"But to me, my mother's English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It's my mother's tongue. Her language, as I hear it, is vivid, direct, full of observation and imagery."
Amy Tan can perfectly understand her mother's broken English, while other people can understand only a little bit of it and some of them can't even understand anything of it. Why is that? Apparently, life shows us that nobody can understand you better than your parents do, and nobody can understand your parents better than you do. The best analysis for this kind of behaviour is linked to the infinite and long moments that you and your parents share together throught life, and to the connection of blood between you and your parents. It is said to be that those stored infinite and long shared moments promote your brain from a storage organ to a "dictionary-like" organ. Therfore, whenever your parents say or do something that you're not familiar with, your brain tends to link these words or acts to some of their previuos similar acts or words, which is stored in your brain. Then, once you find a match, you compare the new and previous words or acts, and thus predict what the new acts or words might mean. In, other words, Amy Tan can understand her mother's broken English better than anybody else, because of the infinite and long moments they share together.
"That was the language that helped shape the way I saw things, expressed things, made sense of the world."
For Amy Tan, maybe her mom's language was broken and nobody could understand, but this language was the one that her mom talked with her through when making her overcome problems that faced her through life. Also, this is the language that her mom talked through with Amy, and gave her the motivation for a lot of things in her life. But is this true for Amy only? Well, maybe the broken language is, but definitely everyone of us have parents that are just like Amy's somehow.Certainely, no one of us would have ever known what life means, if it wasn't for our parents to make it clear for us, just like Amy. For sure, no one of us would have ever been able to overcome the problems that faced him through his life, if it wasn't for our parents who helped us do it. Therefore, Amy Tan isn't the only when lucky for having such a mom, but we're all lucky for having such parents.
There are a lot of nice places around the world that everybody dreams of visiting, but for me, I dream I will visit someday every place on the map of the world. Unfortunately, I'm not a millionaire and I'm a realistic person too. Therefore, I know that my dream is never going to come true, but I might someday have the chance of visiting only one place. So where would it be? Honestly, it would be Egypt, because the Pharaohs and the pyramids are the big obsessions of my life that I would like to see.
Nowadays, our work takes a lot of our time, such that we hardly have anytime to cook ourselves some food. As a result, restaurants are expanding a lot and becoming a very good investment today. Therefore, this field of investment is becoming very competitive in a very benificial way to the consumer. For instance, all restuarants tend to please the customer, in order to gain the reputation of a "good restaurant". But what is a good restaurant? A good restaurant is the restaurant that pleases its customer by providing some healthy and tasty food for low prices.
"There's no place like home" might be a very well-known expression to you, but wasn't for me before I came to the United States of America. Why? Because, I never lived outside my country before, but now I regret everyday that I do. Therefore, my advice to you is don't come here and stay home, because the way they live here is very different from how we do back home.
Nowadays, men and women are said to be equal more than they were in any century ago. Actually, women weren't equal to men in any century ago. Even that, there's still some common things between men and women in our century and those from ancient centuries. For instance, men are still stronger physically and politically than women. Therefore, men are still stronger than women even in our "Human Rights" century.
Can you imagine life without work? Well, I can't, because I have a good job. My job is very well connected to my points of interests in life, and releases my imagination in a way that makes me come up with very creative and beneficiary ideas. In other words, my job is so good, that it describes me better than my picture does.
"Reading has made me a lot aware of the world around me. For instance, with issues and events, I don't have to just listen to the news and only hear what others say, I can also read and fiorm my own opinions."
Indeed, reading makes you aware of what's going on around you in the world. Today, a person who doesn't have any access to the internet or the T.V. channels, is considered to be isolated from the rest of the world, but is that true? Well, James Rich disagrees with that as well as I do. Reading is the key to the world. Reading fuels you up with the best knoweldge you need to be able to survive in this world. Reading gives you the ability to be creative and imaginative.
"Between Mr. Muhammad's teachings, my correspondence, my visitors, . . . .and my reading of books, months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life. . . ."
Being free is the ultimate goal for eveyone of us, but the way we acheive it differs between one person and another. In this passage, Malcolm X acheives his freedom in prison. For him, having time for Mr. Muhammad's teachings made him feel free. Having time for reading books, made him feel free. Having time for his visitors, made him feel free. For me, being able to go wherever I want, makes me feel free. Being able to do whatever I want, makes me feel free. Being able to express myself freely, makes me feel free. Therefore, as we can see, freedom is a dimensional concept, where everyone of us draws his own dimensions for his own freedom.
What is a student? Obviously, a student today is the one who attends school, college, or university. But hey, I went to school since I was born, and now I'm attending college, so this makes me a very good student. Doesn't it? Well, I‘m sorry, but if you think so then you totally misunderstood the concept of "What is a good student?” A good student is the one whose brain, heart, and soul attend school.
"Use your brain!" is a very famous and very used term nowadays to indicate to somebody to think, but where do we learn from how to think? Well, everyone of us is born with his own brain and thinking is built in our brain, but school is the factory where this simple thinking is developed and promoted in order to produce creative and wise thoughts. Therefore, if you would like to be a good product of this factory (school), you must bring the essential materials with you (brain).
How does a heart attend school!? Well, think about it metaphorically not literally. School is a place where we learn all about emotions, how to love everybody, and how not to hate, which is related to your heart emotionally. Thus, in order to be a very good result in this field, you must attend school with the basics (heart).
You're probably saying now "Ha, good luck trying to prove that the soul also can attend school !", but I have no response for that. Actually, I have a bunch of questions for you, "Isn't school a place where you learn self-discipline from?” Of course, it is. "Isn't self-discipline related to your soul ?". Yes, it is. "Don't you become best disciplined if you attended school having your soul ?". For sure, you do. "Do you still wish me good luck ?". I hope you do.
As we can see now, the one who's brain, heart, and soul attend school will be for sure creative, wise, friendly, and self-disciplined. Thus, he will enjoy the characteristics of a good student.
School is a wonderful place where children learn discipline, respect, and love, even though that parents are the ones responsible for this task.
For me, school was the most wonderful thing that happened to me. At school, I learned how to respect people older than me, even if some of them were disrespectfull to me. At school, I learned how to love all people, even if some of them didn't love me. At school, I had teachers who listened to me and cared about my opinion. In other words, at school I learned how to behave as a nice person, which is really rare to find nowadays. These are the most important things I learned at school, but this is not all. I learned a lot more important stuff at school too.
For example, I learned how to read which gave me the opportunity of educating myself by reading newspapers, magazines, etc. In addition to that, I learned how to write which gave me the chance to communictae with people through letters. I also learned how to think wisely and respond wisely when talking or judjing people. After all, these characteristics might seem to you very easy to obtain, but I really enjoyed every moment I spent at school. I enjoyed being a simple person and having simple friends. Friends that didn't know to lie, and were my friends just for fun not for anything else.
Those are the most wonderful advantages that school offers us, and if I had the choice of going back to school, I won't hesitate at all.
I always liked to know what's going on around me in the world. Thus, reading became a part of my everyday life back in Lebanon. As a result, when somebody came and asked me "What's going on ?", I would answer " Insurgents in Iraq shot down a helicopter!". Do I sound weird to you?
Well, I'm not. I'm just addicted to politics and newspapers. At least, that's what I used to be back in Lebanon. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time for reading anymore after i moved to the U.S.A. Nowadays, I have to work and go to college, which limits my free time. Besides, today I can know everything I need from the T.V. and the internet, but even that i still prefer the newspapers. Although I'm addicted to politics, but after I moved to the U.S.A., I discovered that I'm addicted to romance too. For example, I have read a lot of love poems and novels since I came to the U.S.A. as assignments for my classes, such as "Romeo and Juliet" for Shakespeare. I actually enjoyed reading those poems and novels, because they made me realize that politics is not everything going on around me in the world. Those poems and novels made me forget for a second the pain of wars, and live the happiness of love.
At the end, I would like to say that I enjoyed every moment I spent in my life reading, and I wish I can spent the rest of my life reading.
It was my second week at college, and i was already fifteen minutes late to my english class. As that would be my third absence and i would be kicked from the class, i started running trying to reach the class before the instructor calls my name and marks me absent. Hitting into the door, I entered the class trying to reach my chair among those empty chairs, but as I found my seat and sat down, i looked around and what a big surprise it was, the class was empty. "Hey, where's everybody ?" I asked myself, and jumped out from my chair and started looking around trying to find an answer, but instead of finding an answer, I started asking myself more questions: "Is today Thursday ?", "Am I in the right room ?", etc. Unfortunately, I was in the right room and it was the right day, but I was the only person in there. Then, I realized that the class might have been relocated to another room, and of course because i was late they didn't wait for me and the instructor have marked me absent by now. I was mad, but I didn't give up. I went on looking in the other rooms on the campus for my class, and hoped that by finding it, I can then convince the instructor that i really care for his class and he won't mark me absent. As i went on looking around, my only hope was that my instructor would be kind-hearted and will not let me down. I looked around all over the campus once, but i couldn't find my class. Then, I went on and looked for another time, but still couldn't see my class. Now it was time to give up and realize that my class wasn't relocated to another room. "Where's everybody ?" I asked myself again desperately, but this time the only answer i thought of was "Hey, maybe the professor is absent !". I liked that answer and decided to leave hoping that my answer is what really happened.
Template by motime.com | header image credit: Markus Gann © www.begann.de
