Dear Sue,
Nice to hear from you again.Thank you for correcting my letter. Thank you for congratulating to me and thank you for speaking about punctuation. I speak Farsi. I like speak in Arabic, but I have no time for reading Arabic. I think Persian is better than Farsi. If you search in internet you will see in old maps, Persian land. Persia was a nation that they came to Iran 2500 years ago. Now, we have a state in Iran with this name: “Fars”. It is because that the nation lived there. I like some Americans films. For example I like transporter, face off and actions Americans films. I have a bad exam in this day and I had many mistakes in my exam. Today was a bad day. I make mistakes, because I am panicky in exams.
I am sorry for my mistakes.
Take care,
Bahman
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Home Once Again
Oh my! I'm gone 4 days and Mr. Taghdarreh has transformed our blog once again! We had a grand time in the mountains and the weather was fine until today when it rained all the way home. After 19 years I finally got a new Subaru Auto and it behaved beautifully on the mountain curves. Estes Park is a beautiful little town but in these summer months it is totally taken over by tourists and the prices are outrageous. It is tourist season and the prices always go up in order to get as much money as they can to hold them over the winter months. Some of the mountain towns have skiing in the winter, but Estes doesn't. It depends on its summer trade and some winter travel into the Rocky Mountain National Park. Have you ever seen the movie "The Shining" with Jack Nicholson? It's a very spooky story that was filmed in an old hotel in Estes.
Leslie and I stopped at a Lebanese restaurant on the way home. I thought you might find this interesting: The young son of the owner waited on us and I asked him if the writing on the wall mural was Arabic or Farsi and he answered "Arabic", but when I asked him what it said, he answered, "I don't have any idea. Somethin' 'bout the Koran." I'm sure this answer would not have pleased his parents, but such is the danger when one comes to a new country. The children want to become like their friends, and often they lose a lot of their culture. Interestingly, however, the foods survive. We had a great chicken dish and some mint tea. Very good.
Sue
Leslie and I stopped at a Lebanese restaurant on the way home. I thought you might find this interesting: The young son of the owner waited on us and I asked him if the writing on the wall mural was Arabic or Farsi and he answered "Arabic", but when I asked him what it said, he answered, "I don't have any idea. Somethin' 'bout the Koran." I'm sure this answer would not have pleased his parents, but such is the danger when one comes to a new country. The children want to become like their friends, and often they lose a lot of their culture. Interestingly, however, the foods survive. We had a great chicken dish and some mint tea. Very good.
Sue
Thursday, June 10, 2010
One of Frost's . . .
By Sue Petrovsky
One of Frost's poetic techniques is to present alternatives to readers: In "Road Not Taken" he emphasizes choice, but then indicates that both roads were about equal, in "Stopping By the Woods" he tells his readers that he has much to do before he leaves, but indicates that there is a choice to leave without completing one's work, and in "Mending Wall" he gives us the choice of tearing down the walls that separate us or not. Do fences make good neighbors?
Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulder in the sun,
And make gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there,
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
One of Frost's poetic techniques is to present alternatives to readers: In "Road Not Taken" he emphasizes choice, but then indicates that both roads were about equal, in "Stopping By the Woods" he tells his readers that he has much to do before he leaves, but indicates that there is a choice to leave without completing one's work, and in "Mending Wall" he gives us the choice of tearing down the walls that separate us or not. Do fences make good neighbors?
Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulder in the sun,
And make gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there,
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost (1874-1963)
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20
Robert Frost’s life was full of trouble of all kinds, and yet this man wrote some of the best loved poetry in America. He won the Pulitzer Prize four times and was the recipient of numerous other awards. I have always been drawn to Frost’s poems for their natural, earthy flavor. There is little pretense in Frost. I love Frost's work for how it speaks to me which is part of his charm: I wonder about the roads I never took in my life, and looking back I see that that has made all the difference.
His poem, “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” voices my feeling that “I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.”
Google Frost’s poems and enjoy
Sue
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20
Robert Frost’s life was full of trouble of all kinds, and yet this man wrote some of the best loved poetry in America. He won the Pulitzer Prize four times and was the recipient of numerous other awards. I have always been drawn to Frost’s poems for their natural, earthy flavor. There is little pretense in Frost. I love Frost's work for how it speaks to me which is part of his charm: I wonder about the roads I never took in my life, and looking back I see that that has made all the difference.
His poem, “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” voices my feeling that “I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.”
Google Frost’s poems and enjoy
Sue
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
A Few Days of Vacation!
Hello Everyone,
I am waiting for my daughter to join me for a few days away from home in the mountains. Estes Park, Colorado is a vacation spot in the Rocky Mountain National Park and a beautiful, beautiful place. Every year they have a Wool Festival where ranchers bring their alpacas, llamas, sheep and rabbits for a competition. Leslie and I are taking a spinning class, learning to use a traditional spinning wheel to spin fleece into wool. Are knitting and spinning part of the lives of Iranian women? My daughter and I and many friends are caught up in the design of sweaters, hats, mittens, socks etc. to knit and give as gifts. It makes a good hobby for us and we have developed many friendships through this common interest.
On Saturday they have a big bazaar and all sorts of yarn related products can be purchased. I'm going to try to be careful and not buy too much. Talk to you Saturday!
I am waiting for my daughter to join me for a few days away from home in the mountains. Estes Park, Colorado is a vacation spot in the Rocky Mountain National Park and a beautiful, beautiful place. Every year they have a Wool Festival where ranchers bring their alpacas, llamas, sheep and rabbits for a competition. Leslie and I are taking a spinning class, learning to use a traditional spinning wheel to spin fleece into wool. Are knitting and spinning part of the lives of Iranian women? My daughter and I and many friends are caught up in the design of sweaters, hats, mittens, socks etc. to knit and give as gifts. It makes a good hobby for us and we have developed many friendships through this common interest.
On Saturday they have a big bazaar and all sorts of yarn related products can be purchased. I'm going to try to be careful and not buy too much. Talk to you Saturday!
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Thoreau says
That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
Henry David Thoreau, Journal, July 25, 1839
US Transcendentalist author (1817 - 1862)
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
Henry David Thoreau, Journal, July 25, 1839
US Transcendentalist author (1817 - 1862)
Monday, June 07, 2010
A beautiful quote from Thoreau
Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.
Henry David Thoreau
US Transcendentalist author (1817 - 1862)
Henry David Thoreau
US Transcendentalist author (1817 - 1862)
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Dear Sue,
Thank you very much for correcting my errors, they are very useful for me.
If you have time, say me my mistakes, please.
Sue, I read a short story in English, I saw 2 words, forest and jungle.
What is a difference between them?
I heard that forest is artificial and jungle is natural, is it true?
Take care, Faranak
Thank you very much for correcting my errors, they are very useful for me.
If you have time, say me my mistakes, please.
Sue, I read a short story in English, I saw 2 words, forest and jungle.
What is a difference between them?
I heard that forest is artificial and jungle is natural, is it true?
Take care, Faranak
Two Wolves Within
One evening an old Cherokee (an American Indian Tribe) told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, and lies.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, Which wolf wins?" The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
I have often thought that I would love to teach a human relations course, analyzing the impact of these wolves within each of us. They all accompany us on our path of life.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, Which wolf wins?" The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
I have often thought that I would love to teach a human relations course, analyzing the impact of these wolves within each of us. They all accompany us on our path of life.
Saturday, June 05, 2010
A site for English teachers, translators and Students of English in Iran
This site helps Iranian students to learn English. By answering their specific questions, it also provides support and advice to English teachers and translators in areas of difficulties. It is also useful for those who simply want to stay in touch with English and prevent it from evaporating from their minds.
Sue Petrovski is a western writer who loves Mowlana Jalal Od-Din Mohammad, known as Rumi in the West. She is also in love with Mowlana’s country and culture. That is why she is generously and so graciously with us, with Rumi’s fellow countrymen and women, to help us grapple with the vicissitudes of learning English as a foreign language. Difficulties become sweet memories when you have such a great, kind scholar beside you. Just listen to her words:
"Oh, to be able to cross that gap that separates man from man and woman from woman. Oh, to know what you are thinking and what you expect of me. Oh, to be able to have walked down your streets, lived with your clans, and drank and supped and felt as you have felt. Oh, to have done those things. What a wondrous gift that would be, and what a mystery that consciousness, that gift of human kind, is so boxed in and confounded. Is it some kind of test that God instilled in our being, or is it something we must work to correct? Can we in any way train ourselves to be able to see through another's eyes?
The only solution to our self-only knowledge is to go to those lands we have never mentally considered before. We can read Thoreau, or the Bible, or Joseph Campbell or Rumi, or the Sufi Prophets and gain new dimension to our thoughts. We can flesh out one idea with another and another and another – a fountain of different thoughts flowing out from a central theme. We will never understand all that the Other believes and carries in that wondrous mind of theirs, but we can begin to see the breadth of all thought, and through the process, our ethical, moral, and social senses will expand and grow.
'It is when we try to grapple with another man’s intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensive, wavering, and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun.' - Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim"
Whether you are an English teacher or a translator or if you are simply a student of English as a foreign language, please click on the word “comment” below and start talking to us. Whatever you say is welcomed and your questions will be answered. You can also send a personal email to: a.z.mirror@gmail.com
Sue Petrovski is a western writer who loves Mowlana Jalal Od-Din Mohammad, known as Rumi in the West. She is also in love with Mowlana’s country and culture. That is why she is generously and so graciously with us, with Rumi’s fellow countrymen and women, to help us grapple with the vicissitudes of learning English as a foreign language. Difficulties become sweet memories when you have such a great, kind scholar beside you. Just listen to her words:
"Oh, to be able to cross that gap that separates man from man and woman from woman. Oh, to know what you are thinking and what you expect of me. Oh, to be able to have walked down your streets, lived with your clans, and drank and supped and felt as you have felt. Oh, to have done those things. What a wondrous gift that would be, and what a mystery that consciousness, that gift of human kind, is so boxed in and confounded. Is it some kind of test that God instilled in our being, or is it something we must work to correct? Can we in any way train ourselves to be able to see through another's eyes?
The only solution to our self-only knowledge is to go to those lands we have never mentally considered before. We can read Thoreau, or the Bible, or Joseph Campbell or Rumi, or the Sufi Prophets and gain new dimension to our thoughts. We can flesh out one idea with another and another and another – a fountain of different thoughts flowing out from a central theme. We will never understand all that the Other believes and carries in that wondrous mind of theirs, but we can begin to see the breadth of all thought, and through the process, our ethical, moral, and social senses will expand and grow.
'It is when we try to grapple with another man’s intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensive, wavering, and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun.' - Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim"
Whether you are an English teacher or a translator or if you are simply a student of English as a foreign language, please click on the word “comment” below and start talking to us. Whatever you say is welcomed and your questions will be answered. You can also send a personal email to: a.z.mirror@gmail.com
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