ELISA ENGLISH's Blog 英語園地

I was reading something online which happened to talk about first love and why first love was unforgettable.  It brought up a theory in psychology, known as the Zeigarnik effect (蔡氏效應), which states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.  Thus, interruption of a task requiring focus could somehow improve one’s ability to remember it afterwards.   Isn’t it interesting?  I don’t know if it is true or not.  Maybe when you have unfinished business, you tend to become more anxious which leads to more constant thought of the incomplete tasks and in turn causes it to retain more in memory.  However, if you are not motivated enough to finish a task, the Zeigarnik Effect might not work as much.  We will see if this makes any difference in my son's study. 

Written by Elisa English

On August 6th, 2019 in Minneapolis

The Internet You

Is the internet you a more realistic representation of yourself or is it someone whom you pretend to be?  Since we can’t see through the computer screen to interact with the internet you, would that push you to act as someone totally out of your character?  For me, I tend to be more outspoken and speak my mind more bluntly since I don’t have to worry that I would offend a person who might be standing just right next to me.  In real life, we tend to wear a mask to protect ourselves.  Since there is already that screen protector between you and the others, do you then peel off layers and layers of your skin and reveal more about yourself?  Or do you then pretend to be someone that you aren’t?  Does that person who shows so much humidity behind the computer screen a real gentleman?  Or is he just faking to be modest to earn your trust and respect?

As you know, I can’t stand the heat.  I completely lost my appetite while I was back in Taiwan in June.  Now that I am back to the US and the weather starts to get hotter, all I am thinking is sitting there doing nothing.  As the weather gets hotter, I feel drowsier and more lethargic.  I have to try to keep myself active so I don't sleep all day long like our cat.  It is hard to keep motivated to stay alert.  I hate summers for the heat and the mosquitoes. 

Updated: 7/12/11

If you only have a split second to make a wish when you see a shooting star, what would you wish for?  My son wishes that it snows every day.  I cannot imagine where he can get more snow than Minnesota. Like I said earlier, he is a winter boy.  My daughter wishes to become a puppy and climbs up the tree.  I don’t know why she wants to climb up the tree.  She likes dogs and often thinks of herself as a puppy because puppies are cute and she thinks that she is extremely cute.  My husband wishes to have a hundred wishes.  Wow!  I never thought about that.  Isn’t that brainy!  This way, he can take his time to think about what to wish for.  In addition, he will have 100 wishes to wish for.  Why didn’t I think of that?  I am not agile at all.  I wish that everyone in my family is happy and healthy all the time.  What is your wish?

Why do I blog?

The reason changes from time to time. 

Why text messaging?

Why do people send text messages instead of making a phone call?  It is hard for me to understand.  Is it because of low self-esteem?  Is it because you fear the intimacy of the talk?  Is it because it is easier to send indiscreet messages?  Are you afraid of revealing your true feeling?  Is it not worthy of your time to talk?  Do you simply lack the ability to make oral communication?  Or is it because you just simply lose the ability to talk?   

I have always been so absent and scattered minded.  I wonder when I will become totally vacant minded.  What remains in my memory are fragments of images, vague and elusive, buried deep in strata of my mind.  All I hear and see are cloudy reveries, blurry faces and murky voices.    Could it have anything to do with the places I have lived which scatter all over the world?  Could it be because the constant changes throughout my life that allow nothing to stay still in my mind?  I have attended four primary schools and two junior high schools.  Maybe the many people I encountered cause my struggle with faces and names.  On the other hand, could it be because people are all passersby in my life, too insignificant to capture my attention?  When I thought of those who left a dent in my memory in my youth, I can only think of very few.  My best girlfriend in first grade, a boy in my 5th grade class who was moving to the US about the same time I was moving abroad, two girls from my 7th grade class and three boys from my 9th grade class.  How did I remember those three boys?  I have to confess that I have always been too naïve to fall in love.  It was not because I was going through puberty but because of their nicknames. 

Whatever damages time might have brought to my memory, the future seems vivid.  I have finally found a way to fight against it.  Whatever future turns into past, in my verse, my memory perpetuates.

    I was talking to my husband about the articles on my blog and threw in a statement that he probably hadn’t read my articles.  To my surprise, he said that he just visited my blog yesterday. I was astonished by his comment.  Why was I astonished?  Maybe we have given each other too much private space.  Not that we don’t care for each other, but that we believe in trust in our marriage.  Anyway, he told me he was intrigued by the question I posted to him the other day about the length of our slope and the constant nagging of wanting to have an ultra compact camera that fitted in my purse, so he decided to check into my site and see what’s cooking there.  I was quite surprised that he managed to find my blog in a sea of information.  He said he just typed “Elisa English forum” and, voilà, there showed my site. 

    Wow!  Now I have to be extra careful of what I put on my blog concerning him.  Not that there is anything I would hide from him but that I probably couldn’t beat him up too much on my blog.  By the way, I don’t believe that I have beaten him up at all.  Honey, if you are reading, I truly didn’t speak any ill of you.  Anyway, my husband is a very reasonable and considerate person.  I am not sucking up.  Truly, I swear! 

My neighbor who moved in roughly two years ago always strikes me as someone rather peculiar.  I can never figure him out.  My husband thought that he is an architect who also teaches at University of Minnesota.  However, he looks more like a British secret agent to me.  But I would not say that he shares the resemblance of Sir Sean Connery, someone whom I believe to be the most handsome person in the world along with Tom Cruise, Mickey Rourke and Val Kilmer.  Okay, there you go.  The cat is out of the bag.  These are the actors I secretly admire.

Anyway, all the clues seem to point him to a secret agent.  He spends half of his time at an island near England and the other half in Minnesota.  He owns a residence in that island.  He spent, without a wink, half a million on a house, which I believe should be appraised at roughly $350k in such a down housing market.  You might think that half a million is not a big deal.  But remember we are talking about houses in Minnesota.  Home prices in Minnesota are a lot cheaper than those in California.  Similar type of houses will sell close to $900k in a down market in San Francisco.