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Heart Muscles
Надежда Никифоровна Рогожина, проректор по международным программам, зав. кафедрой лингвистики и межъязыковой коммуникации Самарского муниципального университета Наяновой, кандидат педагогических наук, доцент.
Директор негосударственного учреждения дополнительного образования “World Class-Samara”.
Dear Reader,
Today I am going to talk to you about creative abilities and how they can be developed. Any child is born with abilities of some kind and it is only the matter of their environment (upbringing, social conditions etc) whether they are developed or not.
When learning, a child can acquire many creative skills: composing music, writing poetry, etc.
One can learn doing that by copying famous authors and following some techniques. And learning a foreign language could be of help. It's very interesting to try to write in the same style as Shakespeare (sonnet), for example!
And there are some other ways to develop creative skills, that is to acquire a new cultural experience. Why not try the style of a Japanese haiku? It has become very popular in the Western world. There are societies and a web site in the Internet dedicated to it. Initially Haiku was devoted to nature, but nowadays one can find a haiku on a variety of topics. There are even humorous ones! Like this one:
What can I put down
That has seven syllables
In the middle line?
Or, more seriously,
In the amber dusk ...
Each island dreams its own night
The sea swarms with gold.
Why has this form become so popular? By its simplicity, I think. It has a very simple structure: 3 lines, 5-7-5 syllables.
Below you will find haiku written during English lessons. It can be done at any level of studying English and even with a less rich vocabulary.
Pressure Cooker
Hard times for mother,
Children gathering around
The evening kitchen.
End
Far away
From Earth
They met at the volcano.
Then they exploded.
As for me, I got acquainted with this small, exquisite form when I was at Cambridge Academy of English (UK) in 1995. We were an International group often (Italian, Swedish, Spanish, Austrian, Japanese, Russian). We were introduced to this technique by our teacher and were charmed by it! Even the Japanese, who for the first time tried to compose haiku in English! It's so fascinating! Try it!
Nadezhda
Heart Muscles
 Syndicated newspaper advice columnist and author of twelve books, Azriela Jaffe is the editor of Heartwarmers4u book, she continues to swim at the health club every day and whenever she runs into her new friends, she gets a big hug. They didn't move her furniture to get their names in a published book, but when she told them their story would be published, she got big smiles! Azriela knows who she'll be calling when she or her husband decide to move from Lancaster, PA, where they now reside: Hercules, Tarzan and Rambo!
My husband and I had a dilemma. We had to move a 200 pound dining room table and two cabinets from our living room to the basement, and move a heavy dining room table and two buffet cabinets up from the basement. We didn't have anyone to help us with the move. Everyone we could think of either has a bad back, is over the age of 70, or was too busy to get ahold of1. You can't call a moving company for such a thing. The furniture stayed in our basement for weeks while we tried to think of a solution. Then it dawned on me one morning as I made my daily trek to the Lancaster County Health and Racquetball Club, where I swim laps2 every day.
As I walked through the place, I saw strong men everywhere! I approached Hoss, the resident repairman, told him my problem and asked him if he knew any big strong guys who could come to my rescue. He immediately said, "I'm sure I can round up some guys for you." I gave him my phone number, went for my swim, and as soon as I was walking in the door an hour later, the phone rang. "Hoss here. I got those guys for you. They'll be over this morning."
At 10:30am the doorbell rang, and Hercules, Tarzan, and Rambo were on my doorstep. I just broke out laughing. These men sported 600 pounds of muscle between them, the most finely sculpted bodies I have ever seen. They could pick up our dining table with one hand, and eat a sandwich at the same time. Hoss had done his job well!
These men saved the day for us. They moved all the furniture around for us as needed, joking the whole time as if this was the most fun they've had in a long time. I got to know them a bit as we talked. Humphrey Seth Afari won second place in the world championship power lifting competition, in the 170 pound weight class. James Lewis, the "big guy" (they were all big, believe me!) won the world champion masters competition in the 200-220 pounds class, and third place overall. He also set a national record in his weight class by lifting 435 pounds. Eh -what's a dining room table?
Jean Alexis was new to competition so he didn't have any trophies to his name yet, but he looked like a trophy winner to me. I didn't offer these guys money, and I didn't pay them anything when they were done. I didn't want to insult each of them by giving them a ten dollar bill, and paying three guys a more serious amount was more than I could handle at the moment. These men missed out on valuable sleep time, as they usually sleep after working out, and before heading to their third-shift3 jobs. Where I come from, we call these guys "menches4". It is comforting to know that nice guys helping out a stranger is not out of style. They also taught me something about customer service. They are long-time customers of the Racquetball Club, and they agreed to help, in part I'm sure, because Hoss asked. When you have been a regular customer of an establishment long enough, you move beyond the role of "customer" and become almost like family. They were not only helping me, but they were helping Hoss fulfill his promise to help me. Hoss could have told me, "Hey lady, what do you think we are here, a moving service? Can't help you, good luck." He could have allowed me to post a "help-wanted" ad on their bulletin board. Instead, he took personal responsibility for helping me, and he came through5 for me in an hour. Hoss, Humphrey, Jean and James not only moved my furniture for me this morning, they moved my heart as well.
Azriela Jaffe
1 get ahold of - (амер. разг.) взяться за (дело)
2 lap - (спорт) дистанция
3 third-shift - третья смена
4 mench - (yiddish) настоящий мужчина (честный, прямой, на него можно положиться)
5 come through -(зд.) сообщить по телефону
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