The difficult journey to Olympic success

For Jessica Morgan, a young athlete New Zealand, a typical day starts early. Most mornings, she gets up 4:30 a.m., while her family is still bed, and trains before school. As an elite rower, she is one the best in her country, and she aims to compete in the next Olympic Games.

Jessica’s weekly schedule is grueling. She trains twice a day, six days a week, and competes in rowing events on the weekends. However, she’s also a normal schoolgirl, and like every other sixteen-year-old at high school, she regularly does her homework, too. Jessica’s motivation is impressive. She never hangs out with friends or takes a vacation. She isn’t only an amazing athlete – she usually gets good grades in school, too. Of course, it isn’t easy to become successful. Being the best at your sport requires hard work, determination, and the help of family and coaches. Young athletes’ relationships with their family and coaches can influence their success in the future. Jessica’s parents usually spend hours every week taking her to training and competitions, and they help her to eat a healthy diet. Her coach plans her training and enters her for competitions. But both parents and coach must offer emotional support, too – for example, when Jessica loses a competition or she gets an injury. Luckily for Jessica, she has a good relationship with both her coach and family. But in other cases, these relationships can place too much pressure on young athletes. For this reason, some of them lose their motivation to do well. For Jessica, the most important factor in her future success is her own desire to win. “I know talented young athletes who give up because they feel lonely without their friends,” she says. “But I prefer not to think negatively.” Jessica believes she is responsible for securing her future success. “It’s my decision to train every morning and go back to it again every afternoon. It’s my decision not to have a social life, and never to take a vacation.” Not everyone can cope with this kind of lifestyle. But each day Jessica moves one step closer to achieving her Olympic dream.

The difficult journey to Olympic success

For Jessica Morgan, a young athlete New Zealand, a typical day starts early. Most mornings, she gets up 4:30 a.m., while her family is still bed, and trains before school. As an elite rower, she is one the best in her country, and she aims to compete in the next Olympic Games.

Jessica’s weekly schedule is grueling. She trains twice a day, six days a week, and competes in rowing events on the weekends. However, she’s also a normal schoolgirl, and like every other sixteen-year-old at high school, she regularly does her homework, too. Jessica’s motivation is impressive. She never hangs out with friends or takes a vacation. She isn’t only an amazing athlete – she usually gets good grades in school, too. Of course, it isn’t easy to become successful. Being the best at your sport requires hard work, determination, and the help of family and coaches. Young athletes’ relationships with their family and coaches can influence their success in the future. Jessica’s parents usually spend hours every week taking her to training and competitions, and they help her to eat a healthy diet. Her coach plans her training and enters her for competitions. But both parents and coach must offer emotional support, too – for example, when Jessica loses a competition or she gets an injury. Luckily for Jessica, she has a good relationship with both her coach and family. But in other cases, these relationships can place too much pressure on young athletes. For this reason, some of them lose their motivation to do well. For Jessica, the most important factor in her future success is her own desire to win. “I know talented young athletes who give up because they feel lonely without their friends,” she says. “But I prefer not to think negatively.” Jessica believes she is responsible for securing her future success. “It’s my decision to train every morning and go back to it again every afternoon. It’s my decision not to have a social life, and never to take a vacation.” Not everyone can cope with this kind of lifestyle. But each day Jessica moves one step closer to achieving her Olympic dream.

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The birth of a nation

     The most memorable writing in eighteenth-century America was done by the founding fathers, the men who led the American Revolution of 1775-1783 and wrote the constitution of 1989. But none of them were writers of fiction. Rather, they were practical philosophers, and their most typical product was the political pamphlet. They shared the European Enlightenment belief that human reason could understand both nature and man. Unlike the Puritans – who saw man as a sinful failure – the Enlightenment men were sure man could improve himself. They wanted to create a happy society based on justice and freedom.

     The writings of Benjamin Franklin (1706 -1790) show the Enlightenment spirit in America at its best and most optimistic. His style is quite modern and, even today, his works are a joy to read. At the same time, there’s something “anti-literary” about Franklin. He had no liking for poetry and felt that writing should always have a practical purpose.

     Almanacs, containing much useful information for farmers and sailors (about the next year’s weather, sea tides, etc.), were a popular form of practical literature. Together with the Bible and the newspaper, they were the most-widely read and often the only reading matter in most Colonial households. Franklin made his Almanac interesting by creating the character “Little Richard”. Each new edition continued a simple but realist story about Richard, his wife and family. He also included many “sayings” about saving money and working hard. Some of those are known to most Americans today:

     Lost time is never found again.

     God helps those who help themselves.

     In 1757 Franklin collected together the best of his sayings and published The Way to Wealth. This little book became one of the best-sellers of the Western World and was translated into many languages.

(Peter High. Outline of American Literature . Essex, Longman. 1996. Adaptado)

While at home in Ireland my poor mother wept bitter tears at the thought of her daughter with the university education serving hamburgers to pop stars.

I had been working there about six months the night I met James. It was a Friday night, which was traditionally the night the OJs frequented our restaurant. “OJ” standing, of course, for Office Jerks.

At five o’clock every Friday, like graves disgorging their dead, offices all over the center of London liberated their staffs for the weekend so that hordes of pale, cheapsuited clerks descended on us.

It was de rigueur for us waitresses to stand around sneering disdainfully at the besuited clientele, shaking our heads in disbelieving pity at the attire, hairstyles, etc., of the poor customers.

On the night in question, James and three of his colleagues sat in my section and I attended to their needs in my normal irresponsible and slapdash fashion. I paid them almost no attention whatsoever, barely listened to them as I took their order and certainly made no eye contact with them. If I had I might have noticed that one of them (yes, James, of course) was very handsome, in a black-haired, green-eyed, five-foottenish kind of way. I should have looked beyond the suit and seen the soul of the man.

Oh, shallowness, thy name is Clare.

But I wanted to be out back with the other waitresses, drinking beer and smoking and talking about sex. Customers were an unwelcome interference.

“Can I have my stake very rare?” asked one of the men.

“Um,” I said vaguely. I was even more uninterested than usual because I had noticed a book on the table. It was a really good book, one that I had read myself.

I loved books. And I loved reading. And I loved men who read. I loved a man who knew his existentialism from his magi-realism.And I had spent the last six months working with people who could just about manage to read Stage magazine (laboriously mouthing the words silently as they did so). I suddenly realized, with a pang, how much I missed the odd bit of intelligent conversation.

Suddenly the people at this table stopped being mere irritants and took on some sort of identity for me.

“Who owns this book?” I asked abruptly, interrupting the order placing.

The table of four men were startled. I had spoken to them! I had treated them almost as if they were human!

“I do,” said James, and as my blue eyes met his green eyes across his mango daiquiri, that was it, the silvery magic dust was sprinkled on us. In that instant something wonderful happened. From the moment we really looked at each other, we both knew we had met someone special.

I maintained that we fell in love immediately.

He maintained nothing of the sort, and said that I was a romantic fool. He claimed it took at least thirty seconds longer for him to fall in love with me.

First of all he had to establish that I had read the book in question also. Because he thought that I must be some kind of not-so-bright model or singer if I was working there. You know, the same way that I had written him off as some kind of subhuman clerk. Served me right.

KEYES, Marian. Watermelon. New York: Perennial, HarperCollins, 2002 (Edited).

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TEXT 8

“As far as practical conditions and educational relevance are concerned, virtually no major change has occurred in order to justify reframing our teaching. However, in what concerns social relevance, it is undeniable that the growth of the Internet has provided a new context for the use of the English language outside schools. For that reason, it is my belief that skills other than reading may now be taught in our classes without representing a return to a rationale that is alien to our schools. The teaching of writing in the context of Internet genres and practices is definitely necessary, if we want our students to have their own voice, becoming able to project their own local identities in global contexts.”

ALMEIDA, R. L. T. The teaching of English as a foreign language in the context of Brazilian regular schools: a retrospective and prospective view of policies and practices. Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada, Belo Horizonte, v. 12, n. 2, 2012, p. 347.