Aug 24, 2010, STRAITS TIMES
Trapped miners alive after two weeks
But it could be months before the 33 Chilean miners are rescued
President Pinera holding up a plastic bag containing a message from the trapped miners on Sunday in Copiapo. It reads in Spanish: 'We are okay in the refuge, the 33 miners.' The men were found about 7km inside the winding mine after a drill broke through 688m of solid rock.
VOCABULARY CLOZE
SANTIAGO: Chileans were 1. _____________ after receiving word that 33 miners trapped deep below ground for more than two weeks were alive and apparently in good 2. _____________, though experts warned that it could still be three to four months before they are rescued.
The first black and white images of some of the 33 men were shown late on Sunday after rescuers made their first 3 . _________ with them since a tunnel collapse on Aug 5 at the San Jose copper and gold mine.
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, who was at the 4. ________ of the disaster, read out one of the two notes sent up by the 5. _______ miners that said: 'We are okay in the refuge, the 33 miners,' as people around him rejoiced.
'The whole of Chile is crying with joy and 6. _______,' he remarked.
The trapped men were found about 7km inside the 7. ________ mine after a narrow drill broke through 688m of solid rock to reach an emergency refuge where they had gathered.
The notes were found tied to the 8. ________.
A remotely operated camera lowered down the 9. ________ hole later showed the miners sweaty and shirtless in the hot shelter, but in apparently good condition and high 10. _______.
'Many of them approached the camera and put their faces right 11. ______against it, like children, and we could see happiness and hope in their eyes,' said Mr Pinera as he vowed a major overhaul of the mining regulator.
Officials said the miners are located in a space about the size of a small apartment and had 12. _______ amounts of food but more would be passed to them 13. _______ the drill hole.
Tanks of water and 14. _______ shafts are helping them survive, they said, adding that the miners used the batteries of a truck down in the mine to charge their helmet lamps. The miners may have lost about 8kg to 9kg each, they said.
National Emergency Office regional director Carlos Garcia said relatives would soon be allowed to speak with them through a cable dropped down the drill bore.
Chief engineer Andres Sougarret, who is in charge of the rescue operation, said it would take at least 120 days or until around Christmas to drill a shaft large enough to bring out the trapped miners.
Rescuers said the miners would have to assist in their own release by clearing 15. _________ away from the hole beneath ground as drillers worked from above.
'They'll come out thin and dirty, but whole and strong, because the miners have shown they have courage and 16. _______, which is what has kept them together,' Mr Pinera said, choking with emotion.
'God is great,' 63-year-old Mario Gomez, the oldest of the trapped miners, wrote in the second note found attached to the drill.
'I hope to get out soon. Have 17. _______ and faith,' he said in the note addressed to his wife.
The men already have been trapped underground longer than all but a few miners rescued in recent history.
ANSWERS: VOCABULARY- 1.euphoric 2. condition 3. contact 4. site 5. trapped
6. emotion 7. winding 8. drill 9. bore 10. spirits 11. up 12. limited
13. through 14. ventilation 15. debris 16. mettle 17. patience
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
OLD WAYS OF LIFE SWEPT AWAY BY FLOODS
Aug 28, 2010, STRAITS TIMES
Old ways of life swept away by floods
Pakistani survivors return home to ruins
Mr Anar Gul and his son collecting belongings on Thursday from the rubble of their house, which was demolished by heavy floods in Azakhel, Nowshera, in north-west Pakistan. It is the same scene for many other survivors. -- PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
GRAMMAR
AZAKHEL (PAKISTAN): This is what Mr Anar Gul found when he came home: Eight mattresses 1. _______(cover) with polyester swirls, a dozen blankets, a broken tape player and a large metal box buried deep in the mud.
After more than 30 years of 2. _______(carve) out the semblance of a working-class life, this junk spread out to dry on the wreckage of his house 3. ______(be) now all Mr Gul had.
'This is everything,' he said, waving his hands at the muck and the garbage. The former woodcutter 4. ________(build) a mud-walled house with three bedrooms, a guest room and a bathroom.
Nearly a month after floods first 5. _______(begin) battering Pakistan, and as waters still sweep through the south, the first victims are returning home. Millions of people may soon find that, like Mr Gul, their old lives have disappeared.
'We understand the devastation is so intense that even the government cannot help everyone,' said Mr Gul, who 6. ________(add) that he was about 70 years old. 'But the government 7. _______(need) to help us.'
The floods began here, in north-western Pakistan, late last month when the annual monsoon rains began falling. Azakhel, a small town outside the city of Nowshera, saw thousands of homes 8. _______(submerge). Most people 9. _______(flee) by the end of last month and came back only in the last week or so.
Rivers 10. ______(swell) by rain that fell in the mountainous north 11. ______(flow) southward, ravaging a massive swathe of the agricultural heartland. Only in the coming days are floodwaters expected to fully drain into the Arabian Sea.
More than 1,500 people 12. ________(die), most of whom perished in flash floods in the initial days. The death toll does not reflect the scale of the crisis, with millions of hectares under water and the agricultural economy 13. ________(devastate).
More than eight million people need emergency assistance, and the international community 14. _________(pledge) hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.
Mr Rahimullah Yousafzai, a prominent Pakistani writer, said the promises of international aid could backfire.
It is not yet clear what help people will get.
The Pakistani government 15. _______(promise) 20,000 rupees (S$320) to families affected by the floods, with a presidential spokesman calling the payment 'initial assistance'.
Most Pakistanis are, however, distrustful of their government.
Mr Yousafzai said 16. _______(squabble) over aid 17. ________(be+lead) to ethnic and regional tensions and possibly anti- government unrest.
Government officials, for the most part, are nowhere to be 18. ________(see).
'The government hasn't even bothered to ask if we are living or dying,' said Mr Karim Baksh, a retired bureaucrat with the state electricity company. His home in Nowshera was all but 19. ______(level) by floodwaters.
His neighbour, 23-year-old business student Yasir Naseer, 20. _______(urge) international aid groups to distribute help on their own.
'Don't give any cash or anything to our government officials. They cannot be trusted.'
EDITING: The following words are wrongly spelt. Write the correct answer on the lines.
1. rabble ___________
2. devastetain ____________
3. domelished ____________
4. reveging __________
5. missive sweatha ___________ __________
6. amergancy essistence _________ __________
ANSWERS
Grammar – 1. covered 2. covering 3. was 4. had built
5. began 6. added 7. needs 8. submerged 9. had fled
10. swollen 11. had flowed 12. have died 13. devastated
14. has pledged 15. has promised 16. squabbling
17. could had 18. seen 19. leveled 20. urged
Old ways of life swept away by floods
Pakistani survivors return home to ruins
Mr Anar Gul and his son collecting belongings on Thursday from the rubble of their house, which was demolished by heavy floods in Azakhel, Nowshera, in north-west Pakistan. It is the same scene for many other survivors. -- PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
GRAMMAR
AZAKHEL (PAKISTAN): This is what Mr Anar Gul found when he came home: Eight mattresses 1. _______(cover) with polyester swirls, a dozen blankets, a broken tape player and a large metal box buried deep in the mud.
After more than 30 years of 2. _______(carve) out the semblance of a working-class life, this junk spread out to dry on the wreckage of his house 3. ______(be) now all Mr Gul had.
'This is everything,' he said, waving his hands at the muck and the garbage. The former woodcutter 4. ________(build) a mud-walled house with three bedrooms, a guest room and a bathroom.
Nearly a month after floods first 5. _______(begin) battering Pakistan, and as waters still sweep through the south, the first victims are returning home. Millions of people may soon find that, like Mr Gul, their old lives have disappeared.
'We understand the devastation is so intense that even the government cannot help everyone,' said Mr Gul, who 6. ________(add) that he was about 70 years old. 'But the government 7. _______(need) to help us.'
The floods began here, in north-western Pakistan, late last month when the annual monsoon rains began falling. Azakhel, a small town outside the city of Nowshera, saw thousands of homes 8. _______(submerge). Most people 9. _______(flee) by the end of last month and came back only in the last week or so.
Rivers 10. ______(swell) by rain that fell in the mountainous north 11. ______(flow) southward, ravaging a massive swathe of the agricultural heartland. Only in the coming days are floodwaters expected to fully drain into the Arabian Sea.
More than 1,500 people 12. ________(die), most of whom perished in flash floods in the initial days. The death toll does not reflect the scale of the crisis, with millions of hectares under water and the agricultural economy 13. ________(devastate).
More than eight million people need emergency assistance, and the international community 14. _________(pledge) hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.
Mr Rahimullah Yousafzai, a prominent Pakistani writer, said the promises of international aid could backfire.
It is not yet clear what help people will get.
The Pakistani government 15. _______(promise) 20,000 rupees (S$320) to families affected by the floods, with a presidential spokesman calling the payment 'initial assistance'.
Most Pakistanis are, however, distrustful of their government.
Mr Yousafzai said 16. _______(squabble) over aid 17. ________(be+lead) to ethnic and regional tensions and possibly anti- government unrest.
Government officials, for the most part, are nowhere to be 18. ________(see).
'The government hasn't even bothered to ask if we are living or dying,' said Mr Karim Baksh, a retired bureaucrat with the state electricity company. His home in Nowshera was all but 19. ______(level) by floodwaters.
His neighbour, 23-year-old business student Yasir Naseer, 20. _______(urge) international aid groups to distribute help on their own.
'Don't give any cash or anything to our government officials. They cannot be trusted.'
EDITING: The following words are wrongly spelt. Write the correct answer on the lines.
1. rabble ___________
2. devastetain ____________
3. domelished ____________
4. reveging __________
5. missive sweatha ___________ __________
6. amergancy essistence _________ __________
ANSWERS
Grammar – 1. covered 2. covering 3. was 4. had built
5. began 6. added 7. needs 8. submerged 9. had fled
10. swollen 11. had flowed 12. have died 13. devastated
14. has pledged 15. has promised 16. squabbling
17. could had 18. seen 19. leveled 20. urged
DIFFICULT TO ACCEPT A LOVED ONE'S SUFFERING- by Lee Wei Ling
Aug 29, 2010 , STRAITS TIMES
Difficult to accept a loved one's suffering
Feeling compassion with a detachment is wise, but tough when it comes to Mama
By Lee Wei Ling
The writer, then 19, with her mother and father in Rajasthan, India. Those were happier times before her mother suffered a stroke in May 2008 and became bedbound. -- PHOTO: COURTESY OF LEE WEI LING
GRAMMAR- Tenses, Prepositions, Conjunctions , Adjectives and Adverbs.
Fill in the blanks with the correct form of the word given in brackets.
Fill in the blanks with the correct preposition or conjunction in the blanks.
I awoke with a start, a while ago, from a dream. I 1. ________(look) at my watch. It was 4am.
It was a dream worth remembering, so I 2. _______(decide) to write it down immediately. If I 3. ________(be+not+do) so, I 4. _______(be) not have been able to remember it later.
In my dream, I seemed to be simultaneously at home and outdoors at some unfamiliar place. Suddenly, a monster 5. ______(appear) and 6. _____(attack) me. I 7. ______(struggle) with the monster but it 7. ______(match) me strength 8. _______ strength. I did not utter a sound, nor was I frightened. Instead, I wrestled silently with it.
Suddenly my mother appeared. She walked 9. _______ us, but did not say anything either. Instead, she made a 10. _______(dismiss) gesture and the monster turned tail and ran away.
That 11. _______(be) be Mama's way of tackling problems, I thought: no need for unnecessary words 12. _______ actions; just do things 13. ______(quiet) and effectively.
At that point, I woke up. I got up from the floor where I 14. _______(sleep) and went into my mother's room to see how she 15. _______(do). She was sleeping peacefully. I 16. ______(be) now back in my room recording what I can still remember of my dream - for a 'dream' indeed it was, as it cannot be classified as a nightmare.
For two years and three months already, my mother 17. _______(be) too weak to get out of bed. But in that brief moment in my dream, I saw her again as she 18. ______(be) - physically normal.
I wished I 19. ________(can+be+dream) on, and after some time, together with Mama, vanquished the monster in the dream and then walked 20. ________ together.
In dreams, everything seems possible. That my mother appeared 21. ______(magic) in my dream did not surprise me - either while I was dreaming or when I 22. ______(awake). This is because between Mama and me, there was always some form of telepathy.
Once, when I was staying with my brother Hsien Loong, my toothbrush 23. ______(wear) out and needed to be replaced. I hardly ever shop, so I did what I had always done before: I told Mama I needed a new toothbrush.
Since we were in different houses and I did not want to wake her if she was sleeping by calling her on the telephone, I e-mailed her: 'Ma, I need a toothbrush.'
She e-mailed back: 'I am telepathic. I just got a toothbrush for you. But one day, the commissariat will not be around. If you don't know the word 'commissariat' go look it 24. ______ in the dictionary.'
She was correct: I did not know what the word meant. And since I did not know where the dictionary 25. _________(keep) in my brother's house, that evening at dinner, I asked him what the word meant.
He knew, of course. 'Commissariat', he explained, is a department in the army charged with providing provisions to soldiers.
Now Mama is no longer in a position to be my commissariat. Worse yet, she is bedbound and no longer able to read - a favourite activity of hers.
Mama had wide interests. She 26. _______(know) things that even many highly educated people would not know or be interested in, as would be obvious if one rummaged 27. ________ her bookshelves, as I did recently.
There were several books on the flora and fauna of Singapore. There was a hardcover book of children's nursery rhymes, which she 28. _______(use) to read to her grandchildren. Of all her grandchildren, my albino nephew 29. ______(enjoy) reading the nursery rhymes 30. ______ her the most.
VOCABULARY : Fill in the blanks using the given helping words
fashionable collect suffering detachment excerpts collection early delivered predicament struggles cultured chronicling stoically caste ancient resilience duties
There were several books on Buddhism and Hinduism. There was a King James version of the Bible printed in a large 1. _______ so that she could read it even without her reading glasses. There were many books on the Indian 2. _______ system, and a book describing the ancient city of Harappa in the Indus valley. The city dates back about 4,600 years ago, and was an important trade centre in the 3. _______ world.
Mama was interested in the Silk Route long before it became a 4. ________ subject of interest. She had a book 5. ________ the travels of a Victorian lady on the Silk Route.
There were six Malay kamus, or dictionaries. There was a book on Chinese customs and symbols. And of course, there were many books of poetry, including a 6. ________ of Rudyard Kipling's poems.
There were also books relating to the 7. _______ days of Singapore, including The Battle For Merger, a collection of radio talks my father 8. _______ in 1961, detailing the early history of the People's Action Party's 9. ________ with the communists. It is now out of print.
There were many books, too, written by others about my father, including Lee Kuan Yew In His Own Words, 10. _______ of his speeches from 1959 to 1970, edited by S.J. Rodringuez.
Mama also had the kinds of books one would expect to find on the bookshelves of someone so 11. ________: among other things, The Tale Of Genji, Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum And The Sword, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto's The Daughter Of A Samurai, the novels of Jane Austen, and a book I enjoyed tremendously as a child, Anne Of Green Gables.
Mama didn't just 12. _______ these books, she read them.
It is now 5.30am. I popped into her room again a while ago and she was still sleeping. I comforted myself that at least when she was sleeping, she was unaware of her unfortunate situation.
Now I am trying to go back to sleep myself, but I cannot do so - not because of the dream but because of Mama's unhappy 13. _______. It is acutely felt by her three children, my two sisters-in-law, and my cousin Kwa Kim Li, who is my mother's favourite niece. But the one who has been hurting the most, and is yet carrying on 14. _______, is my father.
It is easy when thinking in the abstract, to conclude that being born, growing old, falling sick and eventually dying is what happens to all of us. I accept these facts with no resentment that life is unkind. I have had more than my fair share of bad luck, but I never resented it, for I think suffering built up my 15. _________.
But I find it difficult to accept my mother's 16. _______. The Buddhist principle of feeling compassion but with detachment is wise, but it is not an attitude that I find humanly possible to adopt when it comes to Mama. I cannot see her suffering with 17. _________.
But there is nothing I can do to get her back to where she was before she suffered a massive stroke on May 12, 2008. She has been suffering since then, and so has my father. But that is life, and we all plod on, fulfilling our duties as best we can. Indeed by focusing my mind on my 18. _______, I manage to temporarily block Mama's suffering from my consciousness.
The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute.
ANSWERS
Grammar - 1. looked 2. decided 3. had not done 4. would 5. appeared 6. attacked
7. matched 8. for 9. towards 10. dismissive 11. would 12. or 13. quietly
14. was sleeping 15. was doing 16. am 17. has been 18. had been 19. could have dreamt 20. off 21. magically 22. awoke 23. was worn 24. up 25. was kept
26. knew 27. through 28. had used 29. enjoyed 30. with
Vocabulary – 1. font 2. caste 3. ancient 4. fashionable 5. chronicling 6. collection 7. early 8. delivered 9. struggles 10. excerpts 11. cultured 12. collect 13. predicament 14. stoically 15. resilience 16. suffering 17. detachment 18. duties
Difficult to accept a loved one's suffering
Feeling compassion with a detachment is wise, but tough when it comes to Mama
By Lee Wei Ling
The writer, then 19, with her mother and father in Rajasthan, India. Those were happier times before her mother suffered a stroke in May 2008 and became bedbound. -- PHOTO: COURTESY OF LEE WEI LING
GRAMMAR- Tenses, Prepositions, Conjunctions , Adjectives and Adverbs.
Fill in the blanks with the correct form of the word given in brackets.
Fill in the blanks with the correct preposition or conjunction in the blanks.
I awoke with a start, a while ago, from a dream. I 1. ________(look) at my watch. It was 4am.
It was a dream worth remembering, so I 2. _______(decide) to write it down immediately. If I 3. ________(be+not+do) so, I 4. _______(be) not have been able to remember it later.
In my dream, I seemed to be simultaneously at home and outdoors at some unfamiliar place. Suddenly, a monster 5. ______(appear) and 6. _____(attack) me. I 7. ______(struggle) with the monster but it 7. ______(match) me strength 8. _______ strength. I did not utter a sound, nor was I frightened. Instead, I wrestled silently with it.
Suddenly my mother appeared. She walked 9. _______ us, but did not say anything either. Instead, she made a 10. _______(dismiss) gesture and the monster turned tail and ran away.
That 11. _______(be) be Mama's way of tackling problems, I thought: no need for unnecessary words 12. _______ actions; just do things 13. ______(quiet) and effectively.
At that point, I woke up. I got up from the floor where I 14. _______(sleep) and went into my mother's room to see how she 15. _______(do). She was sleeping peacefully. I 16. ______(be) now back in my room recording what I can still remember of my dream - for a 'dream' indeed it was, as it cannot be classified as a nightmare.
For two years and three months already, my mother 17. _______(be) too weak to get out of bed. But in that brief moment in my dream, I saw her again as she 18. ______(be) - physically normal.
I wished I 19. ________(can+be+dream) on, and after some time, together with Mama, vanquished the monster in the dream and then walked 20. ________ together.
In dreams, everything seems possible. That my mother appeared 21. ______(magic) in my dream did not surprise me - either while I was dreaming or when I 22. ______(awake). This is because between Mama and me, there was always some form of telepathy.
Once, when I was staying with my brother Hsien Loong, my toothbrush 23. ______(wear) out and needed to be replaced. I hardly ever shop, so I did what I had always done before: I told Mama I needed a new toothbrush.
Since we were in different houses and I did not want to wake her if she was sleeping by calling her on the telephone, I e-mailed her: 'Ma, I need a toothbrush.'
She e-mailed back: 'I am telepathic. I just got a toothbrush for you. But one day, the commissariat will not be around. If you don't know the word 'commissariat' go look it 24. ______ in the dictionary.'
She was correct: I did not know what the word meant. And since I did not know where the dictionary 25. _________(keep) in my brother's house, that evening at dinner, I asked him what the word meant.
He knew, of course. 'Commissariat', he explained, is a department in the army charged with providing provisions to soldiers.
Now Mama is no longer in a position to be my commissariat. Worse yet, she is bedbound and no longer able to read - a favourite activity of hers.
Mama had wide interests. She 26. _______(know) things that even many highly educated people would not know or be interested in, as would be obvious if one rummaged 27. ________ her bookshelves, as I did recently.
There were several books on the flora and fauna of Singapore. There was a hardcover book of children's nursery rhymes, which she 28. _______(use) to read to her grandchildren. Of all her grandchildren, my albino nephew 29. ______(enjoy) reading the nursery rhymes 30. ______ her the most.
VOCABULARY : Fill in the blanks using the given helping words
fashionable collect suffering detachment excerpts collection early delivered predicament struggles cultured chronicling stoically caste ancient resilience duties
There were several books on Buddhism and Hinduism. There was a King James version of the Bible printed in a large 1. _______ so that she could read it even without her reading glasses. There were many books on the Indian 2. _______ system, and a book describing the ancient city of Harappa in the Indus valley. The city dates back about 4,600 years ago, and was an important trade centre in the 3. _______ world.
Mama was interested in the Silk Route long before it became a 4. ________ subject of interest. She had a book 5. ________ the travels of a Victorian lady on the Silk Route.
There were six Malay kamus, or dictionaries. There was a book on Chinese customs and symbols. And of course, there were many books of poetry, including a 6. ________ of Rudyard Kipling's poems.
There were also books relating to the 7. _______ days of Singapore, including The Battle For Merger, a collection of radio talks my father 8. _______ in 1961, detailing the early history of the People's Action Party's 9. ________ with the communists. It is now out of print.
There were many books, too, written by others about my father, including Lee Kuan Yew In His Own Words, 10. _______ of his speeches from 1959 to 1970, edited by S.J. Rodringuez.
Mama also had the kinds of books one would expect to find on the bookshelves of someone so 11. ________: among other things, The Tale Of Genji, Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum And The Sword, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto's The Daughter Of A Samurai, the novels of Jane Austen, and a book I enjoyed tremendously as a child, Anne Of Green Gables.
Mama didn't just 12. _______ these books, she read them.
It is now 5.30am. I popped into her room again a while ago and she was still sleeping. I comforted myself that at least when she was sleeping, she was unaware of her unfortunate situation.
Now I am trying to go back to sleep myself, but I cannot do so - not because of the dream but because of Mama's unhappy 13. _______. It is acutely felt by her three children, my two sisters-in-law, and my cousin Kwa Kim Li, who is my mother's favourite niece. But the one who has been hurting the most, and is yet carrying on 14. _______, is my father.
It is easy when thinking in the abstract, to conclude that being born, growing old, falling sick and eventually dying is what happens to all of us. I accept these facts with no resentment that life is unkind. I have had more than my fair share of bad luck, but I never resented it, for I think suffering built up my 15. _________.
But I find it difficult to accept my mother's 16. _______. The Buddhist principle of feeling compassion but with detachment is wise, but it is not an attitude that I find humanly possible to adopt when it comes to Mama. I cannot see her suffering with 17. _________.
But there is nothing I can do to get her back to where she was before she suffered a massive stroke on May 12, 2008. She has been suffering since then, and so has my father. But that is life, and we all plod on, fulfilling our duties as best we can. Indeed by focusing my mind on my 18. _______, I manage to temporarily block Mama's suffering from my consciousness.
The writer is director of the National Neuroscience Institute.
ANSWERS
Grammar - 1. looked 2. decided 3. had not done 4. would 5. appeared 6. attacked
7. matched 8. for 9. towards 10. dismissive 11. would 12. or 13. quietly
14. was sleeping 15. was doing 16. am 17. has been 18. had been 19. could have dreamt 20. off 21. magically 22. awoke 23. was worn 24. up 25. was kept
26. knew 27. through 28. had used 29. enjoyed 30. with
Vocabulary – 1. font 2. caste 3. ancient 4. fashionable 5. chronicling 6. collection 7. early 8. delivered 9. struggles 10. excerpts 11. cultured 12. collect 13. predicament 14. stoically 15. resilience 16. suffering 17. detachment 18. duties
DESALINATION: GET THE SALT OUT
THE BIG IDEA
Theme: WATER
National Geographic, March, 2010.
Get the Salt Out
Fill in the blanks using the helping words given below.
scarcer out condense reverse salty off boom expand
only boiling woes membrane per salinity cheap
There's no shortage of water on the blue planet—just a shortage of fresh water. New technologies may offer better ways to get the salt 1. ______.
Three hundred million people now get their water from the sea or from brackish groundwater that is too 2. ______ to drink. That’s double the number a decade ago. Desalination took 3. _____ in the 1970s in the Middle East and has since spread to 150 countries. Within the next six years new desalination plants may add as much as 13 billion gallons a day to the global water supply, the equivalent of another Colorado River. The reason for the 4. ______ is simple: As populations grow and agriculture and industry 5. _______, fresh water—especially clean fresh water—is getting 6. _______. “The thing about water is, you gotta have it,” says Tom Pankratz, editor of the Water Desalination Report, a trade publication. “Desalination is not a cheap way to get water, but sometimes it’s the 7. _______ way there is.”
And it’s much cheaper than it was two decades ago. The first desalination method—and still the most common, especially in oil-rich countries along the Persian Gulf—was brute-force distillation: Heat seawater until it turns to steam, leaving its salt behind, then 8. ______ it. The current state of the art, used, for example, at plants that opened recently in Tampa Bay, Florida, and Perth, Australia, is 9. ______ osmosis, in which water is forced through a 10. ______ that catches the salt. Pumping seawater to pressures of more than a thousand pounds 11. _____ square inch takes less energy than 12. ______ it—but it is still expensive.
Researchers are now working on at least three new technologies that could cut the energy required even further. The closest to commercialization, called forward osmosis, draws water through the porous membrane into a solution that contains even more salt than seawater, but a kind of salt that is easily evaporated. The other two approaches redesign the membrane itself— one by using carbon nanotubes as the pores, the other by using the same proteins that usher water molecules through the membranes of living cells.
None of the three will be a solution for all the world’s water 13. _____. Desalination inevitably leaves behind a concentrated brine, which can harm the environment and even the water supply itself. Brine discharges are especially tricky to dispose of at inland desalination plants, and they’re also raising the 14. _______ in parts of the shallow Persian Gulf. The saltier the water gets, the more expensive it becomes to desalinate.
What’s more, none of the new technologies seem simple and 15. _______ enough to offer much hope to the world’s poor, says geologist Farouk El-Baz of Boston University. He recently attended a desalination-industry conference looking for ways to bring fresh water to the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur. “I asked the engineers, ‘What if you are in a tiny village of 3,000, and the water is a hundred feet underground and laden with salt, and there is no electricity?’ ” El-Baz says. “Their mouths just dropped.” —Karen E. Lange
ANSWERS- Vocabulary- 1. out 2. salty 3. off 4. boom 5. expand
6. scarcer 7. only 8. condense 9. reverse 10. membrane 11. per
12. boiling 13. woes 14. salinity 15. cheap
Theme: WATER
National Geographic, March, 2010.
Get the Salt Out
Fill in the blanks using the helping words given below.
scarcer out condense reverse salty off boom expand
only boiling woes membrane per salinity cheap
There's no shortage of water on the blue planet—just a shortage of fresh water. New technologies may offer better ways to get the salt 1. ______.
Three hundred million people now get their water from the sea or from brackish groundwater that is too 2. ______ to drink. That’s double the number a decade ago. Desalination took 3. _____ in the 1970s in the Middle East and has since spread to 150 countries. Within the next six years new desalination plants may add as much as 13 billion gallons a day to the global water supply, the equivalent of another Colorado River. The reason for the 4. ______ is simple: As populations grow and agriculture and industry 5. _______, fresh water—especially clean fresh water—is getting 6. _______. “The thing about water is, you gotta have it,” says Tom Pankratz, editor of the Water Desalination Report, a trade publication. “Desalination is not a cheap way to get water, but sometimes it’s the 7. _______ way there is.”
And it’s much cheaper than it was two decades ago. The first desalination method—and still the most common, especially in oil-rich countries along the Persian Gulf—was brute-force distillation: Heat seawater until it turns to steam, leaving its salt behind, then 8. ______ it. The current state of the art, used, for example, at plants that opened recently in Tampa Bay, Florida, and Perth, Australia, is 9. ______ osmosis, in which water is forced through a 10. ______ that catches the salt. Pumping seawater to pressures of more than a thousand pounds 11. _____ square inch takes less energy than 12. ______ it—but it is still expensive.
Researchers are now working on at least three new technologies that could cut the energy required even further. The closest to commercialization, called forward osmosis, draws water through the porous membrane into a solution that contains even more salt than seawater, but a kind of salt that is easily evaporated. The other two approaches redesign the membrane itself— one by using carbon nanotubes as the pores, the other by using the same proteins that usher water molecules through the membranes of living cells.
None of the three will be a solution for all the world’s water 13. _____. Desalination inevitably leaves behind a concentrated brine, which can harm the environment and even the water supply itself. Brine discharges are especially tricky to dispose of at inland desalination plants, and they’re also raising the 14. _______ in parts of the shallow Persian Gulf. The saltier the water gets, the more expensive it becomes to desalinate.
What’s more, none of the new technologies seem simple and 15. _______ enough to offer much hope to the world’s poor, says geologist Farouk El-Baz of Boston University. He recently attended a desalination-industry conference looking for ways to bring fresh water to the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur. “I asked the engineers, ‘What if you are in a tiny village of 3,000, and the water is a hundred feet underground and laden with salt, and there is no electricity?’ ” El-Baz says. “Their mouths just dropped.” —Karen E. Lange
ANSWERS- Vocabulary- 1. out 2. salty 3. off 4. boom 5. expand
6. scarcer 7. only 8. condense 9. reverse 10. membrane 11. per
12. boiling 13. woes 14. salinity 15. cheap
THE BURDEN OF THIRST
THE BURDEN OF THIRST
If the millions of women who haul water long distances had a faucet by their door, whole societies could be transformed.
By Tina Rosenberg, National Geographic, April 2010.
drinking puddles excrement struggles hard perch squishing admonishes straps slippery steepest grimaces brew every soap
In much of the developing world, lack of water is at the center of a vicious circle of inequality. Some women in Foro come down to the river five times a day—with one or two of the trips devoted to getting water to make a beer-style home 1. _____ for their husbands. When I first came to Foro, some 60 men were sitting in the shade of a metal-roofed building, 2. _______ and talking. It was midmorning. Women, says Binayo, "never get five seconds to sit down and rest."
On a hot late afternoon I go with her to the river, carrying an empty jerry can. The trail is steep and in places 3. _______. We scramble down large rocks alongside cacti and thornbushes. After 50 minutes we reach the river—or what is a river at certain times of the year. Now it is a series of black, muddy pools, some barely 4. ________. The banks and rocks are littered with the 5. ________ of donkeys and cows. There are about 40 people at the river, enough so that Binayo decides that the wait might be shorter upstream. The wait is especially long early in the morning, so Binayo usually makes her first trip before it is light, leaving her son Kumacho, a serious-faced little man who looks even younger than his four years, in charge of his younger brothers.
We walk another ten minutes upstream, and Binayo claims a 6. _______ next to a good pool, one fed not only by a dirty puddle just above but also a cleaner stream to the side. Children are jumping on the banks, 7. _______ mud through their feet and stirring up the water. "Please don't jump," Binayo 8. _______ them. "It makes the water dirtier." A donkey steps in to drink from the puddle feeding Binayo's pool. When the donkey leaves, the women at the puddle scoop out some water to clear it, sending the dirty water down to Binayo, who scolds them.
After half an hour it is her turn. She takes her first jerry can and her yellow plastic scoop. Just as she puts her scoop in the water, she looks up to see another donkey plunk its hoof into the pool feeding hers. She 9. _______. But she cannot wait any longer. She does not have the luxury of time.
An hour after we arrive at the river, she has filled two jerry cans—one for her to carry back up, one for me to carry for her. She ties a leather strap around my can and puts it on my back. I am grateful for the smooth leather—Binayo herself uses a coarse rope. Still, the 10. _______ cut into my shoulders. The plastic can is full to the top, and the 50-pound load bounces off my spine as I walk. With difficulty, I make it halfway up. But where the trail turns 11. ______ I can go no farther. Sheepishly, I trade cans with a girl who looks to be about eight, carrying a jerry can half the size of mine. She 12. _____ with the heavier can, and about ten minutes from the top it is too much for her. Binayo takes the heavy jerry can from the girl and puts it on her own back, on top of the one she is carrying. She shoots us both a look of disgust and continues up the mountain, now with nearly 12 gallons of water—a hundred pounds—on her back.
"When we are born, we know that we will have a 13. ______ life," Binayo says, sitting outside a hut in her compound, in front of the cassava she is drying on a goatskin, holding Kumacho, who wears no pants. "It is the culture of Konso from a long time before us." She has never questioned this life, never expected anything different. But soon, for the first time, things are going to change.
When you spend hours hauling water long distances, you measure 14. _____ drop. The average American uses a hundred gallons of water just at home every day; Aylito Binayo makes do with two and a half gallons. Persuading people to use their water for washing is far more difficult when that water is carried up a mountain. And yet sanitation and hygiene matter—proper hand washing alone can cut diarrheal diseases by some 45 percent. Binayo washes her hands with water "maybe once a day," she says. She washes clothes once a year. "We don't even have enough water for drinking—how can we wash our clothes?" she says. She washes her own body only occasionally. A 2007 survey found that not a single Konso household had water with soap or ash (a decent cleanser) near their latrines to wash their hands. Binayo's family recently dug a latrine but cannot afford to buy 15. ______.
ANSWERS- Vocabulary – 1. brew 2. drinking 3. slippery 4. puddles 5. excrement 6. perch 7. squishing 8. admonishes 9. grimaces 10. straps 11. steepest 12. struggles 13. hard 14. every 15. soap
If the millions of women who haul water long distances had a faucet by their door, whole societies could be transformed.
By Tina Rosenberg, National Geographic, April 2010.
drinking puddles excrement struggles hard perch squishing admonishes straps slippery steepest grimaces brew every soap
In much of the developing world, lack of water is at the center of a vicious circle of inequality. Some women in Foro come down to the river five times a day—with one or two of the trips devoted to getting water to make a beer-style home 1. _____ for their husbands. When I first came to Foro, some 60 men were sitting in the shade of a metal-roofed building, 2. _______ and talking. It was midmorning. Women, says Binayo, "never get five seconds to sit down and rest."
On a hot late afternoon I go with her to the river, carrying an empty jerry can. The trail is steep and in places 3. _______. We scramble down large rocks alongside cacti and thornbushes. After 50 minutes we reach the river—or what is a river at certain times of the year. Now it is a series of black, muddy pools, some barely 4. ________. The banks and rocks are littered with the 5. ________ of donkeys and cows. There are about 40 people at the river, enough so that Binayo decides that the wait might be shorter upstream. The wait is especially long early in the morning, so Binayo usually makes her first trip before it is light, leaving her son Kumacho, a serious-faced little man who looks even younger than his four years, in charge of his younger brothers.
We walk another ten minutes upstream, and Binayo claims a 6. _______ next to a good pool, one fed not only by a dirty puddle just above but also a cleaner stream to the side. Children are jumping on the banks, 7. _______ mud through their feet and stirring up the water. "Please don't jump," Binayo 8. _______ them. "It makes the water dirtier." A donkey steps in to drink from the puddle feeding Binayo's pool. When the donkey leaves, the women at the puddle scoop out some water to clear it, sending the dirty water down to Binayo, who scolds them.
After half an hour it is her turn. She takes her first jerry can and her yellow plastic scoop. Just as she puts her scoop in the water, she looks up to see another donkey plunk its hoof into the pool feeding hers. She 9. _______. But she cannot wait any longer. She does not have the luxury of time.
An hour after we arrive at the river, she has filled two jerry cans—one for her to carry back up, one for me to carry for her. She ties a leather strap around my can and puts it on my back. I am grateful for the smooth leather—Binayo herself uses a coarse rope. Still, the 10. _______ cut into my shoulders. The plastic can is full to the top, and the 50-pound load bounces off my spine as I walk. With difficulty, I make it halfway up. But where the trail turns 11. ______ I can go no farther. Sheepishly, I trade cans with a girl who looks to be about eight, carrying a jerry can half the size of mine. She 12. _____ with the heavier can, and about ten minutes from the top it is too much for her. Binayo takes the heavy jerry can from the girl and puts it on her own back, on top of the one she is carrying. She shoots us both a look of disgust and continues up the mountain, now with nearly 12 gallons of water—a hundred pounds—on her back.
"When we are born, we know that we will have a 13. ______ life," Binayo says, sitting outside a hut in her compound, in front of the cassava she is drying on a goatskin, holding Kumacho, who wears no pants. "It is the culture of Konso from a long time before us." She has never questioned this life, never expected anything different. But soon, for the first time, things are going to change.
When you spend hours hauling water long distances, you measure 14. _____ drop. The average American uses a hundred gallons of water just at home every day; Aylito Binayo makes do with two and a half gallons. Persuading people to use their water for washing is far more difficult when that water is carried up a mountain. And yet sanitation and hygiene matter—proper hand washing alone can cut diarrheal diseases by some 45 percent. Binayo washes her hands with water "maybe once a day," she says. She washes clothes once a year. "We don't even have enough water for drinking—how can we wash our clothes?" she says. She washes her own body only occasionally. A 2007 survey found that not a single Konso household had water with soap or ash (a decent cleanser) near their latrines to wash their hands. Binayo's family recently dug a latrine but cannot afford to buy 15. ______.
ANSWERS- Vocabulary – 1. brew 2. drinking 3. slippery 4. puddles 5. excrement 6. perch 7. squishing 8. admonishes 9. grimaces 10. straps 11. steepest 12. struggles 13. hard 14. every 15. soap
SINGAPORE: Global Competitiveness Ranking- No 3.
Sep 10, 2010, STRAITS TIMES
GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS RANKING
Singapore retains No. 3 spot
VOCABULARY
Fill in the blanks using the given helping words.
highest challenges outlook remain place future efficiency anchored competitiveness technologies released crisis financial Nordic sustainable
SINGAPORE has held on to third place in a global competitiveness ranking to remain true to form as the fastest recovering economy post-recession.
It lost out only to Switzerland, which retained top spot, and Sweden, the new No. 2 in the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) annual Global Competitiveness Report, which was 1. _______ in Tianjin, China yesterday.
The United States, still suffering the fallout from the financial 2. _______, fell two places to fourth, having conceded the No.1 ranking to Switzerland last year.
The WEF said that aside from macroeconomic imbalances building up over time in the US, there has been a weakening of the superpower's public and private institutions, as well as 'lingering concerns about the state of its 3. ________ markets'.
4. ________ nations Sweden, Finland (seventh), Denmark (ninth) and Norway (14th) again dominated the top 15, but Asia was also strongly represented by Japan (sixth), Hong Kong (11th) and Taiwan (13th).
The report measures the productivity of an economy and its capacity for 5. ________ growth over the next five to 10 years.
The WEF based its study on publicly available data and a survey of business leaders. This year, more than 13,500 of them from 139 economies were polled.
At No. 3, Singapore remains the 6. _________ ranked Asian economy, and came in tops for both the lack of corruption in the country and government efficiency.
In other separate categories and sub-indices, Singapore also came in tops for the 7. _________ of its goods and labour markets, second for its financial market sophistication and fifth for infrastructure.
But while its competitiveness was 8. _________ by its strong focus on education and providing individuals with the necessary skills in a rapidly changing global economy, Singapore was still found wanting in a few areas.
They include innovation (ninth), business sophistication (15th) and market size, where it placed 41st.
'In order to strengthen its 9. _________ further, Singapore could encourage even stronger adoption of the latest 10. ________ as well as policies that enhance the sophistication of its companies,' added the WEF report.
Looking at the broader picture, Professor Xavier Sala-i-Martin of Columbia University and co-author of the report said that while concerns about the 11. ________ for the global economy remain, policymakers 'must not lose sight of long-term competitiveness fundamentals amid short-term 12. _______'.
'For economies to 13. _________ competitive, they must ensure that they have in 14. ______ those factors driving the productivity enhancements on which their present and 15. _______ prosperity is built.'
ANSWERS- Vocabulary- 1. released 2. crisis 3. financial 4. Nordic 5. sustainable
6. highest 7. efficiency 8. anchored 9. competitiveness 10. technologies
11. outlook 12. challenges 13. remain 14. place 15. future
GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS RANKING
Singapore retains No. 3 spot
VOCABULARY
Fill in the blanks using the given helping words.
highest challenges outlook remain place future efficiency anchored competitiveness technologies released crisis financial Nordic sustainable
SINGAPORE has held on to third place in a global competitiveness ranking to remain true to form as the fastest recovering economy post-recession.
It lost out only to Switzerland, which retained top spot, and Sweden, the new No. 2 in the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) annual Global Competitiveness Report, which was 1. _______ in Tianjin, China yesterday.
The United States, still suffering the fallout from the financial 2. _______, fell two places to fourth, having conceded the No.1 ranking to Switzerland last year.
The WEF said that aside from macroeconomic imbalances building up over time in the US, there has been a weakening of the superpower's public and private institutions, as well as 'lingering concerns about the state of its 3. ________ markets'.
4. ________ nations Sweden, Finland (seventh), Denmark (ninth) and Norway (14th) again dominated the top 15, but Asia was also strongly represented by Japan (sixth), Hong Kong (11th) and Taiwan (13th).
The report measures the productivity of an economy and its capacity for 5. ________ growth over the next five to 10 years.
The WEF based its study on publicly available data and a survey of business leaders. This year, more than 13,500 of them from 139 economies were polled.
At No. 3, Singapore remains the 6. _________ ranked Asian economy, and came in tops for both the lack of corruption in the country and government efficiency.
In other separate categories and sub-indices, Singapore also came in tops for the 7. _________ of its goods and labour markets, second for its financial market sophistication and fifth for infrastructure.
But while its competitiveness was 8. _________ by its strong focus on education and providing individuals with the necessary skills in a rapidly changing global economy, Singapore was still found wanting in a few areas.
They include innovation (ninth), business sophistication (15th) and market size, where it placed 41st.
'In order to strengthen its 9. _________ further, Singapore could encourage even stronger adoption of the latest 10. ________ as well as policies that enhance the sophistication of its companies,' added the WEF report.
Looking at the broader picture, Professor Xavier Sala-i-Martin of Columbia University and co-author of the report said that while concerns about the 11. ________ for the global economy remain, policymakers 'must not lose sight of long-term competitiveness fundamentals amid short-term 12. _______'.
'For economies to 13. _________ competitive, they must ensure that they have in 14. ______ those factors driving the productivity enhancements on which their present and 15. _______ prosperity is built.'
ANSWERS- Vocabulary- 1. released 2. crisis 3. financial 4. Nordic 5. sustainable
6. highest 7. efficiency 8. anchored 9. competitiveness 10. technologies
11. outlook 12. challenges 13. remain 14. place 15. future
A GEISHA'S JOURNEY
A Geisha's Journey
Readers’ Digest, August 2010.
Young Komomo dreams of becoming a geisha. She sacrifices her youth to enter a refined but very demanding life. Welcome to her secret world
There was so much I had to learn as a maiko, and so many duties to perform. Every day I 1. ________(face) with things I didn’t understand; sometimes it seemed as if the streets of Miyagawa-cho 2. ______(pepper) with land mines just waiting to explode in my face. It was like being at school 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
A maiko’s schedule is fixed. In the evening, I 3. _______(attend) ozashiki – a ceremony or party – from 4. _______ six until late. Ozashiki usually take place at one of the tea houses, although they are sometimes held in restaurants and hotels. Geiko 5. _______(hire) to entertain and perform for the guests, and we’re also expected to pour drinks and enter 6. ______ conversation.
A large part of my day 7. ______(spend) in practice. As a maiko, I was expected to learn to sing and play the shamisen, play 8. ________(rhythm) instruments, perform the tea ceremony, and, of course, dance. Dance practice was the one I had to concentrate on most. A maiko 9. ______(be+to) learn two different dances for every month of the year to perform 10. ______ the customers at ozashiki.
Learning just one dance took a long time. Each practice session was between 45 minutes and an hour, and I 11. _____(be) to go through three or four sessions to figure 12. ______ the basic steps of a single dance. Important dances like “The Ballad of Gion” or “Four Seasons in Kyoto” took me more than ten sessions to master.
As the youngest student, it was also my responsibility to look after the dance master. That meant I 13. ______(be+to+pour) her a new cup of tea when her cup was empty, and make sure she wasn’t too hot or too cold. To show my respect, I also 14. _______(be+ to +wait )until all of the older students, whom we call sempai, 15. ________(greet) her before I 16. ______(be) say hello.
When I first started out, I 17. ______(terrify) of my sempai; they were always getting mad at me and it seemed as if I couldn’t do anything right around them. Because of nerves, I 18. _______(be+sometime+ greet) them before the master, or the customers. The sempai 19. __________(be+get+angry) at me for not greeting the master or the customers first, 20. _____(make) me even more fearful of them.
Looking back, I would say that about 90 percent of my maiko education involved just trying to get through one difficult day after another. Every morning I would wake up around ten. After dressing in my less formal kimono, I had practice in the performing arts, and at lunchtime, I paid visits to each of the almost 40 tea houses in Miyagawa-cho, where many of the ozashiki are held.
At one of my first ozashiki, my sempai asked me in front of the customers what dance I would like to perform. When I cheerfully answered, she suddenly got mad. I realise now that her anger was part of my hanamachi education – in order to appear humble and modest, I should have declined to answer.
Strange though it may seem, becoming a full geiko had never crossed my mind. Over those years, I 21. ______(give) a lot of thought to what I wanted to do when my period of service was over. I already 22. _______(be)a lot of plans: study abroad, learn English, and perhaps research Japanese culture and folklore.
Then, two months before I 23. ______( suppose) to leave the hanamachi, I realised how much I loved this world with all its culture and tradition. I thought about all the things I still 24. ______(be+ to + learn)and felt ashamed that I had actually thought I would achieve everything I wanted in just six years. I made up my mind to become a geiko. I informed Koito-san and we decided I 25. _______(be+ become) a full geiko on December 8, 2005.
Before that, however, was the period of sakko, which in our geiko house lasts for 15 days. Sakko is the last hairstyle in the maiko stage. I would wear a black formal kimono for five days, then a coloured one for five days, and then the black one again.
Now that I have become a geiko, one of the observations I made was that ozashiki are completely different for geiko and maiko.
Maiko are often just seen as stereotypes; nobody bothers to look beyond the make-up to the real person beneath. A geiko, on the other hand, is seen as an individual with a name and a unique personality. For a maiko, the most important thing is to match the image that people have of us, but as a geiko, it’s OK for us to let our own character show.
After all my worry about becoming a geiko, I finally felt liberated.
ANSWERS – Grammar- 1. was faced 2. were peppered 3. would attend 4. around
5. are hired 6. into 7. was spent 8. rhythmical 9. has to 10. for 11. had 12. out
13. had to pout 14. had to wait 15. had to greet 16. could 17. was terrified
18. would sometimes greet 19. would get angry 20. making 21. had given
22. had 23. was supposed 24. had to learn 25. would become
Readers’ Digest, August 2010.
Young Komomo dreams of becoming a geisha. She sacrifices her youth to enter a refined but very demanding life. Welcome to her secret world
There was so much I had to learn as a maiko, and so many duties to perform. Every day I 1. ________(face) with things I didn’t understand; sometimes it seemed as if the streets of Miyagawa-cho 2. ______(pepper) with land mines just waiting to explode in my face. It was like being at school 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
A maiko’s schedule is fixed. In the evening, I 3. _______(attend) ozashiki – a ceremony or party – from 4. _______ six until late. Ozashiki usually take place at one of the tea houses, although they are sometimes held in restaurants and hotels. Geiko 5. _______(hire) to entertain and perform for the guests, and we’re also expected to pour drinks and enter 6. ______ conversation.
A large part of my day 7. ______(spend) in practice. As a maiko, I was expected to learn to sing and play the shamisen, play 8. ________(rhythm) instruments, perform the tea ceremony, and, of course, dance. Dance practice was the one I had to concentrate on most. A maiko 9. ______(be+to) learn two different dances for every month of the year to perform 10. ______ the customers at ozashiki.
Learning just one dance took a long time. Each practice session was between 45 minutes and an hour, and I 11. _____(be) to go through three or four sessions to figure 12. ______ the basic steps of a single dance. Important dances like “The Ballad of Gion” or “Four Seasons in Kyoto” took me more than ten sessions to master.
As the youngest student, it was also my responsibility to look after the dance master. That meant I 13. ______(be+to+pour) her a new cup of tea when her cup was empty, and make sure she wasn’t too hot or too cold. To show my respect, I also 14. _______(be+ to +wait )until all of the older students, whom we call sempai, 15. ________(greet) her before I 16. ______(be) say hello.
When I first started out, I 17. ______(terrify) of my sempai; they were always getting mad at me and it seemed as if I couldn’t do anything right around them. Because of nerves, I 18. _______(be+sometime+ greet) them before the master, or the customers. The sempai 19. __________(be+get+angry) at me for not greeting the master or the customers first, 20. _____(make) me even more fearful of them.
Looking back, I would say that about 90 percent of my maiko education involved just trying to get through one difficult day after another. Every morning I would wake up around ten. After dressing in my less formal kimono, I had practice in the performing arts, and at lunchtime, I paid visits to each of the almost 40 tea houses in Miyagawa-cho, where many of the ozashiki are held.
At one of my first ozashiki, my sempai asked me in front of the customers what dance I would like to perform. When I cheerfully answered, she suddenly got mad. I realise now that her anger was part of my hanamachi education – in order to appear humble and modest, I should have declined to answer.
Strange though it may seem, becoming a full geiko had never crossed my mind. Over those years, I 21. ______(give) a lot of thought to what I wanted to do when my period of service was over. I already 22. _______(be)a lot of plans: study abroad, learn English, and perhaps research Japanese culture and folklore.
Then, two months before I 23. ______( suppose) to leave the hanamachi, I realised how much I loved this world with all its culture and tradition. I thought about all the things I still 24. ______(be+ to + learn)and felt ashamed that I had actually thought I would achieve everything I wanted in just six years. I made up my mind to become a geiko. I informed Koito-san and we decided I 25. _______(be+ become) a full geiko on December 8, 2005.
Before that, however, was the period of sakko, which in our geiko house lasts for 15 days. Sakko is the last hairstyle in the maiko stage. I would wear a black formal kimono for five days, then a coloured one for five days, and then the black one again.
Now that I have become a geiko, one of the observations I made was that ozashiki are completely different for geiko and maiko.
Maiko are often just seen as stereotypes; nobody bothers to look beyond the make-up to the real person beneath. A geiko, on the other hand, is seen as an individual with a name and a unique personality. For a maiko, the most important thing is to match the image that people have of us, but as a geiko, it’s OK for us to let our own character show.
After all my worry about becoming a geiko, I finally felt liberated.
ANSWERS – Grammar- 1. was faced 2. were peppered 3. would attend 4. around
5. are hired 6. into 7. was spent 8. rhythmical 9. has to 10. for 11. had 12. out
13. had to pout 14. had to wait 15. had to greet 16. could 17. was terrified
18. would sometimes greet 19. would get angry 20. making 21. had given
22. had 23. was supposed 24. had to learn 25. would become
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