hehe

A great many worries can be diminished by realizing the unimportance of the matter which is causing the anxiety. I have done in my time a considerable amount of public speaking; at first every audience terrified me, and nervousness made me speak very badly; I dreaded the ordeal so much that I always hoped I might break my leg before I had to make a speech, and when it was over I was exhausted from the nervous strain. Gradually I taught myself to feel that it did not matter whether I spoke well or ill, the universe would remain much the same in either case. I found that the less I cared whether I spoke well or badly, the less badly I spoke, and gradually the nervous strain diminished almost to a vanishing point. A great deal of worry can be dealt with in this way. Our doings are not so important as we naturally suppose; our successes and failures do not after all matter very much. Even great sorrows can be survived; troubles which seem as if they must put an end to happiness for life fade with the lapse of time until it becomes almost impossible to remember their poignancy. But over and above these considerations is the fact that one’s ego is no very large part of the world. The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life which is impossible to the pure egoist.

she

She was in a new school, and Cress Delahanty, age thirteen, wanted a new personality to go with it. What she needed, she thought, was a trademark, one that would get her immediate notice and popularity. The whole thing started when Cress heard that Bernadine Deevers, ‘just about the most populous girl in school,’ had referred to her as ‘deliciously amusing.’ Cress decided that amusing was not quite enough; funny or crazy would be better. Plotting carefully, Cress wrote out a plan of attack, a list of ideas, which she not-so-accidentally left where her parents would find it. For Mr. Delahanty, a maker of lists himself, it was a reminder of the year he was thirteen, when he had searched for a trademark. It was a time – and a trademark – he’d rather forget. For Mrs. Delahanty, who never made lists, life was bigger and better than words and to sum it up, in a series of lists was too restrictive. She had never needed to search for a personality. What was she to make of the list headed ‘My Trademark. Isn’t she crazy?’ Under it was ‘Useful Gags for Craziness. I. Clothes, A. Shoes, 1. Unmatched.’ But neither Cress nor her parents spoke openly for craziness as a trademark. Instead they spoke of things in general, of school and of classes and of Cress’s hope to be freshman editor of the yearbook – a job that traditionally led to being editor-in-chief of the senior yearbook. So Cress’s plan moved ahead without discussion, though not without concern.

Inexplicable loss

Empty my heart, I do not seem to know what it is missing that I was too cold it? Maybe my friend she said was right, I lack the kind of thing a woman should have. Since the understanding of him, know me people say I changed, and I myself feel that I have changed, changed enthusiasm. cheerful. I know I was to love and change. That time I was happy, happy, at that time that everything good must , fresh, and I think he is my life looking for your trust in people. can look back and think, That's all past tense, people can not remain in the memory of it, memories are beautiful, but the reality of life is not the case , women often live in the spiritual world, the men do, it is rational, the natural or material world. However, do not know from when we began to become very familiar with, and without the feeling that, perhaps because of who we are a different bar. each with their own ideas are completely without considering the feelings of another person, from his words and deeds, he do not care about me, it seems that I did not have in his life occurred, I thought, I This person is not a fate done. to the end of time.

The Improving Economic Situation In Greece

Greece, economically, is in the black. With very little to export other than such farm products as tobacco, cotton and fruit, the country earns enough from ‘invisible earnings’ to pay for its needed, growing imports. From the sending out of things the Greeks, earn only $285 million; from tourism, shipping and the remittances of Greeks abroad, the country takes in an additional #375 million and this washes out the almost $400 million by which imports exceed exports.
It has a balanced budget. Although more than one drachma out of four goes for defense, the government ended a recent year with a slight surplus -- $66 million. Greece has a decent reserve of almost a third of a billion dollars in gold and foreign exchange. It has a government not dependent on coalescing incompatible parties to obtain parliamentary majorities.
In thus summarizing a few happy highlights, I don’t mean to minimize the vast extent of Greece’s problems. It is the poorest country by a wide margin in Free Europe, and poverty is widespread. At best an annual income of $60 to $70 is the lot of many a peasant, and substantial unemployment plagues the countryside, cities, and towns of Greece. There are few natural resources on which to build any substantial industrial base. Some years ago I wrote here:
“Greek statesmanship will have to create an atmosphere in which home and foreign savings will willingly seek investment opportunities in the back ward economy of Greece. So far, most American and other foreign attempt have bogged down in the Greek government’s red tape and shrewdness about small points.”
Great strides have been made. As far back as 1956, expanding tourism seemed a logical way to bring needed foreign currencies and additional jobs to Greece. At that time I talked with the Hilton Hotel people, who had been examining hotel possibilities, and to the Greek government division responsible for this area of the economy. They were hopelessly deadlocked in almost total differences of opinion and outlook.
Today most of the incredibly varied, beautiful, historical sights of Greece have new, if in many cases modest, tourist facilities. Tourism itself has jumped from approximately $31 million to over $90 million. There is both a magnificent new Hilton Hotel in Athens and a completely modernized, greatly expanded Grande Bretagne, as well as other first-rate new hotels. And the advent of jets has made Athens as accessible as Paris or Rome – without the sky-high prices of traffic-choked streets of either.

The Corporal

In basics the Corporal was no
Christian parent’s son
since no person
could give birth
to a demon
that liked to press
others with his boots
into the dirt.

Not grown up yet
his two stripes
went straight to his head
and the PT-instructor’s crossed swords
glowed menacing on his arm.

Through ash-holes with broken glass,
gravel roads with piercing stones
he made us leopard crawl
while live bullets
whipped up dirt
and running with truck tyres
on a pole
to him was fun
until some men fell
exhausted to the ground.

Personal letters he ripped open
and read aloud
for everyone to hear
and called unmarried people
with children bastards
and visited prostitutes
during the night
that well-off troops paid for
while his fiancée waited at home.

l’Envoi
One night I saw that Corporal run
when he disturbed me
at three am
in the truck park
where I were on guard
and I cocked the FN-rifle
and it sounded
like feeding live ammunition
into the barrel.

He tripped over
something on the ground
and got to his feet
and started running away,
jumping right over
three barbered wire fences
and hysterically shouted
at me not to shoot
and suddenly life felt really good.