Saying of the Week

What goes around, comes around

We use this saying a lot, in both a positive way, and a negative way. We call it Kharma, which is quite Buddhist.

Have you seen the movie "Pay it Forward"? In that movie a little boy decides to do good things for other people. He doesn't ask for anything in return, except that you do something good for someone else, and then that person also does something good, and it's passed around and around. It's a great movie. If you can get it out on video, it has my favourite actor, Kevin Spacey, in it.

My Uncle Jack was a special guy like that. I remember sitting in the Doctor's waiting room one rainy winter's afternoon. There was a long queue and everybody was really down in the mouth and looking glum. People were going up to the receptionist and complaining, and tapping their watches, and sighing. And then, my uncle came in and he started joking with everybody and telling stories. And soon everybody in the waiting room was laughing and smiling. We all forgot the time. When we got home we had smiles on our faces, and we passed on our good feelings to our families. That's the positive meaning to "What goes around, comes around". Whatever you do will move on and around other people and then come back to you - kharma.

The other way to look at this saying is in a negative way. When somebody does something bad to you, don't get angry. Just shrug your shoulders, smile, think to yourself: What goes around ... It's a good way to get over hurt. Justin Timberlake wrote a song using this saying - the lyrics and the song are below - in which he talks about a girlfriend he really loved and wanted to marry, who cheats on him with another man. She leaves him and stays with another man, but in the song Justin imagines the man cheating on her. She sits at home every night lonely, waiting on his call: "What goes around, comes around."

It's a good song. Watch and listen to the song - performed live in New York - and read the lyrics.

Great stuff! 

Mind Maps

Both nature and us, including our brains, are not created in straight lines. But, we tend to do a lot of things in straight lines. Language always comes in straight lines. Buildings, rooms, roads, queues, shops, arguments - it all comes in straight lines. Nature doesn't build in straight lines. Look at trees, flowers, rivers, mountains, animals and people - no straight lines.

So, when scientists started examining the design of the human brain and our thought processes, nothing was straight. There were cells in all sorts of curves and circles, connected in many ways, pinging off each other. And then when they looked at the great minds like Leonardo De Vinci, Einstein and Newton they didn't think in straight lines. No, they drew and doodled and added words and thoughts. We should do the same.

This is where Mind Maps come in. Mind maps are a way to create a space like our brain on paper. Mind maps use color and a radial pattern like our brain to mark thoughts and pictures on a sheet of paper. They can be used for decision making, planning, problem solving, self awareness, learning languages, artistically and so on. But, the biggest thing they do, is to get you to use your brain.

As an English language learner you should be using them to remember vocabulary, explore grammar, plan essays and presentations, summarize what you have learnt, and record your progress.

Below Ajaan Jeannette has put together a powerpoint presentation on the benefits of mind mapping, for both teachers and students.

We will start using this tool in future Diploma classes.