Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
Mix a Pancake
Mix a pancake,
Stir a pancake,
Pop it in the pan;
Fry the pancake,
Toss the pancake—
Catch it if you can.
My English Words List - May - 2022
tryout
noun
Open tryouts for the team are next Monday.
hoist
verb
Cargo was hoisted up into the ship.
let it hoist to the upper deck
noun
gave him a hoist over the wall
aka
abbreviation of also known as
synchronous
adjective
Libin defines meetings as synchronous discussions with more than three people
asynchronous
adjective
Asynchronous programming is a technique that enables your program to start a potentially long-running task, and then rather than having to wait until that task has finished, to be able to continue to be responsive to other events while the task runs. Once the task is completed, your program is presented with the result.
chirp
verb
The birds were chirping in the trees.
poke
verb
poked her head out of the window
carousel
noun
He loves to ride on the carousel at the park.
the luggage carousel at the airport
torque
noun
an automobile engine delivers torque to the drive shaft
hepatitis
noun
7 cases of severe acute hepatitis reported at Toronto children’s hospital
browser
noun
thaw
verb
The sun will soon thaw the snow and ice.
noun
flooding from the spring thaw
propane
noun
ad hoc
adjective
ad hoc solutions
We had to make some ad hoc changes to the plans.
slate
noun
started with a clean slate
Some school blackboards are made of slate.
The house has a slate roof.
She viewed her students as blank slates, just waiting to be filled with knowledge.
She wishes she could wipe the slate clean and start over in a different career.
jay
noun
scratch
verb
scratch out a living
The dog scratched its ear.
Careful, the cat will scratch.
noun
build a school system from scratch
bake a cake from scratch
controversial
adjective
Abortion is a highly controversial subject.
a decision that remains controversial
a controversial law
kinda
pronunciation spelling
- used for “kind of” in informal speech and in representations of such speech
I feel kinda [=somewhat] tired.
She’s spontaneous, a bundle of fun and kinda wild.
JavaScript is kinda magic
wrap
verb
a reporter wrapped up the mayor’s speech in a few sentences
shot put
javelin
noun
stray
adjective
a stray dog
currant
noun
Good Books
Good books are friendly things to own.
If you are busy they will wait.
They will not call you on the phone
Or wake you if the hour is late.
They stand together row by row,
Upon the low shelf or the high.
But if you’re lonesome this you know:
You have a friend or two nearby.
The fellowship of books is real.
They’re never noisy when you’re still.
They won’t disturb you at your meal.
They’ll comfort you when you are ill.
The lonesome hours they’ll always share.
When slighted they will not complain.
And though for them you’ve ceased to care
Your constant friends they’ll still remain.
Good books your faults will never see
Or tell about them round the town.
If you would have their company
You merely have to take them down.
They’ll help you pass the time away,
They’ll counsel give if that you need.
He has true friends for night and day
Who has a few good books to read.
Earth Day
by Jane Yolen
I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.
Each blade of grass,
Each honey tree,
Each bit of mud,
And stick and stone
Is blood and muscle,
Skin and bone.
And just as I
Need every bit
Of me to make
My body fit,
So Earth needs
Grass and stone and tree
And things that grow here
Naturally.
That’s why we
Celebrate this day.
That’s why across
The world we say:
As long as life,
As dear, as free,
I am the Earth
And the Earth is me.
Today is a new day
by Donna Levin
Your tomorrows are as bright
as you want to make them.
There is no reason to carry the darkness
of the past with you into today.
Today is a wonderful new experience,
full of every possibility to make your life
exactly what you want it to be.
Today is the beginning of new happiness,
new directions and new relationships.
Today is the day to remind yourself
that you posses the power and
strength you need to bring contentment,
love and joy into your life.
Today is the day to understand yourself
and to give yourself the love
and the patience that you need.
Today is the day to move forward
towards your bright tomorrow.
After all… tomorrow is another day. – Gone with the Wind
Concrete mathematics, Eulerian mathematics
Cites from the Preface of Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science
One of the present authors had embarked on a series of books called The Art of Computer Programming, and in writing the first volume he (DEK) had found that there were mathematical tools missing from his repertoire; the mathematics he needed for a thorough, well-grounded understanding of computer programs was quite different from what he’d learned as a mathematics major in college.
But what we should ask of educated mathematicians is not what they can speechify about, nor even what they know about the
existing corpus of mathematical knowledge, but rather what can they now do with their learning and whether they can actually solve mathematical problems arising in practice. In short, we look for deeds not words. – John Hammersley
Abstract mathematics was becoming inbred and losing touch with reality; mathematical education needed a concrete counterweight in order to restore a healthy balance.
The heart of mathematics consists of concrete examples and concrete problems. – P. R. Halmos
The material of concrete mathematics may seem at first to be a disparate bag of tricks, but practice makes it into a disciplined set of tools.
It is downright sinful to teach the abstract before the concrete. – Z. A. Melzak
Concrete Mathematics is a bridge to abstract mathematics.
But what exactly is Concrete Mathematics? It is a blend of continuous and discrete mathematics. More concretely, it is the controlled manipulation of mathematical formulas, using a collection of techniques for solving problems. Once you, the reader, have learned the material in this book, all you will need is a cool head, a large sheet of paper, and fairly decent handwriting in order to evaluate horrendous-looking sums, to solve complex recurrence relations, and to discover subtle patterns in data. You will be so fluent in algebraic techniques that you will often find it easier to obtain exact results
than to settle for approximate answers that are valid only in a limiting sense.
The emphasis is on manipulative technique rather than on existence theorems or combinatorial reasoning; the goal is for each reader to become as familiar with discrete operations (like the greatest-integer function and finite summation) as a student of calculus is familiar with continuous operations (like the absolute-value function and infinite integration).
Concrete mathematics is full of appealing patterns; the manipulations are not always easy, but the answers can be astonishingly attractive.
Mathematics is an ongoing endeavor for people everywhere; many strands are being woven into one rich fabric.
My English Words List - April - 2022
collage
noun
cut pictures from magazines to make a collage
spout
noun
- a pipe for carrying rainwater from a roof
Water was flowing from the spout.
trowel
noun
haiku
noun
- a Japanese poem or form of poetry without rhyme having three lines with the first and last lines having five syllables and the middle having seven
“Lighting One Candle” by Yosa Buson
The light of a candle
Is transferred to another candle—
Spring twilight
solicit
verb
The newspaper’s editors want to solicit opinions from readers.
The organization is soliciting for donations.
grumpy
adjective
a grumpy neighbor whose yard we had long ago learned not to trespass
I hadn’t had enough sleep and was feeling kind of grumpy.
He is characterized by being moody, grumpy and selfish.
She is very controlling and traditional, as well as grumpy and cranky.
vitamin
noun
vitamin C
This cereal contains essential vitamins and minerals.
bunk bed
noun
bagel
noun
- a bread roll shaped like a ring
puff
noun
- a light round hollow pastry
decimate
verb
The insects decimated thousands of trees.
Pandemic’s sixth wave has ‘decimated’ staffing levels in Waterloo region schools Social Sharing
caretaker
noun
We have a caretaker who watches the place for us while we are away.
sweater
noun
scammer
noun
insurance/credit card scammers
Now that most people are alert to suspicious e-mails and phony phone calls, text messages are the new frontier for scammers out to con you.
scam
noun
an insurance scam
She was the victim of an insurance scam.
a sophisticated credit card scam
verb
The company scammed hundreds of people out of their life savings.
I could tell they were scamming you and charging too much.
scowl
noun
Beethoven‘s iconic scowl
The teacher gave me a scowl when I walked in late.
She responded to his question with a scowl.
René Descartes and the Clockwork Girl
In man, it was written, are found the elements
and their characteristics, for he passes
from cold to hot, moisture to dryness.
He comes into being and passes out of being
like the minerals, nourishes and reproduces
like the plants, has feeling and life
like animals. His figure resembles the terebinth;
his hair, grass; veins, arteries; rivers, canals;
and his bones, the mountains.
Then the vascular system was discovered.
Pump and pulley replaced wind and mill
sweeping blood down those dusty roads.
And Descartes, the first to admit
he supposed a body to be nothing
but a machine made of earth. Mere clockwork.
He found this a comfort because
you can always wind a machine back up.
The Chimera was a clock in the form of a leviathan,
Memento Mori was the shape of skull.
Spheres and pendants, water droplets and pears.
Milkmaids tugging udders on the hour.
Some kept time using Berthold’s new equation,
some invented the second hand. The Silver Swan
sits in a stream of glass ripples and gilded leaves,
swallowing silver-plated fish as music plays.
After Descartes’ daughter died,
he took to the sea. They say he went
so mad with grief he remade her
as automaton. A wind-up cog and lever
elegy hidden in the cargo hold.
He said the body is a machine
and he may well be right about that.
But when she was so hot with fever
she could not breathe, and then so suddenly cold,
he held his fingers on her wrist and felt
only his own heart pumping. All the wind
and water of a daughter became a vast meadow
that has no design and no function
and there is no way beyond that stretch of grass.
Grief, the sailors said, is a hex
and contagion and it will draw the wind
down from the sails. It will stopper
in the glass jar sitting like a heart
in the chamber of a mechanical girl
with mechanical glass eyes. On a ship beleaguered
by storm, they ripped open the box
with a crowbar to find the automaton
Descartes called Francine because he missed
saying her name. They threw her into the wake
and his face became a moon in the black
deep, each wave lapping it under.
He supposed that if you thought hard enough
you should be able to understand,
for example, how a stick would refract
in water even if you had never seen a stick
or water or the light of day. By this means,
he said, your mind will be delivered.
If you think hard enough, you can light a fire
in the hearth. Your child can press herself
against your knee and snug her shoulder into yours
as you wind the clock of a girl like and unlike her,
who can walk three remarkable skips and blink
and curtsy politely before ticking down.
It may be there is no wind blowing
blood through the body, but, arm around her,
you feel how she flushes with fiery amazement
as she puts her little hand over her own
cuckooing heart, because this is what we do
when Papa has taken our breath away.
Let It Be Forgotten
Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,
Let it be forgotten for ever and ever,
Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.
If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long forgotten snow.