At 7:00 a.m., the scream from my alarm clock forced me to open my eyes. The room was in gloom. It was raining outside. cheap Inflatable Slide How comfortable it would be if I could stay in my bed for the whole day, listening the sound of rain and enjoying laziness. But it was time to get up to prepare breakfast for my husband. He was supposed to attend an important seminar at 8:00. I spent 5 minutes pushing me into the kitchen. Who knows the terrible day began at this moment.
When I turned on the tap, there was no water out. Staring at the tap, I was confused. Suddenly, I remembered the hateful notice posted on the building's entrance about a temporary water outage in the morning. I forgot it because of returning late from a birthday party. I searched all the water containers in the kitchen. There was no sufficient water for my husband's clean, least cooking food. It was 7:20. I have no time to waste (time was running out). I called a friend living in next dormitory building to me for some water. Under her help, my husband finally had gone for the meeting on time. Sighs, I thought that I could go to bed to continue my dream.
In the dark and silent bedroom, I was quickly back in my dream of last night- fighting against a mosquito, which had been buzzing around me and I tried unsuccessfully to hit it again and again. The mosquito was so shrewd and acute to escape, but I finally won the fight. All of sudden, I was waked by furious knocks at my door. I rushed to get the door. I slipped down and hit the ground heavily. The horrible pain in my right leg and ankle attacked me over all so that I couldn’t stand up and move any more. At this moment, I was shocked by a horrible screen. I was lying in water. All rooms were in water, 2 inches deep, like a swimming pool. Hearing the sounds from taps, I realized that I left the taps on when I went to bed. What a stupid mistake! My leg hurts liked hell, but I tried to move bit by bit to the door. I open the door before I was totally exhausted. My neighbor switched off all taps and called the ambulance. In hospital, the X-ray showed that my leg was broken. Tears continuously ran down. I felt painful and lonely. I couldn't reach my husband, for he stopped his cellular phone during the meeting. At supper time, I finally saw him in the hospital. So I prayed along with my husband to end the unlucky day soon.
2009年12月20日星期日
Love with English
The impact that English has to our life is beyond words. It is one of the major courses to kids ever since they start their primary schools. In some areas, sale Inflatable Arch teachers even get toddlers fumbling with A.B.C in kindergartens. With Olympics being held in Beijing in 2008 and World Exposition in Shanghai 2010, English spree seems not going to die out very soon but will continue to grow.
To some people, it’s a big release, when seeing themselves graduate from the university and they don’t need to touch English anymore. Kiss you, bye-bye, someone exclaimed. While to some others, miserable is how they describe themselves. After years and years of study, some people, including me, still want continue their “love” with English. “I can’t just throw it away as I do with a textbook,” someone said here in this BBS. So, what to do then?
Well, don’t feel depressed. You are more than right to continue your “love” with English. How to do it? Well, easy! Just treat it as a hobby. If you look at the people around you, you will see almost all of them have hobbies. Some of them like sports, some like shopping, some enjoy playing majian… The list can go on and on. So, what’s wrong to treat it as your hobby? I know this sounds very bizarre to many people, but who cares.
Once we decide what our hobby is, it’s vital important that we need to take a good look at this particular “hobby”. As we all know, it consists of four major components – listening, speaking, reading and writing. It’s almost not practical to try to be perfect with all these four pillars. (Remember, I define it as a hobby, not a career.) So, ask yourself what you really want to pursue. If you are fond of translation, go for it. If you choose reading, well, why not?
As this hobby is quite different from others, we should therefore, need to work out a plan to make the hobby more practical. To me, this hobby requires faith, action and patience. Let’s talk about faith first. I trust you all agree with me that confidence and faith on ourselves should be the first step when you start our journey. This is more like “love-taking”. If you don’t think you can fall in love with a boy or a girl, what’s the point to try it. After all, you are just wasting your time.
Now, once you have the confidence, the trust you have on yourself. What need to be done next is to work out a plan. (Of course, you must make sure that you will follow it). Let’s say, you want to “fall in love” with translation. What you may choose to do is to go to a library and pick your “girl/boy friend”, that is the book that you want to “fall in love”. As there are many excellent Chinese versions being translated already, it’s quite easy to compare the work that you have done against what others have tried.
To some people, it’s a big release, when seeing themselves graduate from the university and they don’t need to touch English anymore. Kiss you, bye-bye, someone exclaimed. While to some others, miserable is how they describe themselves. After years and years of study, some people, including me, still want continue their “love” with English. “I can’t just throw it away as I do with a textbook,” someone said here in this BBS. So, what to do then?
Well, don’t feel depressed. You are more than right to continue your “love” with English. How to do it? Well, easy! Just treat it as a hobby. If you look at the people around you, you will see almost all of them have hobbies. Some of them like sports, some like shopping, some enjoy playing majian… The list can go on and on. So, what’s wrong to treat it as your hobby? I know this sounds very bizarre to many people, but who cares.
Once we decide what our hobby is, it’s vital important that we need to take a good look at this particular “hobby”. As we all know, it consists of four major components – listening, speaking, reading and writing. It’s almost not practical to try to be perfect with all these four pillars. (Remember, I define it as a hobby, not a career.) So, ask yourself what you really want to pursue. If you are fond of translation, go for it. If you choose reading, well, why not?
As this hobby is quite different from others, we should therefore, need to work out a plan to make the hobby more practical. To me, this hobby requires faith, action and patience. Let’s talk about faith first. I trust you all agree with me that confidence and faith on ourselves should be the first step when you start our journey. This is more like “love-taking”. If you don’t think you can fall in love with a boy or a girl, what’s the point to try it. After all, you are just wasting your time.
Now, once you have the confidence, the trust you have on yourself. What need to be done next is to work out a plan. (Of course, you must make sure that you will follow it). Let’s say, you want to “fall in love” with translation. What you may choose to do is to go to a library and pick your “girl/boy friend”, that is the book that you want to “fall in love”. As there are many excellent Chinese versions being translated already, it’s quite easy to compare the work that you have done against what others have tried.
About Chatting in English
Chatting with friends online in English is an approach to enjoying the delight brought by using a foreign language as a real tool of communication. But I don't think it is the best way to improve our English
Firstly, china Inflatable Slide as you know, when you are chatting, you have no time and energy to pay attention to the grammar and it is common to spell words in wrong ways, and NO teacher will check and correct errors for you. So if you overlook such kind of mistakes and fall into the habit of spelling and writing without thinking carefully, you will most likely forget the Standard English and totally be confused eventually. Here, I take the liberty to suggest that you should remember to confirm what you have ‘said’ online as soon as possible by turning to your dictionaries and grammar books after being offline.
Secondly, during the spell of chatting, you have to answer the same questions such as 'where are u from', 'how old are u' etc. patiently in order to show your politeness. And I don’t think they are good questions, even it is not too much to say they are dull and tasteless. In other words, it will make both you and your friend feel tiresome soon. As a result, the atmosphere of chatting will be frozen. I suggest you should switch your topic wisely at that time instantly. Otherwise, both of you will be in low spirit, let alone learn something from each other and improve your English level. The only benefit, I guess, you can get from it is killing your precious time in an expensive way.
When it comes to talking about the fee spent for being online, I think it is still too high to be accepted by most students and unfortunately the greater proportion of chatters (who like chatting in English) are students who are supported by parents. And each penny is drenched in parents' sweat.
Firstly, china Inflatable Slide as you know, when you are chatting, you have no time and energy to pay attention to the grammar and it is common to spell words in wrong ways, and NO teacher will check and correct errors for you. So if you overlook such kind of mistakes and fall into the habit of spelling and writing without thinking carefully, you will most likely forget the Standard English and totally be confused eventually. Here, I take the liberty to suggest that you should remember to confirm what you have ‘said’ online as soon as possible by turning to your dictionaries and grammar books after being offline.
Secondly, during the spell of chatting, you have to answer the same questions such as 'where are u from', 'how old are u' etc. patiently in order to show your politeness. And I don’t think they are good questions, even it is not too much to say they are dull and tasteless. In other words, it will make both you and your friend feel tiresome soon. As a result, the atmosphere of chatting will be frozen. I suggest you should switch your topic wisely at that time instantly. Otherwise, both of you will be in low spirit, let alone learn something from each other and improve your English level. The only benefit, I guess, you can get from it is killing your precious time in an expensive way.
When it comes to talking about the fee spent for being online, I think it is still too high to be accepted by most students and unfortunately the greater proportion of chatters (who like chatting in English) are students who are supported by parents. And each penny is drenched in parents' sweat.
2009年12月18日星期五
Another Interpretation of Friendship
Never before had I imagined that one day I should have the opportunity to live with so many girls and yet never before had I been confident in myself that I would be able to get along with them harmoniously for four years. The very act of approaching my new dormitory made me frightened and bewildered. With what kind of expression should I face them? kid Air Dancer Would a single “hi” be proper? Would they accept such a plain girl like me? All the questions haunted my mind. Harboring such a complex and uncertain emotion I pushed the door open.
I was about to greet my new roommates, but suddenly I felt that I had a lump in my throat. They did not appear to have the same preoccupations that I had. They just coped with their own businesses, sorting out their clothes, and making arrangements for their future life. Thus tranquility became the dominant note in the dormitory.
To my surprise, facing such a situation, I did not feel a sense of disappointment. On the contrary, I even felt a little bit happy, since I had been long expecting a tranquil environment. With the elapsing of time, we got to know each other deeper. I was pleased to find that in deep soul we all belonged to the same pattern----reserved as we were, we all set high our horizons and never stopped pursuing our dreams. Somehow I often thought that it was just the arrangement of the fate that brought us together, since we seemed so alike.
However, not long before this kind of harmony was disturbed by my own upset of mind. During that period, because of my working tasks, each day I had to stay out for a long time, unable to communicate and exchange ideas with my roommates. When I was engulfed in the state of confusion and misery caused by the heavy burdens, I found no one to turn to help. What I was concerned about seemed to have nothing to do with them and what they were doing and talking about seemed so far away from me. I often dreamed that they were on top of a hill, overlooking me with eyes filled with incomprehension. While I, standing at the foot of the hill, tried my utmost to reach them, only to be left in despair. How I wished that they could say something even nonsensical to me! How I wished that they could be another type of people with a clear demarcation between what to hate and what to love. However, it was impractical, since they were destined to belong to the group that seemed indifferent to everything. While one incident changed my mind and made me cherish this kind of calm better and more confident in our friendship.
One day when I was leaving the teachers’ office, it was already in deep night. The surroundings were in complete silence and frightening darkness. Even though I was so reluctant to go to that cold world, my feet were out of control and they went directly to my dormitory. At the dormitory gate, I was startled to find that there still existed a little light glimmering in the darkness, so faint but yet so clear. In that setting, it seemed so unique and powerful. Just in the guidance of the light, I went to the room without any obstacles. All of my roommates had been in sound sleep, leaving the world in calm and the rosy light. Unconsciously tears rolled down my cheeks, and those were tears of happiness and gratitude. “Just because someone doesn’t love the way you want them to, doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have.” This was a belief that I had borne in mind for a long time, but not until then had I understood the true meaning of it.
I was about to greet my new roommates, but suddenly I felt that I had a lump in my throat. They did not appear to have the same preoccupations that I had. They just coped with their own businesses, sorting out their clothes, and making arrangements for their future life. Thus tranquility became the dominant note in the dormitory.
To my surprise, facing such a situation, I did not feel a sense of disappointment. On the contrary, I even felt a little bit happy, since I had been long expecting a tranquil environment. With the elapsing of time, we got to know each other deeper. I was pleased to find that in deep soul we all belonged to the same pattern----reserved as we were, we all set high our horizons and never stopped pursuing our dreams. Somehow I often thought that it was just the arrangement of the fate that brought us together, since we seemed so alike.
However, not long before this kind of harmony was disturbed by my own upset of mind. During that period, because of my working tasks, each day I had to stay out for a long time, unable to communicate and exchange ideas with my roommates. When I was engulfed in the state of confusion and misery caused by the heavy burdens, I found no one to turn to help. What I was concerned about seemed to have nothing to do with them and what they were doing and talking about seemed so far away from me. I often dreamed that they were on top of a hill, overlooking me with eyes filled with incomprehension. While I, standing at the foot of the hill, tried my utmost to reach them, only to be left in despair. How I wished that they could say something even nonsensical to me! How I wished that they could be another type of people with a clear demarcation between what to hate and what to love. However, it was impractical, since they were destined to belong to the group that seemed indifferent to everything. While one incident changed my mind and made me cherish this kind of calm better and more confident in our friendship.
One day when I was leaving the teachers’ office, it was already in deep night. The surroundings were in complete silence and frightening darkness. Even though I was so reluctant to go to that cold world, my feet were out of control and they went directly to my dormitory. At the dormitory gate, I was startled to find that there still existed a little light glimmering in the darkness, so faint but yet so clear. In that setting, it seemed so unique and powerful. Just in the guidance of the light, I went to the room without any obstacles. All of my roommates had been in sound sleep, leaving the world in calm and the rosy light. Unconsciously tears rolled down my cheeks, and those were tears of happiness and gratitude. “Just because someone doesn’t love the way you want them to, doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have.” This was a belief that I had borne in mind for a long time, but not until then had I understood the true meaning of it.
Between the Sea and the Sky
I don’t know why I like water so much. I like drinking water. adult Inflatable Obstacle I like the sea. I like any places with water. So I doubt whether I was a fish or not in my previous generation.
Our school is just located on the sea side, which makes me feel comfortable. Whenever I get the free time, I’d like to go to the sea shore, sometimes with my friends while most of the time just by myself. I like sitting on the sand quietly and listening to the songs sang by the sea.
One of my friends used to ask me whether I had ever observed what the sea looked like on a clear day. I didn’t answer him directly then. But he told me that as far as we could see, the sea and the sky joined together and formed a beautiful arc at the end of our sight. They seemed to be together in the end. While as a matter of fact, there was still a far distance between them, like poles apart. They can’t be together, never ever.
I felt so sorry when heard this, because I knew he was giving me some hint about our relationship. I didn’t know what to say about this. I just said that: “Didn’t you tend to get a bit too sentimental? It meant nothing at all but a natural phenomenon.”
Sometimes I don’t like my way of dealing with things, especially about emotion. I always choose to run away from the eyes, the love and anything else.
Our school is just located on the sea side, which makes me feel comfortable. Whenever I get the free time, I’d like to go to the sea shore, sometimes with my friends while most of the time just by myself. I like sitting on the sand quietly and listening to the songs sang by the sea.
One of my friends used to ask me whether I had ever observed what the sea looked like on a clear day. I didn’t answer him directly then. But he told me that as far as we could see, the sea and the sky joined together and formed a beautiful arc at the end of our sight. They seemed to be together in the end. While as a matter of fact, there was still a far distance between them, like poles apart. They can’t be together, never ever.
I felt so sorry when heard this, because I knew he was giving me some hint about our relationship. I didn’t know what to say about this. I just said that: “Didn’t you tend to get a bit too sentimental? It meant nothing at all but a natural phenomenon.”
Sometimes I don’t like my way of dealing with things, especially about emotion. I always choose to run away from the eyes, the love and anything else.
2009年12月17日星期四
Wishing upon a Star
The society is filled up with rushing materials and rushing people. You can know someone only by a click of the key,giant Inflatable Advertising and it is probable that he or she disappears just one second later. You may feel that the world is too unrealistic, not being able to distinguish between the reality and the illusion. No wonder that a professor would throw himself down the tall building a few days ago, with no more attachment to the world he was living in. Some people can find excitement and satisfaction in the world, though maybe with nearly unbearable pressure and unbelievable effort; while some cannot find a clue that can encourage them to go on, so they give up and choose to leave the world behind. People hurry to and fro to fight for their bright future, losing gradually their feelings and their gratitude for others. I would be very sad when I become suspicious of my friendship with one who, I once believe, could be my good friend. So here, in this article, I would like to ask people to cherish friendship.
I often hear people say that friends can be very important and even just a bit less important than parents. It seems that I agree with this saying. But I don’t know whether it is because I am too vulnerable or what else, I sometimes would doubt its reasonableness. I myself regard friendship as nourishment that cannot be eliminated from life, so I like to make friends with persons who, I think, can be loyal and faithful to me. I would be always ready to help my friends and without sparing any effort I would help them accomplish something. Although there was some time when I could not be able to help, I would not regret because I had tried with all my strength, even though I would feel very sorry for that. Sometimes I really have the sympathy that human beings are indeed creatures full of contradictions. Maybe that is the right answer to the disease that haunts human beings----Schizophrenia. I love my friends and learn to respect them. However, I found now and then I would be jealous. Whenever this happened, I would scold myself and could not help pondering whether I was a worthy and loyal friend to my friends. When I feel lonely, I turn to my friends, and they are my loyal listeners. Sometimes I can receive a letter or a call from my friends, they complain to me about their sorrows and troubles. At that time, I would be sincerely listening and sympathize with them from my deep heart. And for sure, we always share happiness with each other. Maybe I can find an excuse for my jealousy. That is everyone wants to make a progress, so do I. I want to keep pace with my friends. Jealous as I am sometimes, I am honest and would not hurt my friends on any occasion. I have already entered into the society for one and a half year. For the first year, one of my workmates and I were quite close to each other. And gradually we became good friends. Now we are in different cities, but I miss her very much. I think I am loyal to her all the same. But she once cheated me. For a long time after that I was pondering whether she treated me as a good friend. Finally I successfully persuaded myself into believing that it was just a white lie. We can be friends just like before even though now we are separated in two different cities. I would always think back over our conversations, our united effort of solving problems and the heartfelt suggestions we gave to each other. Both of us have left the place where we once worked together. Now the surrounding and the people around me are totally new. I do not know clearly whether I can find a friend like her, and whether we can cherish our friendship while the time flying away. I hope our friendship can survive everything. As a girl, I cannot deny my being sentimental sometimes. I think a lot when I am alone. If possible, I would wish upon a star that all my friends can be happy and healthy.
I often hear people say that friends can be very important and even just a bit less important than parents. It seems that I agree with this saying. But I don’t know whether it is because I am too vulnerable or what else, I sometimes would doubt its reasonableness. I myself regard friendship as nourishment that cannot be eliminated from life, so I like to make friends with persons who, I think, can be loyal and faithful to me. I would be always ready to help my friends and without sparing any effort I would help them accomplish something. Although there was some time when I could not be able to help, I would not regret because I had tried with all my strength, even though I would feel very sorry for that. Sometimes I really have the sympathy that human beings are indeed creatures full of contradictions. Maybe that is the right answer to the disease that haunts human beings----Schizophrenia. I love my friends and learn to respect them. However, I found now and then I would be jealous. Whenever this happened, I would scold myself and could not help pondering whether I was a worthy and loyal friend to my friends. When I feel lonely, I turn to my friends, and they are my loyal listeners. Sometimes I can receive a letter or a call from my friends, they complain to me about their sorrows and troubles. At that time, I would be sincerely listening and sympathize with them from my deep heart. And for sure, we always share happiness with each other. Maybe I can find an excuse for my jealousy. That is everyone wants to make a progress, so do I. I want to keep pace with my friends. Jealous as I am sometimes, I am honest and would not hurt my friends on any occasion. I have already entered into the society for one and a half year. For the first year, one of my workmates and I were quite close to each other. And gradually we became good friends. Now we are in different cities, but I miss her very much. I think I am loyal to her all the same. But she once cheated me. For a long time after that I was pondering whether she treated me as a good friend. Finally I successfully persuaded myself into believing that it was just a white lie. We can be friends just like before even though now we are separated in two different cities. I would always think back over our conversations, our united effort of solving problems and the heartfelt suggestions we gave to each other. Both of us have left the place where we once worked together. Now the surrounding and the people around me are totally new. I do not know clearly whether I can find a friend like her, and whether we can cherish our friendship while the time flying away. I hope our friendship can survive everything. As a girl, I cannot deny my being sentimental sometimes. I think a lot when I am alone. If possible, I would wish upon a star that all my friends can be happy and healthy.
To My Love
We met hundreds of times, hundreds of times I was fascinated by you, my love. The modest size of your forehead appears to be so beautiful.Inflatable Toys house The pair of long and slender willow-shaped eyebrows symbolize that you are elegant, modest and approachable. Under the eyebrows is the pair of eyes which are so limpid that it feels like the blue sky and white clouds can be seen inside. Your noble nose, which seems to be made under the principle of the Golden Section in general, matchs your face perfectly, lets people feel pleasant. On both sides of it lies the delicate pink cheeks. The following is your thickness of medium red lips which seems tantalizing. As you smile with joy, the red lips slightly rise up, revealing the neat white teeth. It seems to me that those beautiful words about lips and teeth are completely made for you only, sweetheart. The underneath of your red lips is the sharp-rounded chin. And the neck below the chin is so slender and fair! Besides, there's a head of long silky hair hangs down to your shoulders, much like a black waterfall pouring down. The feeling, when your long hair is flowing in the wind and sweeping in my face, is so smooth that i can enjoy a temporary inner peace. Behind the long hair is that pair of well built fan-shaped ears. They are in attractive grace in the shade of beautiful earrings.
You are the outstanding person made by God with slender stature, long arms of the white, slim legs of the white and slender soft fingers. Every part of your body is made in proportion, not a little unnecessary.
You seem like a perfect statue which is full of moisture when you are at the static condition. Never will I dare to touch you with my rough fingers for fear that even the most gentle pinch will injure your skin. I would rather just watch you quietly, and this is enough for me, my darling.
When you are happy, you would like to dance in breezes. At that moment, it appears to me that you are a dancing butterfly that let me be in a stew. However, sincerly I’m afraid that you will really fly away from me like a butterfly. In any case I will not let you be trapped in a cage, my love! No matter where you fly, I will find you, accompany you and protect you, my dear!
When you are sad, your eyebrows cross together and your melancholy eyes are blurred by tears. Then the blue sky and the white clouds just disappear, my love. My love, I’m afraid that you are sad and worried, it is more uncomfortable than my chest is pierced by thousands of swords. If possible, my love, I am willing to paying all what I have to exchange for all the happinss for you.
You are the outstanding person made by God with slender stature, long arms of the white, slim legs of the white and slender soft fingers. Every part of your body is made in proportion, not a little unnecessary.
You seem like a perfect statue which is full of moisture when you are at the static condition. Never will I dare to touch you with my rough fingers for fear that even the most gentle pinch will injure your skin. I would rather just watch you quietly, and this is enough for me, my darling.
When you are happy, you would like to dance in breezes. At that moment, it appears to me that you are a dancing butterfly that let me be in a stew. However, sincerly I’m afraid that you will really fly away from me like a butterfly. In any case I will not let you be trapped in a cage, my love! No matter where you fly, I will find you, accompany you and protect you, my dear!
When you are sad, your eyebrows cross together and your melancholy eyes are blurred by tears. Then the blue sky and the white clouds just disappear, my love. My love, I’m afraid that you are sad and worried, it is more uncomfortable than my chest is pierced by thousands of swords. If possible, my love, I am willing to paying all what I have to exchange for all the happinss for you.
2009年12月16日星期三
Competitive Sports Build Character
Education is an important theme in youth athletics in the US. Young kids, energetic, rambunctious, cooped up in class,outdoor Inflatable Arch yearn for the relative freedom of the football field, the basketball court, the baseball diamond. They long to kick and throw things and tackle each other, and the fields of organized play offer a place in which to act out these impulses. Kids are basically encouraged, after all, to beat each other up on the football field. Yet for allthe chaos, adult guidance and supervision are never far off, and time spent on the athletic fields is meant to be productive. Conscientious coaches seek to impart lessons in teamwork, self-sacrifice, competition, gracious winning and losing. Teachers at least want their pupils worn out so they'll sit still in reading class.
By the time children start competing for spots on junior high soccer teams or tennis squads, the kid gloves have come offto some extent. The athletic fields become less a place to learn about soft values like teamwork than about hard self-discipline and competition. Competitiveness, after all, is prized highly by Americans, perhaps more so than by other peoples. For a child, being cut from the hockey team or denied a spot on the swimming is a grave disappointment - and perhaps an opportunity for emotional or spiritual growth.
High school basketball or football teams are placesswheresthe ethos of competition is given still stronger emphasis. Although high school coaches still consider themselves educators, the sports they oversee are not simple extensions of the classroom. They are important social institutions, for football games bring people together. In much of the US they are eventsswheresyoung people and their elders mingle and see how the community is evolving.
For the best players, the progression from little league to junior high to high school leads to a scholarship at a big-name college and maybe, one day, a shot at the pros. College athletes are ostensibly student-athletes, an ideal that suggests a balance between the intellectual rigors of the university and the physical rigors of the playing field. The reality is skewed heavily in favor of athletics. One would be hard-pressedto show that major US college sports are about education. Coaches require far too much of players' time to be truly concerned with anything other than performance in sport. Too often, the players they recruit seem to care little about school themselves.
This was not always the case. Universities - Princeton, Harvard, Rutgers, Yale - were the birthplaces of American football and baseball; education - the formation of "character" - was an important part of what those coaches and players thought they were achieving. In 1913, when football was almost outlawed in the US, the game's most prominent figures traveled to Washington and argued successfully that football was an essential part of the campus experience and that the nation would be robbed of its boldest young men, its best potential leaders, if the game were banned.
By the time children start competing for spots on junior high soccer teams or tennis squads, the kid gloves have come offto some extent. The athletic fields become less a place to learn about soft values like teamwork than about hard self-discipline and competition. Competitiveness, after all, is prized highly by Americans, perhaps more so than by other peoples. For a child, being cut from the hockey team or denied a spot on the swimming is a grave disappointment - and perhaps an opportunity for emotional or spiritual growth.
High school basketball or football teams are placesswheresthe ethos of competition is given still stronger emphasis. Although high school coaches still consider themselves educators, the sports they oversee are not simple extensions of the classroom. They are important social institutions, for football games bring people together. In much of the US they are eventsswheresyoung people and their elders mingle and see how the community is evolving.
For the best players, the progression from little league to junior high to high school leads to a scholarship at a big-name college and maybe, one day, a shot at the pros. College athletes are ostensibly student-athletes, an ideal that suggests a balance between the intellectual rigors of the university and the physical rigors of the playing field. The reality is skewed heavily in favor of athletics. One would be hard-pressedto show that major US college sports are about education. Coaches require far too much of players' time to be truly concerned with anything other than performance in sport. Too often, the players they recruit seem to care little about school themselves.
This was not always the case. Universities - Princeton, Harvard, Rutgers, Yale - were the birthplaces of American football and baseball; education - the formation of "character" - was an important part of what those coaches and players thought they were achieving. In 1913, when football was almost outlawed in the US, the game's most prominent figures traveled to Washington and argued successfully that football was an essential part of the campus experience and that the nation would be robbed of its boldest young men, its best potential leaders, if the game were banned.
"Kung Fu" with a Kangaroo
I never found out how long I had been asleep. It seemed that a lot had happened while I was sleeping. One thing that I did find out in my time in Mr. Borman's class, fall asleep and you are missing a lot. I don't think he ever adult Inflatable Slide "caught" me sleeping once. Though he must have known, I was always right under his nose. He probably didn't care and knew that you were missing a reenactment of a good story while your mind was off in dream world. That is exactly what happened that day.
From what I gathered from my friends, Mr. Borman had been talking all day about the lesson then triggered by some question posed by a student, Mr. Borman had launched himselfsintosanother one of his stories.
Though I didn't catch that one, I did hear the next two that he told that same day. It seemed that the conversation had changed from bacteria and cellular functions to how Mr. Borman got beat up by a kangaroo when he went down to Australia.
Mr. Borman: "So we went down to this little animal care center, and there were guys here giving a tour of the place. We went through the tour and saw a bunch of Australian wildlife and crap like that. Then we came to the end of the tour. Has anyone ever seen or heard of a Kangaroo fighting? Yeah, you have? You know how they fight? They don't have the instinct or the teeth to be very effective at biting, but these suckers, man, I'm tellin ya, they can punch! Well the demonstration was this Kangaroo that has been trained to box. The tour leaders were lookin for someone to come down and box with the Kangaroo. No, I swear. Well, it seemed I hadn't had my share of humility for the day and said, "What the hell, I'll kick that thing's ass!" So I walked down there, and I was kinda getting in sort of an Ali position. Now at this point I felt pretty retarded. I was standing in front of about 20 or so people all hoping that this kangaroo kicks my ass. Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. I stared that thing in the face, you know, trying to psyche it out a bit. The damn thing took a look at me and…BAM! Got me right across the cheek. Knocked me out cold! The damn tour leaders couldn't believe it, my wife said they called the ambulance and I was taken to a friggin hospital. So I was sitting in the emergency room and the doctor came in and said,‘So, what happened to you?' I looked him in the eye and tried to tell him with a straight face that I got my ass whooped by a damn Kangaroo!"
From what I gathered from my friends, Mr. Borman had been talking all day about the lesson then triggered by some question posed by a student, Mr. Borman had launched himselfsintosanother one of his stories.
Though I didn't catch that one, I did hear the next two that he told that same day. It seemed that the conversation had changed from bacteria and cellular functions to how Mr. Borman got beat up by a kangaroo when he went down to Australia.
Mr. Borman: "So we went down to this little animal care center, and there were guys here giving a tour of the place. We went through the tour and saw a bunch of Australian wildlife and crap like that. Then we came to the end of the tour. Has anyone ever seen or heard of a Kangaroo fighting? Yeah, you have? You know how they fight? They don't have the instinct or the teeth to be very effective at biting, but these suckers, man, I'm tellin ya, they can punch! Well the demonstration was this Kangaroo that has been trained to box. The tour leaders were lookin for someone to come down and box with the Kangaroo. No, I swear. Well, it seemed I hadn't had my share of humility for the day and said, "What the hell, I'll kick that thing's ass!" So I walked down there, and I was kinda getting in sort of an Ali position. Now at this point I felt pretty retarded. I was standing in front of about 20 or so people all hoping that this kangaroo kicks my ass. Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. I stared that thing in the face, you know, trying to psyche it out a bit. The damn thing took a look at me and…BAM! Got me right across the cheek. Knocked me out cold! The damn tour leaders couldn't believe it, my wife said they called the ambulance and I was taken to a friggin hospital. So I was sitting in the emergency room and the doctor came in and said,‘So, what happened to you?' I looked him in the eye and tried to tell him with a straight face that I got my ass whooped by a damn Kangaroo!"
2009年12月15日星期二
And it
We tried so hard to make things better for our kids that we made them worse. For my grandchildren, I d know better. yard Inflatable Advertising
I'd really like for them to know about hand-me-down clothes and home-made ice cream and leftover meatloaf. I really would.
My cherished grandson, I hope you learn humility by surviving failure and that you learn to be honest even when no one is looking.
I hope you learn to make your bed and mow the lawn and wash the car-and I hope nobody gives you a brand-new car when you are sixteen.
It will be good if at least one time you can see a baby calf born, and you have a good friend to be with you if you ever have to put your old dog to sleep.
I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you believe in.
I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother. And it is all right to draw a line down the middle of the room, but when he wants to crawl under the covers with you because he s scared, I hope you ll let him.
And when you want to see a Disney movie and your kid brother wants to tag along, I hope you take him.
I hope you have to walk uphill with your friends and that you live in a town where you can do it safely.
If you want a slingshot, I hope your father teaches you how to make one instead of buying one. I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books, and when you learn to use computers, you also learn how to add and subtract in your head.
I hope you get razzed by friends when you have your first crush on a girl, and that when you talk back to your mother you learn what Ivory soap tastes like.
May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand on the stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole.
I hope you get sick when someone blows smoke in your face. I don t care if you try beer once, but I hope you won t like it. And if a friend offers you a joint or any drugs, I hope you are smart enough to realize that person is not your friend.
I'd really like for them to know about hand-me-down clothes and home-made ice cream and leftover meatloaf. I really would.
My cherished grandson, I hope you learn humility by surviving failure and that you learn to be honest even when no one is looking.
I hope you learn to make your bed and mow the lawn and wash the car-and I hope nobody gives you a brand-new car when you are sixteen.
It will be good if at least one time you can see a baby calf born, and you have a good friend to be with you if you ever have to put your old dog to sleep.
I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you believe in.
I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother. And it is all right to draw a line down the middle of the room, but when he wants to crawl under the covers with you because he s scared, I hope you ll let him.
And when you want to see a Disney movie and your kid brother wants to tag along, I hope you take him.
I hope you have to walk uphill with your friends and that you live in a town where you can do it safely.
If you want a slingshot, I hope your father teaches you how to make one instead of buying one. I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books, and when you learn to use computers, you also learn how to add and subtract in your head.
I hope you get razzed by friends when you have your first crush on a girl, and that when you talk back to your mother you learn what Ivory soap tastes like.
May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand on the stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole.
I hope you get sick when someone blows smoke in your face. I don t care if you try beer once, but I hope you won t like it. And if a friend offers you a joint or any drugs, I hope you are smart enough to realize that person is not your friend.
Russian Embassy
Inside the Russian Embassy in London a KGB colonel puffed a cigarette as he read the handwritten note for the third time. giant Inflatable Toys There was no need for the writer to express regret, he though. Correcting this problem would be easy. He would do that in a moment. The thought of it caused a grim smile to appear and joy to his heart. But he pushed away those thoughts and turned his attention to a framed photograph on his desk. His wife was beautiful, he told himself as he remembered the day they were married. That was forty-three years ago, and it had been the proudest and happiest day of his life.What had happened to all that time? Why had it passed so quickly, and why hadn't he spent more of it with her? Why hadn't he held her close and told her more often that he loved her? He cursed himself as a tear came from the corner of his eye, ran down his cheek, then dropped onto the note. He stiffened and wiped his face with the back of his hand. There was no need for remorse or regret, he told himself. In a few moments he would join her and at that time would express his undying love and devotion.After setting the note ablaze he dropped it into an ashtray and watched it burn. For a time the names cast moving shadows on the walls of the darkened room, then they nickered and died out. The colonel dropped the cigarette to the floor and ground it out with his heel, then clutched the photograph to his breast, removed a pistol from his pocket, placed the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger. In the ashtray a small portion of the note remained. Where it had been wetted by his tear it had failed to bum, and on that scrap of paper were the words "died yesterday.
2009年12月13日星期日
Work Harder, Smarter
Today represents a transition from the world of preparation into the real world of contribution. I feel it is the appropriate time for me to leave with you (today's students) a few messages, based on my own experience, air blown Inflatable Arch which might help you in your quest for success in your life.
The first message is that hard work is the most critical ingredient of success. If you wish to succeed in your profession in future, you will have to work only harder. Your peers will bring in similar credentials. The only way you can move ahead is by unstinting hard work..
There is no debate between whether you need to work smarter or harder. You have to work both smarter and harder. If Wipro has come out on top, compared to a number of other blue chips of yesteryears, it is not because of extraordinary ability or resources, but by the sheer dint of hard work.
I personally put in a 90-hour workweek. Any future leader who is not prepared to put in this scorching pace of work will be left behind.
The second thought I wish to share with you is that hard work must be towards a purpose. You have to identify a purpose that inspires you, challenges you and gives you tremendous satisfaction to pursue. Once you identify your purpose, that permeates to your very being, you will be propelled by restless intensity towards achieving it. Then, you can work with a single-minded, determined, unwavering perseverance.
When I returned from Stanford more than three decades back, Wipro was a small organization located in Amalner, a tiny hamlet in Jalgaon district. I was suddenly propelled into a role for which I had little preparation.
Initially, I found the prospect fairly daunting.
Then I realized that this enormous challenge brought with it an enormous opportunity. An opportunity to create a very different kind of organization based on values. It took a tremendous amount of effort to reach where we have reached today. But if I had not been completely fired by the vision that kept me going during difficult times, I do not know if I could have kept up the relentless work that was necessary.
The third message is that do not ever stop learning. The greatest benefit of engineering is that is teaches you the discipline of process thinking as applied to real life problems. Given the rapid changes in technology and myriad business situations that throw up new and different avenues to apply your knowledge, you have to constantly keep learning.
What is important is not your existing knowledge alone, but your ability to keep refreshing it dynamically. You have learnt to learn. But the zest to use this ability on an ongoing basis must come from within you.
The fourth message is that do not wait for opportunity to come your way. Actively search for opportunities and grab them when you see them. Long ago, I learnt that the future is not what happens to you, but what you make of it.
I have heard of young achievers lamenting the lack of opportunity in our country that drives them to seek jobs overseas. You can create your own opportunity and our country can offer whatever you want in life, provided you do your bit.
When I look back, I realize that Wipro was not blessed with the abundance of resources like the multinational corporations. What accounted for its success was its integrity, unshakable self-confidence, determination and effort to better global competition, relentless work towards achieving this and its ability to acquire world class processes, develop world class teams and attract world class leadership.
I hope you will be able to apply my messages in your lives for success and satisfaction.
I look forward with hope and expectation that you will utilize your talent in shaping the destiny of your profession and our nation.
The first message is that hard work is the most critical ingredient of success. If you wish to succeed in your profession in future, you will have to work only harder. Your peers will bring in similar credentials. The only way you can move ahead is by unstinting hard work..
There is no debate between whether you need to work smarter or harder. You have to work both smarter and harder. If Wipro has come out on top, compared to a number of other blue chips of yesteryears, it is not because of extraordinary ability or resources, but by the sheer dint of hard work.
I personally put in a 90-hour workweek. Any future leader who is not prepared to put in this scorching pace of work will be left behind.
The second thought I wish to share with you is that hard work must be towards a purpose. You have to identify a purpose that inspires you, challenges you and gives you tremendous satisfaction to pursue. Once you identify your purpose, that permeates to your very being, you will be propelled by restless intensity towards achieving it. Then, you can work with a single-minded, determined, unwavering perseverance.
When I returned from Stanford more than three decades back, Wipro was a small organization located in Amalner, a tiny hamlet in Jalgaon district. I was suddenly propelled into a role for which I had little preparation.
Initially, I found the prospect fairly daunting.
Then I realized that this enormous challenge brought with it an enormous opportunity. An opportunity to create a very different kind of organization based on values. It took a tremendous amount of effort to reach where we have reached today. But if I had not been completely fired by the vision that kept me going during difficult times, I do not know if I could have kept up the relentless work that was necessary.
The third message is that do not ever stop learning. The greatest benefit of engineering is that is teaches you the discipline of process thinking as applied to real life problems. Given the rapid changes in technology and myriad business situations that throw up new and different avenues to apply your knowledge, you have to constantly keep learning.
What is important is not your existing knowledge alone, but your ability to keep refreshing it dynamically. You have learnt to learn. But the zest to use this ability on an ongoing basis must come from within you.
The fourth message is that do not wait for opportunity to come your way. Actively search for opportunities and grab them when you see them. Long ago, I learnt that the future is not what happens to you, but what you make of it.
I have heard of young achievers lamenting the lack of opportunity in our country that drives them to seek jobs overseas. You can create your own opportunity and our country can offer whatever you want in life, provided you do your bit.
When I look back, I realize that Wipro was not blessed with the abundance of resources like the multinational corporations. What accounted for its success was its integrity, unshakable self-confidence, determination and effort to better global competition, relentless work towards achieving this and its ability to acquire world class processes, develop world class teams and attract world class leadership.
I hope you will be able to apply my messages in your lives for success and satisfaction.
I look forward with hope and expectation that you will utilize your talent in shaping the destiny of your profession and our nation.
five balls
Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them work, family, adult Inflatable Slide health, friends and spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back.But the other four balls— family, health, friends and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life. How?
Don’t undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different that each of us is special.
Don’t set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you.
Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future. By living your life one day at a time, you live ALL the days of your life.
Don’t give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.
Don’t be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.
Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you’ve been, but also where you are going.
Don’t forget, a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.
Don’t be afraid to learn. Knowledge is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily.
Don’t use time or words carelessly. Neither can be retrieved.
Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way.
Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mystery and Today is a gift: that’s why we call it “The Present”.
Don’t undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different that each of us is special.
Don’t set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you.
Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future. By living your life one day at a time, you live ALL the days of your life.
Don’t give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.
Don’t be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.
Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you’ve been, but also where you are going.
Don’t forget, a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.
Don’t be afraid to learn. Knowledge is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily.
Don’t use time or words carelessly. Neither can be retrieved.
Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way.
Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is a mystery and Today is a gift: that’s why we call it “The Present”.
2009年12月11日星期五
Don‘t look back
As you travel through life there are always those times when decisions just have to be made when the choices are hard, commercial Inflatable Human Spheres and solutions seem scarce and the rain seems to soak your parade !
There are some situations where all you can do is to simply let go and move on, gather courage together and choose a direction that carries you toward a new dawn.
So pack up your troubles and take a step forward…The process of change can be tough, but think about all the excitement ahead if you can be stalwart enough!
There could be adventures you never imagined just waiting around the next bend and wishes and dreams just about to come true in ways you can‘t yet comprehend!
Perhaps you‘ll find friendships that spring from new interests as you challenge your status and learn there are so many options in life, and so many ways you can grow!
Perhaps you‘ll go to places you’ve never expected and see things that you‘ve never seen or travel to fabulous , faraway worlds and wonderful spots in between!
Perhaps you‘ll find warmth and affection and caring — a "somebody special" who‘s there to help you stay centred and listen with interest to stories and feelings you share.
Perhaps you‘ll find comfort in knowing your friends are supportive of all that you do and believe that whatever decisions you make, they‘ll be the right choices for you!
So keep putting one foot in front of the other and taking your life day by day. There‘s a brighter tomorrow that‘s just down the road. Don‘t look back — you‘re not going that way!
There are some situations where all you can do is to simply let go and move on, gather courage together and choose a direction that carries you toward a new dawn.
So pack up your troubles and take a step forward…The process of change can be tough, but think about all the excitement ahead if you can be stalwart enough!
There could be adventures you never imagined just waiting around the next bend and wishes and dreams just about to come true in ways you can‘t yet comprehend!
Perhaps you‘ll find friendships that spring from new interests as you challenge your status and learn there are so many options in life, and so many ways you can grow!
Perhaps you‘ll go to places you’ve never expected and see things that you‘ve never seen or travel to fabulous , faraway worlds and wonderful spots in between!
Perhaps you‘ll find warmth and affection and caring — a "somebody special" who‘s there to help you stay centred and listen with interest to stories and feelings you share.
Perhaps you‘ll find comfort in knowing your friends are supportive of all that you do and believe that whatever decisions you make, they‘ll be the right choices for you!
So keep putting one foot in front of the other and taking your life day by day. There‘s a brighter tomorrow that‘s just down the road. Don‘t look back — you‘re not going that way!
Twilight
The roaming child wouldn’t let his sorrow show,
When fragments of watery blue sublimed into the afterglow.
He was told twilight stems from every pink toe,
That manufacturer Christmas Decorations prints its infant lemon-green on reflection of a rainbow.
They say twilight is a net weaved by mayflies,
When the florescence of their transient lives defeats sunrise.
Then their wings shatter and sink into the ocean’s eyes,
That’s why there seems to be more stars than in the skies.
But for him twilight is a candle in a rosewood tray,
Where along branching fissures tears of wax wind their way.
During white nights he was blinded with pearly beams of ray,
That once through Ice age passions and hopes to relay.
In the canal of eventide his heart quietly bleeds,
Sitting on a vein of mussels that towards terminal leads.
Gold in the sand under his feet is daylight’s seeds,
Which will grow into a lucent curtain of flaming weeds.
When fragments of watery blue sublimed into the afterglow.
He was told twilight stems from every pink toe,
That manufacturer Christmas Decorations prints its infant lemon-green on reflection of a rainbow.
They say twilight is a net weaved by mayflies,
When the florescence of their transient lives defeats sunrise.
Then their wings shatter and sink into the ocean’s eyes,
That’s why there seems to be more stars than in the skies.
But for him twilight is a candle in a rosewood tray,
Where along branching fissures tears of wax wind their way.
During white nights he was blinded with pearly beams of ray,
That once through Ice age passions and hopes to relay.
In the canal of eventide his heart quietly bleeds,
Sitting on a vein of mussels that towards terminal leads.
Gold in the sand under his feet is daylight’s seeds,
Which will grow into a lucent curtain of flaming weeds.
a new blossom
Each spring brings a new blossom of wildflowers in the ditches along the highway I travel daily to work. buy Inflatable Advertising
There is one particular blue flower that has always caught my eye. I've noticed that it blooms only in the morning hours, the afternoon sun is too warm for it. Every day for approximately two weeks, I see those beautiful flowers.
This spring, I started a wildflower garden in our yard. I can look out of the kitchen window while doing the dishes and see the flowers. I've often thought that those lovely blue flowers from the ditch would look great in that bed alongside other wildflowers.
Everyday I drove past the flowers thinking, "I'll stop on my way home and dig them." "Gee, I don't want to get my good clothes dirty..." Whatever the reason, I never stopped to dig them. My husband even gave me a folding shovel one year for my trunk to be used for that expressed purpose.
One day on my way home from work, I was saddened to see that the highway department had mowed the ditches and the pretty blue flowers were gone. I thought to myself, "Way to go, you waited too long. You should have done it when you first saw them blooming this spring."
A week ago we were shocked and saddened to learn that my oldest sister-in-law has a terminal brain tumor. She is 20 years older than my husband and unfortunately, because of age and distance, we haven't been as close as we all would have liked.
I couldn't help but see the connection between the pretty blue flowers and the relationship between my husband's sister and us. I do believe that God has given us some time left to plant some wonderful memories that will bloom every year for us.
There is one particular blue flower that has always caught my eye. I've noticed that it blooms only in the morning hours, the afternoon sun is too warm for it. Every day for approximately two weeks, I see those beautiful flowers.
This spring, I started a wildflower garden in our yard. I can look out of the kitchen window while doing the dishes and see the flowers. I've often thought that those lovely blue flowers from the ditch would look great in that bed alongside other wildflowers.
Everyday I drove past the flowers thinking, "I'll stop on my way home and dig them." "Gee, I don't want to get my good clothes dirty..." Whatever the reason, I never stopped to dig them. My husband even gave me a folding shovel one year for my trunk to be used for that expressed purpose.
One day on my way home from work, I was saddened to see that the highway department had mowed the ditches and the pretty blue flowers were gone. I thought to myself, "Way to go, you waited too long. You should have done it when you first saw them blooming this spring."
A week ago we were shocked and saddened to learn that my oldest sister-in-law has a terminal brain tumor. She is 20 years older than my husband and unfortunately, because of age and distance, we haven't been as close as we all would have liked.
I couldn't help but see the connection between the pretty blue flowers and the relationship between my husband's sister and us. I do believe that God has given us some time left to plant some wonderful memories that will bloom every year for us.
The girl on the train
I had the compartment on the train to myself up to Rohana, and then a girl got on. The couple seeing her off were probably her parents, they seemed very anxious about her comfort, and the woman gave china Inflatable Obstacle the girl detailed instructions as to where to keep her things, when not to lean out of windows, and how to avoid speaking to strangers.
As I had become blind by then, I could not tell what the girl looked like, but I knew she wore slippers from the way they slapped against her heels, and I liked the sound of her voice.
"Are you going all the way to Dehra Dun?" I asked her as the train pulled out of the station.
I must have been sitting in a dark corner, because my voice startled her. She gave a little exclamation, and said, "I didn't know anyone else was here."
Well, it often happens that people with good eyesight fail to see what is right in front of them. They have too much to observe, I suppose, whereas those who cannot see take in what registers most telling on their remaining senses.
"I didn't see you either at first," I said. "But I heard you come in." I wondered if I would be able to prevent her from discovering that I couldn't see. I thought, provided I keep to my seat, it shouldn't be too difficult.
"I'm getting down at Saharanpur," the girl said. "My aunt is meeting me there. Where are you going?"
"To Dehra Dun, and then to Mussoorie," I replied. "Oh, lucky you! I wish I were going to Mussoorie. I love the mountains. Especially in October."
"Yes, this is the best time." I said, calling on my memories when I could see. "The hills are covered with wild dahlias, the sun is delicious, and at night you can sit in front of a log fire and drink a little brandy.
Most of the tourists have gone, and the roads are quiet and almost deserted."
She was silent, and I wondered if my words had touched her, or whether she thought me a romantic fool. Then I made a mistake. "What is it like outside?" I asked.
She seemed to find nothing strange in the question. Had she noticed already that I could not see? But her next question removed my doubts.
"Why don't you look out of the window?" she asked quite naturally.
I moved easily along the berth and felt for the window ledge. The window was open and I faced it, making a pretense of studying the landscape. In my mind's eye, I could see the telegraph posts flashing by. "Have you noticed," I ventured, "that the trees seem to be moving while we seem to be standing still?"
"That always happens," she said.
I turned from the window and faced the girl, and for a while we sat in silence. "You have an interesting face," I commented. I was becoming quite daring, but it was a safe remark, few girls can resist flattery.
She laughed pleasantly, a clear, ringing laugh. "It's nice to be told that," she said. "I'm so tired of people telling me that I have a pretty face."
Oh, so you do have a pretty face, thought I, and aloud I said, "Well, an interesting face can also be pretty."
"You are very gallant," she said. "But why are you so serious?"
"We'll soon be at your station," I said rather abruptly. "Thank goodness it's a short journey. I can't bear to sit in a train for more than two or three hours."
Yet I was prepared to sit there for almost any length of time, just to listen to her talking. Her voice had the sparkle of a mountain stream. As soon as she left the train, she would forget our brief encounter, but it would stay with me for the rest of the journey, and for some time after.
The engine's whistle shrieked, the carriage wheels changed their sound and rhythm. The girl got up to collect her things. I wondered if she wore her hair in a bun, or if it hung down loose over her shoulders, or if it was cut very short.
The train drew slowly into the station. Outside, there was the shouting of porters and vendors and, near the carriage door, a highpitched female voice that must have belonged to the girl's aunt. "Goodbye," said the girl.
She was standing very close to me, so close that the perfume from her hair was tantalizing. I wanted to raise my hand and touch her hair, but she moved away, and only the perfume still lingered where she had stood.
There was some confusion in the doorway. A man getting into the compartment, stammered an apology. Then the door banged shut, and the world was closed out again. I returned to my berth. The guard blew his whistle and we moved off.
As I had become blind by then, I could not tell what the girl looked like, but I knew she wore slippers from the way they slapped against her heels, and I liked the sound of her voice.
"Are you going all the way to Dehra Dun?" I asked her as the train pulled out of the station.
I must have been sitting in a dark corner, because my voice startled her. She gave a little exclamation, and said, "I didn't know anyone else was here."
Well, it often happens that people with good eyesight fail to see what is right in front of them. They have too much to observe, I suppose, whereas those who cannot see take in what registers most telling on their remaining senses.
"I didn't see you either at first," I said. "But I heard you come in." I wondered if I would be able to prevent her from discovering that I couldn't see. I thought, provided I keep to my seat, it shouldn't be too difficult.
"I'm getting down at Saharanpur," the girl said. "My aunt is meeting me there. Where are you going?"
"To Dehra Dun, and then to Mussoorie," I replied. "Oh, lucky you! I wish I were going to Mussoorie. I love the mountains. Especially in October."
"Yes, this is the best time." I said, calling on my memories when I could see. "The hills are covered with wild dahlias, the sun is delicious, and at night you can sit in front of a log fire and drink a little brandy.
Most of the tourists have gone, and the roads are quiet and almost deserted."
She was silent, and I wondered if my words had touched her, or whether she thought me a romantic fool. Then I made a mistake. "What is it like outside?" I asked.
She seemed to find nothing strange in the question. Had she noticed already that I could not see? But her next question removed my doubts.
"Why don't you look out of the window?" she asked quite naturally.
I moved easily along the berth and felt for the window ledge. The window was open and I faced it, making a pretense of studying the landscape. In my mind's eye, I could see the telegraph posts flashing by. "Have you noticed," I ventured, "that the trees seem to be moving while we seem to be standing still?"
"That always happens," she said.
I turned from the window and faced the girl, and for a while we sat in silence. "You have an interesting face," I commented. I was becoming quite daring, but it was a safe remark, few girls can resist flattery.
She laughed pleasantly, a clear, ringing laugh. "It's nice to be told that," she said. "I'm so tired of people telling me that I have a pretty face."
Oh, so you do have a pretty face, thought I, and aloud I said, "Well, an interesting face can also be pretty."
"You are very gallant," she said. "But why are you so serious?"
"We'll soon be at your station," I said rather abruptly. "Thank goodness it's a short journey. I can't bear to sit in a train for more than two or three hours."
Yet I was prepared to sit there for almost any length of time, just to listen to her talking. Her voice had the sparkle of a mountain stream. As soon as she left the train, she would forget our brief encounter, but it would stay with me for the rest of the journey, and for some time after.
The engine's whistle shrieked, the carriage wheels changed their sound and rhythm. The girl got up to collect her things. I wondered if she wore her hair in a bun, or if it hung down loose over her shoulders, or if it was cut very short.
The train drew slowly into the station. Outside, there was the shouting of porters and vendors and, near the carriage door, a highpitched female voice that must have belonged to the girl's aunt. "Goodbye," said the girl.
She was standing very close to me, so close that the perfume from her hair was tantalizing. I wanted to raise my hand and touch her hair, but she moved away, and only the perfume still lingered where she had stood.
There was some confusion in the doorway. A man getting into the compartment, stammered an apology. Then the door banged shut, and the world was closed out again. I returned to my berth. The guard blew his whistle and we moved off.
2009年12月10日星期四
The Legends Of Valentines Day
February 14 is Valentine's Day.It is celebrated as a lovers' holiday today,with the giving of candy, adult Inflatable Snowman flowers,or other gifts between couples in love.Valentine's Day has roots in several different legends that have found their way to us through the ages.
In Rome it's said that it originated in 5th Century as a tribute to St.Valentine,a Catholic bishop.
For eight hundred years prior to the establishment of Valentine's Day,the Romans had practiced a pagan celebration in mid-February commemorating young men's rite of passage to the god Lupercus.The celebration featured a lottery in which young men would draw the names of teenage girls from a box.The girl assigned to each young man in that manner would be his female companion during the remaining year.
In an effort to do away with the pagan festival.Pope Gelasius ordered a slight change in the lottery.Instead of the names of young women,the box would contain the names of saints.Both men and women were allowed to draw from the box,and the game was to emulate the ways of the saint they drew during the rest of the year.Needless to say,many of the young Roman men were not too pleased with the rule Changes.
Instead of the pagan god Lupercus,the Church looked for a suitable patron saint of love to take his place.They found an appropriate choice in Valentine,who,in AD270 had been beheaded 3 by Emperor Claudius.
Claudius had determined that married men made poor soldiers.So he banned marriage from his empire.But Valentine would secretly marry young men that came to him.When Claudius found out about Valentine,he first tried to convert him to paganism.But Valentine reversed the strategy,trying instead to convert Claudius.When he failed,he was stoned and beheaded.
During the days that Valentine was imprisoned,he fell in love with the blind daughter of his jailer.His love for her,and his great faith,managed to miraculously heal her from her blindness before his death.Before he was taken to his death,he signed a farewell message to her,"From your Valentine."The phrase has been used on his day ever since.
Although the lottery for women had been banned by the church,the mid-February holiday in commemoration of St.Valentine was stilled used by Roman men to seek the affection of women.It became a tradition for the men to give the ones they admired handwritten messages of affection,containing Valentine's name.
Another Valentine was an Italian bishop who lived at about the same time,AD 200.He was imprisoned because he secretly married couples,contrary to the laws of the Roman emperor.Some legends say he was burned at the stake.
February 14 was also a Roman holiday,held in honor of a goddess.Young men randomly chose the name of a young girl to escort to the festivities.The custom of choosing a sweetheart on this date spread through Europe in the Middle Ages,and then to the early American colonies.Throughout the ages,people also believed that birds picked their mates on February 14!
In AD 496 Saint Pope Gelasius I named February 14 as"Valentine's Day".Although it's not an official holiday,most Americans observe this day.
The first Valentine card grew out of this practice.The first true Valentine card was sent in 1415 by Charles,duke of Orleans,to his wife.He was imprisoned in the Tower of London at the time.
Cupid,another symbol of the holiday,became associated with it because he was the son of Venus,the Roman god of love and beauty.He is represented by the image of a young boy with bow and arrow.Cupid often appears on Valentine cards.
Whatever the odd mixture of origins,St.Valentine's Day is now a day for sweethearts.It is the day that you show your friend or loved one tht you care.You can send candy to someone you think is special.Or you can send roses,the flower of love.
In Rome it's said that it originated in 5th Century as a tribute to St.Valentine,a Catholic bishop.
For eight hundred years prior to the establishment of Valentine's Day,the Romans had practiced a pagan celebration in mid-February commemorating young men's rite of passage to the god Lupercus.The celebration featured a lottery in which young men would draw the names of teenage girls from a box.The girl assigned to each young man in that manner would be his female companion during the remaining year.
In an effort to do away with the pagan festival.Pope Gelasius ordered a slight change in the lottery.Instead of the names of young women,the box would contain the names of saints.Both men and women were allowed to draw from the box,and the game was to emulate the ways of the saint they drew during the rest of the year.Needless to say,many of the young Roman men were not too pleased with the rule Changes.
Instead of the pagan god Lupercus,the Church looked for a suitable patron saint of love to take his place.They found an appropriate choice in Valentine,who,in AD270 had been beheaded 3 by Emperor Claudius.
Claudius had determined that married men made poor soldiers.So he banned marriage from his empire.But Valentine would secretly marry young men that came to him.When Claudius found out about Valentine,he first tried to convert him to paganism.But Valentine reversed the strategy,trying instead to convert Claudius.When he failed,he was stoned and beheaded.
During the days that Valentine was imprisoned,he fell in love with the blind daughter of his jailer.His love for her,and his great faith,managed to miraculously heal her from her blindness before his death.Before he was taken to his death,he signed a farewell message to her,"From your Valentine."The phrase has been used on his day ever since.
Although the lottery for women had been banned by the church,the mid-February holiday in commemoration of St.Valentine was stilled used by Roman men to seek the affection of women.It became a tradition for the men to give the ones they admired handwritten messages of affection,containing Valentine's name.
Another Valentine was an Italian bishop who lived at about the same time,AD 200.He was imprisoned because he secretly married couples,contrary to the laws of the Roman emperor.Some legends say he was burned at the stake.
February 14 was also a Roman holiday,held in honor of a goddess.Young men randomly chose the name of a young girl to escort to the festivities.The custom of choosing a sweetheart on this date spread through Europe in the Middle Ages,and then to the early American colonies.Throughout the ages,people also believed that birds picked their mates on February 14!
In AD 496 Saint Pope Gelasius I named February 14 as"Valentine's Day".Although it's not an official holiday,most Americans observe this day.
The first Valentine card grew out of this practice.The first true Valentine card was sent in 1415 by Charles,duke of Orleans,to his wife.He was imprisoned in the Tower of London at the time.
Cupid,another symbol of the holiday,became associated with it because he was the son of Venus,the Roman god of love and beauty.He is represented by the image of a young boy with bow and arrow.Cupid often appears on Valentine cards.
Whatever the odd mixture of origins,St.Valentine's Day is now a day for sweethearts.It is the day that you show your friend or loved one tht you care.You can send candy to someone you think is special.Or you can send roses,the flower of love.
A Time To Love
Ravdale was such a tiny community but it had a reputation for being a great place to escape the rigors of city life and get away to the 'great outdoors'. It seemed to be the perfect place for Carla and Stan to go to try and piece back the remnants of their failing marriage.
It was Carla's idea when she saw the brochure in the beauty shop that another patron had forgotten. custom Inflatable Arch The scenery looked stunning and tranquil with a small but unbelievably clear lake, fed by the melting water of the nearby mountains. Acres and acres of tall pine and evergreen lined the shores of the lake with widely spaced quaint cabins nestled in a clearing here and there. It was perfect!
When she first suggested it to Stan, he did not seem receptive to the idea at all. First objection: it was too far. Second objection: it was too expensive for their strained budget. The third objection was silent but they both knew it was there. Why should they go there and spend three days either fighting or in total cold silence?
However, Carla kept working on him and he finally agreed just to shut her up about it. She called and made the reservations for the cabin, the rental car and organized everything before they left. All Stan had to do was get himself ready and then drive.
The drive across two states was done mostly in their habitual silence but Carla kept herself from showing any anxiety by either reading or sleeping when she was not driving. She knew that the hours of silence away from his refuge of work and television gave Stan time to think that she knew was very necessary. After several hours, he tired of the fading in and out of the radio, the same CD's over and over again and so he began to talk.
The conversation stayed light and proceeded to continue into their meals as they drew closer to Ravdale. Carla was growing more hopeful by the mile and by the minute. By the time they reached the cabin late that night, she was very encouraged. She said nothing when Stan mumbled a weary good night and promptly went to sleep. She took hope in the knowledge that they still had two whole days of togetherness ahead of them.
The days seemed to pass quickly beginning the next morning as they rented a small bass boat and went out onto the placid lake to do some fishing. She did not care for fishing but she knew that Stan loved it. They spent three fishless hours on the lake but Stan seemed to have enjoyed himself as he was more than willing to go on a long walk up the Nature trail with her in the afternoon. She thrived in the awing majesty of the wooded area and the serene quiet of the walk. Stan also seemed to be pleased with the beauty around him.
They returned to the cabin for a warm meal that Carla cooked and Stan ate with a ravenous, healthy hunger. She showed her delight when he offered to help with the clean up. 'Yep,' she thought to herself, 'things are definitely looking up!' Matters improved even more when he reached for her in the bed and they made quiet but contenting love for the first time in many months. Her plans were working wonderfully.
The next day seemed to be a flawless copy of the first until they sat down to dinner and they heard the wind begin to howl like a banshee. It seemed to have come from out of nowhere and soon, the lashing rain and booming thunder followed as a mountain storm awakened in the night sky and dumped its wrath upon the tiny lake and even smaller cabin. The power failed so they lit the kerosene lamps and moved closer to the fire burning brightly in the fireplace.
There on a Indian rug in front of the hearth, they left quiet love behind and took each other to heights to equal the rage of the mad storm outside. Just at the end, everything suddenly went quiet. The rain stopped, the thunder ceased and the wind went eerily silent. They both stopped in surprise and listened to the sound of nothing!
Without knowing why, Stan was overwhelmed with an intense sense of fear. He never said a word but quickly rolled his naked wife up in the rug, grabbed his jeans, lifted her and made an unexplainably quick dash for the door. She lay silent in his arms, terrified by the unmasked fear on his face. He flung himself through the front door and leaped like an Olympic jumper from the front porch.
At that very moment, a huge jagged streak of lightning sliced the sky and its sizzling wicked end found mark on top of an very tall pine that stood at the far western corner of cabin. The lightning split the tree as neatly as a dagger through flesh and the burning tree groaned, swayed and then collapsed onto to the top of the cabin. The roof caved and the cabin soon was a shambles of burning pine, varnished logs and other contents inside, everything but the two humans that had been there just moments before.
The wind began to moan and rise again. The rain fell again but not as hard. The rumbling thunder sounded but with a distinct distance to its sound. The storm was passing.
Incredulous, Carla turned and stared in awe at the face of her husband. 'How did you know?' she whispered. He stared down at her, and his eyes told her his thoughts. He was thinking of how close he had come to losing her and knew that nothing was worth that. He pulled her close to him as he returned his gaze to the burning cabin and said softly
'My grandfather always told me to be wary when a angry wind suddenly goes quiet. It is a warning of danger! And, my dear wife, I think this proves he was right.'
It was Carla's idea when she saw the brochure in the beauty shop that another patron had forgotten. custom Inflatable Arch The scenery looked stunning and tranquil with a small but unbelievably clear lake, fed by the melting water of the nearby mountains. Acres and acres of tall pine and evergreen lined the shores of the lake with widely spaced quaint cabins nestled in a clearing here and there. It was perfect!
When she first suggested it to Stan, he did not seem receptive to the idea at all. First objection: it was too far. Second objection: it was too expensive for their strained budget. The third objection was silent but they both knew it was there. Why should they go there and spend three days either fighting or in total cold silence?
However, Carla kept working on him and he finally agreed just to shut her up about it. She called and made the reservations for the cabin, the rental car and organized everything before they left. All Stan had to do was get himself ready and then drive.
The drive across two states was done mostly in their habitual silence but Carla kept herself from showing any anxiety by either reading or sleeping when she was not driving. She knew that the hours of silence away from his refuge of work and television gave Stan time to think that she knew was very necessary. After several hours, he tired of the fading in and out of the radio, the same CD's over and over again and so he began to talk.
The conversation stayed light and proceeded to continue into their meals as they drew closer to Ravdale. Carla was growing more hopeful by the mile and by the minute. By the time they reached the cabin late that night, she was very encouraged. She said nothing when Stan mumbled a weary good night and promptly went to sleep. She took hope in the knowledge that they still had two whole days of togetherness ahead of them.
The days seemed to pass quickly beginning the next morning as they rented a small bass boat and went out onto the placid lake to do some fishing. She did not care for fishing but she knew that Stan loved it. They spent three fishless hours on the lake but Stan seemed to have enjoyed himself as he was more than willing to go on a long walk up the Nature trail with her in the afternoon. She thrived in the awing majesty of the wooded area and the serene quiet of the walk. Stan also seemed to be pleased with the beauty around him.
They returned to the cabin for a warm meal that Carla cooked and Stan ate with a ravenous, healthy hunger. She showed her delight when he offered to help with the clean up. 'Yep,' she thought to herself, 'things are definitely looking up!' Matters improved even more when he reached for her in the bed and they made quiet but contenting love for the first time in many months. Her plans were working wonderfully.
The next day seemed to be a flawless copy of the first until they sat down to dinner and they heard the wind begin to howl like a banshee. It seemed to have come from out of nowhere and soon, the lashing rain and booming thunder followed as a mountain storm awakened in the night sky and dumped its wrath upon the tiny lake and even smaller cabin. The power failed so they lit the kerosene lamps and moved closer to the fire burning brightly in the fireplace.
There on a Indian rug in front of the hearth, they left quiet love behind and took each other to heights to equal the rage of the mad storm outside. Just at the end, everything suddenly went quiet. The rain stopped, the thunder ceased and the wind went eerily silent. They both stopped in surprise and listened to the sound of nothing!
Without knowing why, Stan was overwhelmed with an intense sense of fear. He never said a word but quickly rolled his naked wife up in the rug, grabbed his jeans, lifted her and made an unexplainably quick dash for the door. She lay silent in his arms, terrified by the unmasked fear on his face. He flung himself through the front door and leaped like an Olympic jumper from the front porch.
At that very moment, a huge jagged streak of lightning sliced the sky and its sizzling wicked end found mark on top of an very tall pine that stood at the far western corner of cabin. The lightning split the tree as neatly as a dagger through flesh and the burning tree groaned, swayed and then collapsed onto to the top of the cabin. The roof caved and the cabin soon was a shambles of burning pine, varnished logs and other contents inside, everything but the two humans that had been there just moments before.
The wind began to moan and rise again. The rain fell again but not as hard. The rumbling thunder sounded but with a distinct distance to its sound. The storm was passing.
Incredulous, Carla turned and stared in awe at the face of her husband. 'How did you know?' she whispered. He stared down at her, and his eyes told her his thoughts. He was thinking of how close he had come to losing her and knew that nothing was worth that. He pulled her close to him as he returned his gaze to the burning cabin and said softly
'My grandfather always told me to be wary when a angry wind suddenly goes quiet. It is a warning of danger! And, my dear wife, I think this proves he was right.'
Hardcore
Hardcore broadband users in Britain spend more time on virtual networking than they do on real life socializing,adult Inflatable Slide a survey revealed Thursday.
Some six per cent of the 10,500 broadband users questioned in the survey admitted spending on average more than 10 hours a week online social networking, the equivalent of 24 days a year.
This compared with the 22 days spent actually meeting friends and relatives.
Half of all broadband users log onto social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and MSN Messenger, the price comparison and switching service uSwitch.com found.
The average amount of time spent on virtual networking is nearly three hours a week, or six days a year.
It has overtaken online shopping, banking and downloading music as one of the most popular online activities. Only surfing the net and emailing is more popular.
Women use social networking sites more than men, 56 per cent compared to 46 per cent.
Nearly 75 per cent of those visiting social networking sites are aged between 18 and 29 years.
The average Briton spends 15.8 hours a week online, the equivalent to 34 days a year.
Nearly eight million broadband customers pay between ￡15 ($35) and ￡30 ($70) a month for the service, with the average cost standing at ￡18 ($42).
Steve Weller, head of communications at uSwitch, said: "We are not surprised to find that the internet user is spending nearly a week socialising online. Consumers from all walks of life are embracing the trend."
Some six per cent of the 10,500 broadband users questioned in the survey admitted spending on average more than 10 hours a week online social networking, the equivalent of 24 days a year.
This compared with the 22 days spent actually meeting friends and relatives.
Half of all broadband users log onto social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and MSN Messenger, the price comparison and switching service uSwitch.com found.
The average amount of time spent on virtual networking is nearly three hours a week, or six days a year.
It has overtaken online shopping, banking and downloading music as one of the most popular online activities. Only surfing the net and emailing is more popular.
Women use social networking sites more than men, 56 per cent compared to 46 per cent.
Nearly 75 per cent of those visiting social networking sites are aged between 18 and 29 years.
The average Briton spends 15.8 hours a week online, the equivalent to 34 days a year.
Nearly eight million broadband customers pay between ￡15 ($35) and ￡30 ($70) a month for the service, with the average cost standing at ￡18 ($42).
Steve Weller, head of communications at uSwitch, said: "We are not surprised to find that the internet user is spending nearly a week socialising online. Consumers from all walks of life are embracing the trend."
2009年12月9日星期三
A Dying Angel
The sun is shining brightly out of my window. I can feel the sunbeam come straight from my eyes to my heart. air blown Inflatable Advertising But there is no warmth. I’m still really cold.
After the first remedy, I never feel any better. Everyone warned me not to move anywhere. Even a little cut may deprive my life.
“My honey,” Mommy said to me with manful spirit in her eyes. “Please go on, you’re strong enough, you’re brave enough to live on!”
“Don’t worry,” I smiled, “I’m Ok, Mommy, I’ll never give up.” Mommy smiled as return after hearing my words.
But how can I go on? I am the biggest criminal in my family! It’s I who have spent each penny in my family which was made yb my parents for their whole lives. It’s my blood cancer that made my parents become old overnight, but they still have to smile and encourage me though they’re being killed by the much more sorrow than I am. How can I still live in this family? How can I still live in the world?
In fact, we have had no money to pay for the second remedy. I don’t know why I have to be paid so much to keep the little time in my life. It’s really unnecessary.
Severe pain is killing me. I want to stop. I don’t want to be the criminal. I don’t want to leave the world with an empty family and hopeless parents. I don’t want to be the heavy burden of my family of my world in my last days.
I suddenly feel the wall coming to me. All is black. I passed out again. I don’t know how many times I pass out and revive. I hope, I wish this is the last time.
A familiar song comes to my clear mind:
“Mama, you gave life to me,turned a baby into a lady;Mama, all I have to offer was a guarantee of you loving me…
Good-bye is the saddest word I’ve ever heard,Good-bye is the last time I can hold you near.Someday you’ll say that word and I will cry,It will break my heart to hear you say good-bye.Till we meet again, until than good-bye.”
After the first remedy, I never feel any better. Everyone warned me not to move anywhere. Even a little cut may deprive my life.
“My honey,” Mommy said to me with manful spirit in her eyes. “Please go on, you’re strong enough, you’re brave enough to live on!”
“Don’t worry,” I smiled, “I’m Ok, Mommy, I’ll never give up.” Mommy smiled as return after hearing my words.
But how can I go on? I am the biggest criminal in my family! It’s I who have spent each penny in my family which was made yb my parents for their whole lives. It’s my blood cancer that made my parents become old overnight, but they still have to smile and encourage me though they’re being killed by the much more sorrow than I am. How can I still live in this family? How can I still live in the world?
In fact, we have had no money to pay for the second remedy. I don’t know why I have to be paid so much to keep the little time in my life. It’s really unnecessary.
Severe pain is killing me. I want to stop. I don’t want to be the criminal. I don’t want to leave the world with an empty family and hopeless parents. I don’t want to be the heavy burden of my family of my world in my last days.
I suddenly feel the wall coming to me. All is black. I passed out again. I don’t know how many times I pass out and revive. I hope, I wish this is the last time.
A familiar song comes to my clear mind:
“Mama, you gave life to me,turned a baby into a lady;Mama, all I have to offer was a guarantee of you loving me…
Good-bye is the saddest word I’ve ever heard,Good-bye is the last time I can hold you near.Someday you’ll say that word and I will cry,It will break my heart to hear you say good-bye.Till we meet again, until than good-bye.”
would
Suppose someone gave you a pen—a sealed, solid-colored pen. You couldn’t see how much ink it had. outdoor Inflatable Toys It might run dry after the first few tentative words or last just long enough to create a masterpiece (or several) that would last forever and make a difference in the scheme of things. You don’t know before you begin.
Under the rules of the game, you really never know. You have to take a chance! Actually, no rule of the game states you must do anything. Instead of picking up and using the pen, you could leave it on a shelf or in a drawer where it will dry up, unused. But if you do decide to use it, what would you do with it? How would you play the game?
Would you plan and plan before you ever wrote a word? Would your plans be so extensive that you never even got to the writing?
Or would you take the pen in hand, plunge right in and just do it, struggling to keep up with the twists and turns of the torrents of words that take you where they take you?
Would you write cautiously and carefully, as if the pen might run dry the next moment, or would you pretend or believe (or pretend to believe) that the pen will write forever and proceed accordingly?
And of what would you write: Of love? Hate? Fun? Misery? Life? Death? Nothing? Everything?
Would you write to please just yourself? Or others? Or yourself by writing for others?
Would your strokes be tremblingly timid or brilliantly bold? Fancy with a flourish or plain?
Would you even write? Once you have the pen, no rule says you have to write. Would you sketch? Scribble? Doodle or draw?
Would you stay in or on the lines, or see no lines at all, even if they were there? Or are they? There’s a lot to think about here, isn’t there?
Under the rules of the game, you really never know. You have to take a chance! Actually, no rule of the game states you must do anything. Instead of picking up and using the pen, you could leave it on a shelf or in a drawer where it will dry up, unused. But if you do decide to use it, what would you do with it? How would you play the game?
Would you plan and plan before you ever wrote a word? Would your plans be so extensive that you never even got to the writing?
Or would you take the pen in hand, plunge right in and just do it, struggling to keep up with the twists and turns of the torrents of words that take you where they take you?
Would you write cautiously and carefully, as if the pen might run dry the next moment, or would you pretend or believe (or pretend to believe) that the pen will write forever and proceed accordingly?
And of what would you write: Of love? Hate? Fun? Misery? Life? Death? Nothing? Everything?
Would you write to please just yourself? Or others? Or yourself by writing for others?
Would your strokes be tremblingly timid or brilliantly bold? Fancy with a flourish or plain?
Would you even write? Once you have the pen, no rule says you have to write. Would you sketch? Scribble? Doodle or draw?
Would you stay in or on the lines, or see no lines at all, even if they were there? Or are they? There’s a lot to think about here, isn’t there?
2009年12月7日星期一
Climb every mountain
Julia and Molly are on their way to math class.
Julia: Oh man, cheap Inflatable Obstacle this totally stinks. Why is math class on the third floor? I hate climbing up these stairs.
Molly: Yeah, me too. But I guess it’ll help me to lose some weight.
Julia: Haha, yeah, I guess.
Molly: Speaking of climbing, I read this article last night about a girl named Samantha Larson who climbed to the summit of Mt. Everest.
Julia: That’s nice, but what’s so special about that? Don’t people reach the summit all the time now?
Molly: Yea, but she’s eighteen years old—the same age as us! She’s the youngest foreigner to reach the summit. And not only that, she’s also the youngest person ever to climb all seven summits!
Julia: Holy cow, that’s incredible! Wait, what’re the seven summits?
Molly: You know, the seven highest summits on each continent. So apparently, this girl climbed South America’s Aconcagua when she was 13! And then, she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro when she was only 14!
Julia: That’s unbelievable. I can’t even stand climbing up the steps to math class!
Molly: Yeah, for real. But you know, it got me thinking.
Julia: What do you mean?
Molly: This girl’s determination belies her young age. Most people who attempt to scale Mt. Everest never make it to the top because of all sorts of reasons. But she didn’t give up. I mean, she successfully climbed the highest mountain on each continent.
Julia: Yea, that is pretty impressive.
Molly: So you know how the saying goes—if you set your mind to it, you can achieve anything.
Julia: Sure, those fortune cookie sayings are a dime a dozen.
Molly: Yeah, but I’m seeing more and more how true the saying is. It’s like, people don’t really achieve anything because they haven’t set their mind to anything. People wake up, with no clear purpose for their day, and just cruise along on auto-pilot.
Julia: Hmm, this sounds like a typical day in my life.
Molly: And mine, too. That’s what needs to change. I’ll bet when Samantha Larson was climbing those mountains, each day of her ascent, she envisioned herself on the summit, never losing sight of the goal.
Julia: But you know what, aside from losing sight of the goal, I think another reason why people underachieve is that they haven’t found anything in life that grips them the way mountain climbing grips Samantha.
Molly: That’s a good point.
Julia: My parents always tell me that I should not fear trying something new. They say that if I don’t try it, I won’t ever really know if I like it or not. I’ll bet it was the same with Samantha. I mean, she probably wasn’t born on a mountaintop!
Molly: I’m totally with you. You know what? I’m gonna audition for that Broadway musical that our school is putting on. It’s been a dream of mine to be a performer!
Julia: Oh man, cheap Inflatable Obstacle this totally stinks. Why is math class on the third floor? I hate climbing up these stairs.
Molly: Yeah, me too. But I guess it’ll help me to lose some weight.
Julia: Haha, yeah, I guess.
Molly: Speaking of climbing, I read this article last night about a girl named Samantha Larson who climbed to the summit of Mt. Everest.
Julia: That’s nice, but what’s so special about that? Don’t people reach the summit all the time now?
Molly: Yea, but she’s eighteen years old—the same age as us! She’s the youngest foreigner to reach the summit. And not only that, she’s also the youngest person ever to climb all seven summits!
Julia: Holy cow, that’s incredible! Wait, what’re the seven summits?
Molly: You know, the seven highest summits on each continent. So apparently, this girl climbed South America’s Aconcagua when she was 13! And then, she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro when she was only 14!
Julia: That’s unbelievable. I can’t even stand climbing up the steps to math class!
Molly: Yeah, for real. But you know, it got me thinking.
Julia: What do you mean?
Molly: This girl’s determination belies her young age. Most people who attempt to scale Mt. Everest never make it to the top because of all sorts of reasons. But she didn’t give up. I mean, she successfully climbed the highest mountain on each continent.
Julia: Yea, that is pretty impressive.
Molly: So you know how the saying goes—if you set your mind to it, you can achieve anything.
Julia: Sure, those fortune cookie sayings are a dime a dozen.
Molly: Yeah, but I’m seeing more and more how true the saying is. It’s like, people don’t really achieve anything because they haven’t set their mind to anything. People wake up, with no clear purpose for their day, and just cruise along on auto-pilot.
Julia: Hmm, this sounds like a typical day in my life.
Molly: And mine, too. That’s what needs to change. I’ll bet when Samantha Larson was climbing those mountains, each day of her ascent, she envisioned herself on the summit, never losing sight of the goal.
Julia: But you know what, aside from losing sight of the goal, I think another reason why people underachieve is that they haven’t found anything in life that grips them the way mountain climbing grips Samantha.
Molly: That’s a good point.
Julia: My parents always tell me that I should not fear trying something new. They say that if I don’t try it, I won’t ever really know if I like it or not. I’ll bet it was the same with Samantha. I mean, she probably wasn’t born on a mountaintop!
Molly: I’m totally with you. You know what? I’m gonna audition for that Broadway musical that our school is putting on. It’s been a dream of mine to be a performer!
A million dollar lesson
A cab driver giant Disney Princess Combo taught me a million dollar lesson in customer satisfaction and expectation. Motivational speakers charge thousands of dollars to impart this kind of training to corporate executives and staff. It cost me a $12 taxi ride.
I had flown into Dallas for the sole purpose of calling on a client. Time was of the essence and my plan included a quick turnaround trip from and back to the airport. A spotless cab pulled up. The driver rushed to open the passenger door for me and made sure I was comfortably seated before he closed the door. As he got in the driver's seat, he mentioned that the neatly folded Wall Street Journal next to me was for my use. He then showed me several tapes and asked me what type of music I would enjoy. Well! I looked around for a "Candid Camera!" Wouldn't you? I could not believe the service I was receiving! I took the opportunity to say, "Obviously you take great pride in your work. You must have a story to tell."
"You bet," he replied, "I used to be in Corporate America. But I got tired of thinking my best would never be good enough. I decided to find my niche in life where I could feel proud of being the best I could be. I knew I would never be a rocket scientist, but I love driving cars, being of service and feeling like I have done a full day's work and done it well. I evaluate my personal assets and… wham! I became a cab driver. One thing I know for sure, to be good in my business I could simply just meet the expectations of my passengers. But, to be great in my business, I have to exceed the customer's expectations! I like both the sound and the return of being 'great' better than just getting by on 'average'".
I had flown into Dallas for the sole purpose of calling on a client. Time was of the essence and my plan included a quick turnaround trip from and back to the airport. A spotless cab pulled up. The driver rushed to open the passenger door for me and made sure I was comfortably seated before he closed the door. As he got in the driver's seat, he mentioned that the neatly folded Wall Street Journal next to me was for my use. He then showed me several tapes and asked me what type of music I would enjoy. Well! I looked around for a "Candid Camera!" Wouldn't you? I could not believe the service I was receiving! I took the opportunity to say, "Obviously you take great pride in your work. You must have a story to tell."
"You bet," he replied, "I used to be in Corporate America. But I got tired of thinking my best would never be good enough. I decided to find my niche in life where I could feel proud of being the best I could be. I knew I would never be a rocket scientist, but I love driving cars, being of service and feeling like I have done a full day's work and done it well. I evaluate my personal assets and… wham! I became a cab driver. One thing I know for sure, to be good in my business I could simply just meet the expectations of my passengers. But, to be great in my business, I have to exceed the customer's expectations! I like both the sound and the return of being 'great' better than just getting by on 'average'".
If I were a Boy Again
If I were a Boy Again
If I were a boy again, I would practice perseverance more often, and never give up a thing because it was or inconvenient. If we want light, we must conquer darkness. Perseverance can sometimes equal genius in its results. “There are only two creatures,” says a proverb, “Who can surmount the pyramids — the eagle and the snail.” giant Inflatable Jumpers
If I were a boy again, I would school myself into a habit of attention; I would let nothing come between me and the subject in hand. I would remember that a good skater never tries to skate in two directions at once.
The habit of attention becomes part of our life, if we begin early enough. I often hear grown up people say, “I could not fix my attention on the sermon or book, although I wished to do so”, and the reason is, the habit was not formed in youth.
If I were to live my life over again, I would pay more attention to the cultivation of the memory. I would strengthen that faculty by every possible means, and on every possible occasion. It takes a little hard work at first to remember things accurately; but memory soon helps itself, and gives very little trouble. It only needs early cultivation to become a power.
If I were a boy again, I would cultivate courage. “Nothing is so mild and gentle as courage, nothing so cruel and pitiless as cowardice,” says a wise author.
We too often borrow trouble, and anticipate that may never appear.” The fear of ill exceeds the ill we fear.” Dangers will arise in any career, but presence of mind will often conquer the worst of them. Be prepared for any fate, and there is no harm to be feared.
If I were a boy again, I would look on the cheerful side. Life is very much like a mirror: if you smile upon it, I smiles back upon you; but if you frown and look doubtful on it, you will get a similar look in return.
Inner sunshine warms not only the heart of the owner, but of all that come in contact with it. “Who shuts love out, in turn shall be shut out from love.”
Importance of learning very early in life to gain that point where a young boy can stand erect, and decline.
If I were a boy again, I would school myself to say no more often. I might write pages on the doing an unworthy act because it is unworthy.
If I were a boy again, I would demand of myself more courtesy towards my companions and friends, and indeed towards strangers as well. The smallest courtesies along the rough roads of life are like the little birds that sing to us all winter long, and make that season of ice and snow more endurable.
If I were a boy again, I would practice perseverance more often, and never give up a thing because it was or inconvenient. If we want light, we must conquer darkness. Perseverance can sometimes equal genius in its results. “There are only two creatures,” says a proverb, “Who can surmount the pyramids — the eagle and the snail.” giant Inflatable Jumpers
If I were a boy again, I would school myself into a habit of attention; I would let nothing come between me and the subject in hand. I would remember that a good skater never tries to skate in two directions at once.
The habit of attention becomes part of our life, if we begin early enough. I often hear grown up people say, “I could not fix my attention on the sermon or book, although I wished to do so”, and the reason is, the habit was not formed in youth.
If I were to live my life over again, I would pay more attention to the cultivation of the memory. I would strengthen that faculty by every possible means, and on every possible occasion. It takes a little hard work at first to remember things accurately; but memory soon helps itself, and gives very little trouble. It only needs early cultivation to become a power.
If I were a boy again, I would cultivate courage. “Nothing is so mild and gentle as courage, nothing so cruel and pitiless as cowardice,” says a wise author.
We too often borrow trouble, and anticipate that may never appear.” The fear of ill exceeds the ill we fear.” Dangers will arise in any career, but presence of mind will often conquer the worst of them. Be prepared for any fate, and there is no harm to be feared.
If I were a boy again, I would look on the cheerful side. Life is very much like a mirror: if you smile upon it, I smiles back upon you; but if you frown and look doubtful on it, you will get a similar look in return.
Inner sunshine warms not only the heart of the owner, but of all that come in contact with it. “Who shuts love out, in turn shall be shut out from love.”
Importance of learning very early in life to gain that point where a young boy can stand erect, and decline.
If I were a boy again, I would school myself to say no more often. I might write pages on the doing an unworthy act because it is unworthy.
If I were a boy again, I would demand of myself more courtesy towards my companions and friends, and indeed towards strangers as well. The smallest courtesies along the rough roads of life are like the little birds that sing to us all winter long, and make that season of ice and snow more endurable.
So Well Go No More A-Roving
So we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,yard Kids Bouncers
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.
So late into the night,yard Kids Bouncers
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.
The builder
An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family1. He would miss the paycheck2, but he needed to retire. manufacturer Christmas Inflatables They could get by3.
The employer was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to4 shoddy5 workmanship6 and used inferior7 materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.
When the carpenter finished his work and the employer came to inspect the house and handed the front-door key to the carpenter. "This is your house," he said, "my gift to you."
What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too8 well.
So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted9 way, reacting rather than acting, willing to put up10 less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized, we would have done it differently.
Think of yourself as the carpenter. Think about your house. Each day you hammer11 a nail, place a board, or erect12 a wall. Build wisely. It is the only life you will ever build. Even if you live it for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived graciously13 and with dignity. The plaque14 on the wall says, "Life is a do-it-yourself project." Who could say it more clearly? Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices you make today.
The employer was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to4 shoddy5 workmanship6 and used inferior7 materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.
When the carpenter finished his work and the employer came to inspect the house and handed the front-door key to the carpenter. "This is your house," he said, "my gift to you."
What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too8 well.
So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted9 way, reacting rather than acting, willing to put up10 less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized, we would have done it differently.
Think of yourself as the carpenter. Think about your house. Each day you hammer11 a nail, place a board, or erect12 a wall. Build wisely. It is the only life you will ever build. Even if you live it for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived graciously13 and with dignity. The plaque14 on the wall says, "Life is a do-it-yourself project." Who could say it more clearly? Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices you make today.
Tears of Joy
I speak without judgment
You listen adult Inflatable Arch
You hear me for the first time
You share openly
I understand your pain
I know your sadness
I am filled with compassion
for you
for me
New beginnings
Happy endings
Our Love Story begins
Completion, resolution, peace
We are woven from the same cloth
I embrace our oneness
I belong
In the circle of your Love
In the circle of my Love
Now
Tears of joy
Song of Soul
Angels are singing
At last, together in Love
You listen adult Inflatable Arch
You hear me for the first time
You share openly
I understand your pain
I know your sadness
I am filled with compassion
for you
for me
New beginnings
Happy endings
Our Love Story begins
Completion, resolution, peace
We are woven from the same cloth
I embrace our oneness
I belong
In the circle of your Love
In the circle of my Love
Now
Tears of joy
Song of Soul
Angels are singing
At last, together in Love
Love is More Thicker than Forget
Love is more thicker than forget
More thinner than recall
More seldom than a wave is wet
More frequent than to fail
It is most mad and moonly
And less it shall unbe
Than all the sea which only
Is deeper than the sea
Love is less always than to win
Less never than alive wholesale Inflatable Slide
Less bigger than the least begin
Less littler than forgive
It is most sane and sunly
And more it cannot die
Than all the sky which only
Is higher than the sky
More thinner than recall
More seldom than a wave is wet
More frequent than to fail
It is most mad and moonly
And less it shall unbe
Than all the sea which only
Is deeper than the sea
Love is less always than to win
Less never than alive wholesale Inflatable Slide
Less bigger than the least begin
Less littler than forgive
It is most sane and sunly
And more it cannot die
Than all the sky which only
Is higher than the sky
2009年12月3日星期四
The 4 Wives
There was a rich merchant who had 4 wives.sale Inflatable Camping Tent He loved the 4th wife the most and adorned her with rich robes and treated her to delicacies. He took great care of her and gave her nothing but the best.
He also loved the 3rd wife very much. He’s very proud of her and always wanted to show off her to his friends. However, the merchant is always in great fear that she might run away with some other men.
He too, loved his 2nd wife. She is a very considerate person, always patient and in fact is the merchant’s confidante. Whenever the merchant faced some problems, he always turned to his 2nd wife and she would always help him out and tide him through difficult times.
Now, the merchant’s 1st wife is a very loyal partner and has made great contributions in maintaining his wealth and business as well as taking care of the household. However, the merchant did not love the first wife and although she loved him deeply, he hardly took notice of her.
One day, the merchant fell ill. Before long, he knew that he was going to die soon. He thought of his luxurious life and told himself, “Now I have 4 wives with me. But when I die, I’ll be alone. How lonely I’ll be!”
Thus, he asked the 4th wife, “I loved you most, and owed you with the finest clothing and showered great care over you. Now that I’m dying, will you follow me and keep me company?” “No way!” replied the 4th wife and she walked away without another word.
The answer cut like a sharp knife right into the merchant’s heart. The sad merchant then asked the 3rd wife, “I have loved you so much for all my life. Now that I’m dying, will you follow me and keep me company?” “No!” replied the 3rd wife. “Life is so good over here! I’m going to remarry when you die!” The merchant’s heart sank and turned cold.
He then asked the 2nd wife, “I always turned to you for help and you’ve always helped me out. Now I need your help again. When I die, will you follow me and keep me company?” “I’m sorry, I can’t help you out this time!” replied the 2nd wife. “At the very most, I can only send you to your grave.” The answer came like a bolt of thunder and the merchant was devastated.
Then a voice called out: “I’ll leave with you. I’ll follow you no matter where you go.” The merchant looked up and there was his first wife. She was so skinny, almost like she suffered from malnutrition. Greatly grieved, the merchant said, “I should have taken much better care of you while I could have!”
Actually, we all have 4 wives in our lives
The 4th wife is our body. No matter how much time and effort we lavish in making it look good, it’ll leave us when we die.
Our 3rd wife is our possessions, status and wealth. When we die, they all go to others.
The 2nd wife is our family and friends. No matter how close they had been there for us when we’re alive, the furthest they can stay by us is up to the grave.
The 1st wife is in fact our soul, often neglected in our pursuit of material, wealth and sensual pleasure.
He also loved the 3rd wife very much. He’s very proud of her and always wanted to show off her to his friends. However, the merchant is always in great fear that she might run away with some other men.
He too, loved his 2nd wife. She is a very considerate person, always patient and in fact is the merchant’s confidante. Whenever the merchant faced some problems, he always turned to his 2nd wife and she would always help him out and tide him through difficult times.
Now, the merchant’s 1st wife is a very loyal partner and has made great contributions in maintaining his wealth and business as well as taking care of the household. However, the merchant did not love the first wife and although she loved him deeply, he hardly took notice of her.
One day, the merchant fell ill. Before long, he knew that he was going to die soon. He thought of his luxurious life and told himself, “Now I have 4 wives with me. But when I die, I’ll be alone. How lonely I’ll be!”
Thus, he asked the 4th wife, “I loved you most, and owed you with the finest clothing and showered great care over you. Now that I’m dying, will you follow me and keep me company?” “No way!” replied the 4th wife and she walked away without another word.
The answer cut like a sharp knife right into the merchant’s heart. The sad merchant then asked the 3rd wife, “I have loved you so much for all my life. Now that I’m dying, will you follow me and keep me company?” “No!” replied the 3rd wife. “Life is so good over here! I’m going to remarry when you die!” The merchant’s heart sank and turned cold.
He then asked the 2nd wife, “I always turned to you for help and you’ve always helped me out. Now I need your help again. When I die, will you follow me and keep me company?” “I’m sorry, I can’t help you out this time!” replied the 2nd wife. “At the very most, I can only send you to your grave.” The answer came like a bolt of thunder and the merchant was devastated.
Then a voice called out: “I’ll leave with you. I’ll follow you no matter where you go.” The merchant looked up and there was his first wife. She was so skinny, almost like she suffered from malnutrition. Greatly grieved, the merchant said, “I should have taken much better care of you while I could have!”
Actually, we all have 4 wives in our lives
The 4th wife is our body. No matter how much time and effort we lavish in making it look good, it’ll leave us when we die.
Our 3rd wife is our possessions, status and wealth. When we die, they all go to others.
The 2nd wife is our family and friends. No matter how close they had been there for us when we’re alive, the furthest they can stay by us is up to the grave.
The 1st wife is in fact our soul, often neglected in our pursuit of material, wealth and sensual pleasure.
Reproving Wife
Some of the great teachers of China appear to have had a similar view of the value of art to that held by Pope Gregory the Great. adult Inflatable Jumpers They thought of art as a means of reminding people of the great examples of virtue in the golden ages of the past.One of the earliest illustrated Chinese bookscrolls that have been preserved is a collection of great examples of virtuous ladies, written in the spirit of Confucius. It is said to go back to the painter Ku K'ai-chi, who lived in the fourth century AD.
The illustration shows a husband unjustly accusing his wife, and it has all the dinity and grace we connect with Chinese art. It is as clear in its gestures and arrangement as one might expect from a picture which also aims at driving home a lesson. It shows, moreover, that the Chinese artist had mastered the difficult art of representing movement. There is nothing rigid in this early Chinese work, because the predilection for undulating lines imparts a sense of movement to the whole picture.
The illustration shows a husband unjustly accusing his wife, and it has all the dinity and grace we connect with Chinese art. It is as clear in its gestures and arrangement as one might expect from a picture which also aims at driving home a lesson. It shows, moreover, that the Chinese artist had mastered the difficult art of representing movement. There is nothing rigid in this early Chinese work, because the predilection for undulating lines imparts a sense of movement to the whole picture.
April Days
Days of witchery, kid Sumo Wrestling Suits subtly sweet,
When every hill and tree finds heart,
When winter and srping like lovers meet
In the mist of noon, and part-
In the April days.
Nights when the wood frogs faintly peep
Once-twice-and then are still,
And the woodpeckers`martial voices sweep
Like bugle notes from hill to hill-
Through the pulseless haze.
Days when the soil is warm with rain,
And through the wood the shy wind steals,
Rich with the pine and the poplar smell,
And the joyous earth like a dancer reels-
Through April days!
When every hill and tree finds heart,
When winter and srping like lovers meet
In the mist of noon, and part-
In the April days.
Nights when the wood frogs faintly peep
Once-twice-and then are still,
And the woodpeckers`martial voices sweep
Like bugle notes from hill to hill-
Through the pulseless haze.
Days when the soil is warm with rain,
And through the wood the shy wind steals,
Rich with the pine and the poplar smell,
And the joyous earth like a dancer reels-
Through April days!
Letter that Changed My Life
I was not yet 30 years old and was working as a firefighter in the South Bronx's Engine Co. 82, probably the world's most outdoor Inflatable Advertising active firehouse at the time. It was warm and sunny, the kind of leisurely Sunday that brought extra activity to the neighborhood and to its firefighters. We must have had 15 or 20 calls that day, the worst being a garbage fire in the rear of an abandoned building, which required a hard pull of 600 feet of cotton-jacketed hose.
Between alarms I would rush to the company office to read Captain Gray's copy of the Sunday New York Times. It was late in the afternoon when I finally got to the Book Review section. As I read it, my blood began to boil. An article blatantly stated what I took to be a calumny -- that William Butler Yeats(叶芝，威廉·巴特勒1865-1939爱尔兰作家，被认为是20世纪最伟大的诗人之一), the Nobel Prize-winning light of the Irish Literary Renaissance, had transcended his Irishness and was forever to be known as a universal poet.
There were few things I was more proud of than my Irish heritage, and ever since I first picked up a book of his poems from a barracks shelf when I was in the military, Yeats had been my favorite Irish writer, followed by Sean O'Casey and James Joyce.
My ancestors were Irish farmers, fishermen and blue-collar workers, but as far as I can tell, they all had a feeling for literature. It was passed on to my own mother, a telephone operator, who hardly ever sat down without a book in her hands. And at that moment my own fingernails might have been soiled with the soot of the day's fires, but I felt as prepared as any Trinity don to stand up in the court of public opinion and protest. Not only that Yeats had lived his life and written his poetry through the very essence of his Irish sensibility, but that it was offensive to think Irishness -- no matter if it was psychological, social or literary -- was something to be transcended.
My stomach was churning, and I determined not to let an idle minute pass. "Hey, Captain Gray. Could I use your typewriter?" I asked.
The typewriter was so old that I had to use just one finger to type, my strongest one, even though I could type with all ten. I grabbed the first piece of clean paper I could find -- one that had the logo of the Fire Department of the City of New York across the top -- and, hoping there would be a break in the alarms for 20 minutes or so, wrote out a four-paragraph letter of indignation to the editor of the Sunday Book Review(「纽约时报」书评).
Throughout his poetry, I postulated, Yeats yearned for a messiah to lead Ireland out from under the bondage of English rule, and his view of the world and the people in it was fundamentally Irish.
Just as I addressed the envelope, the final alarm of my tour came in, and as I slid down the long brass pole, I felt unexpectedly calm, as if a great rock had been purged from the bottom of my stomach.
I don't know why I felt it my obligation to safeguard the reputation of the world's greatest poet, at least next to Homer and Shakespeare, or to inscribe an apologia for Irish writing. I just knew that I had to write that letter, in the same way a priest has to pray, or a musician has to play an instrument.
Until that point in my life I had not written much of value -- a few poems and short stories, the beginning of a coming-of-age novel. I knew that my writing was anything but refined. Like a beginning artist who loves to draw, I understood that the more one draws, or writes, or does anything, the better the end result will be, and so I wrote often to better control my writing skills, to master them. I sent some material to various magazines and reviews but found no one willing to publish me.
It was a special and unexpected delight, then, when I learned something I'd written would finally see print. Ironically it wasn't one of my poems or short stories -- it was my letter to the Times. I suppose the editor decided to publish it because he was first attracted by the official nature of my stationery (was his staff taking smoke breaks out on the fire escape?), and then by the incongruity of a ghetto firefighter's using words like messianism, for in the lines below my letter it was announced that I was a New York City firefighter. I'd like to think, though, that the editor silently agreed with my thesis.
I remember receiving through the fire department's address about 20 sympathetic and congratulatory letters from professors around the country. These letters made me feel like I was not only a published writer but an opinion maker. It was as if I was suddenly thrust into being someone whose views mattered.
I also received a letter from True magazine and one from The New Yorker, asking for an interview. It was the latter that proved momentous, for when an article titled "Fireman Smith" appeared in that magazine, I received a telephone call from the editor of a large publishing firm who asked if I might be interested in writing a book about my life.
I had little confidence in my ability to write a whole book, though I did intuit that my work as a firefighter was a worthy subject. And so I wrote Report From Engine Co. 82 in six months, and it went on to sell two million copies and to be translated into 12 languages. In the years that followed, I wrote three more best-sellers, and last year published a memoir, A Song for Mary: An Irish-American Memory.
Being a writer had been far from my expectations; being a best-selling author was almost unfathomable. How had it happened? I often found myself thinking about it, marveling at it, and my thoughts always came back to that letter to the New York Times.
For me, the clearest explanation is that I had found the subject I was searching for, one I felt so strongly about that the writing was a natural consequence of the passion I felt. I was to feel this same kind of passion when I began writing about firefighters and, later, when writing about my mother. These are subjects that, to me, represent the great values of human life -- decency, honesty and fairness -- subjects that burn within me as I write.
Between alarms I would rush to the company office to read Captain Gray's copy of the Sunday New York Times. It was late in the afternoon when I finally got to the Book Review section. As I read it, my blood began to boil. An article blatantly stated what I took to be a calumny -- that William Butler Yeats(叶芝，威廉·巴特勒1865-1939爱尔兰作家，被认为是20世纪最伟大的诗人之一), the Nobel Prize-winning light of the Irish Literary Renaissance, had transcended his Irishness and was forever to be known as a universal poet.
There were few things I was more proud of than my Irish heritage, and ever since I first picked up a book of his poems from a barracks shelf when I was in the military, Yeats had been my favorite Irish writer, followed by Sean O'Casey and James Joyce.
My ancestors were Irish farmers, fishermen and blue-collar workers, but as far as I can tell, they all had a feeling for literature. It was passed on to my own mother, a telephone operator, who hardly ever sat down without a book in her hands. And at that moment my own fingernails might have been soiled with the soot of the day's fires, but I felt as prepared as any Trinity don to stand up in the court of public opinion and protest. Not only that Yeats had lived his life and written his poetry through the very essence of his Irish sensibility, but that it was offensive to think Irishness -- no matter if it was psychological, social or literary -- was something to be transcended.
My stomach was churning, and I determined not to let an idle minute pass. "Hey, Captain Gray. Could I use your typewriter?" I asked.
The typewriter was so old that I had to use just one finger to type, my strongest one, even though I could type with all ten. I grabbed the first piece of clean paper I could find -- one that had the logo of the Fire Department of the City of New York across the top -- and, hoping there would be a break in the alarms for 20 minutes or so, wrote out a four-paragraph letter of indignation to the editor of the Sunday Book Review(「纽约时报」书评).
Throughout his poetry, I postulated, Yeats yearned for a messiah to lead Ireland out from under the bondage of English rule, and his view of the world and the people in it was fundamentally Irish.
Just as I addressed the envelope, the final alarm of my tour came in, and as I slid down the long brass pole, I felt unexpectedly calm, as if a great rock had been purged from the bottom of my stomach.
I don't know why I felt it my obligation to safeguard the reputation of the world's greatest poet, at least next to Homer and Shakespeare, or to inscribe an apologia for Irish writing. I just knew that I had to write that letter, in the same way a priest has to pray, or a musician has to play an instrument.
Until that point in my life I had not written much of value -- a few poems and short stories, the beginning of a coming-of-age novel. I knew that my writing was anything but refined. Like a beginning artist who loves to draw, I understood that the more one draws, or writes, or does anything, the better the end result will be, and so I wrote often to better control my writing skills, to master them. I sent some material to various magazines and reviews but found no one willing to publish me.
It was a special and unexpected delight, then, when I learned something I'd written would finally see print. Ironically it wasn't one of my poems or short stories -- it was my letter to the Times. I suppose the editor decided to publish it because he was first attracted by the official nature of my stationery (was his staff taking smoke breaks out on the fire escape?), and then by the incongruity of a ghetto firefighter's using words like messianism, for in the lines below my letter it was announced that I was a New York City firefighter. I'd like to think, though, that the editor silently agreed with my thesis.
I remember receiving through the fire department's address about 20 sympathetic and congratulatory letters from professors around the country. These letters made me feel like I was not only a published writer but an opinion maker. It was as if I was suddenly thrust into being someone whose views mattered.
I also received a letter from True magazine and one from The New Yorker, asking for an interview. It was the latter that proved momentous, for when an article titled "Fireman Smith" appeared in that magazine, I received a telephone call from the editor of a large publishing firm who asked if I might be interested in writing a book about my life.
I had little confidence in my ability to write a whole book, though I did intuit that my work as a firefighter was a worthy subject. And so I wrote Report From Engine Co. 82 in six months, and it went on to sell two million copies and to be translated into 12 languages. In the years that followed, I wrote three more best-sellers, and last year published a memoir, A Song for Mary: An Irish-American Memory.
Being a writer had been far from my expectations; being a best-selling author was almost unfathomable. How had it happened? I often found myself thinking about it, marveling at it, and my thoughts always came back to that letter to the New York Times.
For me, the clearest explanation is that I had found the subject I was searching for, one I felt so strongly about that the writing was a natural consequence of the passion I felt. I was to feel this same kind of passion when I began writing about firefighters and, later, when writing about my mother. These are subjects that, to me, represent the great values of human life -- decency, honesty and fairness -- subjects that burn within me as I write.
being
“We are reading the first verse of the first chapter of a book whose pages are infinite...”
I do not know who wrote those words, but I have always liked them as a reminder that the future can be anything we want to make it.china Inflatable Toys We can take the mysterious, hazy future and carve out of it anything that we can imagine, just as a sculptor carves a statue from a shapeless stone.
We are all in the position of the farmer. If we plant a good seed, we reap a good harvest. If our seed is poor and full of weeds, we reap a useless crop. If we plant nothing at all, we harvest nothing at all.
I want the future to be better than the past. I don’t want it contaminated by the mistakes and errors with which history is filled. We should all be concerned about the future because that is where we will spend the remainder of our lives.
The past is gone and static. Nothing we can do will change it. The future is before us and dynamic. Everything we do will affect it. Each day brings with it newfrontiers, in our homes and in our business, if we only recognize them. We are just at the beginning of the progress in every field of human endeavor.
I do not know who wrote those words, but I have always liked them as a reminder that the future can be anything we want to make it.china Inflatable Toys We can take the mysterious, hazy future and carve out of it anything that we can imagine, just as a sculptor carves a statue from a shapeless stone.
We are all in the position of the farmer. If we plant a good seed, we reap a good harvest. If our seed is poor and full of weeds, we reap a useless crop. If we plant nothing at all, we harvest nothing at all.
I want the future to be better than the past. I don’t want it contaminated by the mistakes and errors with which history is filled. We should all be concerned about the future because that is where we will spend the remainder of our lives.
The past is gone and static. Nothing we can do will change it. The future is before us and dynamic. Everything we do will affect it. Each day brings with it newfrontiers, in our homes and in our business, if we only recognize them. We are just at the beginning of the progress in every field of human endeavor.
2009年12月2日星期三
Flowers and Coconut Leaves
FLOWERS and coconut leaves are daily necessities in Balinese life. Along with cooked rice, they are normal gifts to gods as the natives of Bali,holesale inflatable christmas “Island of Sacrifices”, set offerings in front of their houses every day, not to mention on special dates.
You get a glimpse of the islanders' carefree lifestyle from the common scene of small clusters of farmers enjoying a leisurely chat by the paddy fields, having laid down their hoes. A recess could easily last two or three hours, according to our guide.
On my recent visit, I noticed automobiles festooned with designs woven out of coconut leaves on their fronts. It turned out that sacrifices had just been offered with a prayer for road safety. The fast growth of tourism and traffic had brought about frequent accidents on the island, prompting the natives to add “safe driving” to their sacrificial calendar.
The Balinese entrust everything in life to divine providence. Even when a house is virtually burnt down, our local guide told us, people would celebrate their good fortune if any part of it were spared by the fire. Such contentment is what leads the islanders through life in their peculiar happy-go-lucky manner.
Once at nightfall, when passing the swimming-pool at my hotel, I caught sight of some Balinese dancers in ethnic costumes getting ready for their performance. With delicate care, the girls picked their head adornments from the flower-bed and fixed the blossoms on to their hair. What grows in Nature comes natural to them as the need arises.
Presumably, flowers bloom from Heaven and leaves sprout from Man's heart. To the accompaniment of the jingling lutes and babbling brooks, they embellish this world for the Balinese, and lend wings to their imagination for an even sweeter next world.
You get a glimpse of the islanders' carefree lifestyle from the common scene of small clusters of farmers enjoying a leisurely chat by the paddy fields, having laid down their hoes. A recess could easily last two or three hours, according to our guide.
On my recent visit, I noticed automobiles festooned with designs woven out of coconut leaves on their fronts. It turned out that sacrifices had just been offered with a prayer for road safety. The fast growth of tourism and traffic had brought about frequent accidents on the island, prompting the natives to add “safe driving” to their sacrificial calendar.
The Balinese entrust everything in life to divine providence. Even when a house is virtually burnt down, our local guide told us, people would celebrate their good fortune if any part of it were spared by the fire. Such contentment is what leads the islanders through life in their peculiar happy-go-lucky manner.
Once at nightfall, when passing the swimming-pool at my hotel, I caught sight of some Balinese dancers in ethnic costumes getting ready for their performance. With delicate care, the girls picked their head adornments from the flower-bed and fixed the blossoms on to their hair. What grows in Nature comes natural to them as the need arises.
Presumably, flowers bloom from Heaven and leaves sprout from Man's heart. To the accompaniment of the jingling lutes and babbling brooks, they embellish this world for the Balinese, and lend wings to their imagination for an even sweeter next world.
Change
Change has been the one constant in my life. manufacturer Air Dancer While staring out at the bleak Wisconsin winter, I think back to my beginnings on a warm tropical island. The biggest change was probably the first — moving from that buzzing Spanish-speaking isle to the sleepy sea-side town that was Tampa in 1978. It took me some time to realize that the other pre-schoolers could not understand my native tongue. Before long, I too was speaking their language.
Five years later I, an excited eight-year-old girl, boarded a school bus in New Jersey. The excitement quickly turned to fear as I heard rampant swearing in the back of the bus. I was truly shocked when the bus driver did nothing to stop the vulgarity. In my schools in Florida such behavior would have met with a bar of soap and a visit to the principal’s office. A year later, I had a "Jersey" accent, and had started swearing too.
After nine years my family then moved to a place called "a whole ’nother country": Texas. I discovered that everything is bigger in Texas, from the size of a glass of ice tea to the distances on the road. My mother added barbecued brisket to the regular menu of turkey and Idaho potatoes on Monday and arroz con pollo on Tuesday.
The incredibly friendly Texans, wearing cowboy boots and going to high school football games on Friday nights, seemed a totally different breed from my friends in New Jersey. A slight drawl entered my speech.
In two years time, I found myself in the mountains of rural Bolivian. As part of a team of doctors and students researching hypertension on a group of African- Bolivian villagers, I quickly learned a new vocabulary that included medical and anthropological terms. The greatest test of my linguistic abilities came when a villager accused me of drinking blood samples in some kind of vampire-like witchcraft ritual. I had to bridge a vast cultural gulf to explain a DNA isolation and analysis protocol in Spanish to someone who had never heard of a gene much less a double helix.
A year later I stood in a line at a McDonalds outside Buenos Aires asking for a sorbeto with a Puerto Rican accent and receiving a blank stare in return. I did not realize that in Argentina the word for straw was papote. Working at the U.S. embassy, I could clearly see the obvious differences between the U.S. and Argentina, but being out among the people and actually experiencing the culture helped me begin to understand and appreciate the subtle differences which, when taken together, make up a people.
Each place I have lived has its differences, from the obvious distinctions of Wisconsin and Texas weather, to the regional variations of the Spanish language. I bring with me wherever I go a part of those places and the impact they have had on my life, most evident to others by the variations in my speech. Beneath all the accents, however, lies something more significant, for I believe who you are is immeasurable more important than where you were. When I was younger, I could not clearly discern between situations where I should or should not adopt the ways of those around me. With maturity however I have come to understand the crucial difference between adaptation and assimilation. I have chosen to reject the vulgarity of the New Jersey school bus; I have also adopted the Texans’ warm and friendly manner. Having experienced frequent moves to very different surroundings, I can adapt without compromising what is important to me while learning from each new setting.
Five years later I, an excited eight-year-old girl, boarded a school bus in New Jersey. The excitement quickly turned to fear as I heard rampant swearing in the back of the bus. I was truly shocked when the bus driver did nothing to stop the vulgarity. In my schools in Florida such behavior would have met with a bar of soap and a visit to the principal’s office. A year later, I had a "Jersey" accent, and had started swearing too.
After nine years my family then moved to a place called "a whole ’nother country": Texas. I discovered that everything is bigger in Texas, from the size of a glass of ice tea to the distances on the road. My mother added barbecued brisket to the regular menu of turkey and Idaho potatoes on Monday and arroz con pollo on Tuesday.
The incredibly friendly Texans, wearing cowboy boots and going to high school football games on Friday nights, seemed a totally different breed from my friends in New Jersey. A slight drawl entered my speech.
In two years time, I found myself in the mountains of rural Bolivian. As part of a team of doctors and students researching hypertension on a group of African- Bolivian villagers, I quickly learned a new vocabulary that included medical and anthropological terms. The greatest test of my linguistic abilities came when a villager accused me of drinking blood samples in some kind of vampire-like witchcraft ritual. I had to bridge a vast cultural gulf to explain a DNA isolation and analysis protocol in Spanish to someone who had never heard of a gene much less a double helix.
A year later I stood in a line at a McDonalds outside Buenos Aires asking for a sorbeto with a Puerto Rican accent and receiving a blank stare in return. I did not realize that in Argentina the word for straw was papote. Working at the U.S. embassy, I could clearly see the obvious differences between the U.S. and Argentina, but being out among the people and actually experiencing the culture helped me begin to understand and appreciate the subtle differences which, when taken together, make up a people.
Each place I have lived has its differences, from the obvious distinctions of Wisconsin and Texas weather, to the regional variations of the Spanish language. I bring with me wherever I go a part of those places and the impact they have had on my life, most evident to others by the variations in my speech. Beneath all the accents, however, lies something more significant, for I believe who you are is immeasurable more important than where you were. When I was younger, I could not clearly discern between situations where I should or should not adopt the ways of those around me. With maturity however I have come to understand the crucial difference between adaptation and assimilation. I have chosen to reject the vulgarity of the New Jersey school bus; I have also adopted the Texans’ warm and friendly manner. Having experienced frequent moves to very different surroundings, I can adapt without compromising what is important to me while learning from each new setting.
A Perfect Wife
After thirty years of married happiness, he could still remind himself that Victoria was endowed with every charm except the thrilling touch of human frailty. Though her perfection discouraged pleasures, especially the pleasures of love,manufacturer Inflatable Slide he had learned in time to feel the pride of a husband in her natural frigidity. For he still clung, amid the decay of moral platitudes, to the discredited ideal of chivalry. In his youth the world was suffused with the after-glow of the long Victorian age, and a graceful feminine style had softened the manners, if not the natures, of men. At the end of that interesting epoch, when womanhood was exalted from a biological fact into a miraculous power, Virginius Littlepage, the younger son of an old and affluent family, had married Victoria Brooke, the grand-daughter of a tobacco planter, who had made a satisfactory fortune by forsaking his plantation and converting tobacco into cigarettes. While Virginius had been trained by stern tradition to respect every woman who had not stooped to folly, the virtue peculiar to her sex was among the least of his reasons for admiring Victoria. She was not only modest, which was usual in the 課ineties, but she was beautiful, which is unusual in any decade. In the beginning of their acquaintance he had gone even further and ascribed intellect to her; but a few months of marriage had shown this to be merely one of the many delusions created by perfect features and noble expression. Everything about her had been smooth and definite, even the tones of her voice and the way her light brown hair, which she wore ?la Pompadour, was rolled stiffly back from her forehead and coiled in a burnished rope on the top of her head. A serious young man, ambitious to attain a place in the world more brilliant than the secluded seat of his ancestors, he had been impressed at their first meeting by the compactness and precision of Victoria's orderly mind. For in that earnest period the minds, as well as the emotions, of lovers were orderly. It was an age when eager young men flocked to church on Sunday morning, and eloquent divines discoursed upon the Victorian poets in the middle of the week. He could afford to smile now when he recalled the solemn Browning class in which he had first lost his heart. How passionately he had admired Victoria's virginal features! How fervently he had envied her competent but caressing way with the poet! Incredible as it seemed to him now, he had fallen in love with her while she recited from the more ponderous passages in The Ring and the Book. He had fallen in love with her then, though he had never really enjoyed Browning, and it had been a relief to him when the Unseen, in company with its illustrious poet, had at last gone out of fashion. Yet, since he was disposed to admire all the qualities he did not possess, he had never ceased to respect the firmness with which Victoria continued to deal in other forms with the Absolute. As the placid years passed, and she came to rely less upon her virginal features, it seemed to him that the ripe opinions of her youth began to shrink and flatten as fruit does that has hung too long on the tree. She had never changed, he realized, since he had first known her; she had become merely riper, softer, and sweeter in nature. Her advantage rested where advantage never fails to rest, in moral fervour. To be invariably right was her single wifely failing. For his wife, he sighed, with the vague unrest of a husband whose infidelities are imaginary, was a genuinely good woman. She was as far removed from pretence as she was from the posturing virtues that flourish in the credulous world of the drama.
2009年12月1日星期二
The last tape
The bustle of the hospital was a welcome distraction as I opened my new patient's chart and headed for her room. My son,cheap Inflatable Jumpers Eric, had just brought home a disappointing report card, and my daughter, Shannon, and I had argued again about her getting a driver's license. For the next eight hours I wanted to throw myself into helping people who I knew had much more to worry about than I did.
Rebekah was only 32, admitted for chemotherapy after breast-cancer surgery, When I entered her room it took me a moment to spot her amid the bouncing forms of three giggling little girls.
I told Rebekah I would be her nurse and she introduced her husband, Warren; six-year-old Ruthie; four-year-old Hannah; and two-year-old Molly. Warren coaxed the girls away from their mother with a promise of ice cream and assured Rebekah they would return the next day.
As I rubbed alcohol on her arm to prepare it for the intravenous line, Rebekah laughed nervously. "I have to tell you I'm terrified of needles." "It'll be over before you know it," I said. "I'll give you a count of three."
Rebekah shut her eyes tightly and murmured a prayer until it was over. Then she smiled and squeezed my hand. "Before you go, could you get my Bible from the table?" I handed her the worn book. "Do you have a favorite Bible verse?" she asked. "Jesus wept. John 11: 35." "Such a sad one," she said. "Why?"
"It makes me feel closer to Jesus, knowing he also experienced human sorrow."
Rebekah nodded thoughtfully and started flipping through her Bible as I shut the door quietly behind me.
During the following months I watched Rebekah struggle with the ravages of chemotherapy. Her hospital stays became frequent and she worried about her children. Meanwhile I continued to contend with raising my own kids. They always seemed either out or holed up in their rooms. I missed the days when they were as attached to me as Rebekah's little girls were to her.
For a time it had seemed Rebekah's chemotherapy was working. Then doctors discovered another malignant lump. Two months later, a chest X-ray revealed the cancer had spread to her lungs. It was terminal. Help me to help her through this, I prayed.
One day when I entered her room, I found her talking into a tape recorder. She picked up a yellow legal pad and held it out to me. "I'm making a tape for my daughters, " she said.
I read the list on her pad: starting school, confirmation, turning 16, first date, graduation. While I worried how to help her deal with death, she was planning for her children's future.
She usually waited until the early hours of the morning to record the tapes so she could be free from interruptions. She filled them with family stories and advice?trying to cram a lifetime of love into a few precious hours. Finally, every item in her notes had been checked off and she entrusted the tapes to her husband.
I often wondered what I would say in her place. My kids joked that I was like an FBI agent, with my constant questions about where they'd been and who they'd been with. Where, I thought, are my words of encouragement and love?
It was three o'clock one afternoon when I got an urgent call from the hospital. Rebekah wanted me to come immediately with a blank tape. What topic has she forgotten? I wondered.
She was flushed and breathing hard when I entered her room. I slipped the tape into the recorder and held the microphone to her lips. "Ruthie, Hannah, Molly?this is the most important tape." She held my hand and closed her eyes. "Someday your daddy will bring home a new mommy. Please make her feel special. Show her how to take care of you. Ruthie, honey, help her get your Brownie uniform ready each Tuesday. Hannah, tell her you don't want meat sauce on your spaghetti. She won't know you like it separate. Molly, don't get mad if there's no apple juice. Drink something else. It's okay to be sad, sweeties. Jesus cried too. He knows about sadness and will help you to be happy again. Remember, I'll always love you.
I shut off the recorder and Rebekah sighed deeply. "Thank you, Nan," she said with a weak smile. "You'll give this one to them, won't you?" she murmured as she slid into sleep.
Rebekah was only 32, admitted for chemotherapy after breast-cancer surgery, When I entered her room it took me a moment to spot her amid the bouncing forms of three giggling little girls.
I told Rebekah I would be her nurse and she introduced her husband, Warren; six-year-old Ruthie; four-year-old Hannah; and two-year-old Molly. Warren coaxed the girls away from their mother with a promise of ice cream and assured Rebekah they would return the next day.
As I rubbed alcohol on her arm to prepare it for the intravenous line, Rebekah laughed nervously. "I have to tell you I'm terrified of needles." "It'll be over before you know it," I said. "I'll give you a count of three."
Rebekah shut her eyes tightly and murmured a prayer until it was over. Then she smiled and squeezed my hand. "Before you go, could you get my Bible from the table?" I handed her the worn book. "Do you have a favorite Bible verse?" she asked. "Jesus wept. John 11: 35." "Such a sad one," she said. "Why?"
"It makes me feel closer to Jesus, knowing he also experienced human sorrow."
Rebekah nodded thoughtfully and started flipping through her Bible as I shut the door quietly behind me.
During the following months I watched Rebekah struggle with the ravages of chemotherapy. Her hospital stays became frequent and she worried about her children. Meanwhile I continued to contend with raising my own kids. They always seemed either out or holed up in their rooms. I missed the days when they were as attached to me as Rebekah's little girls were to her.
For a time it had seemed Rebekah's chemotherapy was working. Then doctors discovered another malignant lump. Two months later, a chest X-ray revealed the cancer had spread to her lungs. It was terminal. Help me to help her through this, I prayed.
One day when I entered her room, I found her talking into a tape recorder. She picked up a yellow legal pad and held it out to me. "I'm making a tape for my daughters, " she said.
I read the list on her pad: starting school, confirmation, turning 16, first date, graduation. While I worried how to help her deal with death, she was planning for her children's future.
She usually waited until the early hours of the morning to record the tapes so she could be free from interruptions. She filled them with family stories and advice?trying to cram a lifetime of love into a few precious hours. Finally, every item in her notes had been checked off and she entrusted the tapes to her husband.
I often wondered what I would say in her place. My kids joked that I was like an FBI agent, with my constant questions about where they'd been and who they'd been with. Where, I thought, are my words of encouragement and love?
It was three o'clock one afternoon when I got an urgent call from the hospital. Rebekah wanted me to come immediately with a blank tape. What topic has she forgotten? I wondered.
She was flushed and breathing hard when I entered her room. I slipped the tape into the recorder and held the microphone to her lips. "Ruthie, Hannah, Molly?this is the most important tape." She held my hand and closed her eyes. "Someday your daddy will bring home a new mommy. Please make her feel special. Show her how to take care of you. Ruthie, honey, help her get your Brownie uniform ready each Tuesday. Hannah, tell her you don't want meat sauce on your spaghetti. She won't know you like it separate. Molly, don't get mad if there's no apple juice. Drink something else. It's okay to be sad, sweeties. Jesus cried too. He knows about sadness and will help you to be happy again. Remember, I'll always love you.
I shut off the recorder and Rebekah sighed deeply. "Thank you, Nan," she said with a weak smile. "You'll give this one to them, won't you?" she murmured as she slid into sleep.
A Day at The Tradition
Several years ago adult Christmas Decorations I was diagnosed with cancer. It was the most difficult time I have ever faced. I think it was my sense of humor that allowed me to hold onto my sanity. Like many people who have gone through chemotherapy, I lost all of my hair and I was bald as a cue ball. I always had enjoyed wearing hats, so when my hair deserted me, I ordered several special hats with the hair already attached. It was easy and I never had to worry about how my hair looked.
I have always been a big golf fan. In fact, I have been to twenty-three straight U.S. Opens. At one point during my cancer treatments, my husband John and I decided to get away from the cold Minnesota winter and took a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona. There was a Senior PGA Tour event called The Tradition being played, and that seemed like just the ticket to lift my spirits.
The first day of the tournament brought out a huge gallery. It was a beautiful day, and I was in heaven. I was standing just off the third tee, behind the fairway ropes, watching my three favorite golfers in the world approach the tee box: Jack Nicklaus, Raymond Floyd and Tom Weiskopf.
Just as they arrived at the tee, the unimaginable happened. A huge gust of wind came up from out of nowhere and blew my hat and hair right off my head and into the middle of the fairway! The thousands of spectators lining the fairway fell into an awkward silence, all eyes on me. Even my golf idols were watching me, as my hair was in their flight path. I was mortified! Embarrassed as I was, I knew I couldn't just stand there. Someone had to do something to get things moving again.
So I took a deep breath, went under the ropes and out into the middle of the fairway. I grabbed my hat and hair, nestled them back on my head as best I could. Then I turned to the golfers and loudly announced, "Gentlemen, the wind is blowing from left to right."
I have always been a big golf fan. In fact, I have been to twenty-three straight U.S. Opens. At one point during my cancer treatments, my husband John and I decided to get away from the cold Minnesota winter and took a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona. There was a Senior PGA Tour event called The Tradition being played, and that seemed like just the ticket to lift my spirits.
The first day of the tournament brought out a huge gallery. It was a beautiful day, and I was in heaven. I was standing just off the third tee, behind the fairway ropes, watching my three favorite golfers in the world approach the tee box: Jack Nicklaus, Raymond Floyd and Tom Weiskopf.
Just as they arrived at the tee, the unimaginable happened. A huge gust of wind came up from out of nowhere and blew my hat and hair right off my head and into the middle of the fairway! The thousands of spectators lining the fairway fell into an awkward silence, all eyes on me. Even my golf idols were watching me, as my hair was in their flight path. I was mortified! Embarrassed as I was, I knew I couldn't just stand there. Someone had to do something to get things moving again.
So I took a deep breath, went under the ropes and out into the middle of the fairway. I grabbed my hat and hair, nestled them back on my head as best I could. Then I turned to the golfers and loudly announced, "Gentlemen, the wind is blowing from left to right."
Of Death
Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children, is increased with tales,kid Inflatable Toys so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations, there is sometimes mixture of vanity, and of superstition. You shall read, in some of the friars’ books of mortification, that a man should think with himself, what the pain is, if he have but his finger’s end pressed, or tortured, and thereby imagine, what the pains of death are, when the whole body is corrupted, and dissolved; when many times death passeth, with less pain than the torture of a limb; for the most vital parts, are not the quickest of sense. And by him that spake only as a philosopher, and natural man, it was well said, Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors ipsa. Groans, and convulsions, and a discolored face, and friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible. It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man, so weak, but it mates, and masters, the fear of death; and therefore, death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear preoccupateth it; nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had slain himself, pity (which is the tenderest of affections) provoked many to die, out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers. Nay, Seneca adds niceness and satiety: Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest. A man would die, though he were neither valiant, nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft, over and over. It is no less worthy, to observe, how little alteration in good spirits, the approaches of death make; for they appear to be the same men, till the last instant. Augustus Caesar died in a compliment; Livia, conjugii nostri memor, vive et vale. Tiberius in dissimulation; as Tacitus saith of him, Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, deserebant. Vespasian in a jest, sitting upon the stool; Ut puto deus fio. Galba with a sentence; Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani; holding forth his neck. Septimius Severus in despatch; Adeste si quid mihi restat agendum. And the like. Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost upon death, and by their great preparations, made it appear more fearful. Better saith he qui finem vitae extremum inter munera ponat naturae. It is as natural to die, as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful, as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit, is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed, and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the dolors of death. But, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is, Nunc dimittis; when a man hath obtained worthy ends, and expectations.
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