How’s it going? You’re listening to the new episode of the Inglês Online podcast. Thank you for telling everyone you know about this podcast and, enjoy!
So you know when you’re sort of looking at your options for… something, whatever. Let’s say you’d like to throw a big birthday party for yourself! So you’ve been looking at the options. Where to do it? There’s your place, obviously, but let’s say you live in sort of a quiet building, in a quiet neighbourhood, and you’re afraid the music might get a little out of control, and some of the neighbours might want to call the police… so you’re still thinking. Your place is an option.
There’s also the bar where you’re a regular. You go to this bar after work, every other day, to have a beer and relax with your office mates. It’s small bar, no frills, nothing fancy about it but that’s part of the appeal. You’re thinking it would be nice to have your party there and enjoy their selection of nibbles with a beer.
And then there’s your friend Larry who just started renting out his garage for events. He’s fixed it up a bit and it looks great, actually. You’re not sure though… This would be the priciest option out of the three, and you’re not sure it’s worth it. Not because Larry’s place isn’t great, but because you think your place or the neighbourhood bar are excellent options. So what do you do? Nothing for now. Your birthday is two months away, so for now you’re keeping your options open.
That means you’re not committing to anything at this moment. You’re still shopping around, you’re still thinking, musing over your choices, collecting some more information – you are keeping your options open. Who knows? You might wake up tomorrow with an answer. For now, you’re keeping your options open – you don’t need to decide right now.
Now picture this: your friend Lola works as a shop assistant. She’s only working part time, though. She made sure to find a job where she only has to work five hours a day. Why? Because she’s also looking for a job as a Math teacher. Yeah, she happens to be good at Math and she thinks she can make some money teaching it. So she’s been interviewing at different schools and thinking about part time jobs in teaching.
But there’s more: Lola also works as a part-time phone psychic. That’s right. She’s got some psychic abilities and she was hired last month by a famous phone psychic network to give consultations to clients. She’s able to do that during her lunch hour, for about forty minutes, every day.
So Lola is pretty busy… She’s got two jobs and looking for a third one. She’s doing that because she doesn’t want to put all her eggs in one basket. She wants a safety net, so to speak. If something happens to the shop assistant job, she will have the other two jobs to fall back on. She could increase her psychic hours.
If the psychic job goes belly up, she’s got teaching and the shop job. Lola likes to be safe, so she’s not putting all her eggs in one basket. She has given this a lot of thought and she likes spreading the risk. She doesn’t want to have all her eggs in one basket. So that’s her plan: have three jobs to go to and if something goes wrong with one of them, she has the other two.
Tell me: do you have an example of your own for keeping your options open? I’m sure you do, so let me know in the comments! Talk to you next time.
Key expressions
keep your options open
put all your eggs in one basket
Vocabulary
no frills = só tem o básico
that’s part of the appeal = é uma das coisas que te atrai (no bar)
nibbles = comidas mais do tipo aperitivo
he’s fixed it up = ele reformou (melhorou) a garagem, nesse caso
Ana criou um blog de dicas de inglês em 2006, e depois de muito pesquisar o que faz alguém ganhar fluência numa segunda língua, criou seu primeiro curso de inglês em 2009.
Hi Ana,
Well, my husband and I are planning a trip to Chile in July. We want to stay there seven days at most. We are searching for the best day to go, the day with cheapest flights. So, we don’t fix the date, we keep our options open concerning the date. We would like to go in the beginning of July month, but if we find lower prices in the ending of month, it’s ok.
I really like your podcasts!
And honestly, I don’t remember since when I use to listen to your podcasts.
Maybe more than 7 or 8 years…
All of them are great!
Everytime someone tell me is learning English I use to indicate your audios.
Thanks for your help! :)
