Go on to the practice exerciseThis is an interactive story in which you are faced with a number of problems. You must decide between several courses of action at each stage. Every time you make a decision, you will find out the consequences of your choice. Remember to write down each action you take, and the consequences. You will need your notes to write a short narrative essay about your adventure.
You are an ESL student at the University of Westown, living in a rented apartment which is part of your landlady's house. Your landlady is making you very unhappy. She is always spying on you and reading your mail, and she is rude to you when you come home late or bring friends home. She won't allow you to have friends to stay, and she seems to know all your private business. What should you do?
You advertise for a roommate to share an apartment. Three people reply. One is from your home country -- in fact, from the same town as you. Another is from Slovakia, and speaks very good English, but has very little money and wears rather scruffy clothes. The third refuses to talk about home, but speaks some English, is very sexy and charming and drives a BMW.
You steal some of your landlady's mail and open it. You discover from her mail that she is in fact an illegal immigrant and should not be in the country at all.
You ignore the substances and the bulge in your roommate's jacket. Then the RCMP raid your apartment and discover that the fridge is full of plastic explosives and the apartment is full of illegal weapons. You are deported from the country as a suspected terrorist. You failed! Start again.
You move into an apartment with your new Slovakian friend, who is very kind and helpful. Your friend lends you lots of interesting books in English, and your conversations together really help to improve your speaking skills. You pass your English course with really high grades. Congratulations! You solved the problem.
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You arrange to see a student counsellor on campus, and explain the situation. She says she cannot help you directly, but she asks if you would like her to call the landlady and try to get her to change her behaviour.
You try to accept the situation, but your landlady's actions become more extreme. Now she won't let you bring anyone back to the house, and she insists that you come home by 8:30 each evening.
You call the police. They raid the apartment and arrest your roommate as an international terrorist. You are featured in the newspapers as a hero, and a policeman offers you an apartment in a house he owns. It's cheap and comfortable. Congratulations! You got lucky. Your problem is solved.
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You go to the landlady and try to blackmail her. Unfortunately, she has some very nasty friends, and in the middle of the night they kidnap you, murder you and dump your body in the harbour. You failed! Start again.
You start searching the city for another apartment, but there are few available, and most are too expensive or not attractive at all.
You consult a native-speaker friend for advice. She tells you that this kind of behaviour by a landlady is not normal or acceptable, and says that you should not put up with it.
You move into an apartment with the person from your hometown, and the two of you get on extremely well. You go to restaurants together to eat the food of your homeland, sit up talking all night, and go on weekend trips with other friends from your country. Unfortunately, you scarcely ever speak English, and your grades in class get worse and worse. You fail your English course and have to go home. You failed! Start again.
You move into a cheap apartment in Vista Towers downtown. The first day you are out of the apartment for the day, thieves break in, wreck the apartment and steal everything you have. You failed! Start again.
You tell your landlady that you will leave unless she changes her behaviour. She says no-one will dictate to her in her own house, and you can leave tomorrow if you wish -- there are plenty more students who would be happy to have your room.
You speak politely to your landlady and explain why you are unhappy. She says that her behaviour is perfectly normal, and you must learn to live with it.
You inform the police and the immigration authorities about the landlady's illegal status. They arrive and interview you. When you tell them that you got the information by stealing a private letter, they arrest you for interfering with the mail, and you are deported to your home country. You never find out what happened to your landlady. You failed! Start again.
You call your parents and ask for more money. Your dad writes back to say that he is sick of paying for your expensive foreign education, and you must quit your studies and come home immediately. He encloses an air ticket. You failed! Start again.
You move into an apartment with your new mysterious roommate. Soon after, you begin to notice strange things such as sticks of some strange plastic stuff in the refrigerator, and a large bulge under the jacket of your friend. At the same time, you learn that the friend from your hometown is still looking for a roommate.
The counsellor calls your landlady and tries to reason with her, but the landlady is really angry because you discussed the situation with someone else, and she tells you that you must leave at once unless you apologize, give her a free massage every night and pay an even higher rent.
You shout at your landlady and tell her she is behaving abominably. She says you are a rude person and you have only 24 hours to leave her house unless you apologize to her and pay 50% more rent.