Enthusiastic Short Quotes

You can literally force yourself to be courteous, happy and enthusiastic with every person you meet. After you have forced yourself to be so for a short period of time... the habit takes over.

LINA's RULES OF SCOOTER RIDING: 1. Never ride a scooter sopping wet. 2. Never ride a scooter wearing a short skirt. 3. Try to pay attention to the light signals. Otherwise, every time the driver accelerates you'll smash into him and you'll have this awkward untangling moment and then you'll worry he's thinking you're doing it on purpose. 4. If by chance you aren't abiding by rule number two, be sure to avoid eye contact with male drivers. Otherwise they'll honk enthusiastically every time your skirt flies up.

We are not consumers. For most of humanity’s existence, we were makers, not consumers: we made our clothes, shelter, and education, we hunted and gathered our food. We are not addicts. “I propose that most addictions come from our surrendering our real powers, that is, our powers of creativity.” We are not passive couch potatoes either. “It is not the essence of humans to be passive. We are players. We are actors on many stages…. We are curious, we are yearning to wonder, we are longing to be amazed… to be excited, to be enthusiastic, to be expressive. In short to be alive.” We are also not cogs in a machine. To be so would be to give up our personal freedoms so as to not upset The Machine, whatever that machine is. Creativity keeps us creating the life we wish to live and advancing humanity’s purpose as well.

I appreciate the scientific rigor with which you’ve approached this project, Anna,” said Christopher, who had gotten jam on his sleeve. “Though I don’t think I could manage to collect that many names and also pursue science. Much too time-consuming.” Anna laughed. “How many names would you want to collect, then?” Christopher tilted his head, a brief frown of concentration crossing his face, and did not reply. “I would only want one,” said Thomas. Cordelia thought of the delicate tracery of the compass rose on Thomas’s arm, and wondered if he had any special person in mind. “Too late for me to only have one,” declared Matthew airily. “At least I can hope for several names in a carefully but enthusiastically selected list.” “Nobody’s ever tried to seduce me at all,” Lucie announced in a brooding fashion. “There’s no need to look at me like that, James. I wouldn’t say yes, but I could immortalize the experience in my novel.” “It would be a very short novel, before we got hold of the blackguard and killed him,” said James. There was a chorus of laughter and argument. The afternoon sun was sinking in the sky, its rays catching the jeweled hilts of the knives in Anna’s mantelpiece. They cast shimmering rainbow patterns on the gold-and-green walls. The light illuminated Anna’s shabby-bright flat, making something in Cordelia’s heart ache. It was such a homey place, in a way that her big cold house in Kensington was not. “What about you, Cordelia?” said Lucie. “One,” said Cordelia. “That’s everyone’s dream, isn’t it, really? Instead of many who give you little pieces of themselves—one who gives you everything.” Anna laughed. “Searching for the one is what leads to all the misery in this world,” she said. “Searching for many is what leads to all the fun.

In short, not only was it surprising to be greeted in person with such enthusiastic words, but it was doubly surprising when the person reciting these words displayed the same kind of disengagement as, say, the checkout clerk who utters the words 'Have a nice day' while her expression indicates that it's really a matter of total indifference to her whether you drop dead in the parking lot outside ten seconds from now.

The trousers were miles too long, even when Peter cuffed the legs. The socks bagged in the ankles, and the shirt and sweater were equally large. But when Peter finally managed to get the collars to lie right and glanced at the reflection he'd carved out of the dust on James's mirror, a shock went through him. This was the face which had haunted him all his life, the one he had looked in the eye on the day he left the Darling house for the last time. The hair, messy and short, enthusiastically curling without the weight of his old braid to drag it down. The stubborn chin. The clear, sharp, sullen eyes full of everything he had never been allowed to be. Peter ran his hands over himself slowly, breathing tentatively, feeling the weight of his chest under his shirt. He had given this body up. He had thought it belonged to Wendy, to the girl he wasn't. He had let his family make him believe that the only way he would ever be a boy was to be born again in a different shape, leaving everything of his body and history behind. He breathed out and settled in the feeling of being himself, of being something whole.

I'd give my right arm to be enthusiastic.

Inside his copy of The Social Contract he keeps a letter from a young Picard, an enthusiast called Antoine Saint-Just: “I know you, Robespierre, as I know God, by your works.” When he suffers, as he does increasingly, from a distressing tightness of the chest and shortness of breath, and when his eyes seem too tired to focus on the printed page, the thought of the letter urges the weak flesh to more Works.

When at last he reached home, eleven and a half years after setting off, and having achieved nothing, he discovered that his relatives had had him declared dead in his absence and had enthusiastically plundered his estate.

The thought-pattern evoked has religious characteristics, and you know what that means." "Not a bit." Mis was not enthusiastic about the necessity of explanation. He never was. So he growled, stared at the long cigar he rolled thoughtfully between his fingers and said, "Characterized by strong faith reactions. Beliefs can't be shaken short of a major shock, in which case, a fairly complete mental disruption results. Mild cases-hysteria, morbid sense of insecurity. Advanced cases – madness and suicide.

In my mind, no other flower can compete with the perfection and the fragrance of the Peony. The silky petals, delicate shape, romantic shades and graceful foliage make this flower my all time favorite and I’m not alone. Brides plan their wedding dates around peony season. Flower enthusiasts plant them all through their gardens. Florists go crazy over all the different shades available from white, to coral, yellow to reds and every imaginable pink!  Sadly, this bloom can only be enjoyed in nature for a very short time each year. That’s the reason their paper counterparts have become such a hit!

Minerva McGonagall is many things: gifted witch, stern Hogwarts professor, lifelong Quidditch enthusiast and occasional tabby cat. If there’s one thing she’s not, it’s an open book. There’s really no better way to get to know someone than hearing about their parents, their childhood, their first love, and their stubbornly held grudges.

They are, reluctantly or enthusiastically, accepting the idea that humans are as much an accident of nature as a product of orderly development.” But

Among the other enthusiastic dumpers were Russia, China, Japan and nearly all the nations of Europe.

In short order, the unconventional became the established convention; the perverse was embraced as normal; the unspeakable was broadcast everywhere; the outrageous was met with enthusiastic applause.

A native of the southern United States, the warbler was famous for its unusually lovely song, but its population numbers, never robust, gradually dwindled until by the 1930s the warbler vanished altogether and went unseen for many years. Then, in 1939, by happy coincidence two separate birding enthusiasts, in widely separated locations, came across lone survivors just two days apart. They both shot the birds.

One last caveat: water should be boiled only once. Heating water and regulating the heat to maintain a constant level for a short tea-steeping session is fine; reheating water that has come to a boil and cooled completely will create flat-tasting, lifeless water.

Still weakened, he finally made it onto a ship. It was nearly wrecked in a hurricane off the African coast. When at last he reached home, eleven and a half years after setting off, and having achieved nothing, he discovered that his relatives had had him declared dead in his absence and had enthusiastically plundered his estate.

Hungry?” he asks. “The wager?” I remind him. “I’m getting there—it’s related to my question.” He lifts his chin to the meat locker. “They have good steaks here.” And just like that, I’m interested in whatever he’s suggesting. “They do. What’re you thinking?” “They have a porterhouse for two, three, or four.” I haven’t eaten in nearly twenty-four hours, and the idea of a big juicy steak has me salivating. “Yeah?” “So, I say we split the one for three, and whoever eats more wins.” “I’m going to guess their porterhouse for three could feed us both for a week.” “I’m betting you’re right.” His adorable grin should be accompanied by the sound of a silvery ding. “And your dinner is on me.” For not the first time, it occurs to me to ask him how he makes ends meet, but I can’t—not here, and maybe not when we’re alone, either. “You don’t have to do that.” “I think I can handle treating my wife to dinner on our wedding night.” Our wedding night. My heart thuds heavily. “That’s a lot of meat. No pun intended.” He grins enthusiastically. “I’d sure like to see how you handle it.” “You’re betting Holland can’t finish a steak?” Lulu chimes in from behind me. “Oh, you sweet summer child.” *** As we get up, I groan, clutching my stomach. “Is this what pregnancy feels like? Not interested.” “I could carry you,” Calvin offers sweetly, helping me with my coat. Lulu pushes between us, giddy from wine as she throws her arms around our shoulders. “You’re supposed to carry the bride across the threshold to be romantic, not because she’s broken from eating her weight in beef.” I stifle a belch. “The way to impress a man is to show him how much meat you can handle, don’t you know this, Lu?” Calvin laughs. “It was a close battle.” “Not that close,” Mark says, beside him. We went so far as to have the waiter split the cooked steak into two equal portions, much to the amused fascination of our tablemates. I ate roughly three-quarters of mine. Calvin was two ounces short. “Calvin Bakker has a pretty solid ring to it,” I say. He laugh-groans. “What did I get myself into?” “A marriage to a farm girl,” I say. “It’s best you learn on day one that I take my eating very seriously.

He explained how pushing above his threshold for short bursts of time at the beginning of each hill allowed him to breathe more easily on the long climbs. I nodded enthusiastically and understood little of what he was telling me. "How about you?" he asked. "How do you structure your training?" "I go until I'm tired," I said. "And then I do it again the next day." "That's probably not very effective," John said.

described approached so nigh as to receive some interruption from the warders, he dashed his dusky green turban from his head, showed that his beard and eyebrows were shaved like those of a professed buffoon, and that the expression of his fantastic and writhen features, as well as of his little black eyes, which glittered like jet, was that of a crazed imagination. "Dance, marabout," cried the soldiers, acquainted with the manners of these wandering enthusiasts, "dance, or we will scourge thee with our bow-strings till thou spin as never top did under schoolboy's lash." Thus shouted the reckless warders, as much delighted at having a subject to tease as a child when he catches a butterfly, or a schoolboy upon discovering a bird's nest. The marabout, as if happy to do their behests, bounded from the earth, and spun his giddy round before them with singular agility, which, when contrasted with his slight and wasted figure, and

What a revolution! In less than a century the persecuted church had become a persecuting church. Its enemies, the “heretics” (those who “selected” from the totality of the Catholic faith), were now also the enemies of the empire and were punished accordingly. For the first time now Christians killed other Christians because of differences in their views of the faith. This is what happened in Trier in 385: despite many objections, the ascetic and enthusiastic Spanish lay preacher Priscillian was executed for heresy together with six companions. People soon became quite accustomed to this idea. Above all the Jews came under pressure. The proud Roman Hellenistic state church hardly remembered its own Jewish roots anymore. A specifically Christian ecclesiastical anti-Judaism developed out of the pagan state anti-Judaism that already existed. There were many reasons for this: the breaking off of conversations between the church and the synagogue and mutual isolation; the church’s exclusive claim to the Hebrew Bible; the crucifixion of Jesus, which was now generally attributed to the Jews; the dispersion of Israel, which was seen as God’s just curse on a damned people who were alleged to have broken the covenant with God . . . Almost exactly a century after Constantine’s death, by special state-church laws under Theodosius II, Judaism was removed from the sacral sphere, to which one had access only through the sacraments (that is, through baptism). The first repressive measures

Forcing new loans upon the bankrupt on condition that they shrink their income is nothing short of cruel and unusual punishment. Greece was never bailed out. With their ‘rescue’ loan and their troika of bailiffs enthusiastically slashing incomes, the EU and IMF effectively condemned Greece to a modern version of the Dickensian debtors’ prison and then threw away the key. Debtors’ prisons were ultimately abandoned because, despite their cruelty, they neither deterred the accumulation of new bad debts nor helped creditors get their money back. For capitalism to advance in the nineteenth century, the absurd notion that all debts are sacred had to be ditched and replaced with the notion of limited liability. After all, if all debts are guaranteed, why should lenders lend responsibly? And why should some debts carry a higher interest rate than other debts, reflecting the higher risk of going bad? Bankruptcy and debt write-downs became for capitalism what hell had always been for Christian dogma – unpleasant yet essential – but curiously bankruptcy-denial was revived in the twenty-first century to deal with the Greek state’s insolvency. Why? Did the EU and the IMF not realize what they were doing? They knew exactly what they were doing. Despite their meticulous propaganda, in which they insisted that they were trying to save Greece, to grant the Greek people a second chance, to help reform Greece’s chronically crooked state and so on, the world’s most powerful institutions and governments were under no illusions. […] Banks restructure the debt of stressed corporations every day, not out of philanthropy but out of enlightened self-interest. But the problem was that, now that we had accepted the EU–IMF bailout, we were no longer dealing with banks but with politicians who had lied to their parliaments to convince them to relieve the banks of Greece’s debt and take it on themselves. A debt restructuring would require them to go back to their parliaments and confess their earlier sin, something they would never do voluntarily, fearful of the repercussions. The only alternative was to continue the pretence by giving the Greek government another wad of money with which to pretend to meet its debt repayments to the EU and the IMF: a second bailout.

Schopenhauer’s framing kicked the problem of consciousness onto a much larger playing field. The mind, with all of its rational processes, is all very well but the “will,” the thing that gives us our “oomph,” is the key: “The will … again fills the consciousness through wishes, emotions, passions, and cares.”14 Today, the subconscious rumblings of the “will” are still unplumbed; only a few inroads have been made. As I write these words, enthusiasts for the artificial intelligence (AI) agenda, the goal of programming machines to think like humans, have completely avoided and ignored this aspect of mental life. That is why Yale’s David Gelernter, one of the leading computer scientists in the world, says the AI agenda will always fall short, explaining, “As it now exists, the field of AI doesn’t have anything that speaks to emotions and the physical body, so they just refuse to talk about it.” He asserts that the human mind includes feelings, along with data and thoughts, and each particular mind is a product of a particular person’s experiences, emotions, and memories hashed and rehashed over a lifetime: “The mind is in a particular body, and consciousness is the work of the whole body.” Putting it in computer lingo, he declares, “I can run an app on any device, but can I run someone else’s mind on your brain? Obviously not.”15

Unluckier still was Guillaume Le Gentil, whose experiences are wonderfully summarized by Timothy Ferris in Coming of Age in the Milky Way. Le Gentil set off from France a year ahead of time to observe the transit from India, but various setbacks left him still at sea on the day of the transit—just about the worst place to be since steady measurements were impossible on a pitching ship. Undaunted, Le Gentil continued on to India to await the next transit in 1769. With eight years to prepare, he erected a first-rate viewing station, tested and retested his instruments, and had everything in a state of perfect readiness. On the morning of the second transit, June 4, 1769, he awoke to a fine day, but, just as Venus began its pass, a cloud slid in front of the Sun and remained there for almost exactly the duration of the transit: three hours, fourteen minutes, and seven seconds. Stoically, Le Gentil packed up his instruments and set off for the nearest port, but en route he contracted dysentery and was laid up for nearly a year. Still weakened, he finally made it onto a ship. It was nearly wrecked in a hurricane off the African coast. When at last he reached home, eleven and a half years after setting off, and having achieved nothing, he discovered that his relatives had had him declared dead in his absence and had enthusiastically plundered his estate.

There were inquiries, Congressional hearings, books, exposés and documentaries. However, despite all this attention, it was still only a few short months before interest in these children dropped away. There were criminal trials, civil trials, lots of sound and fury. All of the systems—CPS, the FBI, the Rangers, our group in Houston—returned, in most ways, to our old models and our ways of doing things. But while little changed in our practice, a lot had changed in our thinking. We learned that some of the most therapeutic experiences do not take place in “therapy,” but in naturally occurring healthy relationships, whether between a professional like myself and a child, between an aunt and a scared little girl, or between a calm Texas Ranger and an excitable boy. The children who did best after the Davidian apocalypse were not those who experienced the least stress or those who participated most enthusiastically in talking with us at the cottage. They were the ones who were released afterwards into the healthiest and most loving worlds, whether it was with family who still believed in the Davidian ways or with loved ones who rejected Koresh entirely. In fact, the research on the most effective treatments to help child trauma victims might be accurately summed up this way: what works best is anything that increases the quality and number of relationships in the child’s life.

Unfortunately, it coincided with another type of revolution—the French one—and for this one Lavoisier was entirely on the wrong side. Not only was he a member of the hated Ferme Générale, but he had enthusiastically built the wall that enclosed Paris—an edifice so loathed that it was the first thing attacked by the rebellious citizens. Capitalizing on this, in 1791 Marat, now a leading voice in the National Assembly, denounced Lavoisier and suggested that it was well past time for his hanging. Soon afterward the Ferme Générale was shut down. Not long after this Marat was murdered in his bath by an aggrieved young woman named Charlotte Corday, but by this time it was too late for Lavoisier. In

What I cannot understand is how your uncle could consider these two men suitable when they aren’t. Not one whit!” “We know that,” Elizabeth said wryly, bending down to pull a blade of grass from between the flagstones beneath the bench, “but evidently my ‘suitors’ do not, and that’s the problem.” As she said the words a thought began to form in her mind; her fingers touched the blade, and she went perfectly still. Beside her on the bench Alex drew a breath as if to speak, then stopped short, and in that pulsebeat of still silence the same idea was born in both their fertile minds. “Alex,” Elizabeth breathed, “all I have to-“ “Elizabeth,” Alex whispered, “it’s not as bad as it seems. All you have to-“ Elizabeth straightened slowly and turned. In that prolonged moment of silence two longtime friends sat in a rose garden, looking raptly at each other while time rolled back and they were girls again-lying awake in the dark, confiding their dreams and troubles and inventing schemes to solve them that always began with “If only…” “If only,” Elizabeth said as a smile dawned across her face and was matched by the one on Alex’s, “I could convince them that we don’t suit-“ “Which shouldn’t be hard to do,” Alex cried enthusiastically, “because it’s true!” The joyous relief of having a plan, of being able to take control of a situation that minutes before had threatened her entire life, sent Elizabeth to her feet, her face aglow with laughter. “Poor Sir Francis,” she chuckled, looking delightedly from Bentner to Alex as both grinned at her. “I greatly fear he’s in for the most disagreeable surprise when he realizes what a-a” she hesitated, thinking of everything an old roué would most dislike in his future wife-“a complete prude I am!” “And,” Alex added, “what a shocking spendthrift you are!” “Exactly!” Elizabeth agreed, almost twirling around in her glee. Sunlight danced off her gilded hair and lit her green eyes as she looked delightedly at her friends. “I shall make perfectly certain to give him glaring evidence I am both. Now then, as to the Earl of Canford…” “What a pity,” Alex said in a voice of exaggerated gloom, “you won’t be able to show him what a capital hand you are with a fishing pole. “Fish?” Elizabeth returned with a mock shudder. “Why, the mere thought of those scaly creatures positively makes me swoon!” “Except for that prime one you caught yesterday,” Bentner put in wryly. “You’re right,” she returned with an affectionate grin at the man who’d taught her to fish. “Will you find Berta and break the news to her about going with me? By the time we come back to the house she ought to be over her hysterics, and I’ll reason with her.” Bentner trotted off, his threadbare black coattails flapping behind him.

Keeping a new church outwardly focused from the beginning is much easier than trying to refocus an inwardly concerned church. In order to plant a successful church, you have to know that you know that you are undeniably called by God. The call to start a new church plant is not the same as the call to serve in an existing church or work in a ministry-related organization. You may be the greatest preacher this side of Billy Graham but still not be called to start a church. If you think you may have allowed an improper reason, voice or emotion to lead you to the idea of starting a new church, back away now. Spend some more time with God. You don’t want to move forward on a hunch or because you feel “pretty sure” that you should be planting a church. You have to be completely certain. “You’re afraid? So what. Everybody’s afraid. Fear is the common ground of humanity. The question you must wrestle to the ground is, ‘Will I allow my fear to bind me to mediocrity?’” When you think of a people group that you might be called to reach, does your heart break for them? If so, you may want to consider whether God is specifically calling you to reach that group for His kingdom. Is your calling clear? Has your calling been confirmed by others? Are you humbled by the call? Have you acted on your call? Do you know for certain that God has called you to start a new church? Nail it down. When exactly were you called? What were the circumstances surrounding your call? How did it match up with the sources of proper calling? Do you recognize the four specific calls in your calling? How? How does your call measure up to biblical characteristics? What is the emerging vision that God is giving you with this call? As your dependence on God grows, so will your church. One of the most common mistakes that enthusiastic and well-meaning church starters make is to move to a new location and start trying to reach people without thinking through even a short-term strategy. Don’t begin until you count the cost. why would you even consider starting a church (the only institution Jesus left behind and the only one that will last forever) without first developing a God-infused, specific, winning strategy? There are two types of pain: the pain of front-end discipline and the pain of back-end regret. With the question of strategy development, you get to choose which pain you’d rather live with. Basically, a purpose, mission and vision statement provides guiding principles that describe what God has called you to do (mission), how you will do it (purpose) and what it will look like when you get it done (vision). Keep your statement simple. Be as precise as possible. Core values are the filter through which you fulfill your strategy. These are important, because your entire strategy will be created and implemented in such a way as to bring your core values to life. Your strategic aim will serve as the beacon that guides the rest of your strategy. It is the initial purpose for which you are writing your strategy. He will not send more people to you than you are ready to receive. So what can you do? The same thing Dr. Graham does. Prepare in a way that enables God to open the floodgates into your church. If you are truly ready, He will send people your way. If you do the work we’ve described in this chapter, you’ll be able to build your new church on a strong base of God-breathed preparation. You’ll know where you are, where you’re going and how you are going to get there. You’ll be standing in the rain with a huge bucket, ready to take in the deluge. However, if you don’t think through your strategy, write it down and then implement it, you’ll be like the man who stands in the rainstorm with a Dixie cup. You’ll be completely unprepared to capture what God is pouring out. The choice is yours!

The Swedish royal family’s legitimacy is even more tenuous. The current king of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf, is descended neither from noble Viking blood nor even from one of their sixteenth-century warrior kings, but from some random French bloke. When Sweden lost Finland to Russia in 1809, the then king, Gustav IV Adolf—by all accounts as mad as a hamburger—left for exile. To fill his throne and, it is thought, as a sop to Napoleon whose help Sweden hoped to secure against Russia in reclaiming Finland, the finger of fate ended up pointing at a French marshal by the name of Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte (who also happened to be the husband of Napoleon’s beloved Desirée). Upon his arrival in Stockholm, the fact that Bernadotte had actually once fought against the Swedes in Germany was quickly forgotten, as was his name, which was changed to Charles XIV John. This, though, is where the assimilation ended: the notoriously short-tempered Charles XIV John attempted to speak Swedish to his new subjects just the once, meeting with such deafening laughter that he never bothered again (there is an echo of this in the apparently endless delight afforded the Danes by the thickly accented attempts at their language by their current queen’s consort, the portly French aristocrat Henri de Monpezat). On the subject of his new country, the forefather of Sweden’s current royal family was withering: “The wine is terrible, the people without temperament, and even the sun radiates no warmth,” the arriviste king is alleged to have said. The current king is generally considered to be a bit bumbling, but he can at least speak Swedish, usually stands where he is told, and waves enthusiastically. At least, that was the perception until 2010, when the long-whispered rumors of his rampant philandering were finally exposed in a book, Den motvillige monarken (The Reluctant Monarch). Sweden’s tabloids salivated over gory details of the king’s relationships with numerous exotic women, his visits to strip clubs, and his fraternizing with members of the underworld. Hardly appropriate behavior for the chairman of the World Scout Foundation. (The exposé followed allegations that the father of the king’s German-Brazilian wife, Queen Silvia, was a member of the Nazi party. Awkward.) These days, whenever I see Carl Gustaf performing his official duties I can’t shake the feeling that he would much prefer to be trussed up in a dominatrix’s cellar. The

In short, the "Greek miracle ” as it is, called by its enthusiastic admirers, is reduced to something of comparatively small importance, or at least, whenever it implies a fundamentally new departure, this departure is usually in the nature of a degeneration ; it stands for the individualization of conceptions, the substitution of the rational for the truly intellectual, and of the scientific or philosophical for the metaphysical point of view. It matters little, moreover, whether the Greeks were or were not more successful than others in turning certain forms of knowledge to practical use, or whether they deduced consequences of this particular kind, whereas those who preceded them did not do so ; it might even be said that, in this respect, they assigned a less pure, and disinterested ‘purpose to knowledge, because their turn of mind only allowed' them to remain within the domain of principles with some difficulty and as though by exception. This inclination towards the “ practical ” in the most ordinary sense of the word is one of those factors that were fated to become increasingly marked during the course of Western civilization, until in modern times the tendency became frankly predominant. Only the Middle Ages, being much more given to pure speculation, can be said to have escaped it.

Unluckier still was Guillaume Le Gentil, whose experiences are wonderfully summarized by Timothy Ferris in Coming of Age in the Milky Way. Le Gentil set off from France a year ahead of time to observe the transit from India, but various setbacks left him still at sea on the day of the transit—just about the worst place to be since steady measurements were impossible on a pitching ship. Undaunted, Le Gentil continued on to India to await the next transit in 1769. With eight years to prepare, he erected a first-rate viewing station, tested and retested his instruments, and had everything in a state of perfect readiness. On the morning of the second transit, June 4, 1769, he awoke to a fine day, but, just as Venus began its pass, a cloud slid in front of the Sun and remained there for almost exactly the duration of the transit: three hours, fourteen minutes, and seven seconds. Stoically, Le Gentil packed up his instruments and set off for the nearest port, but en route he contracted dysentery and was laid up for nearly a year. Still weakened, he finally made it onto a ship. It was nearly wrecked in a hurricane off the African coast. When at last he reached home, eleven and a half years after setting off, and having achieved nothing, he discovered that his relatives had had him declared dead in his absence and had enthusiastically plundered his estate. In

short buzz followed, then silence. “They want to get rid of us,” said Trillian nervously. “What do we do?” “It’s just a recording,” said Zaphod. “We keep going. Got that, computer?” “I got it,” said the computer and gave the ship an extra kick of speed. They waited. After a second or so came the fanfare once again, and then the voice. “We would like to assure you that as soon as our business is resumed announcements will be made in all fashionable magazines and color supplements, when our clients will once again be able to select from all that’s best in contemporary geography.” The menace in the voice took on a sharper edge. “Meanwhile, we thank our clients for their kind interest and would ask them to leave. Now.” Arthur looked round the nervous faces of his companions. “Well, I suppose we’d better be going then, hadn’t we?” he suggested. “Shhh!” said Zaphod. “There’s absolutely nothing to be worried about.” “Then why’s everyone so tense?” “They’re just interested!” shouted Zaphod. “Computer, start a descent into the atmosphere and prepare for landing.” This time the fanfare was quite perfunctory, the voice now distinctly cold. “It is most gratifying,” it said, “that your enthusiasm for our planet continues unabated, and so we would like to assure you that the guided missiles currently converging with your ship are part of a special service we extend to all of our most enthusiastic clients, and the fully armed nuclear warheads are of course merely a courtesy detail. We look forward to your custom in future lives…. Thank you.

Excuse me,” someone said, interrupting a lively discussion about whom they’d each buy a drink for in the cantina. The whole line looked up. There were two women standing on the sidewalk with bakery boxes. One of them cleared her throat. “We heard that people were camping out for Star Wars . . .” “That’s us!” Troy said, only slightly less enthusiastically than he’d said it yesterday. “Where’s everybody else?” she asked. “Are they around the back? Do you do this in shifts?” “It’s just us,” Elena said. “We’re the Cupcake Gals,” the other woman said. “We thought we’d bring Star Wars cupcakes? For the line?” “Great!” Troy said. The Cupcake Gals held on tight to their boxes. “It’s just . . .” the first woman said, “we were going to take a photo of the whole line, and post it on Instagram . . .” “I can help you there!” Elena said. Those cupcakes were not going to just walk away. Not on Elena’s watch. Elena took a selfie of their line, the Cupcake Gals and a theater employee all holding Star Wars cupcakes—it looked like a snapshot from a crowd— and promised to post it across all her channels. The lighting was perfect. Magic hour, no filter necessary. #CupcakeGals #TheForceACAKEns #SalaciousCrumbs The Gals were completely satisfied and left both boxes of cupcakes. “This is the first time I’ve been happy that there were only three of us,” Elena said, helping herself to a second cupcake. It was frosted to look like Chewbacca. “You saved these cupcakes,” Gabe said. “Those women were going to walk away with them.” “I know,” Elena said. “I could see it in their eyes. I would’ve stopped at nothing to change their minds.” “Thank God they were satisfied by a selfie then,” Gabe said. His cupcake looked like Darth Vader, and his tongue was black. “I’m really good at selfies,” Elena said. “Especially for someone with short arms.” “Great job,” Troy said. “You’ll make someone a great provider someday.” “That day is today,” Elena said, leaning back against the theater wall. “You’re both welcome.” “Errrggh,” Troy said, kicking his feet out. “Cupcake coma.” “How many did you eat?” Gabe asked. “Four,” Troy said. “I took down the Jedi Council. Time for a little midday siesta—the Force asleepens.

And now I come to the first positively important point which I wish to make. Never were as many men of a decidedly empiricist proclivity in existence as there are at the present day. Our children, one may say, are almost born scientific. But our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout. Now take a man of this type, and let him be also a philosophic amateur, unwilling to mix a hodge-podge system after the fashion of a common layman, and what does he find his situation to be, in this blessed year of our Lord 1906? He wants facts; he wants science; but he also wants a religion. And being an amateur and not an independent originator in philosophy he naturally looks for guidance to the experts and professionals whom he finds already in the field. A very large number of you here present, possibly a majority of you, are amateurs of just this sort. Now what kinds of philosophy do you find actually offered to meet your need? You find an empirical philosophy that is not religious enough, and a religious philosophy that is not empirical enough. If you look to the quarter where facts are most considered you find the whole tough-minded program in operation, and the 'conflict between science and religion' in full blast. The romantic spontaneity and courage are gone, the vision is materialistic and depressing. Ideals appear as inert by-products of physiology; what is higher is explained by what is lower and treated forever as a case of 'nothing but'—nothing but something else of a quite inferior sort. You get, in short, a materialistic universe, in which only the tough-minded find themselves congenially at home.If now, on the other hand, you turn to the religious quarter for consolation, and take counsel of the tender-minded philosophies, what do you find? Religious philosophy in our day and generation is, among us English-reading people, of two main types. One of these is more radical and aggressive, the other has more the air of fighting a slow retreat. By the more radical wing of religious philosophy I mean the so-called transcendental idealism of the Anglo-Hegelian school, the philosophy of such men as Green, the Cairds, Bosanquet, and Royce. This philosophy has greatly influenced the more studious members of our protestant ministry. It is pantheistic, and undoubtedly it has already blunted the edge of the traditional theism in protestantism at large. That theism remains, however. It is the lineal descendant, through one stage of concession after another, of the dogmatic scholastic theism still taught rigorously in the seminaries of the catholic church. For a long time it used to be called among us the philosophy of the Scottish school. It is what I meant by the philosophy that has the air of fighting a slow retreat. Between the encroachments of the hegelians and other philosophers of the 'Absolute,' on the one hand, and those of the scientific evolutionists and agnostics, on the other, the men that give us this kind of a philosophy, James Martineau, Professor Bowne, Professor Ladd and others, must feel themselves rather tightly squeezed. Fair-minded and candid as you like, this philosophy is not radical in temper. It is eclectic, a thing of compromises, that seeks a modus vivendi above all things. It accepts the facts of darwinism, the facts of cerebral physiology, but it does nothing active or enthusiastic with them. It lacks the victorious and aggressive note. It lacks prestige in consequence; whereas absolutism has a certain prestige due to the more radical style of it.

In their important masterpiece entitled When the Earth Nearly Died, Allan and Delair write: In Europe immense herds of diverse animals utterly vanished off the face of the earth for no obvious biological reason Coincident with this dreadful slaughter upon the land was the deposition of myriads of contemporary marine shells, and the stranding at great elevations of marine mammals, porpoises, walruses and seals In Siberia, the picture is everywhere one of appalling disorder, carnage and wholesale destruction, with countless animals and plants frozen in positions of death ever since the day they perished. As a result, their remains are amazingly fresh-looking and are frequently indistinguishable from those of animals and plants that have died mere weeks ago The magnitude of the biological extinctions achieved by the Deluge almost transcends the imagination. It annihilated literally billions of biological units of both sexes and every age indiscriminately. Only incredibly powerful flood waters operating world-wide could have achieved such results, and only a flood produced by the means previously suggested could have operated globally They comment on the preposterous Ice Age theories of their predecessors. Although these theories hold little water, they are accepted by supposedly intelligent people. ...it is astonishing that such an unscientific explanation ever came to be formulated, yet in a short time both it and the concept of immense thick ice-sheets descending from a hypothetical northern mountain system, to cover all of northern and eastern North America and western and northern Eurasia, was enthusiastically embraced...as virtually established fact The evidence is perfectly unambiguous. Along with the removal of an “Ice Age” like that which has been hitherto commonly envisaged, the evidence suggests that there is something seriously amiss with the last phases of standard geological chronology Evidence thus converges from numerous directions to support the conclusion that, on the testimony of radio-carbon and other dating techniques, immense physical and climatic changes occurred on earth some 11,000 years or so ago – when an Ice Age that probably never existed came to an end, and an apparently uniformitarian regime was abruptly terminated The gigantic worldwide tectonic disturbances of the ‘late Pleistocene’ times occurred almost simultaneously on a nearly unimaginable scale – precisely what could be expected from a powerful external influence but not from the ‘Ice Age’ conditions conventionally believed to have existed then They note the change in the magnetic fields that occurred during the cataclysmic period of Earth’s recent history: Significantly, a drop in the strength of the earth’s magnetic field appears to have occurred sometime between 13,750 and 12,350 years ago...attended by various other important changes, including earthquakes, vulcanism, water table fluctuations and large scale climatic variations. Of these, severe earthquakes in particular may even induce axial wobble, and polarity reversals

According to the Boston Consulting Group, 7 percent of Chinese netizens drive 40 percent of online sales. These social enthusiasts and key opinion leaders (i.e., those who spend the most time on social-media websites) can significantly influence a company's image.

Evans went off the air, he went to the location where Vice President Kincaide, the Cabinet, and the loyal staff were being sequestered. Their guards had them lined up against a wall as he walked into the room, and he smiled as he said, “I am so pleased with how all of this worked out. All of you were so gullible as to think that I was enthusiastic about Collins being President. I’ve enjoyed manipulating events and people like you. My predecessors and I have been slowly and methodically preparing for this downfall for over a century and it has finally come to fruition. “There were times, I have to admit, when I thought the American people finally came to their senses and able to see what was in front of them, but that was very short-lived. We were relentless about trashing their beliefs, called them bigots and racists, that they hated women, and wanted to control their lives. After a while, they gave up. So, we’re here today to bask in my triumph, while all of you are here to pay for your stupidity. This is truly a game changing moment. Any last thoughts?” “You won’t get away with this!” sputtered the Vice President. “Oh, but I already have. Anyone else want to sputter something useless?

As for Sturridge, he comes across as quite possibly the most likable man to ever wear the Liverbird. The chicken teriyaki enthusiast has been defying expectations and unfounded prejudice since he arrived at the club to a lukewarm fan response. He was a troublemaker, you see. He had a poor attitude and was a he Big Time Charlie, don't you know? The Chelsea guys said so and Jose Mourinho has never been anything other than ethical and sincere, right? Right? "The England front man was quick to disabuse dubious fans of their misguided assumptions. From his first interview he spoke with a candour and earnest enthusiasm that were utterly endearing. His performance on the pitch has been nothing short of remarkable and his prodigious tally of 35 goals in 49 appearances to date is worthy of far more adulation than he has received. Doubtless the dancing striker has suffered by comparison with the frankly unequalled brilliance of a certain now-departed flesh gourmand, but the Birmingham native is worthy of so much more praise and, with time on his side, he has the potential to become the nonpareil of Liverpool's recent strikers.

What was I so enthusiastic about? The American Dream - The opportunity for everyone to success, to get somewhere by their own efforts, and like many teenagers, I was also a fan of a certain brand of jeans that couldn't be bought in the GDR, but I had an aunt in the west who used to send them to me. I loved the vast American landscapes, where the air is full of spirit of freedom and independence. In 1990 my husband and I flew to America for the very first time, to California. We will never forget that view of the Pacific Ocean. It was nothing short of magnificent.

homosexuality a curable perversion. She professed to disdain men and insisted women had been “enslaved by the institution of marriage.” Yet she loved many men and married twice: she treated her first husband abominably, and was physically and emotionally abused by her second. She considered sex degrading, but was an enthusiastic advocate, and energetic exponent, of free love. “Out here I’ve had chances to sleep with all colours and shapes,” she wrote to a friend, shortly before meeting Ursula. “One French gunrunner, short and round and bumpy; one fifty-year-old monarchist German who believes in the dominating role of the penis in influencing women; one high Chinese official whose actions I’m ashamed to describe, one round left-wing Kuomintang man who was soft and slobbery.” She was a communist who never joined the party; a violent revolutionary and romantic dreamer; a feminist in thrall to a succession of men; a woman who inspired intense loyalty, yet inflicted enormous damage on many of her friends; she supported communism without considering what communist rule involved in reality. She was passionate, prejudiced, charismatic, narcissistic, reckless, volatile, lovable, hypercritical, emotionally fragile, and uncompromising. “I may not be innocent, but I’m right,” she declared. Ursula was entranced. Agnes Smedley seemed to embody political passion and energy, the very antithesis of the smug complacency she found in the bourgeois boudoirs of Shanghai. “Your very existence is not worth anything at all if you live passively in the midst of injustice,” Smedley insisted. Agnes was everything Ursula admired: feminist, anti-fascist, an enemy of imperialism and defender of the oppressed against the forces of capitalism, and a natural revolutionary. She was also a spy.

to paint a vivid picture of what deep practice feels like. It's the feeling, in short, of being a staggering baby, of intently, clumsily lurching toward a goal and toppling over. It's a wobbly, discomfiting sensation that any sensible person would instinctively seek to avoid. Yet the longer the babies remained in that state—the more willing they were to endure it, and to permit themselves to fail—the more myelin they built, and the more skill they earned. The staggering babies embody the deepest truth about deep practice: to get good, it's helpful to be willing, or even enthusiastic, about being bad. Baby steps are the royal road to skill.

To be sure, I occasionally pretended to take life seriously. But very soon the frivolity of seriousness struck me and I merely went on playing my role as well as I could. I played at being efficient, intelligent, virtuous, civic-minded, shocked, indulgent, fellow-spirited, edifying … In short, there’s no need of going on, you have already grasped that I was like my Dutchmen who are here without being here: I was absent at the moment when I took up the most space. I have never been really sincere and enthusiastic except when I used to indulge in sports, and in the army, when I used to act in plays we put on for our own amusement. In both cases there was a rule of the game, which was not serious but which we enjoyed taking as if it were. Even now, the Sunday matches in an overflowing stadium, and the theater, which I loved with the greatest passion, are the only places in the world where I feel innocent.

MONKEY MIND MONK MIND Overwhelmed by multiple branches Focused on the root of the issue Coasts in the passenger seat Lives intentionally and consciously Complains, compares, criticizes Compassionate, caring, collaborative Overthinks and procrastinates Analyzes and articulates Distracted by small things Disciplined Short-term gratification Long-term gain Demanding and entitled Enthusiastic, determined, patient Changes on a whim Commits to a mission, vision, or goal Amplifies negatives and fears Works on breaking down negatives and fears Self-centered and obsessed Self-care for service Multitasking Single-tasking Controlled by anger, worry, and fear Controls and engages energy wisely Does whatever feels good Seeks self-control and mastery Looks for pleasure Looks for meaning Looks for temporary fixes Looks for genuine solutions

Now,” Hunt said, ignoring the tumult, “if I may have a look at that remaining handcuff, I may be able to do something about it.” “You can’t,” Lillian said with weary certainty. “The key is in St. Vincent’s pocket, and I’ve run out of hairpins.” Sitting beside her, Hunt took her manacled wrist, regarded it thoughtfully, and said with what she thought was rather inappropriate satisfaction, “How fortunate. A pair of Higby-Dumfries number thirty.” Lillian gave him a sardonic glance. “I take it you are a handcuff enthusiast?” His lips twitched. “No, but I do have a friend or two in law enforcement. And these were once given as standard issue to the New Police, until a design flaw was discovered. Now one may find a dozen pair of Higby-Dumfries in any London pawnshop.” “What design flaw?” For answer, Hunt adjusted the locked cuff on her wrist, with the hinge and lock facing downward. He paused at the sound of more furniture breaking from upstairs, and grinned at Lillian’s gathering scowl. “I’ll go,” he said mildly. “But first…” He withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket with one hand, inserting it between her wrist and the steel cuff as a makeshift inner padding. “There. That may help to cushion the force of the blow.” “Blow? What blow?” “Hold still.” Lillian squeaked in dismay as she felt him lift her manacled wrist high over the desk and bring it down sharply on the bottom of the hinge. The whack served to jar the lever mechanism inside the lock, and the cuff snapped open as if by magic. Stunned, Lillian regarded Hunt with a half smile as she rubbed her bare wrist. “Thank you. I—” There was another crashing sound, this time coming from directly overhead, and a chorus of excited bellows from the onlookers caused the walls to tremble. Above it all, the innkeeper could be heard complaining shrilly that his building would soon be reduced to matchsticks. “Mr. Hunt,” Lillian exclaimed, “I do wish that you would try to be of some use to Lord Westcliff!” Hunt’s brows lifted into mocking crescents. “You don’t actually fear that St. Vincent is getting the better of him?” “The question is not whether I have sufficient confidence in Lord Westcliff’s fighting ability,” Lillian replied impatiently. “The fact is, I have too much confidence in it. And I would rather not have to bear witness at a murder trial on top of everything else.” “You have a point.” Standing, Hunt refolded his handkerchief and placed it in his coat pocket. He headed to the stairs with a short sigh, grumbling, “I’ve spent most of the day trying to stop him from killing people.

Paranoid Systems of History (PSH), a short-lived periodical of the 1920s whose plates have all mysteriously vanished, natch, has even suggested, in more than one editorial, that the whole German Inflation was created deliberately, simply to drive young enthusiasts of the Cybernetic Tradition into Control work: after all, an economy inflating, upward bound as a balloon, its own definition of Earth's surface drifting upward in value, uncontrolled, drifting with the days, the feedback system expected to maintain the value of the mark constant having, humiliatingly, failed. . . . Unity gain around the loop, unity gain, zero change, and hush, that way, forever, these were the secret rhymes of the childhood of the Discipline of Control—secret and terrible, as the scarlet histories say. Diverging oscillations of any kind were nearly the Worst Threat. You could not pump the swings of these playgrounds higher than a certain angle from the vertical.

A moving shadow caught Firepaw’s eye. He glanced around and saw Tigerclaw standing a short distance away. The warrior was watching Ravenpaw with an iron stare. Unaware of his mentor’s presence, Ravenpaw continued to answer question after question from his enthusiastic audience. “What were Oakheart’s dying words?” “Is it true that Oakheart had never lost a battle before?” Ravenpaw replied promptly, with his voice high and clear and his eyes shining. But when Firepaw glanced back at Tigerclaw, he saw a look of horror and then fury creep over the warrior’s face. Clearly Tigerclaw wasn’t enjoying Ravenpaw’s story at all.

The Zionist chapter proper in the country’s history began in 1882, after the outbreak of large-scale pogroms in the Russian Empire (although the term was only invented a few years later). The first settlers called themselves Hovevei Tzion (Lovers of Zion), a network of groups which aspired to forge a Jewish national life in Palestine and, in a significant novelty, to use the reviving Hebrew language rather than Yiddish. In August that year a two-hundred-strong group from the Romanian town of Galatz landed at Jaffa, where they were locked up for weeks before enough cash could be raised to bribe the Turkish police to release them.6 Their goal was a plot of stony land that had been purchased south of Haifa. Laurence Oliphant, an eccentric British traveller and enthusiastic philo-Semite, described the scene shortly afterwards at Zamarin, a malaria-infested hamlet on the southern spur of Mount Carmel overlooking the Mediterranean. It is a remarkably vivid portrayal of two very different sorts of people who were warily making each other’s acquaintance as future neighbours – and enemies: It would be difficult to imagine anything more utterly incongruous than the spectacle thus presented – the stalwart fellahin [peasants], with their wild, shaggy, black beards, the brass hilts of their pistols projecting from their waistbands, their tasselled kufeihahs [keffiyeh headdresses] drawn tightly over their heads and girdled with coarse black cords, their loose, flowing abbas [cloaks], and sturdy bare legs and feet; and the ringleted, effeminate-looking Jews, in caftans reaching almost to their ankles, as oily as their red or sandy locks, or the expression of their countenances – the former inured to hard labour on the burning hillsides of Palestine, the latter fresh from the Ghetto of some Roumanian town, unaccustomed to any other description of exercise than that of their wits, but already quite convinced that they knew more about agriculture than the people of the country, full of suspicion of all advice tendered to them, and animated by a pleasing self-confidence which I fear the first practical experience will rudely belie. In strange contrast with these Roumanian Jews was the Arab Jew who acted as interpreter – a stout, handsome man, in Oriental garb, as unlike his European coreligionists as the fellahin themselves.

In the meantime, back on Dubois’s old turf of Java, a team led by Ralph von Koenigswald had found another group of early humans, which became known as the Solo People from the site of their discovery on the Solo River at Ngandong. Koenigswald’s discoveries might have been more impressive still but for a tactical error that was realized too late. He had offered locals ten cents for every piece of hominid bone they could come up with, then discovered to his horror that they had been enthusiastically smashing large pieces into small ones to maximize their income.

That’s what University of Pennsylvania’s Andrew Carton and his coauthors concluded after studying patients treated for heart attacks in 151 California hospitals. When a hospital had four or fewer values and used vivid imagery, patients were far less likely to be readmitted for further treatment within thirty days—a key indicator of the quality of care. Carton’s team found similar results in an experiment where they assembled sixty-two virtual teams to design new toys. Before designing the toy, team members learned their “company’s” values—and were instructed that their design should be “congruent” with the values. An “expert panel” of seven children was more enthusiastic about playing with toys designed by teams in companies with short lists of vivid values.

But the enthusiast of separations, seeking paths unhaunted by the hordes, withdraws to the extreme margin and follows the rim of the circle, which (s)he cannot cross so long as (s)he is subject to the body.

enthusiastically adopted biofeedback HRV training,

As long as we live in a society in which a person’s own happiness is so dependent on the opinions of others, we will always have the problem of people feeling oppressed by cultural standards. We may be able to detach the problem from racism, so that beauty snobbery is racially egalitarian. We may be able to detach it from sexism, so that men are just as obsessed and fretful about their bodies as women are. We may be able to detach it from social biases against the short, the able-bodied, the gray-haired, and the wrinkled. But the problem will not go away. Like a particularly enthusiastic leech, it will find some other place to attach itself, and the deeper problem will remain untouched. That deeper problem is not simply the problem of racism or sexism (although those are problems too), but the fragility of selves that depend so intimately on the good opinions of others for their survival.

The fan reaction to our music was incredible. In fact, we ended up getting a bigger response from the crowd than they did. This scenario repeated itself again and again with many of the acts that we fronted. In short, we started to become a nightmare of an opening act for the featured artists because we often got a more enthusiastic reception than they did. It got to the point where no one wanted us to open for them anymore. This ended up being a good thing. That’s when we stopped being the opening act and became “the act.” By

Tim Graham Tim Graham has specialized in photographing the Royal Family for more than thirty years and is foremost in his chosen field. Recognition of his work over the years has led to invitations for private sessions with almost all the members of the British Royal Family, including, of course, Diana, Princess of Wales, and her children. Diana had none of the remoteness of some members of royal families. Along with several of my press colleagues, I felt I came to know her quite well. She was a superstar, she was royal, but she was also very approachable. I have had various sessions with members of the Royal Family over the years, but those with her were more informal. I remember photographing Prince William at Kensington Palace when he was a baby. I was lying on the floor of the drawing room in front of the infant prince, trying to get his attention. Not surprisingly, he didn’t show much interest, so, without prompting, Diana lay down on the floor close to me and, using one of those little bottles of bubbles, starting blowing bubbles at him. Perfect. As he gazed in fascination at his mother, I was able to get the picture I wanted. I can’t think of many members of the Royal Family who would abandon protocol and lie on the carpet with you in a photo session! Funnily enough, it wasn’t the only time it happened. She did the same again years when she was about to send her dresses to auction for charity and we were sifting through prints of my photographs that she had asked to use in the catalog. She suggested that we sit on the floor and spread the photographs all around us on the carpet, so, of course, we did. I donated the use of my pictures of her in the various dresses to the charity, and as a thank-you, Diana invited me to be the exclusive photographer at both parties held for the dresses auction--one in London and the other in the United States. The party in New York was held on preview night, and many of the movers and shakers of New York were there, including her good friend Henry Kissinger. It was a big room, but everyone in it gravitated to the end where the Princess was meeting people. She literally couldn’t move and was totally hemmed in. I was pushed so close to her I could hardly take a picture. Seeing the crush, her bodyguard spotted an exit route through the kitchen and managed to get the Princess and me out of the enthusiastic “scrum.” As the kitchen door closed behind the throng, she leaned against the wall, kicked off her stiletto-heeled shoes, and gasped, “Gordon Bennett, that’s a crush!” I would have loved to have taken a picture of her then, but I knew she wouldn’t expect that to be part of the deal. You should have seen the kitchen staff--they were thrilled to have an impromptu sight of her but amazed that someone of her status could be so normal. She took a short breather, said hi to those who had, of course, stopped work to stare at her, and then glided back into the room through another door to take up where she had left off. That’s style!

Tim Graham Tim Graham has specialized in photographing the Royal Family for more than thirty years and is foremost in his chosen field. Recognition of his work over the years has led to invitations for private sessions with almost all the members of the British Royal Family, including, of course, Diana, Princess of Wales, and her children. I donated the use of my pictures of her in the various dresses to the charity, and as a thank-you, Diana invited me to be the exclusive photographer at both parties held for the dresses auction--one in London and the other in the United States. The party in New York was held on preview night, and many of the movers and shakers of New York were there, including her good friend Henry Kissinger. It was a big room, but everyone in it gravitated to the end where the Princess was meeting people. She literally couldn’t move and was totally hemmed in. I was pushed so close to her I could hardly take a picture. Seeing the crush, her bodyguard spotted an exit route through the kitchen and managed to get the Princess and me out of the enthusiastic “scrum.” As the kitchen door closed behind the throng, she leaned against the wall, kicked off her stiletto-heeled shoes, and gasped, “Gordon Bennett, that’s a crush!” I would have loved to have taken a picture of her then, but I knew she wouldn’t expect that to be part of the deal. You should have seen the kitchen staff--they were thrilled to have an impromptu sight of her but amazed that someone of her status could be so normal. She took a short breather, said hi to those who had, of course, stopped work to stare at her, and then glided back into the room through another door to take up where she had left off. That’s style!

With the fall of Lord Voldemort, Dolores Umbridge was put on trial for her enthusiastic co-operation with his regime, and convicted of the torture, imprisonment and deaths of several people (some of the innocent Muggle-borns she sentenced to Azkaban did not survive their ordeal).

So what was Jonah like before high school? As a kid?” “As a kid?” Hallelujah brings up the picture in her mind. “He was . . . sweet, I guess. Dorky. He’d wear these outfits his mom picked out—pleated khaki pants and polo shirts, with his hair slicked down with gel. And he would get really enthusiastic about things. Too enthusiastic. He went through this cowboy phase where he wore a cowboy hat and boots to school every day. Didn’t care what anyone thought.” The mental image makes her smile. “And he and Luke were best friends?” “Starting in middle school, yeah. They played soccer together.” “Huh.” Rachel pauses. “So when did Jonah get cute?” “He was still pretty short in middle school. And skinny. But he did start dressing better.” “No more pleated khakis?” “No more pleated khakis. And then the summer before ninth grade, he had this growth spurt. And he started to, uh, fill out. So I guess ninth grade is when I noticed . . .” Hallelujah fades off. “This is embarrassing.” “No, it’s not. This is what girls talk about.” Rachel grins. “Besides. I wanted to see if you were paying as close attention to him as he was to you.” “I didn’t realize I was. We were just friends.” “You can be friends and still objectively notice someone’s cuteness.

Although he said more about hell than most other subjects, Jesus had a very short fuse with those who appeared enthusiastic about the idea of people suffering eternally. Once, after being rejected by a village of Samaritans, Jesus’ disciples asked him for permission to call fire down from heaven to destroy the Samaritans. Jesus’ response was to rebuke his disciples for thinking such a harsh thing.[1] His response makes me wonder what to do with a subject like hell. On one hand, Jesus indicated that the fire of hell is an appropriate punishment for sin.[2] On the other, he got very upset with anyone suggesting that someone else should go there...Howard Thurman, a predecessor to Dr. King and an African American scholar and minister, gave a lecture at Harvard in 1947 during the pre–civil rights era. In that lecture he shared these words: “Can you imagine a slave saying, ‘I and all my children and grandchildren are consigned to lives of endless brutality and grinding poverty? There’s no judgment day in which any wrongdoing will ever be put right?’”[15] Volf and Thurman are saying the same thing: if there is no final judgment, then there is really no hope for a slave, a rape victim, a child who has been abused or bullied, or people who have been slandered or robbed or had their dignity taken from them. If nobody is ultimately called to account for violence and oppression, then the victims will not see justice, ever. They will be left to conclude the same thing that Elie Wiesel concluded after the Holocaust stripped him of his mother, his father, his sister, and his faith: “I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God. . . . Without love or mercy.”[16] If we insist on a universe in which there is no final reckoning for evil, this is what we are left with. To accept that God is a lover but not a judge is a luxury that only the privileged and protected can enjoy. What I’m saying here is that we need a God who gets angry. We need a God who will protect his kids, who will once and for all remove the bullies and the perpetrators of evil from his playground. Those who cannot or will not appreciate this have likely enjoyed a very sheltered life and are therefore naive about the emotional impact of oppression, cruelty, and injustice. To accept that God is a lover but not a judge is a luxury that only the privileged and protected can enjoy.

PARTIES, CONFERENCES AND NETWORKING EVENTS. You’ve got to be honest with yourself; this was the actual lesson you’ve been dreading, only if you are a natural extrovert, there are some things that are more stressful than going to parties and other networking activities. Today is going to be a bit tough, so you are going to have to be tougher. This is where all the lessons you’ve learnt so far will pay off. When you’re in a party, a conference or networking event, you are likely to hold one of four possible roles. How you react to the event will depend on this role. The possibilities include: Host/Greeter. Guest. Networker. Support. People will definitely come to you if you’re in the first category, making introduction moderately easy and opportunities for small talk plentiful. You may be in charge of giving a presentation or attending to a table at a convention or any similar event. Make sure to create eye contact and smile at strangers to acknowledge them, someone will approach you in no time. Topics that may outstand may include how successful the turnout was or other positive factors that craved out of the event. If you happen to be a guest or a visitor, the challenge is on you to approach and kick start conversations. The golden rule for breaking ice at events and starting small talks ate networking arena are remarkably the same. You have to keep one thing in mind; everyone attends a party with the intention of meeting a new person and talking with them. So, if you find out that your introduction is not so much an imposition as making it up to meet new people, you will find it much compelling and easy. Your best topics in this case are basically probing enquires about what brings your other party to the event and if you have mutual acquaintances. Your own work as a networker is a little bit different from being a host or guest. As a networker, you have to join groups, or even groups of groups in a cohesive way. You may need to go in to many conversations in the middle. The best way to go about this is to smile or enthusiastically go with something that was just said. When this is done, be careful not to shoehorn your conversation topics in to small talks, but try to carefully merge in to each of them as if you’re approaching from a highway on- ramp. Support is the final role, and the sad part about this is that you might find yourself at the end catering an event or working as a neutral staff. Even with that, you may still create opportunities for personal networking or even very revealing small talks during the course of the event. Conversation with other staff, special guests or even the host can turn out to invaluable connections that you can make use of later. With this at the back of your mind, always prepare for short conversations when you’re working an event just as seriously as if you were attending the event as a special guest. Maybe you’re not that kind of person that can withstand large crowd, take a break to regain who you are and review the topical assessments you prepared in the previous lessons. Don’t forget to excuse yourself so you can move around in the event centre on a regular basis, perhaps going for another role you think you’re capable of. This particular aspect does not have any other way to go about it. In fact, it might take the next 5 days before you put the whole concept together, and you may need to combine the zeal with tomorrow’s lesson. Now, you should go for a party or be the host to one yourself so you can utilize all these principles you learnt today. There’s no way to wave this, you have to learn it and be perfect. Bring your partner who has been your support all this while along to tackle the four roles and many more within the time frame. Until then, maintain the free flow with ease.

Do you want to see where this goes?” he says, his voice deep and hoarse. I nod enthusiastically. “Yes, let’s go here first.” I place his hand on my breast and lean in for a kiss.

Minerva McGonagall is many things: gifted witch, stern Hogwarts professor, lifelong Quidditch enthusiast and occasional tabby cat. If there’s one thing she’s not, it’s an open book. There’s really no better way to get to know someone than hearing about their parents, their childhood, their first love, and their stubbornly held grudges. So it’s with great joy we follow J.K. Rowling’s writing back to the Scottish Highlands, where we can glimpse McGonagall’s life as she found joy, friendship, magic and a job at Hogwarts.

It was a strange thing, really, seeing my boyfriend's naked ass thrusting between widespread thighs. Was that what he looked like when he was on top of me? Because I had to say he appeared rather ridiculous, pumping away like an unhinged bunny. Then again, I'd never liked that particular method of his; I'd rarely orgasmed when pounded like a piece of meat. His partner, however, didn't seem to have that problem. Either she was faking it, or she loved it. But her rather enthusiastic squeaks of delight cut short as she caught sight of me, and all the color drained from her face. Sadly, it took Greg a bit longer to realize she'd frozen beneath him; Greg always was a bit of a selfish lover. When he finally noticed, he was as smooth as ever, observing me from over his sweaty shoulder without making a move to get off the woman. Silence fell like a hammer. Or maybe an ax. Why not? An ax could sever more than one thing today. Greg swallowed twice, his gaze darting over me, like he couldn't quite believe I was there. In my own home. His voice was somewhat shaky when he finally spoke. "You're early." So many things to say. Scream, maybe? Cry? But I was numb. Completely numb. So I said the only thing I could. "Funny, I think I arrived just in time.

When the world one loves is seen to be dying, the viewer dies a little with it. A great American painter, Reginald Marsh, exemplifies this truism. Every day until his death at the age of 56, he sketched and painted the most earthy, sweaty and lusty examples of humanity he could lay his eyes upon. His productive voyeurism led him through the entire spectrum of cheap cafes, carnivals, amusement parks, skid rows, exclusive clubs, opera openings, coming-out parties and everything in-between. His super-realistic canvases were jammed with the kind of people he loved to watch in the environments he loved to haunt. As his closing years approached, Reginald Marsh grew depressed at the changing scene. New styles were emerging and it now became more difficult to immerse himself in the vistas from which he had so long drawn, both in his paintings and life itself. His canvases of lumpy women and pot-bellied men were too unappealing for the “think thin” era of the 1950s, and his floozies violated the then-current Grace Kelly/Ivory Soap look. His disdain for modern masters (“Matisse draws like a three-year-old, “Picasso ... a false front”) became exemplified as he summed up modern art as “high and pure and sterile — no sex, no drink, no muscles.” Marsh’s “out of date” feeling reached its zenith when he was asked to take part in an art symposium. The first speaker, who was a then-popular New York painter, enthusiastically championed current trends. Then followed a professor who advocated new and dynamic experimentation in visual appeal. At last it was Reginald Marsh’s turn to speak. He stood on the platform for a moment, as if trying to collect his thoughts. A sad look of resignation appeared in his eyes as he gazed down at the audience. The talented watcher of his innermost secret lusts and life-giving scintillations declared softly, “I am not a man of this century,” and sat down. He died shortly thereafter.

Rishikesh is one of the most wanted places for adventure lovers. Rishikesh is also well-known among Hindus for its pilgrimage. The free of charge graceful river and also Substring Mountains make this place beautiful for travelers. It is really one of the best locations for people wanting onward to get tons of adventure, and fun. It's also a precious knowledge for nature lovers. The major fair activity in Rishikesh is White Water Rafting. It has grown to a well-liked and daring spot for white water rafting enthusiast as the place offers an impressive experience of average to very tough and rough rapids in the region of River Ganges. Uttarakhand adventure is well known rafting company in Rishikesh. Many adventurous tourists both from India and overseas stay this place to experience the real challenge of white water rafting. All services for white water rafting Rishikesh is available here, and there are preparation guides for rafting from whom a tourist can take help in this sport. River rafting in Rishikesh is one of the majority popular sport activities because of free flowing rivers from Himalayas. Rafting, camping, trekking, and Rock Climbing, Bungee jumping is some of the sports education that a traveler can consider. We are best rafting company in Rishikesh. Important and Helpful Information and Rafting Safety Tips for All Rafting Users • Important Equipments Shell Be take for River Rafting and Camping • Sunglasses and water glasses with retaining cord, Battery Torch • Swimming costume and quick drying shorts for river • Odomos, Antiseptic Cream and Sunscreen Lotion, First Aid Box • Only Use River Sandals & old Sneakers , no flip flops • River Rafting Guide & Splash life jackets. • Other required safety accessories • Waterproof disposable camera with Extra Battery (Full Battery Charge). • Mobile Phone with Extra Mobile Batteries (Electricity may be off) • We provide River Rafting Gears & Assistance • Helmets & river rafting gears • Trekking Shoes

Anne Kihagi For Animal Enthusiasts Looking for Off-Beaten Path Discoveries, consider: Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery The Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery stretches over six miles off of California’s Highway 1. It is a part of the non-profit organization Friends of the Elephant Seal, which strives to educate the public and protect the seals. Stop at any of the viewing areas located on the highway to see over 17,000 elephant seals that use the area for birthing, breeding, and resting. The viewing areas are open year-round and are free of charge to the public. You have the best chance of glimpsing the seals between December and March when they visit the area due to inclement weather. If you are interested in learning more about the seals, Friends of the Elephant Seal has a visitor center and gift shop. It is a short, eight-mile drive away from the rookery and located within the Plaza del Cavalier in San Simon. Other area attractions include the Piedras Blancas Light Station, Hearst Castle, and the Coastal Discover Center at San Simeon Bay. Friends of the Elephant Seal also offers tours for children in third grade and higher. The group hosts school field trips, as well as organizations like Girl and Boy Scouts. Tour instructors provide students with explanation while they are viewing the seals at the rookery. People of all ages can enjoy the live action feed of the seals located on the Friends of the Elephant Seal’s website.

A small brownish-gray terrier had been sitting on the brick, but he hopped to his feet as soon as he saw Bridget and gave one sharp emphatic bark. "Now hush," she said to him- not that he seemed to care. She set the tin plate down and uncovered it, revealing the scraps that Mrs. Bram had saved for her. The terrier immediately began gobbling the food as if he was starving which, sadly, he might be. "You'll choke," Bridget said sternly. The terrier didn't listen. He never did, no matter how businesslike she made her voice. Grown men- footmen- might jump to obey her, but this scrawny waif defied her. Bridget bit her lip. If she was forced to leave Hermes House, who would feed the terrier? Mrs. Bram might- if she remembered to do so- but the cook was a busy woman with other matters on her mind. The dog finished his meal and licked the plate so enthusiastically that he overturned it with a clatter. Bridget tutted and bent to pick it up. The dog thrust his short snout under her hand as she did so and she found herself stroking his head. His fur was wiry rather than silky, almost greasy, but the dog had liquid brown eyes and seemed to smile as his mouth hung open, tongue lolling out. He was very, very sweet. She'd never been allowed a pet dog as a child. Her foster father was a shepherd and had considered dogs farm animals. A pet dog wasn't even to be thought of, especially for her, the cuckoo. Housekeepers, and indeed servants of any kind, weren't allowed pets. Sometimes a cat might be kept to catch mice in the kitchens, but it was a working animal. Dogs were dirty things and required food and space that, technically, she didn't own. Bridget stood and frowned down at the dog. "Shoo now." The dog sat and slowly wagged his tail, sweeping the bricks. One of his triangular ears stood up while the other lay down.

What’re we talking about?” I asked a little too enthusiastically. They glared at me. One of them, with a long red ponytail and thick swirly mustache, answered me. “Nothing that concerns you, flea.” Flea? That was a new one. The mage had elemental robes, gold with blue trim over his leather armor. Arrogant, this one. “How do you know it doesn’t concern me?” The female mage, with short blonde braids and a permanent scowl, scoffed. “Because the house politics of Enclave noble families don’t concern the trivial pursuits of a yokel like you. Now, shoo.” She waved her hand at me. I laughed and pulled back on my horse’s reins. “It must be very difficult and uncomfortable to ride a horse with that stick up your rear. I commend you for your perseverance.

Only the Nazis were positioned to be all things to all men and women. They made an appeal that reached beyond narrow economic interests and narrow religious interests. The base of their support may have been among Germany’s small-town middle-class Protestants, but they also won important backing in the cities with Catholics and blue-collar workers. As more research is done on Nazi support, the wider and more diverse that support appears to have been. Indeed, anyone who had lost patience with traditional politics and was looking for a new direction was a potential Nazi. They were the “catchall party of protest,” calling for people to put aside social divisions and class differences for the sake of a larger ideal, the nation, the Volk. The message had enormous appeal to any unaffiliated (and non-Jewish) voter, and to students and the young, who provided the party with its bustling energy, it was a political elixir. There were no more enthusiastic Nazis than the idealistic young. Across the English Channel, George Orwell may have disliked what he saw, but he understood its power. Hitler, he said, “grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life.” The Nazis knew that “human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short-working hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty parades.” Or as one anti-Nazi German journalist wrote, “Hitler was able to enslave his own people because he seemed to give them something that even the traditional religions could no longer provide: the belief in a meaning to existence beyond the narrowest self-interest.

I liked my students, who were often so eager, bright, and enthusiastic that it took me years to notice how much trouble they had in reading a fairly simple short story. Almost simultaneously, I was struck by how little attention they had been taught to pay to the language, to the actual words and sentences that a writer had used. Instead, they had been encouraged to form strong, critical, and often negative opinions of geniuses who had been read with delight for centuries before they were born. They had been instructed to prosecute or defend these authors,

The Romans made sauerkraut and were great cabbage enthusiasts. Cato suggested that women would live long, healthy lives if they washed their genitals in the urine of a cabbage eater. He was listened to on health matters, since in an age of short lives and high infant mortality he lived to be over eighty and claimed to have fathered twenty-eight sons, all of which he credited to eating cabbage with salt and vinegar.

In short, Thetenthub are a team of outdoor enthusiasts who deliver in-depth walkthroughs, how-to guides and product reviews on all things camping and outdoors. With vast experience between our team, from backpacking, traditional campsite camping, to remote tarp camping all the way through to hikers and kayakers we hope to serve the community. Our shared knowledge and passion for the outdoors combined, we aim to share our experiences, thoughts and ideas on a global scale, with like-minded readers.

There were many people who left a mark at Incarnation, but I’ll pick out just one, a counselor and unit director named Wes Wubbenhorst. He was a big, athletic, goofy man-child. His conversation was all overflowing enthusiasm, interspersed with whistles, pops, weird exclamations, sudden laughter, and good cheer. He was always interrupting himself mid-sentence as another thing that delighted him sprang into consciousness. He lived to be over sixty and walked through the darkest parts of the world, but I don’t think he ever learned to talk in that serious way adults do. Some piece of him always remained a Holy Child. I’ve come to recognize people who were formed by a camp, and they often had what Wes had: bubbling enthusiasm, a radiance, a wardrobe mostly of old sneakers, tattered shorts, and ripped T-shirts. Wes later became an Episcopal priest. He ministered to the poor in Honduras, comforted victims of domestic violence. His God was a God of love, and his life at camp was training for his mission of selfless love. He was, as the saying goes, a man for others: enthusiastically waking you up in the morning and singing you to bed each night, the best passer on the basketball court I’ve ever encountered. When someone did something extraordinarily stupid, he would just smile and sigh in wonder at the wackiness of life.

CHAPTER 4 SUMMARY: BEST WAYS 71–80 71. When it comes to ensuring your family’s financial well-being, and securing a meaningful and rewarding job, you need to create a written action plan or a MAP (Meticulous Action Plan). 72. When you create a MAP, you are actually programming your own “employment GPS” so you can go from where you are to where you want to be. 73. When you’re done developing your action plan, you’ll have a highly structured schedule of activities for each day of the week. This includes your job transition campaign as well as your personal, social, and fitness activities. 74. If you are unemployed, you should invest 50, 60, or 70 hours a week on your job campaign. If you have a full-time job, you need to set aside a defined number of hours every week as your investment in your future. 75. Whether you are employed and looking for a better job or out of work seeking a new one, you must hold yourself fully accountable for putting in as many hours as possible and getting the most out of every hour you put in. 76. The first question you will need to address is, how many hours a week will you commit to your job transition campaign? Then, based on the number of weekly hours you’ll invest in getting a new job, your next step is to break weekly hours down into daily hours. 77. There are 13 primary job transition strategies for landing a job in troubled economic times. Your job is to determine which 4 to 6 strategies will be most effective for you. a. Networking and contact development b. Target marketing (identifying companies you want to work for) c. Internet searches and postings d. Federal jobs e. Search firms and employment agencies f. Blogs with job listings g. Classified advertisements in newspapers and trade journals h. Job fairs i. College placement departments and alumni associations j. Workforce System and One-Stops k. Volunteer work l. Job transition strategists m. Creative self-marketing 78. Once you have identified which job transition strategies will work best for your campaign, determine when, during the week, you will work on each. You want to create a structured weekly schedule. When you create a structured weekly schedule, you will have a detailed plan with specific daily tasks both for your job campaign and for personal and social activities. 79. Once you have a structured weekly schedule, you must set goals that you want to achieve from your weekly activities. A MAP without specific goals is not an effective plan. You will want to set specific goals for each strategy so you can track your success or modify the MAP if you are not achieving your weekly goals. 80. Prepare for the worst-case scenario. It is vitally important to remain in a positive, optimistic, and enthusiastic state of mind. But sometimes your plan won’t come to fruition as quickly as you’d like. So expect the best, but plan for the worst. This would include looking at your long- and short-term finances and health and other issues that need to be addressed to free you up to concentrate on getting your next job.