The Maple Leaf Rag

I wrote this in response to a post that is now buried in the Ask English forum. I thought it was pretty good so I'm putting it up here on my blog. The technique is called 'stream of consciousness' and you should try it. Kind of like a cleansing solution for the mind. This is what love is to me.  

How to say I love you? You can say it with a gift with a kiss with a hug and a smile you can say it with words or emotion or just being there when someone is sad and not ask for anything you can hold a hand or a shoulder or say it in bed or on the street or shout it from a rooftop in the rain or in a cave and listen to the echoes or underwater and say it loudly so the whales can laugh or in a store and ignore the stares and you can just do it when you feel like it not when you are asked and asked and asked because it's better when it is spontaneous and you can write lots of words in a row and not use any punctuation and no one will notice because it is love. :)

Whaddya think Jojo?

 Drivel is a word that means something bad, usually a TV show that is awful. "There's nothing but drivel on at this time of night?" I guess it is a British term but it has made it's way into Canadian speak too. (Speak is like language. Newspeak is from the book '1984' by George Orwell)

So this blog entry is drivel. If you have patience to read it, continue. If not, I'll see you on the other side. 

Today, it seems like so long ago now but it's still the same day, I discovered that someone wasn't who they said they were. What a shock! This person is still special and always will be but she wasn't who she said she was, for whatever reason. 

In life, as in almost everything, when one thing happens in one place, something else happens in another. Today, two things happened in other places as well as the thing that happened in the first place. Have I lost you? Probably. Well there are a bunch of things that come to mind now.

 "Things happen for a reason." "What goes around comes around". Two sentences that have everything to do with today. In one place, a feeling, a relationship dies while in another a separate pair of relationships start and grow over a period of time spent in a time of intense emotion. 

While I discovered one person wasn't who I thought they were, I found out that someone else was exactly who she said she was. I should say, exactly the same and more. 

This makes no sense at all except as a reading exercise and if some of you are smart enough to read between the lines and figure it all out then bravo! To you it might be drivel but to me, it's my life. And since today, my life is a whole lot more complicated and confusing than it was yesterday. 

When in doubt, pick friends. When times get tough, make sure you have friends. Choose them wisely and choose the ones who will stand by you. Some friends seek you out and others just are there. Stick with the ones who hunt you down, seek you out, look for you. Get 'em, grab 'em and keep them inside your heart. 

Ok, it's Saturday night and my Maple Leafs have lost (again) to Wayne Gretzky's Coyotes. What, oh what will cheer me up?

Your comments will cheer me up. Thanks to everyone who has made comments on my videos and on my blog entries. I know it doesn't take long to jot a note to me but when I see the kind words and praise that some of you have taken the time to write, I am very humbled and very thankful. To me it means that I've struck a chord with some of the people here on Ebaby and, through trial and error and blind luck, some of the things I have been doing are actually helping people learn English. Whoda thunk it? (That's not a sentence by the way so forget what you just read!)

My plans for the next little while involve some lyrics to songs and some poetry and some links to good sites where you can read decent English stories and novels online. I feel that everyone here has access to the Internet and probably a walkman or some type of MP3 player. I'll get links to some sites with free books, maybe even downloadable audio books that you can listen to on the way to work.

Many of my messages here have to do with 'listening' and with vocabulary. My videos, movies, songs with lyrics can all help with listening and reading can help with your vocabulary. One of my friends on Ebaby spoke to me this morning about a novel she was reading. It was by a German author and had been translated into English. I really had to admire her for even attempting to read this novel. To me, it showed true dedication to her English education as well as her competitive nature. Sure, the words are old-fashioned and probably aren't used very often now but by reading them and learning their meaning, she is taking her English education to another level, cranking it up a notch over anyone who simply reads popular novels. Don't worry though! Start small and work your way up, just like the acorn.

Remember: YABTYTYA!