A Prayer for the New Year of 2020

A Prayer for the New Year of 2020

By Jean Lee

I pray that no one feels pushed around or left out in their lives;   

    I hope there’ll certainly be the moments they feel their passion respected.


I pray that I’m willingly spare a minute or two to hear my friends and give them high-fives;

    I hope they remember we are always connected.







I pray the crispy air at dawn fills me with brand new hopes for another given day;

    I hope I’ll still pat on my back even if the time is not as meaningful or fruitful as expected.


I pray I always look inside of me and give any pain some leeway;

    I hope every little scab will not be neglected, but rather be protected.







I pray day-to-day smiles and laughter will strongly pave the way for bigger bunch of happiness;

   I hope daily navigation in life will bring me and my friends unshattered wisdom.


I pray by the end of this year, I will write Christmas cards only filled with sweetness;

   I hope those who get my cards will also be singing a song of freedom.

Quotes about Christmas

Is Christmas your favorite time of the year? With all big words or expressions pushed aside, let us just read some quotes about Christmas this week.

Quotes about Christmas

  “Christmas gift suggestions:  To your enemy, forgiveness.  To an opponent,    tolerance.   To a friend, your heart.   To a customer, service.  To all, charity.   To every child, a good example.   To yourself, respect.”  ….Oren Arnold

  “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” …. Charles Dickens from “Christmas Carol”

  “Christmas isn’t a season. It’s a feeling.” …..Edna Ferber

  “Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more.” ….Theodor Seuss Geisel from “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”

  

  “Just remember the true spirit of Christmas lies in your heart.” … The Polar Express

  “We are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmastime.” …Laura Ingalls Wilder

  “Let’s be naughty and save Santa the trip.”…. Gary Allan

  “Christmas: the only time of year you can sit in front of a dead tree eating candy out of socks.”… Anonymous

  “Santa knows when I’m sleeping. He knows when I’m awake. He knows if I’ve been good or bad. I find that rather creepy.”…..Anonymous

  “I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying 'toys not included. The good news is, they can be used with practically any toy (sold separately, of course).' ” …Bernard Manning.

  “I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store, and he asked for my autograph.” …Shirley Temple

Word Puzzle from NPR Sunday On-Air Challenge (Dec 8th, 2019)

This week presents the NPR (National Public Radio)’s Sunday Word Puzzle (that was aired on December 8^th, 2019) on my ESL blog. Every answer is a word, name or phrase in which the only consonants are B and L, repeated as often as necessary. All the other letters are vowels.

Ex. Tell a secret --> BLAB

1. Holy book à _________________

2. Reason why you couldn't have committed the crime à ______________________

3. Record company à ___________________

4. "The Hobbit" hero ___ Baggins

5. Tower of _________________

6. Talk rapidly and foolishly à _________________

7. Move up and down, as a doll's head à _________________

8. Air-filled sphere sometimes made by soap à _______________

9. Legally obligated à ______________

10. Spanish explorer who discovered by Pacific in 1513 à _________________

11. Woodcutter who foiled 40 thieves (two words) à ______________

12. Victim of written defamation à _________________

13. Singer Patti with the 1975 #1 hit "Lady Marmalade" à __________________

14. What you might get once a month for heating your home (two words) à __________________

15. Like the hours that a lawyer charges for à ________________

Answer Keys

      

   1.  Bible

   2.  alibi

   3.  label

   4.  Bilbo

   5.  Babel

   6.  babble

   7.  bobble

   8.  bubble

   9.  liable

   10.   Balboa

   11.   Alibaba

   12.   libelee

   13.   Labelle 

   14.   oil bill

   15.  billable

Dr. Jedidiah's Diary Episode #30: Bernie, the Foodie

Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures. As a single father who lost his wife Demi to drug overdose 10 years ago, he has not been his old perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met hundreds of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the world. Meeting new people and listening to their stories outside his office have given him different feelings from the ones through the formal encounter groups or support groups for therapy. These people he has accidentally come across were the paths through which Dr. Jedidiah could look back on his own life, being truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left him with some food for thoughts in life….or a fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.

Episode #30. Bernie, the Foodie

Bernie always looked wiped out and limp like a lifeless leaf dangling on its faded stem of the old plant in the corner of my barren office. His face had never gotten a hint of smile or a bit of hope. All he seemed to care in life was these few hours of candid face-to-face talks with me once a week. He always asked me if he could possibly break the spell of his addiction to food. Bernie was suffering from bulimia. Without his words, I could tell by the excoriated skin of his fingers, how long or how painful his eating disorder had been. The scarred and thickened skin on the back of his hand was like a scream from deep inside. Bernie was full of rage, loneliness, and self-pity.

The first thing Bernie said at our weekly session was simple and blunt. “Dr. J, I’m not here to get a psychological evaluation or some maven opinions from you. I just… I just need you to feel or at least understand what my feelings are like when I think of food.” Bernie had been franchising his bakery in this town and in some other major cities as well for 15 years.  Being a baker, he had captured the mysterious worlds of sweet treats and taste buds in greater details than any other patisserie chefs had ever tried. Even some people with a weird fear like turophobia eventually became hooked on his apple and cream cheese pies. The boxes he would bring to my office was full of colorful and flavorful sweet treats that I had not ever tasted in my life.

All his beautiful and mouth-watering cakes and buns displayed on the racks were a perfect disguise that covered his conflicts and rage inside since his father left his family when Bernie was twelve. Actually, both Bernie and I could not figure out which was the prior propellant for his depression. The irresistible sweet creations of his own was the trigger for his anxiety or the internal war inside of him was the cause of his constant crave for sweets in such a morbid way? Either way, Bernie was caught between the two contrasting worlds: the sweet culinary art and the bitter trap that won’t let go of him.

As our weekly meetings were coming to an end, Bernie seemed to be gradually figuring out what had made him binge-eat, get angry, and then come back for more sweets at his bakery. However, that nasty habitual cycle was not easily broken. Bernie was not convinced or drastically changed by my psychiatric spiel, but one thing that I knew for sure was that he came to terms with his love for sweet treats as a foodie, not as an obsessed patient suffering from bulimia. He was not pigging out what he created back in the kitchen anymore. He was sharing his sad childhood story not only with me, but at the local soup kitchen, while people were savoring his delectable cakes to the last crumb. Bernie was not being in the traumatized past anymore. He was finally in the moment with the sweetest bite that was and would be different from yesterday or tomorrow.

Expressions

   

   1.  wiped out: extremely tired or exhausted

   2.  barren: bleak and lifeless

   3.  excoriated: damaged/ removed on the surface of the skin

   4.  maven: expert

   5.   patisserie: a French bakery/ pastry shop

   6.  turophobia: the fear of cheese

   7.   prior propellent: an earlier/ preceding substance that causes something to move forwards.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

This week, let us talk about Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a day to celebrate the good harvest and other blessings of the past year. Americans generally believe their Thanksgiving is modeled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists (i.e., Pilgrims) of Plymouth and the Wampanoag people. The American holiday is particularly rich in legend and symbolism and the traditional fare of the Thanksgiving meal typically including turkey, bread stuffing, potatoes, cranberries and pumpkin pie. Here’s some trivia questions about Thanksgiving in America. Ready to solve?

(source from St. Joseph Indian School)

   

   

1.   Which state is the top turkey-producing state in America? _________________

   

   2.   _____________ % of all cranberries consumed in the U.S. per year are eaten on Thanksgiving.

   

   3.   The ____________________ of the turkey is used in a good luck ritual on Thanksgiving Day.

   

   4.   The 1^st Thanksgiving football game was a college match between what two teams?

___________________  and ________________________ in 1876.

   

   5.   When was the 1^st Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade?

___________________

Want some Thanksgiving jokes?

What do you call a turkey on the day after Thanksgiving? _______________

Why did the farmer have to separate the chicken and turkey?

It’s because he suspected ____________ play.

Answer Keys for Trivia Questions

   

   1.  Minnesota

   2.  20%

   3.  Wishbone

   4.  Yale and Princeton in 1876

   5.  1924

Answer Keys for Jokes

Lucky

Fowl

Weekend Word Puzzle from NPR (Nov, 17, 2019)

Let’s solve the NPR Sunday Word Puzzle! (on the air November 17^th, 2019)  Every answer today is a word or name that ends in the letters -LLO.

Ex. Standard greeting --> HELLO

1. Dessert that jiggles: ____________________

2. Winemaker Ernest or Julio: __________________

3. 1960s-'70s U.S. space program: ________________

4. Brand of scouring pad: ________________

5. Largest city in the Texas Panhandle: _____________

6. Abbott's partner in old comedy: ________________

7. Animal with a leathery shell much seen in Texas and the Southwest: ________________________

8. Italian sculptor of the Renaissance; also one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: ______________________

9. Kind of mushroom: ________________

10. Island in New Brunswick, Canada where F.D.R. had a summer home: _____________________

11. Highly caffeinated, citrus-flavored soft drink: __________________

Answer Keys

1. Jello

2. Gallo

3. Apollo

4. Brillo

5. Amarillo

6. Costello

7. Armadillo

8. Donatello

9. Portabello

10. Campobello

11. Mellow yello

Dr, Jedidiah's Diary Episode# 29. Jake, the Fake Local?!

Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures. As a single father who lost his wife Demi to drug overdose 10 years ago, he has not been his old perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met hundreds of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the world. Meeting new people and listening to their stories outside his office have given him different feelings from the ones through the formal encounter groups or support groups for therapy. These people he has accidentally come across were the paths through which Dr. Jedidiah could look back on his own life, being truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left him with some food for thoughts in life….or a fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.

Episode #29. Jake, the fake local?!

When I first met this stuck-up looking guy named Jake Park at the community social, I could tell right away that he was trying hard not to look like a naïve person from another country. His speech was colored by his way of thick foreign accents, but Jake kept saying that he felt more convenient communicating in English rather than in his mother tongue. People in this neighborhood were smiling at Jake, but in a somewhat scornful way. Jake was the only one who did not realize that he was belittled by those folks that he thought he could belong to in any time soon. To this tight knit community full of Caucasians, Jake’s big talk about how he had been successful as an immigrant was never viewed as good steeze, but rather jibber-jabber and gallimaufry of his own proud episodes full of bravado.

Jake came to the States as a graduate student and the boundary of academics had always made him feel quite safe and valuable. Shiny grades and active participations in class seemed to have promised him a rosy, peachy, and glorious future after the life on campus. Even before he could smell the pizzazz of a smart Asian student’s rewarding life fizzling out, Jake was hitting against the wall of harsh reality. He had been in between jobs for almost two years, doing every possible part-time job to make ends meet as a non-US citizen without a green card. Each time he experienced maltreatment, being an alien in someone else’s land, Jake thought it was because he was a rookie just off the campus. It took him five to six years to obtain the permanent citizenship, and throughout the years, he’d had moments when he was regarded off-kilter by locals. Gradually, Jake came to know that he had never been fully welcomed in this society. In order to survive and be accepted by people as their friend in this nation, Jake must have decided to take more pride in himself and look confident on the outside. At some point, Jake started to see this country not as the one composed of people from various racial and ethnic backgrounds, but rather a homogeneous nation, peculiarly dominated by Caucasians. I could not say to myself that Jake was totally wrong or delusional. It was sad though to see him changing the way he acts, which looked as if he deserted his own origin or culture to become a true part of this society. Jake was such a hard-working guy, who always walked the line and desired to be embraced by others here, but being a modest soul or a braggart didn’t make any difference to change people’s thoughts. He was just feeling like a secondary citizen.

As a psychiatrist, I have been working on the mysteries of human mind and the paths to reach their heart. Jake’s feelings of being excluded in our community should not represent or generalize American society, but had at least forced me to see my own nation from objective angles. I would like to nudge Jake and say “Just be yourself, dude. You are making another great, unique part of American society.”

Expressions

    1.  steeze: unique style

    2.  gallimaufry: hodge podge/ confused medley/ jumble

3.  bravado: a pretentious, swaggering display of courage.

4.  pizzazz: energy/ vitality/ vigor

5.  to fizzle out: to fail ignominiously after a good start

    6.  off-kilter: unusual/ eccentric/ unconventional

7.   to walk the line: to behave; to abide by the the law and/or to abide by moral standards

Word Jumble with Muscle Groups

Word Jumble with Names of Muscles!  How many muscle groups in your body can you name? Let us reassemble the following letters to make the names of our muscles. The first letter of each word is Capitalized.

     1.   eloDisidt: ________________

     

     2.   mAnliodsba: _______________

     3.   Oesquilub: _______________

     4.   trsgiamHsn: _______________

     5.   Romdihbso: ____________________

     6.   dcruoAtd: ________________

     

     7.   pscireT: _______________

    

     8.   udairpecQs: _______________

     

     9.   Tsarezpiu: _________________

10. pseiBpc: __________________

Answer Keys

   1.  Deltoids

   2.  Abdominals

   3.  Obliques

   4.  Hamstrings

   5.  Rhomboids

   6.  Adductor

   7.  Triceps

   8.  Quadriceps

   9.  Trapezius

   10.  Biceps

Spooky Expressions on Halloween Day

Are you expecting grim grinning ghosts to come out to socialize tonight? With the Halloween mood fully ripe, let us go over some interesting idiomatic expressions containing spooky words. 😉

   

   1.  witch hunt: a situation where accusations are made freely, especially against someone or something that is not popular with the majority

   2.  ghost town: a once-flourishing town wholly or nearly deserted usually as a result of the exhaustion of some natural resource

   3.  skeleton staff: the minimum staff needed by a company during a time where most staff do not normally work, such as a holiday, weekend, etc

   4.  skeleton(s) in one’s closet / skeleton(s) in the cupboard: shameful or embarrassing secret

   5.  to jinx something: to bring bad luck

   6.  the witching hour: midnight

   7.  boogeyman: an imaginary evil character of supernatural powers, especially a mythical hobgoblin supposed to carry off naughty children.

   8.  to send shiver down one’s spine: to make someone feel very frightened or excited

   9.  like a rat leaving the sinking ship: used to describe people who leave a company, organization etc when it is in trouble

   10.              to quake in one’s boots: to be very nervous, frightened, and scared

Why don’t we use the above idioms in sentences?

   

   

   1.   When Paul’s wife said “Honey, we need to talk.”, he was _________________ in his boots and thought his old mistake came back to haunt him.

   2.   Joe was a great kid who always listened to his mom and dad, so there was no need for his parents to make up a story of a _____________________ to discipline Joe.

   3.   During the upcoming holiday, there will only be ______________________ staff on duty here.

   4.   Throughout 1950s in the States, Senator Joseph McCarthy led a _________________ hunt against people suspected of being communists.

   5.   A: Hey, are you out of your mind? So, you’re seriously fly solo in thunderstorm and lightning? I doubt you’ll make it to the island in one piece.

B: Oh, c’mon! Don’t _______________ it! I’ll be fine!

   6.   Guess I’ve gotta go to bed now. It’s past the ______________ hour.

   7.   The horror flick was way beyond what I had expected! It had sent _______________ down my _____________ from beginning to the end.

   8.   Since most of the big or small stores and shopping malls went out of business in that city, more and more people have started to move out like a ___________ leaving the _______________________________. The city has become a __________________ town now.

   9.   Jackson doesn’t want his fiancé to find out about his ________________ in the closet. He thought she might be disappointed if she learned about his past mistakes.

Answer Keys

   

   1.  quaking

   2.  boogeyman

   3.  skeleton

   4.  witch

   5.  jinx

   6.  witching

   7.  shiver, spine

   8.  rat, sinking, ghost

   9.  skeletons