An ESL blog

This is the title of a book which is a compilation of articles from the Canadian National newspapers. According to “The Canadian” website one of the leading Canadian book seller bans this book. The article about this book explains the current political climate of Canada. Some of the excerpts from the article.

This apparent assumption, championed by large mass-media conglomerates in Canada like CanWest Global, is that the only “rational” course for Canadian society, is to assimilate itself into the U.S. political-military-industrial complex.

America’s elites sought to create an assimilating “melting pot”, which would be created by the idolizing of a gun culture of violence associated with the American Revolution, which has further embraced militaristic jingoism.

The ‘Canadian Dream’ refers to the evolved collective aspirations of Canadians, as inspired by such recognized Great Canadians as Tommy Douglas and Pierre Elliot Trudeau, to fulfill the national destiny of Canada, as a socially independent society, that is independent from the United States.

Read the rest of the article here.

There is a wonderful article about Chinese Immigrants’ history in Canada in the CBC websites archive. The archive contains video and audio clips which outlines the major events of the Chinese peoples history in Canada.

What experience and history teach is this — that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles. ~George Wilhelm Hegel

I received a forwarded email with a story. It’s a story about an Indian software engineer who migrated to US from India. I though it’s worth sharing.

ONE BEDROOM FLAT… WRITTEN BY AN INDIAN SOFTWARE
ENGINEER..- A Bitter Reality

As the dream of most parents I had acquired a degree in Software Engineering and joined a company based in USA , the land of braves and opportunity. When I arrived in the USA , it was as if a dream had come true.

Here at last I was in the place where I want to be. I decided I would be staying in this country for about Five years in which time I would have earned enough money to settle down in India .

My father was a government employee and after his retirement, the only asset he could acquire was a decent one bedroom flat.

I wanted to do some thing more than him. I started feeling homesick and lonely as the time passed. I used to call home and speak to my parents years of Burgers at McDonald’s and pizzas and discos and 2 years watching the foreign exchange rate getting happy whenever the Rupee value went down.

Finally I decided to get married. Told my parents that I have only 10 days of holidays and everything must be done within these 10 days. I got my ticket booked in the cheapest flight. Was jubilant and was actually enjoying shopping for gifts for all my friends back home. If I miss anyone then there will be talks. After reaching home I spent a week going through all the photographs of girls and as the time was getting shorter I was forced to select one candidate.

In-laws told me, to my surprise, that I would have to get married in 2-3 days, as I will not get anymore holidays. After the marriage, it was time to return to USA , after giving some money to my parents and telling the neighbors to look after them, we returned to USA .

My wife enjoyed this country for about two months and then she started feeling lonely. The frequency of calling India increased to twice in a week sometimes 3 times a week. Our savings started diminishing. After two more years we started to have kids. Two lovely kids, a boy and a girl, were gifted to us by the almighty. Every time I spoke to my parents, they asked me to come to India so that they can see their grand-children.

Every year I decide to go to India .. But part work part monetary conditions prevented it. Years went by and visiting India was a distant dream. Then suddenly one day I got a message that my parents were seriously sick. I tried but I couldn’t get any holidays and thus could not go to India .. The next message I got was my parents had passed away and as there was no one to do the last rights the society members had done whatever they could. I was depressed. My parents had passed away without seeing their grand children.

After a couple more years passed, much to my children’s dislike and my wife’s joy we returned to India to settle down. I started to look for a suitable property, but to my dismay my savings were short and the property prices had gone up during all these years. I had to return to the USA ..

My wife refused to come back with me and my children refused to stay in India .. My 2 children and I returned to USA after promising my wife I would be back for good after two years.

Time passed by, my daughter decided to get married to an American and my son was happy living in USA .. I decided that I had enough and wound-up every thing and returned to India . I had just enough money to buy a
decent 2 bedroom flat in a well-developed locality.

Now I am 60 years old and the only time I go out of the flat is for the routine visit to the nearby temple. My faithful wife has also left me and gone to the holy abode.

Sometimes I wonder was it worth all this? My father, even after staying in India , had a house to his name and I too have the same nothing more.

I lost my parents and children for just ONE EXTRA BEDROOM.

Looking out from the window I see a lot of children dancing. This damned cable TV has spoiled our new generation and these children are losing their values and culture because of it. I get occasional cards from my children asking if I am alright. Well at least they remember me.

Now perhaps after I die it will be the neighbors who will be performing my last rights, God Bless them. But the question still remains ‘was all this worth it?’

I am still searching for an answer…………….!!!

Every one knows reading is a good habit. I think it’s worthless to write about the benefits of reading. Here are some thoughts of some great minds about reading.

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn
Joseph Addison

The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.
Elizabeth Hardwick

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency– the belief that the here and now is all there is.
Allan Bloom

Quotes really motivate to read,but with our busy life and limited amount of money to spent, it seems difficult to read random books. Before I spent money and time on it I want some one to recommend it. I tried to buy books by the authors who already wrote good books, but it didn’t work as I thought. As Emerson said.

If we encounter a man of rare intellect,we should ask him what books he reads.

It’s hard to find such a man these days. Where do you get recommendations from? I found some recommended listing from some bloggers. Stevepavlina recommends some books on his blog.

As language learners I think reading books is more important to us. So I decided to write about the books which I found worth to spent time and money.

Here is the first recommendation:
Seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen R.Covey, a must read for everyone. It’s 10 US dollars on Amazon. In Canada chapters sells it for $23 paper back edition.

Since I believe it’s such a great book I didn’t write much about the book. As said before it’s a must read. What do you recommend for me?

This can be a controversial issue to few people, because some people believe that having a special day for someone important is useless and it is just for the commercial purposes. Having a single day to respect the loved ones is not enough and people should show the respect and love to their Mothers every single day.

But on the other hand, I am here to convince you to think how important it is to have a special day like Mother’s Day to show love and care for a special person. If you are the person who doesn’t like to celebrate special days like this, I hope you also don’t like to celebrate you birthday too. Think how important your birthday is.

“A mother’s love is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking, it never fails or falters, even though the heart is breaking” ~ Helen Rice

There is a great history behind the Mother’s Day celebration. This day is emerged from a custom of mother worship in ancient Greece. They worshiped Cybele, the wife of Cronus (mythology), and this custom was held in most part of the Asia and eventually Rome itself (March 15-18). In the USA, Mother’s Day was copied from England after the American Civil War.

By remembering the importance of motherhood and respect in the one who gave you life is not a controversial issue after all. Everyone should at least remember what their mothers did to them and show gratitude towards their mothers. They give only love and care without showing any selfishness towards their children.

“A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.”~ Tenneva Jordan

People who live far away from their mothers will get a chance to show their gratitude and express their love by getting something as a gift or something to show how important their mother is to them.

Even though we pray god every single day, there are few special days like Christmas, Ramadan, Hindu festivals and etc. You celebrate these days for god who you cannot even see, but why can’t you celebrate a day for your mother who is like a god and you can see her here in the world right in front of you.

Publish your comments and share your thoughts of motherhood.