Chatterbox #343 – Goodbye 2025

Hello everyone and welcome back to QLips. You're listening to Chatterbox. The series where we have completely natural unedited conversations between native speakers and the series is designed for intermediate and advanced English learners. So if you are one of those people then you're in the right place and I think you'll enjoy our conversation. My name is Andrew and today I'll be joined by my co-host Anna and we are going to do a massive year in review

Style episode. We have 15 rapid fire questions to talk about and we're gonna cover everything from surprises that definitely weren't on our 2025 bingo cards to our biggest goals for the year ahead It's gonna be a fun conversation and we'll get started with it in just a sec But before we do, I want to give you a heads-up about something huge.

That's coming your way. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. And just a few days here are 2026. New Year, sale is starting.

If one of your resolutions for 2026 is to improve your English and hit the next level, then you'll want to be ready for this. For the first two weeks of January 2026, we'll be offering a 25% discount for yearly memberships or membership membership renewals. It's our only sale of the year and it's the best way to get full access to our interactive transcripts, our helpful study guides, our speaking classes, and all the tools

that you need to succeed at English for a super affordable price. So make a note in your calendars and get ready to grab that discount as soon as the sale goes live. Okay, and now let's get started with this episode. Here's my conversation with Anna Injoy. Hey Anna, how's it going? Hi, Andrew. I'm very well. Thank you, and yourself. I'm doing great. Anna, I think this is going to be a fun

conversation that we're about to have here. What we're going to do is look back on 2025 and we have 15 rapid fire questions that we're going to throw back and forth at each other just to sort of look back on the year and talk about what we got up to some of the highs and lows and in betweens of 2025. So I'm looking forward to hearing about your answers Anna and looking back and reviewing

my own year as well. So let's hop right in and get started. The first question on our list is what's something that happened in 2025 that definitely wasn't on your bingo card. Well, I'd have to say that in the family, in my family, of course, over the last couple of years, we've had a lot of weddings and we actually had another wedding this year, which was so lovely

and my uncle got remarried to a wonderful lady this year. So that definitely wasn't on my bingo card. I didn't know we didn't know that that was going to be coming up in the pipeline, but that was a really lovely event this year and it was so nice to have all the family together because I don't know about you and if you're listening, it's not very often that really all the

family are together in what room. So that is one of the nicest things about that wedding. So that was definitely something that's stuck out that wasn't on my bingo card for 2025. What about you and you? Nice. Yeah. It's very rare that the whole extended family can get together. I can't even remember the last time that happened in my family. Funnily enough Anna, I have romance related events too.

And this isn't about me, this isn't about my life, this is just 20, 25, this year in general. So I guess we can talk about our lives or just what happened in the world this year. But this one was definitely not on my Bingo card, and I think definitely not on a lot of of Canadians being go cards either,

and that is because the Canadian former Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, he came out and said that he is now in a relationship with the American Pop singer, Katy Perry. And this just blew my mind.

It's such a weird, like, couple, not like, when I stop and think about it, it's like, they kind of look good together, actually, to be honest with you, and it's all over the Canadian media,

and all over the internet. So, yeah, I just never expected this at all. And yeah, it's pretty funny. It definitely wasn't on my Bingo card.

From the outside, you never ever would put them together. So I absolutely agree that was something that I don't think was on anybody's Bingo card throughout the whole world.

That was definitely a bit shocking to be honest. Yeah, it's kept Justin Trudeau relevant, I guess. usually former prime ministers of Canada once they're finished with their term,

they sort of just say a law into the sunset, but not him, he's still all over the news. So, good for him, I suppose. All right, let's move on to the second question,

which is, what is one moment from this year that made you smile and maybe you have thought back on it several times? There's actually loads of different things

that happened this year because I journal, And one of the things I journal is what was a good thing that happened today. So I had quite a few examples, but I'm going to just mention one very briefly. I speak Spanish, that's my second language, if you guys don't know.

And, you know, I can speak and I can communicate. I'm not perfect, but I can definitely get by. And I remember I had an interaction in a coffee shop. A couple of months ago, I went in, it was a new coffee shop in the neighborhood, and I like

to go in and introduce myself and get to know the owners, because it wasn't a chain. it was an independent coffee shop, so I like to support it. I went in and for some reason, we struck up a conversation, me, the owner,

and another person that was in the shop. And we had this really nice conversation, we were talking about where we were from, everything in Spanish. And then at the end of the conversation,

they were like, you know, you speak Spanish really well. You have a really good accent. And it was just, I've never met them again, because I've never been back unfortunately,

But it was just such a nice random interaction with people that I didn't know in my second language. And they were just really kind and really welcoming.