level 6
when I was reading my magazine yesterday. I came across something of a interest.
wish to share.
Peace
and
Amen.
LOL
2009年06月28日 14点06分
1
level 6
This life---by Debra Hanson
What a monumental distortion of the truth it is, to profess that holidays are restful. A better description might be that a holiday is a string of jaw-clenchingly frustrating difficulties, interspersed with petty irritations. Admittedly the variety of these is impressive and you have to hand it to the holiday gremlins for sheer inventiveness. There seems to be no end to the range of problems visited upon hapless rest-seekers, from minor mishaps to diplomatic incidents. I am bracing myself for the annual deliberations on what we should do with our summer holidays. These discussions, which introduce wildly impractical suggestions, are generally protracted, repetitive, entirely fruitless and lead to a resigned realisation that due to existing debt, lack of athletic prowess and an inability to speak Mandarin Chinese we will not be canoeing down the Yangtze but will be going back to France again.
2009年06月28日 14点06分
2
level 6
...but will be going back to France again.
We then manage to convince ourselves that the series of disasters that have gone efore cannot concervably be repeated and that this time the holiday will be devoid of breakdown recoveries, trips to police stations and hours spent in Perigueux hospital trying to remember the French words for "excuse me, when will the hole in my son's leg be stitched?".
No, this time it will be wonderful. The echoes of lost Barclaycards, extortionate cheese-mongers, washing-machine floods and clenched-teeth debates in l'hypermarche about whose job it is to walk back to isle vingt-neuf for the cornichons, are expunged. So comes a period of unwarranted expectation. Against all reason, feelings of unease and apprehension are buried and we are swept along on a tide of ludicrously cheerful anticipation. We will take the bikes and this time the strapping on the bike rack will be secure. The car will be serviced before we leave home and the exhaust will not need replacing by someone whose ancestors were massacred by the English. We then enter the final phase of planning: grim resignation. This is, after all, a family holiday and, as with Christmas, we cannot be expected to actually enjoy it. The inevitable pain, misery and unpleasantness will be survived this year as it has been every other.
2009年06月28日 14点06分
3
level 6
...survived this year as it has been every other.
And what of the professed restfulness? There will, of course, be none. Angst will be the order of the day - tous les jours in fact.
There will be angst sur le ferry, angst dans la voiture and angst au restaurant. So what, I hear you ask, is the point? Well, the fact is these messy debacles we like to call holidays are the stuff of life, a concentrated version of familly life; and family life is all about angst.
We can kid ourselves that there is a nirvana somewhere around the corner where angst does not exist and where life's disorders are cured; but, in the end, the cure for the gnawing insecurity with which we humans do battle is angst itself.
Little, bite-sized, varied pieces of angst. If you spend 20 minutes battleing with a French ticket machine while a queue of animosity is forming behind you, your family is united in angst.
In this way each struggle overcome is a minor victory. No, we will not find rest, but never underestimate the curative powers of angst.
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Fin
2009年06月28日 14点06分
4
level 8
"Angst will be the order of the day" - Here I laughed.
Personally, I think that a lot of the problems people have with angst could be solved by three months of hard labor in Siberia. You?
2009年06月28日 14点06分
5
level 6
or in one of the McKitchen... ...
2009年06月28日 14点06分
6
level 6
============================
recently I talk to some British people about how the children's life is so different here in England and back in China. where in China, I say, we have a real sense of community, the kids all around the blocks would play together after school almost each and everyday and play every game that a farmer's son would play, involving trees and, a lot of mud. Whereas in England, as far as I see, kids here are more of a crouching potato type, or otherwise in a hood, on a bike, and 20 of them, terrifying the community...
Then the English bloke say that true but back in his teens(he's 30 something now), they would do much the same like we do in China, and they would literally close a road or two to have a street party where their parents would cook and they'd help, and help eating.
Then , yesterday, I read an article on the same magazine which gives more proof of what was the childhood life like for the English children back in the 50's
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coming up next
When kids were kids and all the better for it...
by: Raymond Crisp
2009年06月28日 15点06分
7
level 6
...or just yelled for them!...
Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!
Football, rugby and cricket had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that! Getting into the team was based on merit. Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and bullies always ruled the playground at school. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all!
And if, like me, you are from that generation then congratulations. You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good. And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were... ...
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Fin
2009年06月28日 15点06分
10