I've obtained a premium account on Blinkist.com, and I just finished reading the summary of a book named 'Jog On' by Bella Mackie. The book is about the writer who had been suffering from mental health issues for a long time and realized that running can help her. After that, she has been running for at least an hour every morning for the past six years. The rest of the book discusses scientific facts that explain how running or jogging can help people overcome their mental health problems.
I like it because I can put myself in the same situation this book describes. In the COVID era, I experienced stress, anxiety, and even panic attacks. The book compares the symptoms of a panic attack and a running exercise and says both cause a racing heart, sweaty palms, and adrenaline release, so a runner is familiar with these symptoms and can handle such situations. Besides that, exercising can reduce the level of cortisol, a stress hormone, in the blood.
I recommend this book and running.
Amir is a friend of mine who wants to immigrate to Australia, and language is a significant challenge for him. It's not just challenging for Amir, but for others who didn't attend English private schools during their childhood. Unfortunately, Iran's public education system is, frankly, ineffective. After 12 years of attending school and studying English there, if you want to learn English, you basically have to start from scratch.
Amir has been studying English for a few months, and he often complains about it. He wonders why English is so difficult, why it has so many exceptions, why letters have different sounds in different situations, why English isn't a phonetic language, why there are so many words for the same thing, and why English has so many grammar rules that Persian lacks. It's a series of 'whys.'
Today, I was reading about Esperanto, and it reminded me of Amir's complaints. Unlike English, Esperanto is a phonetic language with no exceptions. People can become fluent in Esperanto five times faster than in Spanish, which is much easier than English.
But here's the question: Why don't we see authors writing books in Esperanto or traders choosing Esperanto as their primary communication language? What's your opinion on this?
There are a lot of English words that begin with 're'. In some cases re is a suffix that conveys a sense of repetition to the original word and, in other cases the word without re is meaningless or have completely different meanings.
I've thought that relax is in the second group but I've recently seen the word 'lax,' and I realized it relates to 'relax.'
It means: not strict or careful enough about standards of behavior, work, safety etc.
As you can see, the word 'lax' has a negative meaning, which is the opposite of the word 'relax'.
My husband and I have been married for nine years. When we were newly married, we had the luxury of running after work and hiking on the weekends. We did not have a lot of stress.
Fast-forward to two kids, a home, careers and a life out of balance — and my husband has gained about 60 pounds. I am not judging him, because I completely understand the problem of stress eating, aging and having too little time to work out. I’ll love him no matter what.
My issue is his health. I’m terrified of him having a heart attack or a stroke. He is a smart guy and knows he needs to lose weight, but the problem is that he won’t try. He eats bags of cookies, brownies and fast food. He refuses to go to the doctor, because he says he “needs to lose weight first,” but he won’t make the effort to do so. He hasn’t had a physical in more than seven years.
I cannot bring myself to tell him that he really needs to lose weight, because I don’t want to make him feel worse than I know he already does. I’m guessing it’s partially an emotional issue. It’s getting to the point where something has to change.
How do I address this with him without making him feel ashamed or judged?
I bet you know Roman numerals 1 to 12. You saw them in old-fashioned clocks in your grandparents' house.
But how should we pronounce them? For example, how does the number III sound? /aɪaɪaɪ/? No, no, no. 🙅🏽♂️ Actually, they are NOT English letters; they're Latin. So they are pronounced differently.
You can learn their pronunciation at this URL
Maybe you're wondering why I tried to learn them. That's a good question. Be curious. 🧐 I was reading and listening to a passage from the book 'Inside Reading 3,' and the narrator pronounced 'Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II' in a way that I didn't expect...
Notice the pronunciation of seven, eight, nine, and ten in Latin.
We have a 15-year-old daughter who is very introverted. She is happiest being home alone. She has a group of friends she has known for about nine years, and the eight of them often do things together. As they have grown up, the other girls have branched out into sports and other time-intensive hobbies, while my daughter prefers to spend time drawing and painting.
She will go in on group activities, but usually only if her one best friend is there with her. Otherwise, she prefers to stay home. My husband has a similar introverted and loner personality. I, on the other hand, like to see friends and family a few times a week.
I can’t help but feel anxious about her not having friends, because it reminds me of feeling left out in my teen and young adult years. She truly seems not to seek others out.
How can I relax and be sure that she isn’t me and that she is content with being more alone?