Word Puzzle from NPR

Let’s have fun with NPR Sunday Word Puzzle from this last week! (This show was on the air on September 29^th, 2019)

Question:  

Every answer today is a word, name, or familiar phrase in which the only consonants are D and N — repeated as often as necessary. All the other letters are vowels.

Example: Had a fancy meal --> DINED

1. Poet John who wrote "No man is an island"

2. The Hoosier State

3. Cul-de-sac (2 words)

4. Signaled at an auction

5. Any of the celebrated 1930s quintuplets

6. Movie "Crocodile ___"

7. Epic poem by Virgil

8. Brand of yogurt

9. Supplementary parts of books

10. Oblique remark about someone that casts aspersion on them

11. Verily or without a doubt

12. Relating to the lymph glands

13. Girl in the musical "Oklahoma!" (2 words)

14. "Beats me!" (2 words)

15. Interminably (3 words)

16. Like zombies

Answer Keys

    

    1.  Dun

    2.  Indiana

    3.  Dead End

    4.  Nodded

    5.  Dionne

    6.  Dundee

    7.  Aeneid

    8.  Dannon

    9.  Addenda

   10.              Innuendo

   11.              Indeed

   12.              Adenoid

   13.              Ado Annie 

   14.              No Idea

   15.              On and on 

   16.              undead

Dr. Jedidiah's Diary- Episode 26. Hold the Line and Save Me

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 # 26. Hold the Line and Save Me

There is one thing that I have always made sure to do every month: Taking 10 percent out of my monthly income as a psychiatrist to fund the suicide prevention hotline program. It has been the least thing I could do to feel less guilty as a husband who lost his beloved wife to loneliness and liquor. Each time I had a meeting with the hotline counselors, I felt that I was looking for a time of redemption and atonement, which I had never been able to find in church.

It was not an adventitious opportunity for Amy to work as a counselor for suicidal or at-risk people out there. She herself had been reeling from the painful loss of her one and only kid and struggling to wiggle out of the unfathomable slough of despair since her teenaged daughter took her own life. For five years into her life as a single mother, she had thought everything seemed to be going like clockwork even though her daughter Chelsea was not as chatty as before. She tried to take Chelsea everywhere filled with fun like museums, theme parks, libraries, theatres, beautiful woods, seaside carnivals, shopping malls, concerts,….and so forth. With all those times spent with her precious daughter that seemingly did not have a room for gloominess, Amy was gradually coming to feel contented and even forgetting there was no daddy for Chelsea at home. She just thought there was no need to be swashbuckling adventures for her daughter not to feel deprived of fatherly love. I believe she was right, but Amy wasn’t able to picture in her mind one big thing that was missing in Chelsea’s lonely days. Amy must have wished to talk with mom about her late father. She was too young to understand the whole situation in which her dad had writhed himself in pain and ended up killing himself without caring about his wife and daughter. Each time Chelsea asked mom about why her dad should leave them like that, Amy thought of every possible way to avoid the subject and kept trying to distract Chelsea. But Chelsea wanted to welcome the moment of remembering and sharing the memories with her dad, even if it would make it harder to carry on. Years and years of getting the runaround from mom has made Chelsea close the door both to the inside and out. To this lonely girl, there was no such thing as warmth of sipping hot chocolate lying on mom’s lap next to the fireplace. Mom was trying to chase out all the putrid smell of bad memories from the days with her husband, but Chelsea had not been ready to let it all go. And one day left her mom just like her dad did.

Amy was my patient in the darkest phase of her life after having lost two closest people to her. Until the final session, I had not been able to reach any significant conclusion of my counselling for Amy. My final question for her might have sounded off-key. “Amy, what would bring you back to your old self? I mean….back to your meaningful days…”  I thought it was THE MOST stupid question in the world for psychiatrists could ever ask their patients, especially in their final meeting.

When I came to learn that Amy had become a counselor on the suicide prevention hotline program, I found the answer to my own question that had puzzled and fazed me all those years as a negligent husband who had not ever paid attention to his wife’s roar inside. It was the moment that I saw small embers of hope glinting inside of me like a droplet of morning dew dangling on the gossamer. Sharing my pain and others’ agony with one another could save not only those in need but also forgive myself as well.

Expressions

   1.  atonement: reparation or expiation for sin

   2.   adventitious: happening or carried on according to chance rather than design or inherent nature

   3.  at-risk people: people who are exposed to harm or danger

   4.  to reel from…: to feel very confused or shocked and struggle/ lose one’s balance and stagger

   5.  to wiggle out of….: to get out of/ squirm out of something or some situation

   6.  slough: a swamp or a condition of despair or helplessness

   7.  to go like clockwork: to do…. with perfect regularity or precision

   8.  swashbuckling: swaggering or behaving in a brave and exciting way like a fighter in the past

   9.  to get the runaround: to get deceptive or delaying action especially in responds to a request

   10.              putrid: decaying or rotting/ emitting a fetid smell

11.              gossamer: a film of cobwebs floating in air in calm clear weather

Fun Puzzle with Anagrams from NPR

This week, let me share the Sunday puzzle from the On-Air challenge on the National Public Radio. Every answer is a holiday that goes by "____ Day." With the given anagrams of the words that go in the blanks, you name the holidays.

Example: ROAR + B => ARBOR (Arbor Day)

              GAL + F => FLAG (Flag Day)

 

1. HARE + T => _____________  Day

2. BOAR + L => _______________ Day

3. RESHOT + M => _______________ Day

4. STRAFE + H => _______________ Day

5. SERVANT + E => _________________ Day

6. IMMORAL + E => _______________ Day

7. DISPENSER + T => _______________ Day

8. VENETIANS + L => ________________  Day

9. INDENTATIONS + U (2 words) => ______________   _________________  Day

Answer Keys

1. Earth Day

2. Labor Day

3. Mothers Day

4. Fathers Day

5. Veterans Day

6. Memorial Day

7. Presidents Day

8. Valentines Day

9. United Nations Day

Back-to-School Idioms

The back-to-school season is here! I bet all students and teachers are excited about going back to their major stomping ground. Hopefully…..

This week, we are going to cover some school-related expressions in English.  

    1.  to call the roll/ to take the roll: to call the students’ name on a roll to check if they are present in class

    2.  honor roll: a list of students who have earned grades above a specific average during a semester or school year

    3.  to get/ have a leg up (on the competition): to be in a position of advantage over another person or in a situation/ to headstart on ….

    4.  to keep one’s ear (close) to the ground: to be well-informed about what will be happening

    5.  to cover a lot of ground: to go over/ present a lot of information

    6.  an eager beaver: a person who is excessively diligent or overly zealous

    7.  to dilly-dally: to goof off or waste time doing nothing

    8.  to crank out (a paper): to produce something quickly/ to write an essay/ paper in a quick, mechanical way

    9.   to draw a blank: to fail in an attempt; be unsuccessful; to fail to comprehend or be unable to recollect something completely; to get no response when you ask a question

   10.               to make the grade: to attain a specific or satisfactory goal; to succeed

Let’s practice using the above expressions in sentences!

    1.   Lolita has been ________________________ throughout this semester. She had to ____________________ the term paper right before the due date.

    2.   Brian is such an ______________________ who always has a __________________ in school works and exams. No wonder he will make __

__________________ to be in that medical school next year.

    3.   Jared is always tardy and sneaks into the classroom after his teacher finished calling the __________________. Pigs will fly when he is on the ________________ roll.

    4.   You need to keep your ear close to __________________________ in Mrs. Thomson’s class. She talks very fast and covers a lot of __________________ in each class.

    5.    Kathy drew a __________________ when she was asked to solve the easiest question by her Math teacher. She has recently been getting unusually forgetful and confused, which worries her parents.

Answer Keys

    

    1.  dilly-dallying, crank out

    2.  eager-beaver, leg-up, the grade

    3.  roll, honor

    4.  ground, ground

    5.  blank

Dr. Jedidiah's Diary: Episode #25. Coach Callahan's Pro Tip

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 # 25. Coach Callahan’s Pro Tip

It was such a painful winter when I first met coach Callahan at my son’s soccer team. I had just lost my beloved wife, Demi and felt nothing in the whole world could ever get me out of the deep mire of despair. My office was closed for an indefinite period of time. So was my mind and soul. Every night and day, I found myself questioning the veracity of Demi’s love for me, because I had been accusing her of derailing all my efforts and commitment as a husband to my own beloved family. I kept asking myself over and over again. ‘etHad Demi ever thought of me as her precious husband? Had she ever let her hair down with me?’ …’Was I not good enough or not a bit better than a glass of wine for her to resort to?’   Then came this guy named Callahan to my life, more strictly speaking, to my son’s life.

Callahan had been taking on the varsity soccer team at my son’s high school. He was notorious for being relentless and redoubtable when it comes to training his players. Before each game, he’d make his speech concise but powerful for the kids. “Just play the game as you have practiced.” After the regional game, which called for a big celebration for coach Callahan and his players, he came up to me and asked if I cared for a huge dinner gathering with kids and other parents. I was not in the mood at all for any kind of jollification, but had to join them for my son. I must have looked like someone chewing on some inedible prop food in a play, while everyone else was truly savoring all on their plates to the last bite that night.

Coach Callahan sat next to me and said “Mr. Jedidiah, I heard about your loss of your wife. So sorry for your hardship. But you need to be strong. Not for yourself, …but for your young one. How long are you gonna stay down in the dumps?”  So disturbed by his unsolicited piece of advice for me, I looked at him in the eye and said “Whoa…excuse me? I, umm,….I guess you’re being a bit too presumptuous saying that to a single dad who has recently lost his better half! …….  Excuse me…I’m just taking off now. Sorry, catch you later.”  Coach Callahan followed me to the parking lot and asked me to stay just another hour or even half an hour to hear him out right there. He went on to say “Mr. Jedidiah, let me just tell you a little about how I’m holding up in my life. Do I look like a happy, lucky guy living with a perfect peacherino in what we call the ‘Vinculum Matrimonii’? Well, yes and no…depending on how you see my life.

“It was love at first sight when I first met my wife, Kathy. She was beautiful, elegant, thoughtful, and most of all, very smart. Our dates were always filled with a lot of interesting debates and discussions over everything in the world. Since I’m not quite book-smart, I was so happy that Kathy helped slake my epistemic curiosity by sharing her knowledge and intelligence.” said coach Callahan with dreamy eyes. “You don’t wanna hear my story, right? I know you’re not interested in caring for someone else’s life now, but here’s one thing that I’d really like you to know, Mr. Jedidiah. The pretty and smart girl that I used to know and got hitched with is gone now. Actually, she’s still breathing next to me, but she’s been suffering early onset of Alzheimer’s disease for 10 years now. She doesn’t recognize me as her husband. She often throws fits whenever she’s not in control of her motions. I am just living next to her as a caregiver, the most trustworthy one. Do I look energetic and carefree to you? Then I’m quite successful in my life! I’m not pretending to be happy. I am just being happy, because I practice to stay happy in the moment with my wife every day. In moments of tears, laughter, frustration, silly mood,….and so on. Now it’s my turn to fill Kathy’s curiosity. Although she’s not her best version of herself, she is still my loving woman. I use my own pro tip to stay happy. Just be in the moment without any other unnecessary or disturbing thoughts. Then you can live your life to the fullest at least without regrets left in the corner of your life. I do hope you’ll soon get ready to bounce back to your normal, happy days with your son. Just remember that you’ve still got someone so precious in your life.”

On my way back home, I felt like my mind was emptying out but left with one thing. I’ve got my son in my life now. I know for sure that I’ll be waffling on my own promise to be a good dad now and then, but as long as I remember there’ll always be someone who calls me dad for the rest of my life, I can still be a happy, lucky guy. No more shelving my plans to hit a movie with buttery fingers reaching for the last popcorn seed in a huge tub with my son.

Expressions

   

   1.  to question the veracity of something: to be doubtful/ be dubious/ be skeptical about the truth of something

   2.  derailing: discouraging/ disheartening/ banning….

   3.  to let one’s hair down: to let oneself chill or relax or to get close to someone emotionally

   4.  redoubtable: formidable/ fearful/ valiant

   5.  jollification: festivity/ jollity

   6.  presumptuous: meddlesome/ nosy/ intrusive

   7.  peacherino: someone/ something very attractive

   8.  Vinculum Matrimonii: the bond of marriage

   9.   book-smart: having a lot of academic knowledge learned from books and studying, but not necessarily knowing much about people and living in the real world

   10.              epistemic: of or relating to knowledge / cognitive

   11.              to get hitched with…: to get married with…

   12.               early onset of (a disease): (of a medical condition) occurring early in a person's life, esp in relation to other people with the condition

   13.              to waffle on …: one cannot decide what to do or what their opinion is about it.