Something else to ponder.......

BE PATIENT

This is a true story which happened in the States. A man came out of his home to admire his new truck. To his puzzlement, his three-year-old son was happily hammering dents into the shiny paint of the truck. The man ran to his son, knocked him away, hammered the little boy's hands into pulp as punishment. When the father calmed down, he rushed his son to the hospital.

Although the doctor tried desperately to save the crushed bones, he finally had to amputate the fingers from both the boy's hands. When the boy woke up from the surgery and saw his bandaged stubs, he innocently said, "Daddy, I'm sorry about your truck." Then he asked, "but when are my fingers going to grow back?" The father went home and committed suicide.

Think about this story the next time someone steps on your feet or you wish to take revenge. Think first before you lose your patience with someone you love. Trucks can be repaired.. Broken bones and hurt feelings often can't. Too often we fail to recognize the difference between the person and the performance. We forget that forgiveness is greater than revenge.

People make mistakes. We are allowed to make mistakes. But the actions we take while in a rage will haunt us forever.

"Good Life starts only when you stop wanting a better One"

" Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away "

Something to ponder.....

PERSONAL PERCEPTION

Different people have different perception. One man's meat could be another man's poison. A couple bought a donkey from the market. On the way home, a boy commented, "Very stupid. Why neither of them ride on the donkey? "Upon hearing that, the husband let the wife ride on the donkey. He walked besides them. Later, an old man saw it and commented, "The husband is the head of family. How can the wife ride on the donkey while the husband is on foot?" Hearing this, the wife quickly got down and let the husband ride on the donkey.

Further on the way home, they met an old Lady. She commented, "How can the man ride on the donkey but let the wife walk. He is no gentleman." The husband thus quickly asked the wife to join him on the donkey. Then, they met a young man. He commented, "Poor donkey, how can you hold up the weight of two persons. They are cruel to you." Hearing that, the husband and wife immediately climbed down from the donkey and carried it on their shoulders.

It seems to be the only choice left. Later, on a narrow bridge, the donkey was frightened and struggled. They lost their balance and fell into the river. You can never have everyone praise you, nor will everyone condemn you. Never in the past, not at present, and never will be in the future.

Thus, do not be too bothered by others words if our conscience is clear..

Singing Telegrams

This activity is something for you to have some fun with. It is also good for helping you to improve your spelling punctuation and your ability to write short concise text.

The activity uses a site called KakoMessenger which enables you to create singing telegram messages that looks like the one below.

Task:

• Go to: http://www.kakomessenger.com/ There you will see a choice of two different singers. Select the one that you would like to sing your text for you.

• Then type your text. Make sure that you are careful with spelling and punctuation (Your singer can only sing words in English if they are spelled correctly)

Here are some possible things to write about:

• Write some tips for learning English
• Send a message to an English speaking friend
• Send a message to your English teacher
• Create a message about this site and then post it to the comments

• Once you have written your message, click on 'PLAY' and wait a couple of minutes. Your telegram should then start to play.

• If you like the message you can then send it to someone by email, or you can click on 'MODIFY' to change it or correct the spelling or punctuation.

I hope you enjoy this activity and send lots of singing telegrams to your friends.

Learn vocabulary through mind mapping

This activity is a way to help you record, remember and build up your vocabulary. To do this we are going to use a simple tool called Bubbl.us which you can use to create 'mind maps' or what some people call 'spidergrams' or 'vocabulary webs'.

These are graphs which show relationships. They are very useful tools to help you think about and arrange words or ideas as well as to show the relationship between those ideas or words. we are going to use them today to help us look at relationships between words and help us remember them.

Task:

• To get started go to: http://www.bubbl.us and click on 'Start Brainstorming'

• You will then see a bubble in the centre of the page that says 'Start here' click on it and enter the theme for your first 'vocabulary web'. For this web we will use the topic of 'Entertainment'. Click on 'Start here' and replace the text with the word 'Entertainment' then pres enter. Another bubble will appear below it.

• Click on the next bubble and add a type of entertainment, e.g. 'video games', then click back on the word entertainment and press enter again, you should get a second bubble, add another form of entertainment in this bubble. Keep adding and building up words around the central theme. You can drag the words to arrange them.

• Once you have 5 or 6 words around your central thee start to add words that are connected to each form of entertainment. Again, you do this by clicking on the word and pressing enter on your keyboard

• You can then add words that are connected with each of those words. Keep adding as many words as you can.

• Once you have added as many words as you can, click on 'Save'. You will then have to create a free account.

• You will need to create a user name and password and have an email address.

• Once you have created an account you can save your vocabulary web, give it a name and start creating more on different themes. You can go back and click 'Load' to see the vocabulary maps you have created and add new words as you learn them.

This is a great way to remember, review and extend your vocabulary and it can help you to build up your own theme related dictionary.