At Sea
Puzzled, perplexed, completely confused, or unable to decide what to do.
Bananas (Movie)
A 1971 American comedy film directed by and starring Woody Allen. It’s about a nebbish New Yorker who, after being dumped by his activist girlfriend, accidentally becomes involved in the rebellion of a small Latin American country.
Belgium
A country in Western Europe.
To break up
To end a relationship.
Brown
A private Ivy League university in Providence, Rhode Island.
Brussels Sprouts
A vegetable—the small compact bud of a cabbage—that is statistically unpopular.
Café
An establishment that primarily serves coffee. Traditionally served as a center of social interaction.
Castration
1-the removal of testicles
2-the state of being deprived of power or vitality
Cleveland
A city in the U.S. state of Ohio that experienced an economic decline in the middle of the 20th century with deindustrialization.
Concorde
A supersonic passenger airliner, operating from 1976 to 2003. The name comes from the French word concorde, literally "harmony, agreement.”
Crazy about
Very enthusiastically fond of someone or something.
Django Reinhardt
(1910 –1953)
A jazz guitarist and composer.
To dump
To end a sexual or romantic relationship
Entenmann’s
A manufacturer of baked goods on a mass scale which originated in New York City.
Etch-a-Sketch
A mechanical drawing toy. One of the best-known toys of the baby boom era.
Existentially
1. pertaining to existence.
2. of, relating to, or characteristic of existentialism, a philosophical approach which emphasizes the individual's unique position as a self-determining agent
William Faulkner
(1897–1962)
A writer known for his experiments with the stream-of-consciousness narrative style which often included long and complex sentences.
To get on someone’s nerves
To irritate or annoy someone.
Harvard
A private Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The United States' oldest institution of higher learning and one of the world's most prestigious universities.
To head
To go in a particular direction.
Hemingway
(1899-1961)
An American writer of novels and short stories who wrote using short, simple sentences.
Intricate
very complicated or detailed. (late Middle English: from Latin intricat- ‘entangled’, from the verb intricare, from in- ‘into’ + tricae ‘tricks, perplexities’).
To label
To describe someone or something in a word or short phrase. Sometimes considered overly-reductive or stereotypical.
Liposuction
A type of fat-removal procedure used in plastic surgery.
Long-standing
Having existed or continued for a long time.
Mets
The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens.
Moonie
A pejorative name for member of the Unification Church, from the name of its founder, Sun Myung Moon.
Nervous breakdown
An episode of severe mental or emotional distress.
Off and On relationship
A form of personal relationship where the parties may wish to keep an ongoing relationship, but have difficulty doing so because of continuous external and or internal conflicts.
Onwards and Upwards
An expression of encouragement. Onwards means moving in a forward direction or progressing, while upwards means moving from a lower to a higher position. Implies forgetting about the past and/or present, as things will get better from now on.
Oral Roberts University
A private Evangelical liberal arts university in Tulsa, Oklahoma named after its founder, evangelist Oral Roberts
Pakistan
A country in South Asia.
Paris
The capital city of France.
Peace Corps
A volunteer program run by the United States government for Americans with college degrees to work abroad for two years to provide social and economic development in foreign countries.
Pick-up line
A prepared remark used to start a conversation with a stranger a person is interested in dating.
Pittsburgh
A city in western Pennsylvania which went through economic decline in the 1980s due to deindustrialization.
Simultaneously
At the same time.
The Sound and the Fury
A novel written by William Faulkner.
The title is an allusion to a line from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
Macbeth delivers this soliloquy in response to the news of Lady Macbeth’s death:
“She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
— To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.”
— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)
Sure thing
Interjection:
1-(informal) A polite reply to "thank you," equivalent to "no problem"
2-An affirmative reply; yes; certainly; absolutely
Noun: An absolute certainty; a guaranteed success.
Scorpio
Scorpio is the eighth astrological sign in the Zodiac. The pickup line “What’s your sign?” was a 1970s cliché.
Small Talk
An informal discourse that avoids functional and transactional topics. A social bonding ritual and strategy for exploring and categorizing social position.
Straight-down-the-ticket
The practice of voting for every candidate that a political party has on a general election ballot.
Time zone
A range of longitudes where a common standard time is used.
To get acquainted
To get to know someone by talking or doing something together.
Trotsky
A Russian revolutionary, Marxist theorist, and Soviet politician.
Two-point, three-point, four-point
Grade-point averages, representing C, B, and A grades respectively.
Unaffiliated
An independent voter who does not align themselves with a political party.
Vassar
A private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, which was originally founded as an elite womens’ college.
VCR
A videocassette recorder.
Westchester County
A large suburban upper-middle-class county in the U.S. state of New York with numerous road and transit connections to New York City.
Woody Allen
An American comedian, writer, director, and actor, who produced both comedies (slapstick and romantic) and dramas influenced by European art cinema.
