Real People on The Internet

A real person, a lot like you

2010-03-31



My friend Sara has run a small online business out of her living room for 12 years. It's her whole life. She takes it very very personally.


Last week, one of her clients sent her a 10-page-long scathing email, chopping her down, calling her a scam artist and other vicious personal insults, saying she was going to sue her for everything she's worth as retribution for her mis-handled account.


Devastated, Sara turned off her computer and cried. She shut off the phones and closed up shop for the day. She spent the whole weekend in bed wondering if she should just give up. Thinking maybe every insult in this client's letter was true, and she's actually no good at what she does, even after 12 years.


On Sunday, she spent about five hours - most of the day - carefully addressing every point in this 10-page email, then went through the client's website, learning everything about her, and offered all kinds of advice, suggestions, and connections. She refunded the client's money, plus an additional $50 with gushing deep apologies, for ever having upset someone she was honestly trying to help.


The next day after sending the email and refund, she called the client to try to talk through this with her.


The client cheerfully took her call and said, “Oh don't worry about it! I wasn't actually that upset. I was just in a bad mood, and didn't think anyone would read my email anyway.”



My friend Valerie was doing online dating.


She was half-hearted about it. She wanted a magic perfect man to sweep her off her feet through divine serendipity.


We were at her computer, when I asked her how it's going. She logged into her account and showed me her inbox. Eight new messages from men, each one well-written, saying what they liked about her profile, how they have a mutual interest in hiking, or also speak German, asking her if she's also been to Berlin, or have hiked in New Zealand.


I felt for those guys. Each one pouring out his heart, projecting his hopes onto Valerie, hoping she'll reply with equal enthusiasm, hoping she might be the one that will finally see and appreciate him.


She said, “Ugh. Losers. I get like ten of these a day,” and clicked [delete] on all of them, without replying.



When we yell at our car or coffee machine, it's fine because they're just mechanical appliances.


So when we yell at a website or company, using our computer or phone appliance, we forget it's not an appliance, but a person that's affected.


It's dehumanizing to have thousands of people passing through our computer screens, so we do things we'd never do if they were sitting next to us.


It's too overwhelming to remember that at the end of every computer is a real person, a lot like you, whose birthday was last week, who has three best friends but nobody to spoon at night, and is personally affected by what you say.


Even if you remember it right now, will you remember it next time you're overwhelmed, or perhaps never forget it again?

http://xkcd.com/438/

Compliments

Compliments by Maggi



You light up my life

I'm so glad I found you.

I never thought you could be mine.

You have the most beautiful eyes in the world.

You make the world go around.

Thank you for doing such a good job.

Thank you for being you

Thank you for the great dinner

You are a wonderful cook.

You are the best

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me

I want to thank you for teaching me so many valuable lessons

Thank you for teaching me that listening is just important as talking

Rainbows

How a Rainbow Forms

A rainbow is a combination of water droplets and light, that spreads out into an spectrum of colors. You will see a rainbow when the sun is behind you and there is moisture in the air in front of you - this is important to remember when understanding how a rainbow is formed.

Light Refraction
Light can bend. When light hits a surface it will bend over it, through it or around it. It changes speed and direction. When light hits a transparent material, such as glass or a water droplet at an angle, it refracts (bends) and disperses through the droplet. The arc of the rainbow appears by the angle the sun hits the droplet, the bending of light through millions of water droplets causes the colours to be shown in a semi circle. This process is called "Snell's Law of the Refraction of Light." See the image below for a demonstration:

Light Dispersion

White Light
We see light as white, but it is made up of many colours. When the beam of light passes through the water droplet it slows down and spreads out or disperses, separating each colour that makes up white light as a spectrum of colours. The colours we see in a rainbow are : red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
There are other colours, but we can't see them through our human eyes - even infra-red and ultra-violet! The index of refraction is the measure of speed of the wavelength of colour. Each colour has a different speed of refraction. You will see the colours of the rainbow in the same particular order because of this speed.

This image below shows light passing through a glass prism, which illustrates what happens when light passes through water droplets. You can see that the beam of strong white light hits the glass and reflects up (the thin white line) and it also refracts through the glass, dispersing out the other side in a spectrum of colours.

Summary : A rainbow is therefore millions of water droplets, each one refracting and dispersing sunlight. The sun is hitting every droplet at a low angle and is situated behind you as you look at the rainbow. The arc of the rainbow is caused by the way the light is bending through the droplets.

Melbourne

What do you know about Melbourne?

Add a Fact about Food

Add a sentence or story about Food
What foods do you like to eat?
What is your favorite food?




http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/FoodFoodFood

The Man from Snowy River

 Ballads are stories written to Music.
The old campfires were where the workers sat at night after their dinner, and sang songs, or listened to someone singing. They loved the ballads that told a story of some adventure or yarn.


Listen to the story sung by Slin Dusty, and retell the story

English Lessons

                                                                        

Welcome to English Lessons 

English is learned through experiences and activities that lead to speaking, through reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

Content based activities  extend student vocabulary and knowledge, giving students words to use when they speak or write, extending vocabulary and speaking and writing skills.

All the activities extend the knowledge of the student through student research, with students doing the task.

Speaking is a natural extension of any activity.

Students record their progress in their own Journals in individual wikis.

Active English provides activities and experiences that promote the Active learning of English Speaking.

To learn to speak English, you must speak English.

"You learn to speak by speaking"

"You do by doing...this is Active English"

To read more, and to learn to speak English,  you need to enrol at 

http://activeenglish.ning.com

 online virtual lessons available..

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