The Bilingual Brain

During the last year at graduate school, a delicate young lady lived across the door to my room. At late night and early morning, I heard that she read aloud in a language I didn’t understand at all. One evening, I knocked her door open, asking her why I could not understand her English a little bit.

She said, “I am a Doctorate candidate for Medicine. There are a lot of long difficult Biological and Medical terms and abstract academic content to memorize. I am almost 30, unable to memorize things easily in a foreign language, so I translate them into my native language Romanian first, recite over again to commit to memory, and then I can learn and remember them in English.” I looked at her textbooks, scared by all the hard long words. I guess she spent twice more time than an average student did.

During some sleepless nights, I heard she read loudly and drearily in Romanian, feeling frustrated and bored by school life. I believed I could never get a Ph.D.

Actually, I also had trouble thinking clearly and memorizing text in English during my school years. I felt my native language flew freely from my right brain, but English was stuck in my left brain broken into vague pieces.

The human brain functions complexly. If our mind is in the clouds, we still can muddle along with our study and work in our native language. However, it requires more mental energy, focus and inner peace to think, memorize and analyze in a foreign language. If there is no harmony inside us, it is very hard for us to study and work efficiently with a second language.

According to a research, bilingual people have an advantage: the structure of the human brain is altered by the experience of acquiring a second language - the bilingual brain develops more densely, giving it an advantage in various abilities and skills.

Some US researchers theorize that speaking two languages may increase blood and oxygen flow to the brain and keep nerve connections healthy—factors thought to help ward off dementia. Being bilingual may help to keep the brain sharper for longer.

The brain can be thought of as the command centre of the human nervous system. The more we stimulate our brain with thinking activities and movement the more it will reward us. How well we nourish our brain determine how well our brain functions. We have to eat right and sleep sound to maintain our vigor, vitality and creativity at a high level.

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I don't remember the lady's name, but she ever told me she could speak several European languages a little, such as French, German and Czech. She is more than bilingual. And her parents passed away.

Wealth, Success and Love

(Author Unknown)

A woman came out of her house and saw three old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them.

Then she said, "I don't think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat."

"Is the man of the house home?", they asked.

"No," she said. "He's out."

"Then we cannot come in," they replied.

In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened. So, he said, "Go tell them I'm home, and invite them in!"

The woman went out and invited the men in.
"We do not go into a house together," they replied.
"Why is that?" she wanted to know.

One of the old men explained. "His name is Wealth," he said pointing to one of his friends, and pointing to another one he said, "This man is Success, and I am Love." Then he added, "Now, go and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home."

The woman went in and told her husband what was said.Her husband was over-joyed. "How nice!" he said. "Since that's the case, let us invite in Wealth. Let him come in and fill our home with wealth!"

His wife disagreed. "Why don't we invite Success?"

But, their daughter was listening from the corner of the room. She jumped in with her own suggestion. "Wouldn't it be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!"The wife agreed. "Then, let us heed our daughter's advice," said the husband to his wife. "Go out and invite Love in to be our guest."

The woman went out and asked the three old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest." Love got up and started walking toward the house. Then the other two also got up and followed him.

Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success, "I only invited in Love, as you directed. Why are you all coming in?"

The old men replied together, "If you had invited only Wealth or Success, the other two of us would have stayed. However, since you invited Love... wherever He goes, we go with him... because wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!"

Received from an email by a college friend. Please EMAIL this inspirational story to any and all people you care about. Hopefully, they will do the same... and more Love will be invited into our homes.

21 Economic Models Explained With Cows

On the third day of the lunar year of Ox, share something funny with you. (Source: web)


Photo Courtesy: Flickr kwerfeldein

SOCIALISM- 
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.


COMMUNISM- 
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.



FASCISM- 
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
- You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.



BUREAUCRATISM- 
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away...


TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM- 
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.



SURREALISM- 
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons



AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
- You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.



ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM- 
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.



A FRENCH CORPORATION- 
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.



A JAPANESE CORPORATION
- You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market it worldwide.



A GERMAN CORPORATION- 
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.



AN ITALIAN CORPORATION- 
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.



A RUSSIAN CORPORATION- 
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.



A SWISS CORPORATION
- You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.



A CHINESE CORPORATION
- You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.



AN INDIAN CORPORATION- 
You have two cows.
You worship them.


A BRITISH CORPORATION
- You have two cows.
Both are mad.



AN IRAQI CORPORATION- 
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of Democracy....



AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION- You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.



A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION- 
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive...

Living Well, Writing Well

You sit down there, you feel your brain is empty and you cannot write down a word. You wonder why some people have capability to depict an event so vivid as if you went through it by yourself; why they can describe people and situations so true that you even feel they knew you and they were talking about you.

 

Good writers care about life and they pay attention to things around them. Here comes my first suggestion: Live your life to the fullest. Put your heart and mind into daily life. Care people, nature, and activities around you. Seize every moment to explore the world. Feel everything around: the gentle breeze, the soothing moonlight, the flowers in the garden, and the flying birds, even the traffic, the pollution, and the natural disasters. Go to a concert. Go to museums. Go to a plantation. Go to Disney World. Don’t miss a thing. Observe and experience the world around you, you will find there are a lot of feelings, memories and thoughts in your mind; you have so much to tell, words flow out under your fingertips.

 

Think and meditate often. Have a meditation everyday, relax and think: what happened today; what I can learn from it. When good ideas and meaningful thoughts pop up, write down them quickly before you forget. It will build your wisdom and provide you plenty of ideas and thoughts in reserve. Live a truthful and confident life, think in a positive way. All the ups and downs, peaks and valleys, sunny days and rainy days can become writing material for you. After you understand every cloud has its silver lining, you can write an essay or a poem passionately even while you are in the dumps.

 

Your personal experience and knowledge is still not enough. Read widely to expand your view. Reading is a surefire way to build up your vocabulary, to expand your vision and to create your wealth of knowledge. What’s more, you can learn how to write well from good writers. Read Earnest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Anton Chekhov and all the other good writers. Read the bestselling, there must be a reason they are popular. When you read, not only focus on the information and the story, but also on the way of thinking and the style of writing. Read with a focus mind; memorize good lines which intrigue you. Emulate good writing style, until you are adequate enough to create your own style. As the Tang Poet Du Fu wrote, “Reading thousands of books, you can write magically.”

 

Put your heart and your passion into your writing. When people read your writings, they want to know you, know your personality, your individuality. Feel free to be yourself. Write with your heart; let your passion shine through your writings. Readers will feel your excitement, be captivated and follow your thoughts. Only heart can touch heart. When they are moved, they will remember not only your writings but also yourself. They will return to you again and again.

 

Content is the soul of a piece of writing, but the soul needs a fine way to show. Pay attention to structure and flow. Make your feelings, your stories and your points work together smoothly. When you write an essay, you can tell a story, and then make a point; or you can put your conclusion first, then give several examples to prove it; or you can just follow the classic five-paragraph format. Whatever way you choose, you have to grab the readers’ attention at the beginning, drive them to read through to the end.

 

Content is always the essence, form and style are supportive. What you say is important, how to say it is also important. Saying in the right way will surely enhance your idea; saying it in the wrong way will ruin your purpose. Writing techniques can be learned. To polish your writing, you can read published books which offer you a compendium of specific tips. I just got a copy of “The Elements of Style” by William Struck Jr. and E. B. White, which is highly recommended by a lot of writers. As they suggested, if you only have time to read one book about writing, read this one.

 

Writing is an important communication tool to express your opinions and feelings. Writing skills are critical for your success at school and at work. By deliberate practice, you can improve your writing skills and will not be daunted by a writing task anymore. You can enjoy the beauty to express yourself freely, to connect with people effectively and to influence people positively.

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Published on Vita Issue 5, ASIAPAC Books.