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! 

"What Goes Around, Comes Around" Lyrics

Hey girl, is he everything you wanted in a man?
You know I gave you the world
You had me in the palm of your hand
So why your love went away
I just can't seem to understand
Thought it was me and you babe
Me and you until the end
But I guess I was wrong

Don't want to think about it
Don't want to talk about it
I'm just so sick about it
Can't believe it's ending this way
Just so confused about it
Feeling the blues about it
I just can't do without ya
Tell me is this fair?

Is this the way it's really going down?
Is this how we say goodbye?
Should've known better when you came around
That you were gonna make me cry
It's breaking my heart to watch you run around
'Cause I know that you're living a lie
That's okay baby 'cause in time you will find...

What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around
What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around
What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around
What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around

Now girl, I remember everything that you claimed
You said that you were moving on now
And maybe I should do the same
Funny thing about that is
I was ready to give you my name
Thought it was me and you, babe
And now, it's all just a shame
And I guess I was wrong

Don't want to think about it
Don't want to talk about it
I'm just so sick about it
Can't believe it's ending this way
Just so confused about it
Feeling the blues about it
I just can't do without ya
Can you tell me is this fair?

Is this the way it's really going down?
Is this how we say goodbye?
Should've known better when you came around (should've known better that you were gonna make me cry)
That you were going to make me cry
Now it's breaking my heart to watch you run around
'Cause I know that you're living a lie
That's okay baby 'cause in time you will find

What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around
What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around
What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around
What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around

What goes around comes around
Yeah
What goes around comes around
You should know that
What goes around comes around
Yeah
What goes around comes around
You should know that

Don't want to think about it (no)
Don't want to talk about it
I'm just so sick about it
Can't believe it's ending this way
Just so confused about it
Feeling the blues about it (yeah)
I just can't do without ya
Tell me is this fair?

Is this the way it's really going down?
Is this how we say goodbye?
Should've known better when you came around (should've known better that you were gonna make me cry)
That you were going to make me cry
Now it's breaking my heart to watch you run around
'Cause I know that you're living a lie
But that's okay baby 'cause in time you will find

What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around
What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around
What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around
What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around

[Comes Around interlude:]

Let me paint this picture for you, baby

You spend your nights alone
And he never comes home
And every time you call him
All you get's a busy tone
I heard you found out
That he's doing to you
What you did to me
Ain't that the way it goes

When you cheated girl
My heart bleeded girl
So it goes without saying that you left me feeling hurt
Just a classic case
A scenario
Tale as old as time
Girl you got what you deserved

And now you want somebody
To cure the lonely nights
You wish you had somebody
That could come and make it right

But girl I ain't somebody with a lot of sympathy
You'll see

(What goes around comes back around)
I thought I told ya, hey
(What goes around comes back around)
I thought I told ya, hey
(What goes around comes back around)
I thought I told ya, hey
(What goes around comes back around)
I thought I told ya, hey

[laughs]
See?
You should've listened to me, baby
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Because
(What goes around comes back around)
[laughs]

"What Goes Around, Comes Around" by Justin Timberlake

Christmas Party 2009

A New Year's Wish from Ireland

May you always have walls for the winds,

A roof for the rain, tea beside the fire,

Laughter to cheer you, those you love near you,

And all your heart might desire.

Love Listening to English

Diploma Level 1B - "Peter had a terrible weekend"


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Do you like looking at art?

I love looking at paintings. I like to find out about the story behind the painting. At first glance "Bathers at Asnieres" by George Seurat (above) is an idyllic scene of people enjoying a sunny day by the river.

However, if you look closer you start to notice different things. There is a sense of time standing still, of everything in perfect harmony, of serenity, but in the distance behind the bridge is a factory belching out black smoke, staining the sky.

Does this background represent an ugly future, and the foreground our frozen past? Who is the large simple, but dignified figure in the centre, gazing into the river under a thatch of hair? He seems to connect the classical works of Da Vinci to the modernism of Impressionism.

You can now visit these great works of art without leaving home. This painting comes from the National Gallery in London. Here is the link - just click here.

And below, under my picture and profile, you can listen and watch the National Gallery's monthly podcasts.

Fear Can Hold You Prisoner, Hope Can Set You Free

The Shawshank Redemption is our next film in the "Read the Book, Watch the Movie' series, and it's one of my all time favorite films. It's from the book "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" by Stephen King - one of my favorite authors and the "Dickens" of the 20th. Century.

It's a story of friendship, loyalty, patience and belief. Andy Dufresne is sent to prison - Shawshank - for murdering his wife and her lover, a crime he says he didn't commit. There he meets Red Redding, the wise old fixer, who can get anything for anyone, and over time they become great friends. They can both get things done for people, but for each other they get respect. One has a price, one is priceless. Prison is tough and the brutality comes from the warders and prisoners alike. And the film doesn't block that out. However, the real story is of good and evil and how they can be reversed in both our minds and in real life. For there is nothing which is good or evil unless we think it. Is it the evil we see, or evil to see it?

The movie will be shown on Saturday 6th. June at 4.30pm. It will change your life.

Click here to watch the movie trailer.

To get the ebook send me an email at cmudiploma@live.com

FREE HUGS

Tonight in The Diploma class (Level 2c) we're studying newspaper stories.

This is a news item from 10 News Australia. It's about an Australian guy who started giving free hugs at a shopping mall once a week. What a wonderful idea! But the local government decided that he needed insurance in case someone got hurt while hugging. How crazy can they be?

So, he started a petition and got 10,000 people to sign up saying "let the love in". And then a band called the Sick Puppies wrote a song about him and posted it on YouTube. It got to be a big story and now Free Hugs is spreading around the world.

Watch the videos by clicking on the links below and give someone a free hug.

Free Hugs News Report

Sick Puppys Free Hugs Song

American University Videos

You can visit these American University sites on YouTube. There are lots of lectures, including visiting lectures by famous Americans, but also there are campus tours and other short videos that students have produced. Definitely worth a visit.

Here are the links:

Duke University
Stanford
University of California at Berkeley
UCLA

All the videos can be downloaded and watched later.

In Our Time

You should all be trying to improve your listening skills. The BBC has a radio program called "In Our Time", which discusses various academic issues divided into different themes - Science, History, Culture, Religion and Philosophy. 

The contributors are Professors from Oxford, Cambridge and other top English universities. You can listen or download the programs, subscribe to the podcasts or just use the RSS feed in Firefox, Explorer or Opera to receive the programs on your computer. Each program also supplies you with links so you can do your own research on the topic. Excellent.

Click here for the link to In Our Time.

Or click on the In Our Time feed below to listen to the broadcast:

Smoke over Doi Suthep and the elephant who lost its leg

If you go to the EarthObservatory site here, you can see a picture taken by NASA's Acqua satellite, as it passed over Thailand, Burma and Laos last week.

All the red dots are fires around the jungles and forests of the 3 countries. As you can see, most of the fires that are blowing smoke into Thailand, and here in Chiang Mai, come from Burma and Laos. And most of the thick smoke is over the North of Thailand, not Burma, which is why we are having trouble with sore throats and blocked noses. So, it's not just the farmers in Thailand.

Here's a touching story from the BBC news site about an elephant, who lost its leg in a land mine explosion. The elephant is being looked after by Friends of the Asian Elephant in Lampang. They have made a new leg for the young elephant. At first it wouldn't eat, and the other elephants rejected it, but now it's eating and making friends. Such a heart warming story.

Read the Book, Watch the Movie

I'll be starting a new monthly project called "Read the Book, Watch the Movie" this month.

I will send everyone an Ebook each month. This month it's "Bridget Jones's Diary" by Helen Fielding. It's a very funny story about an average, chubby,  'unlucky in love' young woman in her 30's searching for Mr. Right. It's a very enjoyable and real life story.

Every month I will also show the movie of the book (at 5pm. on the first Saturday of the month) at the Language Institute. And when it finishes we will have a short discussion on the book and movie. We will show the movie in Room 111 and the movie will have English subtitles to help you.

Everyone is welcome. So tell your friends. I just need everyone's email address to send the ebook to. 

The ebook can be read using Microsoft Reader, which is a free download here.

Just click on the green download button.