This is the epitome of the Turkish way. Lounge around for a while. Develop some good excuses for why it can’t happen. Then at the last minute work incredibly hard and accomplish the seemingly impossible.
These players acted out their country’s temperament to perfection, which of course made for a hugely exciting roller-coaster-of-emotion game. Congratulations Türkiye, I can’t wait to watch the quarterfinals.
This is an extract from a CBC Radio podcast called Comedy Factory, a short weekly compilation of funny skits etc from CBC Radio. It just made me laugh so I thought I’d share it. Anyone who follows both politics and hockey will enjoy it.
The original podcast was about 11 minutes, I used some free* software called Audion to extract just the 1.5 minute portion that I wanted. I didn’t do this just for the fun of sharing this link, but also because I was testing the software for its usefulness in preparing listenings for ESL classes. Often there is an interesting portion of a podcast that would be much more manageable as a smaller extract. The benefits are that you don’t have to save the entire podcast, but just the extract (disk space consideration), you can use tags or genres to pull the extracts together into teaching resource playlists, and of course, you don’t have to spend class time fiddling around finding the portion of the listening you want.
In addition to doing this for audio files, I’ve happily also been successful doing this for video clips as well. Because often we only want to show a short pre-prepared portion of a video to a class, it could be useful to have just that portion available on a laptop rather than carry around the entire DVD. Another bonus is that lesson plans can be created for small pieces and then the pieces can easily shared among teachers. The good news is that it was remarkably easy to do what I wanted, using only free software.
For teachers who want to extract a short clip from a DVD, here’s the steps I used.
1. Find a DVD that you want a portion of. In the DVD player, take note of what chapter(s) you want, and what format of subtitle and audio track you want.
2. Use a free* program called HandBrake (mac and win) to convert the DVD to another format. I used AVI format but there are also some others available (MPEG4 most notably) that I haven’t yet experimented with. In HandBrake, select your source material (the DVD) and choose the chapter(s) that you want to convert. You can do them all but you will have a big file. I tried chapters from two DVDs, one 7 minutes long and one 3 minutes long. The 7 minute clip ended up being 90MB but it didn’t include any subtitles or extra audio tracks. The 3 minute clip was just 39MB but it did include subtitles and two audio tracks (English and Turkish).
3. Choose your preference for audio and subtitle tracks. two audio tracks are allowed, from whatever is available on the DVD. Just as usual, when viewing the final clip the audio tracks can be turned off and on as desired. Unfortunately, subtitles are actually burned directly onto the video so there is no way to toggle them on/off while viewing. If you wanted both you would have to create two separate files, one with and one without. Of course if you have them on, you can choose whatever language subtitle you want, as available on the DVD.
4. Click to start and it takes just a minute or two depending on the size of your selection. I couldn’t detect any difference in quality between the clip and the original.
There is another free* program for the Mac called Explicit which can take an AVI file and split it into smaller pieces. So if the final AVI you get from HandBrake still isn’t small enough, you can use Explicit to get exactly the part you want, going by the time markers. If you take a 2 minute segment out of a 7 minute chapter, you have to run split twice, first at the time marker for your beginning (you will end up with a part 1 and part 2) and then again on part 2 splitting at the end time marker. Your final selection will be part 1 of the first part 2, if that makes sense. I tried this and a 3.5 minute extract was just 25MB. But if you don’t have a Mac you can at least get it down to just a chapter with HandBrake.
I haven’t yet tried clipping VCDs because I don’t have any samples here at the moment to try but I will try soon as I know we also have lots of things in that format. Also there must be other software out there that can do a better job with the subtitles, but probably not free software.
Finally, I watched the completed AVI files with VLC, a free* video viewing program for Mac and Windows. Other players like Quicktime and Windows Media Player would probably play them as well.
I hope this is helpful for you! Also, don’t forget about existing short videos like video podcasts or youtube videos that can be used for ESL lessons. These days it is possible to download videos from YouTube and keep them on your laptop in case you are teaching in an internet-free-zone. I do this with a mac widget called MyTube (free!*) but I’m sure there are other applications for windows that do this too.
*I’m sure all the people that provide this terrific free software would love a donation if you feel so inclined.
sigh. my hard drive bit the dust, and of course I never got around to doing “real” backups. I have random files on random disks in random places, but i’ve lost a lot of stuff. i do still have all my mp3s and contacts from my iPod but the guy at the mac store erased all my photos (albeit just thumbnails) when he thought he was uploading them.
oh well.
since i’m starting with a brand new hard drive and essentially no data files, i thought it would be a good opportunity for some new approaches. for example, i opened a del.icio.us account for better bookmark management. i’m also thinking about some modified approaches to file organization. if anyone has any fun ideas for me to incorporate into a new sleeker data management system, i’m all ears.
It was a lovely two days in greenery and peace. We listened to birds singing rather than horns honking. We drank all the delicious spring water we wanted ücretsiz. We walked on old stone and natural turf rather than asphalt and concrete.
Our first afternoon at the pansiyon, a snack of tarhana çorbası.
Typical Cumalıkızık street, with cuuute puppy on the side.
More street pics of the village and buildings
Yes, there are really people and modern vehicles in this köy - and a nice view of the mountain peak in the background.
After wandering the village, gözleme and semaver çay at the pansiyon
The next morning, a delicious and filling kahvaltı before heading out again. Typical turkish breakfast includes cheese and olive plate, tomatoes and cucumbers, bread (in this case yummy çoban ekmeğı shepherd’s bread which is like sourdough) and jams, and eggs. Oh, and of course çay. We are well-sustained for our activities!
Wandering out of the village into the woods..
We find the spot where the village water is diverted from the mountain stream. An open man-made channel carries the water all the way down into the village.
More pics of the village. There’s stone everywhere! This house has been restored, but there are many that have not.
A final evening rest in the pine woods.
Details for possible travelers:
Cumalıkızık is on the outskirts of Bursa, in the valley below Uludağ. We used the following modes of transport to get there: dolmuş to Kartal, fast ferry from Kartal to Yalova (45 mins, 7ytl per person without an akbil), tour bus from Yalova to the Bursa bus terminal (less than an hour, 8ytl per person, the tour buses wait right outside the ferry terminal), Bursa city bus 91 or 91G out of town (2 ytl per person, about 30 mins because the bus stops a lot, find someone to ask where to get off for the minibus to Cumalıkızık), and finally a minibus into the village (1ytl per person, 15 minutes). We got lucky and met an old couple on the city bus that were also going in our direction (they lived in a nearby village to Cumalıkızık, but not a historical one) so they showed us where to get off the city bus and helped us to get on the minibus. They were very friendly and offered to let us stay at their house(!) but we politely declined.
The pansiyon we stayed at is called Mavi Boncuk and it is one of two in Cumalikizik, I don’t know the name of the other (but we peeked at it and decided we had made the better choice). The rate at Mavi Boncuk was 50ytl per person per night, including breakfast, which you can see from the picture was formidable. The rooms each have their own bathroom, and the outside gardens are great. There are also comfortable and historic-feeling indoor places to sit and/or eat. The first night we were there, we were the only guests, and around 9:30 pm all the workers went home leaving us to our own devices. The owner’s home is on the premises as well, so it wasn’t like nobody was there at all, but it felt like our own castle for the night!
All in all, a lovely 2-day respite from the hustle and noise of Istanbul.
My log cabin blanket is finally finished after a bit of delay due to distraction by other knitting projects. But happily the weather is still cool enough in the evenings that a cozy blanket is just the thing when sitting on the sofa.
showing its full 48×44″ dimensions…
The second strand of mohair is what makes it so soft and snuggly…
pretty colors!
I have a plan to make another one, this time with different colors and smaller squares seamed together, probably single strand for a crisper look. But i might not start it until late summer, or at least until some other projects are finished.
Pictures from Cumalıkızık coming soon….
