chill english

You listen to Sabrina Carpenter once and she just stays with you forever 💋 "Now I'm gone, but you're still layin' Next to me, one degree of separation" At first I didn't think much of it. Until yesterday, when I came across six degrees of separation while listening to a psychology lecture... Apparently, it’s the theory that any two people on Earth are connected by no more than six social connections (or intermediaries). So one degree of separation is that clever twist on the og concept, 'cause it suggests a direct, immediate connection between two people! Sabrina Carpenter, your mind 🥰 #chillvocab

I love “IELTS to extremist pipeline” memes as much as the next person, but if you have a Russian passport, you know you don’t have to finance an extremist organization to take IELTS… right?? IELTS is administered by three organizations. One of them is the British Council, which has been designated an extremist organization in Russia 🤪 There’s also IDP, which has not been designated as extremist 😎 So make sure you book IELTS through an IDP (!!!) test center and you’re gonna be just fine! Now who’s afraid of the graph report? 😈 #chillielts

me too, Harry, me too

Reading Strike novels has made me appreciate British slang 🇬🇧 ✴️Poor sod, she dumped him again an informal, mildly offensive (or sometimes affectionate) term for a person or guy ✴️Their new app is a sod to use. something that’s extremely annoying or difficult. ✴️Oh, sod off! a rude way of saying “go away” or “leave me alone.” ✴️Sod it! similar to “damn it!” or “to hell with it!”, used to express frustration or resignation. #chillvocab

Today I come with vibes, not facts! I was wondering how XOXO came to mean hugs and kisses, and stumbled upon this popular theory: X supposedly looks like two people kissing 💋 O represents a pair of arms wrapped around someone in a hug 😴 How true is it? No idea. But to me they’re basically old-timey emojis… yassified by Gossip Girl 🤭 #chilletymology (conspiracy?)

Why is ragebait all the rage on the internet (pun intended)? Such an intelligent take on something I think we're all experiencing online, and increasingly, offline 🥺 What parts of human nature does ragebait content exploit? And why do we keep engaging with content that makes us angry? 🔥 The Internet is All Ragebait Now. Here's Why 10/10 on a chill scale #chillwatch

ngl, I’ve also noticed that ngl (not gonna lie) has changed meaning 👀 #chilltok

she is an avid reader

The Guardian has just shared its list of "The 100 best novels of all time"! I can see why To the Lighthouse made the top-5, fair enough, but Ulysses?? Has anyone ever read it and enjoyed the process??? BE HONEST WITH ME. Jane Eyre should have been in the top-3, don't @ me 😤 Which ones have you read? Which ones are on your list? And which ranking made your blood boil? 💀 #chillread

you might not like IELTS graph reports but at least you don't have to write a letter to a friend about Borodino 🙂 a win is a win!

What IS X in X-ray, X-factor, X-files and maybe even SpaceX? You are asking the right gal! In algebra, X stands for an unknown variable. When German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered a mysterious form of radiation in 1895, he called it X-rays = unknown rays. By the same token: 💋 X-factor = an unknown quality that makes someone special, successful or attractive. 🛸 X-files = unsolved or unexplained cases 👽 🚀 SpaceX is actually short for Space Exploration Technologies Corp but I refuse to believe that the association with sci-fi and exploration of the unknown was a coincidence 🌚 #chilletymology

so, back to imposing my interests on you! You can tell a weekend at the countryside did me good, cause I’ve finished Career Of Evil and burned through a good chunk of Lethal White 😌 As always, no notes — Strike novels are bestsellers for a reason. I’m living vicariously through the characters, solving murders alongside them… feels like a team project 🤪 Can’t believe there’re 8 books out and 2 in making 😭🙏 I’ve also been blessed with an e-reader for my birthday, which turned out to be a gift that keeps on giving! I read one book, I pirate five 💀 The first thing I’ve picked up was The Cambridge Introduction into Sylvia Plath and I swear to you, her poetry has never made THIS much sense to me! I’ve also discovered Letters Home, a collection of Plath’s letters to her mother! When will I emerge from this Plath rabbit hole? Who knows! One book leads to another… Anyway, what a time to be alive!! What have you been up to, reading-wise? #chillread

IELTS flop advice, anyone? Speaking edition 😈 1️⃣ Give Yes/No answers with little elaboration. Who needs to produce long stretches of speech to get assessed, amirite? 2️⃣ Memorize answers, and make them sounds as smart as possible. Of course nobody has ever thought of that before you, you clever little thing. Found a loophole, didn’t you? 3️⃣ Avoid topic-specific vocabulary and use random advanced words instead. Replacing "interesting" with "fascinating" is definitely all you need for band 9 vocabulary 💅 4️⃣Follow your heart, not your vocabulary You have great language to discuss climate change, but you actually think it’s a hoax? Tell them how you really feel, king 🙏 5️⃣Change the topic if you don't like it Who cares if they asked about a teacher who influenced you most when you’ve prepared a great answer about technology? 🌚 Follow this advice and I personally guarantee you WILL flop your IELTS speaking test 💋 #chillielts

hot take: I think us writing and speaking more like AI is inevitable 🦖 our primary source of information is the internet/social media; now there's more AI/bot traffic online than human traffic 🦖 you often can't tell whether an influencer or comment section is fully human anymore, the technology is just too good (apart from ours ofc. we have sex bots 🤪) 🦖 LLMs are used to write movie scripts and whatnot => the more AI-generated language we consume, the more it starts influencing how real people write and speak AND normalize it thoughts?

famous sayings origins 👀 #chilltok

Is Dua Lipa living the life the way philosophers intended? Bear with me.... One concept I keep coming back to is vita activa vs vita contemplativa from The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han, which we are discussing at Chill Hour atm. Basically, he argues that modern society is not where people are controlled by external rules anymore. Instead we live in an achievement society, where nobody needs to force us to work harder, optimize ourselves, build a personal brand (😭😭😭) or monetize our hobbies, cause we do it ourselves willingly. He calls it vita activa. The alternative is vita contemplativa: 🌷 It's to observe rather than act. 🌷 Being perceptive, not productive. 🌷 Sitting with boredom and silence. 🌷 Paying deep attention instead of constant multitasking and scrolling. 🌷 Doing things for the hell of it, not because it's gonna benefit you or propel you to success in some way And here comes Dua Lipa!! This woman seems to do exactly what a person with means to escape vita activa would do: learn languages, expand her cultural and intellectual horizons with no obvious optimization agenda, foster her creativety, run her book club, travel extensively... I just KNOW burnout is not part of her vocabulary. Imagine not immediately turning every experience into self-improvement, personal growth, content (😭😭😭) or profit..... When was the last time YOU did things that weren't productive, strategic or useful, just deeply interesting? because you were curious?