Its been almost 28 years since the first day we met. 28 years since I saw you int eh back of the garage. 28 years since my parents introduced us.
If someone would have told me then, what would become of us, Im not sure I would have beleived them. I barely remembered your name.
Then I started seeing you around the neighborhood and watching you on television. I used to see you with guys down at the playground. But when my older brother started paying more attention to you, I started to wonder. Maybe you were different.
We hung out a few times. THe more I got to know you, the more I liked you. And as life would have it, when I really got interested in you, when I was finally ready to get serious, you let me off of vasity. You told me I wasnt good enough.
I was crushed. I was hurt. I even cried.
THen I wasnted you more than ever. So I practiced. I hustled. I worked on my game. Passong. Dribbling. Shooting
Thinking. I ran. I did sit-ups. I did push-ups. I did pull-ups. I lifted weights. I studied you. I began to fall in love and you noticed. At least thats what Coach Smith said.
At the time, I wasnt sure exactly what was going on. But know I know. Coach Smith was teaching me how to love you, how to listen to you, how to understand you, how to respect you and how to appreciate you. Then it happened. that night, at teh louisiana Superdome, in the final seconds of the championship game against Georgetown, you found me in teh corner and we danced.
Since then, youve become so much more than jsut a ball to me. Youve become more than just a court. More than just a hoop. More than just a pair of sneakers. More than just a game.
In some respects, youve become my life, My passion, my motivation. My Inspiration.
Your my biggest fan and my harshest critic. Youre my dearest friend and my strongest ally. Your my most challenging teacher and my most endearing student. Your my ultimate teammate and my toughest competitor. Your my passport around the world and my visa into the hearts of millions.
So much has changed since the first day we met, and to a large degree, I have you tho thank. So if you havent heard me say it before, let me say it now and for the world to hear. Thank You. Thank You, Basketball. Thank you for everything.
Thank you for all the players that came before me. Thank you for all the players who went into battle with me. Thank you for the championships and the rings. Thnak you fo rthe all star games and the playoffs. thank you for teh last shot, the buzzer beaters, the hard fouls, the victories and the defeats. Thank you for amking me earn my keep. Thank you for #23. Thank you for North carolina and Chicago. Thank you fo rthe Air and the nickname. Thank you for the moves, the soul, the pride and the courage. Thanks you for the competitve spirit and the competition to challenge it. Thank you for the failures and the set backs, the blessings and the applause. Thanks you for the triangle. Thank you for baseball and the barons. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for the assistant coaches, the trainers and the physical therapists. Thank you for the announcers, teh refs, the writers, the reporters, the broadcasters, and the radio stations. Thank you for the Pistons and the Lakers, the Cavs and the Knicks, the Sixers and the Celtics. Thank you for Phoenix, Portland, Seattle, adn Utah. Thank you for the Wizards. Thanks you for the beleivers and the doubters. Thanks you for Coach Smith, Coach Loughery, Coach Albeck, Coach Collins, and Coach Jackson. thank you for the education and the experience. Thank you for teaching me the game behind, beneath, within, above and around the game...the game game. Thank you for every fan who has calle dmy name, put there hands togher fo rme and my teammates, slapped me five or patted me on teh back. Thank you for everyhtring you've ginven my family. thank you for the moon and the stars, adn last but not least, thank you Bugs and Mars.
I know Im not the only one who loves you. I know you hav eloved many and will ove many after me. But I also know what we had was unique. It was special. So as our relationshop changes yet again, as all relationships do, one thing is for sure.
I love you, Basketball. I love everything about you and I always will. My playing days in the NBA are definitely over, but our relationship will never end.
this short fashion montage scene set against the busy streets in new york and the drumbeat of madonna's "vogue" (starting from 2:00) is largely responsible for the change of my attitude towards ladies' fashion. Andrea, the leading actress, has all the essential qualities for the magical transformation that those glamorous fashion labels can readily achieve: tall, white and slim (all right, you might disagree with me on the last attribute). After the makeover she stalks the street with the charm and elegance that is typical of gorgeous Parisenne ladies with in-born fashion sense. ( 2:08 is reminiscent of audrey hepburn) It’s a piece of art, carrying irresistible appeal to my eyes.
Now I really get to appreciate many women’s nature to look fashionable; it’s beyond simple vanity. It’s a pursuit of art, a piece of living art. Women who are endowed with the above essential qualities and care about fashion are artists.
A model public housing estate providing super quality of life and transport convenience. Quiet neighbourhood with lush surroundings. Spacious public areas between buildings which are at most 11-storey high. Unlike the modern public housing estates where buildings are skyscraping and packed miserably, Nam Shan Estate allows its people to enjoy a much wider view of the sky, cultivating in its people, especially those who love to pamper themselves in the night breeze under the star-lit sky after a rewarding hour of shooting the netted basketball hoop, a magnanimity that can hardly been seen in the tenants of other housing areas. The love of Nam Shan Estate by its people with passing years only grows
What you have to be able to do with your Modoc is what man has been seeking for a long time. To communicate with nature through the animals. Treasure it. The sounds of nature are its music, its lyrics, and it comes from all living things. The subtle violin whispers of the wind in the pine forest, the howling bassoon of the violent monsoon, the clarinet of the birds, the drums of the earthquakes and volcanoes, the cymbals of the lightning and thunder, the harp of the oceans, together they play God’s song—early morning dripping of water from a night storm, the songbirds in the meadow during the sunny afternoon, the owl, the roar of a lion, the evening breezes blowing through the trees. It is a true song. Not a story. Not a fable with a point made at its end. But a song that sings within and without all living things.
It was a lovely day. Summer was stealing some extra time while fall slept. White puffs of clouds hung in the sky with seemingly no interest in moving on. The rains had turned the countryside into a sea of green covering the hilltops. The slopes, spotted with groves of sycamore and spruce trees, caught the runoff and were a deeper green, with splashes of purple sage, the essence of the lush valley. The rainwater slowed and settled into the rich loam, and from it grew the emerald grass that carpeted God’s house, grass where the regal stage grazed. In the middle of the palace’s private forest flowed the beautiful
Agra, a mystical river of dark blue water. It writhed through the forest like a giant serpent, angling through the trees, changing in width, in girth, never ending, sometimes multi-channeled, and splitting into many tributaries.
Modoc—the true story of the Greatest elephant ever lived
Thank you very much. Good Heavens. Um, I can’t thank you enough, Hollywood Foreign Press, for honoring me in this capacity. I don’t wish to burden you with my debts, which are heavy and numerous but, um, I think that everybody involved in the making of this film knows that we owe all our pride and all our joy to the genius of Jane Austen. And it occurred to me to wonder how she would react to an evening like this… [Puts down statue on stage, reads paper] And this is what I came up with.
Four a.m., having just returned from an evening at the Golden Spheres, which despite the inconveniences of heat, noise and overcrowding was not without its pleasures. Thankfully, there were no dogs and no children. The gowns were middling. There was a good deal of shouting and behavior verging on the profligate, however, people were very free with their compliments and I made several new acquaintences. There was Lindsay Doran of Mirage, wherever that might be, who’s largely responsible for my presence here, an enchanting companion about whom too much good cannot be said. Mr. Ang Lee, of foreign extraction, who most unexpectedly appeared to understand me better than I understand myself. Mr. James Shamis, a most copiously erudite person and Miss Kate Winslet, beautiful in both countenance and spirit. Mr. Pat Doyle, a composer and Scot, who displayed the kind of wild behavior one has learned to expect from that race. Mr. Mark Kenton, an energetic person with a ready smile who, as I understand it, owes me a great deal of money. [Breaks character, smiles] TRUE!! [back in character] Miss Lisa Hanson of Columbia, a lovely girl and Mr. Garrett Wiggin, a lovely boy. I attempted to converse with Mr. Sydney Pollack, but his charms and wisdom are so generally pleasing, that it proved impossible to get within ten feet of him. The room was full of interesting activity until 11 p.m. when it emptied rather suddenly. The lateness of the hour is due, therefore, not to the dance, but to waiting in a long line for a horseless carriage of unconscionable size. The modern world has clearly done nothing for transport.
P.S. Managed to avoid the hoyden Emily Thompson, who has purloined my creation and added things of her own. Nefarious Creature!
in fact it's a great site for improving our english. if you
care to expose
yourself to quality english, the site is the right place.
teh good thing about
learning english from speeches is that speeches are usually
short and audio
clips are provided. great speech writers aim to get the
message across by using
the most concise and powerful words within a short essay,
which is a key
feature of great writings.
check it out here:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/
shut your ears off from verbose, stale and empty babblings
by hk gov officials.
I figured a way to make myself become miraculously well read in a short time:watch movies adapted from the classics and read their scripts. What’s good about this practice is obvious. You won’t be put off by the idea of having to spend months wading through a brick-sized novel. The downside is it’s not
original. But given the limited time we all have and the increasing need to tell the truly gifted from the mediocre (so many writings from obtuse writers find their way to public consumption these days), the pros certainly outweigh the cons.
To get the script, you can try your luck in this huge database of movie scripts:
www.divxmoviesenglishsubtitles.com
If you can’t find the script you are looking for, there are many freewares known as “script ripper”. They allow you to rip whatever subtitles a DVD has into a text file. It takes an experienced user about 10
minutes to do one ripping. Certainly it depends on the type and length of the movie too.
I will start with Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility”. I got the DVD from the library (directed by Ang Lee in 1995). The script is also available in the database:
A perfect example of how a 300-page classic novel skillfully squeezed into a 30-page script. Emmy Thompson’s adaptation alone deserves one’s appreciation. She won her second Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for the adaptation of the classic. Her first Oscar was in Best Actress. She is the first one to have dual nominations as screenwriter and actress, and also the first ever to have won Oscars for both acting and writing. The DVD has her acceptance speech for Golden Globe Best adapted screenplay, which is also a great joy to watch. I got her speech from wikipedia quotes. See how she shines with witticism at the star-studded occasion:
Thank you very much. Good Heavens. Um, I can't thank you enough, Hollywood Foreign Press, f
Please excuse the hiccups due to a lack of proper training and practice. I know I am making a fool of myself before my students who are immensely gifted in playing the piano (eg Aidan, Rod, Mary, Yan, Kally) I picked up the keyboard only because of Joe Hisaishi’s music. The self-taught keyboard skills allow me to play some of his best known works. The video is meant to be a tribute to him. The paper in the background says “向久石讓致敬 A Tribute to Joe Hisaishi”. It’s too vague to be read. I should’ve bolded my letters.
