【英语趣味课堂】不愉快的惊喜-Unpleasant surprise

 Todd: So, how was your trip to Thailand?

 

Gloria: Oh, I spent about six weeks in Thailand and had a really, really great time. I spent three weeks in Northern Thailand and then three weeks on the beach in the southern part of Thailand but my last night I was packing up and I had a suitcase in the corner with the warm clothes from Northern Thailand and I saw something dark in the corner, and I'm thinking," Oh, it's just some clothes that fell out of my suitcase so I reach out to grab the clothes and something dark rose up and spread out and it was the weirdest² feeling because at the same time I felt like a hand grab me from behind and yanked me out of the cabin and I didn't feel any fear until I was in the middle of the clearing and I screamed twice, and got everybody's attention, "What? What? What?" and I said "snake" and of course a few people started laughing, thinking,

"Oh, well, this little bitty green, harmless snake" Ah, no big deal. So one of the little bitty Thai girls, walks into my cabin and she comes running out, "Ah, snake!" and so it was a black king cobra, which is the most poisonous snake in the world, and this is really kind of scary because my little brother had been killed by a snake and so it's frightening to me to think how close I came. After I left Thailand, two things happened: I found some photographs in which in the photographs that I took of my cabin you could see the snake crawling into my cabin and the other one is an e-mail from the owners of the resort that they found two more cobras underneath³ my bed.

 

Todd: Wow, oh man! So normally do they have king cobras on that part of the island?

 

Gloria: No, they don't. They say they may come in when they transport, the building, they're making a lot of new buildings so they brought in wood from Northern Thailand and maybe it came in there. Also the envirorment's being upset and they're chopping down a lot of trees, and they're finding more and more snakes that they didn't know were there.

 

Todd: Wow, well, you're very lucky.

 

Gloria: Yeah, I've been told that!

 

学习内容：

 

Learn Vocabulary from the lesson

reached out

 

I reached out to grab the clothes, and something dark rose up and spread out.

 

When you 'reach out' you extend your hand in front of you to touch something. Notice the following:

 

I reached out my hand to pay the woman.

The man reached out to stop her from crossing the street.

weirdest feeling

 

It was the weirdest feeling.

 

A 'weird¹ feeling' is strange or unusual sensation, something that you are not used to. Notice the following:

 

It was the weirdest feeling to know I didn't have a job or a house and that I was moving to a new country.

Getting stitches is one of the weirdest feelings ever.

yank out

 

I felt like a hand grabbed me from behind and yanked me out of the cabin.

 

If you 'yank something out' of a place you grab it and pull it away quickly. Notice the following:

 

I didn't want to yank the gum out of my hair because I knew that it would hurt.

Just when I thought the movie couldn't get worse the man yanked out a gun.

how close I came

 

It's frightening to me to think how close I came.

 

We can use the phrase 'how close I came' to talk about physical closeness or distance to something.  We can also use it to refer to something that could have easily happened.  In this case, Gloria was both physically⁴ close to the snake and something terrible could have happened. Notice the following:

 

It's incredible how close she came to getting all A's.

I can't believe how close I came to hitting that tree.

transport

 

The snakes might have come in when they transported wood.

 

When you 'transport' something you move it from one place to another. Notice the following:

 

We will send a taxi to transport you from the airport to your hotel.

All of these fruits were transported from the northern part of the country. 

1 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

2 weirdest   

怪诞的( weird的最高级 )； 神秘而可怕的； 超然的； 古怪的

参考例句：

• Think of the weirdest, craziest shit you'd like to see chicks do. 想想这最怪异，最疯狂的屁事。你会喜欢看这些鸡巴表演的。
• It's still the weirdest damn sound I ever heard out of a Jersey boy. 这是我所听过新泽西人最为怪异的音调了。

3 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

4 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。