthy social life. It helps that my job is like my hobby, so I don't mind doing it for prolonged periods and just powering through the more difficult parts. I mean, not that there are that many difficult parts, to be honest. To work with children it's actually quite delightful most of the time. But this particular state of affairs lasted for about four months before the university course ended. And that was a small mercy because by then it was the middle of the Russian winter, so it was really cold. And we would soon have to move apartments. So looking back, it's rather lucky that everything happened the way it did. If it'd happened all at once, and I didn't have all of these really supportive colleagues and a very flexible work schedule, then it would have been overwhelming and I don't think I would have managed at all. I'm quite hopeful that it'll never happen again, though. I mean, despite the fact it was fairly exhilarating, it's still not great to be totally up to your eyeballs and work like that.

M: Are you usually that busy?

R: No, not like that anymore.

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Discussion

M: Oh, yes, I remember that like those maths days you were posting on Facebook. Oh, please, could you do this sum for me or could you help me with this one?

R: Well, it wasn't, I should point out it wasn't getting people to do my work for me. It was to show me how to actually do it by myself.

M: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

R: And I was very lucky because like five or six people came to my rescue. None of whom will ever hear about any of this, but still.

M: Right. So describe a time you were very busy. So dear listener, you should think about some some time in your life when you were very busy. So usually that's in university. When we were preparing for our exams or maybe at work, there was this month or a week that you were really busy. And what synonyms did Rory use to talk about him being very busy? So first of all, he said that it was quite a hectic time, so it was quite a hectic time for me.

R: There was lots to do.

M: So there were a lot of things to do. And then you said I was run off my feet.

R: And that's just another way of saying.

M: I just had too much to do.

R: Yeah, I was run off my feet. This is an idiomatic expression, which means that I had a lot of things to do. And then you said that was almost more than I could handle. So I took some extra work that was almost more than I could handle. It's interesting because you didn't use an idiom and you could have used this idiom. You know?

M: What idiom?

R: Think about, you know, something, chewing. You are chewing things.

R: Oh, I'd almost bitten off more than I could chew.

M: Yes. Why didn't you use this idiom?

R: Have people not suffered enough with idioms?

M: Yeah, dear listener, you see, so here you might know this idiom, I beat off more than I could chew. So here the context is perfect for the idiom. But still, Rory didn't use it because, well, it's just...

R: Because I used other idioms.

M: Yeah. It's just going to be too much, you know. So here, Rory just said that was almost more than I could handle. And this is fine. Also, Rory said that I was up to my eyeballs in work. So to be up to your eyeballs. Eyeballs is the eyes. Inside your eyes you have eyeballs. So if you are up to eyeballs in work, you have too much.

R: You have lots.

M: Yeah. You actually didn't say that I was overwhelmed. So still this wasn't overwhelming, right?

R: It was almost overwhelming.

M: Almost overwhelming. Yeah. If something is overwhelming, it's kind of, you have too much of this. It could be positive, it could be negative. Right? But in this context, well, I had too much work. It was so overwhelming. Or you can say I was overwhelmed with work or with different activities I had to do. Also, you can say that I was snowed under if like you had a lot of work to do. So I was snowed under. Yeah. So these are the synonyms. And oh, my gosh, Rory, four months. How did you survive? I have no idea.

R: Well, I had you, and Vanya, and John, and the entire office staff at Simply English.

M: Facebook.

R: And also Facebook. And everyone on Instagram. So actually, I was extremely well supported.

M: Sweet. And then you said, like, thankfully, I had a great set of colleagues to help me with this and they shouldered some of the burden. So my colleagues, my friends shouldered some of the burden. Burden like these masses of work I had to do. So yeah. And then you can say I needed to invest a lot of time in this. I invested a lot of time in my work or in writing a book or a dissertation. Yeah, this all happened alongside my work. So Rory did his work and that extra projects happened alongside my work. And then what kind of freelance work did you take?

R: I think around this time I also worked in Yegorevsk for a little while.

M: Ah, right, right. So you were kind of, you would go there, right? To do some seminars, right?

R: Yeah. That was a good time. I really enjoyed that. I miss Yegorevsk.

M: And then to make a little extra cash on the side, apart from his main work and apart from this course in maths, Rory decided to take this freelance work. Crazy. Rory, you're crazy.

R: It's no wonder I have gray hair. I would like to point out, though, that I did share the wealth around. I took people for lunch and paid for drinks and stuff, so it's not like I was like, ha-ha-ha, support me and I'll make extra money. It was like extra money to share with people who were helping me.

M: Oh... Yeah. He just earned all this money. And then he was taking baths of Dom Perignon instead of water.

R: One bottle. You need more than one bottle for a bath of Dom Perignon.

M: Right. To power through is a nice phrasal verb.

R: To keep going.

M: Yeah. So I just powered through the more difficult parts, right? So I just kept going. I powered through. You can also say I soldiered on. It was really difficult for me, but I soldiered on and everything went well in the end. So when you continue and you kept going, even if it's really hard, so you can say, I soldiered on and then I did this for about four months. So four months Roy was like this. It's crazy. And then it was over and that was a small mercy. So, you know, like take mercy.

R: But thatjust means thank God it was over.

M: Cool. Lovely. So dear listener, now, could you please think about your life and a situation? Maybe a month or four months, maybe half a year, maybe a year. But I would say that you can't really be busy, like super busy for a year, I don't know, 12 months. Again, usually people are super busy for a month or for a week or for four months. Okay, six months you're pushing it.

R: You're not allowed to be busy for more than six months. It's banned.

M: Yeah. And we mean like really busy, you know, like 24 seven because, for example, now my June I've been super busy and I'm just done now. Yeah. I'm okay recording this, but...

R: After that, we're done.

M: Seriously, yeah. After that I'm definitely done. Okay, thank you very much, dear listener! And we're going to see you in "Time management". Bye!

R: Bye!

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