Short Bad B Quotes

Not bad in short, though the last one [understanding the language of animals], isn't half as useful as you might expect, since when all's said and done the language of the beasts tends to revolve around: a) the endless hunt for food, b) finding a warm bush to sleep in the evening, and c) the sporadic satisfication of certain glands. (Many would argue that the language of human kind boils down to this too)

Why is it when I’m the one shot, I’m a baby, but when it’s you, it’s a matter of life and death and national security? (Joe) Because I’m cuter in a short skirt. (Tee)

We can accommodate Mr. Delgado as well. (LaCrosse) ‘He’d agreed with polite grace, but he wasn’t particularly happy. Someone had him by the short hairs and was braiding them.’ (Carlos)

Table 3–1. Definitions of Cognitive Distortions 1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. 2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. 3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water. 4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences. 5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. a. Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out. b. The Fortune Teller Error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact. 6. MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else’s achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow’s imperfections). This is also called the “binocular trick.” 7. EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.” 8. SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. “Musts” and “oughts” are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment. 9. LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: “He’s a goddam louse.” Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded. 10. PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as me cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.

There comes a time in life, when you walk away from all the drama and the people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh, forget the bad, and focus on the good. So, love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is part of LIFE ...... Getting back up is LIVING.  Female Imagination website

Imagine a person who enjoys alcohol, perhaps a bit too much. He has a quick three or four drinks. His blood alcohol level spikes sharply. This can be extremely exhilarating, particularly for someone who has a genetic predisposition to alcoholism.23 But it only occurs while blood alcohol levels are actively rising, and that only continues if the drinker keeps drinking. When he stops, not only does his blood alcohol level plateau and then start to sink, but his body begins to produce a variety of toxins, as it metabolizes the ethanol already consumed. He also starts to experience alcohol withdrawal, as the anxiety systems that were suppressed during intoxication start to hyper-respond. A hangover is alcohol withdrawal (which quite frequently kills withdrawing alcoholics), and it starts all too soon after drinking ceases. To continue the warm glow, and stave off the unpleasant aftermath, the drinker may just continue to drink, until all the liquor in his house is consumed, the bars are closed and his money is spent. The next day, the drinker wakes up, badly hungover. So far, this is just unfortunate. The real trouble starts when he discovers that his hangover can be “cured” with a few more drinks the morning after. Such a cure is, of course, temporary. It merely pushes the withdrawal symptoms a bit further into the future. But that might be what is required, in the short term, if the misery is sufficiently acute. So now he has learned to drink to cure his hangover. When the medication causes the disease, a positive feedback loop has been established.

I have often behaved badly and I have often behaved foolishly; but, as it happens, I find that on the whole, the things that I have been most blamed for are exactly the things I would do again to-morrow if I had the chance. The things I regret are, generally speaking, the occasional compromises and the (infrequent) runnings away from high attitudes which I failed to carry through to their ends. In short, what I regret in my life is just that part of it which worldly wisdom applauds… A thing does not become right because the world says it is right, any more than it becomes wrong because the world says it is wrong. One can act only according to one’s lights and if one is in good faith, one may hope that in the long run justification will result, even if not in this world or in one’s own lifetime.

[Teaching] was hard. Some of the kids were needy and vulnerable and depressed, with faces of dubious, aged concern, rumpled foreheads, downcast or shuttered eyes. Some were wild. We did not exclude anyone, because Jesus didn't. On bad days, I could not imagine what he had been thinking. I could always feel Jesus in the room, encouraging us in every way, although maybe he would have stopped short of sharing Doritos with us.

As it typically was, my hotel room was alarmed in all kinds of ways, and all around me in the hotel were agents. And as they typically did, the agents gave me a device with a button to push in the event of dire emergency. I was afraid of this thing and always put it far away from me in a hotel room, so I didn’t accidentally touch it during the night. This night, I put it on a countertop in the outer room and went to sleep in the bedroom, far away from it. I didn’t tell Patrice I had put the button on the counter in the outer room, the exact place where she was changing quietly at 2:00 A.M. so as not to wake me. She must have put something on top of the button, because there was pounding on the door about five seconds later. She opened the door a crack to see the lead agent standing at an odd angle, wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts. He was holding his arm so she couldn’t see his hand behind his back. He looked very tense. “Is everything all right, ma’am?” “Yes. I’m just getting ready for bed.” “Are you sure everything is all right, ma’am?” “Yes.” “Can I see the director, ma’am?” “He’s sleeping in the other room.” “Will you check on him, please?” Patrice walked to the bedroom door, saw me, and reported back. “I see him there sleeping. He’s fine.” “Thank you, ma’am. Sorry to bother you.” What Patrice couldn’t see, but I learned the next morning, was that there were agents stacked down the wall on either side of the door, guns held low and behind their backs. She had touched the button. My bad.

And it is only in its early stage. All those who believe they will remain untouched by its wrath are delusional. If Ehsan Jafri, a former member of parliament with a line to the deputy prime minister’s office, could be dragged out of his home and gashed and burned alive, what makes anyone think he or she will remain unharmed? If Aamir Khan, one of India’s biggest film stars, can be unpersoned; if Gauri Lankesh, one of its boldest journalists, can be shot dead; if Ramachandra Guha, one of its greatest historians, can be stopped from lecturing; if Naseeruddin Shah, among its finest actors, can be branded a traitor; if Manmohan Singh, the former prime minister, can be labelled an agent of Pakistan by his successor; if B.H. Loya, a perfectly healthy judge, can abruptly drop dead; if a young woman can be stalked by the police machinery of the state because Modi has displayed an interest in her—what makes the rest of us think we will remain untouched and unharmed? Unless the republic is reclaimed, the time will come when all of us will be one incorrect meal, one interfaith romance, one unfortunate misstep away from being extinguished. The mobs that slaughtered ‘bad’ Muslims will eventually come for Hindus who are not ‘good’.

There was more than one way to think about Mike Burry’s purchase of a billion dollars in credit default swaps. The first was as a simple, even innocent, insurance contract. Burry made his semiannual premium payments and, in return, received protection against the default of a billion dollars’ worth of bonds. He’d either be paid zero, if the triple-B-rated bonds he’d insured proved good, or a billion dollars, if those triple-B-rated bonds went bad. But of course Mike Burry didn’t own any triple-B-rated subprime mortgage bonds, or anything like them. He had no property to “insure” it was as if he had bought fire insurance on some slum with a history of burning down. To him, as to Steve Eisman, a credit default swap wasn’t insurance at all but an outright speculative bet against the market—and this was the second way to think about it.

Ideas for Journal Entries You may find the following ideas useful in beginning your journal or keeping the entries varied. If you are not used to expressing your thoughts on paper, it may seem awkward at first. The longer you do it, the easier it will become. You’ll be amazed at the insight you gain into your life. -Write about your most memorable experience with social anxiety. How did you feel? What did you think? How did others react? Why do you think the event happened? -Write about situations that make you anxious every day. Record your thoughts, feelings, and actions. You may want to divide the page into columns with the headings: situation or event; negative thoughts; physical reactions; and actions. Following is an example of how this may look: Situation or Event Should I attend the first art class after school. Negative Thoughts I thought about skipping out. I was afraid of what people would think. I wanted to do a good job. Physical Reactions I felt a shortness of breath. In general, I was nervous and in a bad mood. Actions I took some deep breaths and visualized the class going well. Later, I became engrossed in my drawing. -Write about a time when you were pleased with how you acted in a social situation. -Identify times when anxiety symptoms kept you from doing something that you really wanted to do. How did you feel? What might have happened if you had not been afraid? -Write a letter to someone who made you feel bad about yourself. You aren’t going to show the letter to anyone, so feel free to write whatever you want. -Write out a conversation with your inner voice. Begin the entry with a question directed to yourself, then write your mental response. It may help to label the different voices A and B. Dialogue writing is a very effective way to get to the heart of the matter.

For nine months, the engineers had been testing and calibrating and retesting all aspects of the system, especially the behemoth Westinghouse dynamos. Lead engineer B. J. Lamme described what happened during one early test in Pittsburgh of a giant dynamo when numerous little temporary steel bolts had “loosened up under vibration, and finally shook into contact with each other, thus forming a short circuit…. In a moment there was one tremendous [electric] arc around the end of the windings of the entire machine…. It looked, at first glance, as though the whole infernal regions had broken loose. Everybody jumped for cover.” One man managed to shut down the machine, and gradually the huge flaming electrical arc that had engulfed the dynamo subsided. Peering forth from their shelters, the engineers then rushed back and “someone climbed underneath to see what had become of our man inside … expecting him to be badly scorched…. He said the fire came in all around him but did not touch him.”30 No one present had ever seen such a sight.

The third serious problem the culture of customer service as we know it creates is turning every profession into a customer service tool to generate profits. In doing so, we risk the loss of creativity, quality, and critical thinking in many walks of life. Nowhere is this risk clearer and more damaging than viewing students at different educational institutions as customers, and nowhere this trend has been happening more rapidly than at schools, colleges, and universities, especially at private institutions. There is severe damage done to creativity and critical thinking when all students want is an A, and in fact feel entitled to get it since they (or their parents) are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend elite schools. Many educators are under enormous pressure to give students grades they do not deserve in order to avoid receiving bad student evaluations (or to ensure getting good ones). This pressure is intensifying as academic jobs become increasingly contingent and precarious, where teaching staff are hired under short contracts only renewed based on so-called ‘performance,’ which is often measured by student evaluations and enrollment. When this happens, academic and intellectual compromises and corruption increase. Colleagues at elite American universities have been pressured to give students grades no lower than a B, with the explanation that this is what is ‘expected.’ Rampant grade inflation is unethical and unacceptable. Unfortunately, when graduate instructors resist professors’ instructions to fix grades by grading according to independent criteria of intellectual merit, they may be verbally chastised or worse, fired. This humiliation not only reinforces the norm of inflating grades, it also bolsters the power of the tenured professors who instruct their teaching assistants to do it.

1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. 2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. 3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water. 4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences. 5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. a. Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out. b. The Fortune Teller Error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact. 6. MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else’s achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow’s imperfections). This is also called the “binocular trick.” 7. EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.” 8. SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. “Musts” and “oughts” are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment. 9. LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: “He’s a goddam louse.” Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded. 10. PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as me cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.

Thus polyvictimization or complex trauma are "developmentally adverse interpersonal traumas" (Ford, 2005) because they place the victim at risk not only for recurrent stress and psychophysiological arousal (e.g., PTSD, other anxiety disorders, depression) but also for interruptions and breakdowns in healthy psychobiological, psychological, and social development. Complex trauma not only involves shock, fear, terror, or powerlessness (either short or long term) but also, more fundamentally, constitutes a violation of the immature self and the challenge to the development of a positive and secure self, as major psychic energy is directed toward survival and defense rather than toward learning and personal development (Ford, 2009b, 2009c). Moreover, it may influence the brain's very development, structure, and functioning in both the short and long term (Lanius et al., 2010; Schore, 2009). Complex trauma often forces the child victim to substitute automatic survival tactics for adaptive self-regulation, starting at the most basic level of physical reactions (e.g., intense states of hyperarousal/agitation or hypoarousal/immobility) and behavioral (e.g., aggressive or passive/avoidant responses) that can become so automatic and habitual that the child's emotional and cognitive development are derailed or distorted. What is more, self-integrity is profoundly shaken, as the child victim incorporates the "lessons of abuse" into a view of him or herself as bad, inadequate, disgusting, contaminated and deserving of mistreatment and neglect. Such misattributions and related schema about self and others are some of the most common and robust cognitive and assumptive consequences of chronic childhood abuse (as well as other forms of interpersonal trauma) and are especially debilitating to healthy development and relationships (Cole & Putnam, 1992; McCann & Pearlman, 1992). Because the violation occurs in an interpersonal context that carries profound significance for personal development, relationships become suspect and a source of threat and fear rather than of safety and nurturance. In vulnerable children, complex trauma causes compromised attachment security, self-integrity and ultimately self-regulation. Thus it constitutes a threat not only to physical but also to psychological survival - to the development of the self and the capacity to regulate emotions (Arnold & Fisch, 2011). For example, emotional abuse by an adult caregiver that involves systematic disparagement, blame and shame of a child ("You worthless piece of s-t"; "You shouldn't have been born"; "You are the source of all of my problems"; "I should have aborted you"; "If you don't like what I tell you, you can go hang yourself") but does not involve sexual or physical violation or life threat is nevertheless psychologically damaging. Such bullying and antipathy on the part of a primary caregiver or other family members, in addition to maltreatment and role reversals that are found in many dysfunctional families, lead to severe psychobiological dysregulation and reactivity (Teicher, Samson, Polcari, & McGreenery, 2006).

In the darkest days of the Second World War, when America’s very future was at risk, writer E. B. White was asked by the U.S. Federal Government’s Writers’ War Board to write a short response to the question “What is democracy?” His answer was unassuming but inspiring. He wrote: Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the “don’t” in don’t shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. Democracy is a letter to the editor. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn’t been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It’s the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee. Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.

Can the splitting of representations explain multiplicity? Not at all, for two reasons.20 First, a split is into two, not many. The splitting of self and object representations manifest polarity: self-object, good-bad, male-female, friend-foe, and so on, whereas alters generally don't (though they may). Second, hosts and alters are intentional subjects or agents, entities capable of uttering "I." Indeed, one may profitably regard alter as short for alter ego, literally "other I." A given "I" has intentional objects that are its respective self and object representations. In other words, a split representation, even of the self, is an object of thought, not a thinker, not a subject or agent or "I.

A 'C' means you've done average work. There's nothing shameful about being average. You didn't fail. You didn't even come close. You did what you were supposed to do. Cheerfully accepting the C means that you recognize there's such a thing as a B and an A and that you know you fell short of both; you can take pride in your place n the middle of the pack but still appreciate that there's room to grow. Mediocrity isn't crass or shoddy or vulgar. It's, well, mediocre. There's nothing wrong with it. It's not bad. When you embrace mediocrity, you embrace humility—you learn to see that no matter how good you are at something, the world probably has people who are more talented at it than you. You can strive to learn from people who do things better, or you can at least appreciate them—even if you don't want to be them. By definition, most of us are mediocre, and everyone is mediocre at something. It's often just a matter of perspective.

Parents who refuse to adopt the responsibility for disciplining their children think they can just opt out of the conflict necessary for proper child-rearing. They avoid being the bad guy (in the short term). But they do not at all rescue or protect their children from fear and pain. Quite the contrary: the judgmental and uncaring broader social world will mete out conflict and punishment far greater than that which would have been delivered by an awake parent. You can discipline your children, or you can turn that responsibility over to the harsh, uncaring judgmental world—and the motivation for the latter decision should never be confused with love.

So often, though, we base the decisions for our life – Should I go to law school? Should I cut my hair short? Should I take Job A or Job B? – on what we think other people will say, want, or judge. We are so scared of others' opinions that some of us spend our whole lives trying to bend ourselves to other people's wills. Our mom wanted us to skip medical school to get married, so we did. Our husband wanted us to stay home with the kids, so we did. The kids wanted us to be at every soccer game, every play rehearsal, every playdate, so we did. The other moms wanted us to fit in and look a certain way, so we did. It can get so bad that we don't even recognize ourselves anymore. What happened to the little girl who wanted to fly planes like Amelia Earhart, or be a Supreme Court Justice, or join the circus? She became buried under a landslide of other people's expectations, opinions, and judgments. It's time to dig her out.

Officer Gurney ran a strip of yellow tape around the back area of the café, roping it off so no one could disturb the site. Then he scanned the crowd. His eyes lit on a comfortably plump woman wearing a red down jacket that made her look even plumper. She had a short brownish-blond ponytail that stuck out through a hole in her red baseball hat. “Brenda,” said Officer Gurney. “What do you think?” Grover was in danger of being late for school by this time. He’d already been late twice this month. If he was late again, he might get a note sent home to his parents. But he had to risk it. This was too interesting to miss. The woman stepped forward. Grover knew her, of course; everyone did. Mrs. Brenda Beeson was the one who had figured out the Prophet’s mumbled words and explained what they meant. She and her committee—the Reverend Loomis, Mayor Orville Milton, Police Chief Ralph Gurney, and a few others—were the most important people in the town. Officer Gurney raised the yellow tape so Mrs. Beeson could duck under it. She stood before the window a long time, her back to the crowd, while everyone waited to see what she would say. Clouds sailed slowly across the sun, turning everything dark and light and dark again. To Grover, it seemed like ages they all stood there, holding their breath. He resigned himself to being late for school and started thinking up creative excuses. The front door of his house had stuck and he couldn’t get it open? His father needed him to help fish drowned rats out of flooded basements? His knee had popped out of joint and stayed out for half an hour? Finally Mrs. Beeson turned to face them. “Well, it just goes to show,” she said. “We never used to have people breaking windows and stealing things. For all our hard work, we’ve still got bad eggs among us.” She gave an exasperated sigh, and her breath made a puff of fog in the chilly air. “If this is someone’s idea of fun, that person should be very, very ashamed of himself. This is no time for wild, stupid behavior.” “It’s probably kids,” said a man standing near Grover. Why did people always blame kids for things like this? As far as Grover could tell, grown-ups caused a lot more trouble in the world than kids. “On the other hand,” said Mrs. Beeson, “it could be a threat, or a warning. We’ve heard the reports about someone wandering around in the hills.” She glanced back at the bloody rag hanging in the window. “It might even be a message of some sort. It looks to me like that stain could be a letter, maybe an S, or an R.” Grover squinted at the stain on the cloth. To him it looked more like an A, or maybe even just a random blotch. “It might be a B,” said someone standing near him. “Or an H,” said someone else. Mrs. Beeson nodded. “Could be,” she said. “The S could stand for sin. Or if it’s an R it could stand for ruin. If you’ll let me have that piece of cloth, Ralph, I’ll show it to Althea and see if she has anything to say about it.” Just then Wayne Hollister happened to pass by, saw the crowd, and chimed in about what he’d seen in the night. His story frightened people even more than the blood and the broken glass. All around him, Grover heard them murmuring: Someone’s out there. He’s given us a warning. What does he mean to do? He’s trying to scare us. One woman began to cry. Hoyt McCoy, as usual, said that Brenda Beeson should not pronounce upon things until she was in full possession of the facts, which she was not, and that to him the

Cartridgeration has its consequences. Prolonged exposure to this fragmentary method of relating to the world inculcates in the gamer the belief that he can have it all, serially, within a very short time span, regardless of whether any two pieces of It are mutually exclusionary. He can be chasing em down… and on the run. Safe… and under fire. Cute and harmless… and imposing and dangerous. As he toggles from cartridge to cartridge, game to game, goal to goal, identity to identity, his mother’s long-standing promise that he can “be whatever he wants to be in this world” seems fulfilled, given a broad enough interpretation of “in this world.” This is not entirely a bad thing. The ability to simultaneously entertain contradictories can be useful… but it comes at a price. The Cartridgeration process leads one to a mode of thinking that stresses the inadvisability of choices. Any definite choice and subsequent course of action puts the gamer on one path at a tremendous possibility cost to all conceivable others. Through definitive actions, he pares the ür-configuration containing all his possible worlds to a stunted fraction of its former self. How many brilliant futures are ruled out with each step, with each decisive word? Billions, in a very real sense. The further he gets himself into any situation, the more severe the pruning of his possibility tree. Thus his inability to focus on any enthusiasm for too long, a metaphysical fickleness that functions as a defense mechanism against the death of possibility.

Leaving the Connecticut River March 8, 1704 Temperature 40 degrees Thou shalt not kill. Ruth lay down and inched forward until she could look over the edge of the cliff to see what had happened. The force of Otter’s fall had brought snow and rock down upon him. One hand stuck out, and part of his face. But I say unto you which hear. Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you…And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other. What could Jesus have been thinking when he said that? This enemy was the murderer and slaughterer of innocent women and children. Ruth was not going to love him, she would never do anything good unto him, and certainly she was not going to offer him yet another chance to strike her in the face. She rejoiced that this enemy had no choice about living or dying, any more than her father and brother had had a choice about living or dying. She thought of her mother, giving water to the wounded French officer, and for that gesture, being left behind. She wondered how Mother felt now, alone in a world where her men had died to save her while she helped their enemies. The savage was alive, trying with that one hand to dig himself free. A rim of ice fell like knives upon him. Ruth cried out. The Indian made no sound. Ruth scuttled backward, out of his sight. She could go get help. Or let him die. It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t supposed to be Ruth who had to love the enemy. That was just a verse you repeated in meeting. She was not going to take it seriously, loving her enemy. But it was the Word of the Lord. The Twenty-third Psalm moved through her mind, as warm and sure as summer wind. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. If she broke the commandment and failed to love her enemy, she would never lie down in green pastures. Not on earth, not in her heart, and not in death. Ruth worked her way through tangles of thin saplings and around boulders. She slid down rock faces. Sweating and sobbing over terrain that could not have been made by God, only by devils, she reached Otter at last. Her bad lungs sounded like sand rubbed on floors. She dug him out, not carefully. She might have to save him but she would not spare him pain. He was bleeding where ice had sliced him and by now her mittens were shredded, and their blood mingled, flecked scarlet on white snow. When he was finally on his feet, she said, “It’s not because I wanted to, you know.” Otter took a short careful step and paused in pain, Ruth thought, though pain did not show on his face. “It’s so I won’t be a killer like you,” she said. He snapped a branch in his strong hands to use as a cane. Laboriously, they made their way up the cliff, crawling part of the way. “Actually, I hate you,” said Ruth. Huge hot tears fell from her eyes and she knew that hate was not as simple as that. Nor were the commandments.

*We were eight years in power. We had built schoolhouses, built charitable institutions, built and maintained the penitentiary system, provided for the education of the (disabled), rebuilt the jails and courthouses, rebuilt the bridges and reestablished the ferries. In short, we had reconstructured the state and placed it upon the road to prosperity. It seemed fairly clear that what South Carolina wanted was not reform even in its narrower sense; that what it was attacking was not even stealing and corruption. If it was one thing that South Carolina feared more than bad Negro government, it was good Negro government* F.A. Bancroft

Arnold H. Glasgow remarked; “A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they are not so good and sympathizes with your problems when they are not so bad”. It’s very important to choose your friends because life is too short to be wasted on too many wrong friends.

Jenny- We were friends on Facebook and our friendship was short-lived, I confirmed his request… and he unfriended me? The same day- What happened? He deleted me; no, the boy has ever done that to me. I must have him as my boyfriend, he is the first one to ever say no to me. He said her I don't remember sending you a request! Sure… to be truthful I am kind of disappointed in him, I was thinking finally we can at least be friends. Why doesn’t he want me? Why does he like her more? (Facebook chat) He typed - No we can't be friends. I, asked- why not? He typed - Because I don't want to. I typed - That’s mean… What did I ever do to you? He typed - I tried to be nice to you but you took it too far, and I feel a little uncomfortable around you. I'm not trying to be mean. I- was- thinking uncomfortable? Uncomfortable because you don’t like me? Or uncomfortable because you can control yourself around me because you like me that much? I typed - I am sorry I never meant to do anything to you. Yes, I like you, and I know you’re with Karly, I was hoping for someday... Maybe we could go to a movie or something like that? I’m not a bad person… you no! You have to give people a chance. And if you’re judging me, I have changed a lot. Is asking you out so wrong? Why, do I make you so uncomfortable? His typed- I am very happy with Karly, and I see her in my future, so I wish you could respect that. I don't understand why… you think it’s okay for me to give you a chance when I have a girlfriend. I'm not like that, and I think that's very wrong. I typed - My god you are not married to her. You need to stop listening to your friends so much... What are you so scared of? He typed- I was scared to fall in love with someone like you! I said- It will happen! You will fall for me! ~*~ Jenny’s thoughts walking to class- I’m going to get what I want… And none of you b*tches know! I’ll get you! I’ll have to sit in class like this. I hope you don’t mind blood Mr. D I have to change this tampon out… The gym is my only ‘A,’ I wish they were all that easy for me. Karly small good, I wonder what she is wearing? Does anyone have a tampon? Do people still use pads? These… underwear cost me $30! I WISH I WAS A GUY! (So. me being on my period feels like you getting- kicked in the balls for a week, non-stop, like that love a sick feeling or you have to squeeze something out of yah, consent churning inside.)

then gather clues to your body’s signals by recording the following information daily over the course of three months: the time of day, your blood pressure, your pulse, and what’s going on at that time (e.g., you just ate breakfast, you’re anxious upon waking up, you’re relaxed in front of the television, or you’ve received a piece of bad news in the mail). Pick different times of the day to do your self-examination, as this will inform you of times when, say, your blood pressure is high or your mood is low. You’ll then want to repeat this exercise throughout the year, preferably once every couple of months, to note changes. Don’t

Before I can say anything, the door to my parents’ apartment bursts open. My little sister darts out, and she dashes down the concrete stairs. “Tina, Tina!” She cannons into me; I grab hold of her. We squeeze each other hard. She’s getting so big now—she’s just an inch shorter than I am—and she hugs my breath out. “Stop,” I croak. “Mayday, mayday!” “I’m so glad you’re here. Can you tell Mom that I am too old enough to go to a coed sleepover?” I give her a once over. “Sure,” I say, “as long as the parents kick it off by caponizing all the boys.” Beside me, Blake chokes. “What’s caponizing?” “Removing the testicles,” I say. “It improves the temperament of the male animal. Try it sometime.” Blake clears his throat. “Oh,” I say. “Mayday, this is Blake Rivers.” We’ve agreed—and by we’ve agreed I mean I’ve insisted—that we won’t give his real name. No point opening that door. Mom is bad enough when she thinks he doesn’t have any money. I can’t imagine what it would be like if she knew the truth. “Blake, this is my little sister. Her name is Mabel, but I call her anything that starts with an M. Mayday, Maple, and Muggle are my favorites.” She wrinkles her nose at Blake. “You can call me Mabel.” Mabel purses her lips and looks at Blake. Blake looks at her right back. Some people say that Mabel and I look alike, and I guess we do, in the most superficial sense. We’re both Chinese. But Mabel’s hair is short and dyed blue, and she wears it pulled over her eyes. Her eyes are set more narrowly than mine. And—this is really unfair, but I swear I am not bitter about this—she is thirteen and she’s already in B-cups. Which, ahem. Is more than I will ever manage. Mabel shrugs. “Hi Blake. You’re the guy who is definitely not Tina’s boyfriend.” Blake shifts the shoulder strap of his bag. “One of many, I presume.” “Nope.” Mabel twirls away. “You’re the only one. The rest of the boys aren’t dating her.” “Oh, well,” Blake says vaguely. “That is an important distinction.” I try to jab my elbow into his side, but he sidles away. “And you’re the only she talks about like this: ‘Mom, he’s not my boyfriend.’” Oh, that imitation. It’s just a little too spot on. I raise a finger at her, but she twirls away before I can get her back. “Come on. Mom is cooking. This is the first time you’ve brought a boyfriend home from college.” “He’s not my—” I stop, because my sister’s lips are twitching. “Fine.” I pick up my own bag. “Lay on, Macduff,” Blake says. Mabel stops and turns to him. “Hey. Only Tina can call me M-words other than Mabel.” “Sorry.” “Tina and her boyfriend,” she corrects. “So you’re okay.

Table 3–1. Definitions of Cognitive Distortions 1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. 2. OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. 3. MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that colors the entire beaker of water. 4. DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they “don’t count” for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences. 5. JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. a. Mind reading. You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you don’t bother to check this out. b. The Fortune Teller Error. You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact. 6. MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the importance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else’s achievement), or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities or the other fellow’s imperfections). This is also called the “binocular trick.” 7. EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel it, therefore it must be true.” 8. SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do anything. “Musts” and “oughts” are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment. 9. LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself: “I’m a loser.” When someone else’s behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a negative label to him: “He’s a goddam louse.” Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded. 10. PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as me cause of some negative external event which in fact you were not primarily responsible for. 1.

The horror the Japanese have of the unexpected and the decisions is requires. The Japanese will become the most aesthetic people in the world. Six Buddhist sects have sprung from the interpretation of the scriptures and on ceremonial days, their priests wear tunics of raspberry, saffron, pistachio or violet, which create a lovely effect on the gray-brown-green of the Japanese landscape. The cemeteries are the fish ponds for the temples. These foreign visitors demand that before they leave Japan, someone should wrap up the "soul of Japan" for them. What do they want? Suddenly, through a simple mental process, their ignorance should be transformed into knowledge, clear-cut and precise, please, so that they can discuss it when they get home. I judge them, but I too, would sometimes like to find my meal set in front of me and fast. We come to this thin and frugal country with our greedy metabolisms: the whole West is that way. The golden dishes, the maharajahs, the rubies as big as the duck eggs, that is what struck our first explorers, not the frugality that is truly one of the marks of Asia. Have you ever drunk a good bottle of wine with a connaisseur? It is a form of torture. Because of the rhythm of Noh, travel is so slow that winter always overtakes travelers en route. They travel in tiny steps across a sort of mental Tibet. Japan: a self-sustaining island, rich in gold and in solver, excellent products, a disciplined and frugal population that carries cleanliness to the point of fanaticism, an always-appropriate alternation between honesty and hypocrisy, in short, the best governed state in the world. Walking does help to support the insupportable. When things turn bad, rather than expecting too much from people, one must sharpen one's relations with things. The tao ( the philosophy of Lao-tzu, sixth century B.C ) taught that our mind is a troublemaker that interferes between life and us, that we are victims of our categories. What exactly is Zen? For some it is a religion, for others a form of therapy, a means of liberation, a guide to character, a reaction of the Chinese spirit against the Indian spirit. True saints are not always on hand for writers who are passing through, people who don't need what one knows. In the Orient, knowledge is given spoonful by spoonful to the people who are truly hungry and the word "secret" means nothing here. In old Chinese Zen it was traditional to choose the gardener who knew nothing to succeed the master rather than one who knew too much. In this style of decor, as in the food, there is an immateriality repeated again and again: make yourself small, don't hurt the air, don't would our eyes with your terrible colored shirts, don't be so restless and don't offend this slightly bloodless perfection that we have been tending for eight hundred years. A crane preening his feathers, this elegant bird, so inexpressibly white, posed in the middle of the reeds, like a Ming vase.