Playing a joke on Mom

Sorry Harry Potter, but you have been replaced by Edward Cullen and his family, the mysterious, vegetarian vampires of the Twilight series.

I jumped for joy when I first discovered the Harry Potter series. I thought my girls would enjoy the adventures of a young magician as he battles evil and tries to be a normal kid at the same time. That did not happen. I was more excited than them. I guess this was one time I would not be able to live vicariously through my kids reactions. I was disappointed. The movie version of the book stirred them up a bit, but they were more scared than impressed. Still, I read every single book of the series hoping they would follow my footsteps. Alas, the books are now covered with dust as they wait patiently for some attention.

And they will continue to wait. Now, Twilight is in the air. When my daughter first was introduced to the series she did not understand the storyline. Vampires and romance were new subjects so she asked me to read it so we could talk about it. Before I could get to it, rumors spread that a movie was being made. This made my daughter race to finish the book and ask her friends about the book. When she finally finished it and understood it, she insisted I read it. What an entertaining book. I really enjoyed it and I can see why young girls are so fascinated with the main character, Edward Cullen. As usual, the theme of a forbidden love is a powerful pull, especially for impressionable teenagers. The twist of the Romeo and Juliet story is very compelling and it makes you want to continue reading.

We have seen the movie and we were very disappointed with its quality. This did not stop us from continuing to read the series. Usually, I am the one that is hounding my girls to finish reading a book. This time , my daughters pulled a fast one on me. They made this charade of whining that they wanted the second book of the series. It had to be an original, especially since the library did not have a copy of book number two or three. I said sure as long as I got to read it first since I read faster than them. My husband joined their play and told me that he was buying the book, only to find it sold out at the bookstores. I believed him and forgot about the book, until one morning that my daughter hands me the second book, New Moon. I was very surprised and said that I would read it right away and give it to her by the next day. Their reaction astounded me. They all were laughing. It took me a moment to realize that my daughter had already read the book. What a good joke they played on me. She had read, not just New Moon, but Eclipse also. I have a lot of catching up to do now.

New Vocabulary: (highlighted in blue)

• charade: a game; a deception


• forbidden: something that is not allowed; prohibited


• rumor: gossip; a story that is not true.


• vicarious: experience emotion indirectly through someone else's experience.


• vegetarian: someone who eats only vegetable, no meat.


• pull a fast one: expression meaning to play a joke.

Complete the sentences using a new vocabulary word:

• Ali is a ____________. She will not eat a hamburger.


• The ____________says that John stole Peter's girlfriend.


• Ella lived ___________all of her twin sister's achievements.


• The fruit of the apple tree was ______________ to all that lived in the garden.


• The boys ______________on their mother when they convinced her school was closed.


• Stefan continued to act like the president of the company even though her knew the __________was almost over.

Grammar Point:
Subject-Verb Agreement. When writing a story or an essay at times it is easy to lose focus on the subject - verb agreement of a sentence. The verb, or action of the sentence must correspond with the subject of the sentence. Therefore if the subject is plural, the verb must be plural. If the subject is singular the verb must be so also.
ex: The cat jumps. subject : a cat (singular) verb: singular present
The rabbits win the race . subject: the rabbits (plural) verb: simple present

In the above text, I have highlighted in red 4 examples of subject - verb agreement. Re-read the story and find 3 more examples of subject -verb agreement.

Enjoy!

Endless Saturday

Saturday seemed endless. It started with my routine trip to Queens to teach religion at the Church of the Holy Child Jesus. My assistant for the day was my daughter, Angelica. She was very enthusiastic and more than willing to help in the classroom. She knew that after class we were going to retrieve her new glasses, visit grandparents, and then get to the highlight of her day, the appointment with the beautician for her new hair style. She was exceptionally happy, and very talkative. She was also helping me to organize a little impromptu dinner with my cousins in the evening. As we raced down the boulevard to all our stops, we made mental lists of housework to be done and calls to make. Since my husband is the family chef, he was in charge of the cuisine for the night. He was planning a surprise. It was very exciting not to know what was on the menu for dinner.

I treasure these moments of bonding. Angelica is a young teenager and she is blossoming in a very mature way. She is still a child-like fourteen year old that wants to be twenty, yet enjoys visiting grandparents, helping children and spending a day out with her mother. Her patience is limitless. I realized this as we sat on a lumpy sofa, reading magazines, guessing if dad was using our tomatoes and avocados for his secret recipe and eating stale pretzels, as we waited almost two hours for her turn at the beauty shop. Her biggest complaint of the day was why did we have so many family reunions. I tried to emphasize that as much as we enjoy friends, family is our faithful support group in good and bad times. And that I did not want to wait for an incident, good or bad, to happen for us to speak, so we get together when we can and enjoy ourselves.

We returned home with just enough time to dust the piano, to sweep the floors, to light the fragrance candles and to dim the lights, so any cobwebs we missed could not be seen. My youngest, Diana had done her part and as a team, we accomplished a great feat. The house looked warm and inviting. My husband's talent was evident as the aroma of dinner danced in the air. Our cousins arrived and our evening was wonderful. As we all were talking at the dinner table, I observed Angelica as she listened and participated in the conversation with all the other adults. I felt very blessed to have such a bright, young lady for a daughter. I turned and saw my youngest being a witness to her sister's behavior and realized that her turn to blossom is just around the corner.
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NEW VOCABULARY :

• boulevard: a large street with three to four lanes.
• endless: having no end, no limit
• to treasure: to cherise , hold in high regard
• impromptu: something that is done suddenly
• stale: not fresh, old
• cobwebs: web spun by spider.
• feat: extraordinary accomplishment
• around the corner: an expression meaning: happening very soon

Complete the sentences. Use the words above:

1. We attempted to cross the large_________, but the cars did not slow down for pedestrians.
2. When we returned two days later, we found that the bread was ______ and the roast beef was hard.
3. She __________that old porce;lain doll because it had belonged to her grandmother.
4. There was dirt and ___________all over the abandoned cottage.
5. The village held an____________meeting to discuss how to trap the wolves.
6. Luck was just _____________when I found the four leaf clover.
7. We accomplished a great __________when we located the lost boy.
8. The tunnel seemed ___________ as we walked accross it the first time.

Foreign Word Borrowing:
As our culture becomes more diversifiesd, words from other languages come in contact with English and stay to become part of the English language. Examples of this phenomena are cookie (Dutch), yogurt (Turkish), gorilla (Africa), menu (French) and piano (Italy). Some words remain with their original spelling as in the French word, chauffeur. While others change, like stampede which comes from the Spainsh word: estampida. Re-read the above story carefully. There are 12 borrowed foreign words used. Can you find at least 10 foreign words? Write them down and see if you can guess what language they come from.

Have Fun!

Snowy night

Tonight as I sat by the window, I saw the snowflakes fall, slowly, almost gingerly as if they did not want to disturb me. Their slow, yet steady movement, made me want to fly again. This time I wondered if I could I fly to the future? Could I go to a world where hunger is a scarcity? A world that has found a way to control violence. A world where abuse, whether domestic or international has been eliminated from society and diversity is embraced. I would fly to a world where our younger generation does not learn about hate from their environment but rather compassion by example. I would enjoy living in a world that would embrace positive change.

I shudder from a chill as I noticed that I am sitting by my window again. The snow is still coming down worse than before because I can barely distinguish the street lamp outside. I realize when I look out from my window, that my world is changing. The snow changes everything from shadow to light just as rain brings life to grass, trees and flowers. Change even so subtle is positive. Positive attitude will make the world change. So I smile and promise to keep smiling as I try to make others smile. A smile is not hurtful but it can change a person's day from gloom to happy. When I look out the window again, I see my neighbor trudging through the snow. He stops and I get his attention. I smile as I wave my hand in greeting.

New Vocabulary:

• distinguish : not able to recognize or see


• subtle: slight; small; barely able to perceive.


• realize: to understand


• control: to be able to restraint or limit ability of others


• compassion: the awareness and deep feeling for the feelings good or bad of others.


• diversity: being different


• trudge: to walk with difficulty
  

Fill in the blanks with above vocabulary:

1. The __________of cultures found in the school increased the awareness of other languages and traditions.

2. As he was driving , the rain suddenly come down hard and he could not _________the road up ahead.

3. The turtle made a _________movement when he saw the boy approach.

4. They ___________that the red bird was alive when he flapped his wing.

5. He could not ___________the angry mob with his passive words.

6. Diana is a very kind and __________ young girl. She always is ready to help.

7. At the end of a difficult day, the bus driver _______ up the path to his house.

Subordinate conjunction:
Specific conjunctions that unite two independent clauses or an independent clause and a dependent one are called subordinate conjunctions.
An example: Jake arrived on time to pick up his girlfriend. (independent )
They were late for the opera. (independent)
Conjunction: Even though.

Even though Jake arrived on time to pick up his girlfriend, they were late for the opera.

Other conjunction that follow this pattern are: if, after, when, as, until, unless, because , when and others.

See if you can pick out a three subordinate conjunctions in the paragraphs above. Notice how they are uniting two independent clauses that are related to the idea of the story. Following these examples and create 3 sentences using the subordinate conjunctions you have found.

Warning: Do not be fooled by the coordinating conjunctions: but, and, so.
Enjoy and Smile!