- "A matter of euphony" means he did it because the name of the new partnership would be Cromarty Ross, which to him, because he was Scottish, sounded very pleasant. "Euphony" means "pleasing to the ear, because of a harmonious combination of words". "Ross and Cromarty" is a beautiful area in western Scotland. If there are other specific phrases you would like explained from this passage, please ask, and I will do my best to answer. :)0 votedNovember 30, 20151
I have gone through periods of very bad sleeplessness in my life. Often, at these times, I have found myself using my time in bed to think of all the things, often long in the past, that I have done that were bad mistakes, big embarrassments, big failures. I would punish myself by reliving the pain and loss and embarrassment over and over.
What did I do to fix my problem? Partly, I just survived. Getting older helps. Mostly, I learned to forgive myself for my past failures. I try to concentrate on life now, hour-by-hour, one day at a time, one foot in front of the other, step by step. To some extent, medications have helped.
I have learned to improve the place and way I sleep. I make sure it's dark and safe. I play comforting sounds very softly all night long to mask out the sounds that otherwise would distract and disturb me. I wrap myself tightly and warmly. I try to avoid having potential sleep interruptions around. I don't go bed before I'm sleepy, and I don't read in bed. I exercise for the pleasure and stress relief it brings me. Exercise has been a great help to me in starting a "virtuous cycle" in my life.
Mostly, I just have learned to become kinder to myself, and more self-forgiving. I have at the same time become more forgiving and kinder to others. I see pieces of myself in everybody else, and it brings me closer to understanding and empathizing with them. I understand now that these things I feel inside myself, I have in common with the rest of humanity, are part of being human.
Are there any magic answers to sleeplessness or insomnia? I don't think so. When I work out something is making me feel bad, I try to fix it, or leave it behind. If something makes me feel good, I do more of it. I try to become sensitive to what is keeping me awake. I talk with it. I have a conversation with it. I try to find out what it wants. Then I try to accept it, forgive it, change it or else leave it behind me.
0 votedJuly 28, 20150- How to ask "Is there anything I can bring for you?" I am currently living in China. Soon I will return to Australia. I want to ask a Chinese friend back home, whether there is anything I can bring them back from China. Is this the correct way to ask? "你想要什么东西我给你带回来吗?"Is this correct and natural? 对不对?February 8, 201570
- Chinese proverb: 在家千般好,出门步步难 What does it mean?
Chinese proverb: 在家千般好,出门步步难
I have been trying to work out what this means in English, and would appreciate some help.
This is what I have so far:
"在家千般好,出门步步难
zàijiā qiān bān hǎo, chūmén bù bù nán""在家" At home "千般好" much good,
"出门步步难" outside step step hard.
I think this proverb means "Home is very comfortable, stepping outside is hard."
What do you think? 对吗?
October 14, 201450 “Their relationship was doomed from the beginning”
Extremely tense, mad, absolutely amoral, strong, hard – it’s impossible to describe the relations between Lolita and Humbert in this widely-known, maybe, possibly the most popular of Vladimir Nabokov’s novels, “Lolita”. From the beginning of the novel which is told from the first person – Humbert, the reader understands that it will be about the fatal love of the main character.
Humbert is an English literature teacher had a tragic childhood love that traumatized him and made him feel obsessed with “nymphets”, young girls who possess a mysterious seductive power. When he meets Lolita his life changes. Lolita is a 12-years old girl that who represents the exact picture that Humbert had been carrying in his mind during all those years of trying to overcome his odd sexual obsession for with young girls. He marries Charlotte Haze, her mother, just to be closer to her, and after Charlotte’s death in an accident, he takes Lolita for the a journey around the country.
Humbert that should have has little control over a little the young girl, who understands that he has become completely obsessed with Lolita her, and that she can manipulate him to obtain whatever she wants. He becomes mad at some point – he is interested in nothing except Lolita. He doesn’t want the girl to socialize with other people, but Lolita makes him let her go to school. Their relationships becomes more and more strained: Humbert envies is jealous of the girl, accuses her of being unfaithful, and threatens to put her in an orphanage if she doesn’t comply with his sexual demands. Humbert feels afraid of being accused of involving the girl discovered in this socially in unacceptable relationship and gets becomes more and more suspicious paranoid. He notes that a strange man that has an interest in their relationship and he decides to leave for the next trip town. The man follows them and Humbert suspects Lolita to be is in contact with him. Lolita becomes ill, and Humbert must take her to the hospital. However, when Humbert returns to get her, the nurses tell him that somebody has already picked her up.
He finds her again in 2 years, married and pregnant. He wants her to be back, but she refuses. Humbert departs. After getting to know finding out that she dies has died in childbirth, he dies of heart failure. The novel ends with the deaths of the main characters, leaving no doubt, that this relationship between a young girl and an adult man was a definitely doomed one that to completely changed and destroyed their lives.0 votedSeptember 14, 20142
