Anything but Normal!

How one actor inspires normal people to do crazy things
挑戰國際尋寶遊戲！ - 看看這名演員如何激勵正常人做瘋狂的事.

Actor and Twitter celebrity Misha Collins has a unique sense of humor. Ask anyone who's participated in the annual, week-long scavenger hunt he organizes. Called GISHWHES, or Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen, the event involves completing tasks for points. The tasks range from heart-warming - giving hugs - to just plain weird - making clothes out of cheese!

The 15-member teams supply photos or videos to prove they've completed tasks. Teams must provide exactly what's requested to get full points. If the list calls for a photo with a real Oscar-winning actor, the team must somehow find one. And the actor must be holding the Oscar!

Truly great and international
In 2012 GISHWHES set the world record for largest media scavenger hunt with 14,580 participants. To date, GISHWHES participants have come from 94 countries. Often teammates never meet, communicating only over the internet. Sometimes having teammates from other countries is a good thing. For example, when a task calls for visiting a museum in Spain, it helps to have a teammate who resides there!

Up, up and away!
Some tasks are like silly science experiments. Participants in 2011 were challenged to tie helium balloons to a Christmas tree and make it float. One team's tree flew so high that it made the nightly news report! Apparently, the tree was never seem again.

Spreading kindness 
Kindness is a theme that gets repeated a lot during the event. In fact, kindness is something that GISHWHES has in common with Collins' charity - Random Acts. The goal of that charity is to change the world, one random act of kindness at a time. Last year, GISHWHES and Random Acts worked together to improve the life of a wounded U.S. veteran and his family.

Risking embarrassment
Sooner or later, team members need to risk looking silly. Last year list required participants to appear in public dressed as robots and pirates. Some participants say there's a benefit to all of this joking around. As one participant wrote on Facebook, "I was pushed out of my comfort zone, and I learned a lot about myself and my community."

Grammar Gym:
"To date, GISHWHES participants have come from 94 countries."
"to date" - currently, up to now.
To date, this scientist has written more research papers than anyone else from the research foundation.
The new manager wants a detailed report of all that we've accomplished to date.
To date, the brand new theme park has received over a million visitors already.
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Sooner or later, team members need to risk looking silly."
" to risk looking silly" -
'risk' - to make oneself be in a situation where there's a chance that something bad might happen.
" to risk + (verb-ing) "
Polly knew that if she took a second job she would risk not having time with her family.
Luis decided to report his coworker's dishonest behavior and risk getting called a snitch.


Vocabulary Tips:
sense of humor -幽默感。 'sense'-认知，意识，概念，感觉。
*Irene's sense of humor made her very popular at school.
sense of direction -方向感。
*Patrick lacks a sense of direction, so he gets lost a lot.
weird -奇怪的，怪异的，不可思议的。
*Hank's weird behavior caught everyone's attention.
*The weird family next door never talks to the neighbors.
participants -参与者，参赛人。
*All the participants are required to work in teams in order to win.
participate -参与
*We hope everyone can participate in our discussion.
reside (v) - 居住，住。"s" "z".
*The elderly people who reside in this building formed a chess club.
resident (n) -居民
*The residents of this community are mostly young couples.
apparently -明显地，显而易见的，显然。
*Apparently, the team has no chance of winning today since their strongest quarterback got hurt yesterday.
*Eric is apparently one of the most popular teachers at our school.
random -随机的，任意的。
*During a random inspection, we found that the sausages contained excessive chemicals.
*Random samples were picked for analysis.随机的样本。。。被那去分析。
randomly -随意地
*During the research, interviews were carried out with randomly selected subjects.随意地抽出来的对象作访谈。
pirate (n)-海盗
*The pirate ship in the film is an actual boat.
*Pirates used to roam this region years ago.
pirate (v) - 盗用，舍得，剽窃，仿冒。
*Many name brand products used to be pirated in Asia.
comfort zone -舒适的区域，安全舒适的范围。 "zone" -区域。
*Studying in a foreign country really forced me to step out of my comfort zone.
float - carry away by wind or water.
spreading a cold- pass on a cold to other people, and other people pass on to more people
spread like wildfire -passing on very quickly, everyone knows in second.
kindness - do something make other people's life easy.
roam -区域，横行。
embarrassing moment - a time that make you feel bad and embarrassing.
sooner or later - some event will happen in future, maybe right away, maybe take a while.
benefit- good side of something.
range from...to....- all kind of something, only able to list few.
just plain ...- simply, nothing else.
anything but something (normal) -anything but not do certain thing (normal).
week-long (adj), year-long, month-long, ..- refer to time frame.

Language Tips:
Some people suffer from acrophobia, or the fear of heights.
acrophobia -惧高症（学名）
or -或者，还是，此指“换言之”，常出现在深奥少见的字的字句中，用“or ”来加以解释前面句中提到的深奥少见的字含意。
GISHWHES or Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World has Ever Seen.
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attend/participate- 参加。
attend a class -只是来上课，没有任何参与。not missing any class.
participate in class -动态的参与课堂上的活动。involve and active in class.
attend -静态的参与，出席。
participant -参与者，参赛者。
attendee -出席者。
attendant -服务员。
flight attendant -空服员。
gas station attendant -汽车加油站的服务员。



Notes taking of Studioclassroom